"Черные былички", Stories about Vampires and a Number of Literary Texts: Chrono-noetic Origins, Their Typological Identity (the Concept of “Horror-Crisis”)

Abstract

A particular crisis of mythological consciousness defined by us as a “horror crisis” is being considered. Its essence is developing a specific “horror worldview”: “Love destroys; ethics does not save; the Universe is devious, and man is guilty.” Having clearly manifested itself as heterogeneous, but typologically identical narratives in the early 18th century, the horror crisis could still be observed for approximately a century and a half. Such narratives include “black folkloric accounts,” vampire stories, and a number of literary texts. The term “phenomenological formula of freedom” denoting a phenomenologically observed sensation is introduced: “The Universe has a good essence, and one can be in league with it; the ability to be in league with the essence, in league with the real things, is freedom, because man is also real.” The horror worldview was shaped palliatively – in search of salvation – by the mythological consciousness attempting to elaborate its stepwise “hypothesis” that the Universe has no good essence. The mythological consciousness implicitly resorted to the thesis: “If the Universe is void of a good essence, then it is supposed to have at least a mystery, albeit a horrible one; yet where there is a mystery, there is hope for abolition of evil.” The horror worldview is a relatively recent result of a “diametrical” structural distortion of the two truly ancient mythologemes: apocatastasis and katabasis. If the mythological consciousness is not oppressed by fear, it identifies the horror worldview as false and readjusts it. In fact, ethicizing harmonization of the Universe by means of a noetic creative act the result of which is perceived as a catharsis is one of its basic functions.