DID THE SUPERNATURAL EXIST IN MEDIEVAL CULTURE?

Abstract

The article analyzes the problem of correlation between the modern category of “supernatural” and ideas about phenomena that went beyond the patterns of nature in pre-Mongol Russia. It is noted that, as in any pre-scientific society, in Old Rus there was no strict natural / supernatural opposition. Unusual phenomena lost the character of “wonder”, “miracle” even with their mystical interpretation. In turn, natural, recurring phenomena could acquire a religious meaning. The concept of “nature” was addressed to specific objects of the surrounding world, and not to nature in the modern sense. In turn, the otherworld also had a nature. Medieval skepticism was fueled by a conflict of values; it did not proceed from the denial of mysticism itself. The main ideas of the work are revealed in polemics with the concept of “miraculous” by V.V. Dolgov, in which the mystical and rational medieval thinking are opposed.