Ликантропията у ранните славяни: от „вълко-мечката” на индоевропейската (балто-славянската?) древност до върколака в българския фолклор и вълковия в българската топонимия

Резюме:

The study of the Slavic peoples’ folklore-mythological antiquity dating back to the Early Middle Ages, and more precisely, the study of the role in it of the so called lycanthropy, is the main topic of the research. In the first part of the research, the difficulties in linguistic analysis of the lexeme *vьlkо-d(ь)lakъ are presented. The supposition of Al. Brükner, Vjac. Vs. Ivanov and other authors (I would call it the “Brükner – Ivanov hypothesis”), according to which the lexeme means ‘wolf-bear’, is put on the focus of the first part of the research. In regard to these questions, the origin of the Russian word vurdalak, introduced by Pushkin, is elucidated not as a direct loan-word from South Slavic or respectively Greek source, but as a Pushkin’s borrowing from Byron’s works. The opinion of the Iranian origin of Byron- Pushkin word vurdalak is rejected. In the second part of the research, the question if the reconstructed meaning ‘wolfbear’ of the etymon * vьlkо-d(ь)lakъhas for Denotat the hybrid wolf-bear mythological creature, is analysed. The Vjac. Vs. Ivanov’s arguments for this supposition, namely, first, the Hittite data about ‘wolf-men’ and ‘bear-man’, and, second, the data of Constantinus Porphyrogenetus about the ‘Gothic dance’ during the Byzantine New Year rituals, eventually interpreted as a social duality’s marker, both are valued as not being sure evidence. Nevertheless, Marina Valentsova’s critique on the “Brükner – Ivanov hypothesis” is accepted as not completely undisputed. In the third part of the research, in regard to the hypothetic image of the mythological wolf-bear, the data about the Slavic lycanthropy are discussed. Its earlier evidence is presented by two cases. First, the Herodotus’ information about the mythical people of Neuroi, in connection with which the etymologies of this ethnonym, presented it as a denomination of an age-set male society, are analysed. Second, the information of Pseudo- Cesarius about the Slavic lycanthropy, as well as some later data. The contamination of the data about the lycanthropy and about arktos-anthropy, which to some extent can be used as a proof of the “Brükner – Ivanov hypothesis”, is also discussed. The text of T. Narbutas concerning the Neuroi is presented briefly, including in regard to the fact, that the Bulgarian Revival functionary Lyuben Karavelov knew this Polish-Lithuanian historian. In the fourth part of the research, a special attention is payd to the question if the mythological wolf-bear was known to the ancient Thracians – both as a mythological idea and as a lexeme. The data we dispose with for a reconstruction of the supposed Thracian denomination of the bear are not suffisient. Two possibilities are discussed. First, the possibility that the Thracians used as a denomination for the bear a lexeme close to the Celtic word for bear and respectively to the Greco-Anatolian theonym Artemis. Second, the possibility that the Thracians used for denomination of the bear a lexeme, very close to the Bulgarian lexeme for bear, мечка, which is a Substrate word according to one supposition. However, the both possibilities exclude the Substrate character of the Bulgarian word varkolak. In the fifth part of the research a new analysis of an oikonym, relatively frequent in the Bulgarian ethnolinguistic area, Valkoviya, is proposed. This oikonym is according to the opinion of Phedon Malingoudis a secure proof of the South Slavic lycanthropy. This common Slavic oikonym has been examined on the base of the reactualization of some ideas of the Polish linguist Jan Otrębski. It is accepted that this oikonym is not a compound word, but a suffixal formation. In the last part of the research, the insufficient researched questions in the study of Slavic lycanthropy, are outlined. The importance of their future study, including in regard to the further elucidation of the State formation processes in the Early Medieval Slavic societies, is also outlined.

Ключови думи:

Изтегляне