The Function of Things
in Ethnologia Europaea
Author:
Albert Baiburin
Albert Baiburin
European University at St. Petersburg
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The following paper deals with the problem of the function of things in a traditional culture. Based on material on the Eastern Slavs, particularly Russians, it considers a life “scenario” of things by introducing a concept of semiotic status of things and their functions in ritual context. A distinction is made between the capacity of things to symbolise “one’s own” and “alien” concepts, to function as mediators between these two worlds and, on the contrary, to block the communication channel between them.