Nutritional Model of the Komi (Zyryan) During the Great Patriotic War

The article is based on the analysis of ethnographic sources and discusses the dietary habits of the Komi (Zyryan) during the Great Patriotic War. The relevance of the topic arises from the fact that in modern ethnological science, there is an interest in the topic of ethnic adaptation during the crisis when the mechanisms rooted in folk culture are actualized, which makes it possible to maintain the minimum living standards of society. The research optics aims to study the life of people in the conditions of hunger, which makes it possible to reveal the characteristics of food and understand how, in the absence of a centralized state supply, the lack of food was overcome and what life practices were realized. The sources for the article were the materials on food culture in Komi (Zyryan) collected by T. Chudova in 2000-2022, which are now in the scientific archive of the Museum of Archeology and Ethnography of Pitirim Sorokin Syktyvkar State University. Also included are the author’s field notes on everyday practices during the war years. Oral narratives about life and everyday life are historical sources that make it possible to obtain reliable information first-hand and not through interpretation. Analysis of the ethnographic sources leads to the conclusion that food resources during the war years depended on the season: From spring to fall, the basis of the diet consisted of wild plants, and in winter, – potatoes and vegetables. The use of the region’s biological resources enabled survival during this difficult period, and the knowledge of the nutritional properties of wild plants and the maintenance of the practice of including them in the diet points to the mechanisms embedded in folk culture that enable us to adapt to food shortages. The basis of the traditional diet in Komi (Zyryan) was the cultivation of grain, the scarcity of which during the war years and the impossibility of obtaining it from the region led to changes in the structure of cultivated land when they began to actively grow potatoes and vegetables, which took an important place in the diet. The protein component of the diet has practically disappeared from the table of rural residents. The presence of a feed cow on the farm made it possible to somehow survive in a time of hunger. Based on the product range composition, the nutrition model during the war can be defined as a ‘survival model’.

Komi (Zyryans), nutrition, Great Patriotic War, hunger, wild plants, potatoes, vegetables