Mythical mythology. Mythology. Functions of myth. Mythological schools - Abstract. The difference between myth and fairy tale

The word "myth" is Greek and literally means legend, legend. Usually this refers to tales about gods, spirits, heroes deified or related to gods by their origin, about ancestors who acted at the beginning of time and participated directly or indirectly in the creation of the world itself, its elements, both natural and cultural. Mythology is a collection of similar tales about gods and heroes and, at the same time, a system of fantastic ideas about the world. The science of myths is also called mythology.

Myth-making is considered as the most important phenomenon in the cultural history of mankind. In primitive society, mythology represented the main way of understanding the world, and myth expressed the worldview and worldview of the era of its creation. “Myth, as the original form of spiritual culture of humanity, represents nature and the social forms themselves, already processed in an unconsciously artistic way by folk fantasy” (K. Marx, see K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, 2nd ed., vol. 12, p. 737).

The main prerequisites for a kind of mythological “logic” were, firstly, that primitive man did not distinguish himself from the surrounding natural and social environment, and, secondly, that thinking retained the features of diffuseness and indivisibility, was almost inseparable from the emotional effectiveness , motor sphere. The consequence of this was the vast humanization of all nature, universal personification, “metaphorical” comparison of natural, social, and cultural objects. Human properties were transferred to natural objects; they were attributed animation, rationality, human feelings, and often external anthropomorphism, and, conversely, the mythological ancestors could be assigned the features of natural objects, especially animals.

The expression of forces, properties and fragments of the cosmos as animated and concrete sensory images gives rise to bizarre mythological fiction. Certain powers and abilities could be expressed plastically by multi-armed, multi-eyed, and the most outlandish transformations of appearance; diseases could be represented by monsters - eaters of people, the cosmos - by the world tree or a living giant, tribal ancestors - by creatures of a dual - zoomorphic and anthropomorphic - nature, which was facilitated by the totemic idea of ​​kinship and partial identity of social groups with animal species. It is characteristic of myth that various spirits, gods (and thereby the elements and natural objects they represent) and heroes are connected by family and tribal relations.

In myth, form is identical to content and therefore the symbolic image represents what it models. Mythological thinking is expressed in the vague separation of subject and object, object and sign, thing and word, being and its name, thing and its attributes, singular and plural, spatial and temporal relations, beginning and principle, that is, origin and essence. This diffuseness manifests itself in the sphere of imagination and generalization.

For myth, the identification of genesis and essence, that is, the actual replacement of cause-and-effect relationships with precedent, is extremely specific. In principle, a myth coincides with a description of the model of the world and a narration about the emergence of its individual elements, natural and cultural objects, about the deeds of gods and heroes that determined its current state (and then about other events, the biographies of mythological characters). The current state of the world - relief, celestial bodies, animal breeds and plant species, way of life, social groups, religious institutions, tools, hunting techniques and cooking, etc., etc. - all this turns out to be a consequence of events long past time and actions of mythological heroes, ancestors, gods.

A story about events of the past serves in myth as a means of describing the structure of the world, a way of explaining its current state. Mythical events turn out to be the “building blocks” of the mythical model of the world. Mythical time is the time “initial”, “early”, “first”, this is the “right time”, the time before time, that is, before the beginning of the historical countdown of current time. This is the time of the first ancestors, the first creation, the first objects, “dream time” (in the terminology of some Australian tribes, that is, the time of revelation in dreams), sacred time, in contrast to the subsequent profane, empirical, historical time.

Mythical time and the events that fill it, the actions of ancestors and gods are the sphere of the root causes of everything that follows, the source of archetypal prototypes, the model for all subsequent actions. The real achievements of culture, the formation of social relations in historical time, etc. are projected by myth into mythical time and are reduced to single acts of creation.

The most important function of mythical time and myth itself is the creation of a model, an example, a model. Leaving models for imitation and reproduction, mythical time and mythical heroes simultaneously exude magical spiritual forces that continue to maintain the established order in nature and society; maintaining such order is also an important function of myth. This function is carried out through rituals, which often directly dramatize the events of mythical times and sometimes even include the recitation of myths.

In rituals, mythical time and its heroes are not only depicted, but, as it were, reborn with their magical power, events are repeated and re-actualized. Rituals ensure their “eternal return” and magical influence, guaranteeing the continuity of natural and life cycles, the preservation of the once established order. Myth and ritual constitute two sides—theoretical and practical, as it were—of the same phenomenon. However, along with myths that have a ritual equivalent, there are myths that do not have such an equivalent, as well as rituals that are deprived of their mythological counterpart.

The category of mythical time is especially characteristic of archaic mythologies, but transformed ideas about a special initial era are also found in higher mythologies, sometimes as an ideal “golden age” or, conversely, as a time of chaos, subject to subsequent cosmization. In principle, the myth aims to depict the transformation of chaos into space.

Subsequently, in epic monuments, mythical time is transformed into a glorious heroic era of the unity of the people, powerful statehood, great wars, etc. In mythologies associated with higher religions, mythical time is transformed into the era of life and activity of deified prophets, founders of a religious system and community. Along with initial time, the idea of ​​final time, the end of the world (eschatological myths) also penetrates into myths. “Biographies” of gods and heroes appear, their life cycle and main exploits are described, etc. However, mythical time remains the main category of myth, just as creation myths and explanatory (etiological) myths are the most important; the most fundamental and typical type of myth-making.

Mythology is the most ancient, archaic, ideological formation of a syncretic nature. The embryonic elements of religion, philosophy, science, and art are intertwined in myth. The organic connection between myth and ritual, carried out by musical, choreographic, “pre-theatrical” and verbal means, had its own hidden, unconscious aesthetics. Art, even having completely emancipated itself from myth and ritual, retained a specific combination of generalizations with specific images (not to mention the broad use of mythological themes and motifs).

On the other hand, myth and especially ritual were directly related to magic and religion. Since its inception, religion has included myths and rituals. Philosophy developed, gradually overcoming the mythological heritage. But even after the isolation of various ideologies and even after significant progress in science and technology, mythology does not remain exclusively a monument to the primitive worldview and archaic forms of storytelling. Not to mention the close connection between religion and mythology, some features of mythological consciousness can be preserved throughout history in the mass consciousness next to elements of philosophical and scientific knowledge, next to the use of strict scientific logic.

Mythology

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Penelope - character from Greek mythology

Mythology(Greek μυθολογα from μθος - legend, legend and λγος - word, story, teaching) - an object of study in many scientific disciplines (philosophy, history, philology, etc.), including ancient folklore and folk tales: myths, epics, fairy tales, etc. .

Origin of myths

Mythological ideas existed at certain stages of development among almost all peoples of the world. If Europeans before the Age of Discovery were familiar only with ancient myths, then they gradually learned about the presence of mythology among the inhabitants of Africa, America, Oceania, and Australia. The Bible contains echoes of Western Semitic mythology. Before the adoption of Islam, the Arabs had their own mythology.

Thus, we talk about the immanence of mythology in human consciousness. The time of origin of mythological images cannot be determined; their formation is inextricably linked with the origin of language and consciousness. The main task of myth is to set patterns, models for every important action performed by a person; myth serves to ritualize everyday life, enabling a person to find meaning in life.

According to supporters of the theory of paleocontacts, myths are history, events that actually happened. A modern example of this meaning of the word “myth” is “cargo cult.” Therefore, they offer religion and science a new look at mythology. As examples, they give descriptions of strange phenomena, for example from the Bible, and give them new explanations using modern knowledge of science and terminology.

Types of myths:

Cosmogonic myths - about the origin of the world;

Solar myths;

Lunar Myths;

Astral myths;

Eschatological myths - about the end of the world;

Anthropogonic myths - about the origin of man;

Culture Hero;

Calendar myths;

Myths about the dying and resurrecting beast;

Dying and rising god;

Myths about animals;

Cult myths.

Mythology and fairy tales

Some fairy tales are sometimes viewed as “degraded myths.” Often “folk tales, legends” are what are called “myths” in ancient culture.

The difference between a myth and a fairy tale:

1 Various functions.

The main function of myth is explanatory. The main function of a fairy tale is entertaining and moralizing.

2 People's attitude.

The myth is perceived by both the narrator and the listener as reality. The fairy tale is perceived (at least by the narrator) as fiction.

Mythology in art

Mythology in literature;

Mythology in fine arts.

Studying mythology:

Mythographers;

Allegorical interpretation of myths;

Philosophical and symbolic interpretation of myths;

Euhemeric interpretation of myths;

Reducing the gods of alien mythology to evil forces;

Comparative Mythology;

Myth as a deliberate deception of the people;

Myth as poetry;

Deification of natural phenomena;

- “tongue disease”;

Solar symbols;

Meteorological phenomena;

Evolutionary school (anthropological school);

Functional school;

Sociological School;

Symbolic theory;

Affective states and dreams;

Structuralist theory;

Allegorical exaggeration of the importance of the Own.

Mythological consciousness

For mythological consciousness, everything that exists is animate. Mythological space is the space of the soul.

Mythological consciousness is characterized by opposition to rationality, spontaneity, unreflective worldview, which, on the one hand, makes myth vulnerable to rational criticism, on the other hand, takes it out of the space of such (hence the stability of mythological ideas and the difficulty of combating them; for rational persuasion, a person must already admit that the mythological explanation of what is happening is not the only possible one and may turn out to be unreliable).

Mythologems are stable over time and give different manifestations in different cultural and social conditions. Myth is opposed by both scientific rationality and theological rationality inherent in theistic religions. Therefore, it is impossible to identify myth and religion, although, for example, some forms of religiosity (the so-called “folk religiosity”) move from the sphere of theologically reflected religion into the field of mythology and secondary mythological understanding of dogmas, rituals, and other religious practices.

Hence the relevance of mythological consciousness for any cultural era; only the degree of its social prestige and the scope of its wide distribution changes. The constant area of ​​realization of mythological consciousness is everyday life, where the existence of old and the generation of new myths is constant and intense. This mythology is expressed in modern folklore (urban folklore associated with urban mythology, pseudo-religious folklore reflecting the mythological interpretation of religion, professional folklore associated with professional mythology, etc.).

Professional mythology is an important part of professional culture along with professional ethics. Everyday mythology exists according to very old mythomagical principles, for example, the confusion of causal and spatio-temporal contiguity (this is where a lot of superstitious practices-signs, “happy”, “unlucky”, etc. come from).

Fears, including mass ones, are also caused not by a rational analysis of their possible causes, but by a mythological understanding of what is happening and the actualization of mythologies (for example, the mythology of a disaster). Mythological consciousness should also be attributed to the obligatory search by the average person for someone personally responsible for something that happens, as well as an exaggeration of the role of participation in events that have the nature of system dynamics of any individual. A purely mythological attitude to animate and personify the environment is also manifested here.

Historical development

Modern mythology

Technical civilization has its own mythology. The basis of technical mythology is ritual rationality: calculation and planning, the elimination of ambiguities, the attempt to reduce everything to a quantifiable form. When it comes into contact with a new area of ​​the unknown, science gives rise to its own “epistemological” myths (the discovery of Martian “canals”, the question of the prevalence of life in the Universe), which are used by science fiction. In modern megacities, urban mythology is developing.

Myth

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Theseus killing the Minotaur and Athena. Red-figure kylix, master Eison, 425-410. BC e. National Archaeological Museum, Madrid

Collection of Argonauts, Attic red-figure crater of the vase painter Niobe, 460-450 BC. e.

Myth(ancient Greek μθος) in literature - a legend that conveys people’s ideas about the world, man’s place in it, the origin of all things, about gods and heroes.

The specificity of myths appears most clearly in primitive culture, where myths are the equivalent of science, an integral system in terms of which the whole world is perceived and described. In myths, events are considered in time sequence, but in myths the specific time of the event does not matter, only the starting point for the beginning of the story is important. Myths have served for a very long time as the most important source of historical information, making up a large part of some historical works of antiquity (for example, Herodotus and Titus Livy).

Later, when such forms of social consciousness as art, literature, science, religion, political ideology and the like are isolated from mythology, they retain a number of mythological models, which are peculiarly rethought when included in new structures; the myth is experiencing its second life. Of particular interest is their transformation in literary creativity.

Since mythology masters reality in the forms of figurative storytelling, it is close in its meaning to fiction; historically, it anticipated many of the possibilities of literature and had a comprehensive influence on its early development. Naturally, literature does not part with mythological foundations even later, which applies not only to works with mythological basis of the plot, but also to realistic and naturalistic everyday life writing of the 19th and 20th centuries (suffice it to mention “The Adventures of Oliver Twist” by Charles Dickens, “Nana” by Emile Zola, "The Magic Mountain" by Thomas Mann).

Ancient literature

It is convenient to trace different types of the poet’s attitude towards myths using the material of ancient literature. Everyone knows that Greek mythology constituted not only the arsenal of Greek art, but also its “soil”. This can be attributed primarily to the Homeric epic (“Iliad”, “Odyssey”), which marks the line between impersonal communal tribal myth-making and its own literature (the “Vedas”, “Mahabharata”, “Ramayana”, “Puranas” are similar to it) India, "Avesta" in Iran, "Edda" in the German-Scandinavian world and others).

Homer’s approach to reality (“epic objectivity,” that is, the almost complete absence of individual reflection and psychologism), his aesthetics, still poorly distinguished from the general needs of life, are all thoroughly imbued with a mythological style of worldview. It is known that the actions and mental states of Homer's heroes are motivated by the intervention of numerous gods: within the framework of the epic picture of the world, the gods are more real than the too subjective sphere of the human psyche. In view of this, there is a temptation to assert that “mythology and Homer are one and the same thing...” (Friedrich Schelling, “Philosophy of Art”). But already in the Homeric epic, every step towards conscious aesthetic creativity leads to a rethinking of myths; Mythological material is selected according to criteria of beauty, and is sometimes parodied.

Later, the Greek poets of early antiquity abandoned irony in relation to myths, but subjected them to decisive processing - they were brought into a system according to the laws of reason (Hesiod), ennobled according to the laws of morality (Pindar). The influence of myths persists during the heyday of Greek tragedy, and it should not be measured by the obligatory nature of mythological plots; When Aeschylus creates the tragedy “The Persians” based on a plot from current history, he turns history itself into a myth. Tragedy goes through the revelation of semantic depths (Aeschylus) and the aesthetic harmonization of myths (Sophocles), but in the end it comes to a moral and rational criticism of its foundations (Euripides). For Hellenistic poets, dead mythology becomes an object of literary play and scholarly collecting (Callimachus of Cyrene).

Roman poetry gives new types of attitudes towards myths. Virgil connects myths with a philosophical understanding of history, creating a new structure of the mythological image, which is enriched with symbolic meaning and lyrical insight, partly due to plastic concreteness. Ovid, on the contrary, separates mythology from religious content; he completes a conscious game with “given” motives, transformed into a unified system; in relation to an individual motive, any degree of irony or frivolity is permissible, but the system of mythology as a whole is endowed with a “sublime” character.

Middle Ages and Renaissance

Medieval poetry continued Virgil's attitude towards myths, while the Renaissance continued Ovid's.

Beginning with the late Renaissance, non-antique images of the Christian religion and chivalric romance are translated into the figurative system of ancient mythology, understood as a universal language (“Jerusalem Liberated” by T. Tasso, the idylls of F. Spe, chanting Christ under the name of Daphnis). Allegorism and the cult of convention reach their apogee by the 18th century.

However, by the end of the 18th century, an opposite trend emerged; the formation of a deepened attitude towards myths occurs primarily in Germany, especially in the poetry of Goethe, Hölderlin and in the theory of Schelling, sharpened against classic allegorism (a mythical image does not “mean” something, but “is” this something or it is a meaningful form located in the organic unity with its content). For the romantics, there is no longer a single type of mythology (Antiquity), but worlds that are different according to the internal laws of mythology; they master the wealth of Germanic, Celtic, Slavic mythology and the myths of the East.

In the 17th century, the English philosopher Francis Bacon, in his essay “On the Wisdom of the Ancients,” argued - “myths in poetic form preserve the most ancient philosophy, moral maxims or scientific truths, the meaning of which is hidden under the cover of symbols and allegories”.

New time and modernity

In the 40-70s of the 19th century, a grandiose attempt to make the world of myths and the world of civilization explain each other was made in the musical dramaturgy of Richard Wagner; his approach created a great tradition.

The 20th century developed types of unprecedentedly reflective intellectualistic attitude towards myths; Thomas Mann's tetralogy Joseph and His Brothers was the result of a serious study of the scientific theory of mythology. Parodic mythologization of meaningless everyday prose is consistently carried out in the works of Franz Kafka and James Joyce, as well as in John Updike’s “Centaur.” Modern writers are characterized not by a deliberate and pompous admiration for myths (as was the case with the late romantics and symbolists), but by a free, unpathetic attitude towards them, in which intuitive insight is complemented by irony, parody and analysis, and the patterns of myths are sometimes found in simple and everyday objects.

Mythological worldview

Main article:Mythology

In the mythological worldview, the world is understood by analogy with a tribal community, which unites and organizes the joint behavior of relatives through collective ideas as a model of behavior.

Myth according to A.F. Losev

In his monograph “Dialectics of Myth” A.F. Losev gives the following definition:

For mythological consciousness, myth is the highest in its concreteness, the most intense and the most intense reality. This is an absolutely necessary category of thought and life. Myth is a logical, that is, first of all, dialectical, necessary category of consciousness and being in general. Myth is not an ideal concept, nor is it an idea or a concept. This is life itself. Thus, myth, according to Losev, is a special form of expression of the consciousness and feelings of an ancient person. On the other hand, a myth, like a cell, contains the sprouts of forms that will develop in the future. In any myth, one can identify a semantic (notional) core, which will subsequently be in demand.

It should also be taken into account that although Losev sometimes used the term “myth” to refer to various religious systems, this work, “Dialectics of Myth,” was only an alternative (sometimes unsuccessful, due to persecution by the Soviet authorities) to “dialectical materialism.”

Myth according to Roland Barthes

Roland Barthes considers myth as a semiological system, turning to the well-known model of the sign of Saussure, who identified three main elements in it: the signifier, the signified, and the sign itself, which acts as a result of the association of the first two elements. According to Barthes, in myth we find the same three-element system, however, its specificity is that myth is a secondary semiological system built on top of the first linguistic system or language-object.

Barthes calls this secondary semiological system or myth itself a “metalanguage” because it is a secondary language in which the first is spoken. When exploring the semiological structure of myth, Barthes introduces his own unconventional terminology. The signifier, he emphasizes, can be viewed from two points of view: as the resulting element of the first linguistic system and as the initial element of the mythological system. As the final element of the first system, Barthes calls the signifier meaning, in terms of myth - form. The signified of a mythological system is called a concept, and its third element represents the meaning. This is due, according to Barthes, to the fact that the expression sign is ambiguous, since the signifier of the myth is already formed from the signs of language.

According to Barthes, the third element of the semiological system - meaning or myth itself - is created due to the deformation of the relationship between concept and meaning. Here Barthes draws an analogy with the complex semiological system of psychoanalysis. Just as in Freud the latent meaning of behavior distorts its explicit meaning, so in myth the concept distorts or, more precisely, “alienates” the meaning. This deformation, according to Barthes, is possible because the very form of myth is formed by linguistic meaning, subordinate to the concept. The meaning of myth represents a constant alternation of the meaning of the signifier and its form, language-object and metalanguage. It is this duality, according to Barthes, that determines the peculiarity of meaning in myth. Although a myth is a message determined to a large extent by its intention, the literal meaning nevertheless obscures this intention.

Revealing the connotative mechanisms of myth-making, Barthes emphasizes that myth performs various functions: it simultaneously designates and notifies, inspires and prescribes, and is motivating in nature. Addressing his “reader,” he imposes his own intentions on him. Touching on the problem of “reading” and deciphering a myth, Barth tries to answer the question of how its perception occurs. According to Barthes, myth does not hide its connotative meanings, it “naturalizes” them. Naturalization of a concept is the main function of myth.

Myth tends to look like something natural, “self-evident.” It is perceived as a harmless message not because its intentions are carefully hidden, otherwise they would lose their effectiveness, but because they are “naturalized.” As a result of mythologization, the signifier and the signified appear to the “reader” of the myth to be naturally connected. Any semiological system is a system of meanings, but the consumer of myths takes meaning for a system of facts.

Myth by F.H. Cassidy

F.H. Cassidy wrote - “myth is a sensory image and representation, a unique worldview, and not a worldview,” consciousness not subject to reason, or rather even pre-rational consciousness. Dreams, waves of fantasy - that’s what myth is." .

Cosmogonic myths

Cosmogonic myths- myths about creation, myths about the origin of the cosmos from chaos, the main initial plot of most mythologies. They begin with a description of chaos (emptiness), lack of order in the universe, and the interaction of the primordial elements. The main motives of cosmogonic myths are the structuring of cosmic space and time, the separation by the gods of the earth and sky merged in the marriage embrace, the establishment of the cosmic axis - the world tree, the luminaries (the division of day and night, light and darkness), the creation of plants and animals; creation ends, as a rule, with the creation of man (anthropogonic myths) and social norms by cultural heroes.

Creation occurs by the will (word) of the demiurge or by the generation of deities and elements of the universe by the mother goddess, the first divine couple (heaven and earth), androgynous god, etc. In dualistic cosmogonies, the demiurge creates everything good, his opponent - everything bad. Traditional cosmogonic myths are the creation from the body of a primal being (cf. Ymir) or a primal man. The completion of creation is often associated with the departure of the creator from the affairs of the universe he created and humanity and with the transition from mythological time (the time of first creation) to historical. The description of the death of the world in eschatological myths is given, as a rule, in the reverse order to the description of cosmogony.

Academician N.I. Kareev noted the strong influence of the cosmogonic myth on the initial solution to the “question of all questions” about the origin of all things: “ until the development of philosophy and science begins to provide people with new foundations for resolving this issue».

Solar myths— mythologization of the Sun and its impact on earthly life; usually closely associated with lunar myths. In scientific literature, especially in the works of V. Manhardt and other representatives of the mythological school of the 19th century, myths in which the hero or heroine exhibit solar traits are also called solar, that is, traits similar to the traits of the sun as a mythological hero. In an expanded sense, solar myths are classified as astral myths.

Lunar Myths- myths about the Moon (usually in some kind of relationship with the Sun), found in almost all nations.

Often the Moon is associated with a passive principle, since the light of the moon is reflected sunlight. The connection between these luminaries is clearly visible in many mythological systems, especially dualistic ones. The sun is reborn every morning, and the moon is subject to changes - changing phases. The disappearance of the moon in the sky, and then its miraculous resurrection, is convincing confirmation of the idea of ​​​​resurrection after death. In this regard, the idea that the moon is a place where dead souls await rebirth has taken root in mythology.

The most common plot found among Indo-European, Siberian, and Indian peoples is the motif of a “heavenly wedding”: the Sun and the Moon get married, but then the Moon leaves the Sun and is cut in half as punishment. Among the peoples of Siberia, this plot becomes more complicated: The month descends to the earth (optionally - into the underworld), and is caught by the sorceress, the mistress of the underworld (Khosedem among the Kets, Ylentoy-kotoi among the Selkups). The Sun, the Moon's wife, comes to his aid and tries to snatch him from the hands of the witch, but she holds him tightly, and the Moon is torn into two parts. This explains the phenomenon of changing lunar phases. Plots in which the Moon appears as a female deity usually date back to much later times than the myths about the Moon - the embodiment of the masculine principle.

There is also a widespread myth that someone (usually wolves or demons, supernatural beings) devours the Moon piece by piece until it disappears; then the moon is reborn again. Many nations have fairy tales and legends on the topic “where do the spots on the Moon come from?” According to the tale of the Bay-ning people, one day the Moon descended to earth, and there he was caught by a woman; he escaped and returned to the sky, but the marks of her dirty palms remained on him. Stories are often told about a man living on the moon.

In dualistic systems, the Moon is often opposed to the Sun: for example, in Chinese mythology, the Moon is controlled by the force of Yin, embodying the feminine, cool, dark, while the energy of the Sun is Yang: the personification of the masculine, warm, light. Similar ideas are found in Siberian shamanic traditions, where the Moon is associated with darkness, night, darkness. Usually the Moon acts as the embodiment of a negative principle, but in some systems things are different: for example, in Dahomey mythology, Mavu (Moon) patronizes the night, knowledge, joy, Lisa (Sun) - day, strength, work.

In many traditions (in particular, Greek), the Moon patronizes magic, witchcraft, and fortune telling.

Astral myths- groups of myths associated with celestial bodies - both stars, constellations and planets (actually astral myths), and with the sun and moon (solar and lunar myths). Astral myths are present in the cultures of various peoples of the world and are often associated with sastral cults, however, the corps of astral myths also includes myths that are not of a religious nature.

For typologically early astral myths associated with non-agricultural cultures, it is typical to pay more attention to the “fixed” stars associated with myths about celestial hunting.

The most developed complexes of astral myths developed in the mythologies of the agricultural civilizations of Ancient Egypt, Babylon and the cultures of Mexico, in which astronomical observations were closely connected with the calendar and, accordingly, with agricultural cycles. The astral myths of these cultures are characterized by increased attention to “moving” celestial bodies - the Sun, Moon and “wandering stars” - planets.

Thus, in Babylonian mythology, the main deities were associated with seven “moving” luminaries visible to the naked eye, and their number corresponded to the number of days in the Babylonian week, which spread in the Roman Empire from the time of Augustus.

These names of the days of the week after the names of the luminary deities were inherited in the languages ​​of European peoples who were under the influence of Roman culture.

The concept of the divinity of the heavenly bodies and, accordingly, their divine influence on earthly affairs became the basis of Babylonian fortune-telling practices based on the location of the luminary deities, to whom certain properties and, accordingly, influences on earthly life were attributed.

Similar views were common in Hellenistic Egypt. Thus, Plutarch notes:

“The Chaldeans claim that of the planets which they call patron gods, two bring good, two bring evil, and three are average, possessing both qualities.”

“There are people who directly claim that Osiris is the sun and that the Hellenes call him Sirius... They also prove that Isis is nothing more than the moon. Therefore, her images with horns are similar to the lunar crescent, and the black veils symbolize eclipses... Therefore, the moon is invoked in love affairs, and Eudox says that Isis commands love.”

Astral myths in these views merged with calendar myths, when the relative positions of the heavenly bodies were associated with events on earth:

“In the sacred hymns of Osiris, the priests invoke him as covered in the arms of the sun, and on the thirteenth day of the month Epiphi, when the moon and sun are on the same straight line, they celebrate the birthday of the eyes of Horus, because not only the moon, but also the sun is considered the eye and light Mountain".

These views were adopted by Greek and Indian cultures in the form of astrology.

Anthropogonic myths

Anthropogonic myths- myths about the origin (creation) of man (the first man), the mythical ancestors of the people, the first human couple, etc., an integral part of cosmogonic myths.

The most archaic totemic myths are about the transformation of people into animal totems or about the “finishing” of people into cultural heroes from embryos with undivided body parts. There are widespread myths about the creation of people (or anthropomorphic creatures) by demiurges from wood (cf. Scandinavian Aska and Emblu, literally “ash” and “willow”, etc.) or from clay. In the mythological model of the world, humanity is connected with the earth, the “middle” world. According to other myths, the mother goddess (mother earth) gives birth to gods and the first ancestors of people.

A special anthropogonic act is reviving people or endowing them with a soul, especially in dualistic myths: the opponent of the demiurge is not able to create a person of normal appearance and revive him, the demiurge gives the creation an anthropomorphic appearance and breathes a soul into a person; the opponent of the demiurge seeks to spoil the created man, infuses him with illnesses, etc. As a rule, the creation of man completes the cosmogonic cycle; the first man also becomes the first mortal, which marks the end of the golden age. In another common version of anthropogonic myths, the entire world is created from the body of the first anthropomorphic creature (Scandinavian Ymir).

ESCHATOLOGICAL MYTHS (from the Greek zshatos - “last”), myths about the end of the world.

Archaic mythologies are characterized by the idea of ​​a world catastrophe separating the mythological times of first creation from the present—a flood, a fire, the disappearance (destruction) of the first generations—giants, etc. Primitive E. m. are far from ethical principles: for example, among the Kets there was a series of floods represented as "rinsing the earth", living beings are saved on the islands; Among the Sami, eschatological myths are associated with the myth of a heavenly hunt - with the death of Mändash the world will perish.

The developed Eschatological myths corresponded to cosmogonic myths about the confrontation between the forces of chaos and space, calendar myths about the dying of nature deities, ideas about death and the afterlife, and especially about the lost golden age, the imperfection of the world and people.

Typical myths are about cosmic cycles (cf. kalpa), in Aztec mythology - the era of four suns: the first incarnation of the sun was Geekathgpoka, the era ended with the destruction of a generation of giants by jaguars; the era of the second sun - Netzalcoatl - ended with hurricanes, people turned into monkeys, the era of the sun - Tlaloc ended with a universal fire, the era of Chalchiupisue - with a flood; delay the end of the fifth era; Tonatiuh can make regular sacrifices designed to support the powers of the gods.

Hisiod's ideas about the decline of virtue with each new cosmic cycle of the golden age to the iron age. st Kritayuga to Kaliyuga (see Yuga) in Hindu mythology] were most consistently developed in Iranian mythology: the space eras were perceived as the epotte of the universal struggle between good and evil, Ahurama, and Anglo-Mainyu. God is in the last battle." (ahuras) will defeat the spirits of evil (cf. Scandinavian ideas about the “fate of the gods” - Ragnarok, the world will be renewed in a universal fire, the righteous will be saved by saoshyant. The expectation of the Messiah - the savior of humanity on the day of the Last Judgment - becomes the main motive; "E.M. of Judaism, Christianity , numerous messianic (cf. Mani) and prophetic movements.

ANTHROPOGONIC MYTHS - myths about the origin (creation) of man (first man), the mythical ancestors of the people, the first human couple, etc.

The most archaic totemic myths are about the transformation of totem animals into people or about the “finishing” of people as cultural heroes from embryos with undivided body parts (among Australians, etc.). There are widespread myths about the creation of people (or anthropomorphic creatures) by demiurges from wood (cf. menkvas created from larch among the Ob Ugrians, Scandinavian Aska and Emblyu, literally “ash” and “willow”, etc.) or from clay: Ioskekha , the demiurge of the Hurons, sculpts people from clay according to his reflection in the water, the Akkadian Marduk creates a man from clay mixed with the blood of the primeval monster Kingu, the Egyptian Khnum sculpts people on a potter's wheel.

In the mythological model of the world, humanity is connected with the earth, the “middle” world - in the version of the Sumerian A. m. Enki releases people from the earth by making a hole in it with a hoe; among the peoples of Tropical Africa, the first ancestor Kalunga himself emerges from the earth, and then creates the first human couples. According to other myths, the mother goddess (mother earth) gives birth to gods and the first ancestors of people (cf. the marriage of the Dogon god Amma with the earth, Kunapipi - the mother-ancestor of the Australians, the Sumerian-Akkadian Nin-hursag, the Ob-Ugric Yaltash-epva, etc. . P.).

A special anthropogonic act is reviving people or endowing them with a soul, especially in dualistic myths: the opponent of the demiurge is not able to create a person of normal appearance and revive him, the demiurge gives the creation an anthropomorphic appearance and breathes a soul into a person; the opponent of the demiurge seeks to spoil the created man, infuses him with illnesses, etc. (cf. the Ob-Ugric Kul-Otyr, Satanail in the Christian apocrypha, etc.).

As a rule, the creation of man completes the cosmogonic cycle; The first man also becomes the first mortal (Vedic Yama), which marks the end of the golden age. The Mayans (Kiche) and other peoples had myths about unsuccessful creation: Kuku Mats and other gods could not make people from clay, the edges were spreading; people made of wood turned out to be disobedient, and the gods destroyed them during the flood; finally, people were made of corn, but turned out to be too intelligent, and the god Hurakan brought fog over their eyes (cf. the Sumerian myth in Art. Ninmah).

In another common version of A. m., the whole world is created from the body of the first anthropomorphic creature (Vedic Purusha, Chinese Pangu, Scandinavian Ymir, Adam in the apocryphal verse about the “Dove Book”)

COSMOGONIC MYTHS- myths about creation, myths about the origin of the cosmos from chaos, the main initial plot of most mythologies.

They begin with a description of chaos (emptiness), lack of order in the universe (in the ancient Egyptian Heliopolis version of the Cosmogonic myth, “the sky did not yet exist and the earth did not exist,” etc.), the interaction of the primordial elements - fire and water in the abyss Ginnungagap in the Scandinavian mythology, or the division of earth and water (earth and sky merged in the world egg) in the ancient Indian tradition (cf. Brahma).

The main motives of K. m. are the structuring of cosmic space and time, the separation by the gods of the earth and sky merged in the marriage embrace (cf. Uranus and Gaia, the Polynesian Papa and Rangi, cf. the three steps of Vishnu, forming three cosmic zones), the establishment of the cosmic axis - world tree, luminaries (division of day and night, light and darkness), creation of plants and animals; creation ends, as a rule, with the creation of man (anthropogonic myths) and social norms by cultural heroes.

Creation occurs by the will (word) of the demiurge (Brahma, Vishnu, god in the Jewish and Christian traditions) or by the generation of deities and elements of the universe by the mother goddess, the first divine couple (heaven and earth), androgynous god, etc.: cf. . the Sumerian Nazhma, which gave birth to the sky (An) and the earth; they gave birth to the supreme god Enlil, etc. (cf. Generations). In dualistic cosmogonies, the demiurge creates everything good, his opponent - everything bad (cf. Ahuramazda and Atro-Mainyu, etc.). Traditional Cosmogonic myths - the creation from the body of a first being (cf. Tiamat, Sipmo) or a first man (Purusha, Ymir, Pangu).

The completion of creation is often associated with the departure of the creator from the affairs of the universe he created and humanity (the so-called idle god - cf. Ana, who transferred his power to Enlil, the Ob-Ugric Kors-Torum, etc.) and with the transition from mythological time - (from the time of creation) to the historical.

The description of the death of the world in eschatological myths is given, as a rule, in the reverse order to the description of cosmogony.

ETIOLOGICAL MYTHS- (from the Greek eithia - “reason”), myths about the origin of the realities of space and everyday life.

In a narrow sense - myths that explain the origin of distinctive features or other objects (in the Australian myth, the bear remained tailless because the kangaroo cut off its tail, etc.), phenomena (myths about death, making fire, the origin of spots on the moon and so on.).

The motive of metamorphoses is associated with E. m. (cf. myths about the origin of the Minley bird among the Nenets, the sun and the Lung. into which cultural heroes turned, etc.).

In a broad sense, Eschatological myths can include cosmogonic myths, anthropogonic myths, etc.; Actually, the Etiological myths in these mythological systems are intended to confirm the authenticity of what is described: in the cosmogonic myths of the Ob Ugrians, the red spots on the loon are explained by the fact that blood appeared on the beak of a bird diving for land, etc.

Ancient Greek mythology

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Traditional religions

Key concepts God · Mother Goddess · Deity · Fortune telling · Sacrifice · Underworld · Golden Age · Initiation · World Axis · World Tree · Myth · Monotheism · Polytheism · Sacred · Sacred stones · Syncretism · Secret societies

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Religion and mythology Ancient Greece had a huge influence on the development of culture and art throughout the world and laid the foundation for countless religious ideas about man, heroes and gods.

The oldest state of Greek mythology is known from the tablets of the Aegean culture, written in Linear B. This period is characterized by a small number of gods, many of them are named allegorically, a number of names have female analogues (for example, di-wi-o-jo - Diwijos, Zeus and the female analogue of di-wi-o-ja). Already in the Cretan-Mycenaean period, Zeus, Athena, Dionysus and a number of others were known, although their hierarchy could differ from the later one.

The mythology of the “dark ages” (between the decline of the Cretan-Mycenaean civilization and the emergence of ancient Greek civilization) is known only from later sources.

Various plots of ancient Greek myths constantly appear in the works of ancient Greek writers; On the eve of the Hellenistic era, a tradition arose to create their own allegorical myths based on them. In Greek drama, many mythological plots are played out and developed.

The largest sources are:

- “Iliad” and “Odyssey” by Homer;

- “Theogony” by Hesiod;

- “Library” of Pseudo-Apollodorus;

- “Myths” by Hyginus;

- “Metamorphoses” by Ovid;

- “The Acts of Dionysus” by Nonnus.

Some ancient Greek authors tried to explain myths from a rationalistic point of view. Euhemerus wrote about the gods as people whose actions were deified. Palefat, in his essay “On the Incredible,” analyzing the events described in myths, assumed them to be the result of misunderstanding or addition of details.

Statue of Poseidon in the port of Copenhagen.

The most ancient gods of the Greek pantheon are closely connected with the general Indo-European system of religious beliefs, there are parallels in the names - for example, the Indian Varuna corresponds to the Greek Uranus, etc.

Further development of mythology went in several directions:

Accession of some deities of neighboring or conquered peoples to the Greek pantheon

Deification of some heroes; heroic myths begin to merge closely with mythology

The famous Romanian-American researcher of the history of religion, Mircea Eliade, gives the following periodization of ancient Greek religion:

30 - 15 centuries BC e. - Cretan-Minoan religion.

15th - 11th centuries BC e. - archaic ancient Greek religion.

11th - 6th centuries BC e. - Olympic religion.

6th - 4th centuries BC e. - philosophical-Orphic religion (Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato).

3rd - 1st centuries BC e. - religion of the Hellenistic era.

Zeus, according to legend, was born on Crete from Rhea and the titan Cronus (in Roman Kronos or Chronos, meaning time), and Minos, after whom the Cretan-Minoan civilization is named, was considered his son. However, the mythology that we know, and which the Romans later adopted, is organically connected with the Greek people. We can talk about the emergence of this nation with the arrival of the first wave of Achaean tribes at the beginning of the 2nd millennium BC. e. In 1850 BC. e. Athens, named after the goddess Athena, had already been built. If we accept these considerations, then the religion of the ancient Greeks arose somewhere around 2000 BC. e.

Religious beliefs of the ancient Greeks

Main article:Ancient Greek religion

The religious ideas and religious life of the ancient Greeks were in close connection with their entire historical life. Already in the most ancient monuments of Greek creativity, the anthropomorphic nature of Greek polytheism is clearly evident, explained by the national characteristics of the entire cultural development in this area; concrete representations, generally speaking, prevail over abstract ones, just as in quantitative terms humanoid gods and goddesses, heroes and heroines prevail over deities of abstract meaning (who, in turn, receive anthropomorphic features). In this or that cult, different writers or artists associate different general or mythological (and mythographic) ideas with this or that deity.

We know different combinations, hierarchies of the genealogy of divine beings - “Olympus”, various systems of “twelve gods” (for example, in Athens - Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Demeter, Apollo, Artemis, Hephaestus, Athena, Ares, Aphrodite, Hermes). Such connections are explained not only from the creative moment, but also from the conditions of the historical life of the Hellenes; in Greek polytheism one can also trace later layers (eastern elements; deification - even during life). In the general religious consciousness of the Hellenes, there apparently did not exist any specific generally accepted dogma.

The diversity of religious ideas was also expressed in the diversity of cults, the external environment of which is now becoming increasingly clear thanks to archaeological excavations and finds. We find out which gods or heroes were worshiped where, and where which one was worshiped predominantly (for example, Zeus - in Dodona and Olympia, Apollo - in Delphi and Delos, Athena - in Athens, Hera in Samos, Asclepius - in Epidaurus); we know shrines revered by all (or many) Hellenes, like the Delphic or Dodonian oracle or the Delian shrine; We know large and small amphictyony (cult communities).

One can distinguish between public and private cults. The all-consuming importance of the state also affected the religious sphere. The ancient world, generally speaking, knew neither the internal church as a kingdom not of this world, nor the church as a state within a state: “church” and “state” were concepts in it that absorbed or conditioned each other, and, for example, the priest was the one or state magistrate.

This rule could not, however, be carried out with unconditional consistency everywhere; practice caused particular deviations and created certain combinations. If a well-known deity was considered the main deity of a certain state, then the state sometimes recognized (as in Athens) some other cults; Along with these national cults, there were also individual cults of state divisions (for example, the Athenian demes), and cults of private significance (for example, household or family), as well as cults of private societies or individuals.

Since the state principle prevailed (which did not triumph everywhere at the same time and equally), every citizen was obliged, in addition to his private deities, to honor the gods of his “civil community” (changes were brought by the Hellenistic era, which generally contributed to the process of leveling). This veneration was expressed in a purely external way - through feasible participation in certain rituals and celebrations performed on behalf of the state (or state division) - participation to which in other cases the non-civilian population of the community was invited; both citizens and non-citizens were given the opportunity to seek satisfaction of their religious needs, as they could, wanted and were able.

One must think that in general the veneration of the gods was external; the internal religious consciousness was naive, and among the masses superstition did not decrease, but grew (especially at a later time, when it found food for itself coming from the East); But in an educated society, an educational movement began early, timid at first, then more and more energetic, with one end (negative) touching the masses; religiosity weakened little in general (and sometimes even - albeit painfully - rose), but religion, that is, old ideas and cults, gradually - especially as Christianity spread - lost both its meaning and its content. This is approximately, in general, the internal and external history of the Greek religion during the time available for deeper study.

In the foggy area of ​​the original, primordial Greek religion, scientific work has outlined only a few general points, although they are usually posed with excessive harshness and extremes. Already ancient philosophy bequeathed a threefold allegorical explanation of myths: psychological (or ethical), historical-political (not entirely correctly called euhemerical) and physical; She explained the emergence of religion from the individual moment. A narrow theological point of view also joined here, and, in essence, on the same basis Kreutzer’s “Symbolik” (“Symbolik und Mythologie der alt. Völker, bes. der Griechen”, German) was built. Kreuzer, 1836), like many other systems and theories that ignored the moment of evolution.

Gradually, however, they came to the realization that the ancient Greek religion had its own complex historical origins, that the meaning of myths should be sought not behind them, but in themselves. Initially, ancient Greek religion was considered only in itself, for fear of going beyond Homer and generally beyond the boundaries of purely Hellenic culture (this principle is still adhered to by the “Königsberg” school): hence the localistic interpretation of myths - from the physical (for example, Forkhammer, Peter Wilhelm Forchhammer) or only from a historical point of view (for example, Karl Müller, German. K. O. Müller).

Some paid their main attention to the ideal content of Greek mythology, reducing it to phenomena of local nature, others - to the real, seeing traces of local (tribal, etc.) characteristics in the complexity of ancient Greek polytheism. Over time, one way or another, the original significance of eastern elements in Greek religion had to be recognized.

Comparative linguistics gave rise to "comparative Indo-European mythology". This hitherto predominant direction in science was fruitful in the sense that it clearly showed the need for a comparative study of ancient Greek religion and collated extensive material for this study; but - not to mention the extreme straightforwardness of the methodological methods and the extreme haste of judgment - it was engaged not so much in the study of Greek religion using the comparative method, but in the search for its main points, dating back to the time of pan-Aryan unity (moreover, the linguistic concept of the Indo-European peoples was too sharply identified with the ethnic one) . As for the main content of myths (“disease of the tongue”, according to K. Müller), it was too exclusively reduced to natural phenomena - mainly to the sun, or the moon, or thunderstorms.

The younger school of comparative mythology considers the heavenly deities to be the result of a further, artificial development of the original “folk” mythology, which knew only demons (folklorism, animism).

In Greek mythology, one cannot help but recognize later layers, especially in the entire external form of myths (as they have come down to us), although they cannot always be determined historically, just as it is not always possible to distinguish the purely religious part of myths. Beneath this shell lie general Aryan elements, but they are often as difficult to distinguish from specifically Greek elements as it is to determine the beginning of a purely Greek culture in general. It is no less difficult to determine with any accuracy the basic content of various Hellenic myths, which is undoubtedly extremely complex. Nature with its properties and phenomena played a big role here, but perhaps mainly a service one; Along with these natural historical moments, historical and ethical moments should also be recognized (since the gods generally lived no differently and no better than people).

The local and cultural division of the Hellenic world remained not without influence; The presence of oriental elements in Greek religion is also undeniable. It would be too complex and too difficult a task to explain historically, even in the most general terms, how all these moments gradually coexisted with each other; but some knowledge in this area can be achieved, based especially on experiences preserved both in the internal content and in the external environment of cults, and, moreover, taking into account, if possible, the entire ancient historical life of the Hellenes (the path in this direction was especially pointed out by Curtins in his "Studien z. Gesch. d. griech. Olymps", in "Sitzb. d. Berl. Akad.", German. E. Curtins, 1890). It is significant, for example, the relation in the Greek religion of the great gods to the small, folk deities, and of the supermundane world of gods to the underground; Characteristic is the veneration of the dead, expressed in the cult of heroes; The mystical content of Greek religion is curious.

Lists of gods, mythological creatures and heroes

Lists of gods and genealogy differ among different ancient authors. The lists below are compilative.

First generation of gods

At first there was Chaos. Gods who emerged from Chaos - Gaia (Earth), Nikta/Nyukta (Night), Tartarus (Abyss), Erebus (Darkness), Eros (Love); the gods that emerged from Gaia are Uranus (Sky) and Pontus (inner Sea).

Second generation of gods

Children of Gaia (fathers - Uranus, Pontus and Tartarus) - Keto (mistress of sea monsters), Nereus (calm sea), Taumant (sea wonders), Phorcys (guardian of the sea), Eurybia (sea power), titans and titanides. Children of Nyx and Erebus - Hemera (Day), Hypnos (Dream), Kera (Misfortune), Moira (Fate), Mom (Slander and Stupidity), Nemesis (Retribution), Thanatos (Death), Eris (Strife), Erinyes (Vengeance) ), Ether (Air); Ata (Deception).

Titans

Titans: Hyperion, Iapetus, Kay, Krios, Kronos, Oceanus, Thaumantus

Titanides: Mnemosyne, Rhea, Theia, Tethys,

The fundamentals therefore, along with many unique features, also bear many similarities with the primitive religion of the Germans, Greeks, Lithuanians and Persians. A relatively young people who adopted Christianity early and quickly, the Slavs did not have time to develop a completely complete mythological system. On the other hand, their mythological views were not enshrined in such integral works as the poems of Homer and Hesiod or the Edda of the Scandinavians, but were preserved only in songs, fairy tales, riddles and others that were not in a complementary relationship in content, works of folk art, on which in addition, there often lies the darkening and distorting stamp of later beliefs. Slavic legends about the creation of the world and man, views on the meaning of their deities and the names of the latter, therefore, differ among different tribes. By coordinating and complementing these options, we can generally establish the following scheme of Slavic cosmogony and mythology.

Gamayun, the prophetic bird. Painting by V. Vasnetsov on the theme of Slavic myths. 1897

Gods of Slavic mythology

They are based on dualism, that is, the recognition by the Slavs of a good principle in the person of Belbog and a subordinate, but still harmful element - in the person of Chernobog. By the united creative powers of both gods, a world arose from the boundless air space or heavenly ocean, among which there was a bright Iriy(paradise) or Buyan Island, blessed abode of the gods. Then Belbog created man from clay, and Chernobog did not fail to make his unclean contribution to the nature of the new creation. Jealous of Belbog's power, Chernobog tried to fight him, but was defeated and transferred his hatred to the first man (androgyne), who possessed titanic powers and lived in harmony with Belbog. In the absence of Belbog, he intoxicated a man “at God’s table” with the wine he had invented, and this brought upon him the wrath of Belbog, which resulted in the physical and moral destruction of the human race.

Shying from the inevitable evil in the world, Belbog (otherwise called Prabog or simply god, Belun, Svarog, Rod, Triglav, Diy) did not rule the world himself. With his wife Diva, the goddess of the earth, he reigned behind the clouds, leaving the rule of the world and the possible fight against evil to the four lower world lords. Between them, the first place in Slavic mythology was occupied by Perun, the heavenly ruler, a powerful and angry black-haired god with a fiery mustache and beard, protecting and guarding people and waging a continuous struggle with Chernobog with the help of a thunder hammer, a bow - a rainbow and arrows - lightning. Perun's wife, Simargla, Zhiva or Siva, was the goddess of lightning, summer thunderstorms and fertility. According to the myths of the Slavs, he ruled over the water and air elements, Stribog, the father of the winds and the god of the sea, along with whom in the people’s memory stood the elemental sea deity - Vodyanik, an ugly and angry giant, raising a disastrous storm on the sea with his frantic dance.

Baba Yaga. Character from Slavic mythology. Painting by V. Vasnetsov, 1917

Next came the king of fire: Zhizhal of the Belarusians Svarozhich or Radagast of the Pomorians, the god of hospitality and the keeper of the hearth, and the ruler of the underground kingdom, Niy of the Poles, Cityvrat or Karachun of the other Slavs, a gloomy winter deity, the husband of the goddess of death and the deadening winter cold, Morana. Below the named world lords stood the descendants of Perun in Slavic myths: his son, the sun god Khors, Dazhdbog or Lado, the most revered deity of the Slavs, the husband of the sea princess Lada or Kupala, the goddess of spring, rain and fertility, and his brother Veles or Volos, the god of the month, the inspirer of the singers, the “grandsons of Veles,” and the patron of herds and wild animals. The host of the highest gods was completed by the sons of Khorsa, Lel and Polel, the gods of legal love and marriage; Chur, guardian of borders, patron of trade and all profits, and Yarilo, priapic deity of sensual love and fertility.

Spirits and mythical creatures among the Slavs

In addition to these deities of the highest order, Slavic mythology knew many earthly, elemental spirits. All of nature seemed to be inhabited by supernatural beings. The forest was dominated by angry and hot-tempered people, but they were honest and did not do unnecessary evil. goblin. In the waters lived water grandfathers and beautiful, but crafty seductresses - mermaids. Spirits lived in the mountainous areas pitchfork, sometimes insidious and evil, but who loved heroic prowess and patronized brave warriors. Women in labor, goddesses of fate, who predicted their fate for newborns, etc., were hiding in a mountain cave.

Mermaids emerge from the water in front of Trinity. Painting by K. Makovsky, 1879

Temples and priests among the Slavs

The Slavs shared the beliefs of other Aryan tribes in the immortality of the soul, reward after death for good and evil deeds and the end of the world, but legends about this merged so early and closely with Christian ideas that it is very difficult to isolate purely pagan elements from this amalgam. Slavic mythology reached its greatest development among the Pomeranian Slavs, who, according to medieval German annalists, had luxurious temples, precious idols and a powerful priestly class. Regarding the cult, other Slavs did not preserve definite instructions, but the widespread existence of temples and priests cannot be doubted and is directly attested for the main cities of Rus' in the times preceding the adoption of Christianity.

Zbruch idol. Possibly an image of Perun. OK. X century

Literature about Slavic mythology

F. Buslaev, "Essays on folk poetry and art"

Afanasiev,"Poetic views of the Slavs on nature"

Averikiev, “Mythical Antiquity” (“Dawn”, 1870)

Batyr, monograph about Perun

"Belarusian songs" Bessonova

Kvashnin-Samarin, "Essays on Slavic mythology"

Mythology (from the Greek mythos - legend, legend and logos - word, story) - ideas about the world and man contained in stories about the deeds of fantastic creatures - myths. Mythology arose in a primitive (tribal) society (see Primitive society), where the main social ties were those of blood kinship. Therefore, they were transferred to the entire world around man, primarily to animals, which, as was believed in myths, had common ancestors with one or another human race. In the science of myths, these first ancestors are usually called totems (totemism is the belief in the kinship of a person and a certain animal). In the most archaic myths (among the Australians, African Bushmen hunters, who until recently lived in Stone Age conditions), the ancestor totems most often have the appearance of an animal, but are capable of thinking and acting like people. They lived in the distant era of first creation, when the world was created; Some Australian tribes call this era “the time of dreams.” The activities of the first ancestors were considered a model for people: in myths they travel along the same roads, stop near the same sources and thickets as groups of primitive hunters. During their wanderings, the first ancestors hunted, made fire, created bodies of water, heavenly bodies, and even people themselves. Thus, in the Australian myth of the Aranda tribe, the first ancestors discover accreted lumps resembling the outlines of people at the bottom of a dry sea; By breaking the lumps with a stone knife, they create people and divide them into clan groups. Ancestors were considered the creators of tools, marriage norms, customs, rituals and other cultural phenomena, which is why they are also called cultural heroes. Large mythological cycles developed about the activities of such heroes, such as, for example, the myths about the creator of the world among the Bushmen, the grasshopper-mantis Tsagna, or the myths about the Raven among the peoples of Chukotka, Kamchatka, etc.

The first people could also be cultural heroes in primitive myths, for example, the ancestor mother Kunapipi among the Australians; Most often, the cultural heroes turned out to be twin brothers. According to the Soviet ethnographer A.M. Zolotarev, the so-called twin myths, common among many peoples of the world, are associated with the practice of dividing ancient tribes into two halves (phratries - “brotherhoods”), between whose members marriages took place. The twin heroes, the founders of the phratry, create the whole world, but their creations are opposite in their meaning for people. Thus, in the myths of the Melanesians (primitive farmers and hunters on the islands of Melanesia) about the brothers To Kabinana and To Korvuvu, the first creates everything useful for people - fertile land, good housing, edible fish, while the second - rocky soil, tools unsuitable for work , predatory fish, etc. d.

Myths about the creation of the world - cosmogonic myths (from kosmos - world, Universe and gone - birth) exist among all peoples; they reflect the emergence of religious dualism, the struggle between good and evil, God and the devil. However, for primitive myths, the ethical (moral) meaning was secondary: their content was reduced mainly to the opposition of useful and harmful phenomena for humans, such as life and death, light and darkness, house and forest (a wild, undeveloped place). Only with the emergence of civilization, initially in ancient Iranian dualistic mythology, the actions of the two creators of the world began to be guided by good intentions and bad intent: the evil spirit Angro Mainyu (Ahriman) deliberately spoiled all the good undertakings of the god Ahuramazda (Ormuzd), bringing illness and death into the world. His accomplices are demons (devas), embodying lies (Druj) and robbery (Aishma, the biblical Asmodeus).

Already at the early stage of civilization - with the emergence of agriculture and ideas about the fertile power of the earth - cosmogonic myths about the marriage of Earth and Sky, which gave birth to all living things, spread. Two distant peoples, the ancient Greeks and the Polynesians of Oceania, had similar myths about the time when mother earth (Greek Gaia and Polynesian Papa) rested in the embrace of father sky (Greek Uranus and Polynesian Rangi). To free up space for living beings - the first generation of gods, it was necessary to separate the ancestors: the Greek god Kronos performs this act with the help of a sickle, the Polynesian Tane, the god of the forest, tears the Sky from the Earth with the tops of the trees under his control.

A huge tree or mountain connecting Earth and Heaven was represented in myths as the axis of the universe. In Scandinavian mythology, the world tree - the Yggdrasil ash tree - descended with its roots into the underworld, and at its top reached the heavenly home of the aesir gods - Asgard. The world of people - Midgard (literally: the middle fenced space, estate) was surrounded by an outer space - Utgard (literally: the space outside the fence), where giants and monsters lived. The Earth was washed by the World Ocean, at the bottom of which - around the Earth - a giant snake was curled up in a ring.

Monsters and demons that inhabited the mythological space of areas of the world not developed by man constantly threatened the universe. The forces of chaos (primordial emptiness, abyss, darkness) opposed the forces of space, man and his gods. It was not for nothing that the Egyptian sun god Ra fought the underground serpent Apep every night: a new sunrise meant the victory of the cosmos over chaos. The Babylonian god Marduk created the world from the dismembered body of the monster - the ancestor of all living things, Tiamat, after defeating her in a duel.

The myths of agricultural civilizations are characterized by images of dying and resurrecting gods of nature, embodying fertility. The Egyptian myth about Osiris, who fell at the hands of his brother, the desert demon Seth, and was brought back to life by his wife, the goddess of love and fertility Isis, resembles primitive myths about brothers - cultural heroes, but is already associated with cosmic (calendar) cycles of the annual revival of nature during the floods of the Nile. At the same time, the deities no longer merge entirely with the images of animals or natural phenomena, like the totemic ancestors, but dominate the elements and become the patrons of animals. Thus, the Greek goddess-hunter Diana is considered the patroness of animals; The thunder gods - the Greek Zeus, the Indian Indra, the Scandinavian Thor - do not embody thunder and lightning, but produce them with their wonderful weapons, forged for them by divine blacksmiths. Human handicraft activity is reflected in widespread myths about the creation of man from clay (in the Bible - “from the dust of the earth”). Such myths could have developed with the advent of pottery. The Egyptian god Khnum was believed to have sculpted the first man on a potter's wheel.

The role of man in the universal confrontation between the forces of chaos and space was reduced in primitive and ancient mythology and religion mainly to the performance of rituals, making sacrifices and other actions designed to support the powers of the gods and protect people from demons. One of the main rituals, especially in the Ancient East, was the New Year's holiday, when cosmogonic myths were performed; he was thus equated with a new creation of the world. The ritual recreated the era of first creation. At the same time, in mythology the difference was realized between the ideal mythological era of creation and the present time, which is always worse than the first example. A myth was created about the “golden age”, a time of universal equality and abundance, the kingdom of Kronos in Greek, Osiris and Isis in Egyptian mythologies. The most vivid contrast between the “golden age” and the contemporary myth-makers of the era of decline is described by the Greek poet Hesiod (7th century BC) in the poem “Works and Days.” The “golden age” of universal harmony is followed by the “silver age”, when people do not serve the gods so zealously, then the “copper age” - the time of wars, then the “heroic age”, when the best men died in the battles of Thebes and Troy, and finally the “iron age”. ", when life is spent in hard work and strife between relatives. Ultimately, the misfortunes of the “Iron Age” are associated with the decline of clan norms, as, for example, in Scandinavian mythology “the age of swords and axes”, when brother stands against brother - the time of the approaching end of the world. The end of the world - “the fate of the gods” - will happen, according to the prediction of the mythical prophetess, when the monsters of chaos and death itself (Scandinavian Hel) enter into battle with the aesir gods, and the whole world perishes in a cosmic fire. However, this prophecy refers to a future time - this is how ideas about the future are formed in mythology.

Scandinavian myths, which developed during the era of the collapse of the primitive system and the emergence of the first states, whose rulers rejected ancient mythology and turned to Christianity, reflect the death of the traditional norms of tribal society. Similar myths about the end of the world among the Iranians developed in the context of an emerging civilization and have a different perspective: the gods will defeat the demons in the last battle, and the sacred fire will not destroy, but will cleanse the whole world. Unlike the widespread myths about the flood or about cosmic cycles (ancient Indian yugas), where life resumes in its previous form, in Iranian mythology, especially in the prophecies of Zarathushtra (Zoroaster), only the righteous who followed good thoughts, words and deeds will enter the future life Ahura Mazda. These ideas influenced the doctrine of the Last Judgment in biblical mythology, awaiting the Savior - the Messiah - who would judge the righteous and sinners and establish the Kingdom of God on earth.

Almost no information has been preserved about ancient Russian (East Slavic) mythology. After the baptism of Rus' (see Kievan Rus), pagan idols and temples were destroyed, the authorities persecuted the Magi, pagan priests - the guardians of ancient myths. Only in The Tale of Bygone Years are references to the pagan customs of Rus' and its gods preserved. After the campaign against Constantinople in 907, Oleg concluded an agreement with the defeated Greeks and sealed it with an oath: his men swore by weapons and “Perun, their god, and Volos, the cattle god.” Perun is the thunder god (in the Belarusian language the word “Perun” means “thunder”), his name is related to the names of thunderers in other Indo-European myths (Lithuanian Perkunas, Hittite Pirv, etc.). The Thunderer, who pursues evil spirits with thunder and lightning, was considered the patron saint of warriors; it was not for nothing that Oleg’s fighting squad swore by him. The oath to the cattle god Volos (or Veles) is also not accidental: cattle in many Indo-European traditions are the embodiment of wealth in general, and Oleg returned to Kyiv after the campaign with rich gifts.

In 980, Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich established the “Kiev pantheon”: “he placed idols on the hill... Perun of wood, and his head was silver, and his mustache was gold, and Khors, Dazhbog and Stribog, and Simargl, and Mokosh.” They were worshiped as gods, writes the Christian chronicler, and they desecrated the earth with sacrifices. Perun was the head of the pantheon. One can only guess about the functions of other gods based primarily on their names. Mokosh, judging by the name (connected with the word “wet”), is the goddess of moisture and fertility. Dazhbog is called the god of the Sun in one of the later Russian chronicles (his other name, mentioned there, is Svarog): he is the “giving god,” the giver of good. Stribog can also be associated with the spread of good (in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” the winds are called “Stribog’s grandchildren”): the Slavic word “god”, borrowed from the Iranian language, means “wealth, good, share”. Two more characters included in the Kiev pantheon - Khora and Simargl - are also considered Iranian borrowings. Khore, like Dazhbog, was a solar deity; Simargl is compared to the mythical bird Senmurv. Veles was not included in the pantheon, perhaps because he was more popular among the Slovenes of Novgorod, in the Russian North. Soon Vladimir was forced to turn again to the “choice of faith”: a pantheon made up of different gods, not united by a single cult and mythology, could not be an object of veneration throughout Rus'. Vladimir chose Christianity, the idols were overthrown, the pagan gods were declared demons, and only in secret the stubborn pagans made more sacrifices to the fire of “Svarozhich”, worshiped Rod and women in labor who determined fate, believed in numerous brownies, water spirits, goblins and other spirits.

In the so-called world religions - Buddhism, Christianity and Islam, which spread among many peoples of the world during the era of the collapse of ancient civilizations, traditional mythological stories recede into the background compared to the problems of morality (good and evil) and saving the soul from the hardships of earthly existence and the torment of the afterlife. retribution.

Already in ancient times, with the advent of scientific knowledge, including philosophy and history, mythological subjects became the subject of literature (see Antiquity). At the same time, in historical accounts, elements of cosmogonic myths could precede history itself, and ancient cultural heroes and even gods sometimes turned into the founders of real cities, states, and royal dynasties. Thus, the brothers Romulus and Remus, fed, according to legend, by a wolf totem, were considered the founders of Rome, and the supreme gods of the Scandinavian pantheon Odin, Thor, Freyr laid the foundation for the ruling Yngling dynasty in Sweden (according to the medieval historical work “The Earthly Circle”).

With the spread of world religions, especially Christianity and Islam, the main source for searching for the historical roots of peoples who joined civilization became the Bible and the Old Testament. The book of Genesis talks about the origin of all nations from the three sons of Noah, the righteous man who survived the global flood in the ark. The descendants of his sons - Shem, Ham and Japheth - populated the earth: from Shem came the Semites - Jews, ancient inhabitants of Mesopotamia and Syria, etc.; Ham was considered the ancestor of the African peoples (Khamats), Japheth - of the Indo-European peoples (Japhetids). This mythological classification survived into the Middle Ages and modern times: the Russian chronicler Nestor in the chronicle “The Tale of Bygone Years” placed the new state of Rus' in the Japheth part, next to the ancient countries and peoples, and linguists until recently used ancient names to designate large families of peoples - the Semitic , Hamitic and Japhetic.

According to further biblical tradition, from the forefather Abraham - a descendant of Shem - came the Jews, whose ancestors were Isaac and Jacob, and the Arabs, whose ancestor was Ishmael, the son of Abraham from the Egyptian Hagar; in the Koran and the subsequent Muslim tradition, Ismail is the main son of Ibrahim (Abraham), guardian of the Muslim shrine of the Kaaba (the main center of Muslim pilgrimage in Mecca). In the Old Testament and later Christian traditions, Arabs, and often all followers of Islam, are called Ishmaelites and Hagarites.

Another popular myth about three brothers who divided the world is the Iranian myth of Traetaon and his three sons. The ancient myth about the dragon slayer Traetaon was reworked by the great Persian poet Ferdowsi (c. 940-1020) in the poem “Shahnameh” (“Book of Kings”): Traetaon-Feridun appears there as an ancient king, his opponent (dragon) Zahhak - as a tyrant, unjustly seized power. The sons of Feridun - the winner of Zahhak - receive the whole world: Salm rules Rum (Byzantium, the Roman Empire) and Western countries, Tur-Chin (Chinese Turkestan), Eraj - Iran and Arabia. Feuds between brothers lead to the eternal struggle between the nomadic Turanians (Turkic peoples) and sedentary Iranians (leading, according to the ancient Iranian tradition, a righteous lifestyle) Iranians.

Based on the model of the Old Testament and Iranian mytho-epic traditions, numerous book legends were created about three brothers - the ancestors of different nations. This is the legend about Czech, Lech and Rus - the ancestors of the Czechs, Poles and Russians in the Polish medieval chronicle. In the "Tale of Bygone Years" there is a parallel to the Old Testament legend - the legend about the ancestors of the glades Kiy, Shchek and Horeb (Horeb is the name of the mountain in the Old Testament, where the prophet Moses saw the "burning bush"), the founders of Kyiv, and the legend about the calling of the Varangians - brother-princes Rurik, Sineus and Truvor. After the death of the Russian prince Yaroslav the Wise (1054), real power in Rus' belonged to the three Yaroslavich brothers, and the chronicler taught them to follow the biblical example and not start strife - “not to cross the limit of brothers.”

The real rulers of real and medieval states either directly identified themselves with mythological characters - deities, like the pharaoh in Egypt, who was considered the son of the sun god Ra, or raised their family to deities, like the Japanese emperors, who were considered the descendants of the solar goddess Amaterasu.

The image of Alexander the Great has undergone the greatest mythologization in various traditions: already in the ancient “Roman of Alexander” by Pseudo-Callisthenes, he appears as the son of an Egyptian priest who appeared to the queen mother in the image of the god Amon. As a result of the combination of ancient and biblical traditions, Alexander - the conqueror of the world - was portrayed as the conqueror of the Old Testament mythical peoples of Gog and Magog: he locks them behind an iron gate (wall), but they must break out of captivity before the end of the world. In the Iranian tradition, Alexander - Iskander - the last ruler of the righteous Iranian Keyanid dynasty; in the Koran he is Dhu-l-Qarnayn, literally “Two-horned”, an image that goes back to the idea of ​​Alexander as the incarnation of Amon (the symbol of this god was a ram).

Representatives of the Roman patrician family of the Julians, to which Julius Caesar and Augustus belonged, considered themselves descendants of Aeneas, the Trojan hero, son of the goddess of love Aphrodite (Venus). These mythological genealogies served as a model for the legendary genealogies of medieval sovereigns, including Russian grand dukes. In the Old Russian “Tale of the Princes of Vladimir” (15th century), the family of Moscow princes through Rurik and his legendary ancestor Prus, allegedly planted by his relative Augustus to rule the Prussian land, is traced back to Augustus himself.

Mythology, the plots of which formed ideas about the past and future, about the place of man in the universe, was the predecessor of history as a science.

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What are myths? In the “school” understanding, these are, first of all, ancient, biblical and other ancient “tales” about the creation of the world and man, as well as stories about the deeds of the ancient, mainly Greek and Roman, gods and heroes - poetic, naive, and often bizarre. This “everyday”, sometimes still existing, idea of ​​​​myths is to some extent the result of the earlier inclusion of ancient mythology in the circle of knowledge of European people (the word “myth” itself, mutos, is Greek and means tradition, legend); It is precisely about ancient myths that highly artistic literary monuments have been preserved, the most accessible and known to the widest circle of readers. Indeed, until the 19th century. In Europe, only ancient myths were the most widespread - stories of the ancient Greeks and Romans about their gods, heroes and other fantastic creatures. The names of ancient gods and heroes and stories about them became especially widely known since the Renaissance (15-16 centuries), when interest in antiquity revived in European countries. Around the same time, the first information about the myths of the Arabs and American Indians penetrated into Europe. In the educated environment of society, it became fashionable to use the names of ancient gods and heroes in an allegorical sense: when saying “Mars” they meant war, by “Venus” they meant love, by “Minerva” - wisdom, by “muses” - various arts and sciences, etc. etc. This usage has survived to this day, in particular in the poetic language, which has absorbed many mythological images. In the 1st half of the 19th century. The myths of a wide range of Indo-European peoples (ancient Indians, Iranians, Germans, Slavs) are introduced into scientific circulation. The subsequent identification of the myths of the peoples of America, Africa, Oceania, and Australia showed that mythology, at a certain stage of historical development, existed among almost all peoples of the world. A scientific approach to the study of “world religions” (Christianity, Islam, Buddhism) showed that they, too, are “filled with » myths. Literary adaptations of myths from different times and peoples were created, and a huge scientific literature appeared devoted to the mythology of individual peoples and regions of the world and the comparative historical study of myths; At the same time, not only narrative literary sources were used, which were already the result of a later development than the original M. (for example, the ancient Greek “Iliad”, the Indian “Ramayana”, the Karelian-Finnish “Kalevala”), but also data from ethnography and linguistics.

A comparative historical study of a wide range of myths has made it possible to establish that in the myths of various peoples of the world, despite their extreme diversity, a number of basic themes and motifs are repeated. Among the oldest and most primitive myths are probably myths about animals. The most elementary of them represent only a naive explanation of individual animal characteristics. Myths about the origin of animals from people are deeply archaic (there are a lot of such myths, for example, among Australians) or mythological ideas that people were once animals. Ideas about zooanthropomorphic ancestors are common among Australians; they are colored by totemic features. Myths about the transformation of people into animals and plants are known to almost all peoples of the globe. The ancient Greek myths about hyacinth, narcissus, cypress, laurel tree (the nymph girl Daphne), the spider Arachne, etc. are widely known.

Very ancient myths about the origin of the sun, month (moon), stars (solar myths, lunar myths, astral myths). In some myths they are often depicted as people who once lived on earth and for some reason rose to heaven, in others the creation of the sun (not personified) is attributed to some supernatural being.

The central group of myths, at least among peoples with developed mythological systems, consists of myths about the origin of the world, the universe (cosmogonic myths) and man (anthropogonic myths). Culturally backward peoples have few cosmogonic myths. Thus, in Australian myths the idea that the earth’s surface once had a different appearance is only rarely encountered, but questions about how the earth, sky, etc. appeared are not raised. The origins of people are told in many Australian myths. But there is no motive of creation, creation here: either the transformation of animals into people is spoken of, or the motive of “finishing” appears. Among relatively cultural peoples, developed cosmogonic and anthropogonic myths appear. Very typical myths about the origin of the world and people are known among the Polynesians, North American Indians, and the peoples of the Ancient East and the Mediterranean. In these myths, two ideas stand out - the idea of ​​creation and the idea of ​​development. According to some mythological ideas (creation, based on the idea of ​​creation), the world was created by some supernatural being - a creator god, demiurge, great sorcerer, etc., according to others (“evolutionary”), the world gradually developed from some primitive a formless state of chaos" of darkness or from water, eggs, etc. Usually, theogonic subjects are woven into cosmogonic myths - myths about the origin of gods and anthropogonic myths - about the origin of people. Among the widespread mythological motifs are myths about miraculous birth, about the origin of death; Mythological ideas about the afterlife, about fate arose comparatively late. Cosmogonic myths are also joined by eschatological myths that occur only at a relatively high stage of development - stories-prophecies about the “end of the world” (developed eschatological myths are known among the ancient Mayans and Aztecs, in Iranian M. , in Christianity, in German-Scandinavian M., in Talmudic Judaism, in Islam).

A special and very important place is occupied by myths about the origin and introduction of certain cultural goods: the making of fire, the invention of crafts, agriculture, as well as the establishment among people of certain social institutions, marriage rules, customs and rituals. Their introduction is usually attributed to cultural heroes (in archaic mythology, this image is only difficult to separate from the mythological image of totemic ancestors; in the mythological systems of early class societies, it often merges with the images of gods, as well as heroes of historical legends. The myths about cultural heroes are adjacent to (almost constituting their variety) twin myths (where the image of a cultural hero seems to split into two: these are two twin brothers, endowed with opposite traits; one is good, the other is evil, one does everything well, teaches people useful things, the other only spoils and plays mischief).

In the mythology of developed agrarian peoples, calendar myths, symbolically reproducing natural cycles, occupy a significant place. The agrarian myth about the dying and resurrecting god is very well known in the mythology of the Ancient East, although the earliest form of this myth arose in the soil of primitive hunting (the myth about the dying and resurrecting beast). This is how the myths about Osiris (Ancient Egypt), Adonis (Phenicia), Attis (Asia Minor), Dionysus (Thrace, Greece), etc. were born.

In the early stages of development, myths are mostly primitive, brief, elementary in content, and lack a coherent plot. Later, on the threshold of class society, more complex myths are gradually created, different in origin, mythological images and motifs are intertwined, myths turn into detailed narratives, are connected with each other, forming cycles. Thus, a comparative study of the myths of different peoples has shown that, firstly, very similar myths often exist among different peoples, in the most different parts of the world, and, secondly, that the very range of topics, plots covered by myths, questions of origin world, man, cultural goods, social structure, the mystery of birth and death, etc. - touches on the widest, literally “global” range of fundamental issues of the universe. M. no longer appears to us as a sum or even a system of “naive” stories of the ancients. A more in-depth approach to this phenomenon inevitably leads to the formulation of the problem, what is M.? The answer is not simple. It is no coincidence that modern researchers still often fundamentally disagree in their views on its essence and nature. In addition, religious scholars, ethnographers, philosophers, literary scholars, linguists, cultural historians, etc., approach mythology in different ways, studying it in different aspects; their research often complements each other.

The Marxist methodology for studying materialism as one of the forms of social consciousness is based on the principles of dialectical and historical materialism. The approach of Marxist researchers to solving the problems of materialism is characterized by adherence to the principles of historicism, attention to the substantive, ideological problems of materialism, and an emphasis on its ideological basis.

Myth-making is considered as the most important phenomenon in the cultural history of mankind. In primitive society, mathematics represented the main way of understanding the world. The myth expresses the worldview and worldview of the era of its creation. From the earliest times, man had to comprehend the world around him, and materialism acts as the earliest, corresponding to ancient and especially primitive society, form of world perception, understanding of the world and himself by primitive man, as “... nature and social forms themselves, already processed in an unconsciously artistic way folk fantasy" (K. Marx, see K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, 2nd ed., vol. 12, p. 737), as the original form of spiritual culture of humanity. This or that specific understanding of any phenomenon of nature or society initially depended on the specific natural, economic and historical conditions and the level of social development in which the peoples - bearers of a given M - lived. In addition, individual mythological plots could be adopted by one people from another, however, probably only in those cases when the borrowed myth received a meaningful place in the life and worldview of the receiving people in accordance with their specific living conditions and the level of development they achieved. But M. represents a very unique system of fantastic ideas about the natural and social reality surrounding man. The reasons why myths should have arisen at all (that is, the answer to the question of why the perception of the world by primitive man should have taken such a unique and bizarre form as myth-making) should apparently be sought in the general for that level of cultural and historical development features of thinking.

The main prerequisites for a kind of mythological “logic” are, firstly, that primitive man had not yet distinguished himself from the natural and social environment, and, secondly, elements of logical diffuseness, the indivisibility of primitive thinking, which had not yet clearly separated from the emotional , affective-motor sphere. The consequence of this was a naive humanization of the natural environment and the resulting universal personification in myths and a broad “metaphorical” comparison of natural and cultural (social) objects. Man transferred his own properties to natural objects, ascribed life and human feelings to them. The expression of forces, properties and fragments of the cosmos as concrete, sensory and animated images gave rise to bizarre mythological fiction. The cosmos is often represented in myths as a living giant, from whose parts the world can be created, totemic ancestors are depicted as beings of dual nature - zoomorphic and anthropomorphic - and easily change their appearance, diseases have the appearance of monsters devouring souls, strength can be expressed by multi-armedness, and good vision - multiple eyes, etc. Moreover, all gods, spirits, heroes are connected by purely human family-clan relations. Some mythological images turn out to be a complex multi-level bundle of distinctive features included in a well-known mythological system. Mythological images represent animated, personalized configurations of “metaphors”; a “metaphorical”, or rather symbolic, image represents the otherness of what it models, because the form is identical to the content, and is not its allegory or illustration.

The symbolism of the myth represents its most important feature. The diffuseness and indivisibility of primitive thinking manifested itself in the vague separation in mythological thinking of subject and object, object and sign, thing and word, being and its name, thing and its attributes, singular and plural, spatial and temporal relations, beginning and principle, that is, origin and essence. Mythological thinking, as a rule, operates with the concrete and personal, and manipulates the external secondary sensory qualities of objects; objects are brought closer together by secondary sensory qualities, by contiguity in space and time. What appears as similarity in scientific analysis appears as identity in mythological explanation. Concrete objects, without losing their concreteness, can become signs of other objects or phenomena, that is, symbolically replace them. By replacing some symbols or some series of symbols with others, mythical thought makes the objects it describes seem more intelligible (although complete overcoming of metaphorism and symbolism within the framework of myth is impossible).

It is very typical for myth to replace cause-and-effect relationships with precedent - the origin of an object is presented as its essence (geneticism of myth). The scientific principle of explanation is contrasted in M. with a “beginning” in time. To explain the structure of a thing means to tell how it was made; to describe the world around us means to talk about its origin. The current state of the world - relief, celestial bodies, animal breeds and plant species, way of life, social groups and religious institutions, etc. - everything turns out to be a consequence of events of a long time past and the actions of mythical heroes, ancestors or gods. In any typical myth, a mythological event is separated from the “present” time by some large period of time: as a rule, mythological stories refer to “ancient times,” “beginning times.” A sharp distinction between the mythological period and modern (“sacred” and “profane” time) is characteristic of even the most primitive mythological ideas; there is often a special designation for ancient mythological times. Mythological time is the time when everything was “not the same” as it is now. The mythical past is not just a previous time, but a special era of first creation, a mythical time preceding the beginning of empirical time; the mythical era is the era of the first objects and first actions: the first fire, the first spear, the first actions, etc. (see Mythical Time). Everything that happened in mythical time acquires the meaning of a paradigm (from the Greek, paradeigma, “example”, “image”), and is considered as a precedent, serving as a model for reproduction already due to the fact that this precedent took place in “primary times”. Therefore, myth usually combines two aspects - a story about the past (diachronic aspect) and a means of explaining the present, and sometimes the future (synchronic aspect). For the primitive consciousness, everything that exists now is the result of the unfolding of the original precedent. The relevance of “historical” legends is confirmed by the genre of etiological explanations of the main objects on the territory of a given collective and its main social institutions. In general, etiology (from the Greek aitia, “reason”), an attempt to explain some real phenomenon in the human environment (“how did this happen?”, “how was it done?”, “why?”) is an essential feature of mythological thinking. Etiology is part of the very specificity of myth, since in myth ideas about the structure of the world are conveyed in the form of a narrative about the origin of certain of its elements. In addition, there are (especially in the most archaic mythologies, for example among the Australian aborigines) quite a few etiological myths, which are just short stories containing primitive explanations of certain characteristics of animals, the origin of some relief features, etc.

The content of the myth is considered by the primitive consciousness to be quite real (moreover, due to the “paradigmatic” nature of the myth, as the “highest reality”), the distinction between the real and the supernatural is not made. For those among whom the myth arose and existed, myth is “truth”, because it is an understanding of the actually given and “now” ongoing reality, accepted by many generations of people “before us.” Collective practical experience, whatever it may be, has been accumulated by many generations, so only it was considered as sufficiently “reliable.” For every primitive society, this experience was concentrated in the wisdom of the ancestors, in tradition; therefore, understanding the facts of the external world turned out to be a matter of faith, but faith was not subject to verification and did not need it.

So, the inability to distinguish between the natural and the supernatural, indifference to contradiction, weak development of abstract concepts, sensory-concrete nature, metaphorical nature, emotionality - these and other features of primitive thinking turn M. into a very unique symbolic (sign) system, in terms of which it was perceived and the whole world was described.

Much of what has been said above brings us to the complex (and not having an unambiguous solution in science) question of the relationship between religion and religion. Some of the problems are related to questions about the place of religion in primitive consciousness and represent the subject of independent research (see, in particular, the article Religion and Mythology). In the context of "M. - religion”, the most controversial issue was the relationship between myth and rite (religious), ritual. It has long been noted in science that many myths serve as an explanation of religious rituals (cult myths). The performer of the ritual reproduces in person the events told in the myth - the myth is a kind of libretto of the dramatic action being performed.

Historically, relatively late examples of cult myths are well known: in Ancient Greece, the Eleusinian mysteries were accompanied by the telling of sacred myths (about Demeter and her daughter Kore, about the abduction of Kore by the ruler of the underworld Pluto, her return to earth), as if explaining the dramatic actions being performed. There is reason to believe that cult myths are widespread, that they exist wherever religious rites are performed. Religious ritual and myth are closely related. This connection has long been recognized in science. But the question raises disagreements: what is primary here and what is derivative? Was the ritual created on the basis of a myth or was the myth created to justify the ritual? This question has different solutions in the scientific literature (see article Rituals and Myths). Many facts from the field of religion of various peoples confirm the primacy of ritual over myth. Very often, for example, there are cases when the same ritual is interpreted by its participants in different ways. Ritual always constitutes the most stable part of religion, but the mythological ideas associated with it are changeable, unstable, often completely forgotten, and are replaced by new ones that are supposed to explain the same ritual, the original meaning of which has long been lost. Of course, in certain cases, religious actions took shape on the basis of one or another religious tradition, that is, ultimately on the basis of a myth, as if as a dramatization of it. Of course, the relationship between the two members of this pair - “rite - myth” - cannot be understood as the interaction of two phenomena foreign to each other. Myth and ritual in ancient cultures, in principle, constitute a certain unity - ideological, functional, structural; they represent, as it were, two aspects of primitive culture - verbal and effective, “theoretical” and “practical”. This consideration of the problem introduces another clarification into our understanding of M. Although myth (in the strict sense of the word) is a narrative, a set of “stories” fantastically depicting reality, it is not a genre of literature, but a certain idea of ​​the world, which only most often takes the form of a narrative; The mythological worldview is also expressed in other forms - actions (as in rituals), songs, dances, etc.

Myths (and these, as noted above, are usually stories about the “first ancestors”, about the mythical times of “first creation”) constitute, as it were, the sacred spiritual treasure of the tribe. They are associated with cherished tribal traditions, affirm the value system accepted in a given society, support and sanction certain norms of behavior. Myth, as it were, explains and sanctions the existing order in society and the world; it explains to man himself and the world around him in such a way as to support this order. In cult myths, the moment of justification, justification clearly prevails over the moment of explanation.

A cult myth is always sacred; it is, as a rule, surrounded by deep mystery; it is the secret property of those who are initiated into the corresponding ritual. Cult myths constitute the “esoteric” (inward-facing) side of religious M. But there is another group of religious myths that constitute its “exoteric” (outward-facing) side. These are myths, as if deliberately invented to intimidate the uninitiated, especially children and women. Both categories of myths - esoteric and exoteric - are sometimes located around some social phenomenon and the ritual associated with it. A striking example is the myths associated with initiations - age-related initiation rites performed when young men are transferred to the age class of adult men. During their performance, the initiates are told myths that they, like all the uninitiated, did not dare to know before... On the basis of the initiation rites themselves, specific mythological ideas were in turn born; for example, a mythological image of a spirit arose - the founder and patron of age-related initiations. Various myths and mythical images belonging to the “inner” and “outer” circles are not limited to connections with age-related initiation rites. One might think that one of the elements that is woven, along with others, into the complex fabric of myths about monsters hostile to people (teratological myths) also goes back to the tendency to intimidate listeners. Cult myths grow on the basis of the practice of secret unions (Melanesia, North America, West Africa, etc.), on the basis of cults of tribal gods monopolized by priests, and later - within the framework of state-organized temple cults, in the form of theological speculations of priests. The splitting of religious and mythological images into esoteric and exoteric is a historically transitory phenomenon. It is characteristic of some “tribal” cults and of ancient “national” religions. In world religions - Buddhism, Christianity, Islam - the fundamental line between esoteric and exoteric mythology weakens or even disappears - religious and mythological ideas become an obligatory subject of faith and turn into religious dogmas. This is due to the new ideological role of world religions, with their new - church - organization. These religions are called upon to serve as an ideological tool to subjugate the masses to the dominant social order. From all that has been said, it is clear that the question of the relationship between M. and religion is not easily resolved. Apparently, in its origin, M. is not associated with religion, but it is certain that already in the early stages of its development, M. is organically associated with religious and magical rituals and is an essential part of religious beliefs.

But primitive M., although it was in close connection with religion, is by no means reducible to it. Being a system of primitive worldview, mythology included, as an undivided, synthetic unity, the rudiments of not only religion, but also philosophy, political theories, pre-scientific ideas about the world and man, and also, due to the unconscious and artistic nature of myth-making, the specifics of mythological thinking and “language” (metaphorical, translation of general ideas in a sensually concrete form, that is, imagery) - and various forms of art, primarily verbal. When considering the problem of “religion and M.” It should also be borne in mind that the role of religion in primitive society (as a society where classes had not yet developed, and a system of scientific knowledge had not yet arisen) differed from its role in class societies. The transformation of some myths into religious dogmas, the new social role of religion is the result of already far advanced historical development.

On the threshold of class society, M. generally undergoes a significant transformation.

Due to changing social conditions and through contamination (from the Latin contaminatio, “mixing”) of mythological plots and motifs, the characters themselves - gods, demigods, heroes, demons, etc. - enter into complex relationships with each other (family, marital, hierarchical). Entire genealogies of gods arise, the images of which were originally born and existed separately. Typical examples of the cyclization of myths and the formation of a polytheistic pantheon are the complex pantheon of great and small gods of Polynesia, as well as the Mayans, Aztecs and other peoples of Mexico and Central America. Complex mathematics, colored by a vaguely mystical and speculative-philosophical spirit, was developed over the centuries by the Brahmins of India. Clear traces of the work of the priests and the struggle of their individual groups are visible in the myths of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia. The development of German-Scandinavian M. followed the same path (but was not completed), where a pantheon of Æsir gods emerged, assimilating another group of Vanir gods. In ancient Greek M., individual images of the great gods (of different origins) became close to each other, became related, lined up in a hierarchical row headed by the “father of gods and men” Zeus, were located on the peaks and slopes of the Thessalian Olympus, and determined their relationship to the demigods, heroes, to people. Before us is classical polytheism - the result of a merger of cults and the contamination of myths.

Due to the division of society into classes, M., as a rule, is also stratified. Mythological tales and poems are being developed about gods and heroes, who are depicted as the ancestors of aristocratic families. This was the case in Egypt, Babylonia, Greece, Rome. In some places, the priestly mythological plots developed by closed corporations of priests differ from this “aristocratic” mythology. This is how “higher mythology” was created. On the contrary, in the beliefs of the masses, lower mythology persisted longer - ideas about various spirits of nature - forest, mountain, river, sea, spirits associated with agriculture, with the fertility of the earth, with vegetation. This “lower mythology,” rougher and more immediate, usually turned out to be the most stable. In the folklore and beliefs of many peoples of Europe, it was precisely the “lower mythology” that was preserved, while the “higher mythology”, ideas about the great gods that existed among the ancient Celtic, Germanic and Slavic peoples, were almost completely erased from popular memory and only partially merged into the images of Christian saints .

M., due to its syncretic nature, played a significant role in the genesis of various ideological forms, serving as the source material for the development of philosophy, scientific ideas, and literature. That is why the task of distinguishing not only myth and religion, but also forms of verbal creativity that are close to myth in genre and time of origin: fairy tales, heroic epics, as well as legends and historical traditions is so difficult (and not always completely solvable within the framework of rigid definitions). Thus, when distinguishing between myth and fairy tale, modern folklorists note that myth is the predecessor of a fairy tale, that in a fairy tale, in comparison with myth, there is a weakening (or loss) of the etiological function, a weakening of strict faith in the truth of the fantastic events presented, the development of conscious invention (while myth-making has unconsciously artistic character), etc. (see Fairy tales and myths). The distinction between myth and historical tradition, legend, is all the more controversial because it is largely arbitrary. Historical legend most often refers to those works of folk art that are based on some historical events. Such are the legends about the founding of cities (Thebes, Rome, Kyiv, etc.), about wars, about prominent historical figures, etc. This feature, however, is not always sufficient to distinguish between myth and historical tradition. A good example is many ancient Greek myths. As is known, they included various narratives (often taking a poetic or dramatic form) about the founding of cities, the Trojan War, the campaign of the Argonauts and other major events. Many of these stories are based on actual historical facts, confirmed by archaeological and other data (for example, excavations of Troy, Mycenae, etc.). But it is very difficult to draw a line between these stories (that is, historical legends) and myths themselves, especially since mythological images of gods and other fantastic creatures are woven into the narrative of seemingly historical stories. See also: History and Myths, Traditions and Myths.

[Myths of the peoples of the world. Encyclopedia: Myths of the peoples of the world, p. 70 (cf. Myths of the peoples of the world. Encyclopedia, p. 21 Dictionary)]

Mythology. Functions of myth. Mythological schools

Mythology as the world of prototypes and the matter of spirituality

But for the creators of mythology, it was not just reliable or true. They could not even question the truth. For primitive man, mythology was an objective reality. The same as for us, for example, the knowledge that there are 365 or 366 days in a year. It doesn’t even occur to us to question whether this is actually so. Such knowledge seems to us like properties of the things themselves, almost natural phenomena. This is also because we do not know the author. But myths are precisely anonymous works. For primitive man, they were therefore not works at all. They acted as his consciousness, his mental state, which for him was also the state of the surrounding world. Finally, it was a mass, collective state, which people experienced not individually, but together. Loners could be destroyers of mythological consciousness; they could be, say, those artists who secluded themselves in order to escape from the power of collective consciousness and depict in some secret place their own, and not the generally accepted, vision of the world, their own consciousness.

It was not the world outside man, but the world in the perception of the species that became the beginning of human knowledge. Mythology is the world of prototypes that were the property of the family and passed on from generation to generation. We can say about an image that it is a copy of something that is outside consciousness. We cannot say the same about the prototype. The prototype is the image of consciousness itself. We can get rid of any image, forget it. And you cannot get rid of the prototype, although you may not know about it, not experience its influence. The prototype is the “eye” of consciousness. We see with the eye, but we do not see the eye itself. It’s the same with the prototype: with its help we realize or think, but to think about the prototype itself is as difficult as seeing with the eye. Except with the help of a mirror. In the mirror we will only see ourselves. Our own species is one of the prototypes.

Mythological thinking is collective, tribal thinking. It enshrines the original, tribal relations of people to each other, when each of them did not think of himself outside the clan, he himself was a generic being rather than an individual. On the other hand, the genus was conceived not as a multitude of people, but as a large individual being. Mythology became the initial form of human thinking, the source of subsequent, more developed forms of thinking: religious, artistic, philosophical, scientific. All of them consist of the “building blocks” of mythological thinking. Hegel called myths the pedagogy of the human race. Myths or fairy tales educate each of us in childhood, they serve as a source of inspiration for artists and scientists, and even the most rational theories contain elements of mythological thinking. Myths are a kind of matter of spiritual culture.

Modeling function of myth

It would be wrong to identify mythology with something like the elementary school of human education, with the preparatory class of science. Mythology is not naive answers to the supposedly naive questions of primitive man that he posed to himself or to nature. People sought and found answers other than myths. He found them in practical activities. Otherwise, we repeat again, he simply would not have survived. Primitive man understood nature no worse than we understand it today.

Mythology played the role of the ideology of primitive society, that very “social glue”. Ideological consciousness is a consciousness when ideas or fantasies become reality for a person. Guided by some ideas or principles, a person can act contrary to circumstances that he considers less real or significant than the creations of his own consciousness. We already know about the determining role of images. An image determines a person’s behavior the more, the less he is aware of it as an image or a copy of something. Then the image becomes reality, the original, and the copy is the person’s behavior, his life. Mythology played the role of original samples, or models, according to which human behavior, consciousness and life were built.

Mythological images served as ideas about qualities or actions that cannot be imagined in any other form. Try to imagine the need to fulfill your duty. And if you know the myths about Hercules or Ilya Muromets, if you understand them and believe them, then you already have a ready-made idea of ​​duty as the highest valor of a man. Try to imagine the retribution that awaits anyone who commits a crime against public order. You can imagine retribution in the form of a prison or scaffold. Although all these are particularities, and the criminal always hopes to avoid them. But there is an image of Nemesis - the goddess of retribution, from whom it is impossible to hide, since she is in the mind of the criminal himself. Nemesis and the idea of ​​retribution will be alive as long as the criminal is alive. The gods of mythology are the personification of ideas. It seems that ideas cannot be seen, because they are a product of consciousness itself. But if ideas become images, then they can already be seen.

Researchers in the field of mythology also identify the following functions of myth:

Axiological (myth is a means of self-praise and inspiration);

Teleological (myth defines the purpose and meaning of history and human existence);

Praxeological, implemented on three levels: prognostic, magical and creative-transformative (here they often recall the idea of ​​N.A. Berdyaev that history is a “created myth”);

Communicative (myth is the connecting link of eras and generations);

Cognitive and explanatory;

Compensatory (realization and satisfaction of needs that are realistically, as a rule, unrealizable).

Comparative mythology

Interest in mythology intensifies in modern times in connection with the discovery of America. In the 18th century French missionary J.F. Lafitau became one of the first researchers of the life of North American Indians. This made it possible to compare the myths of peoples living in different parts of the world. The content of myths was no longer perceived as something random. Increasingly, attention was drawn to the similarity of myths and the natural nature of their emergence in antiquity.

The Italian philosopher G. Vico deeply studied mythology. In accordance with his concept of history, which we have already discussed, he viewed myths as “divine poetry” and compared it with a child’s state of mind. His philosophy of myth contained the beginnings of almost all subsequent directions in the study of mythology.

Allegorical and symbolic interpretations of myths

The first attempts to rationally interpret myths were associated with understanding them as allegories. Myths were seen as allegories, teachings, similes, and allusions. With this attitude towards them, the richness of the content of myths seems truly inexhaustible. A striking example of this approach was the attitude towards myths of the founder of the methodology of experimental knowledge, F. Bacon. In his treatise “On the Wisdom of the Ancients,” he outlined many ancient myths and his own understanding of the wisdom hidden in them. He wrote that it seems to him “like poorly pressed grapes, from which, although something is squeezed out, the best part remains and is not used.”

I.G. interpreted the myths in a similar way. Herder. His views laid the foundation for the understanding of myths already characteristic of romanticism. The pinnacle of the romantic concept of myths was the teaching of F.V. Schelling.

In 1966, his book “Philosophy of Art” was published, in one of the chapters of which (“Construction of the Matter of Art”) Schelling sets out his understanding of mythology. It is one of the most significant contributions to the development of mythology in general. Schelling divided the various methods of depiction into three types:

schematic (the general denotes the particular), allegorical (the particular denotes the general) and symbolic (the unity of the general and the particular). He understood mythology precisely symbolically, i.e. not allegorically, not historically and psychologically, when they try to find personification and animation in myths. For Schelling, if myth means anything, then it is precisely what it is about, in other words, the meaning of myth coincides with being. All events of myths are not likened to something; their truth cannot be established by comparing myths with some supposedly real events. Mythological tales, Schelling believed, should be considered only in themselves, not denoting something, but existing independently. What they are talking about undoubtedly once existed; this makes mythology universal and endless, qualitatively original and symbolic. Mythology, according to Schelling, is the consciousness of the real.

But from such an understanding it follows that myth-making cannot only be a phenomenon of the past. Schelling was convinced that a creative individual creates his own mythology from any material he pleases. In the future, he believed, there would be a synthesis of science and mythology, which would be created by the era as a whole.

Myth and archetype

Schelling viewed mythology as a construction or a union of actually contemplated ideas that served as the primary matter for art. He noted the rational nature of ancient art and poetry. In modern times, science acts as such a construct, and art and everyday consciousness as extra-scientific forms of spirituality become irrational. Here the myth continues to play its defining role as an archetype or prototype. According to the concept of K. Jung, archetypes organize people's perceptions and ideas about the outside world. What is commonly called knowledge may in fact be imagination, the origins of which must be sought in archetypes and in their uncontrolled influence on consciousness.

Levi-Strauss's structuralist theory of myth

Jung viewed the entire history of culture as a transformation of myths, raising them to ever higher levels. Thus, it was recognized that mythological thinking has properties that bring it closer to scientific thinking: generalization, analysis, classification. K. Lévi-Strauss believed that the essence of myth lies not in the style or manner of presentation, but in the story that is told. Myth is associated with past events that form a permanent structure, simultaneous for the past, present and future. Lévi-Strauss likened myth to a crystal “in the world of physical matter,” figuratively expressing the idea of ​​the world as a concentration of the properties of culture and the world. Myth contains everything that has been developed and expanded in the history of culture. This understanding of the role of myth gave Lévi-Strauss the basis to consider the logic of mythological thinking no less demanding than the logic of scientific thinking. A stone ax, he believed, was made no worse than an ax made of Iron, it was just that iron was better than stone.

Semiotics and general theory of myth

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