The Miracle World of Epic Space in Folklore Cover Image

Чудесный мир эпического пространства в фольклоре
The Miracle World of Epic Space in Folklore

Author(s): Anna Żegało
Subject(s): Customs / Folklore, Semantics, Cultural Anthropology / Ethnology
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu w Białymstoku
Keywords: folklore; epic epos; semantic transformations;

Summary/Abstract: The article is devoted to studying of semantic transformations in the traditional national culture whose character directly depends on this or that folklore genre. The following types of transformations are singled out: hermetic semantics is presented as semantics of the closed type, transformation of the text occurs inside this tradition and can’t be influenced by factors from outside. The semantic “oscillatory outline” assumes such transformation of the initial text that transcends the limits of one given tradition and more often is explained by the change of the previous historical cultural paradigm into a new one or by coexistence of both paradigms. Transformation up to inversion: the transformation of a name is connected with a change of cultural and religious traditions, transformation of convergence of roles of characters, etc. On the example of the motive of a miracle it is shown that the most suitable definition to transformational processes occurring in the epic epos is the semantic “oscillatory contour”: the mythological layer with pagan treatment of a miracle is basic in contents of bylinas, but gradually national epos submits to the influence of Christian culture, as a result of this changes in semantics begin.

  • Issue Year: 2012
  • Issue No: 12
  • Page Range: 171-186
  • Page Count: 16
  • Language: Russian