Суть розробки, основні результати:
Ukrainian traditional wedding represents the store of ancient religious and ritual views and practices. The language of the songs and rituals that belong to the wedding itself are also of high relevance for studying from either historical or cognitive point of view This study combines them both in order to illustrate complicated processes of language and culture formation that underlies the present state of Ukrainian wedding ritual. Ethnographic research of Ukrainian XIX c. ethnographer and folklorist N. Markevytch
was used as a main source for the parallels with other Indo-European traditions. It was shown that there are a range of important symbols origin of which can be traced hack to the common Indo-European stock of beliefs.
The Proto-Indo-European formula which includes designations of a son and a pig might be reconstructed from
the Ukrainian wedding text. Ancient cult of dog might also be reflected in the Ukrainian traditional wedding. Honey (Ukr. мед) in the wedding ritual has the same sacral meaning il have had in numerous other Indo-European traditions, where it also is regarded as a source of inspiration and sacral knowledge. Il was shown that other key Indo-European concepts like fame or chastity are also embodied in the language of Ukrainian wedding.
The other layer of the imagery preserved in the language of Ukrainian wedding belongs to the survivals of the social life o f Kyiv Rus. Thus, a groom is called князь (chieflain), whereas a bride is called княгиня (chieftain Is wife). The helpers of the groom are called бояри (as representatives of the highest military elite of the Kyiv Rus).Universal features of the traditional Ukrainian wedding rite are magic initiation of groom and bride, totemistic beliefs, the unknown nature of bride and the searching of her, the combination of prose and poetic components of the wedding text, the repealing o f micro-rites belonging to the wedding macro-text.
Ukrainian ballads and fairy tales also contain information about archaic ritual and language elements of the
wedding rite, especially the initiation rites.