Mythological Characters Research Articles

The artistic image of an angel in the Turkic world: yesterday and today

Abstract. The angel is a mythological character common to the Turkic peoples. Along with the spread of Islam and the glorification of God, its angels also became popular and praised. The duties and responsibilities of the four great angels given in the Qur’an, as well as people’s views and understanding of them, have been mentioned in the works written over the centuries and have become synonymous with kindness and honesty, purity and chastity. The article focuses on the use of everyday religious legends, fairy tales, and mythological stories about an angel in Turkic peoples and Kazakh poetry. There is a myth at the beginning of every fairy tale and song, that is, today’s fairy tales and songs can be carefully considered, based on certain rules, sorting and separating the ancient ideas about greed.The names of the angels «Gabriel», «Azrael», and «Munkir-Nankir» are found in epics and myths. Angels were messengers between the prophets and Allah, who sent down the Koran from heaven to earth. In this article we mentioned the nature and characteristics of the angel in folklore and literature with the character of «angel» in the Holy Qur’an. Specifically, in the ayats of the Holy Qur’an, Muslims should believe in angels as much as they believe and not question them. They are to be regarded as executors of the command of the Most High. However, in the folklore that arose after the spread and assimilation of Islam, the image of the angel Azariel began to be portrayed in a negative, deadly way. In other words, people adapted to their understanding and way of life. The singing of angels in the image of a beautiful woman and a newborn child is commonplace in Turkic poetry.It is well known that the literature of Turkic peoples has many common characters, similar and recurring plot lines, mythical legends, and folklore genres. One of the important topics is the study of the concept of «angel» common with the Islamic world, the nature and similarity of angelic religious epics in the transmission in the literature of Turkic peoples, the reflection of the image of «angel» in the understanding of people in literature. It is the development of the concept of «angel» that moved from mythology to folklore, from folklore to literature, turned into a motive network of numerous fairy tales and legends, epics, in the process of development the acquisition of individual character traits and descriptions inherent in each of the Turkic peoples, a topic requiring a comparative study. The article, as far as possible, noted the changed version of Әzireil into Esrel, Esrel, Esrelĕ, Esrelĕ; also noted the angels Harut and Marut, which God brought down to earth to help the people who are so strongly endowed with magic; the display in fiction of the angels Mănkүr-Nүkіr and Israfil asking many questions.The artistic image of the mythic hero-Angel, common to the Turkic peoples, is a viable subject. Therefore, it is important for us to understand their essence and meaning. The presentation of the characters common to the mythology of Turkic peoples is a complex and fascinating task.Such research is born only as a result of many years of research. In the future, we will continue our research on the common characters in the mythology of Turkic peoples.

ANALYSIS OF ANTHROPONYMS IN THE MANUSCRIPT «QISSA-YI DJENKNAME-YI RISALE-YI SHAH-I MERDAN»

The names of lands and waters, the names of people are a mirror of the culture, customs, beliefs,worldview of a certain people. Among them, anthroponyms are a valuable heritage in the study of the history of the language, culture of the nation. Literary anthroponyms are the main branch of anthropo-nymics that requires important research. Especially among the medieval Turkic inscriptions that have survived to the present day, there are characters important to both history and literature. The article dealswith the role and analysis of anthroponyms in the heroic poem about Hazrat Ali written at the beginningof the twentieth century. The object of the study is the religious manuscript “Kissa-i Jenkname-i Risale-i Shah-i Merdan”, writ-ten in the postclassical Chagatai language. Exploring the anthroponymic space of this text, we divided anthroponyms into historical and mythological characters.In our work, we consider the identification of proper names in the anthroponymic space of themanuscript. Among them there are historical characters such as the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), His family and companions, and the mythological characters of Indian (Firuz Shah), Persian (Jam-shid Shah) and Chinese (Salsal Shah) legends as well. Key words: proper nouns, anthroponym, religious epic, Hazrat Ali, Chagatai language.

About the treatise of al-Farabi «Kitabul-Khuruf»

The names of lands and waters, the names of people are a mirror of the culture, customs, beliefs,worldview of a certain people. Among them, anthroponyms are a valuable heritage in the study of the history of the language, culture of the nation. Literary anthroponyms are the main branch of anthropo-nymics that requires important research. Especially among the medieval Turkic inscriptions that have survived to the present day, there are characters important to both history and literature. The article dealswith the role and analysis of anthroponyms in the heroic poem about Hazrat Ali written at the beginningof the twentieth century. The object of the study is the religious manuscript “Kissa-i Jenkname-i Risale-i Shah-i Merdan”, writ-ten in the postclassical Chagatai language. Exploring the anthroponymic space of this text, we divided anthroponyms into historical and mythological characters.In our work, we consider the identification of proper names in the anthroponymic space of themanuscript. Among them there are historical characters such as the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), His family and companions, and the mythological characters of Indian (Firuz Shah), Persian (Jam-shid Shah) and Chinese (Salsal Shah) legends as well. Key words: proper nouns, anthroponym, religious epic, Hazrat Ali, Chagatai language.

Historical Evolution of the Narrative Theme of Ariadne’s Abandonment in European Painting

The story of abandonment of Ariadne, a Cretan princess, especially connected with two other mythological characters, Theseus and Dionysus, has drawn the attention of painters and sculptors throughout history. Ariadne, Mino’s daughter, fell in love with Theseus, but Theseus abandoned her, and she was finally found by Dionysus in Naxos Island. Quite a few paintings have emerged in various styles from this theme, i.e. Ariadne’s abandonment by Theseus, Ariadne’s solitariness, and her meeting with Dionysus. This narrative has been portrayed by painters from different perspectives, and the works of paintings available on this theme in antiquity, the Renaissance and Baroque, and the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries AD have undergone fundamental evolution and change in terms of form, structure, and narrative style. This paper is aimed at providing a descriptive and analytical account of European works of paintings about Ariadne’s abandonment and identifying and understanding the structural and narrative changes of European works of paintings about this abandonment throughout history (from ancient Greece to the twentieth century). Importantly, each artist has seen and portrayed this narrative according to his/her style and lived experience from a specific period. The works analyzed in this study belong to historical periods and artistic styles of Renaissance, Baroque, and the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The theme of abandoned Ariadne narrative makes its contextual and iconographic analysis possible with regard to the historical changes and the artists’ desire in each era to select and interpret this legend. In the historical world of myths, Ariadne was left alone in her way to Athens in Naxos Island, but the depiction of this narrative in painting at different times and in different works has opened a new symbolic aspect of it and given it a new interpretation. There are more than five hundred images of this theme available from classical Greece to modern art. Three well-known and recurring scenes of this story can be examined. The first is the scene where Ariadne falls asleep and is abandoned by Theseus by Athena’s guidance and decree. The second is the scene where Dionysus finds Ariadne Naxos Island in great sadness and appeases her. It is in this scene that they hold a feast and celebrate their wedding. The third scene portrays Ariadne left alone after waking up, while gazing upon Theseus’s ship moving away at sea. Examining these works indicates that the frequency, repetition and attention to the importance of each of these scenes change in different periods. Ancient Greek paintings often portray the first scene. During the Renaissance and Baroque, it is the second scene that is often portrayed, while the third scene draws the painter’s attention from the late eighteenth century, and particularly the nineteenth century. Using library resources and qualitative and descriptive-analytical method, this study aimed to analyze the paintings pertaining to Ariadne’s abandonment in the historical course from antiquity to the beginning of the twentieth century and to present a reading of them. The results suggest the evolution of this narrative theme throughout the history of painting.

The Struggle for Symbolic Space: The Choice of the Patron-Spirit of the City of Kazan

In the article, the concept of “genius of a place” is defined as a historical or mythological character of particular importance for the locality, possible applicants for the role of “genius of a place” in Kazan are considered, the political and social mechanisms that determine the nomination of one or another applicant are identified. The authors suggest that the “genius of the place” of Kazan is not a certain static, formed, and integral image. The population of Kazan is heterogeneous, and the various groups of its constituents — the administrative and managerial elite and the intelligentsia, conservatives and liberals, Russians and Tatars — have their idea of what the “genius of the place” of Kazan should look like. Researchers come to the conclusion that the “genius of the place” is an embodied group sociocultural ideal, and the struggle and conflicts taking place in a symbolic form partly prevent the transformation of existing intergroup contradictions into real ethnosocial and ethnopolitical conflicts.

Divine Parody: Ridiculing America’s Spiritual Crisis in Neil Gaiman’s American Gods

One of the reasons for modern man's mental disorders is a spiritual crisis. In American Gods, Neil Gaiman ridicules this condition by reviving religious, folklore, and mythological entities into new contexts. These entities, however, are simplified as merely intertextual references by most studies. In fact, the new contexts are pragmatically intended to parody American modernity in leading modern man to a spiritual crisis. This research, thus, aims to be a descriptive-analytical study that not only interprets such references through intertextual analysis but also uses pragmatic analysis to examine how the novel parodically portrays modern man's spiritual journey. Deploying Linda Hutcheon's Interpretation of Parody, the Intertextual analysis results that these mythological characters are resituated to represent marginal communities, like ex-convicts, fugitives, drifters, gangsters, immigrants, homeless, laborers, prostitutes, and relocators. While applying Jung's interpretation of the relationship between mythological archetypes and psychological traits, the pragmatic analysis suggests that the hero archetype has been reimagined to caricature modern man's spiritual journey in reconciling his conscious desire with unconscious competencies that resulting disorders in his mental. The factors that influence the hero's mental stability are manifested through the trickster characters in deceiving the hero's consciousness with secular realities, while the sage characters reinforce the hero's unconsciousness through some spiritual journeys.

THE NAMES OF CHEMICAL ELEMENTS IN THE UDMURT LANGUAGE

The article discusses the original and borrowed names of chemical elements in the Udmurt language. The chronology of the fixation of chemical elements is determined, indicating the year of the first fixation in the Udmurt and Russian lexicographic literature, the year of the discovery of the chemical element. The etymology of the names is revealed. In nature, only a small part of the chemical elements is found in pure form. Many peoples were familiar with them already in the early stages of social development; they were given their own names or borrowed from neighbors. However, most of the chemical elements exist only in the composition of chemical compounds. They got their names rather late, when scientists learned to separate individual elements from the composition of chemical compounds. As they received them, experts gave them names in a variety of ways: they took into account various properties, state of aggregation, color, smell, used the names of geographical and astronomical objects, the names of mythological characters, discoverers or the names of scientific centers that discovered the element, or just a name authoritative scientists and public figures. When nominating scientists, as a rule, they used ancient Greek, Latin or German.

Images of Sleep and Insomnia Spirits in Karelian Mythology

Abstract. The primary source of material for this research was the folklore-ethnographic evidence stored in the archives of Karelia and collected over a century-long time period by Karelian folklore researchers. Comparative-historical, synchronous-descriptive and comparative-typological methods were employed. The scientific novelty and relevance of this research arise from the fact that the topic has not been studied through 19-20th century mythological stories of Karelians. The focus of the study was on the images of two mythological characters that are antagonistic and struggle for power over the child: yönitkettäi ‘night placheya (evil night spirit of crying)’ and uniukko ‘old man of sleep’. They enter the house at night, the former by breaking the established taboo, the latter invited by a human. The worlds of the spirits are also antipodal both to each other and to the human world.
 Keywords: mythology, folklore, Karelians, night placheya, old man of sleep, beliefs

Metaphorical Folk Names of English and Ukrainian Homeopathic Plants: Comparative Analysis in Cognitive and Linguocultural Framework

This research focuses on the comparative analysis of metaphorical folk names of English and Ukrainian homeopathic plants. The paper identified and interpreted the cognitive and linguocultural underpinning of the metaphors with an emphasis on the isomorphic and allomorphic features of their motivational structures in the compared languages. The study reached four major findings. Isomorphic for the metaphorization processes are input source spaces of "plant distribution area"; "mythical person or creature"; "a diseased organ or symptom"; "behaviour"; "another plant"; "body parts of the animal, bird or human", associated with the plant as a target space in shape, general appearance, location, healing properties, time of existence and way of life. Isomorphic for English and Ukrainian folk names of homeopathic plants are the compound blending models involving more than two input spaces and few blending spaces, as well as the presence in their motivational structure of a symbolic component associated with nationally specific and universal archetypal symbols. Isomorphic for metaphoric plant names is metonymic compression in blending spaces, based on holonym-partonym substitution, and involvement in the blending the possessive and comparative schemas. Allomorphic input sources of English metaphors involve the spheres of "artifact", "body fluids", "mythological characters", "fantastic creature", "particular patterns of behavior"– in contrast to the Ukrainian intercultural synonyms where such conceptual input spaces have not been identified.

The Problem of Areal Studies of Folk Beliefs: Polish Zmora on the Background of Other Slavic Traditions

Currently, the problem of identifying and comparing mythological characters from different folklore traditions remains relevant. Revealing common elements of mythological characters is necessary for compiling folklore indexes and mapping specific motives and plots associated with them. In this article, this problem will be examined using the example of the Polish zmora and other similar Slavic mythological characters. It attempts to compare the zmora from Polish folklore with mythological characters of this type from other Slavic traditions, relying on the similarities and differences of the motives, as well as functions and differential features associated with them. The article shows the features which are common for the Polish zmora and similar characters in Czech, Slovak, Moravian and Lusatian folk culture, Bulgarian, Croatian and Serbian traditions, as well as in Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian folk culture. The author concludes that the West Slavic mora and the South Slavic mora are quite close to the Polish zmora in terms of the image and the plot-motive fund, and on this basis, the Western and South Slavs represent one ethnocultural area. Meanwhile, the Eastern Slavs do not have a corresponding character, so the motives and functions associated with such mythological characters among the Western and South Slavs are absent on the East Slavic territory or are passed to other characters.

МІФОЛОГІЧНІ ОБРАЗИ В ЛАТИНСЬКОМОВНІЙ ПОЕЗІЇ УКРАЇНСЬКОГО БАРОКО

The article examines the peculiarities of mythological characters in the Latin poetry of the baroque period in Ukraine. This period contributed a lot to intercultural relations between Ukraine and Western Europe and gave a birth to the phenomenon of the baroque Ukrainian poetry, written in Latin language. In the present paper much research has been devoted to the poetic works of Theophan Prokopovych, Grygoriy Vyshnevsky and Ilarion Yaroshevytsky; their poetic texts are found in printed editions ("Elegia paraenetica", "Epinikion", "Elegia Alexii", "Comparatio vitae monasticae", "Descriptiuncula Kijowiae", "Possesoris horum librorum luctuosum vale") and manuscripts ("Iter laureatum", "Cupido seu amor alatus"). The study analyzes the poetry in various genres, such as panegyric, elegy, epigram, lyrical poem. Addressing to the ancient legacy was defined as the sufficient and necessary feature of the baroque style. The article suggests the idea that a poet gives a preference to one or another mythological character in his individual author's interpretation. The analysis of the poetic texts reveals the most productive mythological characters, which can be classified into the following categories: 1) art (Apollo with the Muses, the winged horse Pegasus); 2) martial arts (Mars); 3) celebrations (Bacchus, Hymenaeus); 4) love (Venus, Cupid, Cypride ); 5) natural phenomena (Aurora, Lucifer, Phosphorus, Titan, Zephyrus, Thetis). The research has demonstrated that contamination of the two worldviews was natural for the baroque poet. This contamination was embodied in the bizarre combination of Christian and ancient elements in their literary works. It was traced that Latin poets of the Ukrainian baroque completely followed the literary traditions of the classical theory of poetry, what was marked in the form of the poetic work and its content.

Carpatho-Ukrainian skusa – from word to character

The article attempts to explain the appearance of the character skusa in Western Ukrainian mythology through the origin of its name, while exploring the motives of temptation in East Slavic folklore. The formation of skusa as a mythological character is due to the high frequency of the verb kusyty and its derivates in Western Ukrainian dialects. This verb has negative connotations and denotes Satan’s function to tempt a person, to provoke him or her to commit unrighteous deeds. Against the background of the relatively high “activity” of the verbs of temptation in local mythological prose, this function is personalized over time and character names (skusa, pokusa) appear, similar to other single-functional characters such as lyakayla or blud. Skusa, essentially identical to the devil, due to its weak formedness as a character, is devoid of any specific external features and even by its grammatical gender appears in texts either as a female or as a male character. Subsequently, the word skusa begins to denote not only a demon, but also various diseases, mainly “caused”; finally, the same verb and its derivatives spokušaty / spokusyty / skusyty are used to denote medicinal plants (skusivnyk) used to get rid of skusa.

Последний трикстер сибирской этнографии (к 70-летию Валерия Макаровича Кимеева)

This article discusses life and work of Valery Makarovich Kimeev - one of the most prominent Siberian ethnographers, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Associate Professor at the Department of Archaeology of KemSU, in connection with his 70th birthday, which was to be held in October 2022. The article also attempts to identify trickster features in the creative, scientific and social life of the famous Siberian scientist. The trickster is the archetype of the frontier plane, teetering on the thin line that separates productive creation from negative destruction. The trickster is an unpredictable, fickle, charming type. The complexity of the problem lies in the identification of trickster features not in a folklore or mythological character, but in a real person who has recently passed away from us. Among the attributes of the trickster are the playful nature of his actions, the inability to fit into the known framework, the chaos and unpredictability of the hero, the communication of ideas and humor. Examples of the manifestation of the listed attributes in the life and work of V.M. Kimeev are demonstrated, first of all, on the basis of personal observations. Trickster features inherent in Valery Makarovich Kimeev were the basis of his behavior in life, the essence of his attitude and adaptation to reality. Trickster characteristics of V.M. Kimeev was supported by his professionalism and, at times, excessive demands on what was happening. The qualities of his character and personality that we examined drew attention to him, the last trickster of Siberian ethnography.

On Myth, Mythology, and Mythological Characters in Contemporary Vietnamese Prose

On Myth, Mythology, and Mythological Characters in Contemporary Vietnamese Prose

Folk demonology of Podlasie (based on own materials)

The article publishes field material on the folk demonology of Podlasie, collected by the author in 1990, 1993, and 2017. Mythological characters are described with functions typical for the spirits of the house and barn: weasel as the patron of cattle, “zmora”, braiding the mane of horses and strangling the sleeping ones. The brownie demon-enricher has a number of similarities with the West Slavic flying fiery serpent. The territory of Podlasie is the western periphery of the East Slavic distribution area of rusalky and the southern periphery of the distribution area of Lithuanian “laumė” (“loima” in Podlasie). Rusalky, in addition to their typical properties (appearance in a rye field etc.), sometimes combine the signs of other characters – they mix with Lady Midday, with weasel, sirens (half-maiden-half-fish), are identified with the grasshopper and flashing lights. The demon that makes a person go astray is known as “blud”, which is characteristic of this character in the folk tradition of Western Ukrainians, Poles and other Western Slavs. The water spirit (“vodyanoy”) is almost unknown, it was mainly used to frighten only children. Many beliefs are associated with death and the souls of the dead: the souls of unbaptized children, the walking dead (vampire), the image of death. Tales and beliefs about witches and sorcerers are widespread, especially stories about stealing milk from other people’s cows. Beliefs about werewolfes, double-hearted aliens, sorcerers who drive away clouds and a single mention of a cloud-ruler demon are recorded. The devil appears both in the anthropomorphic form of a gentleman in a black hat, and in the zoomorphic form of a dog or a black ram. Some characters are found only in verbal formulas that are used to scare children.

Otherness on the Hereford World Map (c. 1300)

This study examines the Hereford World Map (c. 1300) in relation to modern theoretical concepts of Otherness and marginality to expose disjunctions between medieval and modern ideologies. As an authoritative synthesis of Classical geographical learning and Christian theological beliefs, the landmasses, islands, and waterways of the Hereford Map are populated by hundreds of tiny icons and inscriptions that represent the world’s cities, biblical and mythological characters, animals, birds, monsters, and more. Among these are many identifiable Others, whose cartographical locations do not fit easily into modern theoretical frameworks but rather signal more complex relationships between Us and Them, and between centre and periphery; especially in England, where the Map was made and displayed. Moreover, Otherness on the Hereford Map is performed not only by the usual actors - the so-called Monstrous Races and non-Christian outgroups-but also by the divine personages dispensing justice in the celestial space depicted at its summit. My analysis of selected imagery reveals that certain of the Map’s figures and places commonly identified by modern critics as marginal in fact lay at the conceptual centre of medieval Christian identity. Moving away from the centre - margins paradigm, I also examine how medieval cartographical strategies of alignment, juxtaposition, and directionality enhanced the work’s didactic value for medieval pilgrims, and I identify examples of lessons that were retrievable with or without the assistance of cathedral guides acting as interpretative intermediaries. I conclude that the presence of Others on the Hereford Map helped medieval viewers locate themselves in its geographical spaces and in its Christian worldview, which suggests that the theoretical concept of Otherness remains a viable tool for expanding our understanding of the cultural and ideological complexities of medieval mappae mundi.

The representation of “fate” in the folk mythology in Serbia and in China

The study is devoted to the notions of fate in the traditional folk mythology of China and Serbia. The article analyzes the folk rites and the related terminology, the name and image of mythological characters denoting the fate of a person. Folk customs, native and funeral rites, folklore (proverbs, songs, riddles) became the material for considering the mythological image of fate. The work shows how the mythological perception of fate is reflected in the cultural code and in the linguistic image of the world. The article demonstrates how the mythological perception of fate is reflected in the linguistic images of the world of different peoples. Serbs believe that the fate of a person is given by God and other supernatural powers, in particular, the fate of a newborn child is determined by three mythological characters. In the Chinese tradition, fate is influenced by the heavenly will, the time of birth, an amulet, the lord of hell etc. In folk mythology, the soul will be reborn and will receive the fate, determined by the deeds of the person during the lifetime. The article is mainly devoted to the comparative analysis of the linguocultural meaning of fate in Chinese and Serbian mythology. The article compares the typological similarities and differences reflected in the mentality, ethnic memory, folk psychology. As a result, linguistic and extralinguistic factors have been identified that have unambiguously influenced the terminology of the perception of fate (for example, the names of mythological characters). The purpose of the study is to examine the logical-semantic and linguistic features of the appeal to the mythologeme of fate in the Chinese and the Serbian languages, in the reconstruction of folk spiritual culture.

Demonic images in modern ukrainian advertising

Introduction. Modern advertising reflects the cultural and historical processes taking place in Ukrainian society, in particular the establishment of the national identity of Ukrainians, which peaked in 2014 – the beginning of Russia’s armed aggression against Ukraine. Dissociation from foreign cultural traditions led to the appearance of Ukrainian demonic images in advertising – a mavka, a woodcutter, a chugaister, etc. The emotional upheaval of Ukrainians with the start of active hostilities in 2022 led to the transformation of the characters of lower mythology, who acquired the positive characteristics of Ukrainian land’s defenders. Relevance of the study. The evolution of demonic images in modern Ukrainian advertising from purely traditional to hyperbolically attractive representatives of the Ukrainian nation, the study of personified spirits of nature as a mechanism for popularizing traditional Ukrainian values appears to us to be relevant and in need of academic attention. The purpose of the article is to investigate the use of demonic images in modern Ukrainian advertising, to outline the evolution of advertising characters representing lower mythology in accordance with society’s requests for ethnic self-identification. Methodology. The article uses general scientific methods of generalization, comparison, systematization, the structural-semiotic approach at the semantic and pragmatic levels, and the hermeneutic approach. The analysis was conducted using visual methods, in particular, iconological interpretation, linguosemiotic analysis, descriptive method. The study of mythological images in relation to their modern embodiment was carried out with the help of the cultural method, namely, the method of problematization of empirical material, comparison of basic images of demons with modern visual interpretations. Results. Ukrainian advertisers adopted the globalization trend of changing the semantic content of the demonic image from negative to positive, attributive demonologizing of advertising characters, whose mystical essence does not cause disgust, since their negative influence is directed at the advertised product. With the beginning of the Russian aggression in Ukraine, representatives of Ukrainian lower mythology appear in advertising, which illustrates the radical changes in society as the formation of national identification, group psychological integrity, the formation of a national model of Ukrainian society. Conclusions. Mythological characters in modern Ukrainian advertising have acquired positive features as a response to the fight against new evil forces in the form of Russian invaders. Demonic images, traditional for the Ukrainian worldview, appear as representatives of their land, who have magical power and are able to protect their own territory, Ukrainian cultural traditions from destruction. This indicates a change in narratives in Ukrainian advertising: it gradually becomes a translator of national values, a powerful mechanism of patriotic education.

ФЕНОМЕНЫ ПОГРЕБЕНИЯ, ПОГРАНИЧЬЯ, ПЕРЕХОДА В КОНТЕКСТЕ ИЗОБРАЖЕНИЙ ДРУГИХ В ГРЕЧЕСКОЙ ВАЗОПИСИ

Greek perception of the Others was syncretic: real facts were mixed with fantastic ideas; in their view the Others lived on the outskirts of the oikumene, that is on the border with the other worlds – in the broad sense – real and fantastic, the world of alive and dead – this connected them with the phenomena of borders, transition, burial, etc. Due to this, the Others in Greek art were often represented in mythological subjects and as mythological characters. Also, some subjects where the Others were represented were connected with the phenomena of transition and burial – war, preparations for war, hunt, etc. Also, some details of such images were connected with these phenomena. The semantics of the Greek vase painting was controversial and multilayered therefore interpretation of many of such images is disputable. Besides, the phenomena studied might be examined in a more narrow or more broad sense. Moreover, the connection of many characters represented with the other world, other gods and myths is much more complicated and outgoes far beyond the borders of the thematic connected with the Otherness.

On one mythological motif among the Burgenland Croats in comparison with the neighboring traditions of the South and the West Slavs

The article discusses the motif of baking bread by mythological characters of the “vila” (‘wood-nymph’) type (for themselves and/or for people living nearby), which is known to the Croats of Burgenland in Austria and Hungary, Croats on the Drava (Hungary), as well as in one form or another – to Slovenes and Czechs, there are also some Lusatian parallels. The paradigmatic alterations of the considered belief, noted during the field survey of villages or in previously published sources, are analyzed, reflected, as a rule, in mythological stories: from the viewpoint of the agent of action (“a wood-nymph”, “a wild woman”, and in case of loss of archaic meaning – “a women”, “Mother of God / St. Maria”), the recipient of the action (a person living nearby; a person who helped these mythical creatures; finally, the characters themselves, who presumably eat baked bread), the conditions of the action itself (selfless giving; a gift in exchange for help), an object of action (in particular, bread as a miraculous object that disappears under certain circumstances). In relation to the South Slavic folk ideas and the verbal clichés reflecting them, characterizing the red glow in the sky at sunset (allegedly coming from the furnaces of the wood-nymphs), the patterns of ethnolinguistic geography are traced, concerning the correlation on the map of a stable verbal expression and its mythological context (extralinguistic data). When comparing the material with Western Slavic beliefs reflected in mythological stories, the specific features of this belief, not known to the Southern Slavs, are noted: the disappearance of bread when a person violates the ban; collecting of neglected spikelets in the field by mythological characters, and some others.