Respect for the elders among the Adygs: the emergence and transformation of the tradition

DOI: 10.33876/2311-0546/2020-52-4/210-223

Abstract

The article discusses a set of norms and rules of behavior in relation to older people, which are deeply rooted in the Adyghe society. The aim of the study is to identify the motives for the emergence of this social institution and the reasons for its transformation, as well as to study the dynamics of the tradition from the beginning to the present day. Since the author sees the origins of the institution as determined not only by morality, but also by its close relationship with the economic foundations of society, the study aims to track the changes that have occurred in the material basis of the Adygs over the past 200 years and to estimate the influence of urbanization on the norms of manifestation of respectful attitude towards the elders. The author comes to the following conclusions: up to the second half of the 19th century, the Adygs relied mainly on diversified subsistence economy, which made families face the need to have many workers in the house. The prerequisites for the institution of respect for the elders formed in conditions of complex management and land law, which was completely in the hands of the eldest man in the family (“bolshak”). The involvement in the Russian economy that followed the end of the Caucasian War, and later the October Revolution, which changed the principles of land law, limited the power of the Adyghe “bolshak”. The urbanization processes, in which the Adygs started to take part at the end of the 20th century, led to transformation of some of the traditional rules of external manifestations of respect for the elders.

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