Institute of Linguistics, Literature and History of the Karelian Research Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Petrozavodsk, Russian Federation, vap_87@inbox.ru
ABSTRACT
Introduction: the sacred vows were widespread in the Christian world. In accordance with such promises people built churches, established new festivals and made pilgrimages. Some aspects of this tradition have already been investigated by the scholars. But still there are no studies written on the Karelian material and specially devoted to the vows.
Objective: to identify the role and to describe the variety of vow practices of of the XX century.
Research materials: field materials collected by the author in Karelian and Russian villages of the Leningrad Oblast in 2020–2024; published materials of other researchers and samples of Karelian speech, posted in the Open Corpus of the Vepsian and Karelian languages.
Results and novelty of the research: the article examines the whole variety of vows that were taken and fulfilled by the Tikhvin Karelians in the XX century. The author involves a large number of new expedition materials. Special attention is paid to such phenomena as votive chapels, votive feasts and pilgrimages. The latter were mainly made to the local sacred sites: springs, crosses, and chapels. It is noteworthy that most of these objects were located in Russian and Orthodox villages. The Karelians, who belonged to the radical Old Belief denomination, realized that visiting such places was sinful,
but made exceptions because of their vows. Usually peasants made sacred promises in exchange for the curing of different illnesses and resolving various problems with their stock. But the materials available show that the practice of vow could also perform memorial functions.
Key words: Tikhvin Karelians, Ozerskoe people, old belief, Fedoseev commune, vow, oath, pilgrimage
Acknowledgments: the article was prepared as part of the state assignment of the Karelian Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences № 125032004283-0 “Spiritual traditions of the peoples of Karelia: texts and contexts”.
For citation: Blandov A. A. Sacred vow practices and their role in the life of the Tikhvin Karelians // Vestnik ugrovedenia = Bulletin of Ugric Studies. 2025; 15 (3/62): 504–517.