Psychological basis of the image of a dead lover in mythology of transcarpatia and P. Kulish’s story about, why the Peshevtsov pond was dried up in the town of Voronezh

Abstract

In Ukrainian mythology as in world mythology, there is an idea of the possibility of a love relationship between a human and a demonic creature – a dead lover or a devil. Thus, F. Potushnyak’s article Dead Love in Folk Beliefs (1944) is devoted to this theme. Folk beliefs about demonic lovers precondition the relationship between them and a human, and methods of their overcoming are examined in this article. In the short story About, why the Peshevtsov pond was dried up in the town of Voronezh (1839) written by P. Kulish, we can find a very interesting interpretation of folk beliefs when a dead husband visits his wife. The writer modeled the tragic story of the woman, whose husband disappeared, with the help of folk mythological stories. And because of her deep regret, she became a victim of a demon who appeared in the image of her beloved husband. In the article, the psychological basis of the appearance of visions, in which the main figure is a dead object of love, is analyzed. Through the prism of Jung’s theory, the image of a dead lover is considered as a personification of one of the archetypes of the collective unconscious (Animus, its negative aspect). Destructive display of this image has the same psychological basis both in mythological legends and in P. Kulish’s short story About, why the Peshevtsov pond was dried up in the town of Voronezh. The woman’s consciousness refuses to take the reality as it is and creates an alternative variant for herself – the dead lover comes to her at night (when unconscious dominates – our wishes, fears, etc. are implemented in night dreams). The line between conscious and unconscious life is erased and the woman becomes a hostage of her own fantasy, which removes pain of loss and gives hope to renew the lost emotional and spiritual balance for a moment. Folk stories in the spirit of Christian morality contain “recipes” of fighting a dead lover. However, mostly these rituals cannot help the woman, who is obsessed with love to her dead lover as it happened in P. Kulish’s story.