Shared meals as indigenous cultural phenomenon of the Chuvash

The article presents the first-of-its-kind discussion of shared meals practice through the prism of the Chuvash culture. Eating together at the inter-village, all-village, generic and family levels is analyzed in the context of traditional ritual actions and prayers. The purpose of the study is to reveal the role of shared meals in uniting people and keeping the ancestral traditions. The work is based on a broad set of primary sources, including the author's field notes (made in Saratov, Orenburg and Kuibyshev regions), archival sources (from the Saint Petersburg Branch of the RAS Archive and the Scholarly Archive of Chuvash State Institute for Humanitarian Research), various published materials, and previous research works. The research results suggest that the Chuvash people have always supported each other, and shared meals helped uniting them. The ritual meals brought people together on an intimate level. Special attention has been paid to the feeble old people and late relatives. The similar attitude was expressed to the deities. Therefore, the conclusion can be made about the existence of some food-based feeling of affinity or kinship.