Традиційна архітектура

Housing in the popular consciousness of Ukrainians, as an ethnic group with an extremely long tradition of a settled way of life, was extremely important. It served not only as a shelter for man, which provided protection from adverse weather conditions, enemies, etc. The construction of one's own home, the observance of living conditions was an important part of the social realization of the individual as a good host and worthy of respect for a member of the rural community. Accordingly, the process of its construction was accompanied by a complex set of ritual actions, which are commonly referred to construction rituals. Part of it consists of beliefs and ideas related to individual, important structural elements of housing, such as doors, thresholds, windows, slums. In the proposed research, the author aims to highlight various beliefs and ideas related to some constructive elements of housing. Accordingly, the object of research is a complex of traditional rituals of the Ukrainians of the Carpathians, and the subject-the constructive elements of housing, which often acquire symbolic functions, a certain sacred significance. The main methods used by the author are structural-functional and comparative, as well as other methods of ethnological science. Scientific novelty: Various beliefs and ideas related to household items made of wood are comprehensively analyzed, and the specifics of their existence in the traditional ritual culture of Ukrainian mountaineers are analyzed. The place occupied by certain constructive elements of housing in the traditional consciousness has been studied. Conclusion: It was found that the most ritually significant door was the place of entrance to the house, a kind of boundary between external and internal, inhabited space. Results: This was already evident at the stage of construction, when certain sacrificial objects were placed under the place of the future threshold. Also, the canvas of the door or the space around them was decorated with artistic carvings, with traditional apotropaic motifs (images of six-petalled rosettes, a cross), and the process of entering the house was regulated by a number of prohibitions and signs. Instead, the window, as in Slavonic in general, served as an alternative entrance, invisible to «evil forces», and, in the ritual sense, was a place of «communication» with the afterlife such as thresholds, doors, windows), which in the traditional ideas of the mountaineers acted as a kind of «borders» of home, inhabited space, and served as the main and alternative, «invisible» to evil forces entering the house, and were a place of «communication» with the afterlife.

In the proposed exploration, the author aims to highlight the various beliefs and ideas associated with ancient objects of traditional furniture, which, however, have acquired important ritual significance during the performance of various rituals-a table and a chest. Accordingly, the object of research is a complex of traditional rituals of the Ukrainians of the Carpathians, and the subject-beliefs and ideas associated with the chest and the table, as with the attributes of traditional rituals. The main methods that were used are structural-functional, comparative and interdisciplinary. Scientific novelty: For the first time, various beliefs and ideas related to the chest and the table that are reflected in the traditional rituals of Ukrainian mountaineers are comprehensively analyzed, and the specifics of their existence in the traditional ritual culture are analyzed. Results: The place that these objects occupied in the traditional consciousness of Ukrainian mountaineers has been studied. This is indicated in particular by the fact that it was used for festive meals, not for daily meals; a number of related bans; the fact that it was on the table (and not, for example, on the bench) that most ritually significant objects were made (for example, the baptismal «braid», the ceremonial wedding and construction tree); often the mountaineers were the first to bring the table into the newly built dwelling; a number of divinations were made here; it was the table that played an important role in the funeral rites and served as a place of a kind of «communication» with the afterlife; it is one of the few items of traditional furniture that appears in ceremonial folklore texts (and the image of the table is used to emphasize the solemnity, the unusualness of the celebrated action). Conclusion: In general, similar ideas existed in many Slavic ethnic groups, but in the Ukrainian Carpathians as a fairly isolated region with a specific history of settlement, they are preserved quite fully and contain many local features that significantly complement our ideas about ritual culture and the world of beliefs of Ukrainians in general.