The representation of outlanders in musical folk art of the East Slavs in Siberia and the Far East: Revisiting the inter-ethic communications in traditional culture

Abstract

The paper deals with representations of the East Slavic peoples on foreigners in the light of inter-ethnic communication on the material of the Siberian and Far East Folklore Foundation. The analysis has revealed that the Folklore Foundation preserves traditional complex of representations on foreigners as a result of inter-ethnic communication. It was found that military contacts with other ethnic groups had a significant influence on the formation of ideas about the interethnic communications, but there was no impact of the mythological representations. The epics of the early Russian state period shows only negative attitude to the foreigners. The ballad revealed the complex concepts of interaction with foreigners in the field of military contacts, reflected on domestic relations. Historical songs present the negative image by telling about the captured Russian soldiers or Russian people fighting with the foreigners. The study has found a number of features of the foreigners: nationality is mostly the sign of men; nationality is not always a stable sign; unambiguous identification of children born from mixed marriages is not formed. Conceptual series of the foreigners consists of three components: the enemy, the savior, and the relative. The most popular foreigners in these genres were Tatars and Turks, more rarely other Eastern (Kyrgyz, Mordovians, Chukchi) and European nations (the Swedes, Prus, Germans, French, Greeks). The author has identified the following feature of inter-ethnic communication in folklore texts: in the songs on a particular plot, the representatives of one nation are relatively easy replaced by representatives of other nations, indicating that the common sign – «being outside the Russian ethnos» is of a greater value to East Slavic mentality than «belonging to a particular nation». In the folklore genres analyzed, the behavior model of the foreigners directly depends on the plot and then develops under the representation of East Slavic ethnic groups about a particular nation.