"Poetic views of the Slavs on nature", A. Afanasyev: quotes and analysis

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

The fundamental research "Poetic views of the Slavs on nature" belongs to the famous scientist, folklorist and collector of fairy tales Alexander Nikolaevich Afanasiev. The three-volume work is devoted to the analysis of the folklore and philology of the language of the Slavs in comparison with the folklore sources of other Indo-European peoples.

Let's open the door to the world of this book and, following the scientist, we will learn the secrets of the Slavs' perception of nature, its poetic reflection in the images of mythology.

Non-random author

The famous storyteller and folklorist A. N. Afanasiev was born on July 11, 1826 in the county town of Boguchar, in the south of the Voronezh province. After graduating from the gymnasium, he entered the law faculty of Moscow University in 1844. In addition to the obligatory lectures on jurisprudence and jurisprudence, he attended lectures on history, folklore, and linguistics. These additionaloccupations and influenced the further choice of professional activity. Influenced by the works of the linguist Buslaev, he begins to study the rituals and myths of the ancient Slavs.

As a student, in 1847 he published in the journal Sovremennik an article "State economy under Peter the Great", which played a fatal role in the life of the future scientist. The article seemed too free-thinking to the Minister of Education, and Afanasiev was deprived of the right to teach. Therefore, upon graduation, he was sent to the Moscow Archives, where he served for more than 13 years.

It was the time of the formation of a new approach to the study of myths in science, and for Afanasiev - the most fruitful and defining stage of becoming a scientist. He writes works and studies on the history of the culture of the ancient Slavs: "Grandfather brownie", "Vedun and Witch", "Religious and pagan significance of the Slav's hut" and many others, including the famous "Pagan legends about the island of Buyan".

All works written during this period will later be included in the scientific work "Poetic views of the Slavs on nature", crowning the scientific activity of A. Afanasyev.

This book has become not only a valuable, deep and systematic study, but also turned into a source of inspiration for artists, poets, writers.

A living study of the word, its origins, forced Alexei Tolstoy, Sergei Yesenin, Ivan Bunin, Maxim Gorky to turn to it …. Why? This question will be answered by the author of the book himself.

A. N. Afanasiev,"Poetic view of the Slavs on nature", quote:

Rich and, one might say, the only source of various mythical ideas is the living human word, with its metaphorical and consonant expressions.

History of the creation of the book

From 1855 to 1859, Afanasiev publishes "Folk Russian Tales" and the collection "Folk Russian Legends", books in which the scientist analyzes and comprehends the elemental nature of folk art.

This is what was written in the preface to the first edition:

The purpose of this publication is to explain the similarities of fairy tales and legends among different peoples, point out their scientific and poetic significance and present examples of Russian folk tales.

The next publication of the book "Russian cherished fairy tales" caused a scandal and was banned by censorship along with a book about legends. For this publication, Afanasyev was accused in 1862 of anti-religiousness and the dangers of research (at the same time, the connection with Herzen was recalled), in connection with which the scientist was forbidden to be in the public service.

Despite such a dramatic development of his creative biography, the indefatigable scientist continues his research and combines all the collected material of previous research into the fundamental work "Poetic Views of the Slavs on Nature".

Based on the collected material, Afanasiev built a theory of the emergence of Slavic myths, ways to study them, and also drew parallels between historical and linguistic rootsbeliefs of other peoples of the world.

Plastic mythology

According to the author, myths undergo changes in their semantic content during their existence, which are associated with a number of circumstances. There are several reasons for this.

"Poetic views of the Slavs on nature" (Afanasiev) and analysis of the development of myths:

1. Crushing the myth on the basis that phenomena in nature become the basis for their mythologization, the invention of metaphorical tales. But the forms of images could be retained in the people's memory in different ways: in some segments of the population, some deities evoked sympathy, in other regions, other legends were retained. There was a fragmentation of the myth, its partial extinction, oblivion based on household or geographical differences.
2. Loss of the original meaning of the myth. The poetic imagery of folk oral art drew inspiration from the elements that surrounded man, but over time, the origins of the metaphorical language were lost or forgotten, the gods increasingly acquired human features. So, thunderous battles are replaced by human wars, the gods descend to earth, turning into shepherds and blacksmiths, forging heavenly lightning. Then they completely turned into heroes - people endowed with divine traits of courage, strength, foresight. On the basis of this, myth and history merged. Mythology acquired historical features, binding to dates and events in people's lives.
3. Canonization and generalization. The spiritual development of peoples and the strengthening of the state led to the fact that myths, taken as evidence of lifegods, were literary processed according to the laws and logic of the current time, brought into chronological order, and then into the doctrine of the origin of the world, its development and the life of the gods. Everything doubtful and inexplicable was removed, a canon was formed with a hierarchical order of the gods, with the lord at the head. New ideas in the life of society, the acquisition of new knowledge by people polish myths, spiritualizing them, endowing them with new properties of the former rulers-gods. So, for example, cloud maidens become prophetic and wise fortune tellers who endow mortals with the gifts of foresight, poetic inspiration, creative creativity, etc.

Poetic views of the Slavs on nature, quotes:

From these mythical foundations, a number of legendary tales were created…

Poetics of the sun and transformations in nature

In the 19th century, there was a turning point in the methodology of studying the mythology of the Slavs, a tradition was formed for a new reading of myths from the standpoint of "nature-mythology", that is, a fundamentally new one was that the basis of mythology is the attempts of peoples to explain natural phenomena.

A. N. Afanasiev not only shared these views, but also founded the so-called solar-meteorological school for the study of Slavic myths. In his book, he repeatedly emphasizes and gives examples of the fact that myth is the most ancient poetry, filled with metaphorical and figurative perception of the world and natural phenomena.

The collective poet and creator of mythology was the people who created both language and myths.

Thanks to the presented quote by Afanasiev, from the "Poetic Views of the Slavs on Nature" one can understand how the scientist characterizes the meaning of the word in the creation of myths:

To this day, in our regional dialects and in the monuments of oral folk literature, one can hear that imagery of expressions, which shows that for a commoner a word is not always only a sign pointing to a well-known concept, but that at the same time it paints the most characteristic shades of the subject and the bright, pictorial features of the phenomenon.

Alexander Afanasiev and his work "Poetic views of the Slavs on nature"

Thinking about the poetics of the word, the author gets the deep meanings of words, many of which have now disappeared forever or changed beyond recognition. Accordingly, the mythological roots of tales and legends also underwent changes.

• quick - fragile soil of the earth in a swamp;
• run - running water;
• lei (from the verb to pour) - heavy rains;
• hay - fine but continuous rain;
• listoder - autumn wind;
• creep - a snowstorm that creeps low on the ground;
• odran - skinny horse;
• lizun - cow tongue;
• chicken - hawk;
• karkoon - raven;
• holodyanka - frog;
• ponura - pig;
• outcast - an evil person;
• babble - dog;
• babble - language;
• zhivulechka - a child.

All these old ideas, expressed in words, tell about the imagery and perception of the surrounding world by our Slav ancestors, their idea of objects, pictures of nature, which became a source of information. In this context, nature is the most lively and visible participant in the life of peoples.

Slavic mythology - a documented history of the poetry of the people

Three volume editions of original scientific research, built on fairy tales, legends, myths and stories, are divided into three global channels of study.

1. The first volume tells the reader about the direct identification of the animal world with natural phenomena. Here are legends about Slavic gods of different hierarchies, tales about living and dead water, about the existence of self-swallowing wolves instead of the usual tales involving the Gray Wolf. The reader will get acquainted with the Pig-gold bristle, which in ancient times was the keeper, a kind of amulet of the house, a symbol of well-being; with the dream of the ancient Slavs to conquer the skies with the help of flying ships.
2. The author devoted the second volume to unusually exciting stories about the history of the emergence of Buyana Island, about the mysteries of divination, about the role of brownies in daily help to people. The second volume also contains many stories about treasures, giants and dwarfs, orchards with rejuvenating apples and love tales about kidnapping.beauties.
3. The third volume of Afanasiev "Poetic views of the Slavs on nature" is devoted to mystical myths and legends. Under the rustling of the pages, the reader will visit the most unusual worlds: among the cloudy swan maidens, learn about the baptism of cuckoos, evil hours. There are scary tales here about ghouls and werewolves, about sorcerers and their trials, about mermaids calling a person to another world of eternal peace and happiness.

Holidays and traditions, rituals and everyday life - all the curious reader will find in the third volume of the collection.

Meaning of the book

A characteristic feature of this fascinating collection is the fact that the author analyzes the information of myths and fairy tales from the point of view of their modification based on contemporary scientific research.

Arising "in heaven" under the influence of poetic images of light, darkness, rainbow, rain, sun or wind, good and evil elements descended to earth, penetrating into the human world in the form of evil dwarfs or witches, water and goblin. The images of natural elements in the popular consciousness took the most bizarre forms, telling about events in the surrounding world. Often legends tell about the struggle of people with all kinds of evil spirits.

When creating the book, Afanasiev studied the epic of various nationalities, the works of linguists and dialectologists, extracting material from folk tales, provincial press, in old manuscripts, etc.

A grandiose idea of applying a new methodology, a huge amount of material involvedwork "Poetic views of the Slavs on nature" in the category of encyclopedic and at the same time interesting literature for a wide range of readers.

The book is unique in its significance and contribution to the world science of folklore, it is considered unsurpassed in revealing living links between the development of the language and the history of legends; resurrects and explores the secrets of Russian thinking, chimerical fantasies and mysteries of the development of the Slavs.