THE ERZYA AND MOKSHA PLOTS ABOUT THE FAMILY
AND CONJUGAL RELATIONS OF GODS AND PEOPLE 

Elena A. Sharonova¹, Alexandr M. Sharonov², Raisia A. Kudryavtseva³*, Elena V. Kosintseva⁴, Tatyana N. Belyaeva^5
1Prof. N.P. Ogarev Mordovia State University, RUSSIA, sharon.ov@mail.ru
²Prof. Scientific Center for Socio-Economic Monitoring, RUSSIA, direktor-rri@mail.ru
³Prof. Mari State University, RUSSIA, kudsebs@rambler.ru
⁴Prof. Ob-Ugric Institute of applied researches and projects, RUSSIA
⁵Asst. Prof., Mari State University, RUSSIA, sokolova_beljaeva@mail.ru
*Corresponding author

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to study the Erzya and Moksha folklore and mythological plots about marriage brokerage, getting a bride and family creation. They are of the same importance as the narratives about the creation of the Earth and Human, as they continue the theme of creating the world, but in the household and family sphere. Their central heroes are gods and goddesses, but like grooms and brides, they are similar to people, and the wedding ceremony is held according to terrestrial customs and traditions. In the myth, the sky is identical with the earth: there are quite earthly houses, quite earthly roads along which earthly horses are galloping. The heavenly bride and groom do not differ in any way from the earthly ones. The transfer of the «earth» is explained by the fact, that people could not imagine a different environment of the gods, than the one they knew. Therefore, people similized the life of gods with the human one, excluding only a peasant labor from it. Nevertheless, the patriarchal family of the supreme god Ineshkipaz, along with obvious analogies with the patriarchal earthly family, retains all the signs of the divine family. This is expressed both in personalities and functions, performed by them. All of them are gods, personifying certain forces of nature. In marriages between people and gods, the initiative usually belongs to gods, especially to Purginepaz. Myths are characterized by a freedom to choose a spouse, which is absent in other genres of folklore – a fairy tale, an epic song, etc. They contain different household, family and social ideology: neither a bride nor a groom have freedom of choice. Marriage issues are solved by the family, following the centuries-old traditions and the established rituals, which are reasonable as they provide welfare. The main merit of the bride is her beauty. The idealization of beauty is the result of a developed aesthetic consciousness, which appeared in the society with the development of social and moral relations. The esthetics of marriage and a family rite is shown in the article through the analysis of invariant plots about courtship of the underground world god Mastorpaz to the goddess of water and love Vedyava, about Purginepaz and Vezorgo’s marriage, about Azravka’s marriage to the Purginepaz’s son Yondol, about the theft of the terrestrial girl by the god and transferring of her to the heaven, etc., through the definition of the role and the place of gods and people, through the identification of semantic structure of their key images. The research was conducted using historical, genetic, descriptive, structural and semantic methods.

Keywords: Myth, epic, folklore and mythological plots, marriage and family relations, Erzya and Moksha gods.