Archaic roots of traditional culture of the the Russian North. (Collection of scientific articles). Svetlana Vasilievna Zharnikova
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Archaic roots of traditional culture of the the Russian North
(Collection of scientific articles)
Svetlana Vasilievna Zharnikova
Translator Алексей Германович Виноградов
Editor Алексей Германович Виноградов
© Svetlana Vasilievna Zharnikova, 2025
© Алексей Германович Виноградов, translation, 2025
ISBN 978-5-0065-4205-1
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Svetlana Vasilievna Zharnikova
Svetlana Vasilievna Zharnikova
Introduction
One of the most important tasks set by the time for cultural workers is the task of restoring national identity, self-respect of the people. The solution to this problem is impossible without the study, restoration and propaganda of folk culture, the system of value orientations that took shape among the people during the millennia of its historical existence. In this regard, the problem of identifying the deep roots of the North Russian folk culture is extremely acute today. One of the main issues is the issue of temporal stratigraphy in connection with the latest data of paleo-climatology, paleo-anthropology, linguistics, and archaeology. So, at present, thanks to the discoveries of paleo-climatologists, the time frame of the period of the initial development of the territories of the Center and the North of the European part of Russia is being revised. It is assumed that already in the Mikulinsky inter-glacial epoch (130—70 thousand years ago), when the average winter temperatures were 8—12 degrees higher than at present, and the climate in a significant part of the Russian Plain up to the northern regions was identical to the modern climate of the Atlantic regions of Western Europe, human collectives came to the coast of the White and Barents Seas. During the ice-free Valdai period (70—24 thousand years ago), people with a sufficiently developed level of cultural traditions continue to inhabit the territory of the Center and North of Eastern Europe, as evidenced by the burials of the Sungir in the Vladimir region and the Mezinskaya Upper Paleolithic site in the Chernigov region (25—23 thousand BC). During the glacial Valdai (20—18 thousand years ago), as it has now been found out, by no means all the territories of the Russian Plain (in particular, the Russian North) were covered with a glacier, since its extreme eastern border ran along the Molosh-Sheksninsky boundary… Thus, to the east of this border (up to the Urals), mixed spruce-birch and birch-pine forests and meadow grass steppes, that is, territories suitable for human life, were distributed.
In the Mesolithic era (10—5 thousand BC), a period of warming begins in the vast expanses of the European North, and by the 7th millennium BC. here the average summer temperatures are 4—5 degrees higher than the modern ones, and the zone of mixed broad-leaved forests is advancing almost 550 km north of the modern border of its distribution. On the territory of the Vologda Oblast, the investigations of S. V. Oshibkina revealed a large number of monuments of the Mesolithic era. Anthropologically, the people buried in the burial grounds of this time are classical Caucasians without the slightest admixture of Mongoloid.
During this period, no movements of the population from the territory of the Urals and Trans-Urals (the zone of formation of the Finns-Ugric tribes) were revealed.
Similar conclusions were made by D. A. Krainov for the Neolithic era.
Similar shifts seem unlikely in the Bronze Age, when the movement of the population to the north of Eastern Europe is recorded, as a rule, from the lands of the Dnieper region, the Middle Volga region and the Volga-Ok interfluve.
Analyzing today the numerous finds of the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze ages in the territories of the Center and North of the European part of Russia, we can assume with a considerable degree of confidence that up to the end of the Bronze Age (the end of the 2nd millennium BC) here lived tribes of Caucasians belonging to the Indo-European linguistic community. Already in the Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze eras, a whole complex of ritual and mythological structures was formed in the Russian North, which in various transformed and often extremely archaic forms was preserved in the context of folk culture up to the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries and even up to now. These are ritual texts, a drawing of ritual dances, an ornament-amulet, etc. It is no coincidence that researchers believe that in Russian folk culture, elements have been preserved that are more archaic than not only ancient Greek ones, but also those recorded in the Vedas.
Thus, the previously accepted paradigm of the historical development of the European North of Russia, which asserted that these territories, starting from the post-glacial period, were populated by Finns-Ugric tribes who came from beyond the Urals (as a result of the pressure of the population surplus), which until the arrival of the Slavs here at the turn of 1—2 thous had a hunting-gatherer and fishing type of economy, is currently being revised.
The new paradigm seems to be as follows: according to modern data of paleo-climatology, anthropology, linguistics, ethnography and other related sciences, at the time of the arrival of the Slavs, the descendants of the ancient Indo-European population lived mainly in the territories of the European North of Russia, preserving the most archaic general Indo-European cultural traditions, an archaic type of lexicon and an archaic archaic a type. Their contact and mutual influence with the Slavic groups advancing into these territories was facilitated by the presence of a similarity of language, anthropological type and many cultural traditions, inherited by both of them from their common Indo-European ancestors.
Eastern Europe as the native land of Indo-Europeans
Among the many legends preserved by the memory of mankind, the ancient Indian epic Mahabharata is considered the greatest monument of culture, science and history of the ancestors of all Indo-European peoples. Initially, it was a story about the civil strife of the Kuru peoples, who lived more than 5 thousand years ago between the Ganges and Indus. Gradually new ones were added to the main text – and the Mahabharata came to us containing almost 200 thousand lines in 18 books. In one of them, called «Forest», sacred sources are described – the rivers and lakes of the country of ancient Aryans, that is, the land on which the events told in the epic unfolded.
But speaking of this country, called Bharata, we note that the final event of the narrative was the grand battle at Kurukshetra in 3102 BC. However, according to science, Aryan tribes in Iran and Hindustan did not exist at that time, and they lived in their ancestral home – far enough from India and Iran.
Where was she where all these grandiose events were unfolding? This question worried researchers back in the last century. In the mid-19th century, the idea was expressed that the territory of Eastern Europe was such an ancestral home. In the middle of the 20th century, the German scientist Scherer returned to the idea that the ancestral home of all Indo-Europeans was on the lands of Russia.
As known, the great river of our country – the Volga up to the 2nd century AD bore the name by which the holy book of the Zoroastrians of the Avesta – Ranha or Ra – knew her. But the Ranha Avesta is the Ganges of the Rigveda and Mahabharata.
According to Avesta, on the shores of the sea of Voorukasha (the «Milk Sea» of the Mahabharata) and Ranha (Volga) there were a number of Aryan countries – from Aryan-Wedge in the far north to seven Indian countries in the south, beyond Ranha.
The same seven countries are mentioned in the Rigveda and Mahabharata as the land between the Ganges and the Yamuna, on Kuruksetra. They are said about them: «The glorified Kurukshetra. All living beings, one has only to go there, get 7 rid of sins,» or «Kurukshetra – the holy Altar of Brahma; there are holy brahmanas-sages. Those who settled on Kurukshetra will never recognize sorrows».
The question naturally arises: so what kind of rivers are the Ganges and the Yamuna, between which the country of Brahma lay? We have already found out that the Ranha Ganga is the Volga.