Elena V. Fedotova

THE CHUVASH DIASPORA OF SIBERIA: THE PAIN OF BEING DISCONNECTED FROM ITS OWN PEOPLE

The author focuses on folk resettlement songs and oral narratives about the tragedy of the loss of the homeland of Chuvash immigrants from the Volga region to Siberia. Forced resettlement has given rise to a new genre in the folklore tradition – resettlement songs, which are dominated by the theme of separation, the pain of separation from relatives, native places, and ancestral traditions. The resettlement songs were sung by the settlers themselves, they were their kind of “anthem”. This genre has been preserved in a living tradition until the beginning of the XXI century. A new facet of the Chuvash mentality opens up in them: happy is the one who lives in his homeland. The tragedy of the loss of the motherland is acutely manifested in the oral narratives of the Chuvash immigrants and their children. The work is based on the material of the expeditions of the beginning of the XXI century.