The calendar cycle in the Byelorussian traditions of Siberian existence: the sources for the study, the ritual complexes

The paper presents the results of a comprehensive study of the calendar and ritual cycle of the Byelorussians-settlers of Siberia and the Far East. This study is associated with the preparation of a second volume of the Byelorussian folklore in the series «The Monuments of Folklore of the Peoples of Siberia and the Far East». The main attention is paid to the characteristics of publish- ed and unpublished sources that underlie the research, with most of them dating back to the second half of the twentieth century. Among them are ethnographic descriptions of rituals, manuscripts and audio recordings of the calendar songs, photos and videos. The authors characterise the published and archival sources, formed in the process of the expedition field work of various collectors. Of primary importance are audio recordings and separate publications of a comprehensive character. The analysis allows drawing a conclusion about the representativeness of the collected materials for the study of the calendar ritual traditions of the Byelorussians, living in Tyumen, Omsk, Novosibirsk provinces, as well as in the Altai, Krasnoyarsk and Primorsky regions. This conclusion is based on the fact that the available materials qualitatively reflect the main components of calendar ceremonial complex: ritual, folklore (functional characteristics and genre composition of the songs, structurally-typological groups) and performing (singing), making it possible to identify the features of different traditions. The authors demonstrate the representativeness of the source base while describing the ritual of the Byelorussian component of the annual cycle recorded in the Asian part of Russia. Different Byelorussian local traditions of Siberian existence are a heterogeneous set of seasonal calendar rituals, their relationship and importance in the cycle. Ritual complexes of all seasonal cycles preserved in some habitats of the Siberian settlement of Byelorussian immigrants only (examples in the Omsk region). However, in most of the local Byelorussian traditions, the complete cycle is missing. In other cases, the ritual seasonal cycles are unequally represented: some of them are shortened, while others are extremely developed. Thus, only in the Omsk region, a large number of descriptions of the winter holiday game «Marriage Tereshky» and developed Midsummer rituals were recorded. The developed spring (Easter and Radunitsa) ceremonies with a large number of round dance songs were held in the villages of Chernigov migrants in Primorsky District. This fact was also noted in Chernigov migrant tradition in the Novosibirsk region. To summarise all the local traditions, the main conclusion can be made that all the major seasonal, ceremonial, festive and labour components of the Byelorussian calendar cycle existed on the Siberian land.

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