Brotherhood and sisterhood as forms of community upbringing of eastern Slavs in VI-XIII centuries

The study of the upbringing traditions typical for ancient periods of native history is complicated by a small number of written sources of these periods. Reconstruction of the upbringing traditions practiced by the Eastern Slavs is possible, first of all, through the integration of ethnography and folklore study. Ethnographic materials collected by scientists and lovers of the antique of the XIX century: P. V. Kiriyevskiy, I. M. Snegiryov, A. Korinfskiy, V. V. Borzhkovskiy, N. F. Sumtsov, N. N. Chernushev and others. The works of the folklore scientists of the XX century: V. P. Anikin, A. Dey, S. Kilimnik, R. S. Lipits, N. V. Novikov, V. K. Sokolova were used to research such forms of upbringing as brotherhood, sisterhood, and communities of peers. The rise of the children communities dates back to the time of primitive society devolution, emergence of military democracy, and neighbourly territorial community. On the one hand, these unions were transformations of different gender groups, on the other hand, they were created on the non-kindred basis. Children communities consisted of the children of young and juvenescent age. This fact is reflected in ancient Russian heroic folk epics, fairy-tales, vesnyanki (spring folk songs) and round song-dances. Formation of these communities was accompanied by special rites, some of which were represented in Russian heroic epics and partially in Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian folklore, which serves as an evidence to the fact that it is a long standing tradition that existed up to the XIII-XIV centuries.