The paper focuses on archetypical and semantic interpretations of certain Slavic children’s games that may have originated from fragments of the so-called »basic myth« of the fight between the ...Thunder God and the htonic deity.
The article deals with the history and the contemporary situation of Slavic mythology studies. It also discusses the relationship between the pagan tradition and Christianity.
Neben der Zeitschrift Wiener Slawistischer Almanach erscheinen seit 1980 auch 2-3 Mal jährlich Sonderbände (seither 94 Ausgaben) mit literaturwissenschaftlichem oder linguistischem Schwerpunkt. Die ...literarische Reihe umfasst Monographien oder Tagungsbeiträge aus allen Bereichen der aktuellen slavischen Literaturwissenschaft und weit darüber hinaus (Medientheorie, Kulturwissenschaft, Literaturkritik). Die Beiträge oder Monographien erscheinen in der Regel in deutscher, russischer oder endlischer Sprache. Publikationsvorschläge an aage.hansen-loeve@lrz.uni.-muenchen.de
The article concerns the mythological system of pagan Slavs from the linguistic point of view. The author analyses Old-Russian theonyms, such as Perunъ, Velesъ and Stribogъ, and tries to reconstruct ...their etymological and typological correlations in other mythological traditions. The aim of this study is to establish the typology of Old-Slavic deities, based on the theory of trifunctional ideological system of Indo-Europeans, proposed by the French sociologist Georges Dumézil. The author describes selected mythological names and reconstructs a semantic context of the names of Slavic deities within the hypothetical model. The first function (sovereign power) is assigned to Stribogъ, the second function (war) to Perunъ, and the third (economic) function – to Velesъ. The article is one of the first studies of V. N. Toporov devoted to an aspect of old Balto-Slavic world and first of the many texts concerned with Proto-Slavic beliefs and mythology.
The article revives the figure of Mikhail N. Muravev (1757-1807), a writer and social worker, witness to the first partitioning of Poland, a man of noble character, a Russian sympathizing with ...Poland's tragic fate. Having mentioned the most important facts from Muravev's life against the anti-Polish atmosphere of the Petersburg court, the author presents in detail Muravev's tragedy 'Boleslaw'. The work, preserved only in manuscript, is devoted to the Polish king Boleslaus III the Wrymouth, who at the turn of the 13th century united Poland as a state. A hypothesis is put forward that with this work Muravev tried to react to the partitioning of Poland. An analysis of the work is proposed, followed by the presentation the tragic figure of the main protagonist. Finally, the poem 'Boleslaus, the Polish king' is quoted, in which Muravev synthesizes what he did not manage to include in the unfinished tragedy. Muravev initiated a new kind of attitude of Russians to Poland and its misfortune, a tradition including, among others, Lev Tolstoi's short story 'For what?' (1906), devoted to the fate of a Polish exile.
Russian riddles & enigmatic texts from V. V. Mitrofanova's collection Zagadki (Riddle, 1968) are analyzed in an attempt to reconstruct - both linguistically (the riddle's linguistic characteristics) ...& semiotically (the riddle metalanguage) - the prototype of folklore & mythical enigmatic texts as a genre in Slavic & Indo-European oral tradition. The formal features of text composition (question-answer sequences), metaphor as the dominant linguistic device, morphological & syntactic peculiarities, anagrams as the permanent element, & versification are studied. Cosmogonic riddles in the forms of an epic & a poem are analyzed. Z. Dubiel
“It is particularly important to understand ourselves, with all our virtues and vices, to confront the picture thus emerging — that of the Russian history, culture and the national «soul» — with ...results of parallel inquiries conducted within other national traditions of comparable import. One can meet others with good results only when one’s own idiosyncratic features and abilities have become known. Such meeting just now should be understood as an imperative of the present times.”
Semiotics as the general science of sign systems is characterized & the parallels between natural languages & the artificial languages of science, art, & architecture are demonstrated: each of these ...languages is a sign system through which texts (sentences, paintings, edifices) are produced. The products (texts) of the various sign systems (languages) are analyzable because regardless of whether they were composed in a natural or artificial language, they consist of a set of basic units (vocabulary) which are combined according to certain rules (grammar) & each such text contains semantics, syntax, & pragmatics. These theses are illustrated with a semantic interpretation of Russian icons & embroidery depicting mythical themes. Z. Dubiel