What is mythology, find the correct definition. Mythology definition. Myth in literature

What are myths and mythology? The place of Russian mythology in the mythological system of the peoples of the world

In everyday understanding, myths are ancient legends about the creation of the world and man, stories about the deeds of ancient gods, heroes and fantastic creatures. The average reader is most familiar with ancient and biblical tales, legends and myths, which are sometimes perceived as fictitious entertaining stories far from reality. But it is not so.

The word myth has more than one meaning. Translated from Greek, it means “tradition”, “legend”, and, therefore, it is true that one of the features of myth is the element of narration. At the same time, in science, myths are usually understood as a system of archaic ideas about the world. Myths are also called stories that embody these ideas.

The totality of mythological ideas and stories of a particular people constitute its mythology (from the Greek mythos “tradition” + logos “word”).

Mythology includes global system ideas about the world and man, created in the primitive era. But we cannot talk about it as a static, unchangeable phenomenon. Mythology has come a long way in development - from the most primitive myths explaining individual signs of animals or telling about the wanderings of primitive ancestors, as, for example, in Australian myths, to the formed pantheons (a pantheon is the totality of all the gods of a particular cult - from the Latin pantheon “temple of all gods") with a complex hierarchy of gods and the distribution of various functions among them. This is the case, for example, in Greek mythology.

Starting from the first half of the 19th century, in addition to the already known ancient and biblical material, the attention of scientists was attracted by the myths of many Indo-European peoples: ancient Indians, Iranians, Germans, Slavs. At a later time, myths of the peoples of America, Africa, Australia, and Oceania were also introduced, which led researchers to the conclusion that mythology at a certain stage of historical development existed among all peoples of the world. The study of Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism has shown that “world religions” also include mythological ideas.

A comparison of the myths of different peoples made it possible to establish that in them, with all their diversity, a number of themes and motifs are repeated. Thus, many mythologies contain myths about animals, ideas about the origin of animals from people and the fact that people were once animals. The mythological motif of the transformation of people into animals and plants is known to almost all peoples of the globe.

The myths about the origin of the heavenly bodies are extremely ancient: the sun (solar myths), the month or moon (lunar myths), and the stars (astral myths).

Peoples with developed mythological systems - Polynesians, North American Indians, the peoples of the Ancient East and the Mediterranean - had myths about the origin of the cosmos, that is, the world, the universe (cosmogonic myths), and man (anthropogonic myths). These myths, as a rule, are built on either the idea of ​​creation or the idea of ​​development. According to the first, the world is created by a creator god, a great sorcerer or other supernatural being. According to the latter, the world is gradually developing and being ordered from a state of chaos, darkness or from water, eggs, etc. Stories about the origin of gods and people are often woven into cosmogonic myths. Common ones include the motif of a miraculous birth and myths about the origin of death. Correlating with cosmogonic myths are relatively late-formed mythological ideas about the afterlife, about fate.

In some mythologies that are characterized by a high degree of development - for example, among the ancient Aztecs and Mayans, Iranians, Germans - as well as in the religious doctrines of Christianity, Talmudic Judaism, Islam, there are eschatological myths, that is, prophecy stories about the upcoming “end of the world”, or "the end of the world."

A large place in many mythologies is occupied by myths about the origin and introduction of cultural goods into people’s lives: making fire, the invention of crafts, agriculture, as well as about the establishment among people of various social institutions, marriage rules, rites and customs. Their introduction is most often attributed to cultural heroes, whose roles can be ancestors, gods, or heroes of historical legends. A variety of myths about cultural heroes are the so-called twin myths. In them, the image of a cultural hero bifurcates and is embodied in two characters - twin brothers; Moreover, the brothers are often endowed with opposite characteristics: one is good, a creator, and the other is evil, a destroyer.

In the mythologies of developed agricultural peoples, calendar myths play an important role, in which the cyclical nature of the distribution of forces in nature is reflected in symbolic form, the issues of changing seasons, etc. are explained. Among them, the most revealing is the myth of the dying and resurrecting god, known to the ancient Greeks, Thracians, Phoenicians, Egyptians and other peoples.

In the early stages of development, myths, as a rule, are primitive and brief, simple in content and not always framed as a coherent narrative. Later, during the emergence of class society, more complex myths are created, in which mythological images and motifs of different origins are intertwined. The myths themselves turn into detailed narratives that relate to each other and form cycles.

Myth-making is the most important phenomenon in the cultural history of mankind. In primitive society, mythology was the main way of understanding the world and was the original form of spiritual culture of mankind. The fact that the perception of the world by primitive man took such a unique form as myth-making is associated with the peculiarities of thinking characteristic of this level of cultural and historical development. Man did not separate himself from the world of nature and the world of society (society). For the bearer of mythological consciousness, comprehension and emotional perception of the surrounding world were inseparable and inseparable from each other. Therefore, natural phenomena and objects were, as it were, humanized: in myths they are personified, that is, human properties, actions, and feelings are attributed to them. For example, rivers were perceived as streams of the blood of dead giants, and the Sun was represented as an anthropomorphic deity who makes his way across the sky every day in a chariot.

The most important feature of a myth is its symbolism, generated by the vague division in the mythological consciousness of an object and a sign, a thing and a word, a creature and its name, a thing and its attributes, the singular and the plural, spatial and temporal relations. Mythological thinking operates with concrete, external, sensory qualities of objects. Based on the similarity of these qualities, two objects can be perceived as identical, that is, absolutely the same. For example, in Russian wedding songs that have preserved the mythological perception of reality, the bride is depicted as a swan that has flown into someone else's flock, and the groom's relatives are like gray geese that attack the swan and pinch it. Specific objects can become a symbolic substitute, a sign of other objects and phenomena. Thus, in traditional Russian culture, bread is a symbol of wealth, an egg is a symbol of life and fertility, a towel is a symbol of the road, etc. For mythological thinking, awareness of one object occurs through the characteristics of another.

A specific feature of myth is geneticism (from the Greek genesis “origin”): in myths, the origin of an object is presented as its essence. An explanation of the essence of a thing is a whole story about how it was made; a description of the surrounding world is a narrative about its origin. Thus, any phenomenon in the world: landscape objects on earth, heavenly bodies, animal breeds and plant species, peoples and their occupations, rituals and customs - for mythological consciousness turns out to be a consequence of events of ancient times, as well as the actions of mythical ancestors, gods, heroes. At the same time, the time of telling a myth and the time of the events it narrates are always separated from each other by decades, centuries, millennia: “a long time ago,” “a thousand years ago,” “in ancient times,” “at the time of the beginning of the world.” "

The mythological and modern periods are clearly distinguished not only in time, but also by a fundamentally different attitude towards them: mythological time - sacred (Latin saker, sakri “sacred”), when everything was “not the way it is now”; “present” tense is profane (Latin profanus “uninitiated”). The mythical past is a special era when the first creation took place, the first objects arose and were formed and the first actions were performed: the first fire was produced, the first actions were committed, which became a model for people of subsequent eras. To explain the present and evaluate it, myth turns to the mythical past as a model, a canon, an ideal.

In this regard, such an essential feature of the myth as its etiology (from the Greek aitia “reason” + logos “word”) is indicative - an attempt to explain “how it was done,” “how and why it happened.” In myth, all ideas about the structure of the world are conveyed in the form of a narrative about the origin of its individual elements. For mythological consciousness, everything that exists now is the result of first creation.

The content of a myth for the bearer of mythological consciousness is perceived as reality, and not as fiction; there is no boundary between the real and the supernatural. Moreover, the events of the myth are interpreted as the “highest reality”, as the basis for everything that happens in subsequent eras. The myth embodies the collective practical experience of many generations, connecting the past and the present. Therefore, this experience, concentrated in the wisdom of ancestors and traditional institutions, was considered as a reliable support for the existing order, not subject to verification and not requiring it. Therefore, it is obvious that myth as a form of understanding the world around us correlates with the concept of faith.

Many myths are explanations of religious rituals ( cult myths). The performer of the ritual reproduces the events told in the myth. In ancient cultures, myth and ritual form a unity and act as two interconnected sides: one is verbal, “theoretical,” and the second is effective, “practical.” Therefore, myth, although it looks like a set of specific “narrative-like stories,” is not a verbal genre, like, for example, a fairy tale, but a certain idea of ​​the world, which often only takes the form of a narrative. Mythological worldview can also be realized in other forms: action, song, dance, etc.

Myths constituted the sacred spiritual heritage of society. They were associated with the traditions that had developed in it, approved the system of values ​​​​accepted in this society, and established and supported norms of behavior. The surrounding world and man's place in it were explained in myth in such a way as to ensure the maintenance of the existing order.

Naturally, with the development of society, mythology underwent changes. For example, the division of society into classes led to the stratification of mythology. Mythological tales began to appear about gods and heroes, who were depicted as the ancestors of aristocratic families.

give a true and correct definition of the concept "mythology" and got the best answer

Answer from Virgil[expert]
Mythology is the legends or tales of various peoples of the world, depicting nature and all the objects surrounding ancient people as living beings possessing magical properties and enormous power. It also includes stories about heroes who occupy a place between people and gods, who performed acts inaccessible to ordinary people

Answer from Mister Frisk[newbie]
Mythology (Greek μυθολογία from μῦθος - legend, legend and λόγος - word, story, teaching) is a part of philological science that studies ancient folklore and folk tales: myths, epics, fairy tales.

Answer from Vidadi Yusifov[expert]
Mythology (Greek mythología, from mýthos - legend, legend and lógos - word, story, teaching), a fantastic idea of ​​the world, characteristic of a person of a primitive communal formation, usually transmitted in the form of oral narratives - myths, and a science that studies myths. To a person who lived in the conditions of a primitive communal system, based on the spontaneous collectivism of his closest relatives, only his communal-clan relations were understandable and closest. He transferred these relationships to everything around him. The earth, sky, flora and fauna were presented in the form of a universal tribal community, in which all objects were thought of not only as animate, and often even intelligent, but necessarily related beings. In M. these ideas received the form of generalizations. For example, a craft, taken as a whole, with all its characteristic features, in all its development and with all its historical destinies, was thought of as a kind of living and intelligent being that controlled all possible types and areas of craft. This is where the mythological images of gods-artisans, gods-farmers, gods-herders, gods-warriors, etc. arose: the Slavic Veles (Volos) or the Celtic Damona, which represented one or another generalization of cattle breeding, the Greek Athena Pallas or the Abkhazian Erysh ( goddesses of spinning and weaving), as well as gods of fertility, vegetation, guardian gods and patron demons among the Aztecs, New Zealand, Nigeria and many other peoples of the world.

Answer from Doppler87[expert]
nete Mythology (μυθολογία, from μῦθος - legend, legend and word, story, teaching): # System of sacred knowledge
various peoples of the world, social groups, based on traditional
legends. Characterized by metaphor and belief in the miraculous.

Answer from 3 answers[guru]

Hello! Here is a selection of topics with answers to your question: give a true and correct definition of the concept of “mythology”

Hello, dear readers of the blog site. The concept of “myth” is found in many sciences: philosophy, cultural studies, literary studies.

At school they talk about him in the lessons of world artistic culture, social studies, history and literature.

The term has a broad and narrow meaning, each of which deserves a separate discussion.

Definition of myth - what is it?

Translated from Greek, the word “myth” (mythos) means “ legend" It appeared in ancient times.

In a broad sense, myth as an integral part of mythology is a special way of relating to the world, generalizing the tasks of primitive religion, art and science.

Our distant ancestors were characterized by the so-called mythological thinking, when the history of mankind was considered as a change of generations of gods, heroes and people, and animate natural elements intervened in the destinies of mortals.

Myth as a type of worldview has a number of distinctive features :

1. – arbitrary plot;
2. – appeal to the causes of existence;
3. – zoomorphism (people and animals are similar to each other, there are half-human, half-beast characters);
4. – lack of differentiation;
5. – an attempt to explain natural and social phenomena;
6. – repeatability of images and plots among different peoples.

Based on these properties, mythologists concluded that all the most ancient mythological stages in their development left us with evidence of a common human past.

Mythology - what is it?

When people began to think and reflect, the very first became mythological.

Mythology is a fantastic explanation of reality.

That a person, unable to explain the surrounding reality in some other way, comes up with this explanation and believes it. Myth has become a substitute for knowledge about the world.

When a person doesn’t know or understand something, he feels discomfort because of it. He needs to explain the essence of things to himself. When he comes up with this explanation, it makes him feel better psychologically.

At the same time, the person doesn't see the difference between reality and fiction. For him everything is reality. At the same time, the mythological worldview is figurative. Conceptual thinking (thinking in concepts) was not yet accepted at that time and people thought in images.

But it was from mythology (this understanding of the world) that everything else grew - science, philosophy. Not immediately, of course, but gradually people began to move from dogma and emotional perception of the world to critical thinking and a deeper understanding of the reality around them.

Mythology in its essence is very close to. But again, with the difference that the bearers of mythological thinking believe in fiction, and folklore- this is a logical continuation of mythology, but only as an artistic reflection of the world. This is not a worldview, but only creativity.

At the origins of mythology

The life of the first people consisted from rituals. Many scientists draw a parallel between the development of an individual person and the history of the maturation of all humanity.

When a child is born, he knows nothing about the world around him. He observes the change of day and night, learns to see the differences between objects and their properties. Everything seems mysterious and dangerous to him.

To make the baby's life calmer, parents surround him with daily repeating actions of the same type. As a person grows up, simple actions become more complex and take on symbolic meaning.

Just as in the life of a one-year-old baby, ritual occupied the main place in the life of the first ancestor. The orderliness of all actions guaranteed peace, tranquility, and prosperity. According to the first myth-makers, this order was ensured by good spirits, gods, creatures who could be appeased by performing useful actions.

If a person deviated from the ritual, good spirits became angry, instead of beneficial rain, drought was sent to the earth - it turned into chaos.

Mythological thinking was syncretic. This means that beliefs, actions and drawings reflecting the picture of the world were inseparable. The man was holistic: he believed, acted according to his faith and reproduced this in his own creativity.

Images from the Paleolithic era found by scientists indicate that the myth originated in the preliterate and period (i.e. before letters and words appeared).

The first scenes drawn include the fight between a tiger and a fallow deer (leopard and deer), symbolizing the confrontation between the strong and the weak, the change from one era to another. Hunting scenes reflect man's attempts to tame and conquer the wild world.

Later, plots related to the world order appear: a tree that unites earth and sky, a broken egg from which sea and land appeared, three whales, three turtles.

When humanity mastered speech, the system of beliefs began to be formalized into separate texts. At first they existed only orally, transmitted from elders to younger ones with the help of musical accompaniment. The most ancient mythological subjects fell into such genres as songs, legends, tales.

Myth is considered to be all its types, and mythology is a system of myths connected by common images and ideas.

Myth in literature

With reference to literature separate species art about myth began to be spoken verbally folk art. This is the second, narrow meaning of the term.

Myth in literature- this is a work of art that is a retelling or arrangement of an oral figurative and poetic legend that appeared in a particular society at a certain stage of historical development.

You need to look for traces of Indian, Australian, African myths or epic poems. We are introduced to the mythology of the Scandinavians by such works as the Elder and Younger Edda. Hindu mythology comes to life in works such as the Ramayana and the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Ancient historians preserved the beliefs of the Sumerians and Egyptians in documentary evidence for the world. Thanks to the author's edition of the antiquity researcher A. Kuhn, we are widely aware myths of ancient Greece.

Slavic mythology is partially reflected in Russian chronicles, monuments of ancient Russian literature, Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian and other folk tales and songs.

For modern writers, mythology is the deepest source of inspiration. At the heart of any literary plot is a myth.

For example, the plot of Homer’s poem “The Odyssey,” which incorporated a whole cycle of mythological motifs from antiquity (about the fight with the Cyclops, the temptation of the hero, suitors and a faithful wife, and others), was reborn in the Middle Ages into the genre of a picaresque novel and a travel novel.

The cunning Odysseus, who dreams of returning to Ithaca, turns into a nameless tramp, who by the end of the story turns out to be a prince. In the twentieth century, the American writer Joyce created the novel “Ulysses” about the adventures of our contemporary, very far in character and life circumstances from the famous hero of Ancient Greece.

Mythology is the source of many catchphrases

Often in colloquial speech you can hear: “Yes, this is a myth, a fairy tale!”

The word “myth” is perceived as a synonym for untruth, invention, and lies. The question of the historical authenticity of the myth remains open.

We must understand that the time of occurrence of this or that plot is several thousand years away from us, so fiction is inevitable. But the algorithms of actions (), motives, plots, codes that organize life in the Universe are preserved by myth no worse than the Egyptian mummifiers!

That's why they scattered all over the world catch words and expressions, which came into our speech from the mythologies of different peoples.

Below are the ones that came to us through millennia:

To find out the exact meaning of these expressions, read the myths of the peoples of the world. Ancient and wise, like the planet itself, they speak only about what was, is and will always be. In our changing lives, a reminder of this will definitely not be superfluous.

Good luck to you! See you soon on the pages of the blog site

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from Greek mutos - legend, tale and logos - word, story) - 1) Fantastic. the idea of ​​the world characteristic of a person of a primitive communal formation. 2) In the narrow sense of the word - a type of oral vernacular. creativity. 3) Science that studies myths and stories corresponding to them. To a person who lived in the conditions of a primitive communal system, based on the spontaneous collectivism of his closest relatives, only his community-tribal relations were understandable and closest. He transferred these relationships to everything around him. The earth, sky, flora and fauna were presented to such a person in the form of a universal tribal community, in which all existing objects were thought of not only as animate, and often even intelligent, but necessarily related beings. In M. these ideas take the form of generalizations. For example, a craft, taken as a whole, with all its characteristic features, in all its development and with all its history. destinies, is thought of as a kind of living and intelligent being who controlled all possible types and areas of craft. This is where mythological stories arise. images of gods-artisans, gods-farmers, gods-herders, gods-warriors, etc.: glory. Veles (Volos) or Celtic Damona, which represented one or another generalization of cattle breeding, Greek. Pallas Athena or Abkhazian Erysh (goddesses of spinning and weaving), as well as gods of fertility, vegetation, guardian gods and patron demons among the Aztecs, in New. Zealand, Nigeria and many others. other peoples of the world. V.I. Lenin defined what he called primitive idealism and what, obviously, is M., as follows: “... the general (concept, idea) is a separate being” (Works, vol. 38, p. 370). Generalizing concepts in mathematics do not arise immediately. Being a spiritual reflection of the definition. stages ist. development, M. has undergone profound changes. Of great importance in the history of agriculture was the transition from the appropriating type of farming (gathering-hunting) to the producing type. When only the finished product of nature was used, the animation of the department was in the foreground. things, or rather, the complete indistinguishment of a thing from the “idea” of the thing itself. This includes not only fetishism, but also all corresponding primitive ideas about plants, animals and humans. Totemism is also a fetishization of a given community or a given tribe, expressed in the form of one or another founder of this community or this tribe. When did a person have to create the products necessary for life using his own. efforts, the idea of ​​a thing in his mind began to be separated from the thing itself and presented in the form of a more or less independent spirit or demon. This period of animation and deification of the idea of ​​a thing instead of the thing itself is already an overcoming of fetishism and is usually called animism. Fetishism, totemism and animism are mainly characteristic. for M. era of matriarchy. Mythological The images of this era reflected the spontaneous side of communal tribal life, were characterized by clumsy and often even ugly forms and were very far from the later plasticity and beauty of heroic characters. personality. Three-headed, four-headed and fifty-headed, hundred-armed, as well as all kinds of evil and vengeful monsters or half-monsters are found very often in the world M. of the matriarchal era (for example, in Ancient Babylon - the beast-like ruler of the world Tiamat, in Australia - a one-legged killer spirit, on Tahiti - the god Oro, demanding bloody sacrifices, in North America - 7 giant cannibal brothers, on Tierra del Fuego among the Una Indians - the evil witch Taita), vampirism or sucking blood from a person. an evil spirit is a fairly popular image. The filthy idol or the Nightingale the Robber of Russian epics also clearly testify to the former dominance of spontaneous and therefore ugly, cruel and merciless forms. In connection with the further growth of generalizing and abstracting thinking, one or another level of mythological was created. abstractions. At first, the demon of the thing was barely visible, was weak and died along with the thing itself. Then it was strengthened and remained after the death of the department. things and already headed a whole class of things of this type. So mythological. abstraction reached the idea of ​​any one “father of men and gods,” although at this stage the images of such mythological the rulers contained a lot of remnants of fetishism and animism. antiquity and were deprived of extreme absolutization. This is how the Olympian Zeus appeared, settling on Mount Olympus, overthrowing his predecessors into the underworld, and subjugating other gods to himself as his children. Homer cites a number of ancient and pre-Olympic features of this Zeus, making his figure historically complex and diverse. These are the supreme deities, the creators of the world, who arose during the era of patriarchy in Polynesia, Tahiti, and North America. Indians, Yakuts, Africans. tribes under different names, with different functions and with varying degrees of mythology. abstractions. In the era of patriarchy, ideas about the heroic originate and take shape. individuals who conquer the forces of nature, which until then seemed invincible, consciously organize societies. life, as well as the protection of a given community or union of communities from the hostile forces of nature and neighboring tribes. For example, the Babylonian Marduk kills the monstrous Tiamat, creating heaven and earth from her body. In Babylon, the famous epic about the hero Gilgamesh arose (see Babylonian-Assyrian religion and mythology). Iran. god Mithras fights evil spirits and defeats the terrible bull (see Ancient Iranian mythology). Egypt the god Ra fights the underground serpent Apep (see. Ancient Egyptian mythology and religion). Ancient Greek Zeus defeats the titans, giants and Typhon. The world-famous Hercules performs his 12 labors (see Ancient Greek mythology and religion). The German Sigurd kills the dragon Fafnir (see Ancient German mythology and religion), Ilya Muromets - the Serpent Gorynych, etc. Thus, the development of M. went from simple to complex: from chaotic, disharmonious to orderly, proportionate, harmonious. However, the myths that have reached us are a complex complex of layers (rudiments) of different eras. For example, the myth of the Cretan Minotaur. The bull head of the Minotaur indicates that the origin of this image dates back to the period of early matriarchy, when man almost did not yet distinguish himself from animals. The Minotaur is depicted with stars and bears the name Zvezdny - this is already a cosmic generalization. The Minotaur is killed by the hero Theseus - this part of the myth could only arise during the period of patriarchy. Mythological thinking, spontaneously arising everywhere, very early came to various kinds of historical. and space generalizations. With the transition of people to a sedentary lifestyle, when they found themselves economically connected with a particular locality, their idea of ​​​​the unity of the tribe or clan grew stronger, and a desire arose to restore the memory of their past. This is how the cult of ancestors appeared, which could never do without corresponding myths about ancestors. Since various figures from the world of former gods and demons remained in memory, M. was created by itself about the changes of the former divine and demonic. generations, i.e. M. cosmogonic and theogonic. Attempts to understand the future, the afterlife, led to the emergence of eschatological mathematics. World fires, floods, world storms, hunger, thirst, invasions of wild animals - these images are often found in M.; they reflect certain catastrophic events. moments in human history. To the same area, mythological. ideas, it is also necessary to include the idea of ​​fate, which follows on the heels of man until he learns to understand nature and remake it. This division of mythology (cosmogonic, eschatological, etc.) is also caused by the fact that every myth that arose in the consciousness of primitive man contained a cognitive function, an attempt to understand complex issues: how the world, man, than the mystery of life and death, etc. Moreover, new inventions, changes in societies. relations, in knowledge itself were consistently recorded in M. However, the explanatory function of myth still remains in the background for primitive man. In the primitive consciousness, rational thinking based on experience, fantasy, poetry, religion, i.e., elements of reality and unreality, are fused together. Historical development leads to the differentiation of these elements, due to which the primitive unity disintegrates, and the disintegrated elements enter into antagonism. When the Babylonian Adapa breaks the wings of the south. the wind of the gods, Etana rises into the sky for the herb of birth, Gilgamesh seeks the secret of life and death, Greek. Bellerophon tries to fly to heaven on the horse Pegasus, Hercules cleanses the Augean stables by changing the course of the river, when in North America. In myths, Indians, dissatisfied with their creator, raise the sky higher, or when a brave man eats the fruits from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, despite the prohibitions of the gods - everywhere in these cases the distinction between knowledge and fantasy that began in the myth is clearly felt, and this division already borders their complete mutual antagonism. This can be seen in hundreds of examples, but it seems that the most striking of them is the ancient Greek myth of Prometheus, who, being the cousin of Zeus, forever remained a symbol of the struggle for man against the gods and a symbol of technical and generally cultural progress. In the primitive communal formation, M. was a kind of naive faith, the only form of ideology. In the slaveholding society, M. becomes one of the forms of expression of various kinds of religious, socio-political, moral and philosophical. ideas of this society, is of a service nature, turns into philosophy. allegory, widely used in literature and art (see illustration on separate sheet on page 512). Accordingly, political According to the views and style of one or another ancient author, it receives one or another design and use. For example, Athena Pallas in Aeschylus turned out to be the goddess of ascendant democracies. Athens, and the image of Prometheus was endowed by him with advanced and even revolutionary people. ideas. In this sense, M. never died and her art never died. The images were and are still being designed in a completely non-mythological way. ideology and not at all mythological. lawsuit Marx, for example, finds it necessary to talk about the “miracles” of modern times. economics, about commodity fetishism (see K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, 2nd ed., vol. 23, pp. 80-93). Often to this day state. and politicians of all directions use mythological images to characterize their views. Having been a form of awareness of existence and nature for thousands of years, M. is considered modern. science as a chronicle of the eternal struggle between old and new, as a story about humanity. life, its sufferings and joys. The nationality of M., its realism, heroism and premonition of future victories of man, as well as questions about the origin, flourishing and fall of M. , about its progressiveness or reactionaryness for a given time - all these problems are solved by Marxist historians with a specific approach for different peoples and different historical sources. eras. Scientific approach to the study of metal arose during the Renaissance. However, up to the 18th-19th centuries. in Europe, ch. arr. antique M.; acquaintance with the history, culture, culture of Egypt, the peoples of America, and the East made it possible to move on to a comparative study of the culture of different peoples. In the 18th century an outstanding attempt to give history. understanding M. undertakes Italian. philosopher J. Vico, who pointed out 4 stages of the development of M.: humanization and deification of nature (for example, the sea - Poseidon), the beginning of its conquest and remaking (symbols of the conquest of nature were, for example, Hephaestus and Demeter), socio-political. interpretation of the gods (for example, Juno is the patroness of marriages), humanization of the gods and their loss of allegory. meaning (Homer). In comparison with the theory of J. Vico, French. The Enlightenment with its rejection of history. approach, which considered M. as a product of ignorance and deception, as superstition, represents a step back (B. Fontenelle, Voltaire, D. Diderot, C. Montesquieu, etc.). On the contrary, English poet J. McPherson, German. the writer and philosopher Herder and others gave a new understanding of M. as an expression of the general people. wisdom. Romanticism consolidated and developed Herder’s teaching about M., understanding it as an expression of people. wisdom as a product of the general public. creativity. The collection and presentation of narratives began. tales, legends, fairy tales and myths (German scientists C. Brentano, J. and W. Grimm, L. J. Arnim, etc.). Philosophy the basis of the romantic mythological teachings were given by F. Schelling and partly by G. Hegel. From ser. 19th century a number of positivist mythologies arose. theories: solar-meteorological. theory (German scientists A. Kuhn, M. Muller, Russian - F.I. Buslaev, L.F. Voevodsky, O. Miller, etc.), which interpreted myths as an allegory of certain astronomical. and atmospheric phenomena. The theory of "inferior M." (German scientists W. Schwartz, W. Manhardt, etc.) interpreted myths, on the contrary, as a reflection of the most ordinary phenomena of life. Supporters of animism. theories conveyed ideas about people. soul to all nature (English scientists - Z. Taylor, G. Spencer, E. Lang, German - L. Frobenius, Russian - W. Klinger, etc.). In the 60s 19th century A sociological theory arose (J. Bachofen in Switzerland, E. Durkheim in France), which saw in M. a reflection of matriarchy and patriarchy. Gained wide popularity in the 19th century. historical-philological theory (German scientists G. Usener, W. Vilamowitz-Mellendorff, etc.; in Russia - V. Vlastov, F. F. Zelinsky, E. G. Katarov, S. A. Zhebelev, N. I. Novosadsky, I. I. Tolstoy, etc.), who used the methods of lit. and linguistic analysis in the study of myths. Modern bourgeois mythological theories are based exclusively on logical. and psychological human history data consciousness, as a result of which M. is interpreted as a subtle and highly intellectual phenomenon, which it could not have been at the dawn of man. stories. Therefore, these theories are, as a rule, abstract and ahistorical. character. Among psychological theories of the 20th century The concept of the Austrian was very popular. scientist Z. Freud and the Swiss. scientist K. Jung, which are all phenomena social life , cultures were reduced to mental. life of an individual, brought to the fore sexual needs, which are supposedly the only factor in a person’s entire conscious life. In contrast to Freudianism, the “pre-logical theory” of the French. scientist L. Levy-Bruhl claims that the primitive thought of a savage is supposedly based only on phenomenal memory and on associations by contiguity. Cultural history is widespread. theory of myth formation (English scientists J. Fraser, G. R. Levy, B. K. Malinovsky, French - J. Dumezil, P. Centiv, American - R. Carpenter, etc.). This theory considers every myth as a reflection of ritual and a rethinking of ancient magic. rite. In some of the bourgeois mythological. theories, which are often difficult to distinguish from each other, elements of materialism and idealism are often intertwined. For example, animistic. Taylor's theory outwardly seems idealistic, but it was it that gave impetus to the accumulation of data from anthropology and ethnography, which objectively created the basis for materialism. studying and understanding M. But most mythological. bourgeois theories science, especially the 20th century, is based on individualism. philosophy, using to explain M. this or that ability or activity of the department. person (sexual, affective-volitional, mental, religious, scientific, etc.). They all give one explanation or another to Ph.D. one side of myth-making. But none of them can explain the social essence of M., because the explanation should not be sought in the department. human abilities spirit, but in revealing the social conditions that gave rise to the ideology of a particular society and, consequently, its integral part - M. This materialistic. the concept underlies the works of Sov. scientists A. M. Zolotarev, A. F. Losev, S. A. Tokarev, Yu. P. Frantsev, B. I. Sharevskaya and others; cultural-historical interpretation of M. on a Marxist basis and related comparative history. analysis of the world epic is given by V. Ya. Propp, P. Bogatyrev, V. M. Zhirmunsky, V. I. Abaev, U. B. Dalgat, E. M. Meletinsky, I. N. Golenishchev-Kutuzov and others. Only on the paths of dialectic. and ist. materialism, it is possible in the future to build a truly scientific theory of myth, which is currently still under development. (For a detailed analysis of mythological theories, see the article by A. F. Losev “Mythology” in the 3rd volume of the Philosophical Encyclopedia, M., 1964). Lit. see the articles: Babylonian-Assyrian religion and mythology, Ancient Greek mythology and religion, Ancient Germanic mythology and religion, Ancient Egyptian mythology and religion, Ancient Indian mythology, Ancient Iranian mythology, Ancient Roman mythology and religion. In addition, general, as well as special. works: Meletinsky E. M., Origin of heroic. epic, M., 1963 (biblical available); Tokarev S. A., What is mythology?, "VIRA", 1962, c. 10; his, Religion in the history of the peoples of the world, M., 1964; by him, Early forms of religion and their development, M., 1964; Zolotarev A. M., Tribal system and primitive mythology, M., 1964; Sharevskaya B.I., Old and new religions Tropich. and Yuzh. Africa, M., 1964. A. F. Losev. Moscow.

MYTHOLOGY

MYTHOLOGY

(from the Greek mythos - legend, legend and logos - concept, teaching) - a way of understanding the world based on early stages human history, fantastic stories about its creation, about the deeds of gods and heroes. In M. Cosmos appears as a whole, formed by the interaction and mutual transformations of living and dead, conscious and elemental, man and environment. This was achieved by transferring to nature the connections and dependencies characteristic of primitive society, i.e. by animate it. The mythological world is syncretic: there is no clear separation of subject and object, object and sign, cause and effect; procedures of logical generalization and proof are replaced by metaphorical comparison by analogy, external similarity, and the convergence of heterogeneous phenomena on the basis of similar emotional and sensory perception. Thus, there is a kind of tension in the relationship between natural chaos and purposeful human activity, a certain predictability of the results of the latter is achieved, which is consolidated by the formation of increasingly complex rituals, rites, and stereotypes of collective behavior. As an archaic way of understanding the world, mathematics gradually gave way to scientific, reliable ideas about natural and social reality, subordinated to the criteria of rationalistic-philosophical knowledge.
Another tendency has also appeared in history: M. constituted the mother’s womb, the starting point for the formation of early forms of religion, namely the so-called. paganism. M. and religion share many common features - the recognition of another world, a god or gods, miracles and signs incomprehensible to the human mind, etc. At the same time, significant differences between them gradually emerged, highlighting more and more clearly the very nature of religiosity, which in one way or another differs from the properties of being fantastic, fabulous, and metaphorical. Religion presupposes not just belief in the supernatural (“heavenly”, “high”), but also in its decisive influence on the fate of the earthly world. Therefore, it practices a special purposeful influence on otherworldly forces - what is called a cult.
M. reveals typology with early forms of religion - magic, fetishism, animism, totemism. Pagan gods also do not stand above nature; they act within the balanced Cosmos as personifications of numerous natural and social elements, ensuring that the universe is established once and for all. Gradually they become more and more personified, receiving clear spheres of natural and social reality subject to them; their habitat rises to the sky; There is a demarcation between the mythological and religious characters of the subsequently dominant theism: an increasingly rigid body and spirit, flesh and soul, sacred and profane, earthly and heavenly. The many faces of antiquity the pantheon formed the initial basis for developed forms of religion (primarily theism), increasingly isolated from mythology and oriented towards the latter - the transcendental omnipotent God standing above the world.
The essence of this process, which took place within the framework of a communal tribal formation, was characterized by A.F. Losev: “Myth is not religious, because it exists in the supersensible world and according to this faith, including a certain kind of life, magic, rituals and sacraments, and in general. Myth, however, does not contain anything supersensible and does not require any faith... From the point of view of primitive man, who had not yet reached the separation of faith and knowledge... here we should not be talking about faith, but about the complete identification of man with his environment, that is, nature and society. Not being a magical operation, it does not include any ritual. Magic is a literal or substantial myth... Magic, ritual, religion and myth are fundamentally different phenomena that not only often develop quite independently, but even quarrel with each other” (Mythology // Filosofskaya. M., 1964. Vol. 3).
Equally important, etc. As society becomes more complex and stratified, a special number of professional figures emerge (shamans, sorcerers, priests, clergy, clergy, as well as special social institutions, primarily ecclesiastical ones), who claim the role of distributors of omnipotent supernatural energy. Religious institutions are merging with government power structures, which creates narrow corporate interests of individual classes and social groups to pass off as “public”, “national” interests. “Religion and the people who represent it are, to some extent, beginning to take the place of family, tribe and roc. They bind a person instead of leaving him free, and he begins to worship not God, but a group that claims to speak on his behalf. This happened in all religions” (Fromm E. Psychoanalysis and Religion // Twilight of the Gods. M., 1989).
It would be a simplification to reduce M. to a collection of naive and entertaining fairy tales, gradually giving way to a scientifically sober view of the world. This is a self-valuable, complete consciousness, an integral cultural gene pool of the people, sanctioning and reproducing the traditional norms of behavior and spiritual values ​​for a given community.
Although religion, as a more rigid, despotic form of consciousness in structure and organization, suppressed M., she cannot completely break with it; many religious, incl. and theistic, ideas are still interpreted within the framework of mythological images traditional for this region. Hence the ancient “demythologization” of religion, dramatically staged in our time by R. Bultmann.
M. is not only the guardian of the collective people's memory, but also a constantly reproduced way of understanding events that seem miraculous and unknowable. It is no coincidence that mythological constructions come to life and are filled with extremely modern content in the works of outstanding writers (M. Bulgakov, H. L. Borges, G. Hesse, J. Joyce, T. Mann, G. G. Marquez, A. de Saint-Exupery) , seeking to comprehend the secrets of human existence, inaccessible to a cold mind.
All daily life modern man is filled with numerous myths constantly cultivated by the mass media, not to mention the fact that myth-making is readily used by professional ideologists to manipulate mass consciousness. It is enough to refer to the official M. of Nazi Germany. Moreover, precisely today, when conflicts and wars on religious and ethnic grounds have become more frequent, M. has become an essential component of mass culture, an imperative motive for the activities of millions and millions of people. Generations of humanists, skeptics, freethinkers, and atheists who defended the ideals of religious tolerance and freedom of conscience pointed to this danger of deifying power and using ahistorical tales, myths, and religious ideas.

Philosophy: encyclopedic Dictionary. - M.: Gardariki. Edited by A.A. Ivina. 2004 .

During the Enlightenment, B. Fontenelle (1657–1757) wrote about M., who in his op. “The History of Oracles” (1686) and “The Origin of Fiction” (1724) depicts primitive mathematics as fiction, as a region of superstition, prejudice, and deception. Together with Bayle (1647–1706), he explains everything wonderful in M. by the ignorance of savages. Montesquieu and Voltaire also viewed the ancient views purely rationalistically, not seeing any intrinsic value in them. logic. Voltaire and Diderot explained all myths and miracles solely by the activities of priests who deliberately deceived in order to strengthen their authority. One of the chapters representatives of English empiricism D. Hume in op. "Natural Religion" (1757), based on polytheism as natural. religion, tries to explain it using later very popular methods of psychologism, i.e. derives it not from the contemplation of celestial phenomena, but from life experiences, ch. arr. fear and hope, involuntarily transferred by a person to everything. Wieland (1733–1813), although he proceeded from the doctrine of a supreme being, interpreted M. not only rationalistically, but even euhemerically. The most significant thing for the philosophy of the Enlightenment is that understanding of the ancient world. M., which was developed by I. I. Winkelman in his “History of the Art of Antiquity” (1764). In antiquity art and mythology, Winckelmann saw noble simplicity and calm grandeur. This concept passed on to Schiller, Goethe and many romantics.

In general, the Enlightenment understanding of M. was distinguished by straightforward rationalism and the absence of historical. approach. Researchers who have studied the sources that enlighteners used in their judgments about M. come to the conclusion that these sources are unreliable and have almost no scientific basis. values. Approaching M. from the point of view. limited bourgeois reason, the Enlightenment saw M. as a product of ignorance and deception, as a superstition that must be eradicated by reason.

A new understanding of M. as an expression of popular wisdom begins in the 18th century. with the so-called "The Poems of Ossian", created by the English. poet J. Macpherson and attributed to mythical. singer Ossian, and the activities of German. writer and philosopher Herder, who proceeded from the concept of the people as a spiritual community, as the true creator of literary and including mythological. works. The doctrine of M. him was also of great importance. philologist Chr. G. Heine, who argued that myths are philosophemes of the cosmos, expressed not with the help of abstract concepts, but with the help of fantasy, natural for primitive man. C. F. Dupuis also pointed out that myths are images of deities. emanations in space. This thereby prepared the understanding of M., characteristic of romanticism, which tried to restore the Middle Ages and even more ancient eras in spite of the Enlightenment, but which in the field of M. just for the first time took the position of historical-realism. and philosophical-theoretical. research. And in this he was progressive. Already for Herder M. there is the most significant thing that a person could say to society. For Herder, as for the romantics, M., philosophy, religion and poetry are inseparable. Romanticism consolidated and developed Herder’s teaching about materialism, understood it as an expression of the spiritual substance of the people, and finally went beyond the limits of classicism, replacing its stable, plastic. forms with an incessant striving into endless distances, be it the depths of man. subject, be it the all-encompassing expanse of the cosmos, be it popular wisdom and creativity, extracted by romantics from the depths of centuries.

Romantic M.'s understanding was primarily artistic and theoretical. Romantics gave and general art. interpretation of M., reflected in the doctrine of “Kunst-Mythologie”, or “artistic M”. Representatives of this interpretation of M. were K. F. Moritz (1757–93) and K. A. Böttiger. In the field of literature, this theory was developed by F. Schlegel and A. Schlegel, L. I. Arnim (1781–1831), C. Brentano (1778–1842), J. Grimm (1785–1863) and W. Grimm (1786 –1859). F. Schlegel in his “Conversation on Poetry” (1800) set the task of creating a new poetry, which “must be produced from the innermost depths of the spirit; it must be the most artistic of all artistic works, for it must embrace all the others. .." ("Jugendschriften", Bd 2, W., 1882, S. 358). Since M. was interpreted in romanticism as a people. wisdom, then all world symbolism was understood as universal symbolism for all mankind. wisdom of peoples. This is symbolic. M.'s understanding was presented by Chr. G. Heine (1729–1812), F. Kreutzer (1771–1858), J. Görres (1776–1848) and F. Butman (1764–1829). Philosophy mythological basis teachings were given by the works of Schelling and partly Hegel. Systematic Philosopher Schelling developed the concept of mythology in his “Philosophy of Mythology and Revelation,” where the concept of myth is interpreted using the Aristotelian doctrine of four causes: formal, material, moving and final. According to Schelling, M. represents the substantial unity of these causes. If the formal cause (type, appearance of a thing) is understood in the literal sense as a material cause, then the idea will immediately become a being, i.e. will turn into a fairy tale, and if this magical wonderful idea is also understood as an efficient cause and, moreover, as acting in a certain direction, i.e. as a target, then a magical, wonderful creature arises, acting on its own and for its own sake. goals. This is a myth.

Along with this, Schelling gave the concept of historical. development of M., which he developed in the treatises “World Epochs” (published 1861) and “Samothrace” (published 1815). Adjacent to this interpretation of M. is dialectical-historical. Hegel's concept, which gave a vivid description of the eastern, ancient and European. M. in his teaching about symbolic, classical. and romantic arts forms.

Thus, during the first decades of the beginning. 19th century in the field of studying metal, he created deep concepts that presented metal as a product of national creativity and as an expression of folk wisdom. However, along with the romantic. M.'s interpretation also included concepts that criticized romanticism. So, for example, I. G. Voss (1751–1826) directly attacked symbolic. interpretation of myths in romanticism and interpreted by Dep. myths and religions in a very reduced and prosaic manner. form. G. Herman (1772–1848) through arbitrary etymologization deprived the mythical. images of their mystery and magic and reduced them to natural phenomena. Against speculative and philosophical. The interpretation of myths was carried out by the philologist K. O. Muller (1797–1840). At the same time, he pointed to the folk-creative origin of music, its inevitability for certain periods of cultural development, and its study in historical terms without deducing Greek music from Indian and with precise consideration of all its local differentiation. In Russia, P. M. Leontiev took a similar position to Muller.

Ideas about M., created by romanticism, were received in the 2nd half of the 19th century. positivist interpretation in connection with the development of empirical psychology, as well as the collection and study of historical. materials. The theory of Western borrowing is becoming widespread. myths from the East, which were put forward in different countries(T. Benfey, Gladstone, O. Groupe, Berard). So, for example, the Group brought out all the Greek. myths from Phenicia. P. Foucart brought the Eleusinian Mysteries out of Egypt; V.V. Stasov believed that Russian. epic heroes originate from Persia and India. Similar ideas were developed in the works of G. N. Potanin and the early A. N. Veselovsky (1838–1906). The doctrine of migration mythological. motifs and images from one people to another has roots back in the 18th century. However, along with such fully proven theories as the origin of the Greek. Apollo from Asia Minor (Wilamowitz-Möllendorf) or Hephaestus from the same place (Malten), there were many researchers who followed the path of Herodotus with his famous Egyptomania or Fr. Delich with his pan-Babylonism. The theory of borrowing examined a number of facts, but did not solve the problem of the origin of M., but only attributed it to more distant historical ones. eras.

From ser. 19th century in philosophy literature was put forward solar-meteorological. theory (A. Kuhn, M. Muller, F. I. Buslaev, L. F. Voevodsky, O. Miller), which interpreted all myths as an allegory of certain astronomical objects. and atmospheric phenomena. This theory, which gained enormous popularity, was based on empirical data. psychology, which explained the whole mental life based on elementary feelings. representations. Because the sun is an obvious source of light, warmth and life for every person, and darkness and darkness have always been associated with negativity. the influence of nature on humans, then these natural phenomena were the basis for M.’s explanation. Russian researcher L.F. Voevodsky in the 2nd half. 19th century so he interpreted Odysseus as the sun, Penelope’s suitors as stars, and Penelope as the moon; the conquest of Troy was interpreted by him as the sunrise, Greek. the heroes turned out to be solar heroes, and Elena - the moon. The founders of this theory combined the interpretation of myths with a special theory of language, according to which the root of each word was also designated by a candidate. a natural phenomenon, and M., who talked about gods and heroes and elevated natural phenomena to the rank of gods and heroes, was interpreted as a special kind of “disease of the tongue.” The enormous amount of work that appeared in this mythological school, was devoted to explaining exactly this kind of roots of words, so that the original Indo-European religion and the sky were constructed with the personification of all the phenomena occurring on it, including thunder and lightning, as well as all atmospheric phenomena. Thus, solar-meteorological. theory in means. least connected with the theory of borrowing. Ch. lack of solar-meteorological theory is that she considered dep. human sides consciousness in isolation from others and from the entirety of societies. relations in a specific historical period; individual feelings. ideas are the result of a relatively late development and could not have existed in the primitive era. The linguistic theory of comparative mythology by A. Kuhn and M. Muller, supported by such major historians as Ed. Meyer and Y. Beloch, presently. time is completely refuted.

In contrast to this kind of theories, such interpretations of myth arose that reduced it to the elementary forms of man. practice and consciousness. Myths were interpreted as a reflection of the most ordinary phenomena of life, as a result of which the so-called arose. "inferior M." (V. Schwartz, V. Mangardt, partly G. Usener). The theory of "lower M." was of great importance in the sense that it forced researchers to study not only major mythological. images, but also the smallest and purely local ones, including all folklore in general. Instead of solar-meteorological allegory, the doctrine of a particular, local demon was put forward here, which is why the whole theory is also called demonological. This circumstance allowed the "lower M." play a significant role in the fight against the idealistic, and sometimes even racist exaltation of Indo-European proto-mythology over the mythology of other countries and peoples. However, this theory could not hold out for long due to the fact that socio-historical theory was also alien to it. approach to M., and her minor demons, from which she derived major deities, in turn required explanation, since their socio-historical nature remained unknown. origin and purpose.

However, the philosophy of positivism was not limited to these theories of M. Well-known psychologists and linguists M. Lazarus and H. Steinthal interpreted M. not as a product of the influence of external nature on a person, but, on the contrary, as a product of the transfer of the subject’s sacredness to nature. These concepts were associated with the so-called. animistic theory, for which M. acted as a stage of primitive spiritualism. consciousness, equally characteristic of all peoples. Representatives of this school used extensive materials from anthropology, ethnology and ethnography of many others. peoples and even departments. wild tribes, trying to find common historical characteristics in them. patterns, basing all M. on the idea of ​​spirits, first small and then large. In England, representatives of animism. directions were E. Tylor (1832–1917), G. Spencer, E. Lang, F. Jevons; in Germany - L. Frobenius, P. Ehrenreich and others.

In the 60s 19th century in Switzerland, sociology received its original development. M.’s understanding thanks to the work of Bachofen, who, in his book on maternal right, highly appreciated by Engels, proved it using material from antiquity. M. the presence of matriarchy among all nations. With Bachofen, M. was no longer just animism, but received a special kind of socio-historical. comprehension, which was based on the worldview of a person from the times of the maternal community and which remained in the form of rudiments in antiquity. M. In France, sociologist. The movement became very famous thanks to the activities of E. Durkheim and his students M. Mauss and Hubert. According to this doctrine, there is no knowledge and no activity outside a society of one type or another. At the same time, society cannot be reduced either to biology or to Ph.D. in general. material facts, but has its own essence, irreducible to anything else. The idea of ​​the world always bears traces of one or another type of society. development. Even any sensory representation is by no means the same at all times, but has one or another structure, according to the type of given society. development.

In the 19th century along with animistic, sociological. and anthropologist. understanding of M. there were attempts and historical. her research. In particular, a historical and philological school using lit. methods. and linguistic analysis. So, for example, G. Usener, based on the analysis of language, constructed a whole history of mythological. ideas ranging from gods associated with a given moment to major deities. Philologists 2nd half. 19th century – beginning 20th century U. Wilamowitz-Möllendorff, M. Nilsson, O. Kern and many others. others created extensive summaries of the history of antiquity. M. and religions, using not only philological. apparatus, but also data from archaeology, ethnography, folklore, linguistics and the general history of the ancient world. The outstanding work of such a synthetic. historical-philological type is A. Kuhn's 5-volume book on Zeus. In Russia, representatives of historical and philological. schools are V. Vlastov, F. F. Zelinsky, N. I. Novosadsky, S. A. Zhebolev, E. G. Kagarov, B. L. Bogaevsky, I. I. Tolstoy.

Development of mythological theories 2nd half. 19th century and beginning 20th century shows that positivist-minded mythological scientists in solving the problems of M. were far from understanding the people as the creator of history and M. Positivists analyzed only the department. side M., which, of course, brought great benefits to science, but they will end. They still did not give an outline of M. as a product of national creativity.

Modern bourgeois mythological theories are based exclusively on logical. and psychological human history data consciousness, as a result of which M. is interpreted as a subtle and highly intellectual phenomenon, which it was not at all during the period of savagery and barbarism. Therefore, these theories are, as a rule, and sometimes even ahistorical. character.

The most abstract mythological. theories in modern science are theories based on mechanics and mathematics. and structural-linguistic. concepts. Sov. ethnographer V. G. Bogoraz (Tan) noted that miraculous transformations into material, the presence of an object in several places at once, its instantaneous disappearance or appearance are based on the fact that a person in that era has a completely original idea of ​​time and space, absolutely not similar to the traditional Newtonian understanding of time as something heterogeneous and incapable of contracting or expanding. In this regard, Bogoraz compared mythical and fairy-tale ideas with mechanics and mathematics. Einstein's teachings. This theory of Bogoraz, which produces a spectacular impression, requires criticism. consideration. Modern , using mathematical methods for studying language, uses these methods also for studying the arts. and mythical creativity. According to Lévi-Strauss, for example, myth is a matrix representation and a field for solving certain problems of primitive logic, and certain images are totemic. M. is a kind of code that serves for the construction by primitive thinking of various models of the world. Naturally, it is possible to distinguish structural and mathematical in mathematics. side, but this side of M. is far from the only one.

In modern bourgeois science has also developed a number of psychological and psychoanalyst. theories. One of them belongs to V. Wundt, who in his 10-volume work “Psychology of Nations” brought it to its logical conclusion. end the theory of animism, creating a definition. a system where totemism, animism, manism (cult of ancestors), and in the end, all myths about nature received a harmonious and deep characterization. However, at its core, Wundt’s theory was idealistic, highlighting all kinds of irrational aspects - will, will, etc.

Among psychological teachings of the 20th century The most widespread was the concept of S. Freud, which reduced all phenomena of culture and social life to mental. life of the individual, and in this latter brought to the fore the subconscious, mainly sexual, which supposedly are the unities. factor of all consciousness. human life. According to Freud, consciousness creates various kinds of norms, laws, commandments, rules that suppress the subconscious. sphere, being for it a censorship of the spirit or sublimating it in an unrecognizable form. Therefore, subconscious. the sphere can manifest itself only in areas that are abnormal (dreams, accidental slips of the tongue, slips of the tongue, forgetting, etc.) or downright abnormal (all kinds of neuroses, psychoses, mental disorders, etc.). M. and religion are from this point of view. collective psychosis. All Greek M. turns into Freud's irrationality. reflection defined psychological complexes. Gaia-Earth, first and last, according to the Greek. M., gives birth to Uranus-Sky, with whom he immediately enters into marriage, but the children who appear from this marriage, the so-called. The titans are thrown into Tartarus by Uranus due to sexual competition. Mother Earth, who wants to be the wife of all husbands, helps one of the titans, Kronos, castrate Uranus and thereby gain his supreme power in space. Kronos, having freed himself from his father and sexual rival (Uranus), immediately marries again with the same Mother Earth, but only under the name of Rhea. His behavior as the ruler of the Universe is again determined solely by sexual motives: he swallows all his children so as not to have them as competitors in communicating with Rhea. But Rhea finds to save one son, Zeus, who, all because of the same sexual competition, enters into battle with Kronos and the Titans, and after he is overthrown in Tartarus, he also marries Mother Earth (in the form of Hera). The very religious-mythological. is nothing more than the feeling of guilt of defeated sexual competitors before one or another victorious ruler who has taken possession of the universal sexual essence, the Earth. Therefore, all types of sex that have arisen in history are a collective dream of humanity, which is in a state of complete neurosis as a result of the impossibility of sexual satisfaction. One of the greatest Freudians, K. Jung, saw in M. an expression of the “collective unconscious” inherent in all people, peoples and races, and the entire cosmos; basic He considered the task of psychoanalysis to be the study of the types and “archetypes” of this “collective unconscious.” Interpreting all the phenomena M. exclusively with t.zr. psychopathology, depicts mythological. consciousness in an extremely simplified form, ignoring its social essence and historical. its origin.

In contrast to the psychoanalysis of Freud and his school, certain psychologists and anthropologists in the 20th century. engaged in the study of the rational basis of M. To this direction belongs, for example, Lévy-Bruhl, according to whom primitive thought is entirely based only on phenomenal memory and on associations by contiguity. A bird flies through the air, feathers and snowflakes also fly through the air; therefore, a feather is a bird and a snowflake is a bird. The feather is white, the snowflake is also white, and the deer’s tail is ; therefore, the deer is a feather and, ultimately, a bird. The thinking of primitive man, according to Lévy-Bruhl, is determined by the law of participation. Hence Lévy-Bruhl made an erroneous statement. the nature of primitive thinking. We can talk about weak differentiation of logic. categories in primitive thinking, but not about the absence of at least one of them. Lévy-Bruhl's works were subjected to sharp criticism at one time, and Lévy-Bruhl himself subsequently also abandoned his “pre-logical” theory of primitive M.

Widespread in the bourgeoisie. science also has cultural and historical. theory of myth formation. The largest figure in this area was the English. ethnographer and anthropologist Fraser. In his op. “The Golden Bough”, which appeared back in the 90s, based on enormous material, he established three periods of human spiritual development - magical, religious. and scientific. Fraser studied a number of profound phenomena of primitive M., such as, for example, the appearance of agrarian demons and their connection with the origin of supreme power, numerous. ecstatic cults with M. growing out of them, the religion of the suffering and dying god in pre-Christ. religions and their connection with Christ. teaching.

Dr. bourgeois researcher Malinovsky examines myth in its inextricable connection with ritual and magic, at the same time highlighting its enormous cultural power, which lies in establishing unity with the past, in harmony with labor, magic, productive and other social factors primitive society. Malinovsky derives epic and tragedy from the cultural significance of myth. Among those representatives of cultural and historical. theories that highlight magic and ritual in M.'s explanation include J. Dumézil, P. Centiv, G. R. Levy, A. Lord, C. Autran, J. Bedier, F. Raglan, J. de Vries, C. Baudouin, E. Miro, R. Carpenter. Unlike solar-meteorological school, this school is called "neo-mythological". She views every myth as a reflection of ritual and a rethinking of ancient magic. ritual, often pursuing, however, these ideas in a very one-sided form. C. Autrand and J. Bedier deduce the latest heroic. tales from purely priestly traditions. The most extreme position is taken by J. de Vries and C. Baudouin, who interpret the ritual origin of M. using the methods of Freudianism.

M. X. M. and N. K. Chadwick take a purely historical approach, and to a large extent also Baura and K. Weiss. In Soviet science, cultural-historical. interpretation of M. and the related comparative-historical. The world epic is given by V. Ya. Propp (in his later works), P. Bogatyrev, V. M. Zhirmunsky, V. I. Abaev, U. B. Dalgat, E. M. Meletinsky, Golenishchev-Kutuzov and others.

For bourgeois science late 19th - early. 20th centuries characterized by a wide distribution of various kinds of symbolic. theories. The founder of these theories of M. was F. Nietzsche. In his early work on the origin of tragedy, Nietzsche considered the Greek. tragedy as two principles - Dionysian (orgiastic, frenzied, exalted) and Apollonian (calm, majestic, balanced and plastic). The art of the ancient Greeks of the classical period acquired a symbolic character from Nietzsche. character, created, in his opinion, from two fundamentals. beginnings, which found expression in the images of Dionysus and Apollo. Scientific and philological The treatment of this theory was given by E. Rohde, and in Russia by V. Ivanov.

Neo-Kantianism ch. arr. in the person of E. Cassirer also came to understand M. as a “symbolic form.” If Tylor and Wundt thought that in primitive times the ready-made concept of the soul was transferred to, then Cassirer postulates for M. the complete indistinguishability of internal. and external, the gradual and very slow maturation of the opposition between internal and external and the all-encompassing power of myth, in comparison with all other categories of people. consciousness and cognition are only secondary and abstract. The indistinguishability in M. of the ideal and the real, internal and external, soul and body, individual and society was put forward in the 1927–30s. Regardless of neo-Kantianism, A.F. Losev, who at that time was inclined towards Hegel, Schelling and Husserl. Similar theories were put forward by A. Yolles and E. Bruce.

The symbolist theory at its core is also the theory of M., which was put forward by the existentialists who saw in the Greek. mythology and Homer has his own. (Heidegger, K. Dienelt, etc.).

The above mythological theories of the 20th century, despite their enormous diversity, are overwhelmingly based on individualistic. philosophy, using to explain M. this or that ability or activity of the department. human, mental, affective-volitional, sexual, cultural, artistic, scientific, religious, etc. All these theories undoubtedly provide one or another explanation of some real aspect of myth-making. However, none of these theories could explain the social essence of M. For such an explanation, turning to the department is completely insufficient. human abilities spirit, if only because these abilities themselves require explanation. Disclosure of the essence and origin of M., as well as its socio-historical. foundations, is possible only with historical-materialistic. positions.

Marxist literature about M.

Marx K., Capital, vol. 1, in the book: Marx K. and Engels F., Soch., 2nd ed., vol. 23, p. 61–93 (on fetishism); him, To the criticism of political. savings, [M. ], 1953, p. 224–225 (about ancient M.); his, Forms preceding capitalist. production, [M. ], 1940 (about the basis of M.); Engels F., The origin of the family, private property and the state, [M. ], 1963 (from M. matriarchy); Lenin V.I., Soch., 4th ed., vol. 38, p. 370 (on “primitive idealism”); Lafargue P., The Myth of Prometheus (and other articles on M.), in the book: Lafargue P., Essays on the history of culture, 2nd ed., M.–L., , Bogaevsky B., Ritual gesture and society. structure of ancient Greece, in the collection: Religion and Society, L., 1926, Tronsky I.M., Greek religion. shepherd (Towards the formulation of the question), in the same place, Boldyrev A.V., Religion of ancient Greek. sailors (Experience in studying professional religion), ibid.; Altman M., Blind Famir, in the book: Yafetic. collection (Recueil Japhétique), 6, L., 1930; Bogaevsky B.L., Male deity in Crete, ibid.; by him, Pottery deities of Minoan Crete, Izv. Academician ist. mat. cult., vol. 7, issue. 9, L., 1931; Schmidt P. B., Metallic. in myth and religion of ancient Greece, ibid., vol. 9, no. 8–10, L., 1931; Tronsky I.M., The Myth of Daphnis, in the collection: Language and Literature, vol. 8, Leningrad, 1932; Altman M.S., On the semantics of proper. names in Homer, in the book: From the history of pre-capitalist. formations, L., 1933, p. 437–74; Bogaevsky B. L., Minotaur and Pasiphae on Crete in the light of ethnographic studies. data, in collection: art. S. F. Oldenburg. To the 50th anniversary of scientific societies. activities, L., 1934, p. 95–113; Tronsky I.M., Ancient myth and modern times. fairy tale, ibid., pp. 523–34; Kagarov E. G., Shamanism and the phenomena of ecstasy in Greek. and Rome religions, "Izvestia. Academic Sciences of the USSR". Episode 7. Dept. society Sciences, 1934, No. 5; Altman M.S., Remnants of the tribal system in their own. names in Homer, [L. ], 1936; Sternberg L. Ya., Primitive religion in the light of ethnography, Leningrad, 1936; Freidenberg O., Poetics of plot and genre, L., 1936, Altman M. S., Grech. M., M.–L., 1937; Marr N. Ya., Izbr. works, volumes 1–5, Leningrad, 1933–1937; Radzig S.I., Antique M. Essay on ancient myths in modern light. Nauki, M.–L., 1939; Dymshits Z., Epiphany of Dionysus in myth and ritual, "Uch. zap. Leningrad State University Ser. Philological Sciences", 1939, No. 33, issue. 2; Frantsov Yu. P., Fetishism and the problem of the origin of religions, M., 1940; Freidenberg O. M., Oresteia in the Odyssey, in: Scientific. bulletin Leningrad State University, No. 6, 1946; Radzig S.I., The myth of the daughters of Danae and related myths in the light of modern times. science, in: Reports and communications of philological. Faculty of Moscow State University, vol. 1, M., 1946; Nikolsky N. M., Sketches on the history of Phoenician communities and farmers. cults, Minsk, 1947]; Kazmenko K.I., Caucasian legends about chained heroes and the myth of Prometheus in the early Greeks. authors, in collection: Tr. Stavropolsk ped. Institute, vol. 6, Caucasian collection, book. 1, 1949, pp. 57–76; Shtaerman E.M., Reflection of class contradictions of the 2nd–3rd centuries. in the cult of Hercules, "Vestn. ancient history", 1949, No. 2(28); Shengelia I., Hesiod and the problem of Prometheus, in the book: Collection of scientific works of graduate students of Tbilisi University, book 1, Tb., 1950; his, The most ancient myths about Prometheus, Tbilisi, 1950 (diss.); Kosven M. O., Essays on the history of primitive culture, M., 1953, pp. 129–66; Enshlen Sh., Origin of religion, translated from French, M., 1954; Losev A. Φ., Olympic M. in its socio-historical development, in the collection: Academic journal [Moscow Pedagogical Institute], vol. 72, Department of Classical Philology, issue 3, Μ ., 1953, by him, Hesiod and M., in the same place, vol. 83, issue 4, M., 1954, pp. 263–301; by him, Introduction to ancient M., in the collection: Academic zap. Pedagogical Institute Philological series, issue 5, [Dushanbe], 1954; Amashukeli E. V., The myth of the Argonauts in Georgian literature, Tb., 1954 (diss.); Mathieu M. E., Ancient Egyptian myths, M.–L., 1956; Pichkhadze M.I., On the history of the problem of Prometheus, in the collection: Communications of the Academic Sciences of the Georgian SSR, vol. 19, No. 1, Tb., 1957, pp. 121–127 ; Kublanov M. M., The legend of the lists of Achilles and the Olbian agonistic festivals (On the history of the formation of cults of the ancient polis), in the collection: Yearbook of the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism, [vol. ] 1, M.–L., 1957, Losev A.F., Antique M. in its historical. development, M., 1957; his, Sovr. problems of studying ancient M., "Bulletin of the History of World Culture", 1957, No. 3; by him, Chaos antyczny, "Meander", 1957, No. 9; Tokarev S. A., Relig. beliefs of the East Slavic peoples of the 19th – early 20th centuries, M.–L., 1957; Kinzhalov P. V., Pandora (On the myth of Hesiod), in the collection: Yearbook of the Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism, [vol. ] 2, M.–L., 1958; Meletinsky E. M., Ancestors of Prometheus (Cultural hero in myth and epic), "Bulletin of the History of World Culture", 1958, No. 3(9); Trencheni-Waldapfel I., M., trans. from Hungary, M., 1959; Frantsev Yu. P., At the origins of religion and free thought, M.–L., 1959; Losev A.F., Homer, M., 1960, p. 237–341 (the doctrine of historical strata in M. Homer); Spirkin A., The Origin of Consciousness, M., 1960, ch. 9; Shtaerman E.M., Morality and religion of the oppressed classes, Rome. Empire, M., 1961; Tokarev S. A., What is M.?, in: Art. Questions of the history of religion and atheism, [vol. ] 10, M., 1962; Donini A., People, idols and gods, trans. from Italian, M., 1962.

General review of the literature on M.

The mythology of all races, ed. J. A. MacCulloch [a. O. ], v. 1–13, Boston, 1916–32; v. 1, Fox W. S., Greek and Roman, 1916, v. 2, MacCulloch J. A., Eddic, 1930; v. 3, his own, Celtic; Machal J., Slavic, 1918, v. 4, Holmberg U., Finno-Ugric, Siberian, 1927; v. 5, Langdon S. H., Semitic, 1931; v. 6, Keith A. V., Indian; Carnay A. J., Iranian, 1917; v. 7, Ananikian M. N., Armenian; Werner A., ​​African, 1925; v. 8, Ferguson J. C., Chinese; Anesaki M., Japanese, 1928; v. 9, Dixon R. B., Oceanic, 1916; v. 10, Alexander N. B., North American, 1916; v. 11, same, Latin-American, 1920; v. 12, Müller W. M., Egyptian; Scott J. G., Indo-Chinese, 1928; v. 13, Complete Index to v. 1–12, 1932.

Reviews of the history of mythological. theories

Cocchiara J., History of folkloristics in Europe, trans. from Italian, M., 1960; Vries J. de, Forschungsgeschichte der Mythologie, Münch.–Freiburg, 1961; Katarov E., On the issue of modern classification. mythological theories, "Hermes", 1910, No. 13 (59), p. 337–341; his, Essay on modern times. states of mythological science, in: Questions of theory and psychology of creativity, vol. 5, X., 1913, p. 293–372; Lavrov P. L., Collection. op., series 5, no. 1. Articles on the history of religion, P., 1917 (the most important pp. 6–124); Gruppe Q., Geschichte der klassischen Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte während des Mittelalters im Abendland und während der Neuzeit, Lpz., 1921; Kern O., Die Religion der Griechen, Bd 1–3, V., 1926–1938 (the entire third volume is devoted to the history of mythological theories from Aristotle to Wilamowitz); Frantsev Yu. P., At the origins of religion and free thought, M.–L., 1959.

Antiquity and cf. century

Nestle W., Griechische Geistesgeschichte von Homer bis Lukian, Stuttg., , 2 Aufl., Stuttg., ; his, Die griechische Religiosität in ihren Grundzügen und Hauptvertretern von Homer bis Prokies, Bd 1–3, Lpz.–V., 1930–34 (Sammlung Göschen, No. 1032, 1066, 1080); Cornford F. M., From religion to philosophy, L., 1912; Nestle W., Vom Mythos zum Logos. Die Selbstentfaltung des griechischen Denkens von Homer bis auf die Sophistik und Sokrates, 2 Aufl., Stuttg., 1942; Вuffière F., Les mythes d'Homère et la pensée grecque, P., 1956; Stöcklein P., Über die philosophische Bedeutung von Piatons Mythen, Lpz., 1937; Hildebrandt K., Platon, Logos und Mythos, 2 Aufl., V., 1959; Hunger H., Lexikon der griechischen und römischen Mythologie mit Hinweisen auf das Fortwirken antiker Stoffe und Motive in der bildenden Kunst, Literatur und Musik des Abendlandes bis zur Gegenwart, 5 Aufl., W., 1959; Bezold F. von, Das Fortlebender antiken Götter im mittelalterlichen Humanismus, Bonn, 1922.

From the Renaissance to Romanticism (14th–18th centuries)

Boccaccio G., De genealogiis deorum, Venezia, 1472; nuova ed., v. 1–2 (Opera, v. 10–11), Bari, 1951; English trans., Princeton, 1930; Conti N., Mythologiae, siue Explicationum fabularum libri X, Venetiis, 1568; Vossius G., De theologia gentili, et physiologie Christiana, sive de origine ac progressu idololatriae..., liber 1–4, Amst., 1641, 2 ed., libri 1–9, Amst., 1668, 3 ed., Amst., 1675–79; Bason F., De dignitate et augmentis scientiarum libros, Opera, t. 1, L., 1623; Part 2 – De dignitate et augmentis soientiarum, avec une introduction et des notes par M. Mauxion, P., 1897; Bacon F., On the dignity and improvement of the sciences, Collection. cit., trans. P. A. Bibikova, part 1, St. Petersburg, 1874; Vico G. V., Principj di una Scienza nuova intorno alla natura della nazioni, Nap, 1725; Vico J., Foundations of a new science of the general nature of nations, trans. and comm. A. A. Gubera, under the general direction. ed. M. A. Lifshitz, Leningrad, 1940; Lafitau J. F., Moeurs des Sauvages Ameriquaines, comparées aux moeurs des premiers temps, t. 1–2, P., 1724; Fontenelle B. de, Histoire des oracles, P., 1686, P., 1934; his, Discours sur l'origine des fables, in his book: Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes, P., 1724, P., 1932; Brosses C. de, Du culte des dieux fétiches, ou Parallèle de l'ancienne religion de l "Egypte avec la religion actuelle de Nigritie, P., 1760; Words: Dieu, Mythologie and several articles on the words Religion, in edition: Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonnée des sciences, des arts et des métiers, V 1–35, P., 1751–80.

Pre-Romanticism and Romanticism (late 18th – early 19th centuries)

[Macherson J.], The poems of Ossian, ed. by A. Clerk, v. 1–2, Edinburgh, 1870; Macpherson J., The Poems of Ossian, trans. and approx. E. V. Balabanova, St. Petersburg, 1890; Herder J. G. von, Über Ossian und die Lieder der alten Völker, Werke, Bd 2, Weimar, 1957; Herder I. G., Izbr. soch., M.–L., 1959; Heyne Ch. G., De causis fabularum seu mythorum physicis, Opuscula Academica collecta..., v. 1, Gott., 1785; Wieland S. M., Über den freien Gebrauch der Vernunft in Glaubenssachen, Sämtliche Werke, 1794–1805, Bd 30, Lpz., 1840; Dupuis Ch. F., Origine de tous les cultes, ou religion universelle, t. 1–7, P., 1795–96; v. 1–10, 1834; abbreviated ed., R., ; Moritz K. Ph., Götterlehre oder mythologische Dichtungen der Alten, V., 1791; 8 Aufl., V., 1843; Böttiger S. A., Ideen zur Kunst-Mythologie, Bd –2, Dresd.–Lpz., 1826–36; Schlegel Fr., Geschichte der alten und neuen Literatur, Tl 1–2, W., 1813; 2 Aufl., Bd 1–2, Regensburg, 1911; Schlegel F., History of ancient and modern literature, parts 1–2, St. Petersburg, 1829–30; Schlegel A. W., Über dramatische Kunst und Literatur. Vorlesungen, Tl 1–2, Hdlb., 1809–11; Bd 1–2, Bonn–Lpz., 1923; Arnim L. A. von und Brentano C., Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Alte deutsche Lieder. , Münch., ; Grimm J. L. K., Deutsche Mythologie, Gött., 1835, W.–Lpz., ; Grimm J. und Grimm W. K., Kinder- und Haus-Märchen, Bd 1–2, V., 1812–14, Bd 1–3, , Marburg, , B.; 1957; Сreuzer G. F., Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker, Bd 1–3, Lpz.–Darmstadt, 1810–12, 3 Aufl., Bd 1–4, Lpz.–Darmstadt, 1836–1843; Schelling F. W. J. von, Einleitung in die Philosophie der Mythologie, Sämtliche Werke, 2 Abt., Bd 1, Stuttg.–Ausburg, 1856; his, Philosophie der Mythologie, ibid., 2 Abt., Bd 2, Stuttg., 1857; compare: Allwohn A., Der Mythos bei Schelling, Charlottenburg, 1927; Görres J. von, Mythengeschichte der asiatischen Welt, Bd 1–2, Hdlb., 1810; Buttmann Ph., Mythologie oder gesammelte Abhandlungen über die Sagen des Alterthums, Bd 1–2, V., 1828–29; Hermann G., Opuscula, v. 1–8, Lpz., 1827–77: De mythologia Graecorum antiquissima, v. 2, Lpz., 1827, p. 167–95; De Atlante, v. 7, Lpz., 1839, p. 241–259; De Graeca minerva, in the same place, r. 260–84; De Apolline et Diana, pt 1–2, ibid., p. 285–315; his, Über das Wesen und die Behandlung der Mythologie. Ein Brief an Herrn H. Creuzer, Lpz., 1819; Voß J. H., Antisymbolik, T. 1–2, Stuttg., 1824–26; his, Mythologische Briefe, Bd 1–2, Königsberg, 1794; 2 Aufl., Bd 1–3, Stuttg., 1827, Bd 4–5, Lpz., 1834; Müller K. O., Prolegomena zu einer wissenschaftlichen Mythologie, Gött. , 1825; Leontyev P. M., On the worship of Zeus in ancient Greece, M., 1850; Lobesk Ch. A., Aglaophamus, t. 1–2, Königsberg, 1829.

Positivism (2nd half of the 19th – early 20th centuries)

Borrowing theory

Gruppe O., Die griechischen Culte und Mythen in ihren Beziehungen zu den orientalischen Religionen, Bd 1, Lpz., 1887; his, Griechische Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte, Bd 1–2, Münch., 1906; Сurtius E., Die Griechische Götterlehre vom geschichtlichen Standpunkt, in the book: Preussische Jahrbücher, Bd 36, H. 1, V., 1875; his, Studien zur Geschichte des griechischen Olymps, "Sitzungsber. Preuss. Akad. Wiss.", 1890, S. 1141–56; Bérard V., De l'origine des cultes arcadiens, P., 1894; his, Les phéniciens et l'Odyssée, t. 1–2, P., 1902–1903; , P., 1927–29 (last 4 volumes under the title: Les navigations d "Ulysse); Stasov V.V., The origin of Russian epics, "Vesti. Europe", 1868, No. 1–4, 6–7 and in the book: Stasov V.V., Collected works, vol. 3, St. Petersburg, 1894; Potanin G.N., Eastern motifs in medieval Europe. epic, M., 1899; Veselovsky A. N., Glorious legends about Solomon and Kitovras and the western legends about Morolf and Merlin, St. Petersburg, 1872; Miller V. F., Ossetian etudes, parts 1–3, M. , 1881–87; Kuhn A., Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertranks, V., 1859.

"N iz sh a i M."

Schwartz F. L. W., Der Ursprung der Mythologie, V., 1860; his, Die poetischen Naturanschauungen der Griechen, Römer und Deutschen in ihrer Beziehung zur Mythologie, Bd 1–2, V., 1864–1879; by him, Indogermanischer Volksglaube, V., 1885; Mannhardt W., Die Korndämonen, V., 1868; his, Wald- und Feldkulte, Bd 1–2, V., 1875–1877; 2 Aufl., Bd 1–2, V., 1904–15; by him, Mythologische Forschungen, Stras., 1884.

Psychological theories

Lazarus M., Steinthal H., Einleitende Gedanken über Völkerpsychologie, "Z. Völkerpsychol. Sprachwiss.", 1860, Bd 1, H. 1; Welcker F. G., Griechische Götterlehre, Bd 1–3, Gött., 1857–63.

Animistic theories

Taylor E., Primitive culture, trans. from English, M., 1939; Lippert J., Die Religionen der europäischen Culturvölker, V., 1881; his, Der Seelencult in seinen Beziehungen zur althebräischen Religion, V., 1881; Lang A., Myth, ritual and religion, v. 1–2, L.–N. Y., 1887; new ed., v. 1–2, L.–N. Υ., 1899, , v. 1–2, L., 1913; Lang E., M., M., 1901; Spencer H., Principles of psvchology, L., 1855; him, Principles of sociology, v. 1–3, L., 1877–96, v. 1–3, N.Y.–L., 1925–29; Jevons F. V., An introduction to the history of religion, L., 1896, 2 ed., L., 1902; Frobenius L., Das Zeitalter des Sonnengottes, V., 1904; his, Die Weltanschauung der Naturvölker, Weimar, 1898; Ehrenreich P., Die allgemeine Mythologie und ihre ethnologischen Grundlagen, Lpz., 1910; Klinger V.P., Animals in ancient and modern times. superstitions, K., 1911; Marett R. R., The threshold of religion, L., , 2 ed., L., 1914

Sociological theories

Bachofen J. J., Das Mutterrecht Eine Untersuchung über die Gynaikokratie der alten Welt nach ihrer religiösen und rechtlichen Natur, Stuttg., 1861; compare: Kosven M. Ο., I. Ya. Bachofen and rus. science, "Soviet ethnography", 1946, No. 3; by him, Matriarchy, M.–L., 1948, p. 106–146; Huber H. et Mauss M., Etude sommaire de la représentation du temps dans la magie et la religion, in the book: Huber H. et Mauss M., Mélanges d'histoire des religions, P., 1909.

General history theories

Morgan G., Ancient society..., [L. ], 1934; Vinnikov I. N., From the archives of L. E. Morgana, M.–L., 1935; compare: Kosven M., L. G. Morgan, 2nd ed., Leningrad, 1935; Usener H., Die Sintfluthsagen, Bonn, 1899; his, Götternamen Versuch einer Lehre von der religiösen Begriffsbildung, Bonn, 1895, 2 Aufl., Bonn, 1929; Trubetskoy S.N., New theory of religious education. concepts, in the book: Χαριστήρια. Sat. Art. in philology and linguistics in Φ. E. Korsha, M., 1896, p. 299–332 (Usenera); Preller L., Griechische Mythologie, 4 Aufl., Bd 1–3, B., 1894–1926, Wilamowitz-Moellendorff U. von, Hephaistos, "Nachrichten Gött Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften", 1895; H. 1; his, Apollo, "Hermes", 1903, Bd 38; same, Der Glaube der Hellenen, Bd 1–2, V., 1931–32; , B., 1955; Nilsson M. P., Griechische Feste von religiöser Bedeutung mit Ausschluß der attischen, Lpz., 1906; his, The Mycenaean origin of Greek mythology, Berkeley (California), 1932; his, The minoan-mycenaean religion and its survival in Greek religion, 2 ed., Lund, 1950; his, Geschichte der griechischen Religion, 2 Aufl., Münch., Bd 1, 1955, Bd 2, 1950; Kern Ο., Die Religion der Griechen, Bd 1–3, V., 1926–38; Otto W. F., Die Götter Griechenlands, , Fr./M., 1947; Goock A., Zeus. A study in ancient religion, v. 1–3, Camb., 1914–40; Kerényi K., Die antike Religion, neue Ausg., Düsseldorf–Köln, 1952; Merzhinsky A., Study on Perseus among the ancient epics..., Warsaw, 1872; Vlastov G., Theogony of Hesiod and Prometheus, St. Petersburg, 1897; Zelinsky Φ. Φ., From the life of ideas, vol. 1–4, St. Petersburg, –22; 3rd ed., St. Petersburg, vol. 1, 1916, vol. 2, 1911; his, Introduction and will enter. essay in the book: Sophocles, Drama, vol. 1–3, M., 1914–15; his, Commentaries, in the book: Theater of Euripides [Plays], vol. 1–3, M., 1916–1921; his, Ancient Greek religion, Π., 1918; his, Religion of Hellenism, Π., 1922; Novosadsky N. I., Eleusinian Mysteries, St. Petersburg, 1887; his, The Cult of Kavirs in Ancient Greece, Warsaw, 1891; him, Orfich. hymns, Warsaw, 1900; Zhebelov S. A., On the religious antiquities of the island of Kosa, "J. Museum of Public Education", 1892, Department of Classics. Philology, part 284, Dec., p. 117–20; his, The Cult of Dimos and Charit in Athens, in the collection: Commentationes philologicae. Sat. Art. in honor of I.V. Pomyalovsky, St. Petersburg, 1897, p. 109–18; his, Parthenon in "Parthenon" (On the history of the cult of Athena the Virgin), "Bulletin of Ancient History", 1939, No. 2; him, Titan Iapetus, in the collection: Language and Literature, vol. 5, 1930, pp. 19–28; Kagarov E. Γ., Cult of fetishes, plants and animals in ancient Greece, St. Petersburg, 1913; Bogaevsky B. L., Zemdelch. religion of Athens, vol. 1, Π., 1916; Tolstoy I.I., Bely Island and Taurica on the Euxine Pontus, P., 1918; his, The Ancient World and the Modern. fairy tale, in the book: S. Φ. Oldenburg. To the 50th anniversary of scientific societies. activities, L., 1934, p. 523–34; his, Myth in Alexandrian Poetry, "Uch. zap. Leningrad. Pedagogical Institute", 1948, v. 67, p. 17–22.

Modern mythological theories (20th century)

Structural theories

Bogoraz (Tan) V. G., Einstein and religion, M.–P., 1923, Lévi-Strauss S., The structural study of myth, "J. Amer. Folklore", 1955, v. 68, oct.–dec., p. 428–444; his, Anthropologie structurale, P., , ch. 9–12, Symposium on the Structural Study of Sign Systems. Abstracts of reports, M., 1962.

Psychological and psychoanalyst. theories

Wundt W., Völkerpsychologie, Bd 4–6, Mythus und Religion, 3 Aufl., Lpz., 1920–23; 1 hour of this work has been translated into Russian. language: Myth and religion, St. Petersburg, ; compare: Lange N. N., W. Wundt’s theory of the beginning of myth, O., 1912; Freud Z., Lectures on introduction to, trans. [with German ] M.V. Wulf, vol. 1–2, M.–P., ; 2nd ed., M.–P., 1923; his, Totem and Taboo, trans. [with German ] M. V. Vulfa, M.–P., [b. G. ]; his, Psychopathology of everyday life, 2nd ed., M., 1923; him, I and it, trans. from German, L., 1924; his, Psychology of the masses and analysis of the human “I”, trans. from German, M., 1925; him, The Future of One Illusion, trans. from German, M.–L., 1930; his, Interpretation of Dreams, trans. from German, M., 1913; Abraham K., Dream and Myth, trans. from German, M., 1912; Wittels F., Freud His, teaching and school, trans. from German, L., 1925; Wells G., Pavlov and Freud, trans. from English, M., 1959; Kosov M. B., Marxist criticism of psychoanalysis, "Problems of Philosophy", 1959, No. 11; Wells G., Freudianism and its modern times. "reformers", "Questions of Philosophy", 1959, No. 12, 1960, No. 1; Mikhailov Φ. T., Tsaregorodtsev G.I., Beyond the threshold of consciousness, M., 1961; Mansurov N. S., Sovr. bourgeois , M., 1962; Jung S. G., Wandlungen und Symbole der, Lpz.–W., 1912; Jung S. G., Kerényi K., Einführung in das Wesen der Mythologie. Das gottliche Kind. Das göttliche Mädchen, , Z., , S. 105–148, 230–50; Lévy-Bruhl L., Primitive thinking, trans. from French, M., 1930; his, The Supernatural in Primitive Thinking, trans. from French, M., 1937, compare: Tiander K., On the principles of mysticism. worldview, in: Questions of theory and psychology of creativity, vol. 5, X., 1914, p. 417–78. sacerdotales de l"épopée grecque t 1–3, P., 1943; his, L"épopée indoue Etude de l"arrière-fonds ethnographique et religieux P., 1946; compare: Anglo-American ethnography in the service of imperialism. Sat. . art., M., 1951; Mireaux È., Les poéms homériques et l "histoire grecque, v. 1–2, P., 1948–49; Carpenter R., Folk tall, fiction and saga in the Homeric epics, Berkley–Los Ang., 1949, Vries J. de, Betrachtungen zum Märchen, besonders in seinem Verhältnis zu Heldensage und Mythos, Hels., 1954; Baudouin Ch., Le triomphe de héros. Étude psychoanalytique sur le mythe du héros et les grandes épopées P., 1952; Hyman S. E., The ritual view of myth and the mythic, "J. Amer. Folklore" 1955, v. 68, No. 270; Bogatyrev P., Actes magiques, rites croyances en Russie subcarpathique (Travaux publiés par l"Institut d"études slaves, 9) P., 1929; Propp V. Ya., Morphology of a fairy tale, L., 1928; him, Historic. roots fairy tale, L., 1946; him, Rus. heroic epic, 2nd ed., M., 1958; Zhirmunsky V. M., Nar. heroic epic Comparative-historical essays, M.–L., 1962; Nart epic. Materials of the meeting, Ordzhonikidze, 1957; Meletinsky E. M., The origin of the heroic epic. Early forms and archaic. monuments, M., 1963. "Questions of Life", 1905, No. 6, 7; him, Nietzsche and Dionysus, in the book: Ivanov Vyach., By the Stars, St. Petersburg, 1909, p. 1–20; his, Dionysus and Pre-Dionysianism, Baku, 1923; Lezin B., From the draft notes of A. A. Potebnya on myth, in: Questions of theory and psychology of creativity, vol. 5, X., 1914, p. 494–509; Cassirer E., Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, Bd 2, Das mythische Denken, B., 1925; his, Sprache und Mythos, Lpz., 1925; Losev A.F., Dialectics of myth, M., 1930, Jolies A, Einfache Formen, 2 Aufl., Halle, 1956; Buess E., Die Geschichte des mythischen Erkennens, Münch., 1953; Weigl L., Kosmos und Arche. Eine philosophische Untersuchung vom Anfang der griechischen Philosophie bis Platon. Mit einem Nachwort über die Beziehungen dieses Themas zur Existentialphilosophie M. Heideggers, Würzburg, (Diss.); Dienelt K., Existentialismus bei Homer, in the book: Festschrift zur 250-Jahr-Feier des Bundesrealgymnasiums in Wien, Tl 1, W., 1951, S. 151–59; Vсinas V., Earth and gods. An introduction to the philosophy of M. Heidegger, The Hague, 1961, ch. 5.

A. Losev. Moscow.

Philosophical Encyclopedia. In 5 volumes - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. Edited by F. V. Konstantinov. 1960-1970 .

MYTHOLOGY

MYTHOLOGY (from the Greek μΰΰος - tradition, legend and λόγος - word, concept, teaching) - a form of social consciousness; a way of understanding natural and social reality, characteristic of the early stages of the development of society. Mythology is focused on overcoming the fundamental antinomies of human existence, on the harmonization of society, personality and nature. In the consciousness of the primitive collective, mythology dominates. The consequence of man’s inability to isolate himself from the surrounding world and the syncretism of primitive thinking, its fusion with the emotional, affective sphere, became a metaphysical comparison of natural and cultural (social) objects, the humanization of the natural environment, including the animation of fragments of the cosmos. Mythological thinking is characterized by a vague separation of subject and object, object and sign, being and its name, spatial and temporal relations, origin and essence, indifference to contradiction, etc. Objects came closer in secondary sensory qualities, contiguity in space and time, appeared in as signs of other objects. The rational principle of explaining things and the world as a whole was replaced in mythology by a story about origin and creation. Within the myth, the diachronic (story of the past) and synchronic (explanation of the present or future) aspects were usually combined, but at the same time, mythological time, i.e. early (sacred), and current, subsequent (profane) time were sharply demarcated. A mythological event is separated from the present moment by a large time interval and embodies not just the past, but a special time of first creation, first objects and first actions. Everything that happened in mythical time acquires the meaning of a paradigm and a precedent, that is, a model for subsequent reproduction. Thus, modeling turns out to be a specific function of myth. If a scientific generalization is built on the basis of logical procedures, movement from the concrete to the abstract and from causes to consequences, then the mythological generalization operates with the concrete and personal, taken as a sign. The hierarchy of causes and consequences corresponds to hypostatization, a hierarchy of mythological creatures that has semantic and value significance. What appears in scientific analysis as one or another type of relationship, in mythology looks like identity, division into parts. The content of the myth seemed real to the primitive consciousness in the highest sense, since it embodied the collective, “reliable” experience of understanding life by many previous generations, which served as a subject of faith, not criticism. Myths approved the system of values ​​​​accepted in a given society, sanctioned and supported certain norms of behavior.

The mythological attitude to the world was expressed not only in stories, but also in actions (rites, dances, etc.). Myth and ritual in archaic cultures constituted a known (worldview, functional, structural), representing, as it were, two aspects of primitive culture - verbal and effective, “theoretical” and “practical”. Even in the early stages of development, mythology is combined with religious and mystical rituals and becomes an essential part of religious beliefs. Being an undivided, synthetic unity, mythology included the beginnings of not only religion, but also philosophy, political theories, various forms of art, which complicates the task of delimiting mythology and forms of verbal creativity close to it in genre and time of origin: fairy tales, heroic epics, legends , historical legend. The mythological basis can also be traced in the later, “classical” epic. Literature is connected with mythology through fairy tales and heroic epics.

After the final separation from mythology, various forms of social consciousness continued to use myth as their “language,” expanding and reinterpreting mythological symbols. In the 20th century, for example, there was a conscious appeal to the mythology of writers of various directions: in the works of J. Joyce, F. Kafka, T. Mann, G. Marquez, J. Giraudoux, J. Cocteau, J. Anouilh and others. both rethinking of various mythological traditions and direct “mythologizing”.

Some features of mythological thinking are preserved in the mass consciousness along with elements of philosophical and scientific knowledge, strict scientific logic. Under certain conditions mass consciousness can serve as soil for the spread of “social” (“political”) myth. Thus, German Nazism revived and used ancient German pagan mythology and at the same time itself created various myths - racial, etc. In general, however, mythology as a stage of social consciousness has historically outlived its usefulness.

STUDYING MYTHOLOGY. Attempts at a rational approach to mythology were made back in Antiquity, and the allegorical interpretation of myths predominated (among the Sophists, Stoics, Pythagoreans). Plato contrasted mythology in the popular understanding with its philosophical and symbolic interpretation. Euhemerus (4th-3rd centuries BC) saw in mythical images the deification of real historical figures, laying the foundation for the “euhemeric” interpretation of myths, which was widespread later. Medieval Christian theologians discredited ancient mythology; interest in it was revived among the humanists of the Renaissance, who saw in myths the expression of the feelings and passions of a liberated and self-aware individual.

The emergence of comparative mythology was associated with the discovery of America and acquaintance with the culture of the American Indians (J. F. Lafiteau). In Vico’s philosophy, which potentially contained almost all subsequent directions in the study of mythology, the originality of the “divine poetry” of myth is associated with special forms of thinking (comparable to the psychology of a child), which are characterized by concreteness, corporeality, emotionality, anthropomorphization of the world and its constituent elements. Figures of the French Enlightenment (B. Fontenelle, Voltaire, Diderot, Montesquieu, etc.) viewed mythology as superstition, a product of ignorance and deception. The transitional stage from the Enlightenment view to the romantic one was formed by the concept of Herder, who interpreted mythology as the poetic wealth and wisdom of the people. Romanticism, completed by Schelling, interpreted mythology as a phenomenon occupying an intermediate position between nature and art. The main meaning of the romantic philosophy of myth was to replace the allegorical interpretation with a symbolic one.

In the 2nd half of the 19th century. Two main schools of mythological studies opposed each other. The first of them was based on the achievements of comparative historical linguistics and developed the linguistic concept of myth (A. Kuhn, V. Schwartz, W. Manhardt, M. Muller, F. I. Buslaev, A. N. Afanasyev, A. A. Potebnya and etc.). According to Müller’s views, primitive man denoted abstract concepts through concrete signs using metaphorical epithets, and when the original meaning of the latter was forgotten or obscured, a myth arose due to semantic shifts (interpretation of myth as a “disease of the language”). Subsequently

This concept was recognized as untenable, but the experience of using language to reconstruct myth itself was very productive. The second school - anthropological, or evolutionist - emerged in Great Britain as a result of the first scientific steps of comparative ethnography. Mythology was raised to animism, that is, to the idea of ​​the soul that arises in the “savage” from thoughts about death, dreams, illnesses, and was identified with a kind of primitive science; With the development of culture, mythology becomes nothing more than a relic, losing its independent meaning. A serious rethinking of this theory was proposed by J. Fraser, who interpreted the myth not as a conscious attempt to explain the surrounding world, but as a cast of a magical ritual. Fraser's ritualistic concept was developed by the Cambridge school of classical philology (D. Harrison, F. Cornford, A. Cook, G. Murray), and in the 1930s-40s. the ritualistic school took a dominant position (S. Hook, T. Hester, E. James, etc.), but its extremes caused fair criticism (K. Kluckhohn, W. Bascom, W. Greenway, J. Fontenrose, C. Levi-Strauss ). The English ethnographer B. Malinovsky laid the foundation for the functional school in ethnology, attributing to myth primarily the practical functions of maintaining tradition and the continuity of tribal culture. Representatives of the French sociological school (E. Durkheim, L. Lévy-Bruhl) paid attention to the modeling in mythology of the characteristics of the clan organization. Subsequently, the study of mythology shifted to the area of ​​specific mythological thinking. Lévy Bruhl considered primitive thinking to be “pre-logical,” that is, thinking in which collective ideas serve as an object of faith and are imperative in nature. He attributed to the “mechanisms” of mythological thinking non-compliance with the logical law of the excluded middle (objects can be both themselves and something else at the same time), the law of participation (mystical involvement of a totemic group and any object, phenomenon), heterogeneity of space, qualitative character ideas about time, etc.

The symbolic theory of myth, developed by E. Cassirer, deepened the understanding of the intellectual originality of myth as an autonomous symbolic form of culture that models the world in a special way. The works of W. Wundt emphasized the role of affective states and dreams in the genesis of myth. This line of interpretation was continued by Z. Freud and his followers, who saw in myth the expression of unconscious mental complexes. According to the point of view of C. G. Jung, various manifestations of human fantasy (myth, poetry, dreams) are associated with collective subconscious myth-like symbols - the so-called. archetypes. These primary images of collective fantasy act as “categories” that organize external representations. Jung also showed a tendency towards excessive psychologization of myth and expansion of its understanding to a product of the imagination in general. Lévi-Strauss's structuralist theory of myth, without denying the concreteness and metaphorical nature of mythological thinking, at the same time affirmed its ability to generalize, classify and logically analyze; The structural method was used to clarify these procedures. Levi-Strauss saw in myth a tool for resolving fundamental contradictions through mediation - replacing the fundamental opposition with softer opposites.

IN Russian science The study of mythology proceeded mainly along two channels: the work of ethnographers and the research of philologists - mainly “classics”, as well as semiotic linguists who turned to mythology when developing problems of semantics. The main object of study by ethnographers (works by V. G. Bogoraz, L. Ya. Steinberg, A. M. Zolotarev, S. A. Tokarev, A. F. Anisimov, B. I. Sharevskaya, etc.) is the relationship between mythology and religion , as well as reflection in religious myths of industrial practices and social organization. And F. Losev noted the coincidence in myth of the general idea and the sensory image, the inseparability of the ideal and the material. In the 1920-30s. In the works of I.M. Troysky, I.I. Tolstoy and others, problems of ancient mythology in relation to folklore were developed. M. M. Bakhtin showed that folk carnival (ancient and medieval) culture served as an intermediate link between ritual primitive culture and fiction. The core of the research of structuralist linguists V.V. Ivanov and V.I. Toporov are experiments in the reconstruction of ancient Balto-Slavic and Indo-European mythological semantics using modern semiotics. Semiotics methods are used in the works of E. M. Meletinskoto on the general theory of myth.

Lit.: LangE. Mythology, trans. from French M., 1903; Vuidt V. Myth and religion, trans. with him. St. Petersburg, 1913; Freud 3. Totem and taboo, trans. with him. M.-P., 1923; Lévy-BruhlL. Primitive thinking, trans. from French M., 1930; Losev A.F. Ancient mythology in its historical development. M., 1957; Tokarev S. A. What is mythology? - In the collection: Questions of the history of religion and atheism, vol. 10. M., 1962; Zolotarev A. M. Tribal system and primitive mythology. M., 1964; Cassidy F. X. From myth to logos. M., 1972; Ivanov V.V., Toporov V.N. Research in the field of Slavic antiquities. M., 1974; Meletinsky E. M. Poetics of myth. M., 1976; Station-Kamensky M. I. Myth. L., 1976; Freidenberg O. M. Myth and literature of antiquity. M., 1980; Myths of the peoples of the world, vol. 1-2. M., anthropology. M., 1985; Golosovker Ya.E. The logic of myth. M., 1987; Hubcher K. The Truth of Myth. M., 1996; CashierE. Philosophie der symbolischen Formen, Bd. 2 - Das mythische Denken. B., 1925; CampbeliJ. The Masks of God, v. 1-4. N.Y., 1959-68; EliadeM. Aspects du mythe. P., 1963; Lévi-Strauss S. Mythologiques, vol. 1-4. P., 1964-71; Kirk G. S. Myth, its meaning and functions in ancient and other cultures. Cambn-Berk.-Los Ang., 1970.

- (Greek, from mythos fable, myth, and logos word). Fabulous tales about pagan gods and heroes. Dictionary of foreign words included in the Russian language. Chudinov A.N., 1910. MYTHOLOGY Greek. mythologia, from mythos, fable, myth, and logos, word.… … Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language