Part one. Traditional rag doll of the Russian North
Ragdoll
At first glance, a traditional rag doll is the simplest depiction of a female figure. There is nothing superfluous in it, it is almost a symbol. The basis of the doll is a piece of cloth rolled into a rolling pin, a chest made of tightly packed balls, a braid, and a colorful outfit. But this simplicity is fraught with a deep meaning.
For a long time, researchers did not know to look inside the rag doll, where, as it turned out, its most important secrets are hidden.
The Russian rag doll includes several archetypes formed by tradition:
column (column, log, chock),
column (column, log, chock)
cross or sacrum
doll on a stick
nodular (nodular doll)
diaper
twist (twist, rolling pin, rolling)
stuffed doll - pouch
All of them existed at the same time in the 19th - first half of the 20th century in the countryside and small provincial towns. Each type, in turn, had many variants characteristic of a given area. For example, in the Russian Severedol, the archaic type of doll on a stick, of modest size and noble beauty, was preserved;
and in the south of Russia - a type of stuffed bag-shaped big-headed festive, burly and bright doll.
Rag doll with a cruciform face (ill. From the book Galina and Maria Dine. "Russian rag doll. Culture, traditions, technologies")
Researchers have noticed that the dolls different regions with all their external figurative differences, they are close in the method of manufacturing the internal fundamental principle. We noticed a common for dolls pillar-like base of the body, which was rolled up so tightly that it turned out like a sculpture made of solid material. To this day, in the Russian North, the tradition of dressing up a wooden stick in a costume is preserved - a clear echo of the connection between the doll and the ancient pillar-shaped cult sculpture made of wood.
It is no coincidence that the ash doll (stuffed with ash) is likened to a timeless "stone woman". From this, ethnographers concluded: that “inside a dressed household doll, a homemade toy, its basis is hidden - an idol, the spirit of an ancestor,” and it comes “from the common magical ancestor Galina and Maria Dain. Russian rag doll. Culture, traditions, technologies. - 2007, Publishing house: "Culture and Traditions", p. 12 See: http://www.knigidain.ru/biblio ".
What archaic ideas were accumulated in the body of a rag doll?
1. The fundamental principle of each doll is a column. It was made from logs, sticks, or tightly twisted fabric. A stick or a tube twisted from fabric was covered with a white rag on top. And then they dressed up.
It is at the same time like swaddling a baby and putting on the shroud of the deceased. In both cases, swaddling has a sacred meaning. Let us recall how everywhere in Russia, up to the middle of the 20th century, newborns were swaddled, they were called so - "swaddling clothes".
The child was wrapped in soft diapers, torn from shabby shirts, then "wrapped" in a roll - a wide long ribbon of canvas.
The people explained the swaddling of children by taking care of their physical health: swaddled so that the baby “didn’t kick in the cradle, lay quietly and slept”, “didn’t scare himself, didn’t scratch himself”, “didn’t grow hunchbacked, not crooked, not clumsy”, “so that the arms and legs were straight, not wrying ...
The protective role of this tradition has long been forgotten, but, of course, it was present. It is known that a newborn, especially before baptism, was protected in every possible way from evil spirits, evil eye and slander. By tightly wrapping the child into an immobile swaddle, they hid him, “buried” him from the dark forces, deceived the unclean. Indeed, in such a position he could not move his arms and legs, neither alive nor dead, lying.
The doll's body, tightly bound to the head, speaks of the connection with the lower world, where the ancestors live. The white rolled-up figurine keeping peace was an ancient ritual sign of inviolability, non-existence, death. Moreover, they tied the doll with an unbreakable thread, often red in color. In the Russian tradition, red has always been considered a protective color - it is a symbol of life. That is why the traditional doll was at first so conventional and simple that even its arms and legs are missing.
Column doll
When they began to be depicted, separate sticks were tied on the sides of the body or very short legs were sewn from below, and the sleeves of doll clothes or hollow patchwork tubes served as hands.
The body itself retained its primary basis - this is evidenced by the doll tradition even in the 20th century. The doll was brought closer to the likeness of a person very carefully, fearing to disturb its independent existence.
2. With all its ethnographic differences, the doll is everywhere a mythological formula of the world order, reflecting the very essence of the universal circulation in nature and in human life. The simplest three-part figurine, pulled over the place of the neck and girded with a single red thread, was built according to the scheme of the triune world: upper, middle, and lower. The doll's head is the heavenly world, the body is the earthly world, the legs are the underworld. The cross-shaped dolls also pointed to the four cardinal directions.
So the design itself contained the universal number seven - a symbol of the universe. The magic of the seven lives in our speech today: "measure seven times", "the seventh water on jelly", "in the seventh heaven" - means at the top of bliss, "in paradise".
Remember also proverbs, sayings, catchphrases, fairy tales with the number seven.
In Russian fairy tales, three brothers (sisters), seven heroes often act, the treasure is hidden “behind seven seals”, “behind seven locks” ... Finally, the everyday word “family” sounds like an ancient spell: “I” is in the center of the universe, “I "Must be repeated seven times - then there will be a family. This powerful symbolism is encoded in the doll.
The oblique cross, which tied the doll's chest, fixes the place of the doll in the center of the mythological model of the triune and four-sided universe. And this means that the archetype of a rag doll, simple in design, passed on the code of the ancient world order from generation to generation.
3. Among many peoples, mythological ideas about the origin of man speak of the androgynous nature of the ancestor, i.e. endowed with male and feminine characteristics at the same time. This mythological symbolism is fully reflected in the Russian rag doll.
The female image was the leading one not only in the ritual, but also in the traditional play doll. He is very close to the folklore female image. Thus, in songs and fairy tales, “white and round face”, “braid to the waist”, “fullness”, “high breasts” and a magnificent outfit are usually aestheticized.
Vasnetsov V.M. Three princesses of the underworld
The lush breasts were worked out with special care in the rag doll. Attaching two tightly filled balls-lumps to the doll, pulling the doll's chest with an oblique cross, the craftswomen did not put much meaning in this action. They were rather guided by generally accepted concepts of female beauty. However, it is precisely such a detail in a rag toy as a breast, erected into an unshakable canon, is a clear sign that the doll was engendered by the primary ritual consciousness, the mythological thinking of our ancestors.
"Busty Wench" is a living example of the veneration of the female deity of Mother Earth, the maternal principle. The perception of a woman as a continuer of the clan, as a goddess of fertility originated in the first historical period of the Stone Age, the Stone Age, the oldest cultural and historical period in the development of mankind, when the main tools and weapons were made mainly of stone, but wood and bone were also used. At the end of the Stone Age, the use of pottery became widespread. ... The image of a woman in the Paleolithic era is very common. Scientists have called these images "Paleolithic Venus"
And how, then, is the idea of \u200b\u200bthe masculine expressed in the doll? And were there male dolls in the Russian tradition?
Dolls - peasants were not typical for traditional toys. They are the exception rather than the rule. Village old-timers from different places answer in the same way: “They didn't make peasants, it was not accepted”, “and if they played a wedding, they took a stick instead of the groom” ...
Doll couple
This is confirmed by the analysis of the largest collection of folk dolls from the Department of Ethnography of Russians of the Russian Ethnographic Museum in St. Petersburg, carried out by S.V. Komarova. She found that out of 850 exhibits collected on the territory of Russia, starting from 1902, only about 70 exhibits represent male images.
Rag doll is a little man. Beginning XX century (ill. From the book Galina and Maria Dine. "Russian rag doll. Culture, traditions, technologies")
Is this the key to the answer? Isn't the doll's self-sufficiency then explained by the fullness of its nature? It is known that a doll in the form of a wooden chock was used in the Russian tradition in many rituals and almost always served as a symbol of fertility. So, for example, at weddings, newlyweds were given and thrown into bed a piece of wood or a piece of wood wrapped in rags. This custom was ubiquitous among the Russian population of the Kama region, fitting into the general Russian traditions of the reproduction of the clan.
We see that a traditional doll carries not only a female, but also a male principle. And the pillar-shaped phallic principle of the doll tells us about its male symbolism. We have already said that it could be just a piece of wood, a stick covered with a white rag, and a tightly twisted fabric. The solid wood inside the soft, busty body is a symbolic intercourse of nature, male and female. Such a doll harbored generic strength, carried the idea of \u200b\u200bprocreation. Death gives birth new life, and life continues in the harmonious fusion of two natural principles, male and female. Here is a capacious symbolism of a rag doll.
To be continued…
Back in the middle of the 20th century, in almost every family - in the village and in the city - children played with rag dolls. And only since the 1960s, when industrial enterprises began to produce millions of batches of plastic toys, the tradition of making home dolls almost died out. However, it did not disappear completely, being deposited in the people's memory.
A doll is a sign of a person, his game image is a symbol ... In this role, she focuses time, cultural history, history of a country, people, reflecting their movement and development.
Traditional rag doll
It is she who carries the memory of culture and makes it much brighter, wider and deeper than any other toy (clay or wooden). The conventional humanoid figure once performed a magical role, served as a talisman. She participated in ceremonies and holidays, in ritual events of the circle of earthly life, celebrating birth, wedding, leaving to ancestors.
A rag doll is a toy with valuable educational qualities that are recognized and cultivated in ethnopedagogy, in practical work with kids. It is an excellent example for handicrafts, arts and crafts, arts and crafts, and textile design.
This versatile toy has a spiritual content - here lies the appeal of a patchwork doll. The puppet people keep in themselves the skill and art of their creators, the work of collectors, collectors and scientists. Life is highlighted in the puppet chronicle russian culture, an everlasting folk memory. And everyone who makes rag dolls has his own “patchwork story”.
The similarity, the roll call of dolls from different nations is amazing. They are united not only by their origin (play dolls everywhere arose from rituals, emerged from ritual), but also universal human ideas and values: continuity in kinship, nepotism and parental care, in the veneration of ancestors.
The hand-made toy served as a kind of generic ethnic code for our ancestors, which indicated the landmarks of the life path. Examining old dolls, we will notice how a chain of hidden symbols, characteristic of the mythological consciousness of the peasant, for Russian folk culture, appears in them. therefore inthere were no coincidences in making traditional rag dolls - there was a certain meaning in everything. As a rule, rag dolls were the simplest depiction of a female figure: a piece of cloth rolled into a rolling pin, a face carefully covered with a white linen rag, breasts made of even rag balls, a scythe, and an ordinary or festive peasant dress made of a rag.
Materials for creating dolls
Most often, doll costumes were sewn from scraps of purchased fabric - chintz and satin, red calico and calico. They, unlike homespun ones, remained expensive for the village until the beginning of the 20th century and were intended for festive clothing. The remaining scraps were stored in bags, stored on toys. And when making dolls, the pieces were carefully selected. Red rags were especially appreciated, they went to the most beautiful dolls... Red has long served as a talisman, a symbol of life and the productive force of nature.
Rag dolls, sewn from a new patch, were specially made as a gift for christenings, for the day of the angel, for the holiday, showing kindred love and care. In the old days, on the feast of the Entry of the Virgin into the Temple, when winter sledding began, small children and birthday girls were sent a “trump” sled with dolls as a gift. This responsibility lay with mother-in-law and godmothers. “Homemade” dolls were presented to relatives and friends, cementing family ties: this is also one of the evidence of their sacred significance.
In the family, for their children, dolls were usually "spun" from old rags. And not even because of poverty, but according to the ritual of blood closeness. It was believed that the worn matter kept the generic strength and, embodied in a doll, passed it on to the child, becoming a talisman. For dolls, the hems of women's shirts and aprons were most often used. It was these parts of the costume, in contact with the ground and thus absorbing its power, had the greatest sacred significance. It is noteworthy that doll shreds were always torn along a straight thread, and not cut off with scissors. It was believed that such a toy prophesied integrity to its little mistress without flaws and damage.
Often, doll clothes accurately conveyed the characteristics of local costumes. Today it will seem strange that the costume was not removed from the doll. Couldn't our ancestors have come up with such a simple thing? But they did not set themselves such a task: after all, the doll was created as an integral form. This is an important principle: a doll is not a dressing-up mannequin, but a self-valuable image. The costume organically participated in the plasticity of the toy. Its cut was simple and expressive in a puppet style. The proportions of large-headed dolls, far from nature, made the doll costume conditional, allegorical. At the same time, it was the costume that always determined the ethnic specific type in the doll, and met the realities of the game. A doll in a pink sundress could not play the role of an elderly woman, and the doll "wife" was not allowed to play the role of "bride".
Powerful symbolism of the Russian doll
For a long time, the researchers did not realize to look inside the rag doll, where, it turns out, its most important secrets are hidden.
The Russian rag doll includes several archetypes shaped by tradition. A column (column, log, chock), a cross or a sacrum, a doll on a stick, a knotted (nodular) doll, a diaper, a twist (twist, a roll, a rolling pin), a stuffed pouch doll - they all existed at the same time in the 19th - first half of the 20th century in the countryside and small provincial towns. Each type is scattered, in turn, into many local variants characteristic of a particular area.
The researchers drew attention to the fact that dolls from different regions, with all their external figurative differences, are similar in the methods of making the internal principle. We noticed a pillar-like body shape common to dolls, which was rolled up so tightly that it turned out like a sculpture made of solid material.
What archaic ideas were accumulated in the body of a rag doll?
With all ethnographic differences everywhere, the doll was a mythological formula for the world order, reflecting the very essence of the universal circulation in nature and human life. The simplest three-part figurine, pulled over the place of the neck and belted, was built according to the scheme of the triune world: heavenly (upper), earthly (middle) and underground (lower). The cross-shaped dolls also pointed to four directions of light. thus, their very design contained the universal number 7 - the symbol of the universe. Note that the everyday word “family” sounds like a spell: “I” is in the center of the universe, “I” must be repeated seven times - then there will be a family. This powerful symbolism is also encrypted in the doll.
The location of the doll in the center of the mythological model of the triune and four-sided universe was fixed by an oblique cross that tied her chest. And that means the simplest in design, the archetype of a rag doll passed from generation to generation by inheritance the code of the ancient world order, being a transitional bridge between matter and spirit, the doll combined the ideas of being and non-being, of life and death:
The swaddled, tightly twisted base (without arms and legs, without a face) resembled a deceased, an ancestor, and outwardly, the doll depicted a specific ethnic type, a woman in a folk costume. The pillar-shaped phallic shape of the rolling pin also tells us about its male symbolism, and the highlighted chest, vigorously pulled by an oblique cross, is a sign of fertility, testifies to the female essence. Death gives birth to new life, and life continues in a harmonious fusion of two natural principles, male and female - such a capacious symbolism is contained in the formula of the simplest rag doll.
Why did she remain faceless for a long time?
Mystical facelessness is also one of the ancient secrets of the rag doll. . This makes her akin to ritual figurines, most often also faceless. Family and home, the memory of ancestors, the thread of personal destiny - these values \u200b\u200b"converged white light" when the corners of a light linen rag were tied with a strong knot of linen thread, wrapping a spherical head. if such vital ideas were "walled up" in the doll's head, then it is quite logical that the face itself lost all meaning.
For a long time, the depiction of a face in a doll was prohibited in the peasant environment. The facelessness kept the doll intact, like a package. The meaning of this persistent symbolism has long been forgotten in the doll tradition. When asked why the doll does not have a face, the village women answered that she simply did not need it, that there should be no extra eyes in the house. This means that a sighted doll is dangerous for a child. After all, eyes, nose, mouth, ears, even drawn ones - there are still gates through which there is a connection with cosmic forces, light and dark, good and evil. Therefore, it is better not to open these gates, it is safer to impose a taboo on them. A doll without a face is detached from everyday life, from a living person. She is blind, deaf and dumb - in itself, in itself. Only in such a "deathly" silence can the secret of the clan, family be kept.
At the end of the 19th century, there is a noticeable desire to make the rag doll more believable. The appearance of the doll changed with the change in its function. The conventional faceless figurine lost its magical ritual role, becoming an entertaining toy bought at the fair.
The rag doll “takes on a face”, which becomes the most important element of the doll's appearance. Traditionally, the doll's face was painted with charcoal from the stove, and this indicates the connection between the toy and the hearth. We used simple, chemical and colored pencils and ink. But more often they embroidered using traditional techniques of folk embroidery, where women's faces were indicated by cross-shaped and diamond-shaped patterns. The eyes are shown with crosses or dots. Their “peepers” are empty rhombuses, “they do not see a crumb”, just like in the popular sentence “the good girl has neither ears nor eyes”. The mouth, as a rule, was embroidered with red thread with dense stitches or the traditional cross stitch ("locked"). Mouths were small: the doll did not dare to "open its mouth", was silent, "as it took water into its mouth."
With all the variety of puppet faces, they all come down with their severity and good looks. There is not a single funny, laughing doll. This reflects the connection of the toy with the cult of ancestors, as well as with the goodness of Orthodox female images that were constantly before our eyes.
At first glance, a traditional Russian doll may seem rustic to us, but as we have seen, dolls are very diverse in their purpose, in their shape, and in decorative performance. At the same time, traditional dolls do not require any complex techniques or tools for making. It is enough to have a few shabby rags, a skein of thread and a desire to create. And now a new doll appears in front of us, which, although it looks like its "sisters", is still unique and inimitable. For each person brings a particle of himself into his toy. Interestingly, the dolls of the master are often similar to himself. Recognition of human features in the Russian rag doll is its integral feature.
In a traditional doll, sacred and playful orientation coexist at the same time. The facelessness and conventionality of the appearance of the doll allowed it in ancient times to act as a ritual symbol, to participate in magic spells and mysteries.
Veps pupae
And thanks to the simple artistic and expressive means of the doll, peasant children in games with it reflected the world of adults with a high degree of authenticity. In puppet games, they reproduced the most significant events of village life: birth and death, weddings, holidays associated with seasonal changes in nature. And these were not only games for pleasure, through the doll the child mastered traditions, necessary elements of adult life, learned to work. And for the girl, the doll was also a measure of her skill.
Girls lacemakers weaving patterns. Photo beginning. XX century
Pokrovsky Yegor Arsenievich Pokrovsky Yegor Arsenievich (1834 - 1895) - an outstanding representative of Russian science, a famous Moscow pediatrician, doctor of medicine, an honorary member of the Imperial Society of Lovers of Natural Science, Anthropology and Ethnography, the founder of Russian ethnography of childhood. Thanks to his activities folk doll first became the subject of scientific and public attention in the late 1870s. He took an active part in the creation of the Anthropological Exhibition in 1879. And in the section of her exposition "Collection on initial physical education", Pokrovsky E.A. included a variety of "children's material", where among the cradles, children's clothing and toys was a folk doll, mostly rag. At this exhibition, the world of childhood appeared for the first time as a value phenomenon of folk culture. With difficulty Pokrovsky E.A. You can get to know more about “Children's games are predominantly Russian” today, in 1994 it was reissued. You can't find it on sale, but you can find it in large libraries. in his encyclopedic work "Children's games predominantly Russian" published in 1887, wrote: "<…> Dolls contribute a lot to the good direction of the child's mind and imagination, at the same time they contribute a lot to the development of his language, speech, voice, since in their games with dolls, children often speak a lot, sing, and finally, which is even more precious, helping little by little, thus , from an early age, the development of good family - moral concepts and rules,<…>it is clear that the dolls deserve full approval and encouragement. "
Peasant children. Fofonovskaya Sloboda. Beginning XX century
In the minds of our ancestors, dolls still possessed various magical properties: they could protect a person from evil forces, take upon themselves his illnesses and misfortunes, comfort in difficult times, give advice, promote a good harvest, health and well-being of members of a peasant family.
Family on a holiday. Oryol province, 1911
Dolls - talismans were carefully kept in the family, passed down from generation to generation along with traditional methods of their manufacture. There was this transmission on the female line from grandmother (mother) to granddaughter (daughter). The dolls followed the woman through her whole life, often making up a part of the dowry - mothers gave their girls' dolls to their daughters for a wedding, so that she would preserve and pass them on to new generations. So, through the careful hands of our great-grandmothers, grandmothers and mothers, the traditional Russian doll has survived to this day.
Pakhomov A.F. Granddaughter is spinning
Having come this long way from the earliest times to the present day, the image of a traditional doll inevitably changed. So at the end of the 19th century, under the influence of urban toys, male characters appeared in the puppet world. The knowledge of people gradually changed, their horizons expanded, the perception of the world became different, and the dolls began to embroider or draw faces. She has lost her facelessness.
Dolls from the exhibition "Tolerance" (in the Smolny Exhibition Hall, St. Petersburg, March 2012)
Gradually, succumbing to the influence of time, the traditional rag doll finally turned into a child's toy. And time continued to run, and man developed along with it. Along with global discoveries that qualitatively changed the life of mankind as a whole, people came up with more and more new materials for making dolls.
Photo of the beginning. XX century
At the end of the 19th century, along with handicraft workshops where dolls and other toys were made, the capital of the toy industry in Russia, Sergiev Posad, was finally formed. And Sergiev Posad masters knew how to amuse the people! Their "nursery rhymes" moved, sounded, amazed with their diversity and colors. And although at the end of the 19th century peasant children were playing with homemade rag dolls, the demand for "real" toys was great. Fathers and mothers brought young ladies and gentlemen, pups and sailors from the fair for children.
Doll "Thalia", doll "Kucherok", doll "Sailor". (Sergiev Posad)
At the same time, historians and ethnographers began to actively study the folk toy, including the rag doll. Following the works of E.A. Pokrovsky, studies appear detailing the traditional doll and playing with it. This topic received a wide response in society - local history museums began to appear throughout the country, societies of lovers of Russian culture were created by teachers and enthusiasts. Through the efforts of such societies and museums, wonderful collections of traditional dolls and toys began to form.
Basket with traditional Russian dolls (private collection)
At the end of the 20s of the XX century, psychologists of the old pre-revolutionary school and representatives of the Soviet professors in the course of their research came to the conclusion that playing with dolls fosters heart and will more than intelligence, that playing with a doll reflects the entire spectrum of the surrounding life, manifests a natural "The instinct of motherhood, which has enormous social significance." But the new Soviet ideology rejected such an understanding, declaring the doll a harmful toy, narrowing the interests of the girl, bringing up a love of “rags”, outfits, jewelry, thereby consolidating the negative habits of the bourgeois life of Galina and Maria Dine. Russian rag doll. Culture, traditions, technologies. - M .: Publishing house "Culture and Traditions", 2007, p. 115. Persecutions of local lore, ethnology began, repression of scientists, bans on their works. Museums and societies were closed. Not only the traditional rag doll, but also folk games and children's folk tales were banned.
From the point of view of the new ideology, the doll had to be ideological in content and realistic in form.
Dolls of the Minsk association "Mir" (photos from the site belkukla.by)
But, nevertheless, the Soviet toy of the new model had to rely on something in its formation. In the 1930s, large expeditions were organized to study the traditional toys of national minorities.
Figures from the 15 Union Republics set.
Against the background of a rather extensive panorama of the toys of the peoples of the USSR, the Russian folk doll occupied a more than modest place. The work of the ethnographer I.M. Levina, based on materials from expeditions to the northern regions of Russia in the 1920s. This research has become unique for many years.
For in the future, neither Soviet ethnography, nor Soviet art criticism considered the rag doll as a serious subject for research. The stamp was put on it - "does not represent artistic value". Therefore, the traditional dolls collected at the beginning of the twentieth century were gathering dust in the depositories of local history museums. As a result of such inattention, the rag doll completely disappeared from childhood by the 1970s.
Soviet dolls. 1968 year.
And it is not known how long this oblivion would have lasted, if not for the enthusiasm and interest shown in the folk toy Galina Lvovna Dain Galina Lvovna Dain (1941 -) is a candidate of art history, a recognized expert in the study of Russian toys and children's culture, author of about 250 publications. Dine's works are of valuable scientific and practical value, are used in schools and university curricula, in classes in folk houses, aesthetic centers and clubs, art schools, in folklore circles and Orthodox gymnasiums. ... She contributed to the revival and study of the traditional rag doll in Russia. In the 1970s, G.L. Dine organized her first expedition to the Yaroslavl region to study the Russian rag doll. Since then, she has not stopped her searches and research, infecting people around her and through her books with the same sincere love, genuine interest and respect for the puppet masters and their works.
G.L. Dine with her reader Elena Elagina (Taken from the sitehttp://oldtoysfactory.blogspot.com)
In the history of Russian art history G.L. Dine was the first to explore the traditional textile doll. And each of her work in this area illuminates new aspects and meanings of the traditional rag doll. The works of G.L. Dine Works With the works of G.L. Dine can be found here http://www.knigidain.ru/biblio, dedicated to the traditional Russian doll and toy, are by far the most comprehensive and thorough research on this subject. In them there is no place for speculation and fantasies, in all his conclusions G.L. Dein relies on materials collected in numerous ethnographic sources and expeditions.
Illustrations from the book of Galina and Maria Dine. Russian rag doll Culture, traditions, technologies
It was G.L. Dine was the first to formulate the thesis about the ubiquity of the rag doll in the children's life of the Russian village of the 19th and early 20th centuries, demonstrated the relationship of the artistic content and form of the rag doll with its functions, revealed the root cause of the facelessness of the traditional doll and revealed the connection between the doll's carefully marked breast and the veneration of the Great Mother (female Deities).
Faceless rag doll of the beginning of the 20th century, Smolensk province(ill. from the book of Galina and Maria Dine. Russian rag doll. Culture, traditions, technologies)
Thanks to the work of G.L. Dyne Ragdoll was returned to its status as a full-fledged work of folk art. And it is especially important that the doll has returned to life in the Russian cultural tradition. This was started by art critics and part-time employees of the Toy Museum in Sergiev Posad V. Solovyov, G. Dain, T. Perevezentseva, I. Shubenkina, M. Dine, S. Pankova, A. Kulyukina, who created the Sergievskaya Center in the late 1980s. traditional culture. Where they themselves enthusiastically began to twirl rag dolls, study the technology of its manufacture.
Master Class " Textile doll”From the artists Sergiev Posad Maria and Elena Dmitriev (October 2011, Kamyshin).
Their initiative caused a public outcry. In the post-Soviet 1990s - 2000s, practical interest in the study of a rag doll manifested itself very actively, spreading throughout the cities of different regions and regions of Russia. Clubs, circles, studios on the basis of museums, houses of folk, children and youth creativity began to open. Knowledge of traditions and craftsmanship of doll making are in demand now more than ever before.
According to the observations of G.L. Dain is engaged in rag dolls by more than 150 craftswomen in Moscow and St. Petersburg, in Arkhangelsk, Petrazavodsk and Kirov, in Izhevsk and Saransk, in Ryazan, in Cherepovets, Uglich and Yaroslavl, in Nizhny Novgorod, Yekaterinburg and Lipetsk, Chelyabinsk and Irkutsk, in the suburbs Sergiev Posad, Khotkovo, Mytishchi, Pushkin, Lytkarina.
The creative baggage of puppeteers contains over 100 basic types of dolls and about 200 different variations of them. Dollmakers You can find contacts and work of Rimma Tarasova here http://kuklakaluga.narod.ru/. They try to identify the regional features of local dolls, use authentic fabrics and finishes, display an ethnographic costume. Dogaeva, dedicated to folk toys and puppet masters, see here http://www.rukukla.ru/.
For independent work on the topic Traditional doll in the cycle of times and events
It is sometimes difficult to surprise modern children with some simple toy. But the version of a bunny on a finger always delights the children's audience. I suggest you do it.
Although the classic folk toy is made from old cotton fabrics, I suggest you grab fleece. From this material, rabbits are plush and fluffy. To make a bunny on a finger, we need: a piece of fabric (10 x 20 cm), threads, scraps of fabric / cotton wool / synthetic winterizer
1. Bend the upper left corner down
2. And then we lift this corner up.
3. At the top, we have formed 2 corners. These will be the ears of our bunny. We tie them up with a thread.
4. As a rule, knots were not made in a folk toy, but the rope was fixed with a loop. Let's try to do the same. After fastening, we do not break the thread, but, as in the case of the angel, we try to make the bunny a continuous thread.
5. Then we take a small lump of scraps of fabric or cotton wool to fill the head.
6. We tie the head with the same thread, after passing it under the fabric.
7. Now we fold the bottom of the fabric into a roll and raise it to the head
8. From the edges of the fabric we form paws and tie them all with the same thread, securing with a loop
The bunny is ready!
It took us quite a bit to make a bunny. In the Russian tradition, there are dolls that are even simpler to make. This is a Kulem doll and a doll on a spoon. Try to make them by watching the video.
