The Rite of "Vozhdenie Strely/Suly" in the Context of Spring and Summer Rituals

The graduation paper is devoted to the analysis of «voždenie strely / suly» (a spring-summer rite widespread in the territory of the Russian-Belarusian-Ukrainian borderland) and its variants in the context of other spring-summer period rituals, so as to study the rite by identifying in its structure any typical and specific elements. The verbal and actional components of the rite are taken into consideration. In the first part of the paper the differences between «voždenie strely» (a separate rite) and «voždenie suly» (a procession as a part of different rites) are revealed at the level of terminology and actionality. In the same part, based on the comparative analysis with some non-ritual and other spring-summer songs, it is hypothesized that in the main ritual song the idea of demarcating the change of spring and summer prevails, with the characteristic motives of killing the unloved person and «going outside» sound. In the following parts of the work, as a result of the analysis of the ritual components in the context of common spring motives, a conclusion about the typicity of all ceremonial realities of «voždenie strely / suly» is made. At the same time, it is noted that the final interaction with the ritual objects existing in some versions of the rite is unchanging (always burying), which is unusual against a general ritual background. In the study it is suggested that this stability of the symbolic destruction method is due to the main pragmatics of the rite – the demarcation of the border between seasons. The author makes an attempt to prove that namely the designation of the end of spring (less often winter) time and the beginning of the next season is the main pragmatics of the rite, which determines the apotropaic, agrarian-producing and matrimonial meanings which fill «voždenie strely / suly».