Binding: Hardcover Dewey Decimal Number: 394.2694779 EAN: 9780880333894 ISBN: 0880333898 Label: East European Monographs Manufacturer: East European Monographs Number Of Items: 1 Number Of Pages: 250 Publication Date: 1998-04-15 Publisher: East European Monographs Studio: East European Monographs
Editorial Reviews:
This is the first book to describe in detail the traditions and beliefs of the people of Subcarpathian Rus'--traditions which have been handed down, generation to generation, for hundreds of years. The author discusses the rites of the fourteen celebrations in the annual church calendar, from Christmas and the Epiphany to Lent and Easter. There are detailed descriptions of the festivals on the occasions of births, baptisms, weddings, and funerals. Also explored are Rusyn beliefs in supernatural beings and accounts of sightings of demons, witches, and vampires.
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating: Summary: An Author With An Ax to Grind Comment: In this work, Comrade Bogatyrev purports many times to relate the superstitions of Carpatho-Rusyns, yet most of his identified sources are Gypsies! He even insinuates that two child abusing customs are performed by Rusyns, yet the reference books he gives in the footnotes as sources for these practices reveal that the practices are from "Wedding Rites in Novgorod and Archangelsk," places where Rusyns do not live! He quotes Rusyn words asking God's blessing, and calls it "magic." He thinks that dressing a corpse for burial indicates belief that the deceased will use his clothing in the afterlife. He quotes a Rusyn as saying that nonsensical customs are just games and nonsense, then he claims that the peasant was "just saying that to appear progressive to a stranger." When peasants bring in sheaves of wheat for a Christmas decoration, and explain, "The gentry decorate a tree; we poor bring in wheat," Bogatyrev claims they do so to stimulate the wheat harvest by sympathetic magic. His disgusting portrayal of Rusyns as mindless primitives seems designed to set the stage for the Soviet genocide of the Rusyns in the 1940's, about 20 yrs. after this work first was published. Customer Rating: Summary: When Is a Title Not a Title? Comment: I'm going to have to confess that I bought this book because of its title. I like to read and review vampire books, and believe that having some background knowledge can add some interest to a review. So I pulled the book down from the shelf, turned to one of the few pages in the book that actually contained the word vampire, and bought it. It was only when I started to reed it at home that I discovered that its real title is 'Magical Acts, Rites and Beliefs in Subcarpathian Rus.' The current title is an invention of either the translator's or the publisher. So, starting right out, the book loses a star for pretending it is what it is not.
What is it? Petr Bogatyrev was a Russian ethnologist who should have been better known than he is. He was born in 1893 and died in 1971. Among his other accomplishments besides this book is his translation into Russian of Hasek's 'Good Soldier Svejk.' He spent his early academic life studying the folklore and customs of Czechoslovakia, eventually earning an honorary Doctor of Philology for this book. He pursued his career in Russia upon returning, but eventually fell victim to the Stalinist fervor of the times and spent most of his life in obscurity. To our loss, since 'Magical Rites...' reveals a keen and interesting mind.
Bogatyrev was an exponent of the synchronic method of ethnography, which he came upon in his linguistic studies. In it's essence it was a rebellion against historical ethnography which attempts to trace backward from contemporary studies to discover the original myths and legends as they existed in some prehistorical period of cultural unity. Instead, Bogatyrev believed we should try to study the present legends and belief systems in context in order to understand their contemporary significance. This allows us to understand the 'magical' mechanisms underlying folk practices, categorize them appropriately, and recognize the sources of variation and commonality. This method reminds me most of Mircea Eliade, who uses a similar approach in 'Shamanism' in 1951, albeit with much greater success.
The flaw in this method is that the reader is often confronted with a massive catalog of facts, without the kind of organization that makes it easy to see the forest rather than get lost in the trees. Only in isolated paragraphs do we find discussions which gradually bring the material together into a conceptual whole. Often the message is disappointingly trivial. Bogatyrev spends a great deal of time and effort rediscovering Frazer's principals of magic; the law of similarity and the law of contact. But he never muses on his inability to discover examples of the law of opposition, and so leaves his findings in question, or at least, lacking in depth.
Since catalogs of Subcarpathian folklore are not common, the book's intrinsic value is greater than it's expository worth as a demonstration of methodology. That it belongs on the shelves of ethnographers is without doubt. The exposition is well written. The book is organized into a methodological introduction followed by a large section organized according to the folk calendar. Subsequent chapters discuss births and baptism, weddings, funerals, finally ending with apparitions and supernatural beings. In no case, however, should you by this in the hope of discovering anything relevant to vampires. They are most definitely not what Bogatyrev was interested in.
Customer Rating: Summary: Rites and beliefs but NOT vampires Comment: This book was originally published in French in 1929 with a title that translates as: Magical Acts, Rites, and Beliefs in Subcarpathian Rus'. The title Vampires in the Carpathians was added for this 1998 English translation and is really misleading. The last two chapters: "Funerals" and "Apparitions and Supernatural Beings" do make passing references to vampires, but focus mostly on other spirits. So if you are looking for a book on vampires, look elsewhere. What little is said about vampires will be only of interest to the serious scholar who needs to know every possible reference in the literature. The original title, which is the current subtitle, is a much more accurate description of what this book is about. However, Bogatyrev spends over 35 pages talking about his research methodology which he calls the synchronic method. Unless this is what you really want to learn about, I advise you skip the Introduction and Conclusion. His methodology is that he tells us what the ritual means to the people performing it at that time. He does not try to draw inferences back in time or determine origins. He just "tells it like it is" or, in this case, as it was back in the 1920's. What results is very unsatisfying. He tells you a ritual and what it means in village X, then tells you that in village Y they do the same thing, but have no idea why. Then, he relates that in village Z they don't do this at all. He goes through the whole religious calendar relating quaint old customs attached to each religious holiday, then does the same for rituals attached to births, weddings and funerals. We owe this author a debt of gratitude for documenting this snapshot of Carpathian village life. English-speaking folklore scholars will be glad to have access to this work and Americans of Rusyn descent may finally understand what crazy rituals and customs drove their grandparents to leave this rustic corner of Central Europe for the USA and Canada. On the plus side, this is an excellent translation and the biography of Bogatyrev is engaging. Not for any but the most dedicated readers. Customer Rating: Summary: Heavy going but full of odd information Comment: This book is a treasure trove of folklore and customs of the Carpathian Rus. Following the service cycle of the Orthodox Church, the authors discuss the various folk customs asscoaited with each feast as well as marriag, death, etc. The probable origins and variations are discussed as is the intention of the act. It's a great read, but a bit heavy, being written in full blown academic style. For anyone interested in the small t traditions of these people, it is invaluable.
