Half a century of new life (in memory of V.N. Chernetsov)

The purpose of the article is to study the contribution of scientists to the continuation of ethnographic research of the famous Ugric scholar V.N. Chernetsov for a half-century period after his death. The sources of the article are publications of domestic and foreign authors, as well as materials from his archive. The first section of the article is devoted mainly to the fate of Chernetsov’s home scientific archive. After the scientist’s death, his widow V.I. Moshinskaya gave the archive to the Tomsk University. The history of the archive’s receipt to the University is briefly described. These are the editions of archival materials on the ethnography of the Mansi people, prepared by N.V. Lukina and O.M. Ryndina. The author considers a complex way of searching for opportunities for publishing folklore texts in the Mansi language. The article notes the important role of the abstracts of texts in Russian language prepared by the Hungarian folklorist E. Schmidt in this search. The author also reports about the articles by Z.P. Sokolova and G.P. Kharyuchi devoted to the personality of Chernetsov and his contribution to the study of the Ob Ugric and Nenets peoples. The article considers the project specifically devoted to Chernetsov, it is performed at the Tomsk University (2019-2021). The second section of the article analyzes the research carried out on the subject of V.N. Chernetsov after his death. The Bear’s Holiday of the Ob Ugrians was chosen as the theme for the analysis. About thirty publications were reviewed, the authors of which are R. K. Bardina, V.S. Ivanova, N.V. Lukina, Timofey A. Moldanov, Tatyana Moldanova, N.I. Novikova, N.K. Partanov, E.V. Perevalova, S. A. Popova, E.I. Rombandeeva, Z.P. Sokolova, E. Schmidt. Archived texts of Mansi folklore are also considered. The works of these authors contain descriptions of modem sporadic Bear’s Holidays. They are complemented by information of Chernetsov about the religious center Vezhakary and about the structure of the group Yalpus Makhum, which organizes here periodic Bear rites. The article gives different explanation of some episodes of these rites. New places of periodic Bear rites have been identified in the Mansi. All authors refer to Chernetsov’s materials and ideas, but there is also a critical attitude to some of his judgments. Conclusions. After the death of V.N. Chernetsov (1970), his contribution to the study of the peoples of the North was enriched thanks to the updating of the scientific archive of the scientist. Analysis of publications about the Bear’s Holiday of the Ob Ugric peoples over the past half-century has shown the predominance of works about a sporadic Holiday with less attention to periodic rites. The researches represent a great interest to the Bear cult as part of the traditional worldview of the Ob Ugric peoples, with little attention to the problem of the origin of the Bear’s Holiday.

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