Mat in Russia has existed for centuries. Another thing is that he was banned. And there were reasons for that.
Sacred essence of the mat
The hypothesis that Russians borrowed obscene vocabulary from the Tatars has long been refuted by researchers. As it turned out, the mat was used in ancient Slavic times and has Indo-European roots.
At first, obscene expressions were not at all considered abusive (by the way, according to one version, they began to be called swearing, since they were used by soldiers on the battlefield). They were used in various occult rituals to appeal to pagan deities. Our ancestors saw them as "words of power" that could not be remembered in vain. According to the philologist A. Pluzer-Sarno, mat was part of the Slavic conspiracies, which were uttered, referring to the magical power allegedly contained in the genitals (the ancients endowed them with sacred meaning).
B. A. Ouspensky in his work "The Mythological Aspect of Russian Expressive Phraseology" reports that "swearing had a distinct cult function in Slavic paganism, is widely represented in various kinds of rites of clearly pagan origin - wedding, agricultural, etc., that is, in rituals, so or otherwise related to fertility: swearing is a necessary component of rituals of this kind and is certainly ritual in nature."
But in everyday life "black abuse", as it was later called in Russia, was taboo. In pagan times, it was impossible to swear in your own home and even in a stable (otherwise you could jinx the cattle).
In the era of Christianity, the Church declared obscene vocabulary of demonic, as she saw in it a relic of paganism. All Russian rulers waged a merciless struggle against swearing. Nevertheless, swearing was found both in everyday life and in the folklore of some regions of Russia - songs, proverbs, sayings, ditties and even fairy tales (as evidenced, for example, in "Russian cherished tales" by AN Afanasyev).
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Moscow region
Apparently, swearing was widespread here, since as early as 1480, Grand Duke Vasily III introduced a legal ban on obscene expressions. And his son Ivan the Terrible ordered to "click on the auction" so that the Muscovites "would not swear at each other and reproach each other with all sorts of obscene words." Despite this, the 17th century German traveler Adam Olearius in his book "Description of the journey of the Holstein embassy to Muscovy and Persia" stated: "Small children, who still cannot name either God, or mother, or father, already have obscene words on their lips."
In 1648, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich issued a decree so that “they would not sing the song of demons, not curse at any obscene barking … disgrace and cruel punishment."
Novgorod region
Obscene lexicon was found in four Old Russian birch bark letters found on the territory of Novgorod and Staraya Russa and dating back to the XII-XIII centuries. For example, in one of them, a matchmaker, referring to a certain Marena, apparently about the upcoming marriage of her daughter, mentions “shameful” words referring to female genitals. In another, a certain Anna complains to her brother about some Kosnyatin, with whom she had a financial dispute and who called her and her daughter an obscene word meaning a dissolute woman.
Northern regions of Russia
With the advent of Christianity, swearing began to be actively eradicated from everyday life. But in those regions where dual faith persisted for a long time, that is, there were both Christian and pagan traditions, obscene vocabulary became an integral part of folklore. These areas include the Olonets Territory and the Arkhangelsk Province. For example, in Olonets fairy tales, mat is used to "communicate" with otherworldly spirits - brownies, goblin and other evil spirits, as well as the dead. True, when publishing fairy tales that were recorded by folklorists from the words of storytellers, many such moments were cut out by the censor.
Diana Merlin