Semiotics of Ornamental Text: Traditional Russian Weaving in Light of Yury Lotman’s Cultural Dynamics

The article offers a philosophical and cultural interpretation of Russian traditional weaving as a unique form of ornamental text characterized by high semiotic density. Drawing on Yuri Lotman’s concept of culture as a dynamic system of signs, the study explores woven ornament in its ritual, cognitive, and communicative functions. It is demonstrated that ornament in archaic culture operates as a visual code that structures the perception of the world and transmits symbolic meanings associated with cosmology, agrarian magic, and social identity. Through the lens of the semiosphere theory, ornament is examined as a boundary text that bridges the sacred and the everyday, the collective and the individual, the stable and the explosive. Particular attention is paid to rhythm, symmetry, and color as key mechanisms of meaning generation in textile ornamental culture. Thus, ornament emerges as a ritualized form of symbolic thought embodied in the material text of culture.