Guest Visits in the Contemporary Festive and Ritual Culture of the Chuvash People

The article examines the tradition of guest visits retpe çӳreni/ertele kaini in the contemporary festive and ritual culture of the Chuvash people using the example of rural communities – the traditional environment for the emergence and existence of their ethnic culture. The study aims to identify forms of visits and determine their role in the system of social relations of an ethnic group. The work characterizes traditional elements and innovations in the culture of hospitality, describes the main signs of change in this custom, and identifies factors of change under the influence of socio-economic factors in the – first decades of the XXI century. The article considers the guest visit as a socially conditioned phenomenon, which, in its dynamics, reflects the processes of social change. The study is based on the field material collected by the authors in 1998–2003 and 2020–2022 in the republics of Bashkortostan and Tatarstan, the Samara region, and the Republic of Chuvashia. The study shows that the traditions of visits were part of the festivals and rituals of the Chuvash people, determined the structure, spatial, temporal, and action-related characteristics, and acted as one of the effective forms of social interaction within the patronymic groups at the level of the rural community. In contemporary culture, visits and related ritual actions continue to exist in integral form or as separate elements in the Chuvash calendar ritual, forming an important part of religious and ritual practices in some rural areas. Elements of guest etiquette, the digital ritual code, the attitude towards guests as part of the ritual, the preparation of traditional dishes, etc., have been preserved. The existing practices of hosting people at home show that this form of social interaction is necessary to maintain and strengthen intra-village relationships and family ties. The change in customs is expressed more in the fact that the traditional forms are being replaced by innovations that are not ethnic in nature, that the composition of the participants, the forms of hospitality, and their characteristics are changing, and that the ritual is diminishing over time. The changes are due to the weakening (sometimes loss) of family and neighborhood ties in rural communities, the declining importance of folk festivals and rituals in public life, and the advent of modern means of communication.

guest visits, hospitality, holidays, rituals, Chuvash