Names and Forms of Ritual Bread in Don Rites of Matchmaking and Betrothal: Areal Aspect

Abstract. The article considers the Don names and types of bread that the groom’s representatives bring to the bride’s house for matchmaking and betrothal, and the actions performed with it in these rituals. The author pays much attention to the areal distribution of this group of wedding vocabulary and the ways of ritual use of baking, because the traditional culture of the Don region is characterized by territorial diversity. This determined the importance and originality of the work, since the study of the “geography” of the Don wedding has not yet been carried out. The map “The names of the bread brought by matchmakers to the bride’s house and the actions with it” drawn by the author of the article made it possible to find out the areas of the Don wedding tradition. The comparative analysis of the names, types of ritual bread and actions with it with the traditions of other Eastern Slavic regions was accomplished. It was revealed that, according to ritual actions with baking brought by the matchmakers, as well as the use of a special form of kalach in this episode, the Don matchmaking is similar to the Ukrainian cultural tradition. The main source of the research was the materials of the dialectological and ethnolinguistic expeditions of the Rostov State University (Southern Federal University) conducted jointly with the Southern Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences since 2008.

Keywords: wedding ritual, matchmaking, betrothal, bread, Province of the Don Cossack Host, ethnolinguistics, ethnolinguistic map, territorial variant of the rite, area.