Funeral laughter as a phenomenon of a folk culture

Abstract

This article attempts to summarize the existing interpretations of the phenomenon of the funeral of laughter as an archaic element folk culture. The authors give a critical assessment of the scientific theories of the origin and functioning of the demonstrations of the funeral laughter in the social practices, so in the framework of the topic not only the funeral rituals are considered, but also Slavic holidays (Christmastide, Maslenitsa, etc.), as well as the "game in the deceased", in particular, at the wedding; i.e. a wide range of the phenomena of a peasant culture is covered, where the facts of having a funeral laughter were noticed. In opinion of the authors, the phenomenon is polyfunctional and it is not productive to restrict the interpretation by an adaptively recreational value: the psychological aspect of the review must be correlated with the sacral-mystical and onto-existential incisions of the analysis. The issue of article requires going to the primary (schematic) analysis of such key existential thing as death. The starting thesis in this text it should be recognized the following: the event and the image of death in the folk consciousness that is significantly different from the accumulations in the area of the high culture. In this context the phenomenon of the funeral laughter (in its initial meaning it was not sacrilegious as it might seem today) gives an opportunity to expand significantly the submission about the essence of the Slavs’ conception of the "life-death" cycle.