Unfairy Tales and Symbolical Stratification of Social Space
The article is based on the data collected in 1999-2005 during field work among Old-Believers of the Urals and Udmurtia (Verkhokame historical region). The author examines the correlation between social structure of the rural society and motifs of local folklore (stories on witchcraft). Such stories survived all the last century changes in rural Russia and even tend to spread over the post-soviet urban culture. The author suggests that it is the specific role of the stories about witchcraft which they play in microsocial environment that accounts for their preservation. The interrelation between social hierarchy and mythological notions is a fascinating subject to study, argues the author. She divides local social space into five levels and analyses the manifestations of mythology on each of them: (1) the people of Verkhokame as a whole vs. the outside world, (2) inhabitants of different regions inside Verkhokame, (3) representatives of different ethnical and confessional groups, (4) those who belong to various age and gender groups, (5) inhabitants of a settlement (neighbors, relatives by blood and by marriage). The set of mythological motifs is quite different at each level. Maximal richness of details can be seen at the last one: stories describing relationships between inhabitants of a settlement in terms of witchcraft are the reservoir of meanings for the interpretation of everyday events, and vice versa, daily routine is a source of development in the set of motifs.