Calendar-Ritual Complex in Context of the Belarusian Modern Red-Letter Calendar: An Official Discourse

Author

Kukharonak Tatstsiana – a Ph.D. in History, a senior researcher at Ethnology Department of the Centre for Belarusian Culture, Language and Literature Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus

Valodzina Tatstsiana – a Doctor of Philology, an associate professor, a head of Folklore Studies and Culture of Slavonic Peoples Department of the Centre for Belarusian Culture, Language and Literature Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus

Calendar-Ritual Complex in Context of the Belarusian Modern Red-Letter Calendar: An Official Discourse

Abstract

The article outlines the trends in the formation of modern red-letter calendar in the Republic of Belarus, including the mainstreaming of regional / local calendar-based traditions. Traditions of festive and ritual culture constitute an integral, diverse, multifunctional and syncretic ethno-cultural phenomenon, which is conditioned by regional peculiarities and presents a totality of knowledge, values, standards and patterns of people’s lives. The preservation and functioning of calendar holidays and ceremonies in contemporary conditions are largely promoted by the government policy of the Republic of Belarus in the field of regulating ritual culture. For the first time ever, on the basis of latest field and literary materials, the authoresses – using the examples of over twenty calendar holidays and rituals that had received the status of a intangible historical and cultural value in the Republic of Belarus and were taken under the protection of the state – examine the criteria for their selection, perspectives of preservation and their full functioning in today’s conditions of Belarusian villages. The text highlights the role of the creation of the National Inventory of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Belarus aimed at ensuring the protection of spiritual culture and its sustainable development. It is revealed that in the recent period, the most favorable conditions for calendar-based rituals are provided at places where conventional forms of socio-cultural and economic activities have survived to the present day. At the same time, the authoresses stress an increasing impact of a number of external factors on local communities, including the process of globalization, modernization and mass culture, as well as the focus of value orientations upon cities. As it is demonstrated by the materials studied, regional and local institutions of culture of the Republic of Belarus are one of the main resources for preserving the traditional festive and ritual culture of the Belarusians in all its diversity of existing manifestations and forms, its popularization and conveyance, as well as securing the continuity of its best examples.

In the present period, the society of Belarus is in need of mastering the national traditions of festive and ritual culture as the most important multifunctional value paradigm of contemporary socio-cultural environment.

Keywords

folk calendar, rites and customs, intangible cultural value, Inventory, authenticity.

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