Magical Elements in the Funeral Rite in the Zvenyhorod Region [Archival Material]. From the Archival Scientific Funds of Manuscripts and Audio-Recordings of M. Rylskyi Institute of Art Studies, Folkloristics and Ethnology of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine; it is prepared for publication by S. Yakovenko, O. Taran; abstract by O. Taran; processing of the literature lists by S. Yakovenko

Magical Elements in the Funeral Rite in the Zvenyhorod Region [Archival Material]

Abstract

Dmytro Artemovych Malomuzh (1893–?) is a collector of folklore and ethnographic materials from the Zvenyhorod Region. The scholar has been an active correspondent of the Ethnographic Commission of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences during the 1920s first as a postgraduate student at the Research Department of the History of Ukraine, and as a research fellow of the Archaeological Cabinet of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences from 1925.

Unfortunately, his “Questionnaires of the All-Ukrainian Academy of Sciences Contributor” has not been preserved. It would be possible to find out information about the author of a biographical nature. However, owing to the genealogical study of the family tree of Taras Shevchenko, whose relative is Dmytro Malomuzh, a Ph.D. in History, a research fellow of the Archival Scientific Funds of Manuscripts and Audio-Recordings (ASFMAR) of M. Rylskyi IASFE of the NAS of Ukraine, Oleksii Diedush has managed to clarify some facts of the ethnologist’s biography, those are published at the end of the submitted archival material in a separate appendix.

The circle of D. Malomuzh’s scientific interests has included rites connected with the course of funeral rituals, their origin. He has also studied the evolution and adaptive forms of individual ritual elements; the symbolism of fire, water, and earth – the elements, the worship of which was one of the main magical elements of funeral rituals.

Two his manuscripts “Magical Elements of the Funeral Rite in the Zvynohorod Region [Zvenyhorod Region]”, dated 1925, and “Magical Elements in the Funeral Rite in the Zvenyhorod Region in Comparative Light”, undated, are preserved at the Archival Scientific Funds of Manuscripts and Audio-Recordings (ASFMAR) of M. Rylskyi IASFE of the NAS of Ukraine. The manuscript of the first article has probably being prepared for publication, as it retains the editing. But it has not been published in any of the ethnological journals – “Ethnographic Bulletin”, “Life” (the official organ of the All-Ukrainian Ethnographic Society), “Bulletin of the Khv. Vovk Cabinet of Anthropology and Ethnology”, etc. because of certain circumstances beyond our knowledge.

It is a centenary in 2025 since the scholar’s manuscript has been preserving at the ASFMAR IASFE. Ukrainian and foreign ethnographers and folklorists have used D. Malomuzh’s scientific work for a long time. Currently we are giving a voice to the author with this published work.

Svitlana Yakovenko, an editor at the Australian Ukrainian Studies publishing house “Sova Books”, is responsible for clarifying foreign sources and preparing the material for publication. The English translation of the article will be published in 2026 in a collection dedicated to the traditional funeral and memorial rites of Ukrainians. She has moved the author’s page-by-page references to the sources he used, placing them in parentheses immediately after the quote, for easy reading. She has also formed a list of references, which is submitted at the end of this material, after the list of works mentioned by D. Malomuzh.

The manuscript of the article “Magical Elements in the Funeral Ritual in the Zvenyhorod Region” (folios 36) also contains a typewritten version. The total amount of the unit of issue is 66 folios. The folios 32–35, devoted to magical concepts connected with the earth, have not been preserved unfortunately. The manuscript materials contain crossed-out fragments – this is, obviously, the author’s revision, which we indicate in italics for convenience. Folklore and ethnographic materials recorded by D. Malomuzh in the village of Kerelivka (modern village of Shevchenkove in Zvenyhorod district of Cherkasy region) and neighboring villages have formed the basis for writing the article by him. The author has used a wide range of Ukrainian and foreign sources available at the time, for comparison. This fact indicates his high level of professional training.

Structurally the article consists of an introduction, an analysis of individual funeral attributes, those, in the author’s opinion, form the basis of the funeral rite and carry a magical charge, the meaning of which contemporaries can no longer explain rationally or interpret it in their own way. D. Malomuzh considers fire (light/candle), water, bread (rye), salt, icon corner (as a sacred place in the living space of the house), threshold, feathers, money, coffin, and bonds as the most typical magical elements of the funeral rite. He also includes certain rituals, such as lighting incense with potions and tearing down the ceiling to ease the onset of death, the ritual significance of the red color in the context of mourning. The author also dwells on the belief in the magical power of the dead to “stop / take away” illnesses or well-being. A significant part of D. Malomuzh’s research is dedicated to ideas about the soul and accompanying beliefs and signs.

Conclusion. Describing in detail all the above components of the funeral rite, based on extensive comparative ethnographic material, D. Malomuzh concludes about the stability of “magical” elements in the traditional burial complex of Ukrainians. Their existence “is directed against neutralizing evil forces communicating with the dead – living people. The means of neutralization are to appease the dead (his spirit), having performed all the prescribed rites and wishes of the deceased, and thus not to anger him against himself; to warn against”.  Thus, the scientific study by D. Malomuzh illustrates vividly the contemporary level of theoretical scientific searches of Ukrainian ethnologists.

Keywords

 Ethnography, funeral rites, magic, ritual, mourning, fire.

References

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