« 2024. # 3 (177)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2024. № 3 (177), 670—678

UDK 392.3:398(477):124.5

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2024.03.670

AXIOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE CONCEPT OF CLAN/FAMILY/KIN IN UKRAINIAN FOLKLORE

MUSHKETYK Lesia

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5958-0044
  • Maxym Rylsky Institute of Art Studies,
  • Folklore and Ethnology of the National Academy
  • of Sciences of Ukraine,
  • 2-В, Mykilsko-Slobidska Str., 02002, Kyiv, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: e-mail: mushketik@ukr.net

Abstract. The purpose of the proposed study is to examine the axiological values of the clan and family in the Ukrainian traditional society of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, based on the material of oral tradition, which is relevant in terms of studying and popularizing the ethical perceptions of Ukrainian society, its best ethnic traditions, and mental qualities of a person.

The values of kin and family were highly valued in the Ukrainian traditional community, they were the basis of people’s material and spiritual life, and the kinship principle, inherited from the ancient tribal system, prevailed as a high moral imperative.

The subject of the study is the peculiarities of the linguistic and folklore reception of value concepts and ideas of the traditional Ukrainian community in various genres of folklore. The analysis of the sources is based on the works of such researchers of the past and present as Mykola Kostomarov, Pavlo Zhytetskyi, Mykola Sumtsov, Ivan Franko, Volodymyr Hnatiuk, Mykhailo Haidai, Oleksiy Dey, O. Razumtseva, Oksana Kis, Hanna Skrypnyk, and others. Kinship centeredness is widely reflected in oral poetry, both prose and song.

The concepts of kin, family, relatives, blood, native land, and homeland are verbalized in folklore as part of the concepts of own/stranger. In ancient times, the greatest punishment was expulsion from the family, abandonment of the family, and deprivation of relatives. Folk songs and other genres of folklore depict the subordinate position of women (young women) in a new family, the marginal status of orphans and widows. A house can be seen as a homeland, a country, a family, and in this sense, it takes on sacred dimensions both externally and internally (archetypes: house-field-temple).

Through the clan, the family, comes the realization that an individual belongs to a larger entity — the state, and feelings of patriotism and love for one’s homeland are formed. The high aspiration for the «proper», its merger with the essential, is found in the carol world of the ideal peasant family, where harmony, peace and love reign, everyone has their own purpose and range of responsibilities, and behaves in accordance with established age and gender norms.

The work methodology has a complex, interdisciplinary nature. Analytical, synthetic, systemic, cultural-historical, comparative, as well as methods of ethnoethics, anthropology, and ethnopsychology are distinguished among the methods used to solve the problem.

Keywords: clan, family, Ukrainian ethos, oral art, values, own/stranger, homeland, ideal of family.

Received 16.05.2024

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