Психоаналітичне підґрунтя образів чорта та домовика в міфології Закарпаття.

Abstract

Psychoanalytical basis of the images of a devil and a domovyk (brownie) in mythology of Transcarpathia An obsession with evil powers in myths, fairy tales and folk beliefs metaphorically reflects the images of various demons. Thus, a person personifies his/her evil desires, feelings and deeds in the image of a devil. In such a way metaphoric splitting of person’s interior happens. Evil “oversteps the bound” of person’s Ego, it is understood as dark alter-ego and becomes a personification of an archetype of negative Shadow. According to folk beliefs of Ukrainians a devil has different appearance, but it always has a visible atavism, a defect – something which is borrowed from an animal. Ugly appearance vividly reflects inner ugliness. In the Apocrypha, hell is a place where devils live, but in accordance with the folk beliefs, old mills, abandoned houses, ruins, caves are devils’ favourite places. That is devils like places without civilized influence, which are separated from normal life and became a personification of a chaos. In some old stories and legends you can find devils which have features of mythological tricksters: they like to entertain, they have a sense of humor and at the same time they are very cruel. Archetypical character of a devil is enhanced by its “diversity”, its ability to put on masks which metaphorically reflect the ideas about versatility of an evil, about its individual personification in a soul of each person. According to the folk views, a devil roams around the world as a lord, a miller, a coachman or a peasant. Primitive instincts of people and their unconscious desire to permissiveness and overcoming of some moral-ethic norms are personified in the images of devils. Similarity between the image of a domovyk (brownie) and a notion of dark deity is traced in this article. Unlike a devil, a domovyk has no zoomorphic features (a hoof, a bird’s claw or a tail), it does not look dangerous, it is like a small man or an old man with the height of ten years old boy. Such ideas about a domovyk metaphorically prove that evil cannot be underestimated. A domovyk is ambivalent image: it makes its host’s dreams come true, make him/her happy for a certain time and then it want to get payment (a soul of its host). With regard to psychoanalysis, a certain person’s obsession with one of the models of a behavior can be projected to the image of a domovyk, because it needs some work to do. Lack of work and food causes demonstration of demonic nature of a domovyk – it wants to kill its “host”. Those folk beliefs reflect fatality of a person’s obsession with an evil: if a host makes an agreement with a domovyk (metaphorically – he chose egocentric, destructive model of a behavior) it would be difficult to get rid of it. Destruction of human soul by an inner evil and an aggression is represented as a murder of a host by his/her angry domovyk in folk stories. Therefore, the ideas about a devil and a domovyk appeared as a result of people’s desire to overstep the bounds of their abilities and norms of public morality and potentially realize the possible scenario of their own lives. The images of these demons are the results of metaphoric separation and personification of an inner evil and an aggression of people which is accumulated on the level of unconscious. Hence, the archetype of negative Shadow is projected to the images of a devil and a domovyk and it gives the opportunity to watch the fight between good and evil in a person’s soul from the perspective of mythological stories.