Babchestvo in One Kostroma Area

The article focuses on the socio-cultural situation in the south of the Makaryevsky district of the Kostroma region, within the modern settlements Bolshoe Yurovo, Yurovo, Bolshye and Malye Rymy. A number of important social functions in the local community during the Soviet period (and some by today) were performed by older women — they are commonly called babushki/ molel’nye babushki. They were midwives, healers, participated in religious rituals (performed divine services in prayer houses, funeral services, baptized children), in a number of calendar and non-calendar rituals (in the spring hailing of the newlyweds, in rounds of the village to protect it from fires, etc.), and also had the authority to punish members of the community for violations. The work is based on field material collected in the named area by the Ural University Toponymic Expedition in the summer of 2023. The authors’ purpose is to describe this phenomenon, for which they propose the term babchestvo, in the form it was found by today’s local residents of the older generation, to name the possible prerequisites for its formation and the factors that supported its development. Tracing the history of the region, the authors propose a hypothesis about the possible influence of the Old Believers’ past on the functioning of the institution of babchestvo in these localities

Archaeology · Ethnology · Geography · Human settlement · Institution · Phenomenon · Prayer · Social science · Sociology · Discourse Analysis and Cultural Communication · History · Regional Socio-Economic Development Trends · Religious studies · Sociopolitical Dynamics in Russia