Magic, Monasteries, and Maslenitsa

The past while has been quite the adventure: that is for sure. I guess the highlight of the last month or

so has been Maslenitsa, but I'll save that for the end. My life over the past two weeks has been dominated by work and translation, and that's been good, I guess, but I am glad to have today as a break from it all. I decided to take my honors thesis in a new direction, so I'm now translating and analyzing Russian verbal charms, which has been a lot of fun. My analysis is based on the confluence of Christianity and paganism within these spells, which will likely be pretty apparent to you in the short charm that follows:

94. Charm against bleeding
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. There is a sea-ocean, from the sea-ocean rides out a man so old, the steed beneath him brownish-gold, but thou, blood, stop for all time. For ever and ever. Amen.

Anyway, so that's that. It's been super interesting and super difficult at times, because a lot of the terms and ideas are pretty old. The texts themselves are from the 17th century, and I would say that I know only about half to two-thirds of the words. For the rest I spend forever guessing roots and modern variants and then looking them up in one of four or five dictionaries, both print and electronic. I've had some good success so far, though, and it's honestly been a lot of fun. I like the old, magic-esque quality that they all have. It seems right up my alley in terms of interests.

Catching Up

Street art!

It has been a while since I've written, so this will likely include a lot. I think the last time I wrote, it was the day before I went in for my first day at my internship, so I guess I'll start from there. I'm working for the Gorki Institute of World Literature in their Folklore Department, and that's been a real joy so far. The Institute itself is a research branch of the Russian Academy of Science, so they really don't do much in the realm of bachelor's degress or anything like that, but they have classes for PhD students, and as I understand it, they have a good number of interns who are doing research to get their Masters degrees as well. Anyway, the people there are really nice and really experienced in their fields. The lady that we work with most closely is Yelena, and she is possibly the kindest human being I've met in Russia so far. She is super accommodating, and it seems like most the time, her objective is to help us to accomplish whatever we are working towards personally, whether that's in research, sightseeing, or anything else. She has been super helpful in getting stuff lined up for my research, and  we've been learning a ton each day about some of her interests, like Russian folk music and ritualistic traditions among various Russian groups. The first day, we got to watch and listen to some old Siberian songs, and that was a real treat. I sang some Georgian folk music last semester with some good friends, and it reminded me of that. Anyway, since then, we've been learning all about the Russian calendar, holidays, funerary traditions, and foods-- just to name a few things-- and it has really opened my mind to understanding a lot of things that were, before, a "dark forest," as the Russians put it. I am really loving the subject material, and I'm excited to get into some translation work over these next few days. We're going to be translating Russian articles into English for publication in Folklorica, a journal of Slavic literature and folklore. In any case, I am stoked.

Thoughts on the Metro

new words

are heavy on my unwilling tongue:

predubezhdéniye. 

prejudice.

taková zhízn.

"das jus' how it is."

other words come easier--

a PRAYER on my lips:

lyubóv, dobrotá.

love, kindness.

But to them i am only a color.

am i zimbabwe or cameroon?

it does not matter because

to them

i am only a color.

the moscow air is

   cold...

do they think 

that i don't feel 

it already?

sticks and stones, man,

stick and stones.

but they don't have to say 

anything

for the words in their eyes 

to hurt me.

what have i done

to deserve

THY enmity?

More from Moscow

So, first off, I realize this is obscenely long, so feel free to browse, skim, read every 17th word, or do whatever else if you get bored of my rambling. I keep this in part for others but also as a way for me to be able to remember, so it goes into more depth than it might otherwise. In any case, this has been quite the week. We have now successfully located and eaten at three shaurma stands, one of which serves shaurma like they make in Dnepropetrovsk. Let's just say the french fries are a must. Hot sauce is also a major plus. These last few days have been really amazing in a lot of different ways. I guess I'll kind of start at the beginning and see where we end up after I blah-blah for a bit. 

Wednesday, we revisited the Temple of Christ the Savior, as the others hadn't yet seen it. I was honestly thinking that I'd rather go off and see something else instead, but I figured it wouldn't hurt to see the temple again, and we'll just say I wasn't disappointed. We got there and looked around for a bit before heading downstairs to the Temple of the Transfiguration of Christ, and we got there right as an evening service was beginning. The priest/cantor stood in the middle of the room, in an area partitioned off from the rest of the hall, and he sang the prayers before the iconostasis, which is basically a veil made of icons, separating the main court of the temple from what would have been referred to as the Holy of Holies in temples of early Judeo-Christian belief. I love listening to stuff like that: Old Slavonic prayers, the Latin liturgies, the Qur'an, the Torah during synagogue-- it all really speaks to me. Though in each of these I understand only a few words every once in while, I love the feeling that I get deep inside, and I love the look on everyone's faces and how their eyes get bright as if there's some hidden light that awakens at the call of the music. There in the temple, the cantor would chant his portions of the service, and then a choir, positioned off to the side, would chime in. I think Russian church choirs are some of my favorite. They're usually only four people-- two men and two women--, but they sing so beautifully, and when I think of what heavenly choruses will sound like, that's pretty much what I envision. Anyway, I was basically a thrall to the music. I could have stayed there forever and never grown tired of listening.

Back to the Wintry East

Today was a really good day. We had our first day of class, and our instructor cracks me up. She asks us lots of funny questions, but it's doing a lot to help us in terms of our grammar and our fluidity of speech. We talked to the internship coordinator today, and apparently, I'm supposed to have an interview scheduled by the end the week-- just waiting to hear a definite time from the Gogol Institute. Anyway, in that others were occupied with interviews, tracking down lost baggage, and other similar joys, Neils and I headed out to see some sights. We stopped at the Temple of Christ the Savior first off, and it was just breathtaking. I guess even though I've heard all along that it was one of the most beautiful temples in all of Eastern Orthodoxy, I didn't really expect to be effected to such an extent as when I walked in and saw the paintings on the ceiling. You quickly begin to understand that what faithful Russian Orthodox believers feel as God there really is God, that though maybe they believe differently than we do, it doesn't change in the slightest our Heavenly Father's love for them and desire for them to come unto Him and feel the peace that comes in living a life of goodness and faith. I'm not real big on the whole idea of kissing icons and lighting candles and all that, but I really did feel 'God' today.

The Temple of Christ the Savior is apparently above the Temple of the Transfiguration of Christ, so we took a spiral staircase underground into the second temple, equally magestic though in a completely different way. The art style was really unique, and while the first had primarily saints and apostles scattered around huge depictions of Christ, God, and the heavenly hosts, the latter had a lot more of Biblical interpretations. It took us a while to really figure out what some of the stuff was, but then things would just click, and it was a really cool unifying moment where I could look at the pictures and say, "That's us, too." It's hard sometimes, I guess, because we don't revere saints or patriarchs or metropolitans (city-wide bishops) or anything like that, so it feels like our histories kind of diverge and don't really come back together much at all. But being there, seeing those things, I thought to myself, "We're really not so different at all." I have so much respect for the nuns especially that work at all of the temples, and I'm understanding more and more God's love for all of His children.