ИЗВЕСТИЯ СОИГСИ

Keywords: Christianity, history of the Church, North Caucasus, Alans, Middle Ages

The main sources of information on Christianization of Alans of the North Caucasus in the early of the 10th century are the letters оf Nicholas the Mysticus, the Patriarch of Constantinople, who firstly commissioned a group of missionaries to Alania, and then a first bishop for this country. The article attempts to clarify a dating of texts included in «The Alan dossier», and to reveal semantic and historical links between them, which would help to reconstruct in more detail the history of Christianization of Alania.

Keywords: Zelenčuk epitaph, decipherment, Cyrillic alphabet, epigraphy, paleography, Alans, Khazars

The article analyses «decipherment» of the Zelenčuk epitaph based on the Cyrillic alphabet. As the result not only lack of reliable historic ground for such «decipherment» is fixed, but connection of the inscription’s symbols with the Cyrillic alphabet is categorically rejected. Explicit distortion of the inscription’s symbols, ascription to the ones the voluntary phonetic matches, absence of declared «paleographic analysis» is marked. As the author concludes, this «decipherment» must be categorically rejected as unscientific.

Keywords: Ossetians, matchmaking, son-in-law, pre-wedding gift, horse

The article discusses one of the most important elements of the Ossetian wedding ritual — a custom of donation a horse denoted as faty bækh («horse of arrow»). Research of this issue’s historiography reveals some significant uncertainties in the interpretation of the ethnographic information on faty bækh. In particular, the sources do not confirm the interpretation of faty bækh as a horse, that was given as a gift to the bride’s father. Sources analysis leads to conclusions about local specific features inherent this custom in different Ossetian societies: among Tagaurians and Alagirs the recipients of the faty bækh horse are not personified (relatives of the bride), while among the Kurtatians this gift was definitely presented to the bride’s mother.

Keywords: cross-cultural relations, North Caucasian region, hierarchy of values, ethnic culture, etiquette, militarism, dominant religious beliefs, Russian empire

The article considers the peculiarities of cross-cultural relations in the North Caucasian region over the first half of the 19th century, which was depended on the natural aerial the Caucasian ethnoses lived, type of local traditional economy, specific of historical development and dominant religious beliefs.

Keywords: agrarian question, State Duma; North Caucasus, North Caucasian deputies, reforms

The article traces the activities of the North Caucasian deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Empire for solving the agrarian issue. Having analyzed a large number of sources the author infers on the high activities of the deputies of the Duma I and II over an agricultural bill development. However the setting of the «June Third» model of representation in the Duma of the III and IV convocations led to the neglect of requirement of national representation in the empire-wide parliament, which inevitably tends to stagnation, most noticeable in the regions.

Keywords: traditional culture, ritual, sacrificial animal, age-related and gender functional, order of ritual food distribution, picture of the world, prayer

The article examines traditional Ossetian rite of sacrifice, rather widespread in nowadays. This rite is related to the main grounds of the traditional culture, picture of worldview of Ossets’ ancestors. Despite of prohibitive practices of the Russian and then the Soviet system the ancient rite never ceased its existence. It carries out for religious celebrations, family and community ceremonial life, in the course of all important events. At the same time the rite of sacrifice is become overgrown with completely wrong interpretations, falsifications, fantasias, perverting its initial meaning. The article attempts to reconstruct an initial layer of the rite, explain the origin of more recent strata and their senses, understand the phenomenon of its «longevity», and determine perspectives in developing society.

Keywords: Ingushs, the custom of blood feud, avengers, elders, reconciling commission, forgiveness, adat, sharia

The article is devoted to the feud in the Republic of Ingushetia, the forms and methods of authorities’ control, the clergy and the sociality with this custom in the 20th century. The role of the reconciling commission in regularization of the conflicting parties’ relationships is examined, the necessity of forming a new concept of extrajudicial, alternative practices for resolving legal conflicts in traditional societies is argued.

Keywords: Iranian languages, Ossetian, Persian, declension of nouns

The history of developing and spreading of the Iranian languages takes a special place in Iranian studies. One of the interest languages of Iranian group is Ossetian. Ossetian language evolution is differed in many aspects from the development history of the other Iranian languages, as Ossetian was early segregated from the other languages of its own linguistic group. One of interest grammar categories in Ossetian is declension, the forming of which still produces a lot of discussions and opinions. This article offers a comparison analysis of declension of nouns in the Ossetian and Iranian languages in synchronic and diachronic aspects.

Keywords: Ossetian dialectology, patois of the modern Ossetian language, interdialect corresponding phenomena

This article presents some results of dialectological research in the modern Ossetian language sphere. The study examines interdialect corresponding phenomena, which are the one of main categories of a method of describing dialect systems as the variants of the same system. This article attempts to apply this approach for studuing the patois and dialects of the Ossetian language.

Keywords: poet, poem, theme, lyrical hero, poetic image

The article analyzes the poems of Ossetian writer Akhshar Kodzati that reflect the spiritual quest of the poet, his desire to find the meaning of life. The author identifies the folk origins of the poems with the topic mentioned in the title of the article.

Keywords: Nart epos, Acamaz, wæjyg (giant), ældar (duke), «external soul», enemy’s weapon, chthonic being

The article deals with the Acamaz’s epic enemies in the Ossetian Nart sagas. A special attention is given to the motive of «external soul», which is found in different peoples’ folklore, and the motive of destruction of the enemy with his own weapon, specific for chthonic beings. The author concludes that the Ossetian wæjygs are chthonic giants, reflecting the previous stage of the earth’s population. Many-headed giants are autochthons and «owners of places», that’s why they are landlords, but the Narts are aliens, who fight against these giants and make the conquered territory more civilized.

Keywords: brownie, Ossets, religious and mythological believes, lower mythology, demonology, demons, brownie, home spirits, Goddess of fertility, Goddess of hearth and home

The brownie image is widely spread in the religious and mythological believes of the many peoples. Although brownie is termed differently by the different peoples, he is the same spirit — invisible home spirit inhabiting at home together with householders. The Christianity and Islam had a great affect on the brownie image, but nevertheless they could not essentially exerting on attitude of the people towards this character, in spite of interpretation of brownie by both religions as a demonic power. In Ossetian folklore the brownie image stands apart from its North Caucasian fellows, despite of similar subjects, motives, and elements.

Keywords: Boris Vasilyevich Skitsky, research and teaching activities, history and culture of Ossetia, conception of the history of feudalism in Ossetia

The article examines the main stages of the life and work of an outstanding scientist, pedagogue and public figure Boris Vasilyevich Skitsky, the 130th anniversary since the birth of which the scientific community celebrated in 2014. Special attention is paid to the analysis of his scientific heritage, the author’s conception of genesis and development of feudalism in Ossetia. The author emphasizes the great contribution of the scientist to the Ossetian culture.

In 1914 the World War I was begun it was decided to form the Caucasian cavalry division more known as “Wild Division”. The Kabardian cavalry regiment also entered the division. Its composition was international: Kabardians, Balkarians, Russians, Ukranians, Belorussians, Ossetians, Polishes, Tatarians, Armenians, Georgians were presented in it. The authors publish the materials from the funds of the Kabardino-Balkarian Central State Archive, which contain information on war events, heroic actions of всадников of the Kabardian cavalry regiment. The big part of published documents is turn into scientific using at the first time.

The authors present the materials on requisitioning of church values in North Ossetia in 1922, enlightening the details of this process and demonstrating the inimical attitude of the local population towards this campaign. All this documents are published firstly.

The author review the B. Tuaeva’s monograph, presented the processes of forming and evolution the Caucasian cities and city estates in the second half of the 19th – the beginning of the 20th century. The reviewer concludes that research of urbanizing processes, as well as the cities and the city estates, the results of which are reflected in the book, must add essentially the history of the Russian-Caucasian interaction and help to recognize the social and cultural processes in the studying period.

SOKAEVA D.V., AND OTHERS. THE REPORT ON THE 2015 NOIHSS EXPEDITION (ETHNOGRAPHY, FOLKLORE, LANGUAGE) TO TURKEY

The collective of the scientists of NOIHSS presents the result of the scientific expedition to Turkey in summer 2015. Some important observation on the social and cultural peculiarities of Turkish Ossetians’ daily life was done. The group members working in ethnographic, folklore and linguistic directions spotted the features of national identity of Turkish Ossetians conserved in another culture.