THE RUSSIAN FOLK “EGYPTOLOGY”

Abstract

The paper deals with Russian folk legends about “pharaohs” - mythical creatures with a human torso and a fish tail, who inhabited the water element. The legends reflected the oldest layer of folk knowledge about the ancient Egyptian history. These ideas go back to the biblical story about Pharaoh's army that drowned in the Red Sea during the exodus of the Jews from Egypt. In Old Russia, the title “Pharaoh” became a symbol of a proud and wicked ruler. The legend about the mythical water people was first recorded by Vasily Poznyakov, who travelled to Egypt in 1558. At the end of the 16th century, his story was used by Trifon Korobeynikov, who was on a pilgrimage to the East. Thanks to this work, “pharaohs” and “pharaonic women” were formed as negative characters of the Christian legend and in the 18th - 19th centuries were firmly incorporated into Russian folklore, while the image of the mythical people itself received an eschatological sound. Images of these creatures became one of the motifs of folk decorative art in Nizhny Novgorod province and neighboring counties of Kostroma province. It had a negative meaning, which derived from the “negativity” of the Old Testament character of the same name and was projected onto one of the repulsive features of the local character.