Sunflower in Europe: potential opportunities, culture of environmental management and expectations of society.

Abstract (English)

Cultural identity is one of the important topics of modern anthropology, the study of which is organically linked to the problem of comparing ethnocultural material. The human need for plant oils, used for nutrition, treatment, etc., historically determines the attention of society to these resources.
Plants containing oil (oilseeds) and widely used for the production of fatty oils are very numerous, historically locally confined and variously used in the traditional culture of the peoples of the world. Today, olive oil, sunflower, linseed, soy, cottonseed, corn, ryzikov, pumpkin, sesame, palm, and other plant oils are widely known. Many oilseed crops have lost their strict adherence to a particular region of the world and the culture of a particular people. This fact opens up the possibility for conducting original comparative ethnocultural studies.
In this context, the appeal to the history of sunflower use, which has actively spread from America all over the world, is of particular interest.
Sunflower was actively used in the culture of the Maya, Aztec and Inca peoples. It was used (along with corn kernels and cotton seeds) in nutrition, for medicinal purposes, in cosmetics and during rituals.
Sunflower appeared in Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries as an ornamental plant. In the Mediterranean, olive oil dominated and sunflower was not of interest as an oilseed crop. It was only after new varieties of plants with large seeds were bred that farmers noticed it. Sunflower was introduced to Russia in the 18th century.
In Russia, linseed oil and ryzikov oil have traditionally been widely used in cooking. Initially, sunflower interested the inhabitants of Russia as a medicinal plant. Sunflower were used to treat rheumatism, bronchitis and cough. It was only in the 19th century that oil was pressed from sunflower seeds in Russia. Gradually, sunflower oil became dominant in Russia, displacing linseed and ryzikiov oils. At the same time, interest in sunflower as a medicinal plant has remained. Decoctions of sunflower roots were used in folk medicine to treat colds.
This paper will focus attention on analyzing the practice of using sunflower seeds in the culture of different peoples.