Folk Carpathian-Ukrainian demonology: motivational-functional research method

Abstract

The traditional way of describing and researching national demonological systems is the character approach. The article attempts to substantiate another possibility of studying Slavic demonology – through the concept of a mythological motive. The motive is understood as a semantic predicate of demonological narratives of various kinds, the minimal meaningful unit of plot composition (including motives-actions, motives-situations, motives-descriptions etc.). The composition of motives in each mythological tradition is unique and can be used to understand the mentality of the people, their way of perception of the world and their attitude to the world. The article describes, with varying degree of detail, some of the motives characteristic of the Carpathian-Ukrainian demonology: motives “to scare a person”, “to lead astray”, telling fairy tales as a protective charm, substitution of babies by demons, motives of double-mindedness, gaining magical power against hail, a circular dance of forest demons and a number of others. Among them, there are world-known, all-Slavic, actually Carpathian-Ukrainian and also Carpathian-Balkan motives. An analysis of these, as well as of other motives, contained in mythological narratives from the collections of V. Hnatiuk, V. Shukhevych, A. Onyschuk and others, allows us to realize the specificity and uniqueness of the Carpathian Ukrainian tradition, and can also provide material for conclusions of an ethnogenetic nature.