Horns and Legs: The Ritual of Breaking the Connection Between an Animal and Its Owner, from a Traditional Village to a Late Soviet Town
The article «Horns and Legs: The Ritual of Breaking the Connection Between an Animal and Its Owner, from a Traditional Village to a Late Soviet Town» is devoted to the study of the late Soviet and post-Soviet ritual of donating pets and plants under the guise of a symbolic purchase and sale. The authors consider modern urban concepts, according to which an animal or plant cannot be simply donated, but a symbolic payment should be made or it must be symbolically stolen (“you have to give a coin for a puppy, otherwise it will die”, “seedlings must be stolen, otherwise it will not take root”). The authors trace the historical roots and the magical logic of these ideas, show the typological and genetic similarity of this ritual of breaking ties with birth rites (wash the baby and wash the hands of the midwife) and cattle-breeding (wash the hooves of cattle) ritual actions in the traditional culture of the Eastern Slavs of the 19th century. The authors argue that Soviet and modern urban ideas about the need to make a symbolic payment for a donated animal or plant are built into the logic of donation, which was in demand in Soviet times due to the involvement of many townpeople in informal exchange practices.