Dream narrations in religious practices of the Upper Vychegda Komi in the 19th and 20th centuries

Dream narration as a cultural practice implies a series of communication processes that have cultural, social and local specifics. The aim of the article is to explore the role of dream narrations, about meetings with the “divine”, in the emergence of holy places of the Upper Vychegda Komi (Ust'-Kulom village) and their significance for the modern religious tradition. The author also analyzes the reaction of the Church to these practices, characterises the social positions of the dream-narrator and his audience. The article is based on archival materials and publications of the pre-revolutionary period, modern ethnographic research data and publications. The author explores stories of Ust'-Kulom peasants about the appearance of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, who indicated the place for a new stone church to the peasant girl Anna Lipina; spinsters' stories of “omen dreams” about the place Keres-bok. The analysis of the materials confirms researchers' conclusions that it was the local landscape and the folk calendar that were the semiotic resources for adapting transpersonal experience and constructing socially significant religious practices of the rural community. At the same time, the actualization of the narrations about meetings with the “divine” could be due to the social crisis in a particular village. The cases of the appearance of dream narrations considered in the article are associated with women who had authority in the local religious community. A small group of followers was formed around the dream-narrator, united by non-church fellowship. Representatives of this group could act as mediators between the dreamer and the rest of society. Archival materials allow an assumption that for the peasant community important was a sacred character's direct appeal to the dream-narrator with a clearly defined requirement, which initiated the further development of events. The parish clergy often tried to “include” the emerging local religious tradition (reverence of place, icon) in canonical church practices. However, the Church authorities saw such peasant religious practices as “deviations from the Orthodox faith”. Dream-narrators were accused of superstition, attempts to deceive believers, and ambition. In an effort to maintain control over the religious life of believers, declaring the impossibility of communicating with God without its mediation, the Church condemned or punished dreamers; newly-appeared holy places were either liquidated, or, after a while, their veneration could be sanctioned. In the post-Soviet period, the revival of the tradition of veneration of rural holy places took place with the active participation of the Russian Orthodox Church. At present, the legend about the miraculous appearance of the icon at the Keres-bok spring, which existed in the local oral tradition, is actively reproduced in the media space, and the temporal remoteness of the event made it possible to perceive the text of the legend as faithfully depicting a real precedent.

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