Feast and sacred: retrospective

Main meaning of this article is aimed at identifying the causes of impoverishment of the content basis of the modern holiday. The authors apply to the most sacred era - the archaic to understand the reasons of decrease festive sense. In that work is given definition the concepts of “holiday” and “sacred”, being considered the connection between the sacred and festivities through the prism of ancient society. Article is detect the distinctive features of the archaic holiday, its laws and particular qualities, the main of which is the mythological basis. The authors, referring to the research of R. Caillois and M. Eliade, consider both the phenomenon of the archaic holiday and the phenomenon of the sacred in it, affecting such holiday constants as time and space. The work carried out helps to comprehend exactly which factors are influenced to the total decrease of the semantic basis of the feast of the modern era.