Chain Letters

The paper dwells upon “holy letters” (special genre of religious folklore), which circulated in Soviet villages, towns and cities in the 1940–1950s. Analysis of reaction to those letters of Soviet control organs allows to reconstruct several fears (with eschatological fear among them) intrinsic to different groups of the post-war Soviet society. In contrast to similar texts of the first half of the 20th century, the fear of the coming apocalypse was combined in the “holy letters” of the post-war years with technological fears (industrial accidents, nuclear war).
Two documents are presented to the reader. The first one is a “holy letter” that circulated in the Kotlas district of the Arkhangelsk region; a copy of it was sent to the Council for the Russian Orthodox Church by the agent of the Council for the Arkhangelsk district in a report for the first half of 1954. The second one is a lengthy abstract from a letter cited in data concerning some issues of atheistic propaganda among youth in 1957, provided by the Central Committee of the Komsomol to the Central Committee of the Communist Party.

Такие широко распространенные фольклорные явления, как «святые письма», могут неодинаково оцениваться их носителями, принадлежащими к различным социальным слоям. Нередки ситуации, когда приписываемые определенной группе причины и мотивации участия в этой практике значительно отличаются от рефлексии представителей этой группы.  Одним из характерных примеров является бытование практики распространения «святых писем» в среде советских детей младшего и среднего школьного возраста в контексте формирования медийного фрейма о ребенке как жертве воплощенной в «святых письмах» религиозной пропаганды. В статье сопоставляются фреймы медиа, массовой атеистической и педагогической печати с представлениями детей о практике и о себе как ее носителях, отраженными как в синхронных бытованию текстов свидетельствах, так и в воспоминаниях о них.

Many of the widely spread folklore phenomena, “letters from heaven” among them, are differently evaluated by various social groups. Reasons and motivations to participate in a practice, ascribed to the bearers of tradition by the others, frequently differ significantly from the bearers’ own reflections. One of the noticeable examples is the practice of chain letter distribution among Soviet schoolchildren in a situation, when a media frame “children as victims of religious propaganda” was being formed. The paper puts together the frames distributed by mass media, mass atheistic and pedagogical press with children’s own understanding of the practice and themselves within it, basing both on the evidences dating back to the investigated period and on the recollections about it.

Zincir mektuplar, herhangi bir kişi tarafından gönderilen, belirli bir hikâyeyi aktararak alıcıya hitap eden ve alıcının belirli talimatları yerine getirmesini ve kendisine gönderilen içeriğin çoğaltılarak başkalarına gönderilmesini talep eden metinlerdir. Ortaya çıktıkları günden beri birçok farklı form ve muhtevada yazılan zincir mektuplar, alıcılarını “şans ve para, hayır dua, mutluluk, huzur” gibi vaatlerde bulunarak, metnin çoğaltılarak belirli bir süre zarfında belirli sayıda kişiye gönderilmesini sağlamaktadır. Zincir mektuplar, talimatların yerine getirilmediği durumlarda ise uğursuzluk ve kötü şans getireceği konusunda ihtarda bulunan metinlerdir. Zincir mektuplar, geleneksel yollarla yazılarak dağıtılırken, bilgisayar ve internetin ortaya çıkmasıyla zincir e-postalara evrilmiş, daha sonrasında ise Facebook, Twitter gibi sosyal medya mecralarında sıklıkla paylaşılan zincir mektuplar ortaya çıkmıştır. Zincir mektupların son yayılım alanı ise anlık iletişim uygulaması WhatsApp olmuştur. Çağdaş/kentsel efsaneler olarak tanımlanabilecek zincir mektuplar, internetin hız ve anonimlik imkânlarından da faydalanarak, tarihte hiç olmadığı kadar yaygın bir hale gelmiştir. 2019 yılının sonunda Çin’in Wuhan kentinde ortaya çıkarak küresel anlamda bir salgına dönüşen COVID-19 hastalığının yaşandığı günümüzde, zincir mektuplar için bir zirve bir dönem yaşanmaktadır. Salgının tehlike ve bilinmezliğinden beslenen zincir mektuplar, anlık iletişim uygulaması olan WhatsApp aracılığıyla bütün dünyada çok hızlı bir biçimde kişiden kişiye gönderilir hale gelmiştir. Bu çalışmada, WhatsApp’taki COVID-19 salgınıyla ilgili olarak yayılan mesajların, zincir mektupların yeni ve farklı bir biçimi olduğu hipotezinden hareketle, bu uygulamadaki mesajların geleneksel zincir mektuplarla olan benzerliği ve farklılıkları ele alınarak, bu mesajların zincir mektupların yeni ve farklı bir biçimi olup olmadığı incelenmiştir. WhatsApp’taki mesajların ne şekilde zincir mektuba dönüştüğü ele alınarak, bu mecra üzerinde, COVID-19 salgınıyla ilgili yaygın olarak paylaşılan dört ses kaydı ve üç metin mesajı analiz edilerek, yeni nesil zincir mektupların özellikleri ortaya konulmuştur.
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Chain letters are texts sent by any person, addressing the recipient by conveying a specific story, and demanding that the recipient follow certain instructions. The main reason for the existence of these anonymous letters is that they are delivered to as many people as possible. The elements of folk culture that it contains, the events that are alleged to have taken place, the texts with the names of real people and places from time to time, “what if it's real?" by using its motive, it has spread throughout the world in many forms and contents. Chain letters are texts that date from the nineteenth century to the present day, spreading through contact with people's different points of sensitivity on a variety of subjects. With the development of technology, chain letters, which found new spreading areas, were transferred from the written culture stage to the secondary orality culture stage along with the internet and gained greater spreading speed. The chain letters that proliferate throughout its historical journey have spread from a restricted space in a traditional form of letters to people. Then, chain letters spread to with the internet and such as among email users, global social media such as Facebook and Twitter, and finally to people around the world using WhatsApp application. At the end of 2019, the COVID-19 disease in Wuhan, China, spread
all over the world and has become one of the most common issues people share with their environment on WhatsApp, where daily communication is the most intense, as it is a disease and danger for all mankind. The problem examined in this study is whether the many audio recordings and texts shared with their
environment by people on WhatsApp are an up-to-date and different version of “chain letters”. In this study, COVID-19 messages sent over WhatsApp matched the characteristics of the chain letters, and the reasons for the chain effect of the messages were determined. The hypothesis that “messages related to the COVID-19 pandemic shared on WhatsApp are a new and different form of chain letters” put forward in this study has been evaluated in the light of the data. Chain letters are contemporary legends of modern times. The anonymous stories told in these letters attract attention in the community and are largely conveyed through mass media, as well as being narrated as healers. These contemporary myths are now spreading to people and their circles through WhatsApp as well. There are also some differences between COVID-19 chain letters circulating on WhatsApp and chain letters sent either in writing or via email. The WhatsApp chain letters related to coronavirus are more defined as "sharing a reality about the pandemic, revealing the hidden facts,
warning people, informing them that the disease has entered a country and passing measures to protect them from this pandemic". In addition to this, both traditional chain letters and chain letters spread on WhatsApp to recipients include pleading words such as “please, attention, send to loved ones, broadcast to everyone, do
not be insensitive.” Warnings about helping a sick child in traditional chain letters, or about the chance to come if the letter is duplicated and sent to others, or otherwise jinx, are not included in chain letters on WhatsApp. In addition, the new generation of chain letters does not include the instruction that the letter must be transmitted within a specified period of time. The next generation of chain letters is mobilizing
people more in the axis of fear. In traditional chain letters, promises and instructions such as “spreading the last words of a dying person, delivering the letter to cover the costs of treating a sick child, the duplicated letter will bring luck and money” have been replaced by absolute “fear” and the instinct to protect their loved ones. The chain letters as contemporary legends are spread by fueling the community's sense of fear by referring to real people, places, and events. Chain letters, of which the first sender is not known, have been found to have certain common characteristics. These:
Be associated with a current hazard or problem,
Triggering fear and survival instinct,
Willingness to protect others,
The sender of the message is from family or friends,
The recipients agree that the sender thinks the message makes sense,
It is seen as a social responsibility to spread the message to others,
Although the message becomes anonymous as the first sender becomes uncertain over time, the identity of the forwarder is clear and the sender and receiver are in a mutual relationship.
Since the spread of COVID-19 messages circulating on WhatsApp has reached serious global heights, company officials have put limits on the transmission of messages. WhatsApp, in the first place, blocked the transmission of an unlimited number of messages, stating that a message could be transmitted to up to five people or groups simultaneously. Then the number of transmissions was restricted to a maximum
of one message. In this respect, COVID-19 messages can be sent easily on the internet and especially on WhatsApp, hidden behind the mask of anonymity. However, it is also observed that messages about COVID- 19 are localized through translation and reshaping across languages. Recently, as the COVID-19 pandemic has affected the whole world and receiving news is of great importance, chain letters have spread throughout the world at a time when uncertainty about the COVID-19 pandemic is growing. In this study, the messages related to the COVID-19 pandemic on WhatsApp were examined using four separate audio recordings and
three different texts that spread in this medium, based on the claim that it was a new and different form of chain letters. The audio recordings and texts spread on WhatsApp have been found to have features that are
common and different from traditional chain letters. It has been seen how chain letters, which can be described as contemporary legends, are fed and spread from a current and worldwide pandemic. The fact that WhatsApp has limited the number of message transmissions to prevent these messages from spreading seriously around the world is an indication that these messages carry a chain letter form. Unlike past
examples, it appears that messages about COVID-19 on WhatsApp are more often spread using the “fear” weapon, prompting recipients to transmit those messages to protect others. It is understood that these contemporary myths, which express danger rather than a promise, are a new and different version of chain
letters.

Disposing of a piece of paper with a textual apotropaios might be even more problematic than storing or sharing it. A perfect example is a type of amulet named " heavenly letters " , " luck letters " or " chain letters ". Such a letter is often framed by its owner as an object or sacred/magic artifact which can act and produce non-beneficial effect on its own, without any human agency: one does not necessarily need to read or otherwise handle a luck letter to receive bad luck, while to receive good luck certain actions must be undertaken. Most often bad luck or a curse affects those who ignore or neglect a luck letter, and some of the later examples of this genre define at length different punishments for those who tear it or throw it away. Finding themselves in this situation, people turn to contemporary traditions of discarding sacred or malign artifacts. However, people often choose an intermediate strategy of giving a letter away, taking it to a specialist or discreetly passing it to a neighbor. The latter case is considered a malign magical activity. The intertwining between a luck letter as an autonomous force with a potential negative effect, " lay " senders and receivers and " specialists " , all bound together with the problem of discarding a magical object forms a complex and dynamic network of actors.

Este informe de investigación aborda el papel activo del remitente conocido en el fenómeno de transmisión mediante reenvío en cadena de mensajes electrónicos. Realiza un acercamiento a los tipos de intervención que llevan a cabo sus destinatarios y al contexto de condicionantes tecnológicos y sociales que influyen en la difusión en red y en lo que podría denominarse la selección natural de dichos mensajes (entre tales condicionantes se encontrarían las funciones explicativa y conativa del texto del mensaje, la situación general de desinformación mediática percibida por quienes intervienen en el proceso de reenvío y las relaciones unidireccionales entre nodos personales asociadas al proceso).