Вампирът в криво огледало: Зомби
The Vampire in a Distorting Mirror: A Zombie

Summary/Abstract: “The Vampire in a Distorting Mirror: A Zombie” presents a comparison of two demonological characters of the traditional culture of peoples very far apart geographically, like the Balkan Slavs, on the one hand, and the Africans from Haiti, on the other. The vampire, as a European cultural phenomenon, and the zombie, as a Western African mythological character, can be compared along several lines: first, as personifications of dead people who come to life again, in the religious ideas of Slavs and Africans; second, as personages regulating the rules in the ritual practices of Slavs and Africans; third, as bio- and psychopathological phenomena in the social life of Slavs and Africans; fourth , as individual examples of the political history of Slavs and Africans; and fifth, as elements of the present-day mass culture of the global society where they are antagonists of equal rights of one of the new superheroes – the Batman. The study describes the cultural and historical differences between a vampire and a zombie. However, it also proves the implicit similarities in the religious ways of thinking of Slavs and Americans of African stock.

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