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The Ethnology Notebooks. 2020. # 6 (156), 1389—1406

УДК 398.8(477)

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2020.06.1389

Oksana HALAICHUK

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8052-6616
  • Ph. D. of Sciences in Philology,
  • Researcher of the International Institute
  • for Education, Culture and Diaspora Relations
  • of Lviv Polytechnic National University
  • 32, Stepana Bandery street, 79000, Lviv, Ukraine,
  • e-mail: ok_halaychuk@ukr.net

THE RELICTS OF THE CHIVALRY IN THE TRADITIONAL UKRAINIAN WEDDING

Problem statement. The traditional Ukrainian wedding kept the features of all the socio-historical stages of the life of the people. One of these stages is the heroic era before the reign of princes and the period of Kievan Rus’. The article investigates the phenomenons that has survived as a relicts from ancient times of knights of the princely age and who is include in the texts and rites of all phases of the Ukrainian wedding.

Threats, calls to the beginning of the war and battles, overcoming obstacles — we hear these military manifestations in songs and saw in different parts of the wedding ceremony: when the groom visits the bride on Saturday, when on Sunday he goes with the boyars the bride to marry, when he leads the bride to his house and so on.

Most of these phases accompany the rite of redemption as one of the aspects of the realization of a wedding event. The fact that ransom is in almost every phase of the wedding indicates that it was not only an important element in the folk tradition of ancient Ukrainians, but also apology for offending another’s family — for the kidnapping of girl of another’s family in order to marry.

The relevance of this study is due to the need for a deeper study of the traditional wedding ritual of Ukrainians. As a large folklore and ritual complex, the traditional wedding is one of the most valuable layers of the spiritual culture of Ukrainians, and all its components, without exception, retain a number of important historical and cultural information.

The purpose of the publication is to clarify the manifestations of elements of the pre-princely and princely era in the Ukrainian wedding ritual.

The object of our research is a traditional Ukrainian wedding, the subject is relics of knighthood of the princely era, preserved in wedding ceremonies and accompanying folklore texts.

The methodological basis of the work was the research of leading Ukrainian and foreign researchers: Mykola Sumtsov, Khvedor Vovk, Valentyna Borysenko, Alexander Gura and others.

Conclusion. The relicts of the chivalry of the Princedom and pre- Princedom period in the traditional Ukrainian wedding are represented in ritual actions and song texts through the system of wedding ranks, including prince, princess, king, queen, retinue, army, boyars, best man/bridesmaids, svashky (groom’s married sister or female relative), khorunzhyi/ marshalok, scribes, ambassador. The centralrole of a protector and warrior in the bride’s escort if performed by her brother, who takes on the mentioned functions.

The chivalry relic in the wedding drama are military attributes, such as the sword, sable, mace, standard, flag of marshal.

The symbolic meaning of threat, sending to the war, conquering or battle as components of abduction is traceable at the following stages of the wedding event: inviting to the wedding, departure of the fiance with his man to the fiancee on Saturday, departure of the groom with his escort to fetch the bride on Sanday morning, collecting the bride from the parents’ home to the groom’s home, even at the moment of the bride’s arrival at the groom’s home ets.

Keywords: Ukrainian wedding, song, text, rite, chivalry, prince, princess, kidnapping girl for marriage, ransom.

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