THE SYMBOLIC SPACE OF THE MARI NATIONAL IDEA. THE MYTH IN THE ACTUALIZATION OF MARI IDENTITY IN THE POST-SOVIET PERIOD

In the article the author, based on field materials (interviews and questionnaires), collected in places populated by the Mari people, analyzes the semiotic space of the Mari national movement of the late 20th - early 21st centuries. Special attention is paid to personified symbols of the Mari identity (Onar, Humo, Humyn Ydyr, Shyipy Pompalche), which are perceived by the respondents as “universal” and appear in the activities of ethno-cultural activists. Based on the theory of ethnosymbolism, the author scrutinizes the characters of myths and fairy tales as uniting a dispersed ethnic community into a group with the autonomy and a national idea. The article gradually examines the process of the “revival” of the Mari national movement in the post-Soviet period of national history, as well as the concept of national identity in relation to the regional ethno-cultural activism.