The population of modern Europe abroad is characterized by high homogeneity in terms of national composition. The main part of the peoples living here represents the Indo-European language group. But the real ethnic composition of the region is quite complex, so interethnic relations are often aggravated here.

general characteristics

The population of this region is estimated at approximately 700 million people. The indigenous peoples of Foreign Europe represent the Caucasoid race. But over the years, due to the action of many factors, representatives of other nationalities actively moved here.

Experts number about 60 nationalities in the region, so the map of the peoples of Foreign Europe is diverse. Both historical and natural factors have played a role in shaping this diversity. In any case, on the flat territory, the residence of large national groups was very convenient.

The most diverse ethnic composition is characteristic of the Alps and the Balkans, where mountainous and rugged zones predominate.

The French people formed on the territory of the Paris Basin. The Germans chose the North German Plain as their main region.

Rice. 1. Family in national German costumes

Major linguistic populations

On the territory of modern Foreign Europe there are many different states. Most of them belong to a single-ethnic group, when the state border coincides with the historically formed ethnic one.

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Among the most famous multinational states are Spain, Belgium, Serbia, Great Britain and Belgium.

The corresponding table shows that many European peoples speak languages ​​\u200b\u200bfrom the Indo-European family.

Indo-European includes the following language groups:

• german (represented by English, Norwegian, German and Danish);
• Celtic (Irish);
• Romanskaya (French, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian);
• Baltic (Latvian, Lithuanian).

Slavic languages ​​are also popular in the region. They are divided into:

• Oriental - Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian;
• Southern - Serbian, Slovenian;
• Western - Czech and Polish.

On the territory of modern Foreign Europe there are people who speak such unique languages ​​as Finnish, Greek, Albanian. They are very different from the traditional dialect for Europe.

Rice. 2 Map of the peoples of foreign Europe

Today in Europe, most of the population is fluent in German. It is the main one for the six states of this region and is the state not only for Germany.

Formation of the ethnic composition

The ethnic composition of the European population was formed under the influence of many factors. But the main role was played by migrations that covered this territory in the period from the 16th to the 20th century. This was mainly due to the influence of politics.

So, massively people began to emigrate to European territory because of the revolution that happened in 1917 in Russia. Then more than two million people changed their original place of residence. Since that time, almost every European country has a Russian diaspora.

Rice. 3 International students

In the earlier period, the population changed their place of residence due to destructive wars. Due to the constant hostilities on the territory of a particular country, the gene pool of modern Europe is very fragmented and multinational.

What have we learned?

Representatives of various nationalities of the world live in modern Foreign Europe. The diversity of the languages ​​of foreign Europe makes it related to belonging to a single language family - Indo-European.

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Foreign Europe includes the territory of Europe to the west of the borders of the Russian Federation with a total area of ​​about 6 million square meters. km. The geographical zonality of Foreign Europe is determined by a combination of wide lowlands (the eastern part of the East European Plain, the Central European, Lower and Middle Danube Plains, the Paris Basin) and a number of mountain ranges (Alps, Balkans, Carpathians, Apennines, Pyrenees, Scandinavian mountains). The coastline is heavily indented, has a large number of bays, convenient for navigation. Many rivers flow through the region, the longest of which are the Danube, Dnieper, Rhine, Elbe, Vistula, Western Dvina (Daugava), Loire. For most of Europe abroad, a temperate climate is characteristic, for southern Europe - Mediterranean, for the far north - subarctic and arctic.

The vast majority of the population of modern Europe speaks the languages ​​of the Indo-European family. The period of existence of a common Indo-European language dates back to the 5th-4th millennium BC. At the end of this period, the migration of their speakers and the formation of separate Indo-European languages ​​began. The geographical localization of the ancestral home of the Indo-Europeans has not been precisely established. Various hypotheses place it on the Balkan Peninsula, Asia Minor, in the Black Sea region. In the II-I millennium BC. Indo-European languages ​​spread throughout Europe, but as early as the 1st millennium BC. peoples of non-Indo-European origin were preserved: the Etruscans in Italy, the Iberians in the Iberian Peninsula, etc. Currently, only the Basques living in northern Spain and the adjacent regions of France are native speakers of a language dating back to the pre-Indo-European era and not related to any other modern languages.

In the course of settling across Europe, separate groups of languages ​​​​of the Indo-European family were formed: Romance, Germanic, Slavic, Celtic, Greek, Albanian, Baltic, and also the Thracian, which does not exist now.

Romance languages ​​go back to Latin, which spread in the first centuries of our era on the territory of the Roman Empire. They are spoken by such numerous peoples of the south-west and west of Foreign Europe as the French (there are 54 million people in Foreign Europe), Italians (53 million people), Spaniards (40 million people), Portuguese (12 million people) . The Romance group includes the languages ​​of the Walloons of Belgium, the Corsicans inhabiting the island of Corsica, which is part of France, the Catalans and Galicians of Spain, the Sardinians of the Italian island of Sardinia (in a number of classifications they are considered as a group of Italians), Romansh (Friuls, Ladins and Romanches) in northeastern Italy and southern Switzerland, Franco-Swiss, Italian-Swiss, San-Marines, Andorrans, Monaco (Monegasques). The Eastern Romance subgroup includes the languages ​​of the Romanians, Moldavians, as well as the Aromanians, who live dispersed in the countries of the Balkan Peninsula.

The languages ​​of the Germanic group are common in Central Europe, where the Germans live (more than 75 million people). German is also spoken by Austrians, German-Swiss, Liechtensteiners. In Northern Europe, the peoples of the German group include the Swedes (about 8 million people), Danes, Norwegians, Icelanders, Faroese; in the British Isles - the British (45 million people), the Scots - a people of Celtic origin, who have now switched to English, as well as the Ulsters - the descendants of immigrants to Ulster from England and Scotland; in the Benelux countries - the Dutch (13 million people), the Flemings (they live in Belgium and the adjacent regions of France and the Netherlands), the Frisians (they live in the north of the Netherlands), the Luxembourgers. Until the Second World War, a significant part of European Jews spoke Yiddish, which was formed on the basis of German dialects. At present, the Hebrew language of the Semitic group of the Afroasian family is widespread among the Jews. In addition, in everyday life they communicate in the languages ​​of those peoples among whom they live.

The peoples of Central, South-Eastern and Eastern Europe speak the languages ​​of the Slavic group. The languages ​​of Ukrainians (43 million people) and Belarusians (10 million people) together with Russian form an East Slavic subgroup; Poles (38 million people), Czechs, Slovaks and Lusatians of East Germany - West Slavic; Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Montenegrins, Slovenes, Bulgarians, Macedonians - South Slavic.

The languages ​​of the Celtic group, in the 1st millennium BC. widespread in Europe, survived in the British Isles, where the Irish, Welsh and Gaels (Northern Scots who did not switch to English) live. The language of the Bretons, the population of the Brittany Peninsula (France), is also Celtic.

The Baltic group includes the languages ​​​​of Lithuanians and Latvians, the Greek - Greeks, Albanian - Albanians. The language of European gypsies, whose ancestors migrated to Europe from Asia, belongs to the Indo-Aryan group of the Indo-European family.

Along with the Indo-Europeans, peoples living in foreign Europe speak the languages ​​of the Finno-Ugric group of the Uralic language family. These are the Finns (about 5 million people), Estonians (1 million people), the Saami, whose ancestors penetrated from the east into the Baltic Sea region in the 2nd millennium BC, as well as the Hungarians (12 million people) - the descendants of nomads who settled at the end of the ninth century. on the Danube lowland. Turks, Tatars, Gagauz, Karaites, whose languages ​​belong to the Turkic group of the Altaic language family, live in South-Eastern and Eastern Europe. The language of the Maltese (more than 350 thousand people), formed under the influence of Arabic, belongs to the Semitic group of the Afroasian language family.

The population of foreign Europe belongs to the large Caucasoid race, within the boundaries of which it forms the Atlanto-Baltic, White Sea-Baltic, Central European, Indo-Mediterranean, Balkan-Caucasian small races.

Economy. The peoples of Foreign Europe belong to the HKT of arable farmers. In the mountainous zone on small plots of land until the 20th century. preserved elements of manual farming. For example, the Basques used to loosen the earth the Laya tool dating back to the Neolithic era, which consisted of two sharp rods mounted on a wooden handle.

The Apennine and Pyrenean Peninsulas were characterized by a light, wheelless plow of the Roman (Italian) type, suitable for cultivating stony, infertile soils. To the north, a heavy asymmetrical plow with a wheeled front was common, which dates back to the Celtic cultural tradition. The peoples of Eastern Europe and the Balkan Peninsula used the Slavic plow with a skid. Archaic arable tools survived longer in this zone. The peoples of the Balkan Peninsula in the XIX century. used a light ralo with a symmetrical plowshare, which, unlike the later plow, did not have a wheeled plow and a blade.

In the Middle Ages, European agriculture was characterized by two-field and three-field crop rotations, and for the forest areas of Eastern and Northern Europe with a low population density, also slash-and-burn agriculture, which persisted in Finland until the beginning of the 20th century.

In the XVIII-XIX centuries. In Europe, there was an industrial revolution that affected agricultural production. The centers for the invention and implementation of new agricultural technologies and tools during this period were England and Flanders, whose economy was distinguished by the early development of capitalist relations. Here in the middle of the XVIII century. they began to use a light Brabant (Norfolk) plow, which increased the depth of plowing and reduced the number of weeds on the field, agronomic knowledge developed, multi-field crop rotation systems were introduced, which were subsequently introduced and improved in other European countries.

Traditionally in Europe, cereals were grown (wheat, barley, oats, in cooler areas - rye), legumes, vegetables, root crops (turnips, rutabaga). In the XVI-XIX centuries. there was an introduction of new crops, including corn, potatoes, tobacco, and sugar beets imported from the New World.

Currently, grain farming is developed in the southern part of Foreign Europe, including Ukraine. In the more northern zone, agriculture is focused on growing potatoes and vegetables.

Favorable for agriculture are the climatic conditions of Southern Europe, where olives, citrus fruits, rice are cultivated, which appeared in Spain and Italy under the influence of the Arabs, and on the Balkan Peninsula - the Turks. Viticulture and related winemaking have long been developed here. The culture of grapes has become widespread among European peoples and is grown in the north as far as Germany and the Czech Republic, and in small quantities even in England.

Among the peoples of Northern Europe - Icelanders, Norwegians, Swedes, Finns - agriculture was of less importance due to the harsh climate and infertile soils. Animal husbandry, fishing, and various crafts played an important role in the economy of this region.

Animal husbandry (breeding of cattle, sheep, goats, horses, pigs) is practiced throughout Europe. It is most significant in mountainous regions inconvenient for agriculture (Alps, Carpathians, Apennines, Balkans). Transhumance with a vertical transhumance of the herd with a change of two or three pastures per season was the main occupation of some groups of the population of the Alpine zone, where cattle were bred, as well as the Polish Gorals engaged in sheep breeding in the Beskids, the Moravian Vlachs of the Czech Republic, the Transylvanian Hungarians, the Aromanians of the Balkan Mountains.

In a number of cases, the predominant development of animal husbandry was determined by commercial gain: meat and dairy animal husbandry in Denmark and North-West Germany; sheep breeding in England, where sheep's wool became an important export. Sheep breeding has acquired particular importance in the Faroe Islands, whose climate is extremely unfavorable for agriculture.

Fishing was of the greatest importance for the inhabitants of the Atlantic coast. The Portuguese, Galicians, Basques caught cod, sardines, anchovies. The main object of fishing for Dutch fishermen was herring. The peoples of Northern Europe - Norwegians, Icelanders, Faroese, Danes have long practiced sea fishing (fishing for cod and herring) and whaling. In particular, the Faroese fished for the pilot whale, a whale whose migration routes pass by the Faroe Islands.

The Finns developed lake and river fishing, as well as hunting. The northernmost people of Foreign Europe - the Saami - were engaged in reindeer herding, hunting and fishing.

The dwelling depended on climatic conditions and the availability of building material. Due to the fact that forests have been cut down in many parts of foreign Europe, frame structures of houses and brick buildings have spread here. The tree is widely used in construction up to the present time in Scandinavia, Finland, the Baltic states, Belarus.

The southern part of Foreign Europe is characterized by the South European type of house, which developed from a room with a hearth, and subsequently additional residential and utility rooms were attached to it. A South European house can be one-story or have several floors. Its most common variant - the Mediterranean house consists of two floors, the lower of which is economic, the upper one is residential. The house is distributed throughout the Mediterranean from Portugal to Turkey. Houses were built of brick and stone, on the Balkan Peninsula, up to deforestation, they also used log construction. The estate (house and adjoining outbuildings) often had a plan of a closed quadrangle with an open courtyard. The yard could have economic functions (the Italians of the Alpine zone kept cattle in such a yard) or was a place of rest (the Spaniards of Andalusia).

The Albanians, along with the Mediterranean houses, had residential stone towers - "kuls" (square or rectangular in plan), which also had a defensive function.

In Central and Southern Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Northern France, a house of the Western Central European type is common. Initially, this house consisted of a middle room with a hearth and a bread oven (a door led into it from the street) and two side rooms. Subsequently, the number of rooms increased, utility rooms were attached to the house, forming a verb-like or resting courtyard. One-story (France, Belgium) and two-story (Germany) variants of this type are known.

Northern Germany, the Netherlands, Alsace and Lorraine are characterized by a house of the northern European type, which developed from a single-chamber building with a gate in a narrow wall. The main part of it was occupied by a threshing floor, along the side walls there were stalls for cattle, and at the wall opposite the gate there was a residential part with a hearth. Later, a wall appeared that separated the utility room from the residential one, although back in the 17th century. met at home without such a wall. The same type of house was brought to modern England by the ancestors of the English - the Angles and Saxons, who moved to the British Isles in the 6th century. When agriculture in England lost its importance, the threshing floor turned into a hall - a spacious front hall.

In Germany, the construction of houses of frame construction, known by the German term "half-timbered". In such buildings, the supporting base is sections of dark wooden beams, visible from the outside of the house. The space between the beams is filled with adobe or brick, then plastered and whitewashed.

Half-timbered construction is also used in the construction of houses of the Western Central European type.

The dwelling of the Western and Eastern Slavs, part of the Austrians, Hungarians belongs to the Eastern Central European type. Its basis was a single-chamber building of a log or pillar structure with a hearth or stove (hut / hut). The entrance was through a cold extension (canopy). Since the 19th century a cage-chamber was attached to the dwelling, which in the past was an independent building. As a result, the dwelling acquired the following layout: hut - canopy - hut (chamber). The hearth and the mouth of the stove were transferred to the canopy, the body of which was in the hut, thereby becoming warm and turning into a kitchen. Log buildings are more ancient. In the Czech tradition, the gaps between the logs were plugged with moss and covered with clay, which was painted in various colors. Sometimes the walls of the log house were completely whitewashed. From the 16th century in Western Poland, the Czech Republic, under German influence, the frame technique (half-timbered) spread.

Finland, northern Sweden, northern Norway were characterized by the northern Scandinavian type of dwelling - a log building with a gable roof, consisting of a living room with a stove, a clean room and a cold canopy between them. The house was sheathed with boards, which were usually painted in dark colors.

Southern Sweden, southern Norway and Denmark were dominated by southern Scandinavian type houses, which consisted of a middle dwelling with an oven and a hearth (in Denmark only with a stove) and two rooms on the sides. The frame (cellular) technique, similar to the German fachwerk, prevailed.

The northern and southern Scandinavian types were characterized by a closed type of courtyard, in the southern zone - also resting or with a free arrangement of buildings. In Finland, Northern Sweden and Norway, there were two-story log cabins and barns. In Finland, the obligatory construction of the estate was a bathhouse (sauna).

The original types of dwellings were formed among the peoples living in mountainous conditions, where there was a need to combine residential and utility premises in a small area of ​​​​the area. In the Alpine mountains, the area of ​​residence of the Bavarian Germans, Austrians, and the peoples of Switzerland, such, for example, is the Alpine type of house - a huge two- (or three) storey building with a gable roof, combining residential and utility rooms. The lower floor was usually built of stone, the upper ones - of logs (as an option, they had a frame structure). Along the facade wall at the level of the second floor, a gallery with wooden railings was arranged, which was used for drying hay. The Basques of the Pyrenees are characterized by a special type - the Basque house. This is a massive two- or three-story square building with a gable sloping roof and a gate in the front wall. In ancient times, such a house was built from logs, from the 15th century. - made of stone.

Cloth. The common elements of the complex of men's clothing of the peoples of Foreign Europe were a tunic-shaped shirt, trousers, a belt, and a sleeveless jacket. Until the middle of the XIX century. among the peoples of the Western part of Europe, the trousers were narrow, slightly below the knee length, they were worn with short stockings or leggings. In the 19th century pants of a modern cut and length spread. The modern costume of the peoples of Europe has absorbed many elements of the English clothing of the 19th century: jackets, tuxedos, raincoats of modern cut, galoshes, rain umbrellas.

The costumes of the inhabitants of some mountainous regions were original. Such, for example, is the typical Tyrolean costume for the inhabitants of the Alps - Austrians, Germans, German-Swiss, which included a white shirt with a turn-down collar, short leather trousers with suspenders, a cloth sleeveless jacket, a wide leather belt, stockings to the knees, shoes, a hat with narrow brim and pen.

The components of the men's costume of the Highlanders were a checkered skirt (kilt) knee-length, a beret and a plaid of the same color, a white shirt, and a jacket. The colors of the kilt corresponded to the clan, although not all lowland clans had their own colors in the past.

Albanians and Greeks also wore white men's skirts (fustanella), but they were worn over trousers.

Men's headwear was hats, the shape of which depended on the current fashion, in the Mediterranean - also caps. In the 19th century soft caps with a visor spread in Europe. The ethno-specific headdress of the Basques was the beret.

A typical women's costume consisted of a shirt, skirt, sleeveless jacket. The clothes of the Protestant peoples in most cases were distinguished by darker tones.

Archaic versions of women's clothing survived in the 19th century. in Eastern Finland: over a tunic-shaped shirt with embroidery, two unsewn panels were worn, held on shoulder straps. Among the Bulgarians there was a piece of woolen fabric replacing the skirt, fitting a tunic-shaped shirt below the waist; among the northern Albanians - the so-called "jublet", which consisted of a bell-shaped skirt and a corsage, sleeves and shoulder pads worn separately, the joints of which were decorated with fringe.

In some areas of foreign Europe there were sundresses. They were worn in Norway, Eastern Finland, Belarus, Southern Bulgaria. Shoulder scarves were popular. In particular, on the Iberian Peninsula they wore colorful shawls - mantillas. Caps served as headdresses, which could be decorated with lace. In the German tradition, women's hats were also common.

Men's and women's shoes for most peoples were leather. In France, Belgium, the Netherlands, they also wore cheap wooden shoes, Belarusians were known for bast shoes.

The Muslims of the Balkan Peninsula had specific elements of clothing: for women - harem pants, over which they put on a skirt, for men - a fez - a red headdress in the form of a cylinder without brim, originally common among the Turks.

Of course, clothes depended on the climate. Thus, the men's and women's costumes of the peoples of Northern Europe included a variety of woolen knitted items, outerwear made from fur.

Food. Among the peoples of foreign Europe, bread (both unleavened and sour) made from wheat, rye, corn flour, porridge, and various dough products was widespread. For example, for Italian cuisine, pizza is typical - a type of open pie, pasta - various pasta, for Czech - bread dumplings (pieces of soaked white bread that are served as a side dish). In modern times, potato dishes have become widespread. The potato occupied a large place in the cuisine of the Irish, the peoples of the Baltic states, and the Eastern Slavs.

Soups and stews, which were especially diverse in Eastern Europe (borscht among Ukrainians, cabbage soup and borscht among Belarusians). Meat dishes were prepared from pork, beef, lamb, and the Icelanders - also from horse meat. The manufacture of sausages, sausages, smoking hams was practiced. The French, along with various types of meat (including rabbit and pigeon), ate frogs, snails, and oysters. Among Muslim peoples, pork is a taboo meat. A typical dish of Muslims of the Balkan Peninsula was pilaf with lamb.

For the inhabitants of the sea and ocean coasts, fish dishes are typical - fried or boiled sardines and cod with potatoes from the Portuguese, herring from the Dutch, fried fish with french fries from the British.

Cheese making is practiced in the culture of many peoples of Europe. A wide variety of cheese varieties exist in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Germany. in Switzerland at the beginning of the 20th century. processed cheese was invented. Cheese dishes include fondue (a hot cheese dish with wine, common in Switzerland and French Savoy), onion soup with cheese (from the French). The Slavic peoples know various ways of fermenting milk, the inhabitants of the Balkan Peninsula prepare cheese from sheep's milk - feta cheese.

For most peoples, the main non-alcoholic drink is coffee. Tea is popular among the peoples of the British Isles and Eastern Slavs. A variety of alcoholic drinks of European peoples. Beer is known everywhere, the most famous varieties are produced in the Czech Republic, Germany, Belgium and the British Isles. Cider, a low-alcohol drink made from apples, was popular among the Basques and Bretons. Wine is consumed in large quantities in the viticulture zone. Grape and fruit brandies are also known (for example, slivovitz among the Western Slavs), grain vodka. Whiskey is produced in the British Isles - a strong drink based on barley, as well as gin - juniper vodka, also popular with the Dutch.

Islam does not allow the use of alcoholic beverages, so the celebratory ritual drink of Muslims is coffee.

Religion. Most of the peoples of Foreign Europe profess Christianity, which is divided into several directions.

Catholicism is practiced by the Irish, the peoples of the Iberian and Apennine Peninsulas (Spaniards, Catalans, Portuguese, Galicians, Basques, Italians), France, Belgium (Walloons and Flemings), Austria, Germans of southern and western Germany, Austrians, part of the population of Switzerland, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Slovenes, Croats, some Albanians.

Protestantism is spread mainly in the northern part of Europe. Lutherans are the peoples of Finland and Scandinavia, the Germans of the east of Germany; Calvinists - Franco-Swiss, part of the German-Swiss, Dutch, part of the Hungarians, Scots; Anglicans - the British and the Welsh (the latter also have small Protestant churches, in particular, Methodism).

Orthodoxy is characteristic of Southeastern and Eastern Europe. This branch of Christianity is professed by Ukrainians, Belarusians, Greeks, Bulgarians, Macedonians, Serbs, Montenegrins, Romanians, Aromans, Gagauz, part of the Albanians.

Islam spread in the Balkan Peninsula and in the Crimea during the entry of this territory into the Ottoman Empire. Turks, Crimean Tatars, Bosnians, some Albanians, Nomaks Bulgarians are Sunni Muslims, some Albanians are Shiites belonging to the Bektashi tariqa. Jews and Karaites profess Judaism. Among the Saami of Europe Abroad, who belong to the Lutheran Church, traditional animistic beliefs have also been preserved.

Calendar ritual. The traditional customs and rituals of the peoples of Foreign Europe have a typological similarity, since historically they were closely connected with general agricultural occupations. Pagan rituals partly survived into the Christian era. Having lost their former meaning, they turned out to be included in the rituals of the Christian holiday calendar, or they existed in parallel with the church tradition. Catholicism and Orthodoxy were more loyal to the remnants of paganism. In contrast, the Protestant churches that arose in the 16th century. and those who fought for the renewal and purification of Christianity showed intolerance towards them. For this reason, archaic customs and rituals are less pronounced in the culture of Protestant peoples.

For many peoples - Catholics and Protestants - St. Martin's Day (November 11) was considered the beginning of the winter season. By this day, agricultural work was completed, cattle were brought from mountain pastures. Meals were arranged, the obligatory dish of which for many peoples was a fried goose. In the wine-growing regions, for example, among the Spaniards, Italians, Croats, there was a tasting of young wine, pouring it from vats into barrels.

In the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, the Czech Republic, St. Nicholas Day (December 6) was a popular folk holiday. Saint Nicholas was represented as a man with a long gray beard, in the white robes of a bishop. He rode on a horse or a donkey with a bag of gifts on his back and rods in his hand for naughty children. During the Reformation period, the Protestants, who rejected the cult of saints, transferred the giving of gifts to Christmas, and St. Nicholas was replaced by other characters: the Christ child or, in the German tradition, the Christmas man ( Weihnachtsmann ). Processions of mummers on the eve of St. Nicholas Day have been preserved in the cities of the Netherlands.

An important holiday was Christmas (December 25). Catholics have a tradition of arranging models of a manger in which, according to the biblical legend, Jesus Christ was born. Clay or porcelain figurines of the Virgin Mary, Joseph, the baby Christ and other biblical characters were placed in the Christmas manger. On the evening of Christmas Eve (December 24), a meal was held in the house, before which a ritual of lighting a Christmas log was performed. The head of the family put a large log in the hearth, which was supposed to smolder as long as possible, sometimes, like the Italians, for twelve days - this was the name of the period from Christmas to Epiphany, corresponding to the Russian Christmas time. The coals and firebrands of the Christmas log were credited with miraculous powers.

In the 19th century throughout Europe, the custom of decorating the Christmas tree, originally known in southwestern Germany, spread.

The Poles, Czechs, and Slovaks had beliefs about the first guest (polyaznik) associated with Christmas. The well-being of the family in the next year depended on the personality of the visitor, so the poznik was often chosen from among respected men, his function included performing ritual actions: for example, in Poland, the poznik, entering the hut, sat down and clucked, depicting a chicken. Well-being was also symbolized by the sheaves that the Western Slavs brought to the house on Christmas Eve.

During the twelve-day period in all countries of Europe, groups of children went home, sang songs, practiced fortune-telling. The festivities ended on the feast of the Epiphany (January 6), known in folk tradition as the Day of the Three Kings - the biblical Magi who saw the Star of Bethlehem and came with gifts to baby Jesus. There were processions in which the masks of the three kings (Melchior, Gaspar, Balthazar) took part, who were presented in pseudo-Oriental costumes embroidered with stars.

The Carnival holiday, celebrated for several days before Lent, was very popular - in German this holiday is called fastnacht ("Lenten night", meaning the night before Lent). Carnival is characterized by abundant fatty foods, flour products. The symbol of the holiday was a scarecrow of a big fat man, whom the Spaniards called Don Carnaval, the Italians - the King of Carnival, the Poles - Bacchus. At the end of the festivities, the effigy was burned at the stake. During the days of the Carnival, there were processions of mummers, who put on masks of animals, evil spirits, dressed in clothes of the opposite sex. In the cities of Europe, carnival processions spread in the Middle Ages. Then they had a clear regulation, representatives of craft workshops took part in them. In the past, the holiday also included ceremonial activities aimed at ensuring a good harvest, such as symbolic plowing. Protestant churches since the 16th century. successfully fought against carnival traditions, considering them a manifestation of paganism. So, among the peoples of Scandinavia, professing Lutheranism, only some games were preserved, the custom of baking special buns and cakes. In modern Europe, the most famous urban carnival processions in Cologne (German Catholics) and Venice (Italians).

After Carnival, Great Lent began, lasting seven weeks until Easter. A common Christian tradition is the dyeing of eggs. For many peoples, a lamb roast is prepared for Easter, symbolizing the Lamb of God - Jesus Christ. In German culture, Easter has acquired the features of a children's holiday. There was a custom to hide colored eggs in the garden or in the house. If a child found a red egg first, it promised happiness, blue - misfortune. It was said that these eggs are brought to children by hares - animals associated in the popular mind with fertility, fertility and wealth, which have become one of the symbols of the German Easter celebration.

May Day (May 1) was associated with the onset of the warm season of the year and summer greenery. On the eve of the holiday, a May tree (a real tree dug with roots or a decorated pole) was installed at the site of youth festivities. During the competition, they chose the May king and queen - the most dexterous guy and the most beautiful girl, who led the festive procession. The houses were decorated with flowers. In France, the symbol of May 1 is lilies of the valley, which are usually given to girls. The Germanic peoples had ideas about the special danger of witches who flock to the Sabbaths on the night of May 1 (for these peoples, it is known as the day of St. Walpurgis, and the night, respectively, as Walpurgis). To protect against evil forces, crosses were painted on the doors of the barn, bonfires were lit, rifles were fired into the air, a harrow was dragged around the village, etc.

St. John's Day (June 24) is associated with the summer solstice. On the eve of the holiday, bonfires were lit, medicinal herbs were collected, fortune telling was made. It was believed that the water on Ivanovo night acquires miraculous power. Therefore, in the morning they washed themselves with dew or water from springs. The peoples of Scandinavia on St. John's Day set up a tree similar to the May tree (a pole with various decorations). In many countries, May 1 and St. John's Day are widely celebrated to this day.

The feast of the Assumption of the Virgin (August 15) is timed to coincide with the end of the main summer agricultural work. The Catholics held solemn processions, the participants of which carried the ears of the new harvest to the church for consecration.

The year ended with All Saints' Day (November 1) and All Souls' Day (November 2). On the first day, it was customary to attend a church service, and on the second day, to come to the graves of relatives and arrange a memorial meal at home.

The peoples of the British Isles have preserved holidays associated with the ancient traditions of the Celtic peoples. The Christian Day of All Saints (Halloween, November 1) included the rites of the pagan Celtic holiday Samhain or Samhain (in Gaelic - "end of summer") - processions of mummers, whose participants carried torches or lanterns made of turnips mounted on long sticks; divination and various games. August 1 was the holiday of Lugnas (on behalf of the pagan god Lug, and later the character of the medieval Irish sagas), which in modern English is called Lamma day (according to one version, from Loaf masse- loaf mass, on the other - from Lambmass - masses of lambs). On this day, youth festivities took place, the British brought bread from the flour of the new crop to the church, the Irish had a common meal, for which they roasted a whole sheep and cooked young potatoes for the first time.

Among the Orthodox peoples of the Balkan Peninsula, the beginning of the cold season, when cattle were driven from mountain pastures and the sowing of winter crops was completed, was considered St. Dmitry's Day (October 26 / November 8), and the beginning of the warm season, when cattle were driven out to pastures, was St. April 23/May 6). By Christmas (December 25/January 7) rituals were timed with a Christmas log, the first guest, dressing up. The analogue of the Catholic carnival is known among the Orthodox (including the Eastern Slavs) as Shrovetide. In Eastern Bulgaria, processions of kuksrs (men dressed festively), dating back to ancient Thracian traditions, have been preserved. The ceremony included kukers going around the village, collecting gifts (grain, butter, meat), ritual plowing and sowing in the village square, the symbolic murder of the chief kuker and his subsequent resurrection, and cleansing bathing of the kukers in the river.

Some rituals of ancient origin were timed to coincide with other church holidays. St. Andrew's Day (November 30 / December 13) was celebrated by the southern Slavs as a bear holiday - in folk beliefs, St. Andrew rides a bear. For the she-bear, whose image in the traditional consciousness was associated with fertility, a treat cooked from corn cobs and dry pears was left in front of the house. Saint Nicholas Day (December 6/19) was considered a family holiday. Serbs and Montenegrins arranged a meal with the participation of all family members, the central dish of which was bread consecrated in the church. Meals were also arranged on St. Elijah's Day (July 20/August 2), which acquired the features of a pagan god of thunder. On St. John's Day (June 24/July 7), the Orthodox, as well as Catholics and Protestants, lit fires, gathered herbs, wove wreaths, and guessed. Serbs and Montenegrins performed similar rites also on St. Peter's Day (June 29/July 12).

The rituals of Belarusians and Ukrainians had their own characteristics in connection with climatic conditions. So, the beginning of the cold period was considered here - Pokrov (October 1/14). On the feast of the Trinity, celebrated seven weeks after Easter, houses were decorated with greenery, young trees were placed in front of the entrance. The Orthodox Slavs of the Balkan Peninsula performed a similar ceremony as well as the Catholics on May 1 (14) (in Orthodoxy - the Day of St. Jeremy). In general, the calendar rituals of the Eastern Slavs - Ukrainians and Belarusians - are characterized by great similarity with the Russian.

The traditional calendar rites of the Bosnians and Albanians, despite belonging to Islam, basically did not differ from the rites of the neighboring Christian peoples. This was due to the common origin and long-term residence in similar conditions.

The Day of St. Dmitry corresponded to the Day of Kasim (aka the holiday of winter), October 26, and the Day of St. George - the Day of Khyzyr (April 23). Muslim Albanians celebrated Christmas, which has merged in folk culture with the midwinter holiday, timed to coincide with the Winter Solstice (First Snow Day). In particular, they knew the ritual of kindling a Christmas log. The New Year of Christians corresponded to the spring holiday Nauruz (March 22). On this day, the Albanians performed actions aimed at expelling snakes that personified evil forces: they went around the fields and gardens and made noise, ringing with bells and hitting the tin with sticks. Their neighbors, the Orthodox of the Balkan Peninsula, performed a similar ceremony on the Annunciation (March 25/April 7). A special holiday for the Albanians was Midsummer Day, celebrated at the end of July. The inhabitants of the villages climbed to the tops of the mountains, where they kindled fires that burned throughout the night.

Family and social structures. For the peoples of foreign Europe in modern times, small (nuclear) families were characteristic. Among the Catholic and Protestant peoples, the tradition of majorat prevailed, in which the household was inherited by the eldest son. The remaining sons did not receive real estate and went to work for hire. The tradition of primacy prevented the fragmentation of farms, which was relevant in conditions of high population density and limited land resources.

Large families met on the periphery of the region - in Belarus, Ukraine, Eastern Finland. Among such peoples of the Balkan Peninsula as Serbs, Montenegrins, Bosnians, back in the 19th century. there was a special kind of large family - a zadruga, which consisted of a father with married sons (paternal zadruga) or several brothers with their families (fraternal zadruga). Zadruga had collective ownership of movable and immovable property. The position of the head (it was held by a man) could be elective, or inherited. The head did not have absolute power: decisions were made collectively. Zadrugs united from 10–12 to 50 people. and more. In the second half of the XIX century. the zadrug section began.

The Albanians in the mountainous part of Albania until the beginning of the 20th century. there were fises - tribal associations, controlled by an elder (he held a position by inheritance) and a gathering of men. Fiss owned land, divided into family plots. According to historical tradition, 12 fises are considered the oldest ("original", "large" fises), the rest are considered to have arisen later. One fis could include persons of different confessions.

For a long time, the Highland Scots and Irish retained the clan structure. The clans were the basis of the military organization of these peoples. The disappearance of clans occurred due to economic reasons and was reinforced by the introduction of relevant laws: in Ireland, the clans were abolished by the British in 1605 after the suppression of the uprising of local residents, in Highland Scotland - in the 18th century, after the strengthening of the power of the English monarchy. However, among the Scots, the idea of ​​a person's symbolic belonging to a clan persists to this day.

Ritual life cycle. In traditional culture, acquaintances of young people took place at gatherings, fairs, and festivities. Wedding rituals usually included matchmaking, which could consist of several stages. It was a tradition among Catholic and Protestant peoples to enter into a written dowry agreement at matchmaking - the forerunner of modern marriage contracts.

Remnants of ancient beliefs have long been preserved in folk cultures. For example, in the German tradition, on the eve of the wedding, a polterabend (literally, an evening of noise, roar) was arranged in the bride’s house, or separately at the bride and groom’s house. Many guests gathered for the holiday, who made toasts and, after drinking, broke dishes (cracked cups were kept in the house especially for such an occasion). It was believed that the noise drove away young evil spirits, and a large number of shards promised great happiness to the new family. Also, in order to deceive evil spirits in Spain, there were traditions to kidnap the bride and groom on their wedding night or to prevent it in every possible way (ants were launched onto the marriage bed, salt was poured, they hid under the bed, during the night the guests constantly entered the room).

Traditional wedding festivities could last several days. In a number of countries (Denmark, Scotland) Protestant churches and secular authorities in the XVI-XIX centuries. they tried to regulate the wedding so that the population would not spend a lot of money on it: restrictions were imposed on the number of guests served at the table, the duration of the wedding.

Protestants view weddings as a simple ceremony, unlike Catholicism and Orthodoxy, which consider weddings to be a church sacrament. Among Protestant peoples, for example, among Norwegians, young people could start a life together after betrothal. Among the Scots, there was an "irregular marriage" or "handshake marriage", which consisted in a verbal statement of a couple in front of witnesses that they were becoming husband and wife. Such a marriage was not approved by the Presbyterian (Calvinist) church, but from the point of view of popular ideas it was considered valid.

The birth of a child was also accompanied by magical actions. In the Italian tradition, the woman in labor was placed on the adobe floor near the hearth to be helped by household spirits living under the hearth. There are remnants of the kuvada rite - imitation of labor pains by the husband. For example, in Spain in the Leon region, a husband would climb into a basket and squat down and cackle like a chicken. There were widespread beliefs about the connection between the birthday of a child and his future fate. Family meals were organized on the occasion of the baptism of the child, the appearance of the first tooth, the first haircut and nails. In the economically developed regions of foreign Europe, archaic elements of maternity rituals disappeared quite early due to the spread of rational medicine and the emergence of professional midwives (in England - from the 16th century, in Scandinavia - from the 18th century).

Christians necessarily baptized the child. For Muslims, the rite of circumcision was obligatory. The Bosnians performed it in the first ten years of a boy's life (usually at three, five or seven years old), the Albanians - in the period from 7 to 12 years. The rite of circumcision was followed by a feast.

In the funeral rites of some Catholic and Orthodox peoples, funeral laments, which were performed by women, have been preserved. Sometimes, as with the Basques, they were professional mourners who were paid for their art. Only the Albanians performed men's laments, which were considered appropriate at the funeral of respected men. In some cases, there were ideas about special ways of delivering the deceased to the cemetery: the Poles and Slovaks were supposed to hit the coffin on the threshold three times, which symbolized the farewell of the deceased to the house; Norwegians practiced transportation at any time of the year of the coffin with the body of the deceased to the cemetery on a sleigh - a vehicle of the pre-wheel era. The European peoples knew the tradition of memorial meals, which was preserved in the most developed form among the Orthodox peoples, who arranged such meals on the day of the funeral, on the ninth, fortieth days after death.

Sea secrets of the ancient Slavs Dmitrenko Sergey Georgievich

Tribes of Europe before the Roman conquest. Celts in Western Europe

"A whole series of important changes in the socio-economic structure and culture of the Celtic tribes marks the period from the early Iron Age - galyntat - to the second phase, which received its name from the settlement of La Tène in Switzerland ...

Already in the last century, a number of principles for the periodization of the Latene were proposed. The currently recognized periodization, built on the synthesis of various concepts, looks like this: phase 1a (450–400 BC), 1c (400–300 BC), 1c (300–250 years BC), 2a (250-150 BC), 2c (150-75 BC), 3 (75 BC - the beginning of a new era )…

Diodorus Siculus tells us that the Celts were very fond of jewelry, and his information finds a lot of evidence in the Celtic literature of Ireland. Among the decorations, brooches and torcves (hryvnias) were the most popular.

Torques were extremely popular decorations of the Celts and also provide researchers with many well-dated variations. Unlike brooches, Torques were not very common in Hallstatt Europe, and their mass production falls precisely on the La Tène period. Torques bore traces of religious symbols that were not entirely clear to us. It was often brought as a gift to a deity, and with some gods it was directly associated as an indispensable attribute of them.

The hryvnia of the Slavs performed a dual role: firstly, jewelry (hence the name of the Slavic hryvnia - what was worn on the back of the neck, around the neck); secondly, the monetary unit. In this regard, the structure of the word "torques" seems strange to us: bargaining - and - weight. (Unless, of course, this is not an accidental coincidence with Russian words.) But, perhaps, the torc was really a monetary unit among the Celts, since they brought it as a gift to the deities?

"The population of Armorica (Brittany; the tribes of Osismi, Wends, etc. known to ancient authors) poses many problems for historians and archaeologists, primarily related to origin. Although the peninsula is relatively poor in monuments of the early Iron Age and more ancient cultures, it can still be concluded that public relations and culture developed quite successively here until the La Tène era.

At the same time, as elsewhere, signs of this culture are also appearing in this extreme west of Europe, gradually layering on local traditions and intertwining with them. Previously, this was seen as a consequence of the migrations of the Celtic tribes of the "new wave", which gradually subjugated the local population. Now this process seems to be much more complicated. Individual items of typically La Tène appearance could penetrate into Armorica in a variety of ways. The La Tène ornamentation of stone steles could have appeared as a result of the penetration of very small groups of people and as an imitation of individual metal objects. Perhaps there were also movements of artisans.

Recent studies have shown that changes in the artistic style in the mentioned area can be associated with a clearly traceable picture of some kind of social upheaval that occurred at the turn of the 4th-3rd centuries. to i. e. (abandoned or destroyed settlements, etc.). What exactly happened is still unclear, but, most likely, it was then that more or less large detachments of aliens could penetrate into Armorica, politically and culturally subjugating the local residents. This assumption, of course, does not exclude the possibility of earlier large migrations, because we know examples when such migrations left almost no archaeologically reliable traces (the historical migration of the Celts from Britain to Armorica in the 5th-6th centuries AD).

Indirect confirmation of the above dating can be found in the south-west of France, where in the 5th c. BC e. traces of the La Tène style were also found. Nevertheless, here the question of any noticeable population movements, as it seems, is not worth it, because most of the monuments of the early La Tène are exposed to the obvious and dominant influence of local artistic traditions in the territory of Aquitaine and Languedoc. All this speaks in favor of the stability of the social and cultural environment that has been developing here for quite a long time.

2. 5. Khomyakov on the traces of the former Slavic conquest in Western Europe Khomyakov in his book gives his own curious observations on the peoples of Western Europe. Of course, they are subjective and do not prove anything. But they are valuable as personal observations.