Iron use amongst the Eastern Slavs
I am working my way through Rolf Hellebust's "Flesh to Metal: Soviet Literature & the Alchemy of Revolution" - he mentioned in passing that iron products were viewed in a negative way by the Eastern Slavic tribes, especially in relation to the dead (crosses, pins, nails in boots, etc were all removed before the body was placed in a coffin, taken to church and interred), which started me thinking about the religious architecture of the area. As my two readers know (from first-hand experience) at Kizhi, earlier Russian churches (of which there are very few remaining) were composed entirely of wood, not a single metal nail was used. Could there be a parallel between the folk beliefs about death and religion, or was it simply that the nails they could produce were unsuitable for construction? I shall investigate further.
posted by lukeski at 1:05 pm
2 Comments:
Sounds like you're onto something there. It could also be a suitably obscure PhD-thesis subject, though I think your interest in metal might wane after a while. If only it was concrete...
I've asked the Russian for an impression, and he thought it was probably just practicalities that made them go for the all-wood thing. No foundries - is that the word? - on/near Kizhi, and then I'm sure there would have been extra glory in keeping it all natural and simple. Metal might well have lowered the tone.
It seems that the Eastern Slavs had an aversion to iron, especially in relation to religion. Although houses were seemingly also constructed without the use of metal nails. And it is not just Kizhi, of course - Novgorod (if Pavlik can confirm) is a centre of wooden architecture, and wood was used for a wide range of different purposes - there is some academic tome about specifically this that passed through the shop a couple of weeks ago.
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