«WEDDING IN SONGS AND RITES (IN KOSTROMA COUNTY)» (ABOUT ONE MANUSCRIPT FROM THE STATE ARCHIVE OF THE KOSTROMA REGION)

Abstract

This article is devoted to the presentation of the manuscript stored in the State Archive of the Kostroma Region. The topicality of this work is explained, firstly, by the importance of introducing unpublished archival materials into scientific circulation and their critical analysis; secondly, by the need to assess the painstaking work of collectors of folklore and ethnographic materials in the XIX – beg. XX century – folklorists, ethnographers, correspondents of regional scientific societies, representatives of rural intelligentsia (teachers, priests), etc. The author’s focus is the manuscript “Wedding in Songs and Rites (in Kostroma County)” compiled from materials of the Kostroma Scientific Society for the Study of the Local Territory and the Kostroma Scientific Archival Commission; physical, graphic, and meaningful features of the manuscript are analyzed. Folklore material mainly a spoken repertoire – speeches and rhymes of wedding ranks and participants of the ritual (groomsman, brother of the bride, girls – friends of the bride, natives) is characterized, the proportion of which exceeds the number of texts of other genres (lamentations and songs). The latter circumstance distinguishes the manuscript from a large number of handwritten materials stored in different archives of Russia. The stylistic features of folklore texts are analyzed, some of these texts are rare and have no analogues in published collections and archival materials.