ЕЛЕУСИНСКЕ МИСТЕРИЈЕ: МИТСКИ НАРАТИВ У АГРАРНОЈ КУЛТУРИ
THE ELEUSIS MYSTERIES: MYTHICAL NARRATIVE IN AGRARIAN CULTURE

Summary/Abstract: The Eleusinian mysteries as a cult of fertility deities are part of the inherited pre-Hellenic agrarian rituals and annual agrarian calendar. In the Homeric Hymn to Demeter it is said that during the winter months Persephone with Hades resides underground as a planted seed, and during the spring and summer months, she comes to the surface in the form of fruits and sprouted grains. The old pre-Hellenic and local chtonic deities of nature, vegetation and fertility (preserved in Orfic poems) were incorporated into the system of heavenly (solar) Hellenic deities through the story of Persephoneʼs abduction, the Demeter’s search for her daughter and the final reconciliation of the two principles, female (pre-Hellenic and sedentary) and male (Hellenic and nomad) by the help and authority of the supreme Olympian deity, Zeus. In the holy marriage of Persephone and Hades/Pluto, as a harmonizing element and social contract needed for reconciliation, the settlers and the foreigners celebrating the deities involved, integrated them into the Greek pantheon. The peoples in return gaind knowledge of land cultivation as a civilizational and technological progress, but they later on they also developed another socio-cultural dimension, hope for eternal life and salvation (only for those initiated into the mysteries), regardless of their social and economic status, ethnic and gender affiliation.

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