BESTIARIUM OF THE ABKHAZIAN NART EPIС: TOKENS OF DEMONIC CREATURES

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to survey the signs of demonic (zoomorphic and zooanthropomorphic) images of the Nart epos of the Abkhazians – the main opponents of epic heroes in their functional and semantic aspects.

The relevance of the topic of the article is due primarily to the fact that the study of anthropomorphic images of the Nart epos is incomplete without the study of images of animals that appear simultaneously with epic heroes together and in conjunction with them as assistants or opponents. In addition, the fauna of the Nart epos of the peoples of the Caucasus has not yet been adequately studied in any of its versions. At the same time, the images of demonic characters of the epos were covered in a number of works by researchers.

The article is written on the basis of the principles of functional direction in folklore, combining textual, descriptive, structural-typological and structural-semantic research methods, which provide opportunities for revealing a number of characteristic features, mythological semantics of images of demonic characters.

The category of demonic characters of the Abkhazian Nart epos is first of all dragons (abkh. agyylshap) and giants (abkh. adauy), in the form of which human and animal features are combined. They are widely represented both in the Nart epos and fairy tales of Abkhazians, and in the folklore of other peoples of the Caucasus. All the characters of the Abkhazian Nart epos (both zoomorphic and zooanthropomorphic creatures) are more or less characterized by snake imagery. Signs that are characteristic of one or other of the characters have ambivalence, they are in many ways intertwined, synonymous, interdependent, enveloped in a ball of similar associations.

During the analysis of epic texts, it turned out that the characters considered inhabit a “different”, “otherworldly” locus, whose attributes are very close or similar. And this space symbolizes the boundary of the opposite worlds (like an abyss, a forest, a cave, a river, a mountain, etc.). The signs and functions of these characters, which can reflect the ethnic specifics of the Abkhazian Nart tales, are also very similar (for example: multihead, shaggy, frightening appearance, one-eyed / many-eyed, etc.). All these images mark the epic heroes themselves, with which they collide in different plots and motifs.

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