PARALLELS IN THE INDO-IRANIAN AND OLD SLAVIC MYTHOLOGICAL MODELLING OF THE WORLD (A SOLAR ASPECT)

Abstract

The purpose of the article is to present a comprehensive study results on the parallels of the solar aspect formation of the world mythological modelling among the Indo-Iranian peoples and the ancient Slavs as an inherently ambivalent worldview phenomenon. The pre-Christian beliefs image of the Slavs became an inseparable component of the folk dualism system and is manifested in calendar to this day, funeral, wedding poetry and rituals, in sacred and socio-cultural terminology of modern Ukraine population. This study aims at elucidating the world solar model formation and place in the pre-Christian beliefs of the Slavs. The methodology of the research is based on the principles of historicism, objectivity and comprehensiveness in combination with the use of general scientific methods – analysis, synthesis, abstraction. The specificity of the research topic and sources used led to an interdisciplinary application of such methods as historical, comparative linguistics, structural anthropology, comparative mythology, ethnographic analogy, as well as semiotic and hermeneutic. Culture reception as a secondary modelling system, in which its individual components are fragments of a cultural text consisting of separate codes that express their meaning only in a context of reading within a text and interaction with other texts, led to the use of the above-mentioned methods. Owing to the use of these methods, it was possible to trace the mythological ideas formation evolution, to carry out the analysis of social, religious, ritual terms, to elucidate a primary meaning of funeral rites elements, and, finally, to reconstruct a solar model of the world mythological structure among the ancient Indo-Iranians and the Slavs. The above-mentioned reconstruction is of a metaphysical nature, the basis of which is the myth and its ritual derivatives interpretation. At the same time, the authors, represented the ethno-historical issues, and following K. Ivanhorodskyi’s admonition, they tried to be as careful as possible in their conclusions, “because the past is an insidious advisor for a modern image vision”, (Ivanhorodskyi, 2018: 149), in spite of the fact that a modern postmodern interpretation of a human being considers him/her as a product of all previous eras. The scientific novelty of the research consists in singling out a solar model of a mythological space structure among the ancient Indo-Iranians and the Slavs, which was of an utmost importance in the context of the basic “law” implementation in both ethno-cultural traditions. The Conclusion. Thus, it should be stated that the image of the sun, which is presented in its various manifestations, was one of significant, and perhaps the most crucial model of the universe, in both the Indo-Iranian and the ancient Slavic mythological systems, in which the basic “law” of both ethno- and socio-cultural formations was implemented, that was expressed with the help of complementary cultural symbols. On the one hand, such closeness of the Indo-Iranian and Slavic ideas regarding the world modelling during the pre-Christian period was due to a more or less common Indo-European mythological heritage, and on the other hand, to a long-term proximity of the Slavs and their ancestors to various Iranian-speaking peoples during the period between 3000 BC – 10th century AD, in connection with which a number of solar gods from Indo-Iranian etymology emerged in the Slavic pantheon: Svaroh, Dazhbog, Khors, Veles, Perun.

Key words: Indo-Iranians, mythology, world model, funeral rites, Slavs, solar symbolism, tradition.