The last pagans and the first christians among the udmurts in the context of the funeral rites of the Sharkan cemetry (2nd half of the XVIII - early XIX century)

The study is dedicated to explaining the archaeological evidence of the simultaneous burial of pagans and newly baptized in a common cemetery. The conviction established in the regional scientific literature claims that christianized Udmurts were not buried in pagan cemeteries (Udmurt “Shai”). Primary sources of the proposed research are funeral rite and grave goods of the previously unknown necropolis, discovered during the construction work on the territory of the modern village Sharkan, Udmurt Republic. Another group of sources consists of ethnographic materials and historical documents that testified process of the conversion of the Sharkan Udmurts to Orthodoxy in the second half of the 18th - first half of the 19th centuries. The new archaeological site was explored during the rescue archaeological work. The site was occupied by residential buildings before construction began. 42 graves with 66 skeletons were examined in the excavation. The graves were arranged in clear rows, had a rectangular shape in plan, sizes corresponded to the anthropometric characteristics of the buried. The depth of the pits varied from 0.2 to 1.3 m. The dead were placed in narrow plank boxes made of spruce blocks (without nails), or on decks, stretched out on their backs, with their heads facing west or southwest. Thus, formally, burials correspond to the Christian canon. But at the same time, the large percentage of collective burials (almost 40 %) is, i.e. joint burials of adults, adults with children, only children. The paleodemographic parameters of the group (58 % of the deceased are children, the average age of death of adults is 40 years) corresponded to those expected for the groups of the population of Russia in the New Age, in which high infant mortality is compensated by high fertility. No traces of violent death were found in the buries; pathologies are rare, as are lifetime traumas. The presence and variety of accompanying implements clearly reflected the pagan beliefs of the buried, despite the fact that in 24 of them Orthodox crosses were found. The variety of the artifacts is common for the pagan burial grounds of the Udmurts of the late Middle Ages and early modern times. Explanations for some of the most striking objects in burials are easily found in the traditional culture and beliefs of the Sharkan Udmurts of the 19th century, primarily in the ancestors’ cult. Referring to the written sources suggests that this burial ground, dated according to the accompanying inventory (priority is given to coins), was left by a local group of Udmurts (one village - Lonles-Dokya), some of whom had already been baptized, but continued to observe the previous pagan rituals, which is found explanation in the policy of the state and the Church in the second half of the 18th-early 20th century.

Keywords

Authors

References