ПРЕДАНИЯТА ЗА ИНДЖЕ - МИТ, ИСТОРИЯ, ФОЛКЛОР
THE LEGENDS ABOUT INDZE - MYTH, HISTORY, FOLKLORE

Summary/Abstract: The paper traces some of the mechanisms underlying the processes of mythologization of the actual historical personality in folkloric history. The problem of the historicism in legends and folk songs (on the evidence of the folk song cycle about Indze Voyvoda) is considered from two aspects: (1) Coincidence or discrepancy with actual events; (2) The problem of time in folklore. The paper presents a parallel rendering of actual historical events (on the basis of documentary source material) and their variants in folklore. The main conclusion ensuing from this comparison is: mythical relation (secondary, tertiary, etc. myth), immanently present in the human consciousness, irrespective of the stage of historical development, is particularly intensified during periods of political decline. The historical personality permeates into the ready mythological structures and starts acting following the laws of mythical relations. The character — the culture hero — is related to history only in the sense of a historical necessity: the popular consciousness mythologizes it in accordance with the needs and the orientation of the concrete historical moment. The problem of time in folklore is examined from three points of view: (1) Equivalence of "once upon a time" and "now"; (2) Mandatory adherence to the epic distance; (3) Interdependence of the cyclicity (time in a circle) and the sacral numbers. Finally, the idea of the parallel existence of three types of consciousness - mythical, folkloric and logical - at every stage of the historical development is pointed out. Folkloric convention plays the mediating role among them.

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