When and how did myths appear? Myths and legends about the creation of the world

The Slavs had several legends about the creation of the world:

The legend of the deity Rod

In another legend, there is a story that at the very beginning there was the god Rod is the progenitor of all living and existing, which was enclosed in an egg and lived in impenetrable darkness. He gave birth to Love - the goddess Lada, and by her power destroyed the bonds of his dungeon. And so the light appeared, the world, which was filled with primordial, pure and bright love.

Having appeared in the world, Rod created the heavens and the heavenly kingdom, then the earthly firmament, separating the waters of the ocean and the sky. After that, he divided Light and Darkness among themselves, gave birth to mother earth, immersing her in dark waters Ocean. The face of the deity is the Sun, and the Moon is his chest, the stars are his eyes, and the morning dawn is his eyebrows. The dark night is a reflection of all the thoughts of Rod, and the wind is his violent breathing, snow and rain are a tear that rolled down from his eyes, and lightning is the personification of voice and anger.

Legends about how man appeared

Slavic myth about the creation of the world also concludes the legend of how man appeared on earth. The chronicles and legends of the ancient Magi tell their own version of the creation of the earth and man - it differs from the usual one for many Bible story about how the first man Adam and his wife Eve appeared on earth.

According to the myths of the ancient Slavs, God steamed in a bath, and when he sweated, he wiped himself with a rag, throwing it on the ground. After that, God and Satan argued among themselves about who should create a man out of it. After long disputes, Satan made a body out of it, and already God breathed a soul into this empty vessel - and a man appeared. That is why, after death, the human body goes deep into the earth, and the soul ascends to heaven.

In addition, the myths of the peoples of the world and Slavic myths are also based on the story of the creation of a man and a woman on earth from an egg. God, cutting the eggs in half, threw them on the earth's firmament. It was from them that people came out, men and women - they found their soul mate and got married, formed a single whole, some drowned in the swamp and therefore the spouses, not finding them, lived all their lives alone, without their couple.

Creation of the animal kingdom

According to the myths of our ancestors, both God and the Devil took an active part in the process of creating all living things. This is what the ancient legend says about the appearance of a dog - it was God who created it from the remnant of clay, which went to create the first of people. At the very beginning, the animal was completely naked and had no hair - the watchman of the first of the people created by God, she simply froze and, curled up in a ball, fell asleep.

Quietly sneaking up to the first people, the Devil began to spit on them. God, seeing all this, began to reproach the animal, to which the dog replied that she simply froze and asked for wool to become a reliable watchman. But according to another version, it was the Devil who covered the dog with hair, asking in return for the opportunity to approach the person.

Sergey Neklyudov, a specialist in the field of folklore typology, talks about whether there are myths common to the whole world, what is the connection between the offspring of the junk dealer Khaim and the ancestor of Genghis Khan, and what does all this have to do with the physiology of the brain

Three Ways to Explain Text Similarities

In the sciences of the philological cycle and, in particular, in folklore, it is generally accepted that there are three ways to explain the similarities between oral texts. The first is genetic: the presence of a common ancestor in similar phenomena. It is usually applied to traditions that are linguistically related: say, when they talk about Indo-European mythology, they mean common features that are found in the mythologies of Indian, Iranian, Greek, Germanic, Slavic, and so on.

The second way is through borrowing, cultural diffusion, interchange of oral texts in conditions of cultural and linguistic bilingualism. When a storyteller knows Buryat and Russian equally well, for example, he calmly tells Buryat tales in Russian, and Russian tales in Buryat, as a result of which works from one tradition are transferred to another. Sometimes there are areas with stable bilingualism or multilingualism, in which different traditions fused together, as happens in the Balkans or the North Caucasus. So, with all the complexities of interethnic relations in this region, Nart epic(tales about the heroes of the distant epic past) equally belongs to the oral traditions of various North Caucasian peoples.

The third way is typological. Speaking of typology, we usually have one of two things in mind: either close, identical plots or motifs have developed due to the same circumstances, or there are so many reasons for explaining the similarities that it is almost impossible to take them into account in full, and typology simply turns out to be such a basket into which all coincidences that are inexplicable through a common ancestor or borrowing are swept away.

There is no generally accepted way for folklorists to determine which of these three explanations works in any particular case. The most difficult thing is when all three factors act simultaneously: similar texts are found among closely related peoples, who, moreover, are in contact with each other and live in approximately the same conditions, that is, there is both a genetic and typological commonality, and cultural interchange. For example, some Russian-Ukrainian-Belarusian folklore parallels have a similar character.

Fourth way

After the works of Yuri Berezkin, who studies the distribution of folklore plots and motifs on the world map in order to establish the routes and chronology of the primary settlement of people on earth, a fourth should be added to these three options for explaining the similarity of texts: some convergences are the result of these migration processes, folklore and mythological traces stay of ancient populations in certain places. This can also work vice versa: not to explain the similarity of myths through information about ancient migrations, but to substantiate the routes of people's movements with the help of information about similar texts.

To establish borrowing or kinship, non-trivial signs are usually needed - a kind of "tagged atoms" of tradition: names, titles, unique details, and the like.

Are there myths that are common to the whole world?

The question of the typology of folklore is closely connected with the problem of cultural universals. Are there universals in folklore? Main argument anti-universalists: there is not a single myth that would be represented by all peoples. This argument should be recognized as completely fair, but only if the original concepts - "myth" and "universality" are left intact, and also elements that are very common, but too general and in a sense trivial (such as the masculine nature of the sky and the feminine nature of land - these representations are found almost all over the world).

Universalists and anti-universalists, entering into an argument, are actually arguing about different entities. If the former rather talk about extremely elementary or extremely generalized schemes (therefore, they often appeal to Jungian archetypes), then the latter turn to mythological plots and motifs themselves, quite specific (even genre-conditioned) and more related to ethno-regional and ethno-cultural specifics. In other words, the more elementary the narrative element, the greater the chance of finding mutually independent similarities.

Why typology is possible

Universality, apparently, should be sought not so much at the level folk motif how much in its broader logical-semantic generalizations (such as “a character swallowed by a certain creature, alive and unharmed, comes out of its womb”) or, on the contrary, in its elementary semantic components, such as some of the simplest images of cosmo- and anthropogonic myths: unfinished the world (the world in an embryonic form, a deserted world), the primary objects (a mountain, a pond, a tree), an unfinished person (a workpiece man, his embryonic form is an egg, a lump, a sliver, and so on).

Universality in folklore does not mean that this or that motive/plot will be presented in all world cultures. Rather, this motif/plot will turn out to be so widespread that we will not be surprised if we find its analogue in another tradition (of course, taking into account their semantic contexts).

However, I would not dismiss the assumption that there are some simple units of meaning to which human thought periodically returns throughout its intellectual history. According to this concept, there is a certain finite set of universal concepts, which means that it is possible “to establish a final set of universal atoms of meaning (“the alphabet of human thoughts,” in the words of linguist Anna Vezhbitskaya).

How typology works: text-generating models

The Mongols have a myth about how a certain light-brown man appears to a widowed woman through the chimney of a yurt, strokes her womb, and his light penetrates into her womb. The woman is pregnant and gives birth to a boy, an ancestor of Genghis Khan. This story is recorded in one of the oldest Mongolian texts (XIII century), then it is repeatedly, up to the XVII century, repeated in Turkic sources. In a later record, the creature that descended to the woman and conceived a child with her turns out to be her dead husband.

There is an Odessa song from the 1920s about the “everyone respected” junk dealer Khaim, whose “young wife brought children every year”:

That brings twins
That brings triplets
That brings a whole platoon at once.
<…>
Often in friendly conversation
The neighbors tell him:
“Haim, you close the shop!”
We are hungry,
Poor Chaim died,
And I had to bury him.
Ray's wife
wife is young,
The children continued to bring.
People look at this miracle:
“Children come from where?
It can be seen, Chaim from the other world
This continues.
Chaim, you close the shop!”

If we discard genre specifics, everyday surroundings, ironic intonation and leave a pure plot, we will see that we have the same story: dead husband comes to his wife, and from this connection children will be born.

That's not all. Analyzing the life of Ida of Boulogne, mother of Gottfried of Bouillon, the first defender of the Holy Sepulcher, and Baudouin, king of Jerusalem, the French historian Georges Duby notes some significant points in the text. Also in adolescence this lady had a vision: when she was sleeping, the sun descended from heaven, a moment dwelt in her bosom. Having become a widow, she went to a monastery, but her childbearing continued, only "in spiritual sense”: her wealth went to “bearing” new sons, “monks in Christ.” “After the death of her mortal husband, she was known to have united with her immortal husband a life of chastity and not wanting a new marriage.” Thus, the hagiographic rhetoric of the author of the life unintentionally draws the same plot, already familiar to us.

It could be assumed that all three stories have a common mythological source, which sprouted both in Odessa and in France,
and in Central Asia. However, it is worth recalling that in the genealogy of the “golden family” of Genghis Khan, the luminous heavenly lover turns out to be the deceased husband of the widowed foremother only at the very late stage. plot development, in the Turkic version of the legend of the 17th century, and therefore, this most important link in the story is not related to its source. In addition, in the biography of Ida of Boulogne this plot arises solely due to a combination of metaphors of religious rhetoric (“to unite with an immortal spouse”, “monks like children”, etc.), that is, synthetically, due to semantic attractions - unless, of course, we count the motive of Danae (light descending into the female womb) common with the ancient Mongolian tradition. In other words, these three cases cannot in any way be different realizations of some primary myth. Here we are dealing with the addition of the same plots from completely different material according to a common model. At some point, the process of logical-semiotic transformations is launched, turning the Mongolian heavenly deity into the spirit of the deceased husband, and the everyday joke about the walking widow into a playful song about Khaim, who continues to visit his wife from the other world, and so on. Here is the realm of typology, not of historical continuity and not of cultural exchange.

How typology works: elementary units

If textualization models are located a level higher than specific plots, then elementary semantic units(let's call them semes). Each of them has valences that determine the prospects for generating plots through the addition of the following semes. For example, the seme “The Flood” is not yet a plot, but it has a valence that allows it to attach the seme “universal destruction”, which, in turn, attaches the seme “the salvation of the few”, and the plot scenario is already being built: “The Flood - universal destruction is the salvation of the few.” IN in a certain sense the seme “flood” as it were “knows” not only the nearest seme (“universal destruction”), but also the prospects for subsequent additions (“salvation of the few”, etc.) - thus, a whole semantic chain is highlighted, which, apparently , and forms the basis of the text-generating model. Actually, it is precisely this (a set of logical-semantic models, on the one hand, and a dictionary of semes with their valences, on the other) that, in my opinion, should be made the object of typological research, which in this way can acquire a more rigorous formal methodology.

Perspectives on typological research

It is typological studies that allow us to turn from archaic forms to the phenomenon of modern mythology, which is quite understandable from the point of view of the theory of universal mythological models. This can be seen at least in the example of the song about Chaim.

Undoubtedly, typological studies should lead us beyond the limits of philology. A year and a half ago, I participated in the conference “Memory in Biological, Socio-Humanitarian and Technical Systems”: some speakers talked about the physiology of the brain, others about artificial intelligence, and I was among those who spoke about cultural memory. And listening to other people's speeches, I once again thought about the wall that separates some sciences from others. Of course, a step from cultural semantics to brain physiology, to psychophysiology will someday have to be made, but this, apparently, will not happen in the near future. Or perhaps it will be a step towards the ethological studies of Konrad Lorenz, who, by studying the symbolic actions of animals, came closer to our problems than other anthropologists.

Too much of human behavior is rooted in the prehuman past; one is taken aback when one compares, for example, jousting tournaments and rivalry between males in the animal kingdom. Another thing is that the whole complex of animal rituals is semantically extremely poor and does not explain in any way the diversity of human practices and their functional-semantic meanings. In addition, “animals do not have symbols that are traditionally passed down from generation to generation. In general, if you want to give a definition of an animal that would separate it from a person, then it is precisely here that the boundary should be drawn ”(Lorenz). Only learning makes it possible for the emergence and development of cultural tradition.

Sergey Neklyudov- Russian folklorist, the largest specialist in the semiotics of folklore. Studied under Eleazar Meletinsky, participated a lot in the work of Tartu summer schools together with Yuri Lotman. He did field research on Mongolian folklore and wrote two dissertations about it. Neklyudov is also the founder of the tradition of studying contemporary folklore in Russia: being himself a bearer of the tradition of urban song, he studied it a lot as a specialist. 

Almost everyone knows the myth of the minotaur. We all read legends and myths in childhood. Ancient Greece. In the late 80s of the last century, the encyclopedic two-volume "Myths of the Peoples of the World" was published, which immediately became a bibliographic rarity.
The legend of the minotaur begins with the misdeed of the king of the island of Crete, Minos. Instead of offering a sacrifice to the god Poseidon (a bull was intended as a sacrifice), he left the bull to himself. Enraged, Poseidon bewitched the wife of Minos, and she committed a terrible adultery with a bull. From this connection, a terrible half-bull, half-man, called the Minotaur, was born.
How did this myth come about?

The concept of "myth" ancient Greek origin and can be translated as "word", "story". These are ancient legends before the beginning of time, and folk wisdom, and the energy of the cosmos, which flows into human culture.
But "myth" is different from ordinary word by the fact that it contains the truth "possessing the power of the divine logos", but which is difficult to grasp (as the ancient philosopher Empedocles said).

Myth is the most ancient form transfer of knowledge. It cannot be taken literally, only allegorically - as encrypted knowledge hidden in symbols.

Mythology is the foundation of the culture of every nation. Myths existed among the ancient Greeks, Indians, Chinese, Germans, Iranians, Africans, inhabitants of America, Australia and Oceania.
Myths existed not just in stories, but in chants (hymns - like the ancient Indian Vedas), in relics, in traditions, rituals. Ritual is the original form of myth.

Myths are the most ancient form of “philosophical” reflection of a person, an attempt to understand where the world came from, what is the role of a person in it, what is the meaning of his life. Only myth gives an answer about the meaning of human life in terms of history and metaphysical terms.

Previously, people lived, as it were, in two worlds: mythical and real, and there was no insurmountable barrier between them, the worlds were nearby and were permeable.

According to the formula of the French scientist Lucien Levy-Bruhl: "the ancient man participates in the events of the surrounding world, and does not oppose himself to it."

The Swedish mystic Emmanuel Swedenborg believed that ancient world the universal first man contained the memory of the deepest intuition of the unity of man and God.

In myths, the idea that a person is potentially immortal sounds.
Mythological thought does not know dead matter; it sees the whole world as animated.
In the Egyptian "Pyramid Texts" there are such lines: "When the sky had not yet arisen, when people had not yet arisen, when the gods had not yet arisen, when death had not yet arisen ..."

famous connoisseur ancient mythology Academician A.F. Losev, in his monograph "The Dialectics of Myth", recognized that myth is not an invention, but an extremely practical and urgent necessary category of consciousness and being.

What was the ancient man most afraid of? Defiling yourself! This meant to spoil the world created by the gods. Therefore, it was necessary to observe prohibitions (taboos) - developed through a long process of trial and error.

The French researcher Roland Barthes emphasized that a myth is a system that simultaneously designates and informs, inspires and prescribes, and is motivating. According to Barthes, the "naturalization" of the concept is the main function of the myth.
Myth is a "persuasive word"!

Ancient people believed myths unconditionally. The myths indicated what should be.
Doctor historical sciences M.F. Albedil in the book “In the magic circle of myths” writes: “Myths were not treated as fiction or fantastic nonsense.”
No one asked the question of the authorship of the myth - who composed it. It was believed that myths were told to people by their ancestors, and to those by the gods. And this means that myths contain original revelations, and people had only to keep them in the memory of generations, without trying to change or invent something new.

Myths accumulated the experience and knowledge of many generations. Myths were something like an encyclopedia of life: in them one could find answers to all the main questions of life. The myths told about ancient period in the history of mankind, which existed before the beginning of all time.

Professor of the Faculty of Philosophy of St. Petersburg state university Roman Svetlov believes that “an archaic myth is a “theophany of truth”! Myth does not “construct”, but reveals the ontological structure of the Cosmos!
Myth is an image (cast) primary Knowledge. Mythology is the comprehension of this primordial Knowledge.

There are different myths: 1 \ "cosmogonic" - about the origin of the world; "eschatological" - about the end of the world, 3 \ "calendar myth" - about the cyclical nature of the life of nature; and others.

Cosmogonic myths (about the creation of the world) exist in almost every culture. Moreover, they arose in cultures that did not communicate (!) With each other. The similarity of these myths so impressed the researchers that this myth was given the name "Prince Charming with a myriad of different faces."

IN primitive culture myths are the equivalent of science, a kind of encyclopedia of knowledge. Art, literature, religion, political ideology - all of them are based on myths, contain a myth, because they originated from mythology.

A myth in literature is a story that conveys people's ideas about the world, man's place in it, about the origin of all things, about gods and heroes.

How did the myth of the minotaur originate?
The architect Daedalus, who escaped from Greece (from Athens), built the famous labyrinth, in which the Minotaur, the bull-man, was settled. Athens, which was guilty before the Cretan king, in order to avoid war, had to supply every year 7 boys and 7 girls to feed the Minotaur. Girls and boys from Athens were taken away by a mourning ship with black sails.
One day Greek hero Theseus, the son of the ruler of Athens Aegeus, asked his father about this ship and, having learned the terrible reason for the black sails, set out to kill the Minotaur. Having asked his father to let him go instead of one of the young men intended for feeding, he agreed with him that if he defeats the monster, then the sails on the ship will be white, if not, then they will remain black.

In Crete, before going to dinner with the Minotaur, Theseus charmed the daughter of Minos Ariadne. The girl who fell in love before entering the labyrinth gave Theseus a ball of thread, which he unwound as he moved deeper and deeper into the labyrinth. In a terrible battle, the hero defeated the monster, and returned along the thread of Ariadne to the exit. On the way back, he set off already with Ariadne.

However, Ariadne was to become the wife of one of the gods, and Theseus was not part of their plans at all. Dionysius, namely, Ariadne was to become his wife, demanded from Theseus that he leave her. But Theseus was stubborn and did not listen. Angered, the gods sent a curse on him, which made him forget about the promise he had made to his father, and he forgot to replace the black sails with white ones.
The father, seeing a galley with black sails, rushed into the sea, which was called the Aegean.

Ancient myths have come down to us in a form revised by historians and writers.
Aeschylus created the tragedy "Persians" on a plot from current history, turning history itself into a myth.

Some believe that myths, fairy tales and legends are one and the same. But it's not.
Myth is one of the forms of comprehension of primordial-Knowledge. Literature can become the comprehension of primordial-Knowledge if, like a myth, one approaches the Source of Revelation. Real creativity is not an essay, but a presentation!

But for contemporary writers characteristic is not worship of myths, but a free attitude towards them, often supplemented by one's own fantasizing. So the myth of Odysseus (King of Ithaca) turns into "Ullis" Joyce.

It is in myths that scientists and artists draw inspiration. Sigmund Freud, in his teaching on psychoanalysis, used the myth of Oedipus Rex, calling the phenomenon he discovered the "Oedipus complex".
Composer Richard Wagner successfully used ancient Germanic myths in his cycle of operas Der Ring des Nibelungen.

When I visited Crete, I visited the Palace of Knossos. This outstanding monument Cretan architecture is located 5 km from Heraklion (the capital), among the vineyards on the hill of Kefala. I was amazed at its size. The area of ​​the palace is 25 hectares. This labyrinth known from mythology had 1100 rooms.

The Palace of Knossos is a complex conglomeration of hundreds of different rooms. It seemed to the Achaean Greeks a building from which it was impossible to find a way out. The word "labyrinth" has since become synonymous with a room with a complex system of rooms and corridors.

The ritual weapon that adorned the Palace was a double-sided axe. It was used for sacrifices and symbolized the dying and rebirth of the moon. This ax was called Labrys (Labyris), which is why the illiterate mainland Greeks formed the name - Labyrinth.

The Palace of Knossos was built over several centuries in the 2nd millennium BC. It had no analogues in Europe for the next 1500 years.
The palace was the seat of the rulers of Knossos and all of Crete. The ceremonial premises of the palace consisted of large and small "throne" halls and rooms for religious purposes. The alleged female part of the palace contained a reception room, bathrooms, a treasury, and various other rooms.
A wide sewer network of clay pipes of large and small diameters was laid in the palace, serving the pools, bathrooms and latrines.

It is hard to imagine how people were able to build such a huge palace city, in some places with five floors. And it was equipped with sewerage, running water, everything was lit and ventilated, and it was protected from earthquakes. Storerooms, a theater for ritual performances, temples, guard posts, halls for receiving guests, workshops, and the chambers of Minos himself were placed in the palace.

Architectural style The palace of Knossos is truly unique, despite the fact that it contains elements of both Egyptian and ancient Greek architecture. The columns, which received the name "irrational" in art history, were peculiar. From top to bottom, they did not expand, as in the buildings of other ancient peoples, but narrowed.

During excavations in the palace, more than 2 thousand clay tablets with various records were found. The walls of the chambers of Minos were covered with numerous colorful images. The sophistication of the line of the profile of a young woman on one of the frescoes, the grace of her hairstyle, reminded archaeologists of fashionable and flirtatious French women. And that's why she was called "Parisian", and this name has remained with her until now.

Excavations and partial reconstruction of the palace were carried out at the beginning of the 20th century. under the direction of the English archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans. Evans believed that the palace was destroyed in 1700 BC. the explosion of the Fera volcano on the island of Santorini and the subsequent earthquake and flood. But he was wrong. Cypress beams, laid between the huge stones of the walls of the Palace of Knossos, extinguished the trembling of the earthquake; the palace survived and lasted for about 70 years, after which it was destroyed by fire.

Evans has been criticized by some for restoring the details of the palace in his own way, letting his imagination run wild. In place of a pile of stones and several floors that were preserved, but covered with earth, courtyards and chambers reappeared, newly painted columns, restored porticos, restored frescoes - the so-called "remake".

Modern methods of research are gradually destroying beautiful fairy tale Evans. Mr. Wunderlich, who conducts research at the intersection of geology and archeology, believes that the Palace of Knossos was not the residence of the Cretan kings, but a huge burial complex like Egyptian pyramids.

But where did the minotaur come from - this bull-man?
I am sure that the myth is based real story. Now it is not known for certain how bulls started in Crete. One can guess that they came to Crete along with a wave of immigrants from the Middle Eastern civilization, who built palaces on Crete.
But why should the Cretans, who did not live by agriculture at all, but maritime trade, worship bulls?
They invented the god of the sea, dubbed him Poseidon, and dressed him in the image of this same bull.

The ritual of the worship of Poseidon in the form of a bull was arranged with the elegance characteristic of Crete, and was reminiscent of "dances with a bull." Young dancers were recruited from mainland Greece. But not at all in order to kill the bull (as is done in the Spanish bullfight), but in order to play with the bull. Unarmed, well-trained dancers jumped over the bull, deceiving him.
These young dancers were recruited to bring the culture of Crete to the Greek mainland. This is a proven historical fact!
But the mainland Greeks, who paid tribute to Crete, thus framed their dissatisfaction with the tribute paid into the myth of the "monster" Minotaur.

Or maybe they really dealt with the enemies like that in the Knossos palace, leaving them alone with the bull?

All our life we ​​are in captivity of myths. And even dying, we believe in the myth of immortality!
Myths, hopes, fairy tales, dreams... How to escape from illusions?
They distort the truth without even wanting to.
What motivates you to create a myth?

The consciousness of people is mythological. They love fairy tales and cannot stand the truth. And therefore it is dangerous to deprive people of the myths by which they have lived for a long time.
Having visited Israel in the places where Jesus of Nazareth was born, lived and preached, I was convinced that his life was turned into a myth. And someone is making good money on this myth.

As a child, I was brought up on myths about the heroes of the civil and great patriotic wars, and, of course, believed that this was the pure truth. But after perestroika, the truth came out. It turned out that Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was just an arsonist of peasant houses where the Germans spent the night; the feat of Alexander Matrosov was not accomplished by Alexander Matrosov; and Pavka Korchagin did not build a narrow-gauge railway, because such a railway did not exist in nature.
The myth of armed uprising and capture Winter Palace was created later in the film "October". Eisenstein's masterpiece "Battleship Potemkin" is also a myth. There were no worms in the meat, there was a well-prepared rebellion. And the execution on the stairs is the same invention of the brilliant Eisenstein, as well as a commemorative carriage with a child.

Today, the main laboratory of myth-making is cinema. In a recent show, "In the meantime," the question of how the art of cinema creates myths was discussed. Alexander Arkhangelsky believes that life with myths is no less significant than life with realities.
Doctor of Philosophy N.A. Pin believes that no state propaganda machine can create a myth that will dominate the consciousness of the masses. We now live in a post-ideological environment. This vacuum needs to be filled. But what? Creation of myths? People want to believe. But you can't believe. Today the private individual dominates. No myth will live on a private individual. Today, a person does not have ethical and semantic navigation. He doesn't know why he lives. We live in an era of market totalitarianism. When an idea turns into an ideology, it becomes official dogmatism. And it becomes a force when it grows in the consciousness of the masses.

Director Karen Shakhnazarov believes that the meaning of cinema is to create myths. Why was Soviet cinema capable of this? Because the country had an ideology. Ideology is the presence of an idea. Cinema without ideology cannot produce myths. No ideology - no idea - you can't create anything. To destroy one myth, you need to create another. In the Soviet Union there was an ideology, there was an idea, there was cinema. In modern Russia, we are experiencing a restoration. Restoration is an attempt to return to the pre-revolutionary state, to that ideology, which in essence has already disappeared. Restoration has always ended. There will be bold ideas that will capture the masses. Because humanity is what it was, and will remain so. There will be more revolutions, great upheavals. They will, even if we don't want to.

I AGREE with Karen Shakhnazarov - we went around in a circle, and again returned to the fork. We used to scold ideology, now we yearn for it. But at least there was an idea before. And now they've brought it all to a halt. Exchanged spirituality for dollars. Yes, the shops are full - but the souls are empty! No, before we were cleaner, naive, kinder, we believed in ideals that seemed false to someone.

After the destruction of the communist ideology, a new ideology of restored capitalism was required. There was an order from the authorities to create a Russian national idea. But nothing happened. Because ideas are not composed, but exist objectively, as Plato said.

national idea Russia has been known for a long time - YOU CAN SAVE ONLY TOGETHER!
But it is alien to the ideology of restored capitalism, where every man is for himself.
An idea that has no roots in reality and the hearts of people will not take root.

No one can reproach the communist idea for being false and fruitless. The successes of communist China prove that the idea of ​​communism is not fruitless, it is the future. Communism won in a single country. Unfortunately, not in Russia, but in China. It's time to learn Chinese...

Ancient myths and today's are not the same thing. ancient myth is a sacred message filled with metaphysical depth, in which knowledge about the world and its laws is encrypted (in modern terms, this is a metanarrative).
And today's "myths" are " bubble”, false images (simulacra), which have little in common with reality and its laws; their goal is to manipulate public consciousness.
Among modern "myths" one can name the "myth of freedom", "the myth of democracy", "the myth of progress" and others.

Historical myths ordered by politicians. Myth about bad Russia to Peter comes from Peter himself, as a justification for the reforms he is carrying out.

“History is a collection of myths! A complete hoax! She reminds me of a broken phone. We know only what has been rewritten repeatedly by others, and which can only be trusted. But why should I believe? What if they are wrong? Maybe things were different. We are looking for meaning in history, based on the facts known to us, but the emergence of new facts makes us take a fresh look at the pattern historical process. And what about the lies of historians, demagogy, misinformation?.. And these endless rewriting of history to please the rulers?.. It is already difficult to understand where is the truth and where is the lie...
But there is something eternal in man, which allows us today to represent the life of people of the distant past. If it were all about culture, then we would not be able to understand the ancient sages without knowing the peculiarities of their life. But it is thanks to sensual empathy that we understand them. And all because a person is essentially unchanged.
(from my true-life novel "The Wanderer" (mystery) on the site New Russian Literature)

Welcome to the new world - beautiful crazy illusory endless duality mythical world virtual reality!

P.S. Read my articles with videos: “Paradise is Crete”, “Visiting the Volcano”, “St. Irina of Santorini”, “Spinalonga: Hell in Paradise”, “Sunset on Santorini”, “City of St. Nicholas”, “Heraklion in Crete ”, “Elite Elounda”, “Tourist Mecca - Tyra”, “Oia - Swallow's Nest”, “Knossos Palace of the Minotaur”, “Santorini - Lost Atlantis”, and others.

© Nikolai Kofirin – New Russian Literature –

People have always sought to know how they appeared, where the human race originates from. Not knowing the answer to their question, they conjectured, composed legends. The myth of the origin of man exists in almost all religious beliefs.

But not only religion tried to find the answer to this age-old question. As science developed, it also joined the search for truth. But within the framework of this article, emphasis will be placed on the theory of the origin of man precisely on the basis of religious beliefs and mythology.

In Ancient Greece

Greek mythology is known all over the world, therefore it is with it that the article begins the consideration of myths that explain the origin of the world and man. According to the mythology of this people, Chaos was in the beginning.

Gods appeared from it: Chronos, personifying time, Gaia - the earth, Eros - the embodiment of love, Tartarus and Erebus - this is the abyss and darkness, respectively. The last deity born from Chaos was the goddess Nyukta, who symbolized the night.

Over time, these omnipotent beings give birth to other gods, take over the world. Later, they settled on the top of Mount Olympus, which from now on became their home.

The Greek myth of the origin of man is one of the most famous, as it is studied in the school curriculum.

Ancient Egypt

The civilization in the Nile Valley is one of the earliest, so their mythology is also very old. Of course, in their religious beliefs there was also a myth about the origin of people.

Here we can draw an analogy with the Greek myths already mentioned above. The Egyptians believed that in the beginning there was Chaos, in which Infinity, Darkness, Nothing and Nothingness reigned. These forces were very strong and sought to destroy everything, but the great eight acted in opposition to them, of which 4 had a male appearance with frog heads, and the other 4 had a female appearance with snake heads.

Subsequently, the destructive forces of Chaos were overcome, and the world was created.

Indian beliefs

In Hinduism, there are at least 5 versions of the origin of the world and man. According to the first version, the world arose from the sound Om, produced by Shiva's drum.

According to the second myth, the world and man appeared from an "egg" (brahmanda) that came from outer space. In the third version, there was a "primary heat" that gave birth to the world.

The fourth myth sounds rather bloodthirsty: the first man, whose name was Purusha, made a sacrifice of parts of his body to himself. Out of them came the rest of the people.

The latest version says that the world and man owe their origin to the breath of the god Maha-Vishnu. With every breath he takes, brahmandas (universes) appear in which the Brahmas reside.

Buddhism

In this religion, as such, there is no myth about the origin of people and the world. It is dominated by the idea of ​​the constant rebirth of the universe, which appears from the very beginning. This process is called the wheel of Samsara. Depending on the karma that a living being has, in the next life he may be reborn into a more highly developed one. For example, a person who has led a righteous life, in the next life will either again be a man, or a demigod, or even a god.

The one who has bad karma may not become a person at all, but be born as an animal or plant, and even an inanimate being. This is a kind of punishment for the fact that he lived a "bad" life.

About the very appearance of man and the whole world in Buddhism there is no explanation.

Viking beliefs

The Scandinavian myths about the origin of man are not so well known to modern people than the same Greek or Egyptian ones, but no less interesting. They believed that the universe emerged from the void (Ginugaga), and the rest material world arose from the torso of a bisexual giant named Ymir.

This giant was raised by the sacred cow Audumla. The stones that she licked to get salt became the basis for the appearance of the gods, among which was the main god of Scandinavian mythology, Odin.

Odin and his two brothers Vili and Ve killed Ymir, from whose body they created our world and man.

Old Slavic beliefs

As with most ancient polytheistic religions, Slavic mythology in the beginning, too, was Chaos. And in it lived the Mother of darkness and infinity, whose name was Swa. Once she wanted a child for herself and created from the embryo of her fiery son Svarog, and from the umbilical cord was the serpent is born Firth, who became a friend of her son.

Swa, to please Svarog, removed the old skin from the snake, waved her hands and created all living things from it. Man was created in the same way, but a soul was put into his body.

Judaism

It is the first monotheistic religion in the world, from which Christianity and Islam originate. Therefore, in all three creeds, the myth of the origin of people and the world is similar.

The Jews believe that the world was created by God. However, there are some discrepancies. Thus, some believe that the sky was created from the radiance of his clothes, the earth from the snow under his throne, which he threw into the water.

Others believe that God wove several threads together: two (fire and snow) used to create his world, two more (fire and water) went to create the sky. Later, man was created.

Christianity

This religion is dominated by the idea of ​​the creation of the world from "nothing". God created the whole world with own strength. It took him 6 days to create the world, and on the seventh he rested.

In this myth, explaining the origin of the world and man, people appeared at the very end. Man was created by God in his own image and likeness, therefore it is people who are the "highest" beings on Earth.

And, of course, everyone knows about the first man Adam, who was created from clay. Then God made a woman out of his rib.

Islam

Despite the fact that the Muslim creed takes its roots from Judaism, where God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh, in Islam this myth is interpreted somewhat differently.

For Allah, there is no rest, he created the whole world and all living things in six days, but fatigue did not touch him at all.

Scientific theories of human origin

Today it is generally accepted that people appeared in the course of a long biological process of evolution. Darwin's theory states that man emerged from higher primates, so man and great apes in antiquity had a single ancestor.

Of course, in science there are also different hypotheses regarding the appearance of the world and people. For example, some scientists put forward a version according to which a person is the result of a merger of primates and alien aliens who visited the Earth in ancient times.

Even more daring hypotheses have begun to appear today. For example, there is a theory according to which our world is a virtual program, and everything that surrounds us, including people themselves, is part of computer game or a program used by more advanced beings.

However, such bold ideas without due factual and experimental confirmation are not much different from the myths about the origin of people.

Finally

In this article, various options for the origin of man were considered: myths and religions, versions and hypotheses based on scientific research. No one today can say with absolute certainty how it really was. Therefore, each person is free to choose which of the theories to believe.

Modern scientific world tends to the theory of Darwinists, since it has the largest and best evidence base, although it also has some inaccuracies and shortcomings.

Be that as it may, people strive to get to the bottom of the truth, so more and more hypotheses, evidence appear, experiments and observations are carried out. Perhaps in the future it will be possible to find the only correct answer.

According to some, the world was created by Allah, Yahweh, the One God - whatever you call it, but we owe our lives to him. Not big bang, not to natural cosmic processes, but to a creature that, according to , looks like Alanis Morisette. But this was not always the case, once every nation offered its own version of the creation of life with the participation of sweat, masturbating gods and other heresy.

Scandinavians

According to the Scandinavians, in the beginning there was a void with complicated name Ginungagap. Next to the void, as it should be, was the frozen world of darkness Niflheim, and in the south lay the fiery hot land of Muspellheim. And that's where elementary physics comes in. Some ancient Scandinavian, noticing that hoarfrost appears from the contact of ice and fire, ventured to suggest that from such a neighborhood the world's emptiness was gradually filled with poisonous hoarfrost. What happens when poisonous frost melts? He usually transforms into evil giants. The same thing happened here, and an evil giant was formed from the hoarfrost, whose name gives off Muslim notes. In other words, Ymir. He was asexual, but since this, according to James Brown, " Man's world”, then we will refer to him as a man.

There was nothing to do in this emptiness, and, tired of hanging in the air, Ymir fell asleep. And here the most delicious begins. Considering that there is nothing more intimate than sweat (meaning secondary urine, not the Cambodian dictator), they came up with the idea that the sweat dripping from under his armpits turned into a man and a woman, from whom the family of giants later went. And the sweat dripping from his feet gave birth to Trudgelmir, a giant with six heads. This is the story of the emergence of giantism. Yes, and with a twist.

And the ice continued to melt, and, realizing that they needed something to eat, they invented a cow with the beautiful name Audumlu, which arose from melt water. Ymir began to drink her milk, and she liked to lick the salty ice. Having licked off the ice, she found a man under it, his name was Buri, the progenitor of all gods. How did he get there? This fantasy was not enough.

Buri had a son, Boryo, who married the frost giantess Bestla, and they had three sons: Odin, Vili, and Ve. The sons of the Storm hated Ymir and killed him. The reason is purely noble: Ymir was evil. So much blood flowed from the body of the murdered Ymir that she drowned all the giants, except for Bergelmir, the grandson of Ymir, and his wife. They managed to escape the flood in a boat made from a tree trunk. Where did the tree come from in the void? Do you really care! Found it and that's it.

Then the brothers decided to create something that the world has never seen before. Your own universe with a dragon and the Vikings. Odin and his brothers brought Ymir's body to the center of Ginungagapa and created a world out of it. They threw the flesh into the blood - and the earth became. Blood, respectively, by the ocean. The skull turned into the sky, and the brain was scattered across the sky, and clouds turned out. So the next time you're on a plane, catch yourself thinking you're in a giant's skull on huge bird slicing giant brains.

The gods ignored only the part in which the giants lived. It was called Jotunheim. The best part of this world they fenced off Ymir for centuries and settled people there, calling it Midgard.
Finally, the gods created humans. From two woody knots, a man and a woman, Ask and Embla (which is typical), turned out. All other people are descended from them.

The latter built the impregnable fortress Asgard, which rose high above Midgard. These two parts were connected by the Bifrost rainbow bridge. Among the gods, the patrons of people, there were 12 gods and 14 goddesses (they were called "ases"), as well as a whole company of other smaller deities (vans). All this host of gods crossed the rainbow bridge and settled in Asgard.
Above this layered world grew the ash tree Yggdrasil. Its roots sprouted in Asgard, Jotunheim and Niflheim. An eagle and a hawk sat on the branches of Yggdrasil, a squirrel rushed up and down the trunk, deer lived at the roots, and below all sat the serpent Nidhogg, who wanted to eat everything.

This is the beginning of one of the most wonderful world mythologies. Reading "Elder" and "Younger" Edd will not make you regret the time spent for a second.

Slavs

Let's turn to our ancestors, as well as to the ancestors of Poles, Ukrainians, Czechs and others Slavic peoples. There was no one specific myth, there were several of them, and not one of them is approved by the ROC.

There is a version that it all started with the god Rod. Before I was born White light, the world was shrouded pitch darkness. In this darkness there was only Rod - the Progenitor of all things. When asked what was before - an egg or a chicken, the Slavs would answer that the egg, because the Rod was enclosed in it. Sitting in an egg was not very good, and somehow magically, some, to the best of their licentiousness, understood how, Rod gave birth to love, which, ironically, he called Lada, and destroyed the dungeon with the power of love. Thus began the creation of the world. The world is filled with Love.

At the beginning of the creation of the world, Rod gave birth to the kingdom of heaven, and under it created the heavenly. With a rainbow he cut the umbilical cord, and with a stone firmament he separated the Ocean from the heavenly waters. Then there were household trifles like the separation of Light and Darkness. Then the god Rod gave birth to the Earth, and the Earth plunged into a dark abyss, into the Ocean. Then the Sun came out of His face, the Moon out of His chest, the stars of heaven out of His eyes. Clear dawns emerged from Rod's eyebrows, dark nights- from His thoughts, violent winds - from His breath, rain, snow and hail - from His tears. Thunder and lightning is nothing but his voice. Actually, Rod is all living things, the father of all gods and all things.

Rod gave birth to the heavenly Svarog, and breathed into him his mighty spirit, and gave him the ability to look in all directions at the same time, which is very useful today, so that nothing hides from him. It is Svarog who is responsible for the change of day and night and for the creation of the Earth. He forces a gray duck to get the land hidden under the ocean. There were no more deserving ones.

At first, the duck did not appear for a year, could not get the Earth, then again Svarog sent her for the Earth, she did not appear for two years and did not bring it again. For the third time, Rod could not stand it anymore, freaked out, struck the duck with lightning and gave it freaky strength, and the shocked duck was absent for three years until it brought a handful of earth in its beak. Svarog crushed the Earth - the winds blew the Earth from his palm, and it fell into the blue sea. The Sun warmed it, the Earth baked on top with a crust, the Moon cooled it. He approved in it three vaults - three underworld kingdoms. And so that the Earth would not go back to the Ocean, Rod gave birth to a powerful snake Yusha under it.

It was generally accepted among the Carpathian Slavs that there was nothing but the blue sea and oak. How they got there is not specified. Two positive doves were sitting on an oak tree, who decided to take out fine sand from the bottom of the sea in order to create black earth, “jelly water and green grass” and a golden stone from which the blue sky, the sun, the moon and all the stars are made.

As far as the creation of man is concerned, no natural selection, of course, was not. The Magi said the following. God washed in the bath and sweated, wiped himself with a cloth and threw it from heaven to earth. And Satan argued with God, which of her to create a man. And the devil created man, and God put his soul into him, because when a man dies, his body goes to the ground, and his soul goes to God.

The ancient legend about the creation of people is also found among the Slavs, in which it was not without eggs. God, cutting the eggs into halves, threw them on the ground. Here, from one half a man was obtained, and from the other - a woman. Men and women, formed from the halves of one egg, find each other and marry. Some halves fell into the swamp and died there. Therefore, some people are forced to spend their whole lives alone.

China

The Chinese have their own ideas about how the world came into being. by the most popular myth can be called the myth of Pan-gu, a giant man. The plot is as follows: at the dawn of time, Heaven and Earth were so close to each other that they merged into a single black mass. According to legend, this mass was nothing more than an egg, which was a symbol of life in almost every nation. And Pan-gu lived inside it, and he lived for a long time - many millions of years. But one day he got tired of such a life, and, waving a heavy ax, Pan-gu got out of his egg, splitting it into two parts. These parts later became Heaven and Earth. He was unimaginably tall - about fifty kilometers long, which, by the standards of the ancient Chinese, was the distance between Heaven and Earth.

Unfortunately for Pan-gu, and fortunately for us, Colossus was a mortal and, like all mortals, he died. And then Pan-gu decomposed. But not the way we do it. Pan-gu was decomposing really cool: his voice turned into thunder, his skin and bones became the firmament of the earth, and his head became Cosmos. So, his death gave life to our world.

Ancient Armenia

Armenian legends are very similar to Slavic ones. True, the Armenians do not have a clear answer to how the world happened, but there is an interesting explanation of how it works.

Heaven and Earth are husband and wife separated by the ocean. The sky is a city, and the Earth is a piece of rock, which is held on its huge horns by an equally huge bull. When he shakes his horns, the earth is bursting at the seams with earthquakes. That, in fact, is all - this is how the Armenians imagined the Earth.

There is also an alternative myth where the Earth is in the middle of the sea, and Leviathan swims around it, trying to grab onto its own tail, and constant earthquakes were also explained by its flopping. When Leviathan finally bites his own tail, life on Earth will end and the apocalypse will come. Have a nice day.

Egypt

The Egyptians have several myths about the creation of the earth, and one is more striking than the other. But this one is the original. Thanks to the cosmogony of Heliopolis for such details.

In the beginning there was a great ocean whose name was "Nu", and this ocean was Chaos, and there was nothing else besides it. It wasn't until Atum, by an effort of will and thought, created himself out of this Chaos. And you complain about the lack of motivation ... But then - more and more interesting. So, he created himself, now it was necessary to create the earth in the ocean. Which he did. Having wandered around the earth and realizing his total loneliness, Atum became unbearably bored, and he decided to make more gods. How? He climbed up the hill and began to do his dirty work, desperately masturbating.

Thus Shu and Tefnut were born from the seed of Atum. But, apparently, he overdid it, and the newborn gods were lost in the ocean of Chaos. Atum grieved, but soon, to his relief, he nevertheless found and regained his children. He was so happy about the reunion that he wept for a long, long time, and his tears, touching the earth, fertilized it - and people grew out of the earth, many people! Then, while people were fertilizing each other, Shu and Tefnut also had coitus, and they gave birth to other gods - Geb and Nut, who became the personification of the Earth and sky.

There is another myth in which Atum replaces Ra, but this does not change the main essence - there, too, everyone fertilizes each other en masse.