Ivan Kupala Day in Novosibirsk: A Holiday Between “the Urban” and “the Rural”

DOI: 10.33876/2311-0546/2022-1/70-83

Abstract

The work includes a cultural and anthropological analysis of a specific Siberian custom – the celebration of Ivan Kupala’s Day in the urban space of the largest Siberian city – Novosibirsk. Finding oneself on a hot day on July 7 in Novosibirsk with a population of 1.5 million people, a stranger may think that they have become a victim of hooliganism, since they can be doused with water without any warning – in the street, in public transport, in their own car. This situation is quite natural for Novosibirsk residents since all of them are aware that “you need to pour water on Kupala.”
During forced Soviet urbanization and industrialization, the “Siberian Chicago” was flooded with the “new townspeople” – former residents of Siberian villages, who brought the rural traditions of everyday and festive culture. The author aims to understand why it was exactly the developed at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries all Siberian version of the Kupala tradition – namely, the general dousing with water and “Noch Tvorila” (the old name was “rasstashshiha”) as the night youth hooliganism on the eve of the holiday was called, that took root and further transformations, despite the multitude of popular festive traditions dearly loved by Russian people. Throughout the twentieth century, the Kupala tradition would fade and stay restricted to peers celebrating in the city courtyards, and then it would gain strength again and go beyond the courtyards to city streets and squares, and not only children and adolescents would participate in dousing and other ritual atrocities, but also people up a very mature age.
The author reflects on how the cultural tradition of the village has adapted to the urban environment, how the townspeople perceive their behavior on the day of Ivan Kupala in the metropolis. How do the holiday activities of Novosibirsk residents relate to the “village” or the “city”, and is it possible to define the Novosibirsk festive Kupala ritual as “specifically urban”?