Traditional sacred meanings in the ethnoregional culture of Altai

Belyaeva Tatyana Olegovna Senior Lecturer at the Department of Cultural Studies and Design, Altai State University 656049, Russia, Altai Territory, Barnaul, Dimitrova str., 66, room 219 tatyana.kelina89@mail.ru

In modern society, it is considered that the traditions laid down in a particular region characterize the norms of behavior, the adaptability of a particular ethnic group to the modern value system. In some ethnic groups, "tradition" and "sacredness" are concepts that complement each other. Currently, the concept of "sacred" has several interpretations. The key interpretation of the sacred is connected with the understanding of the sacred and sacredness in ethnoregional traditions and rituals. This approach is being developed by a number of researchers. For example, A.S. Zherdeva argues that the concept of "sacred" was introduced into circulation only in the XX century, before that scientists used the terms "holy", "sacred" ^[4]. The classical perspectives of understanding the sacred are the approaches of M. Eliade and R. Otto. Thus, Rudolf Otto defines "sacred" as "something different" (ganz Andere) or "something completely different" ^[12]. Meanwhile, Mircea Eliade argued that the sacred and the mundane are two ways of being in the world, two situations of existence accepted by man in the course of history ^[3]. In this case, the nature of the sacred is revealed through the prism of social meanings and social patterns transmitted from one generation of cultural bearers to another. It seems that this aspect is new: if earlier the sacred was associated with traditionalism and was almost always personocentric, as a rule, associated with sacred meanings of the divine or universal, now it is important to consider the sacred through the prism of social exchange – the exchange of traditional consolidating meanings that are revealed in sacred values. For example, some foreign authors adhere to this point of view ^{[16; 18]}. We also share it and focus on it in this article.

At the same time, the sacred can be identified as a set of meanings of being associated with transcendence (the supernatural, which is outside the world and controls it) and rooted in the supernatural, dissolved in nature. The sacred, associated with transcendence, appears in culture much later than the sacred, associated with the supernatural, immanently inherent in nature ^{[10, p. 166]}.

As we can see, the substantial character in the interpretation of the sacred is important. He assumes that the sacred permeates all levels of human existence, reflects the essence of the value and semantic searches of the people, unites cultural carriers, determines the vector of transmission of information about sacred meanings from one generation of people to another. It should be emphasized that the substantiality of the sacred is a key universal marker of any culture. However, it can manifest itself taking into account the specifics of the traditionalism of a particular ethno-regional culture. Thus, a feature of the spiritual culture of Altai in its substantial sense is the value-semantic complex God – World – Man. If in other cultures their "universality", sacredness is mainly emphasized by a system of traditions that are firmly established in culture, then the Altai ethnoregional culture contains a value-semantic complex of sacredness inherent only to it, which can be called the trinity of God – World – Man. This is where substantiality lies. This approach follows from the positions of some authors ^{[10; 13; 14]}.

"God" and "religion" are also identified by the concept of "sacred". The reason for this indissolubility lies in the problem common to these discourses of the correlation of two figures – man and God ^{[15, p. 118]}. If we imagine the relationship between gods and men in such a way that the acting man outwardly opposes God as something substantial, then such a relationship between them is completely prosaic. God commands, and man can only obey ^{[2, p. 234]}. However, the traditionalism of the spiritual culture of Altai testifies to a different relationship – God and Man become mediators of the sacred and sacred; thus, a Person's path to God is presented not just as a petition to God or worship him, but as a hope for the salvation of the subject himself, his family and territory from enemies. At the same time, almost all elements of such interaction are subject to sacralization – the sacred path, providence, etc.

Meanwhile, the sacralization of values is not just the endowment of objects and attributes of everyday life with the divine, but also the endowment of cultural bearers with sacred meanings of being, and the world order with divine properties. The ethno-regional culture of each region has its own codes, symbols and properties that convey the world order and reflect the result of the sacralization process.

The concept of ethnoregional culture is of particular importance for the purpose of this article. We also use it to characterize the spiritual culture of Altai and understand it as "a set of ideas of an ethnic community about itself and its place in the world, including the experience of transmitting social and cultural patterns and attitudes implemented in the socio-historical practice of the ethnos" ^{[17, p. 10]}. It is obvious that ethnoregional culture is a centuries–old concentrated experience of the people, closely connected with spiritual life, a system of traditional values, mental landmarks within the boundaries of a certain territorial space and geographical habitat of ethnic groups. Exploring the area of the spiritual culture of Altai, we associate its development with a specific sacred place – Altai, which in itself is sacralized and is a source of sacred meanings of human existence. For example, G.M. Kazakova analyzes various approaches to the region as a "locality", "cultural area", "cultural nest", "spirit of the place" and "historical and cultural zone" ^{[7, p. 24]}.

N.V. Lapteva argues that through a system of taboos, rituals, and various kinds of practical restrictions, the equivalence of everything living in the world was established: "Man is not the king of nature, but a small part of a single world life, where everything is interconnected and interdependent. Life is sacred in its essence. A person endowed with intelligence and conscience is called upon to protect this life and multiply it" ^{[8, p. 282]}.

But it is important to understand the unity of Man and God in the cultural system. The image of God as one of the fundamental sacred values is present in many cultures, however, a difference is found in the culture of Altai: usually in the cultures of the world, power is given to God so that he can create the world, nature, and man, but in the mythology of Altai, power is also given to man – he needs it first of all to overcome the difficult path to the Creator, to To God.

According to the researchers, "sacred values can be defined as the significance for cultural bearers of the sacred meanings of the divine and substantial, which determine the daily life of individuals and societies, and are also the basis for the formation and development of a religious and mythological worldview and correlate with the ontological system Creator - Man – World" ^[13].

Later in the article, we will directly address the ethnoregional culture of Altai in order to show how key traditions and the sacred meanings of existence associated with them are transmitted through a specific type of creative cultural practice – house painting.

As you know, Christianity prevails in the Altai Territory. God as the center of the universe is sacred in the Christian religion. "Places of power" and "sacred places" are also sacred for many Altai nars. The concept of the sacred is thus associated not only with the divine, but also with the phenomenon of the natural environment. A person, mastering a certain space of life, enters into dialogical relations with the natural world, with the indigenous inhabitants of this territory, with other "alien" people, with the world of "spiritual entities". In the course of these multiple connections, mythological representations of reality are formed, symbolic systems are created ^{[11, p. 23]}.

The culture of Altai is a huge layer of ethnographically diverse ethnic groups. Any ethnic group makes a huge contribution to the formation of ethnoregional culture as a whole. Each ethnic group has its own sacred values and social patterns through which these values can be passed on to subsequent generations. This culture is characterized by traditionalism: the traditional culture of Altai carries sacred values, sacred meanings in the attributes of everyday life.

"The sacralization of the world as such, not only as a habitat for humans or animals and birds, but also as a human path to the Creator, occurs at all levels of existence and is firmly entrenched in the religious and mythological worldview of cultural bearers" ^{[14, p. 83]}.

The emergence of Russian traditional culture in the Altai Territory is associated with the resettlement and migration of Slavic ethnic groups to the Altai. Slavic peoples are divided into eastern – Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, western – Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and southern – Slovenes, Croats, Serbs, Bulgarians. Each ethnic group has its own cult, uniting the inhabitants of a particular social community with sacred symbols that were reflected in everyday life. For each of these communities, social patterns are also important, transmitted between generations and bearing consolidating meanings of being, uniting cultural bearers "around" sacred values. The sacralization of the decoration of the Russian house testifies to the sacredness of the world order – the house is always perceived as a world order, as that social model that is important for every person and in it God, the World, and Man seem to "intersect". The house can be perceived as a path to the Creator through symbols of goodness, strength, life, etc.

"It was worth opening the door to the vestibule, and, despite the weak lighting, the attention of the person entering was immediately drawn to the painted doors and the wall of the closet, the painted bench, the rocker and the roller. The closet, where the family's clothes and food supplies were stored, was painted especially brightly, with meaning. These symbols of Russian mythology expressed the hope of the owners for a rich harvest and full prosperity in the house" ^{[6, p. 7]}. But in addition, these embodied a social model of unity, the transmission of a key consolidating meaning.

The housing of the settlers was initially under threat, and the development of new places for some communities was painful. The man tried to protect himself from everything, thereby decorating his home with symbols and amulets. The symbolic and poetic system of the ancient Slavs is based on the signs of nature and the tree of life. One of the widespread motifs of the Altai house painting is a vegetable circle. Gates, gates, doors, shutters, in peasant dwellings were decorated with floral compositions. The ceiling in the house is his "sky"; the image of a circle, a wreath in the house painting that decorated the ceiling, was associated with the sun, the luminary that gives life to all earthly things. Wreath circles were placed on the ceilings in the appropriate areas, they had their own attributes. There could be several vegetable circles in one room, circular drawings had the meaning of a talisman. Without semantic semantic load, not a single house was recognized as protected. A protected home for a person is an "ontos", a kind of path to the Creator and receiving protection from him.

As noted, "various motifs and plot scenes were introduced on the walls of the master's hut" ^{[9, p. 176]}. The basis of the compositions is a tree, a bush, a branch, a bouquet, a wreath, garlands of flowers and berries grow from the main shoot. Floral arrangements were complemented by birds. The image of a bird in a house painting had a different semantic interpretation, depending on the place where they were placed, on the role of the thing they decorated, and on the combination with other motifs. For example, a peacock is a masculine principle, it was depicted on the walls, a peacock and a peahen – a symbol of a happy couple's life – walls, a baking board, a dove – a symbol of the Holy Spirit – in a circle on the ceiling, and an owl was a symbol of the feminine principle and was depicted on the doors. Also, lions can be found on the shutters, they guard the dwelling. All entrances and exits in the house were protected by amulet symbols: images of lions and owls. Altai painting was used not only for window and door openings, but also for furniture, utensils, tools of labor and everyday life: spinning wheels, tables, stools, beds, dishes and much more. Thus, the painting became the substantial attribute that was included in the God–World–Man relationship. It is obvious that sacredness is a form of values that preserves not only the sacred structure of the traditions of the people, but also lays a special semantic meaning in simple things, household items, clothing and intangible types of culture of the people. Traditional sacred meanings are intertwined with the way of life, culture and way of thinking of a particular ethnic group.

Traditional sacred meanings in the ethnoregional culture of Altai represent a synthesis; the boundaries of the sacred here are determined by the substantial meanings of human existence and the civilizational level of development of the sacralization of values. A distinctive feature is the value-semantic complex God – World – Man. There is a complex semantic complex of sacralization in everyday objects and rituals, this can be traced by the example of the Altai house painting. In fact, painting appears, on the one hand, as a way of sacralizing human existence, on the other hand, it is a channel for transmitting appropriate social patterns that affect the consolidation of bearers of a particular culture. At the same time, such social patterns have a pronounced ethnoregional coloring and demonstrate the deep traditionalism of the people and their culture. And traditional sacred meanings were laid down by our ancestors and passed down from generation to generation.