Kabelid vepsa Šimjärve piirkonnas (19. sajandi lõpp, 20. sajandi algus)

In recent decades, a significant number of works have been published in Russian ethnology, devoted to the study of various forms of religiosity of the population in direct connection with certain territories in different historical periods, which has become established in science as a special concept and approach called “religious landscape”. This approach turned out to be productive in identifying the peculiarities of the spread of Orthodox traditions in a certain territory, as well as in solving modern all-Russian problems of preserving the cultural heritage of rapidly disappearing villages. The article, based on a significant set of sources, reveals the features of the topography of chapels in the cultural landscape of the Veps of Shimozerye, Lodeynopolsky district, Olonets province, at the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 20th centuries, the motives for their construction, the dedication of chapels and their functions in the parish life of Vepsian villages. Nowadays, this deserted territory with destroyed Orthodox shrines is constantly visited by tourists. During the study, the motives for the construction of chapels were identified, which provide an explanation for their placement in the cultural landscape of Shimozerye: distance from the church, vow, appearance of an icon, reconstruction on the site of a lost shrine, consecration of ancient burials of the ancestors of a given settlement. The chapels were used exclusively for church services during local holidays, and played an important role in strengthening social and kinship communications and, ultimately, uniting Vepsian villages. Their use in funeral services, in comparison with other territories, has not been identified. An analysis of the chapel dedications revealed the dominance of the names of Nicholas the Wonderworker, Elijah the Prophet, the Savior, and the Mother of God, who were considered the patrons of agriculture among the Veps. Hence, chapels as places of communication with these patrons, played an important role in ensuring the peasants’ future harvest. Single dedications to the patrons of livestock (Saints Florus and Laurus), driving livestock to the chapels, reveal another function of the chapels and the holidays associated with them – the protection of livestock. In the past, the abandoned Shimozersky region had exeptional holidays that captured the intermingling of unique folk and Christian events, for example: the baptism of the Veps of this area and the Nativity of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, lost in Russia; holiday of the harvest and the Kazan Icon of the Mother of God.