RUSSIANS (РУССКИЕ) Verified listing

Russkie is the designation of an East Slavic people whose various republics (Novgorod, Pskov) and medieval principalities (Suzdal, Vladimir, Tver, Ryazan, etc.) were absorbed by the principality of Moscow, or Muscovy. The growth of the Russian state did not erase certain particularisms of the Slavs of Siberia, the Don, the Kuban, and the North (the Pomors of Arkhangelsk). From the 15th century onward, Russia expanded—reaching Siberia—as a multinational empire. The Russian Federation includes various non-Russian administrative entities: Mari El, Karelia, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, etc.

The color reputed to be traditional among Russians is red.

The earliest coats of arms of the principality of Moscow depicted a horseman, who came to be interpreted as Saint George (with the later addition of the dragon). The double-headed eagle is more recent (15th century). Neither of these two state emblems is specific to Russia alone.

A broad repertoire of signs is found in embroidery. Embroidered textile pieces —called, depending on the region (from north to south), plat, rušnik, širina, ubrus— embroidered for a person, a place, an event, or a season, possess a protective value. Their design recalls the rospis technique (organized in four directions). The ‘crosses’ and ‘diamonds’ respectively symbolize the male and female elements; birds often accompany the central figure. (After N. Asharina, Russian Decorative Art: 12th to Early 20th Century, Leningrad, 1987; L. Efimova and R. Belegorskaya, Russian Embroidery and Lace, London, 1982, and the related bibliographies.)

A widespread symbol in folk arts is an image of the rožanica, a protective power of lineages and births (formed on rod- ‘parents; lineage’, which is also found in rodina ‘homeland’ and narod ‘nation’). It is a prominent figure in the repertoire of traditional embroidery of the stenovoi plat. (See V. V. Stasov, Russkii narodnyi ornament, Saint Petersburg, 1872; translated as Russian Peasant Design Motifs for Needleworkers and Craftsmen, Dover P.A.S., 1976.)
In the 19th century, the forgetting of archaic conceptions in ornamentation led to replacing the figure of the progenitress with that of the Muscovite double-headed eagle, of comparable layout (L. A. Dinsés, ‘Motiv moskovskogo gerba v narodnom iskusstve’, Soobšč. GE, 1947; B. Rybakov, Jazyčestvo drevnikh Slavjan, Moscow, 1981, ch. 7).

Various Russian flags and banners (from the 16th to the 18th century) bore a cross accompanied by eight-pointed stars (see https://vexillographia.ru/russia/index.htm). The coins of the Republic of Novgorod displayed an eight-pointed star and a small cross (Novgorod Feudal Republic, 12th–15th centuries, type of silver denga, in I. G. Spassky, Russkaja monetnaja sistema, Leningrad, 1970; cf. M. P. Sotnikova and I. G. Spassky, Tisjačelete drevnejšikh monet Rossii, Leningrad, 1983; stars on seals of Veliky Novgorod from 1461 and 1593).

Here, the Russian people are represented by a traditional embroidery motif that includes two linked images of rožanica (mother and daughter); a quadrilateral representing the native soil; the cruciform, eight-pointed stars, and diamonds.