Nakosnik puloker as a component of the Moksha national Costume: on the problem of genesis and ethno-cultural meanings

This article presents the experience of studying the unique nakosnik of Moksha puloker women, which existed from the VIII to the XVIII centuries in a traditional women's costume as an ethnic symbol of the people. The most important aspects of the characteristics of the hairpiece associated with determining the cause of the appearance of this artifact, revealing the general attitude to hair in traditional culture, in particular in the heroic epic of the Mordovian people "Mastorava", which reflects the events of the medieval history of the ethnos; the nature of the era that caused the appearance of new elements in the folk costume. Both general scientific methods and systematic, comparative-historical and structural-semiotic approaches were used in the study. The role of the crisis factor in the culture of the Mordovian tribes of the second half of the I millennium A.D. was revealed, manifested in the activation of human activity aimed at adaptation in conditions of rapid changes and intercultural contacts. It is established that the result of the creative work of women, forcibly limited by the space of the family and home (possibly due to the appearance of a small family), was the development of socio-economic and cultural processes related to the ritual sphere, which required the segregation of the married woman's social group and a new element of the headdress, which emphasized the status of the hostess of the house. The novelty of the research is determined by the conclusions about the values of culture embodied in the materialization of the goals of collective activity in the form of an artificially created form of decoration, as well as in the justification of the significant influence of the Turkic peoples on the development of culture in the period under consideration.