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Курочкин А. К истории европейского вертепа (пути формирования культурной традиции) Объективное освещение этнической специфики традиций возможно лишь на основе международного контекста исследуемых фрагментов материальной и духовной культуры. Исходя из этого автор прослеживает процессы формирования ареала обычаев рождественских „яслей” в католических странах Западной и Центральной Европы.Ключевые слова: Рождество, вертеп, „ясли”, евангельские персонажи, христианство, народное искусство, ремесленные центры.Kurochkin Oleksandr. EUROPEAN WAN- DERING OF CHRISTMAS MANGER (TOWARDS THE HISTORY OF THE NATIVITY PLAY) The accurate treatment of ethnical specificity of the traditions is feasible only with due regard for international context of the studied fragments of tangible and intangible cultures. Following from this, the author retraces the processes of formation of Christmas manger’s area of customs in the Catholic countries of Western and Central Europe. Christmas manger is mediator between the worlds of the sacred and the earthly; it models an important event of the Gospel history, namely — the miraculous Nativity of Jesus Christ. This sacral object of worship by the representatives of religious community can be rightfully rated among the items with high semiotic status. Italy is deservedly considered to be a home of the tradition to artistically show the Christmas manger — presepe — in Catholic churches. It was initiated in Greccio in distant 1223, where for the first time St. Francis of Assisi visually reconstructed the scene of the Nativity of Jesus Christ which is mentioned in the Gospel. The impressive peculiarity is characteristic for the presepi of different industrial schools of the Apennines: from the Neapolitan to the Sicilian, from the southern Tyrolese to the Apulian, and from the Ligurain to the Bolognese. In southern French departments where there are strongest positions of Roman Catholic Church, making of Christmas manger and the figures for it which are there called santones became a popular kind of folk art. As far back as in 1803 there was a first fair of santones in Marseilles which considerably promoted the development of this original folk handicraft in the cities Aix, Avignon, Saint-Remy, and Aubagne. Up to our times, the whole dynasties of the maitres-santonniers have been working here and passing their own trade secrets on from father to son. The Nativity play is known as Krippe on the German-speaking territories. At first this term meant a manger — a feeding- trough for cattle, and later it also became pertained to the artistic models of dramatizing the Nativity of Jesus Christ. The first church manger has been known in Austria (city of Graz) since 1579; it was constructed by the pupils of local Jesuit college. It was the activities of the Catholic cloistered orders in the years of the Counter-Reformation pointed at teaching and attracting the flock that the improvised dramatic stage adaptations of the Christmas plays with manger have changed into the constant texts resounded in the church walls during the Christmas parochial church circular procession as well. Numerous families in Germany and Austria, especially in the villages, still practice installation of Christmas manger at the places of honour among the interiors of dwelling. The tradition of the Christmas manger is also deep-rooted among the customs of the western Slavs professing the Roman Catholicism — the Czechs, Slovaks, and Poles. As in Italy, this custom has become firmly established first in the space of churches of these peoples and later has passed into the folk mode of life furthering the development of artistic handicrafts on many territories. Kewords: Christmas, the Nativity play, manger, Evangelic characters, Christianity, folk art, centres of handicrafts.