ИЗВЕСТИЯ СОИГСИ

Keywords: Ossetian ethnic religion, Wacilla, Christianity, Judaism, Tbau-khokh, Mount Tabor, Mount Sinai, Mount Carmel, Mount Zion.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the cult of one of the main Dzuars (Deities) in the Ossetian ethnoreligiuos system — Wacilla based on the ethnographic descriptions of the festive rituals belonging to the turn of the XIX‑XXth centuries. In addition to the obvious connection of the name of the holy patron of the harvest and at the same time the thunderbolt Wacilla and the eponymous holiday dedicated to him with the name and image of the biblical prophet Elijah, the study of the notes of travelers suggests a number of Abrahamic (mainly Judaism-related) traits in the ritual practice, the calendar of the holiday as well as his character. Over the past century and a half, the Ossetian ethnoreligious system has undergone significant dynamics. Most cult practices are irretrievably lost. In this regard, the ethnographic descriptions of travelers and representatives of the Ossetian intelligentsia of that period are an invaluable source, containing important fragments of the people’s religious life, as it was, probably, in the second half of the 19th — early 20th centuries. In this article, therefore, the cult of Wacilla is considered in the folk tradition within the specified time interval. The study of the Abrahamic influences in the Ossetian ethnic religion is gaining particular popularity in the light of the distribution of publications, often unscientific, in which the idea of «ethnoreligious purity» and absolute primary uniqueness is increasingly advocated. As a rule, supporters of the concept of primordial Ossetian pra-monotheism reject the possibility of borrowing. In fact, this is a denial of cultural exchange in the development of the ethnos, that with regard to so ancient nomadic people of Eurasia, which were the ancestors of modern Ossetians, given their active external interactions and wide geography of displacement, it is absolutely impossible.

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