Светлана Жарникова – The Distaff and the phallic cult (страница 10)

In the Russian tradition, the magic birds Sirin, Alkonost and Gamayun were combined in the image of the sacred patroness of Russia - Mother Sva. V. N. Demin quite rightly compares the word "Sirin" with the pagan name of Paradise - "Iriy": Sirin, as you know, is a bird of paradise. Echoes of the veneration of Sirin are also heard in the names of the country of Syria and the star of Sirius, in the names of the nymph Syringa and the Egyptian god Osiris.

Most researchers of Russian folk art are inclined to the version of the Greek origin of Sirin (from the legendary sirens from the Odyssey), some see the origins of the image of the bird of paradise in distant India, but none of the venerable scientists even tried to explain the extraordinary popularity of this character among the North Russian peasantry and even more so to find the origins of the image of the mysterious bird-maiden in the Russian mythological tradition. And completely in vain...

Looking into the dictionary of V. I. Dal, we can easily make sure that "sirin" is a native Russian word meaning an owl, eagle owl, scarecrow or a special kind of "long-tailed owl, similar to a hawk", leading a daytime and nocturnal lifestyle (SURNIA).

The owl, as you know, in almost all traditions is a symbol of wisdom. But, in addition, many peoples perceived the cry of an owl as a "song of death" (probably, this performance was associated with her nocturnal lifestyle). The sweet-voiced singing of the Greek sirens turned into death for their listeners and, therefore, was also a kind of “song of death”. Undoubtedly, one thing: the Greek sirens had their own prototype, and we should not ignore the version about its northern, Hyperborean, "owl" origin.

Images of lions and unicorns are also often found in folk art. In the Russian North, we find them in the painting of chests, suppliers, spinning wheels, arches and bast boxes, in the Volga region - in the decor of peasant huts, etc. In the Heraldic, the lion and the unicorn symbolize rival solar-lunar and female-male forces. Two lions on the sides of the World Tree act as its reliable guards: it was believed that the lion sleeps with open eyes, hence its veneration as a symbol of vigilant vigilance. "The lion is asleep, but he sees with one eye," says the Russian belief, recorded by V. I. Dal. Guardian lions are also found in Russian folk tales: “There is a kingdom not far away - you don’t go through the gate, lions are guarding the gate” (A. Afanasyev).

In the apocryphal legend of Noah's ark, recorded by P. S. Efimenko in the Arkhangelsk province, the lion acts as the savior of the ark: taking a piece of wool from all the animals, he swallowed it and vomited out the cat, which attacked the gnats and exterminated them. The lion's claw was used in cattle-breeding magic to keep the herd safe. He is also mentioned in the shepherd's conspiracy: “I go around, servant of God, with the claw of a lion-beast, my sweet herd, a peasant's belly. As my cows were afraid of the bear until now, so now the bear is afraid of my cows, and to this my word heaven and earth are the key and the lock, amen."

It is characteristic that the image of a lion was entrenched not only in peasant art, but also in works of art of a cult nature (the temple architecture of the Kiev Lavra, Suzdal and Vladimir, the decor of the 13th century iconostases, the ornament of Pskov bells, miniatures of handwritten books of the 11-12th centuries, copper plastic, etc. etc.), as well as in secular architecture (the gates of the Moscow palace of I. Grozny, ship carving, decor of city houses, the embankments of St. Petersburg).

Researchers again agree that Russian culture borrowed the lion's symbol from the Greek tradition no earlier than the 11th century. However, the stability of the Russian tradition, which has been repeatedly recorded and proven, is not in favor of this common opinion.

Many things on earth still remain unexplained: why, for example, were traces of the growth of cypresses, poplars, magnolia and viburnum found in the Arctic Circle, tropical plants in Siberia, and grapes in Greenland? How to explain the annual migrations of migratory birds from South to North? The great native of the Russian North M. V. Lomonosov asserts: “in the northern regions in ancient times there were great heatwaves, where elephants were born and reproduce and other animals, as well as plants, near the equator, ordinary, it was possible to keep, and therefore their remains, here those who are, cannot seem disgusting to the flow of nature. "

The legends of various peoples bring to us the echoes of the global cosmic catastrophe that once befell the Earth. It could be a cosmic explosion within the solar system, as a result of which a huge asteroid fragment crashed into the Earth. Vague memories of the monstrous cataclysm are preserved in the Avesta, Bundahishna and Kalevala, in Greek myths and legends of Siberia and China, in sacred Buddhist texts and many other sources. All of them report a sharp change in climate and the rotation of the earth's axis, as a result of which the sun changed its course, and the planet "turned over". If earlier the sun came from the North and went to the South, then after the impact it began to come from the East and go to the West.

Only this can explain the numerous mysteries of paleobotany and paleontology that continue to trouble the minds of modern researchers. And if elephants once lived in the north, then why can't the same be said about lions?

The second most important type of Severodvinsk painting was the Boretsky, Nizhnetoyemsky and Puchuzhsky murals, named after the regions of their manufacture: the village of Pervaya Zherlyginskaya at the mouth of the Nizhnyaya Toyma, the village of Puchuga and the village of Skobeli, Nagorye, Gorodok, Falyuki (Borok pier). As already noted, the Puchuga and Nizhnetoemsk paintings developed at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries on the basis of the Boretskaya.

If in the Permogorsk painting the plant pattern was placed on the blade arbitrarily, asymmetrically, then in boretsk spinning wheels it was arranged according to a strictly designated scheme. In the three-way blade, windows were usually depicted at the top ("becoming with windows"), in the center - a semicircular arch, and below - a riding scene ("becoming with a horse"). On the reverse side at the bottom were various genre scenes, at the top - an empty, magnificently ornamented frame of flexible stems.

The floral pattern on the wrestler's spinning wheels, as in Permogorye, dominated, but here it was drawn more finely, more subtly and almost always made red. In addition, gold was widely used in the decoration of spinning wheels of this type. The design of the Boretsk and Puchuga spinning wheels is almost identical; you can distinguish them from each other only by the pattern on the leg: the stem is straight on the Boretsk and Puchuga spinning wheels, and the wriggling one on the Puchuga spinning wheels. In turn, a distinctive feature of the Nizhny Omsk spinning wheel was a brightly painted turning leg, and on the back of the blade there was a spinning mirror.

The most famous masters of borets painting were the Amosov brothers - Stepan, Nikifor, Mikhail, Vasily, Kuzma and their sister Palageya Matveevna Amosova. In the village of Puchuga, the works of the father and son of the Kuznetsovs were famous, and at the mouth of the Nizhnyaya Toima - the brothers Andrei and Vasily Tretyakov and the wife of the latter Pelageya.

And, finally, the third center of the Severodvinsk painting was the village of Ulyanovskaya, Cherevkovsky district, located on the Rakulka river (hence the name of the painting - "Rakulskaya"). The Rakul spinning wheels were significantly higher in height than the wrestler and Permogorsk ones. In appearance, they cannot be confused with any others: a low leg, expanding almost from the very base with oval ledges, turns into a long and narrow blade with four towns. In the lower part of the blade, a bird was always depicted inscribed in an ornamented square, in the upper part there was an S-shaped branch with large leaves and bunches of black antennae.

The Rakul spinning wheels, in contrast to the Boretsk and Permogorsk ones, had a characteristic yellow-ocher color. By the beginning of the 20th century, the color of Rakul spinning wheels lost its former harmony: the background, due to the use of aniline, became poisonous yellow, in the painting of a large branch for the same reason, too contrasting colors appeared - purple, bright blue and bright green. The most famous masters of rakul painting were Dmitry Fedorovich Vityazev and his son Yakov Dmitrievich.

Mezen spinning wheels

Root Mezen spinning wheels are also similar in design to those of the Vologda type. Their main difference is calligraphic painting with a black outline on a golden-yellow background ("cursive"), the theme of which is surprisingly close to the rock paintings (petroglyphs) of the Russian North.

The blade of the Mezen spinning wheel is broken into horizontal friezes, in the center of the composition there are two stripes with rhythmically running deer and horses. The reverse side of the blade is occupied by steamers, scenes of hunting, fishing, riding, etc. "Everything in these spinning wheels is full of significance: deer and horses are depicted as if in a solemn ritual run," write N.V. Taranovskaya and N.V. Maltsev.