The live tradition of nicknames in the village of Atirka: social, economical factors and psychological aspects

The Middle Ages were the period of most active creation and using of nicknames in Russia. This period ended with the official prescription to use only orthodox personal names and establishment of a three-part form of identification: a name, a middle name, a surname, which happened in the 18th century. Despite it, informal nicknames do exist nowadays and they gain new features, connected with the sociocultural processes in modern society. It shows us the special relevance of researching this area. Nicknames are especially important in the lives of the closed communities (educational and correctional facilities, army, professional communities) where such informal identification of the individual from the side of the community has a number of specific functions (social stratification, allocation of ethnic, geographical or professional origins, emphasis of individual qualities of the person, psychological release, etc.). In this regard the social organization of life in the rural community had much in common with the functioning of the closed communities. First of all it is caused by the fact that rural dwellers had a limited and settled circle of social contacts and the life of each person passed in full view of the neighbors, who gave their personal characteristics and estimates. This situation is typical for the small villages which found themselves on the fringes of the modern social and economic development. The village of Atirka of Tarsky district in the Omsk region is of this type of settlements, and through its example the authors of this article tried to investigate the variety of nicknames, the reasons of their appearance and their place in life of the local society. The article reviews the special features of the rural nicknames reflecting the personal qualities of their bearers, nicknames coming from surnames, school "nicknames" through particular cases. We also revealed some peculiarities of creating nicknames in different ethnolocal groups. In particular, we found out that descendants of the Belarusian migrants living in of Atirka used archaic nicknames much longer than Russian old residents, for whom since 1930-1940 such nicknames played the role of psychological release, intertwining with such form of Russian folklore as "chastushka". In spite of the fact that most of the surveyed people consider that nicknames generally come "from ignorance", for the ethnographer they are important oral sources, that contain information about the passed and existing stages of development of certain local communities. They may be considered as peculiar brief characteristics of the individuals reflecting the philosophy, the background experience and the humour of people. That is why studying the nicknames the researcher can reveal and reconstruct many sociocultural processes in rural life.

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