The author considers the episode of the Russian wedding ritual "Groomsman opens the closed doors of the bride's house" and analyses dialogues which are pronounced at this ritual stage. The ritual of opening the closed doors of the bride's house is accompanied by a large number of riddles and questions with the cosmological motifs of gathering and structuring the Cosmos, texts on Christian mythology and folk mythological beliefs. The use of these dialogues can be explained by the specificity of the wedding situation itself: their utterance was intended to have a productive effect on the common space formation for both clans; the appeal to Christian mythology through saints' lives and apocryphal literature allows us to evaluate the valuable and cultural qualities of the groom and his entourage. The correct answers to all questions and the fulfilment of the formulated tasks indicate the readiness (mental and physical) of the groom to change his social status. The publications and archival materials recorded in the 19th-early 20th century in different local traditions and regions of Russia, also the texts recorded in some Komi traditions and in the territory of contact residence of the Russian and Komi populations, are analysed in the present article.
Of late, Chinese cultural heritage buildings have enjoyed attention as desirable destination images. This has been boosted by the tourist gaze, which derives its object of desire from the soft power of transnationally broadcast Chinese historical films and television series, such as "Longest Day in Chang'an". Within the experience of tourism lies the issue of finding authenticity, which consists of three types: objective authenticity, constructive authenticity and existential authenticity (Wang 1999). In this globalised and super-diverse environment (Vertovec 1997), does fixed authenticity based on historical experience still exist? I demonstrate how this media-enhanced tourist gaze sublimates its fantasy through tourism of Chinese heritage buildings, through a quantitative survey of tourists' experiences of authenticity in visiting one such Chinese heritage building. Ultimately, much like "Dracula-tourism" in Transylvania, this phenomenon facilitates the embodying of the folklore of Chinese cultural heritage as desirable images. This in turn represents a form of constructive authenticity similar to film tourism, which mitigates the re-enactment of tourists' projection of authenticity upon toured objects.
Tuvans and Tatars are Turkic peoples living in the Russian Federation today. Tuvans live in the east and Tatars in the west of the region. In the Turkic language classifications, Tuvan and Tatar languages are dialects on two different sides of the Turkic language. The structure of a language is influenced by the geographical and climatic conditions, beliefs and mentality of societies. Although the national culture of societies is one of the priority topics of linguistics today, the ethnolinguistic aspect of the word milk has received little attention in the linguistics of the Tuvan and Tatar languages. From this point of view, it is important to determine the position of milk as a cultural and linguistic element in the memory of the two societies. So milk gains an ethnolinguistic value due to its effective use both in traditional life and in oral culture products. The fact that Tuvans and Tatars, who are located in two different branches of the Turkic world, living in quite distant geographies and having different belief systems, interpret the concepts related to milk in similar ways clearly reveals that milk is one of the common elements in the cultural memory of the Turkic world. This study aims to determine the position of the concept of milk, which has taken its place in the cultural memory ofTuvans and Tatars, in both the traditional lives and oral culture products of the related peoples, as well as to comparatively analyze its functioning in modern language in an ethnolinguistic context.
The relevance of the key aspects of the musical culture of ethnic groups of Albania in the present period arises due to the intensification of globalisation processes and the resulting tendency towards cultural and everyday unification in the world. The study seeks to uncover the distinct features of Rugova's traditional music and other aspects of its folklore, including dances, games and attire. In the process of studying aspects of folklore, the following were examined: features of song creation; folk choreographic art; theatre performances and sports games; and the arts and crafts heritage of the region. Key categories of each branch of the folklore fund of the Kosovo Highlanders were established. The study identified unique characteristics of Rugova's vocal music, including monophonic texture, pentatonic scale with microtonal elements and traditional instruments such as lahuta, & ccedil;iftelia, and kavall. It also noted the practicality and distinctiveness of local national costumes suited to harsh climates. The innovation of the research lies in viewing Rugova's oral traditions as a comprehensive system with various key components. Its findings can aid in understanding other ethnic folklore and are valuable for experts in musicology, cultural studies, folklore, history and ethnography.
Environmental Health Crises (EHC), often manifesting as interconnected polycrises (e.g. combining environmental, medical or military aspects), have surged in frequency, intensity and geographic spread in recent decades. Public understanding of such crises plays a crucial role in taking proper action to mitigate their consequences. Thus, finding innovative communication models that would address and mediate the complex nature of EHC is of utmost importance to serve the societal needs for clarity, safety, hope and physical survival. While mythological and scientific approaches have conventionally been conceptualized as opposites, this article's objective is to delineate their points of convergence and to argue that awareness of patterns in mythological narratives can offer analytically significant insights for contemporary crisis communication. By reviewing existing map-based health risk communication tools and frameworks, and relying on multiple sources of mythological narratives related to various EHC (e.g., epidemics, environmental hazards and disruptions), the authors will propose an empirically and theoretically grounded framework for analyzing the spatial representations of environmental health crises in mythological narratives to highlight how mental mapping becomes a critical component of vernacular spatial problem-solving activity. While highlighting consistencies in spatial crisis responses in mythological narratives and comparing them to modern EHC-narrating patterns, the proposed framework aims to function as a pathway for bridging the gap between scientific crisis mapping and the vernacular lived, multisensory, mythology-informed representations of EHC. By theorizing the integration of such dynamic and agentic perspectives into public communication, the study seeks to advance more effective and empathetic engagement with EHC-related risks.
