Alexander Veselovsky on the myth: conceptual and methodological aspects of the scientist’s thesis (based on materials from the scientist's personal archive)

Abstract

The article deals with the main provisions of the thesis of the outstanding Russian philologist Alexander Veselovsky. This work belongs to the early period of his scientific work. It has never been published and is kept in the archive of the scientist in the Manuscript Department of the Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In this work, there is still no place for a detailed criticism of the doctrines of «natural mythology» and «comparative mythology», but Alexander Veselovsky's priorities in choosing the inductive method and the method of comparative analysis in the study of myth are quite obvious. In the course of his research, he gave anthropological interpretations of the mythical process, touched upon the historical genesis of the wolf symbol in ancient mythology, and made an extensive comparative excursion into world culture. Bringing to the fore the problem of changing paradigms of worldview, Alexander Veselovsky identified three significant periods in the evolution of the myth – symbol and image of the wolf and argued his point of view with examples. This text is of particular interest to us, as it shows that even as a student Alexander Veselovsky abandoned the hypothetical excursions of the «mythological school» in favour of cultural-historical and comparative-typological interpretation of sources and recognised the myth as the original model of human cognition of the surrounding world, with its syncretic structure, aesthetic purpose, history and evolution. This principle, as can be seen from his later writings, he had adhered to afterwards.