A <i>PRYANIK</i> AS A CULTURAL SYMBOL IN THE RUSSIAN LINGUISTIC WORLDVIEW
A pryanik in the Russian culture was not only a popular dainty, but also a ritual item. Its properties (softness, sweetness, honey and spices as ingredients) and peculiarities of its usage in rites (wedding, funeral, visiting calendar rites) largely determined its symbolic meaning, which was fixed at the linguistic level in proverbs and sayings, as well as in fiction and journalism. In the Russian linguoculture, a pryanik is a linguistic symbol of an incentive, award; advantage; benefit, good; favour, interest; prosperity; something desired, but hard to achieve; a person having certain qualities (cunning or, on the contrary, credulity, naiveness, stupidity). In the food linguocultural code of the Russian people, the pryanik is opposed to bread or porridge being indispensable foodstuff. On the contrary, its symbolic meaning includes an element of optionality, excessiveness. This is supported by a derivative pryanichny , which means ‘lavishly decorated’ or ‘too sentimental’.