Hair & Dress in Imperial Russia
Moshe Taube
mstaube at MSCC.HUJI.AC.IL
Thu Oct 16 20:12:57 UTC 2008
First point taken and appreciated. On the second point, I was
actually trying to sound ironic. Apparently I failed.
Moshe Taube
On Oct 16, 2008, at 9:52 PM, A S wrote:
> In an historical context, using the term 'sexism' is not
> necessarily indicative of a value judgement, but could simply be
> descriptive, although the qualifier 'thoroughly' smells of the
> former. Additionally, I do not grasp how founding an organised
> religion necessarily qualifies one as being 'progressive' and
> 'enlightened'.
>
> Andrew Swearingen
>
> On 16.10.2008, at 20:04, Moshe Taube wrote:
>
>> Paul a sexist? As opposed to whom? You must be joking. We're
>> talking about a Jew who 2000 years ago founded Christianity as an
>> organized religion in the Eastern Mediterranean. Surely he was as
>> progressive and enlightened as any other guy at that time and in
>> that area.
>> Just a small remark on "doksa andros". Let's not forget that if
>> we're looking for sources of inspiration for Paul's phraseology,
>> we have to look at his Scripture, i.e. the Old Testament, and
>> there I would say the closest expression is in Proverbs 12.4,
>> which Paul surely knew in the original (for our evangelical
>> friends: I do not mean KJV) אֵשֶׁת־חַיִל
>> עֲטֶרֶת בַּעְלָהּ - 'A virtuous woman is a crown to
>> her husband.' , LXX: γυνὴ ἀνδρεία στέφανος
>> τῷ ἀνδρὶ αὐτῆς. Now 'atereth lit. 'crown', but
>> figuratively also 'ornament, honour, glory' appears several times
>> in the OT in conjunction with and sometimes as synonym of
>> תִּפְאָרֶת tif'ereth, which is glossed as 'ornamentum,
>> decus, gloria', and is very readily rendered by doksa. Cf, Exodus
>> 28:2 לְכָבֹוד וּלְתִפְאָרֶת εἰς
>> τιμὴν καὶ δόξαν. Could this have been the source of
>> inspiration?
>>
>> Moshe Taube
>>
>> On Oct 16, 2008, at 8:26 AM, Daniel Rancour-Laferriere wrote:
>>
>>> Dear colleagues,
>>> Slavianskie drevnosti is indeed an important and rich source, and
>>> does have the limitations mentioned by Will Ryan. The reference
>>> to Corinthians is quite interesting, and adds some historical and
>>> cross-cultural perspective. Paul is thoroughly sexist: a man is
>>> but the image and glory of God ("obraz i slava Bozhiia" in the
>>> Synodal trans of texts going back to "eikon kai doksa Theou"),
>>> while a woman is but the glory of a man ("slava muzha" rendering
>>> "doksa andros"). Probably "doksa" is better rendered
>>> "reflection" (Oxford NRSV). So a woman is but the reflection of
>>> a reflection. What a woman has, however, in addition to her
>>> "glory"/"reflection" is her "authority on her head" ("znak vlasti
>>> nad neiu," rendering the "eksousian" she should have on her head)
>>> - i.e., her hair. NRSV gives "a woman ought to have a symbol of
>>> authority on her head" (I Cor. 11:10), meaning roughly, she ought
>>> to have the freedom of choice regarding her head. So Paul seems
>>> to want to have it both ways: women should be subordinate to men,
>>> but they are equal too. The passage is obscure, and
>>> fascinating. The OXFORD BIBLE COMMENTARY (2001, pp. 1125-1126)
>>> provides some insights, as well as the relevant historical
>>> literature on head-covering in the Graeco-Roman world.
>>> Apparently worship in Corinth was, shall we say, pretty free and
>>> easy, and this provoked Paul. Later Tertullian chimed in with a
>>> piece on the veiling of virgins.
>>>
>>> The reason for going into this is that the biblical text has (for
>>> me) the same ambivalent feel about the hair on a woman's head
>>> which is expressed in those sad Russian peasant prenuptial bath
>>> songs. In the "bania" the bride-to-be laments the loss of her
>>> "krasota" (stress on first syllable) and her "volia." These are
>>> not merely "beauty" and "freedom," but items of headgear which
>>> will be lost when the girl effectively enters into a relationship
>>> of "nevolia" with the husband who will have the right to abuse
>>> her for the rest of her life. See my SLAVE SOUL OF RUSSIA (1995,
>>> 193-201).
>>>
>>> Regards to the list,
>>>
>>> Daniel Rancour-Laferriere
>>> UC Davis
>>>
>>> http://Rancour-Laferriere.com
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Oct 15, 2008, at 1:02 PM, William Ryan wrote:
>>>
>>>> I have only just seen this, but since I have been cited I would
>>>> recommend looking first at the 4-page entry 'volosy' in
>>>> Slavianskie drevnosti, vol. 1, Moscow, 1995. The only problem
>>>> with it is that it is anthropological and not historical in
>>>> emphasis - but there is a great deal about hair and magic, and
>>>> short sections on unbound and uncovered hair. You will find some
>>>> references to hair and magic in my own history of Russian
>>>> magic, The Bathhouse at Midnight, PSUP, 1999, see index under
>>>> 'hair' (or the rather better index in the Russian version: Bania
>>>> v polnoch', NLO, Moscow, 2006). The trouble with folk beliefs is
>>>> that most are recorded in the nineteenth century and later and
>>>> it is usually difficult to say much about their history. Even
>>>> so, many beliefs and practices recorded in the nineteenth
>>>> century are likely to have been prevalent in the eighteenth
>>>> century also, or even earlier.
>>>> The Pauline injunctions (1 Corinthians 11:4-16) on covering
>>>> hair, and the Russian custom of cutting off the long hair of
>>>> brides at their wedding, would have been significant, and indeed
>>>> affect the kind of head covering which women wore.
>>>> Will Ryan
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Allison Leigh-Perlman wrote:
>>>>> Can anyone recommend some good source material regarding the
>>>>> covering of female hair and its 'magical' qualities in 18th-
>>>>> century Russia or earlier? I'm also interested in histories of
>>>>> costume/dress of the same time period. Any recommendations
>>>>> would be greatly appreciated.
>>>>>
>>>>> Allison Leigh-Perlman
>>>>>
>>>>> Graduate Assistant Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum
>>>>> Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
>>>>>
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