Matrena/Matrona/matreshka

[william ryan]

A few thoughts on recent contributions:

Ralph Cleminson: I am sad to be excluded from the company of serious
etymologists. As one who sat at the feet of Unbegaun I find a good popular
etymology more culturally interesting that a boring old dictionary definition.
Anyway, it still goes back to 'mater'; and Dea Matrona, the divine source of
the River Marne, for those with eyes to see, is a dead ringer for Damp Mother
Earth, pertinently intoduced into the debate by Genevra. Come to think of it,
etymology IS a bit like Freudian psychology.

Natalie Kononenko: Interesting, but where and when? Sounds to me like a bit of
Russian New Age neo-Paganism with roots in the Rublev film.

Roman Leibov: you are spoiling this debate with facts! I have not be so
disappointed since R. E. F. Smith demontrated that samovars were invented in
Sheffield, England. More seriously, this explanation requires a few more
details than are given in the website articles quoted. Shinto was the state
religion in Japan at the time - so in what circumstances did a Japanese rocking
figure of the male founder of Zen provoke a fairly widespread provincial
handicraft in Russia with entirely Russian (and Ukrainian?) and locally varied
iconographic characteristics, all non-rocking and female (?) until recently?
Does it still exist? Arte there pictures of it? And where did the nesting
element come from? Japanese craft certainly has nesting fretted globes, but I
don't recall any anthropomorphic figures within figures (could be just my
failing memory).

Jim Dingley: Now that's what I call erudition!

Valery Merlin: 'how do you explain it historically?' What is there to explain?
You can only explain the alleged similarities historically if you can
demonstrate that these artefacts can in fact be shown to be historically
related to each other, either in design or in function, or in specific
circumstance. In the examples mentioned this would seem to be difficult. And as
for the symbolic similarities of one thing being being stuck inside another,
there is no end to that game, as the actress said to the bishop.

Will Ryan

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