DOI: 10.22281/2413-9912-2022-06-02-96-103

Mazalova N.E.

FOLK MEDICINE OF THE RUSSIAN NORTH
IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE XX CENTURY

The article deals with the folk medical knowledge of the Russian North in the second half of the 20th century, which includes several subsystems.The studied issues of folk medical knowledge as a complex of rational and magical practices, as well as the processes of its formation, belong to the sphere of fundamental science and at the same time are among the topical issues of our time, in particular, the problems of knowledge. The work was carried out mainly by the method of field research and was based on the author’s field materials collected on the basis of several expeditions to the Russian North. The study of the topic of folk medical knowledge of the Russian North, which has not been the subject of a separate study so far, determined the novelty of the work. The study revealed the inextricable links between the rational and magical components of folk medical knowledge, as well as ways to transfer and preserve folk medical knowledge. The following conclusions were made during the study. Throughout the twentieth century. Traditional medicine occupied an important place in the life of the population of the Russian North. Folk medical knowledge of the Russian North is a synthesis of archaic mythological ideas and rational ones. Folk medicine in the Russian North in the 20th century. remained in demand, because it satisfied an important social order — the preservation of health and the treatment of diseases, and official medicine could not fully satisfy the needs of the inhabitants of the northern Russian villages. The bearers of folk medical knowledge were elderly women who were the keepers of traditional knowledge, and they passed it on to the younger ones. The mechanisms of transmission, perception, mastery of folk medical knowledge developed in traditional culture have been preserved to this day.

Keywords: folk medical knowledge, «secret knowledge», ritual specialists, folk herbal medicine, conspiracies, Russian North.

Мuseum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) RAS (Russia)

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