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The Ethnology Notebooks. 2024. № 4 (178), 955—972

UDK [738:[398:113.2]](=161.2)

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2024.04.955

CREATION OF THE WORLD FROM CLAY IN COSMOHONICAL LEGENDS OF UKRAINIANS, AND THEIR SOURCES

RAKHNO Kostyantyn

  • ORCID ID:  https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0973-3919
  • Doctor of History, Associate Professor,
  • Leading Researcher of the National Museum
  • of Ukrainian Pottery in Opishne,
  • 02, Partyzanska Street, 38164, Opishne, Zinkiv District,
  • Poltava Region, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: e-mail: krakhno@ukr.net

Abstract. The cosmogonic ideas of the Ukrainians and other Slavs can be reconstructed based on numerous texts that existed in different forms: as independent mythological plots and as the beginning of great folklore epics. These texts tell about the events in which the world was created, that is, about the establishment of a cosmic structure instead of the original chaos. One of the first links in the cosmogonic chain was occupied by the earth. In Ukrainian folklore, the raw material was usually clay (rarely sand), and the creative act of higher forces was constantly compared to the work of a potter. The purpose of this article is to investigate the origins of the Ukrainian versions of the dualistic cosmogonic narrative and their connections with the stories of other Slavic peoples. The object of the study is the Ukrainian reflexes of Indo-European mythology preserved in cosmogonic legends. According to Ukrainian folk beliefs, many of which have analogies in ancient myths and medieval dualistic legends, the earth and sky were created by God with the active assistance of the Devil, his companion, from clay extracted from the seabed. At the same time, the substance for creation always brings the Devil. Such options are very archaic, because they consider the Devil, the inhabitant of the chthonic bottom, as an almost equal partner of God in the process of creating the world and can give them both certain pre-Christian characteristics. These are the heirs of the pagan Belobog and Chernobog. The methodological basis of the research is the structuralist methodological toolkit.

The basis of the work is folklore materials that show the antiquity of cosmogonic ideas of Ukrainians, close, in particular, to similar ideas of the southern Slavs. The results of the research are that they highlight the antiquity of Ukrainian cosmogonic legends, their commonality with ancient Iranian and Indo-Aryan myths, including the Vedic ones, together with the motif of diving for clay to the bottom of the primordial sea. In Ukrainian folklore, as among the South Slavs, the creation of the world was viewed through the prism of pottery. This was due to the high status of the potter and pottery in the traditional culture of these peoples.

Keywords: cosmogonic myths, cosmogonic legends, clay, pottery, pottery, Indo-Aryan mythology, Iranian mythology, Slavic mythology.

Received 29.07.2024

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