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Nagoeva L. Hand Symbolism among the Abkhazians and Abazins: Traditional Semantics and New Meanings

Laura Nagoeva
Kabardino-Balkarian Scientific Center of the RAS
Nalchik, Russian Federation
ORCID: 0000-0003-3504-9018
E-mail: shau55@mail.ru

 

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ABSTRACT. The image of an open right palm is one of the main elements of the official national symbols of the Abkhazians (since 1992) and Abazins (since 2010). Despite its great popularity among the Abkhaz-Abazin youth, the semantics of the palm is extremely little studied in the context of traditional semantics and new meanings. Meanwhile, various sources (including the author’s field material) speak in favor of the fact that in a relatively short period of time the symbol began to exhibit all the main features of a cultural-historical symbol and is a multi-level, contextual phenomenon. The work makes an attempt to reconstruct the cultural and historical contexts of the formation of the symbol: from experimental, everyday ideas to heraldic ones. The heraldic context turned out to be the most difficult to interpret the symbol. The authors of modern national symbols started from the images and colors of the flag depicted over Savastopoly (Sukhumi) on medieval maps of the 13th–15th centuries by European cartographers (now stored in the archives of Italy and France). It is difficult to talk about the semantics of “an open hand on a red background” in isolation from the heraldic symbolism that had developed in Europe by this period. On the other hand, in the traditional “we-concept” of the Abkhazians and Abazins there were many factors that contributed to the fact that the symbol became “ours”, “folk”, “national”, and in the context of the revival of interest in native culture and search for identity, the symbol was actively included in the communication and information space and has itself become a source of the formation of new meanings.

 

KEYWORDS: hand symbol, Abkhazians, Abazins, flag, national symbol, heraldry

 

FOR CITATION: Nagoeva L. Hand Symbolism among the Abkhazians and Abazins: Traditional Semantics and New Meanings. Kunstkamera. 2025. 1 (27): 49–63. (In Russian). DOI: 10.31250/2618-8619-2025-1(27)-49-63

 

DOI 10.31250/2618-8619-2025-1(27)-49-63
UDC [929.6+39](=352.2)

 

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