Meletinsky myth and historical poetics of folklore. Mythological thinking

Wikipedia: Eleazar Moiseevich Meletinsky (October 22, 1918, Kharkov - December 16, 2005, Moscow) - Russian philologist, cultural historian, Doctor of Philology, professor. Founder of the research school of theoretical folkloristics.
Eleazar Meletinsky was born in Kharkov into the family of civil engineer Moisei Lazarevich Meletinsky and neuropathologist Raisa Iosifovna Margolis. He graduated from school in Moscow, then from the Faculty of Literature, Art and Language of the Institute of History, Philosophy and Literature (IFLI, 1940). He graduated from military translator courses, fought on the Southern Front, then on the Caucasian Front.
In 1943-1944. He studied at the graduate school of the Central Asian State University in Tashkent, and after graduation he became a senior lecturer at this university. In 1945 he defended his thesis “The Romantic Period in Ibsen’s Work.”
In 1946 he moved to the Karelo-Finnish University (Petrozavodsk) and there he worked as the head of the literature department until 1949 (and in 1946-1947 - also as the head of the folklore department of the Karelian-Finnish base of the USSR Academy of Sciences).
Arrested during the anti-Semitic campaign (1949). Spent a year and a half in pre-trial detention centers (five and a half months in solitary confinement), sentenced to ten years in prison. Released from the camp and rehabilitated only in the fall of 1954.
From 1956 to 1994 worked at the Institute of World Literature named after A.M. Gorky (IMLI RAS).
He was the executive editor of several dozen scientific publications, supervised the collective works of the Institute (3), took an active part in the creation of the multi-volume “History of World Literature” (Vol. 1-8, M., 1984-1993), being a member of the editorial board of its individual volumes , author of sections devoted to the origins and early forms of verbal art, the literature of medieval Europe, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Sweden, the Middle East, Central Asia, the epic traditions of the peoples of the Caucasus and Transcaucasia, Central Asia and Siberia (4).
Member of the editorial board (since 1969) and editor-in-chief (since 1989) of the series “Studies on folklore and mythology of the East” and “Fairy tales and myths of the peoples of the East” (published by the Main Editorial Board of Oriental Literature of the publishing house “Nauka”; since 1994 - Publishing Company “Oriental Literature” ), member of international scientific societies - the Society for the Study of Narrative Folklore (Finland), the International Association of Semiotics (Italy).
From 1989 to 1994 E.M. Meletinsky served as a professor at Moscow State University in the department of history and theory of world culture, which was then created by the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University. Since the late 80s, he has given lectures at universities in Canada, Italy, Japan, Brazil, Israel, and spoken at international congresses on folklore, comparative literature, medieval studies and semiotics.
At the beginning of 1992, he headed the Institute of Higher Humanitarian Studies of the Russian State University for the Humanities. He devoted a lot of effort and time to the implementation of his ideas for the development of rational humanitarian knowledge, broad comparative and typological studies of cultural traditions, and bridging the gap between the scientific and pedagogical processes. At the Russian State University for the Humanities, he gave a course of lectures on comparative mythology and historical poetics, supervised the work of scientific seminars and collective works created here, and was the editor-in-chief of the magazine “Arbor mundi” (“World Tree”), which has been published by the Institute of Higher Humanitarian Studies since 1992.
For many years he was married to philologist Irina Semenko. After her death, Meletinsky’s second wife was the poetess Elena Kumpan...

, Moscow) - Soviet and Russian philologist, cultural historian, Doctor of Philology, professor. Founder of the research school of theoretical folkloristics. Direct participant in the creation of the encyclopedic publications “Myths of the Peoples of the World” and “Mythological Dictionary”.

Biography

Eleazar Meletinsky was born in Kharkov into the family of civil engineer Moisei Lazarevich Meletinsky and neuropathologist Raisa Iosifovna Margolis. He graduated from school in Moscow, then from the Faculty of Literature, Art and Language (1940).

Scientific activity

Being the creator of his own school in science, E. M. Meletinsky is, first of all, a continuer of the traditions of A. N. Veselovsky (5). He turned to them back in the 1940s under the influence of Academician V.M. Zhirmunsky, the only person he called his teacher.

For Meletinsky (following Veselovsky and Zhirmunsky), the center of scientific interests was the movement of narrative traditions in time and their genesis, and Meletinsky is distinguished by special attention to archaic literature, its social and ethnocultural conditioning. He examined the fate in oral and book literature of the main themes and images of the mythological narrative, the status of the poetic word and folklore genre in the archaic (7), described the origin and evolution of the folk tale, as well as its central character - the socially disadvantaged younger brother, orphan, stepdaughter ( 8), the primitive origins and stages of the formation of narrative traditions and epic genres were studied (9).

From this point of view, based on a huge comparative material, which in its entirety covers the oral traditions of the peoples of all continents, he analyzed the main genres of fairy-tale and heroic-epic folklore, starting with their earliest forms, preserved in a number of non-literate cultures and reflected in some examples of ancient and medieval literature. One should mention his articles on the North Caucasian “Nart” tales (10), on the Karelian-Finnish (11) and Turkic-Mongolian epics (12), on the folklore of the peoples of Australia and Oceania (13) and many others. In line with the same methodology, a monographic study of the “Elder Edda” as a monument of mythological and heroic epic was undertaken, which made it possible to identify the oral foundations of its constituent texts (14).

Continuing the consideration of the historical dynamics of epic traditions, E. M. Meletinsky turned to the material of the medieval novel - in all the diversity of its national forms: European courtly novel, Middle Eastern romantic epic, Far Eastern novel, and in studying this topic he again returned to research in medieval studies (namely in a comparative typological aspect), which began at one time when working on the “History of World Literature” and continued when writing a monograph on the “Edda” (15). A unique result of these studies was the book “Introduction to the Historical Poetics of the Epic and Novel” (16), which contains a description of the patterns of development of epic genres from their primitive origins to the literature of modern times. Finally, adjacent to the same series of works is a monograph devoted to a comparative typological analysis of the short story, again starting with a folk tale and anecdote and ending with Chekhov’s stories (17).

A special place in the research of E. M. Meletinsky is occupied by mythology, with which the origins of narrative folklore and the most archaic forms of literary motifs and plots are more or less connected. His articles and books analyze the oral myths of the aborigines of Australia and Oceania, North America and Siberia (18), as well as the mythologies of the peoples of the Ancient World and the Middle Ages (Edda) reflected in book monuments (19).

The general monograph “The Poetics of Myth” (20) received significant international resonance, in which the consideration of mythology was undertaken, starting from its most archaic forms, right up to the manifestations of “mythologism” in the literature of the 20th century (the prose of Kafka, Joyce, Thomas Mann).

E.M. Meletinsky was deputy editor-in-chief of the two-volume encyclopedia “Myths of the Peoples of the World” (which has already gone through several editions since its publication in 1980), and editor-in-chief of the “Mythological Dictionary”, which largely complements it (first edition - 1988 [ ]), as well as one of the main authors of both works. Laureate of the USSR State Prize (1990) for his work on “Myths of the Peoples of the World.” He also authored articles on myth and mythology, on Lévi-Strauss and his concepts, on ritual-mythological criticism, etc. in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia (Vol. 14), Brief Literary Encyclopedia, Literary Encyclopedic Dictionary ", "Philosophical Encyclopedic Dictionary".

In his works devoted to the study of epic monuments, folklore-mythological cycles and traditions, E. M. Meletinsky acts primarily as a folklorist theorist, for whom a special, no matter how detailed examination of an oral or book text is only a stage on the path to knowledge of more general historical poetic patterns of development of narrative forms of traditional literature. The main tool for this knowledge is the complementary techniques of comparative typological and structural semiotic research.

E. M. Meletinsky’s turn to the methods of structural-semiotic analysis in the 1960s corresponds to one of the main directions of research in Russian science. In a certain sense, the path from the unfinished “Poetics of Plots” by A. N. Veselovsky led directly to “Morphology of the Fairy Tale” by V. Ya. Propp, which in turn laid the foundations for structural folkloristics (21). Eleazar Moiseevich’s long-standing passion for the exact sciences, his interest in the possibilities of their use in the humanities, and in the application of precise analysis techniques in these areas (22) also played a role here.

Since the second half of the 1960s, E. M. Meletinsky led a “home” seminar devoted to the problems of structural description of a fairy tale; the results of this work, developing the ideas of V. Ya. Propp using new methodological acquisitions of that period, were reported at meetings of the Tartu Summer Schools, published in the form of articles in the “Proceedings on Sign Systems” published by the Tartu State University, edited by Yu. M. Lotman and repeatedly translated into foreign languages ​​(23). In 1971, Meletinsky’s work on folklore was awarded the international Pitre Prize (neither Meletinsky himself nor his colleagues went to Italy for the award ceremony).

E. M. Meletinsky’s turn to structural-semiotic methods was accompanied not by a preference for synchronic analysis over diachronic analysis (which is characteristic of structuralism, especially early), but by a fundamental combination of both aspects of research, historical and structural typology, as the scientist himself formulated it in one from articles from the early 1970s (24); a tendency, again prevailing in Russian science, for which the historical existence of tradition has always remained the subject of unremitting attention.

The focus of Meletinsky's research interests is the paradigmatic rather than the syntagmatic level of analysis; Accordingly, not only the methodology of V. Ya. Propp (including its modern interpretations) is used, but also the achievements of structural anthropology, primarily in the works of C. Levi-Strauss (25). Related to this is an in-depth study of the semantics of folklore motif and plot, a model for describing which was developed by E. M. Meletinsky based on the material of the Paleo-Asian mythological epic about the Raven (26).

Studying the deep mythological semantics of the traditional motif led the scientist to the next big topic - the study of folk archetypes, to the “classical” Jungian understanding of which E. M. Meletinsky made serious adjustments (27). The experience of studying archaic, primarily mythological traditions gives him the basis to abandon a somewhat one-sided and modernized approach to the problem of the genesis and functioning of these oldest mental structures in human culture. From the study of mythological archetypes in folklore plots, the scientist moved on to the analysis of archetypal meanings in the works of Russian classics (28). In general, in the 1990s, Eleazar Moiseevich paid more and more attention to Russian literature of the 19th century (Pushkin, Dostoevsky), considering it in the aspects of comparative studies, structural and historical poetics (29).

Meletinsky’s books and articles highlight three dominant research directions:

1. typology and historical transformations of basic images in myth and folklore, as well as in the literary monuments of Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Modern times that go back to them.
2. structural and stage relationships of three large genre-thematic complexes of oral literature (myth, fairy tale, epic).
3. plot organization of folklore narrative and semantic structure of the motive.

The source material for discussing such issues for Meletinsky is myth. Hence the steady attention to archaic traditions, which are not only of great independent interest, but also have the most important paradigmatic significance for later cultural formations. At the same time, Meletinsky avoids both the archaizing mythologization of modernity and the unjustified modernization of the archaic. Nevertheless, it is in the archaic that the origins and most expressive manifestations of “basic” mental universals are revealed, appearing in fairy-tale-epic narrative structures and in the deep meanings of literary and folklore motifs. The study of the structural typology of traditional plots and the semantics of motives leads E. M. Meletinsky to formulate the concept of literary and mythological archetypes.

The presence of close substantive and formal similarities in semiotic texts of different cultures, including those not related to each other by kinship or close proximity, demonstrates the presence of fundamental uniformity in the world literary process. This is most clearly visible in folklore traditions - primarily in archaic ones (although not only in them). Whatever field of literature E.M. Meletinsky studied, he always remained a folklorist.

The general perspective that unites into a single whole the diverse scientific activity of E. M. Meletinsky - a researcher of myth and folklore, the Old Scandinavian "Edda", the medieval novel and short story, archetypes in Russian classical literature, mythology in the prose of the 20th century and much more - is historical the poetics of narrative forms, from archaic mythology to modern literature. Despite all the changes in the subject of his research, throughout his more than half a century of scientific activity, he remained faithful to this main topic.

In the last years of his life, E. M. Meletinsky was the director of the Institute of Higher Humanitarian Studies of the Russian State University for the Humanities, a member of the scientific councils of the Russian State University for the Humanities and the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Scientific Council on World Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Essays

Monographs

• (8) Hero of a fairy tale. Origin of the image. M., mechanical ventilation. 1958. 264 p. 5000 e.
• (9) The origin of the heroic epic. Early forms and archaic monuments. M., mechanical ventilation. 1963. 462 from 1800 e. = M., 2004. [translation into Chinese (Lanzhou, 2007), Polish (Kraków, 2009)]
• (14) "Edda" and early forms of epic. (Series “Studies on the theory and history of the epic”). M., Science. 1968. 364 from 2000 e. (English translation: Trieste, 1998).
• (20) Poetics of myth. (Series “Studies on folklore and mythology of the East”). M., Science. 1976. 407 from 5500 e. (2nd ed.: M., 1995) [translations into Polish (Warszawa, 1981), Serbian (Beograd, 1984), Hungarian (Budapest, 1985), Portuguese (Rio de Janeiro, 1987), Czech (Praha, 1989 ), Slovak (Bratislava, 1989), Chinese (Beijing, 1990), Italian (Roma, 1993), Bulgarian (Sofia, 1995), English (New York - London, 1998)] languages.
• (18) Paleo-Asian mythological epic (Crow cycle). Series “Studies on folklore and mythology of the East”). M., Science. 1979. 229 p. 6000 e.
• (15)Medieval novel. Origin and classical forms. M., Science. 1983. 304 with 5000 e.
• (16) Introduction to the historical poetics of the epic and novel. M., Science. 1986. 318 from 4500 e.

(Italian translation: Bologna, 1993).

• (17) Historical poetics of the short story. M., Science. 1990. 279 from 3000 e.
• (27) About literary archetypes. M., 1994. 134 with 3500 copies. (Readings on the theory and history of culture of the IVGI RSUH. Issue 4), p. 5-68 (“On the origin of literary and mythological plot archetypes”); this book has been translated into Portuguese (Sao Paulo, 1998).
• Dostoevsky in the light of historical poetics. How The Brothers Karamazov was Made. M., RGGU.1996.112 p. (Series “Readings on the theory and history of culture.” Issue 16).
• From myth to literature: Textbook. M., Russian State University for the Humanities. 2000. 169 p.
• Notes on the work of Dostoevsky. M., Russian State University for the Humanities. 2001. 188 p.

Articles

• (1)My war // Selected articles. Memories. M., 1998, p. 438.
• (2) In war and in prison // Selected articles. Memories. M., 1998, p. 429-572.
• (3) Monuments of the book epic. Style and typological features (M., 1978) (together with others).
• (4) History of world literature. T. 1-5, M., 1984-1988 (jointly with others).
• (5) “Historical poetics” by A. N. Veselovsky and the problem of the origin of narrative literature // Historical poetics (Results and prospects of study). M., 1986, p. 25-52.
• (7) Ancestors of Prometheus (Cultural hero in myth and epic) // Bulletin of the History of World Culture, No. 3 (9), May-June 1958, pp. 114-132 (Selected articles. Memoirs, pp. 334-359);
  • On the archetype of incest in folklore tradition (especially in heroic myth) // Folklore and ethnography. At the ethnographic origins of folklore plots and images. Sat. scientific works. L., 1984 (Selected articles. Memoirs, pp. 297-304; Chinese translation: Beijing, 1990);
  • Myth and historical poetics of folklore // Folklore. Poetic system. M., 1977, p. 23-41 (Selected articles. Memoirs, pp. 11-32);
  • Poetic word in the archaic // Historical and ethnographic studies of folklore. Collection of articles in memory of S. A. Tokarev. M., 1994, p. 86-110;
  • Meletinsky E. M., Neklyudov S. Yu., Novik E. S. The status of the word and the concept of genre in folklore // Historical poetics. Literary eras and types of artistic consciousness. M., 1994, p. 39-105.
  • Marriage in a fairy tale (its function and place in the plot structure) // Selected articles. Memories. M., 1998, p. 305-317 (1st ed. in German - Acta Ethnographica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae. T. 19, Budapest, 1970, p. 281-292);
  • Myth and fairy tale // Folklore and ethnography. M., 1970 (Selected articles. Memoirs, pp. 284-296).
  • Primitive origins of verbal art // Early forms of art. M., 1972, p. 149-190 (Selected articles. Memoirs, pp. 52-110);
  • On the genesis and ways of differentiation of epic genres // Russian folklore. Materials and research. V. M.-L., 1960, p. 83-101;
  • Questions of the theory of epic in modern foreign science // Questions of literature, 1957, No. 2, p. 94-112;
  • Problems of studying folk epic // Questions of literature, 1963, No. 4, p. 196-200;
  • Folk epic // Theory of literature. Types and genres of literature. M., 1964;
  • The fate of archaic motifs in epics // Living Antiquity, 1998, No. 4 (20), p. 12-13.
• (10) The place of Nart legends in the history of the epic // Nart epic. Materials of the meeting on October 19-20, 1956 Ordzhonikidze, 1957, p. 37-73.
• (11) On the question of the genesis of the Karelian-Finnish epic (Vänämöinen’s problem) // Soviet ethnography, 1960, No. 4, p. 64-80.
• (12) About the oldest type of hero in the epic of the Turkic-Mongolian peoples of Siberia // Problems of comparative philology. Collection of articles for the 70th anniversary of corresponding member. USSR Academy of Sciences V. M. Zhirmunsky. M.-L., 1964, p. 426-443 (Selected articles. Memoirs, pp. 360-381).
• (13) Australian folklore // Myths and fairy tales of Australia. M., 1965, p. 3-24;
  • Mythological and fairy-tale epic of the Melanesians // Oceanic ethnographic collection. M., 1957, p. 194-112;
  • Narrative folklore of Oceania // Fairy tales and myths of Oceania. M., 1970, p. 8-33.
  • Problems of comparative study of medieval literature (West/East) // Literature and art in the cultural system. Sat. in honor of D. S. Likhachev. M., 1988, p. 76-87 (Selected articles. Memoirs, pp. 401-418).
  • Fairy tale-anecdote in the system of folklore genres // Genres of verbal text: Anecdote / Educational material on the theory of literature. Tallinn, 1989, p. 59-77 (Studies on Slavic folklore and folk culture. Studies in Slavic Folklore and Folk Culture. Issue 2. Oakland, Specialties, 1997, p. 42-57; Selected articles. Memoirs. M., 1998, p. 318- 333);
  • Small genres of folklore and problems of genre evolution in oral tradition // Small genres of folklore. Collection of articles in memory of G. A. Permyakov. M., 1995, p. 325-337.
• (19) Myths of the ancient world in comparative light // Typology and relationships of literature of the ancient world. M., 1971, p. 68-133 (Selected articles. Memoirs. M., 1998, pp. 192-258);
• "Edda" and early forms of epic; Scandinavian mythology as a system // Proceedings on sign systems VII, Tartu, 1975, p. 38-52 (Selected articles. Memoirs, pp. 259-283; English translation: Journal of Symbolic Anthropology, 1973, No. 1, 2).
• (21) Structural and typological study of fairy tales // Propp V. Ya. Morphology of fairy tales. M., 1969, p. 134-166 [translations into French (Propp V. Morphologie du conte, Paris, 1970, p. 201-254), Slovak (Propp V.J. Morfologia rozpravky. Bratislava, 1971, p. 149-189), German (Propp V. Morphologie des Maerchens, Muenchen, 1972), Portuguese (Lisboa, 1978; Rio de Janeiro, 1984), Georgian (Tbilisi, 1984), Hungarian (Budapest, 1995) languages]; Meletinskij E.M., Nekljudov S.Ju., Novik E.S., Segal D.M. La folclorica russa e i prblemi del metodo strutturale // Ricerche semiotiche. Nuove tendenze delle scienze umane nell'URSS. Torino, 1973, p. 401-432.
• (22) “From my youth, I was imbued with the dream of transforming the humanities into exact sciences...” // Novaya Gazeta, September 29, 1993, No. 38, p. 5.
• (23)Meletinsky E.M., Neklyudov S.Yu., Novik E.S., Segal D.M.: Problems of structural description of a fairy tale // Proceedings on sign systems IV, Tartu, 1969, p. 86-135; Once again to the problem of the structural description of a fairy tale // Proceedings on sign systems V, Tartu, 1971, p. 63-91. Translations into English, German, French, Italian.
• (24) Comparative typology of folklore: historical and structural // Philologica. In memory of academician V. M. Zhirmunsky. L., 1973;
  • Structural typology and folklore // Context 1973. M., 1974, p. 329-346;
  • On the question of the application of the structural-semiotic method in folklore // Semiotics and artistic creativity. M., 1977, p. 152-170 (Selected articles. Memoirs, pp. 33-51).
• (25) Claude Lévi-Strauss and the structural typology of myth // Questions of Philosophy, No. 7, 1970;
  • Claude Lévi-Strauss. Only ethnology? // Questions of literature, 1971, No. 4, p. 115-134;
  • Structural study of mythology in Lévi-Strauss // Directions and trends in modern foreign literary criticism and literary criticism. M., 1974;
  • Mythology and folklore in the works of C. Lévi-Strauss // Lévi-Strauss K. Structural anthropology. M., 1983, p. 467-523 (2nd ed. - 1986).
• (26) Paleo-Asian mythological epic, p. 144-178.
  • Transformations of archetypes in Russian classical literature // Meletinsky E. M. About literary archetypes, p. 69-133.
• (29) How “The Brothers Karamazov” was made, M., 1996 (Readings on the theory and history of culture of the IVGI RSUH. Issue 16);
  • Transformation of foreign literary models in Pushkin’s works // Dialogue / Carnival / Chronotope, No. 3 (24), Vitebsk - Moscow, 1998, p. 5-37;
  • The theme of the “borderline” situation between life and death in Pushkin’s late works // SEMITROPON. To the 70th anniversary of Vladimir Nikolaevich Toporov. M., 1998.
• (30) Publications in the magazines “Theatrical Life” (No. 22, 1989), “Our Heritage” (1990, No. 2), “If. Journal of Science Fiction & Futurology" (1994, no. 9), "Star" (1995, no. 8), "Cult Revista brasiliera de literatura" (1999, March) and in the newspapers "Il Mattino di Padova" (22.09.1991) , “Nezavisimaya Gazeta” (No. 100, 27.09.199; No. 168, 02.09.1992), “Novaya Gazeta” (No. 38, 29.09.1993), “Literary Gazette” (No. 6, 10. 11. 1993), “Culture” [Bulgaria] (30.12.1994), etc.
• Selected articles. Memories. M., Russian State University for the Humanities. 1998. 576 p.

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Notes

Literature

• Alekseev P.V.// Philosophers of Russia of the XIX-XX centuries. Biographies, ideas, works. - 4th ed., revised. and additional - M.: Academic project, 2002. - 1152 p. - ISBN 5-8291-0148-3.
• // People and destinies. Bio-bibliographic dictionary of orientalists - victims of political terror in the Soviet period (1917-1991) / Ed. prepared by Ya. V. Vasilkov, M. Yu. Sorokina. - St. Petersburg. : Petersburg Oriental Studies, 2003. - 496 p. - (Social history of Russian science about the East).

Links

• Pomerantseva E. V. // Brief literary encyclopedia. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1962-1978.
• on the RSUH website
• on the website "Biography.ru"
• Ivanov Vyach. Sun.

Excerpt characterizing Meletinsky, Eleazar Moiseevich

That same night, having bowed to the Minister of War, Bolkonsky went to the army, not knowing where he would find it, and fearing on the way to Krems to be intercepted by the French.
In Brünn, the entire court population packed up, and the burdens were already sent to Olmütz. Near Etzelsdorf, Prince Andrei drove out onto the road along which the Russian army was moving with the greatest haste and in the greatest disorder. The road was so crowded with carts that it was impossible to travel in a carriage. Having taken a horse and a Cossack from the Cossack commander, Prince Andrei, hungry and tired, overtaking the carts, rode to find the commander-in-chief and his cart. The most ominous rumors about the position of the army reached him on the way, and the sight of the army randomly running confirmed these rumors.
“Cette armee russe que l"or de l"Angleterre a transportee, des extremites de l"univers, nous allons lui faire eprouver le meme sort (le sort de l"armee d"Ulm)", ["This Russian army, which English gold was brought here from the end of the world, will experience the same fate (the fate of the Ulm army).”] he recalled the words of Bonaparte’s order to his army before the start of the campaign, and these words equally aroused in him surprise at the brilliant hero, a feeling of offended pride and hope of glory. "What if there is nothing left but to die? he thought. Well, if necessary! I will do it no worse than others."
Prince Andrei looked with contempt at these endless, interfering teams, carts, parks, artillery and again carts, carts and carts of all possible types, overtaking one another and jamming the dirt road in three or four rows. From all sides, behind and in front, as long as one could hear one could hear the sounds of wheels, the rumble of bodies, carts and carriages, the clatter of horses, blows of a whip, shouts of urging, curses of soldiers, orderlies and officers. Along the edges of the road one could constantly see either fallen, skinned and unkempt horses, or broken carts, in which lonely soldiers were sitting, waiting for something, or soldiers separated from their teams, who were heading in crowds to neighboring villages or dragging chickens, rams, hay or hay from the villages. bags filled with something.
On the descents and ascents the crowds became thicker, and there was a continuous groan of shouts. The soldiers, sinking knee-deep in mud, picked up guns and wagons in their hands; whips beat, hooves slid, lines burst and chests burst with screams. The officers in charge of the movement drove forward and backward between the convoys. Their voices were faintly audible amid the general roar, and it was clear from their faces that they despaired of being able to stop this disorder. “Voila le cher [“Here is the dear] Orthodox army,” thought Bolkonsky, remembering the words of Bilibin.
Wanting to ask one of these people where the commander-in-chief was, he drove up to the convoy. Directly opposite him was riding a strange, one-horse carriage, apparently constructed at home by soldiers, representing a middle ground between a cart, a convertible and a carriage. The carriage was driven by a soldier and sat under a leather top behind an apron, a woman, all tied with scarves. Prince Andrei arrived and had already addressed the soldier with a question when his attention was drawn to the desperate cries of a woman sitting in a tent. The officer in charge of the convoy beat the soldier, who was sitting as a coachman in this carriage, because he wanted to go around others, and the whip hit the apron of the carriage. The woman screamed shrilly. Seeing Prince Andrei, she leaned out from under her apron and, waving her thin arms that had jumped out from under the carpet scarf, shouted:
- Adjutant! Mr. Adjutant!... For God's sake... protect... What will this happen?... I am the doctor's wife of the 7th Jaeger... they won't let me in; we fell behind, lost our own...
- I’ll break you into a cake, wrap it up! - the embittered officer shouted at the soldier, - turn back with your whore.
- Mr. Adjutant, protect me. What is this? – the doctor shouted.
- Please let this cart pass. Can't you see that this is a woman? - said Prince Andrei, driving up to the officer.
The officer looked at him and, without answering, turned back to the soldier: “I’ll go around them... Back!...
“Let me through, I’m telling you,” Prince Andrei repeated again, pursing his lips.
- And who are you? - the officer suddenly turned to him with drunken fury. - Who are you? Are you (he especially emphasized you) the boss, or what? I'm the boss here, not you. “You go back,” he repeated, “I’ll smash you into a piece of cake.”
The officer apparently liked this expression.
“You shaved the adjutant seriously,” a voice was heard from behind.
Prince Andrei saw that the officer was in that drunken fit of causeless rage in which people do not remember what they say. He saw that his intercession for the doctor’s wife in the wagon was filled with what he feared most in the world, what is called ridicule [ridiculous], but his instinct said something else. Before the officer had time to finish his last words, Prince Andrei, his face disfigured from rage, rode up to him and raised his whip:
- Please let me in!
The officer waved his hand and hurriedly drove away.
“It’s all from them, from the staff, it’s all a mess,” he grumbled. - Do as you please.
Prince Andrei hastily, without raising his eyes, rode away from the doctor's wife, who called him a savior, and, recalling with disgust the smallest details of this humiliating scene, galloped further to the village where, as he was told, the commander-in-chief was located.
Having entered the village, he got off his horse and went to the first house with the intention of resting at least for a minute, eating something and bringing into clarity all these offensive thoughts that tormented him. “This is a crowd of scoundrels, not an army,” he thought, approaching the window of the first house, when a familiar voice called him by name.
He looked back. Nesvitsky’s handsome face poked out from a small window. Nesvitsky, chewing something with his juicy mouth and waving his arms, called him to him.
- Bolkonsky, Bolkonsky! Don't you hear, or what? “Go quickly,” he shouted.
Entering the house, Prince Andrei saw Nesvitsky and another adjutant eating something. They hastily turned to Bolkonsky asking if he knew anything new. On their faces, so familiar to him, Prince Andrei read an expression of anxiety and concern. This expression was especially noticeable on Nesvitsky’s always laughing face.
-Where is the commander-in-chief? – asked Bolkonsky.
“Here, in that house,” answered the adjutant.
- Well, is it true that there is peace and surrender? – asked Nesvitsky.
- I'm asking you. I don’t know anything except that I got to you by force.
- What about us, brother? Horror! “I’m sorry, brother, they laughed at Mak, but it’s even worse for us,” Nesvitsky said. - Well, sit down and eat something.
“Now, prince, you won’t find any carts or anything, and your Peter, God knows where,” said another adjutant.
-Where is the main apartment?
– We’ll spend the night in Tsnaim.
“And I loaded everything I needed onto two horses,” said Nesvitsky, “and they made me excellent packs.” At least escape through the Bohemian mountains. It's bad, brother. Are you really unwell, why are you shuddering like that? - Nesvitsky asked, noticing how Prince Andrei twitched, as if from touching a Leyden jar.
“Nothing,” answered Prince Andrei.
At that moment he remembered his recent clash with the doctor’s wife and the Furshtat officer.
-What is the commander-in-chief doing here? - he asked.
“I don’t understand anything,” said Nesvitsky.
“All I understand is that everything is disgusting, disgusting and disgusting,” said Prince Andrei and went to the house where the commander-in-chief stood.
Passing by Kutuzov's carriage, the tortured horses of the retinue and the Cossacks speaking loudly among themselves, Prince Andrei entered the entryway. Kutuzov himself, as Prince Andrei was told, was in the hut with Prince Bagration and Weyrother. Weyrother was an Austrian general who replaced the murdered Schmit. In the entryway little Kozlovsky was squatting in front of the clerk. The clerk on an inverted tub, turning up the cuffs of his uniform, hastily wrote. Kozlovsky’s face was exhausted - he, apparently, had not slept at night either. He looked at Prince Andrei and did not even nod his head to him.
– Second line... Wrote it? - he continued, dictating to the clerk, - Kiev Grenadier, Podolsk...
“You won’t have time, your honor,” the clerk answered disrespectfully and angrily, looking back at Kozlovsky.
At that time, Kutuzov’s animatedly dissatisfied voice was heard from behind the door, interrupted by another, unfamiliar voice. By the sound of these voices, by the inattention with which Kozlovsky looked at him, by the irreverence of the exhausted clerk, by the fact that the clerk and Kozlovsky were sitting so close to the commander-in-chief on the floor near the tub, and by the fact that the Cossacks holding the horses laughed loudly under window of the house - from all this, Prince Andrei felt that something important and unfortunate was about to happen.
Prince Andrei urgently turned to Kozlovsky with questions.
“Now, prince,” said Kozlovsky. – Disposition to Bagration.
-What about capitulation?
- There is none; orders for battle have been made.
Prince Andrei headed towards the door from behind which voices were heard. But just as he wanted to open the door, the voices in the room fell silent, the door opened of its own accord, and Kutuzov, with his aquiline nose on his plump face, appeared on the threshold.
Prince Andrei stood directly opposite Kutuzov; but from the expression of the commander-in-chief’s only seeing eye it was clear that thought and concern occupied him so much that it seemed to obscure his vision. He looked directly at the face of his adjutant and did not recognize him.
- Well, have you finished? – he turned to Kozlovsky.
- Right this second, Your Excellency.
Bagration, a short man with an oriental type of firm and motionless face, a dry, not yet old man, followed the commander-in-chief.
“I have the honor to appear,” Prince Andrei repeated quite loudly, handing over the envelope.
- Oh, from Vienna? Fine. After, after!
Kutuzov went out with Bagration onto the porch.
“Well, prince, goodbye,” he said to Bagration. - Christ is with you. I bless you for this great feat.
Kutuzov's face suddenly softened, and tears appeared in his eyes. He pulled Bagration to him with his left hand, and with his right hand, on which there was a ring, apparently crossed him with a familiar gesture and offered him a plump cheek, instead of which Bagration kissed him on the neck.
- Christ is with you! – Kutuzov repeated and walked up to the carriage. “Sit down with me,” he said to Bolkonsky.
– Your Excellency, I would like to be useful here. Let me stay in the detachment of Prince Bagration.
“Sit down,” said Kutuzov and, noticing that Bolkonsky was hesitating, “I need good officers myself, I need them myself.”
They got into the carriage and drove in silence for several minutes.
“There is still a lot ahead, there will be a lot of things,” he said with an senile expression of insight, as if he understood everything that was happening in Bolkonsky’s soul. “If one tenth of his detachment comes tomorrow, I will thank God,” added Kutuzov, as if speaking to himself.
Prince Andrei looked at Kutuzov, and he involuntarily caught his eye, half an arshin away from him, the cleanly washed assemblies of the scar on Kutuzov’s temple, where the Izmail bullet pierced his head, and his leaking eye. “Yes, he has the right to talk so calmly about the death of these people!” thought Bolkonsky.
“That’s why I ask you to send me to this detachment,” he said.
Kutuzov did not answer. He seemed to have already forgotten what he had said and sat thoughtful. Five minutes later, smoothly rocking on the soft springs of the stroller, Kutuzov turned to Prince Andrei. There was no trace of excitement on his face. With subtle mockery, he asked Prince Andrei about the details of his meeting with the emperor, about the reviews he had heard at court about the Kremlin affair, and about some common women he knew.

Kutuzov, through his spy, received news on November 1 that put the army he commanded in an almost hopeless situation. The scout reported that the French in huge numbers, having crossed the Vienna bridge, headed towards Kutuzov’s route of communication with the troops coming from Russia. If Kutuzov had decided to stay in Krems, then Napoleon’s army of one and a half thousand would have cut him off from all communications, surrounded his exhausted army of forty thousand, and he would have been in Mack’s position near Ulm. If Kutuzov had decided to leave the road that led to communications with troops from Russia, then he would have had to enter without a road into the unknown lands of the Bohemian
mountains, defending themselves from superior enemy forces, and abandoning all hope of communication with Buxhoeveden. If Kutuzov had decided to retreat along the road from Krems to Olmutz to join forces with troops from Russia, then he risked being warned on this road by the French who had crossed the bridge in Vienna, and thus being forced to accept battle on the march, with all the burdens and convoys, and dealing with an enemy three times his size and surrounding him on both sides.
Kutuzov chose this last exit.
The French, as the spy reported, having crossed the bridge in Vienna, were marching in an intensified march towards Znaim, which lay on Kutuzov’s retreat route, more than a hundred miles ahead of him. To reach Znaim before the French meant to have great hope of saving the army; to allow the French to warn themselves in Znaim would probably mean exposing the entire army to a disgrace similar to that of Ulm, or to general destruction. But it was impossible to warn the French with their entire army. The French road from Vienna to Znaim was shorter and better than the Russian road from Krems to Znaim.
On the night of receiving the news, Kutuzov sent Bagration’s four-thousand-strong vanguard to the right over the mountains from the Kremlin-Znaim road to the Vienna-Znaim road. Bagration had to go through this transition without rest, stop facing Vienna and back to Znaim, and if he managed to warn the French, he had to delay them as long as he could. Kutuzov himself, with all his hardships, set out for Znaim.
Having walked with hungry, shoeless soldiers, without a road, through the mountains, on a stormy night forty-five miles, having lost a third of the stragglers, Bagration went to Gollabrun on the Vienna Znaim road several hours before the French approached Gollabrun from Vienna. Kutuzov had to walk another whole day with his convoys to reach Znaim, and therefore, in order to save the army, Bagration, with four thousand hungry, exhausted soldiers, had to hold off for a day the entire enemy army that met him in Gollabrun, which was obvious , impossible. But a strange fate made the impossible possible. The success of that deception, which gave the Vienna bridge into the hands of the French without a fight, prompted Murat to try to deceive Kutuzov in the same way. Murat, having met Bagration’s weak detachment on the Tsnaim road, thought that it was the entire army of Kutuzov. In order to undoubtedly crush this army, he waited for the troops that had fallen behind on the road from Vienna and for this purpose proposed a truce for three days, with the condition that both troops would not change their positions and would not move. Murat insisted that negotiations for peace were already underway and that, therefore, avoiding useless shedding of blood, he was offering a truce. The Austrian general Count Nostitz, who was stationed at the outposts, believed the words of the envoy Murat and retreated, revealing Bagration's detachment. Another envoy went to the Russian chain to announce the same news about peace negotiations and offer a truce to the Russian troops for three days. Bagration replied that he could not accept or not accept a truce, and with a report of the proposal made to him, he sent his adjutant to Kutuzov.
The truce for Kutuzov was the only way to gain time, give Bagration’s exhausted detachment a rest and allow convoys and loads to pass through (the movement of which was hidden from the French), although there was one extra march to Znaim. The offer of a truce provided the only and unexpected opportunity to save the army. Having received this news, Kutuzov immediately sent Adjutant General Wintzingerode, who was with him, to the enemy camp. Wintzingerode had to not only accept the truce, but also offer terms of surrender, and meanwhile Kutuzov sent his adjutants back to hurry as much as possible the movement of the convoys of the entire army along the Kremlin-Znaim road. The exhausted, hungry detachment of Bagration alone had to, covering this movement of the convoys and the entire army, remain motionless in front of an enemy eight times stronger.
Kutuzov's expectations came true both regarding the fact that the non-binding offers of surrender could give time for some of the convoys to pass through, and regarding the fact that Murat's mistake was to be revealed very soon. As soon as Bonaparte, who was in Schönbrunn, 25 versts from Gollabrun, received Murat’s report and the draft truce and capitulation, he saw the deception and wrote the following letter to Murat:
Au prince Murat. Schoenbrunn, 25 brumaire en 1805 a huit heures du matin.
“II m"est impossible de trouver des termes pour vous exprimer mon mecontentement. Vous ne commandez que mon avant garde et vous n"avez pas le droit de faire d"armistice sans mon ordre. Vous me faites perdre le fruit d"une campagne . Rompez l"armistice sur le champ et Mariechez a l"ennemi. Vous lui ferez declarer, que le general qui a signe cette capitulation, n"avait pas le droit de le faire, qu"il n"y a que l"Empereur de Russie qui ait ce droit.
“Toutes les fois cependant que l"Empereur de Russie ratifierait la dite convention, je la ratifierai; mais ce n"est qu"une ruse. Mariechez, detruisez l"armee russe... vous etes en position de prendre son bagage et son artiller.
"L"aide de camp de l"Empereur de Russie est un... Les officiers ne sont rien quand ils n"ont pas de pouvoirs: celui ci n"en avait point... Les Autrichiens se sont laisse jouer pour le passage du pont de Vienne , vous vous laissez jouer par un aide de camp de l"Empereur. Napoleon."
[To Prince Murat. Schönbrunn, 25 Brumaire 1805 8 am.
I can't find words to express my displeasure to you. You command only my vanguard and have no right to make a truce without my order. You are making me lose the fruits of an entire campaign. Immediately break the truce and go against the enemy. You will tell him that the general who signed this surrender did not have the right to do so, and no one has the right to do so, with the exception of the Russian emperor.
However, if the Russian emperor agrees to the mentioned condition, I will also agree; but this is nothing more than a trick. Go, destroy the Russian army... You can take its convoys and its artillery.

Mythological thinking. Categories of myths

Meletinsky E.M. From myth to literature. M.: RSUH, 2000, p. 24-31.

(behind OCR thanks to A.M.)

Myth is a means of conceptualizing the world - what is around a person and in him. To a certain extent, myth is a product of primitive thinking. His mentality is associated with collective ideas (Durkheim's term), unconscious and conscious, rather than with personal experience. Primitive thought is diffuse, syncretic, inseparable from the emotional, affective, and motor spheres, from which comes the anthropomorphization of nature, universal personification, animism, and metaphorical identification of natural and cultural objects. The universal coincides with the concrete-sensual. That is why we find transformations of appearance in myth: a creature can have many arms and heads, eyes, etc., or, for example, diseases can be represented in the form of monsters, people in the form of animals (totemism), the whole cosmos in the form of cosmic tree or anthropomorphic giant. In myth, form and content, symbol and model are identified, subject and object, sign, thing and word, essence and name, entity and its attributes, as well as singular and plural, space and time, origin and nature of the object are often not separated and distinguished. . Mythological conceptualization is not without logic, But she is clumsy, acts through mediation and bricolage(described by K. Levi-Strauss).

A large number of mythological motifs are repeated in the archaic folklore of various countries. These are archetypal motifs. But mythological thought also operates with elements of a different kind - semantic oppositions: high-low, left-right, close-far, internal-external, warm-cold, dry-wet, light-dark, etc. - and especially oppositions that correspond to the simplest space-time relationships: sky-earth, earth-underworld, north-south, west-east, day-night, winter-summer, sun-moon; in the social world: friend-alien, male-female, elder-younger, lower-higher, or on the border of nature and culture, for example: water-fire, sun-hearth fire, boiled-raw, house-forest, village-desert and etc., or, finally, to designate the fundamental antinomies: life-death, happiness-unhappiness; and the main mythological opposition is sacred-profane.

Mythological thought establishes a certain parallelism between various series of semantic oppositions. For example, the simplest contrast between high and low covers the contrasts of heaven and earth, earth and the underworld, parts of the body located above and below, levels high Low in the social hierarchy. Wherein high often sacralized. The classification effect of binary logic is enhanced by the differentiation of levels and codes. There is a tendency to mark one pole of the opposition positively and the other negatively. Tall, straight, male, elder, close, own, clear, dry, visible, day, white, red, spring, sky (as opposed to earth), earth (as opposed to the underworld), house, south (versus north) , sun - most often (but not always) marked positively; low, left, female, junior, distant, alien, gloomy, wet, invisible, black, night, earth (as opposed to sky), underworld (as opposed to earth), water (as opposed to fire), forest, north , moon - usually (but not always) noted negatively.

Hierarchized symbolic systems were created using this binary logic and on the basis of totemic ideas that identified human and social groups with species of animals or - less often - plants. The metaphor of mythical thought favors these

totemic classifications, these representations of social categories using images reflecting the natural environment, and vice versa - metaphorism likes to encrypt nature with social relations (i.e., describe nature as human society). These principles are also implemented in the storytelling. When analyzing mythological symbolism, one must avoid two extreme positions: to see in symbols; only poetic comparisons and, conversely, completely identify the object-sign and the object-referent (the real object designated), which are in a relation of participation. Concrete objects, although they have become symbols, do not cease to be themselves and have certain specific emotions. In addition, identification at one level is usually accompanied by opposition at another. Each mythological object becomes a complex of differential signs. Among these identifications, one seems to be the most important. This is the identification of origin and essence. Therefore, the description of the model of the world becomes a story about the origin of various things, and the events of the past become necessary elements of this description, the “building blocks” of a mythological structure.

Primary mythical time- a very important category of mythological thought. It has a paradigmatic function and is the source and primary cause of everything that arises later. This is the time of ancestors, cultural heroes, on whom everything depends, time first things, the time of establishing cosmic and social order. In later myths and epics, mythical time turns into golden age. or heroic time.

That is why creation myths in ancient times, etiological, cosmogonic, anthropogonic myths are classical myths. Creation can take shape generation biological or magical not only creatures, but also objects by ancestor gods, or manufacturing their demiurges, or sometimes their obtaining by kidnapping cultural heroes. Creation covers not only the appearance of beings and things of this

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The world, but also the separation of the main elements (water, fire, earth, air), the separation of heaven from earth, the emergence of earth from the ocean depths, the establishment of the cosmic tree, the appearance of stars in the sky, the organization of human life: biological, social and religious.

The world as a whole may develop from a primordial egg, from a sacred lotus, or from the body of a giant who was sacrificed and killed. Ancestors or gods can be born from an egg or from a lotus, for example Ra, Ptah, Ishtar, Vishvakarman-Prajapati-Brahma, Eros, Pan-gu, etc. Enlil or Marduk in Akkadian mythology create the world from the body of the goddess Tiamat they killed; in Indian mythology, the gods create the cosmos from the body of the giant Purush, in Scandinavian mythology - from the body of the giant Ymir, in China - from the first creature Pan-gu.

The most important idea of ​​mythology is also the transformation of chaos into space. Although we find the image of chaos (in the form of the ocean or the original abyss, chthonic monsters, etc.) most often in more or less developed mythologies, nevertheless, the cosmization of chaos, the ordering of earthly life constitute the main pathos of mythology in general. Therefore, creation myths contain, next to stories about direct creation, also episodes of struggle against monsters representing chaotic, chthonic forces. In Egyptian mythology, the solar god Ra-Atum fights the underground serpent Apep; in India - Indra defeats Vritra; Iranian Tishtrya fights the demon of drought Apaosha; in Sumerian-Akkadian mythology, the gods Enki, Ninurta or Innana fight with an underground demonic master called Kur. Enlil (or Babylonian Marduk) defeats Tiamat, the wife of Apsu. Apsu is perhaps the primordial abyss, and Tiamat, who has taken the form of a dragon, personifies the dark waters of chaos. The Bible alludes to the struggle of God against the Dragon or the wonderful Fish, symbolizing oceanic chaos (Rakhab, Tekhom, Leviathan). In Chinese mythology culture hero Yu, fighting against the cosmic flood, eventually kills the master of the water, Siala. In Iranian mythology, the struggle of Ahuramazda against Angro-Mainyo also has a cosmic

aspect, like the fight of Mithra against the terrible bull or the fight of the first Iranian mythical kings against dragons (Traetaons against Azhi-Dahaka, Kersaspa against Sruvar). In Scandinavian mythology, the god Thor fights giants, as well as monsters generated by the evil Loki, in particular the cosmic serpent Jormungandr. This theme is inherited by the heroic myth: Gilgamesh in Sumerian-Akkadian myths fights with the demonic bird Zu, the monster Huwava (Humbaba), against an evil bull, etc.; in Hittite-Hurrian mythology, Teshub attacks the giant Ullikumme, as well as the dragon; in Phoenician mythology, Baal (Balu) fights against Mot and the half-man, half-bull who lives in desert; in Greek mythology, Apollo fights Typhon, and the heroes Hercules, Perseus, Theseus fight the Minotaur, Medusa the Gorgon and other monsters. Archaic epic poetry, as well as fairy tales, as we will later see, continue to exploit this theme.

Sometimes the struggle of the cosmos against chaos is presented within the framework of theogony. Let us recall the struggle of Zeus (Jupiter) with the Titans and Typhon in ancient mythology or the struggle of Marduk (the younger generation of gods) against Tiamat and the older gods in Babylonian mythology.

Along with cosmogonic myths, we find eschatological and calendar myths. Eschatological myths (American pre-Columbian, Iranian, Indian, Judeo-Christian, Scandinavian) about the end of the world, temporary (sometimes a periodic change of chaos and cosmos) or final, are myths of creation “inside out”, since they talk about the transformation of the cosmos into chaos due to fire , flood, drought, earthquake, sometimes - mistakes and sins of people punished by the gods, or, conversely, victories won by chthonic monsters over gods and noble heroes. Often the end of the world precedes its renewal.

In calendar myths, the loss of a hero, symbolizing the productive forces of nature, the harvest, natural and public good, is always temporary; his death represents a necessary stage before the resurrection and the desired flowering of nature. Calendar myths appear in classical form in

Mediterranean countries, the Middle East. I mean the myths about Dumuzi (Tammuz) in Sumerian-Akkadian mythology, about Osiris (cultural hero, creator of agriculture) in Egypt, about Attis and Adonis in ancient Greece, about Balu (Baal) among Western Semites, etc. Care and the return of the hero or his death and resurrection guarantees cosmic order and harvest. Sometimes the divine hero is contrasted with a demonic character, symbolizing death, desert, chaos. This is, for example, the brother of Osiris - Set in Egypt. Inanna sacrifices Tammuz, Aphrodite loves Adonis and loses him, Cybele loves and destroys Attis. True, Osiris’s sister Isis and Balu’s sister Anat play the role of wonderful helpers. Sometimes the calendar hero is correlated with his mother, the goddess of fertility, with whom he (in some versions) is in an erotic relationship and who sometimes becomes the cause of his death (an ambivalent figure). In Australia, the archaic prototype of the fertility goddess is the old Kunapipi, who is accompanied by the Rainbow Serpent. The serpent swallows Kunapipi's sister's child, but the child is subsequently saved (the idea of ​​temporary death). In this case, the connection between the calendar myth-rite and the myth-rite of passage is obvious ( initiation). The goddess's ambivalence reflects her connections with the chaotic elements. The erotic, sometimes incestuous motive can be explained by agrarian magic, ecstatic cults, including sacred wedding. Let us remember Dionysus and the ecstatic nature of the ritual associated with him. Calendar myths are more often than others directly related to initiation rites.

It is worth mentioning once again the actual heroic myths, for example the Greek ones about Hercules, Theseus, Perseus, Oedipus, Jason. Such myths unfold a heroic biography, including a heroic childhood, quests in the process of performing difficult tasks, fighting monsters, saving a beauty, etc. If in the myths of creation or in eschatological, calendar myths, the main archetype was the formation of the world, its death, its renewal in within the framework of the struggle between chaos and space, then in heroic myths we are talking about the formation of a hero, although he symbolizes clan or tribal forces and performs his exploits in space

background. This hero is not an individual, he is a supernatural personality who concentrates collective energy. In a tribal society, the social always dominates the individual. In this sense, the heroic myth remains anti-psychological and, in a sense, cosmic. The struggle of such a hero with monsters is undoubtedly an echo of the cosmization of chaos; at the same time, his adventures and trials, the difficult tasks he performs, are reminiscent of an initiation ritual and, in general, transitional rituals. These rituals also serve the purpose of transforming psychological chaos into the social cosmos. The change of chaos and space, death and life is a cosmic, social, individual fate.

In heroic myths, as in cosmogonic (genealogical) myths, we find the theme of change, the change of generations; very often the latter is closely connected with initiation, since this rite is led by representatives of the older generation. Along with initiation, there was another type of ritual - a duel between the old leader and the young one who should replace him. This ritual is vividly described by Frazer. In myths, these motives are intertwined in such a way that the difficult tasks of the youth undergoing initiation become a form of persecution of the young hero by his father or maternal uncle for fear that the younger will take the place of the elder (sometimes the motives of the corresponding prophecies are introduced). Classic example - myth of Oedipus, who, in accordance with the prophecy and at the same time unwittingly kills his father the king, takes his place and marries his widow - in fact his mother. The main meaning of the plot is not a deep-rooted incestuous relationship (according to Freud), but precisely the change of generations in power. Perhaps this incestuous marriage, among other things, expresses hypereroticism - as a sign that the hero is ripe for initiation. The riddle of the Sphinx is an initiation test, the content of which directly indicates a change of generations.

In archaic cultures there are a huge number of myths of the “Oedipal” type: about the nest destroyer, described on the first pages of Lévi-Strauss’s Mythologicals, several Micronesian myths, the Tlingit myth about the old and young Crows. In all these stories

the father or maternal uncle is opposed to the hero, sets difficult tasks for him, which have the nature of initiation, but in essence set the goal of destroying the young rival; the hero always enters into an incestuous relationship with the wife of the old leader. It must be emphasized that even this topic - the relationship of generations - is on the border separating nature and social culture, for example, the incest of a young Raven with his uncle's wife causes a flood. Other examples can be given. Only in fairy tales and epics does the cosmic theme finally disappear.

Before continuing, I would like to emphasize again survivability a myth that is revived more than once throughout the evolution of world culture. Contributing to the subsequent generation of other cultural forms, myth continues to retain a certain value, which, of course, is alien to scientific knowledge. The myth tries to solve some problems that are practically outside science. These are metaphysical problems about birth and death and human destiny. Myth excludes inexplicable events and insoluble conflicts. What is less clear, the myth tries to interpret with the help of what is clearer, the more difficult - with the help of what is easier. The goal of harmonization and regulation dominates the thirst for knowledge. The mythological approach leaves no room for hesitation, contradictions, doubts, or methodological chaos. The model of the world is oriented in an axiological, value-based manner. Myth explains the world in such a way that universal harmony is not shaken. The myth is not limited to personal psychology. His model of the world covers all the necessary elements of nature and culture. Myth is interested in man's place in nature and culture, his social role. There is an inverse relationship in myth between the explanation of the world and its paradigmatic essence.

The highest reality of myth is the source and model of all harmony. This is why the myth remains alive and always finds a place for itself on some intellectual level.

FROM THE EDITORIAL BOARD
INTRODUCTION
PART I. NEWEST THEORIES OF MYTH AND RITUAL-MYTHOLOGICAL APPROACH TO LITERATURE
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
“REMYTHOLOGIZATION” IN PHILOSOPHY AND CULTURAL SCIENCE
RITUALISM AND FUNCTIONALISM
FRENCH SCHOOL OF SOCIOLOGY
SYMBOLIC THEORIES
ANALYTICAL PSYCHOLOGY
STRUCTURALISM
RITUAL-MYTHOLOGICAL SCHOOL IN LITERARY STUDIES
RUSSIAN AND SOVIET SCIENCE ABOUT MYTH-MAKING
PRELIMINARY RESULTS
PART II. CLASSICAL FORMS OF MYTH AND THEIR REFLECTION IN NARRATORY FOLKLORE
PRELIMINARY REMARKS
GENERAL PROPERTIES OF MYTHOLOGICAL THINKING
FUNCTIONAL ORIENTATION OF THE MYTH
MYTHICAL TIME AND ITS “PARADIGMS”
THE FIRST ANCESTORS-DEMIURGES - CULTURAL HEROES
ARCHAIC MYTHS OF CREATION
ETIOLOGY OF SOCIETY
CHAOS AND SPACE. COSMOGENESIS
SPACE MODEL
CALENDAR MYTHS
COSMIC CYCLES AND ESCHATOLOGICAL MYTHS
HEROIC MYTHS AND “TRANSITIONAL” RITES
SEMANTICS OF MYTHOLOGICAL PLOT AND SYSTEM
MYTH, TALE, EPIC
PART III “MYTHOLOGISM” IN THE LITERATURE OF THE XX CENTURY
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION
"MYTHOLOGICAL" NOVEL OF THE XX CENTURY. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS
ANTITHESIS: JOYCE AND THOMAS MANN
"MYTHOLOGISM" OF KAFKA
DIFFERENT TYPES OF MYTHOLOGIZATION IN THE MODERN NOVEL
SUMMARY
NOTES

INTRODUCTION

The title of the proposed book may not be strict enough, since myth-making contains only an unconsciously poetic principle, and therefore, in relation to myth, one cannot talk about the actual artistic techniques, means of expression, style and similar objects of poetics. However, myths are characterized by the implementation of general ideas in a sensually concrete form, that is, the very imagery that is specific to art and which the latter to a certain extent inherited from mythology; ancient mythology, as a kind of syncretic unity, contained the germs of not only religion and ancient philosophical ideas (formed, however, in the process of overcoming mythological origins), but also art, primarily verbal. The artistic form inherited from myth both a concrete, sensory method of generalization and syncretism itself. Throughout its development, literature has for a long time directly used traditional myths for artistic purposes. Therefore, we use the term “poetics of myth” with certain reservations when considering the specifics of myth in the aspect of the prehistory of literature with an inevitable abstraction from the religious side of the problem of myth. In addition, the term “poetics of myth”, or “poetics of myth-making”, or “poetics of mythologizing” takes on a special meaning in connection with the conscious appeal to mythology of some writers of the 20th century. (Joyce, Kafka, Lawrence, Yates, Eliot, O'Neill, Cocteau, who do not fit into the framework of modernism T. Mann, Marquez, etc.) usually as an instrument of artistic organization of material and a means of expressing certain “eternal” psychological principles, or at least persistent national cultural models, as well as in connection with the emergence of a special ritual-mythological school in literary criticism, for which all poetics is the poetics of myth (M. Bodkin, N. Fry and others describe a literary work in terms of myth and ritual).

Such mythologism in literature and literary criticism, characteristic of modernism, but far from being reduced to it due to the diversity of ideological and artistic aspirations of writers, replaced the traditional realism of the 19th century, consciously focused on a plausible reflection of reality, the creation of an artistic history of its time and allowing elements mythology only implicitly.

In literary mythologism, the idea of ​​the eternal cyclical repetition of primary mythological prototypes under different “masks”, the peculiar substitutability of literary and mythological heroes comes to the fore; attempts are made to mythologize everyday prose by writers and to identify the hidden mythological foundations of realism by literary critics.

Such a “revival” of myth in the literature of the 20th century. was partly based on a new apologetic attitude towards myth as an eternally living principle, proclaimed the “philosophy of life” (F. Nietzsche, A. Bergson), on the unique creative experience of R. Wagner, on the psychoanalysis of Z. Freud and especially K. G Jung, as well as new ethnological theories, which themselves paid tribute to fashionable philosophical hobbies and at the same time greatly deepened the understanding of traditional mythology (J. Fraser, B. Malinovsky, L. Levy-Bruhl, E. Cassirer, etc. ). They began to view mythology not as a way of satisfying the curiosity of primitive man (this is how the positivist “theory of survivals” of the 19th century imagined the matter), but as a “sacred scripture” closely connected with the ritual life of the tribe and, to a large extent, going back to it, the pragmatic function of which is the regulation and maintenance of a particular natural and social order (hence the cyclical concept of eternal return), as a prelogical symbolic system akin to other forms of human imagination and creative fantasy. The writers’ close acquaintance with the latest ethnological theories (within the framework of the convergence of ethnology and literature characteristic of the 20th century) could not prevent the fact that their artistic concepts, although they were clearly influenced by scientific theories, reflected to a much greater extent the crisis cultural and historical situation in Western Europe. society of the first decades of our century than the properties of primitive mythology itself.

As a phenomenon of modernism, mythologism, of course, was largely generated by the awareness of the crisis of bourgeois culture as a crisis of civilization as a whole, which led to disappointment in positivist rationalism and evolutionism, in the liberal concept of social progress (American critic F. Rav sees in the idealization of myth a direct expression of fear of history , Joyce’s hero dreams of “awakening” from the horror of history). Along with the philosophical influence, one way or another mediating the existing distrust of history, and additional influences from various kinds of non-classical theories in the field of exact sciences, new ideas in psychology and ethnology, etc., one should take into account the shock of the First World War, which exacerbated the feeling of the fragility of the social foundation modern civilization and the power of the forces of chaos shaking it. Modernist mythologism was fueled by a romantic rebellion against bourgeois “prose”, and a premonition of fascism (which itself tried to rely on the “philosophy of life” and “revive” ancient German myths), and the traumas inflicted by it, and fear of the historical future, partly of the revolutionary breakdown a well-established, although experiencing a crisis, world.

Social upheavals supported the belief among many representatives of Western European intelligentsia that eternal destructive or creative forces were operating under a thin layer of culture, directly arising from human nature, from universal human psychological and metaphysical principles. The desire to go beyond socio-historical and spatio-temporal boundaries in order to identify this universal human content was one of the moments of the transition from realism of the 19th century. to modernism, and mythology, due to its original symbolism, turned out (especially in connection with “deep” psychology) to be a convenient language for describing eternal models of personal and public behavior, certain essential laws of the social and natural cosmos.

It is necessary to make some adjustments to the above, keeping in mind that the mythology of the 20th century. can be combined not only with an intuitionist, but also with a rationalistic approach, can act under both “right” and “leftist” slogans (anarcho-syndicalism theorist J. Sorel and many others), that mythologism is not always opposed to historicism, but often acts as its complement, as an expressive means of typification (T. Mann, who sought to contrast the humanized myth with Nazi myth-making, or the writers of the “third world”, using myth, still associated with folklore, to express the stability of national cultural models), that the problems of myth in relation to literature were also raised in Soviet science, etc. Mythologism of the 20th century, thus, turns out to be somewhat broader than modernism, a more complex and contradictory phenomenon, the analysis of which requires taking into account many additional factors and aspects (we insist precisely on the complexity of this phenomenon, indecomposable into a sum of simple ones, for example, into several “different” mythologies).

The history of culture throughout its entire length was in one way or another correlated with the mythological heritage of primitiveness and antiquity, this relationship fluctuated greatly, but in general, evolution went in the direction of “demythologization” (its peaks can be considered the enlightenment of the 18th century and the positivism of the 19th century), and in XX century we are faced with a steep “remythologization” (at least within the framework of Western culture), significantly surpassing in scale the romantic fascination with myth at the beginning of the 19th century, opposing the demythologizing process as a whole. Essences of mythology of the 20th century. cannot be understood without understanding the specifics of true mythology, primitive and ancient, without raising the question of their relationship with each other.

“Remythologization” in Western literature and culture makes the problem of myth extremely relevant, both in general terms and in connection with poetics. Of course, it is necessary to correlate the classical forms of myth with the historical reality that gave rise to them, and especially the mythology of the 20th century. with the social situation of the 20th century, and to discover the differences between primitive myth and modern mythologizing that follow from here. This, however, is not enough, since newer interpretations of myth highlight myth (and ritual) as a capacious form or structure that can embody the most fundamental features of human thought and social behavior, as well as artistic practice. Therefore, an analysis of the structure of the myth is necessary. Since a peculiar interaction between ethnology and literature has begun, it is necessary to deepen the understanding of myth within the framework of this interaction. From the above, the dual task of our work follows: the consideration of genuine mythology in the light of modern theories and at the same time the study of modern scientific and artistic interpretations of myth and the problem of “myth - literature” in the light of today’s understanding of the classical forms of myth.

By contrasting ancient myth and modern literature in this way, we have the opportunity to only very briefly touch upon the old theories of myth and the history of the relationship between myth and literature before the 20th century. Accordingly, our book will successively examine the most significant theories of myth (including ritual-mythological literary criticism and the original concepts of Soviet scientists in the field of poetics of myth), classical forms of myth and some features of the transition from myth to literature, and, finally, the poetics of mythologizing in the literature of the 20th century. mainly based on the material of the novel.

We take this opportunity to express gratitude to the research staff of the Department of History of World Literature of the IMLI, who took part in the discussion of this work, as well as S. S. Averintsev, V. V. Ivanov and D. V. Zatonsky, who took the trouble to familiarize themselves with the manuscript and gave the author a number of valuable tips.

Monograph by E.M. Meletinsky, the author of several books and many articles on folklore and poetics, is devoted to general problems of mythology, analysis of modern theories of myth and critical examination of the use of myth in fiction and literary criticism of the twentieth century. (modern myth-making in its relation to primitive and ancient myths). The mythology and literature of both the Western and Eastern worlds are examined.

Publisher: "Nauka", PDF.