Who is Viy? (3 photos). Slavic mythology: Viy Legends and myths about the Slavic God Viy

E. DMITRIEVA, historian

N.V. Gogol dedicated only fifteen lines to Viy in his story. But whoever has read them at least once in his life will never forget such a bright, unusual, impressive image. Perhaps one of the reasons here lies in the special mystery and incomprehensibility of Viy. How did this image come about, where did it come from? Who is Viy and what do we know about him?

This was recognized by the Slavs as an underground god, whose place was occupied by the ancient Pluto, the king of hell.
M.D. Chulkov. "Abevega of Russian superstitions"

The inhabitants of the world of the dead, spirits hostile to all living things, the dead were called navias in Ancient Russia.

The so-called Zbruch idol. It reflects the structure of the Universe according to the ideas of the ancient Slavs.

Image of Veles in the 12th century Dmitrovsky Cathedral (column console) in Vladimir.

The round dance is not just a folk dance, but a pagan rite of passage. Festivities. Lithograph of the workshop of Ivan Golyshev. Mstera. 1871 year.

Saint Blaise with herds of cattle and Saint Spyridonius. Novgorod icon of the 16th century.

Traces of pagan beliefs, in particular the cult of Veles, were traced in folk culture and folklore until the beginning of the 20th century. So, for example, grass, bushes, trees and other vegetation were called by the people "hair of the earth".

To begin with, we will quote Gogol: "- Bring Viy! Follow Viy! - the words of the dead man rang out.

And suddenly there was silence in the church; a wolf howl was heard in the distance, and soon heavy footsteps sounded across the church; glancing sideways, he saw that they were leading some squat, sturdy, club-footed man. He was all in the black earth. Like sinewy, strong roots, his legs and arms, covered with earth, stood out. He walked heavily, stumbling every minute, his long eyelids drooping to the ground. Khoma noticed with horror that his face was iron. They brought him under the arms and put him directly to the place where Khoma was standing.

Raise my eyelids: I don't see! - said Viy in an underground voice, - and the whole host rushed to raise his eyelids.

"Don't look!" - whispered some inner voice to the philosopher. He could not bear it and looked.

Here it is! - Viy shouted and stared at him with an iron finger. And everyone, no matter how it was, rushed at the philosopher. Lifeless, he crashed to the ground, and immediately the spirit flew out of him from fear. "

It is difficult to find in the works of Russian classics a character more impressive and mysterious than Gogol's Viy. Obviously referring to the heroes of folklore and fabulous, he also stands out among them for his special showiness and inexplicable, hidden power. "Viy is a colossal creation of the common people's imagination," Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol wrote in a footnote to his story. how to change it and tell it almost in the same simplicity as I heard it. " Considering that in 1835, when the story was written, Slavic folkloristics as a science was still in its infancy and we knew no more about our own mythology than, for example, about Chinese, then it is not surprising that Gogol did not give a more meaningful explanation of "chief" of the Little Russian "gnomes".

Today we can look into Viy's eyes without fear and tell about him everything that even his literary father did not know.

So, who is Viy? If, according to Gogol, he is a hero of folk legends, then his image should be found in the works of folklore. However, a fairytale hero with such a name does not exist. But where did the name itself come from - Viy? Let's turn to the dictionary. In the Ukrainian language, the name of the character of the Little Russian legends Viy comes, apparently, from the words "viya", "viyka" - an eyelash (and "poviko" - an eyelid). After all, the most memorable and characteristic feature of Viy is huge eyelids, so it is quite natural that his name came from them.

And although there is no Viy as such in Ukrainian, Belarusian, or Russian fairy tales, but quite often there are images that almost completely coincide with Gogol's description of Viy: stocky, hefty, and therefore strong, covered with earth, as if the devils got him out of dungeons. In the tale about Ivan Bykovich, recorded by the famous collector and researcher of Slavic folklore A.N. Afanasyev, it is said that after Ivan first defeated three multi-headed monsters on the Smorodina River, and then destroyed their wives, a certain witch, now losing her daughters and sons-in-law, dragged Ivan to the owner of the underworld, her husband:

"On you, he says, our destroyer!" - And in the fairy tale the same Viy appears before us, but in the underworld, at home:

"The old man lies on an iron bed, sees nothing: long eyelashes and thick eyebrows completely close his eyes. He called twelve mighty heroes and began to order them:

Take an iron pitchfork, raise my eyebrows and black eyelashes, I'll see what kind of bird he is that killed my sons. "

Both in Gogol and in the fairy tale recorded by Afanasyev, the presence of iron attributes is not surprising. Gogol's Viy has an iron face, an iron finger, the fairytale has an iron bed, an iron pitchfork. After all, iron ore is mined from the earth, which means that the lord of the underworld, Viy, was a kind of master and patron of the earth's interior and their riches. Apparently, therefore, N. V. Gogol ranks him among the European gnomes, keepers of underground treasures. For ancient people, at the time of the folding of Slavic mythology, iron, a strong metal, difficult to extract and difficult to process, indispensable in the economy, seemed to be the greatest value.

The fairytale hero Afanasyev with his long eyebrows and eyelashes is fully consistent with the appearance of Viy. However, in Slavic mythology, the presence of long eyebrows or eyelashes was apparently not necessary for the owner of the underworld. Its distinguishing feature is just long hair, and what it is, eyelashes, eyebrows or beard, is not important. It can be assumed that exorbitant eyelids are a later distortion of popular tradition. The main thing is not eyelids, but just long eyelashes, hair. One of the Belarusian fairy tales describes "Tsar Kokot, a beard about an elbow, seventy arshins an iron whip, a bag of seventy ox skins" - an image similar to the master of the underworld. Also known is the fabulous old man "Himself with a marigold, a beard with an elbow", the owner of exorbitant strength and a huge herd of bulls. In his service was a three-headed serpent, and he himself hid from the heroes pursuing him underground. But there is one among the Belarusian fairy tales where Koshchei, like Viyu, was lifted by a maid, "five poods each." This Koschey "as he looks at someone - so that one will not leave him, even though he will let go - all the same, everyone will come back to him."

This means that this is why you cannot look Viy in the eye, what will take him, drag him into the underground, into the world of the dead, which, in fact, happened to poor Khoma in Gogol's "Viy". This is probably why in Christian apocryphal legends Saint Kasyan was identified with Viy, who was considered by the people to be the embodiment of a leap year and the personification of all misfortunes. They thought that Kasian, like the master of the underworld, lived deep underground, in a cave where daylight did not penetrate. Kasyan's gaze is destructive for all living things and entails troubles, illness, and even death. The apocryphal Judas Iscariot was also endowed with some features of Via, who, as punishment for the betrayal of Jesus Christ, allegedly lost his sight due to overgrown eyelids.

So where did such a strange image of Viy come from in Slavic mythology and folklore? The main signs of our character help to find the answer: hairiness, the possession of herds of bulls and involvement in the underworld. These signs make us remember one of the most ancient and, moreover, the main East Slavic gods of the times of paganism - Veles (Volos). Before people learned to cultivate the land, he patronized hunters, helped to get the beast, which, according to many researchers, determined the name of the deity. It comes from the word "hair", that is, fur, the skin of a hunting prey. Veles also personified the spirits of killed animals. Hence the idea that this deity is associated with death, the world of the dead. "Initially, in the distant hunting past, Veles could mean the spirit of a killed beast, the spirit of a hunting prey, that is, the god of that only wealth of a primitive hunter, which was personified by the carcass of a defeated beast." This is how Academician B.A.Rybakov wrote about Veles-Volos.

But time passed, and agriculture and cattle breeding became an integral part of the economy of ancient people. Hunting has lost its former significance, while Veles became the patron saint of livestock. That is why the old man "Himself with a fingernail, a beard from an elbow" has bull herds, and anyone who encroaches on them risks experiencing the hefty strength of the herd owner. The number of livestock in ancient times is the main indicator of the wealth of a family. Livestock gave a man almost everything he needed: it was draft power, it was fur, leather, wool for clothing and other household needs, milk, dairy products and meat for food. It is no coincidence that the custom of measuring wealth in the "heads" of cattle survived into the Middle Ages. The word "cattle" denoted not only the actual cattle, but also all the property, the wealth of the family. The word "bestiality" was used in the meaning of "greed", "greed". The post of a financial official standing between the mayor and the headman was called "cattleman", since "cowgirl" is the treasury (hence another meaning of Veles as a deity: in charge of income and wealth).

It is no coincidence that Veles was opposed to Perun - the god of heavens, thunderstorms and war. After all, wealth, prosperity and war, entailing ruin, are incompatible. The giver of thunderstorms Perun lived in heaven, in the transcendental kingdom of the gods. Veles also contacted the underworld of the dead, "that light." Until the beginning of the 20th century, there was a custom after the harvest to leave a bunch of uncompressed ears in the field - "Veles on the goatee". The peasants hoped to earn by this the favor of their ancestors resting in the land, on whom the next year's harvest depended. Trees, bushes, grasses were called by the people "hair of the earth". Thus, it is not surprising that the owner of the underworld Veles, whose name was forgotten through the centuries, was portrayed as a hairy old man and subsequently received the name Viy because of this. (However, the name Viy is similar in origin to the name Veles: both came from the words "hair", "eyelashes".)

With the onset of the time of Christianity, the role of the patron saint of livestock Veles passed to St. Blasius (most likely due to the consonance of names), the day of which fell on February 11 (24th in the new style). In many places in Russia, Vlasyev Day was celebrated as a great holiday. For example, in the Vologda province, residents of neighboring volosts gathered for the festival, a solemn, crowded prayer service was served, during which loaves of bread were consecrated. At home, the hostesses fed chunks of consecrated bread to livestock, hoping thereby to protect them from diseases for the whole year. From that day on, livestock trades began in the bazaars. They turned to Saint Blaise with a prayer for the safety and health of the livestock: "Saint Blaise, give happiness to the smooth heifers, to the fat bulls, so that they walk and play from the yard, and walk and gallop from the field." The icons of the saint were hung in cowsheds and barns to protect livestock from all kinds of misfortunes.

But the function of Veles, who dominates the underworld, was apparently taken over by the image of Viy - a character of a purely negative, "evil spirit". In other words, with the adoption of Christianity, the image of the pagan Veles gradually divided into two hypostases: positive - Saint Blasius, the patron saint of cattle and negative - Viy, an evil formidable spirit that rules in the underworld, the personification of death and grave darkness, the leader of evil spirits.

"There was a cock crow. This was the second cry; the first was heard by the dwarfs. Frightened spirits rushed, whoever happened, to the windows and doors in order to fly out as soon as possible, but that was not the case: they remained there, stuck in the doors and windows The priest who entered, stopped at the sight of such a shame of God's shrine and did not dare to serve a requiem in such a place. So forever the church remained with monsters stuck in the doors and windows, overgrown with forest, roots, weeds, wild thorns; and no one will now find a way to it ". This is how Nikolai Gogol ends his story "Viy".

Slavic mythology is no less rich than the mythologies of other peoples. There are many different, both good and evil characters in it. Some of the latter are not just evil, but creepy. These include such an odious image as Viy. This is an entity from the underworld with a gaze that can kill everyone.

The monster's eyes are closed with huge long eyelids falling to the ground. Therefore, he himself cannot pick them up. There are special assistants for this. By order of Via, they lift his eyelids with an iron pitchfork, and the eyes of a monster from the underworld begin to sow terror and death.

Viy is a negative character in Slavic mythology

It was from the look of a terrible monster that the belief about the evil eye or the evil eye began. According to legend, the evil eye causes death of people and animals, trees dry up from it, green grass turns yellow. He can also send a streak of failures, poverty, disease and other misfortunes to a person. Women in labor and brides are especially sensitive to the evil eye. To protect against the evil eye, a wedding veil was invented, and pregnant women tried not to be seen by strangers, especially strangers.

And all these customs began to flow from the inhabitant of the underworld with his terrible gaze. It is believed that he received his mystical component from Veles, a pagan god and the main enemy of Perun, from whom he stole cattle. Veles was associated with devils and other evil spirits and gave birth to Viy, who became the most powerful and terrible devil of the underworld.

But among the Slavs who lived in the Baltic States, this remarkable image was considered one of the sons of Chernobog. The latter symbolized absolute chaos, destruction and universal darkness. He controlled all the elements, and evil spirits from the underworld served him. That is, Chernobog was considered a negative divine entity, so it is not surprising that a terrible monster with a gaze killing everyone came from him.

Chernobog personified evil in Slavic mythology

At the same time, Viy in mythology had a number of positive features. Often he tormented people who were evil and spiritually flawed. But personalities, strong in spirit and strong-willed, welcomed and did them no harm. He was an extremely controversial creature with mood swings. But his main function, in any case, was evil. Only sometimes it manifested itself in full force, and sometimes it was barely noticeable.

This underworld scum was described in his eponymous work by Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol. He described her as squat, clubfoot, with sinewy arms and legs. Viy is covered with black earth from head to toe. The monster's fingers and face are iron, and the eyelids are long and touch the ground. With a glance, he does not kill, but only destroys the protective power of amulets from evil spirits. He is only a guiding force, not a killer. And the main character of the work of Gogol Khoma dies not at all from the gaze of a monster, but from the horror that gripped his soul.

Stanislav Kuzmin

All of them are looking forward to the just and incorruptible Judge Viy.

In East Slavic mythology, Viy is a spirit that brings death. Having huge eyes with heavy eyelids, Viy kills with his gaze. In Ukrainian demonology - a formidable old man with eyebrows and centuries to the very earth.

Viy cannot see anything by himself, he also acts as a seer of evil spirits (which can be traced in the work of N.V. Gogol); but if several strong men manage to raise his eyebrows and eyelids with an iron pitchfork, then nothing will be able to hide before his formidable gaze: with his gaze Viy kills people, sends pestilence to enemy troops, destroys and turns to ashes the towns and villages. Viy was also considered to be a messenger of nightmares, visions and ghosts.

In ethnography, the assumption is made that it is with the image of Viy that the belief about the evil eye and damage is connected - that everything perishes and deteriorates from a bad look. Wii is also associated with the seasonal death of nature during the winter.

There are two assumptions about the origin of the name Viy: the first is the Ukrainian word "viy" (pronounced "viy"), which in translation from the modern Ukrainian language means "eyelids"; and the second - with the word "curl", since the image of Viy resembles some kind of plant: his legs are covered with roots and he is all covered with dried pieces of earth.

According to the "Book of Kolyada": "Viy, brother of the sky god Dyya, serves as the commander in the army of Chernobog. In peacetime, Viy is a jailer in Pekla. He holds in his hand a fiery whip, with which he feeds sinners. He has heavy eyelids, they are held with a pitchfork by Viy's henchmen. If Viy opens his eyes and looks at a person, he dies. Viy cannot stand sunlight, therefore he always prefers to stay underground. "

N.V. Gogol in his work "Viy" (in the place where the philosopher Khoma Brut stayed overnight in the church) describes this deity as follows:

“And suddenly there was silence in the church: a wolf howling was heard in the distance, and soon heavy footsteps were heard, sounding across the church, glancing sideways, he saw that they were leading some squat, sturdy, club-footed man. He was all in black earth. strong roots protruded from him, hands and feet covered with earth. He stepped heavily, constantly stumbling. Long eyelids were lowered to the ground. With horror, Khoma noticed that his face was iron. He was brought under his arms and put straight to the place where Khoma was standing.

Raise my eyelids: I don't see! - said Viy in an underground voice. - And the whole host rushed to raise his eyelids. "

"Don't look!" - whispered some inner voice to the philosopher. He could not bear it and looked.

Here it is! - Viy shouted and stared at him with an iron finger. And everything, no matter how it was, rushed at the philosopher. Breathless, he fell to the ground, and immediately the spirit flew out of him from fear. That is why it is impossible to look Viy in the eyes, for it will take it away, pull it into its underground, into the world of the dead.

Gogol also adds the following to his work: "Viy is a colossal creation of the common people's imagination. This is the name of the leader of the dwarfs among the Little Russians, whose eyelids go to the ground. This whole story is a folk tradition. I did not want to change him in anything. and I tell it almost in the same simplicity as I heard it. "

According to the research of D. Moldavsky1, Gogol's name Viy arose as a result of phonetic mixing of the name of the mythological ruler of the underworld Niy and Ukrainian words: "viya" - eyelash and "poiko" - eyelid.

The famous Russian folklorist A.N. Afanasyev sees in Viy a reflection of the ancient and powerful deity of the Slavs, namely the thunder god (Perun).

The religious symbol of God Viy - the All-Seeing Eye - means “nothing will hide from the gaze of the judge.) Presumably, his idol was also depicted with such a symbol.

Niy (West-Slav.) Or Viy (East-Slav) - also correlates with Pluto2, according to Dlugosh3 ("History of Poland", 15th century), possibly one of the hypostases of Veles:

"Prince I ... Pluto was nicknamed Nya (Nya); he was considered the god of the underworld, the keeper and guardian of souls who left their bodies, and they asked him after death to lead him to the best places of the underworld, and they put him the main sanctuary in the city of Gniezno4, where converged from all places. "

Maciej Stryjkovsky5 in his "Chronicle of Polish, Lithuanian and All Russia" in 1582 writes:

"Pluto, the god of the heat, whose name was Nyya, was revered in the evening, they asked him after his death for better pacification of the bad weather."

Religious symbol of God Viy

In Russian folk tales with similar plots (such as "The Battle on the Kalinov Bridge", "Ivan the Peasant Son and the Miracle Yudo") and also recorded by A.N. Afanasyev, the hero and his named brothers fight three monsters (Miracle Yudas) and defeat them, then reveal the intrigues of the wives of the monsters, but the Serpent's Mother was able to deceive Ivan Bykovich and "dragged him into the dungeon, brought him to her husband, an old old man.

On you, - he says, - our destroyer.

The old man lies on an iron bed, sees nothing, long eyelashes and thick eyebrows completely close his eyes. Then he called twelve mighty heroes and began to order them:

Take an iron pitchfork, raise my eyebrows and black eyelashes, I'll see what kind of bird he is that killed my sons. The heroes raised his eyebrows and eyelashes with a pitchfork: the old man looked ... "

The old old man arranges for Ivan Bykovich a test with the kidnapping of his bride. And then he competes with him, balancing over the pit of fire, standing on the board. This old man loses the test and is thrown into a pit of fire (Christian "Hyena of fire?"), I.e. to the very depths of the lower world (Hell). In this regard, it is not superfluous to mention that the southern Slavs spent the New Year's holiday in winter, where the old, serpentine god Badnyak6 (correlated with the old year) was burned, and the young Bozhych took his place.

In Ukraine, there is a character called Malt Bunio, but simply Naughty Bonyak (Bodnyak), sometimes he appears in the form of "a terrible fighter, with a look that kills a person and turns entire cities to ashes, happiness is only that this murderous look closes his close eyelids and thick eyebrows" ... "Long eyebrows to the nose" in Serbia, Croatia and the Czech Republic, as well as in Poland, were a sign of Mora or Zmora. This creature was also believed to be the epitome of a nightmare.

The epic father of Svyatogor is not without reason identified by A. Asov7 with Viy. Ilya Muromets, who came to visit the blind (dark) father of Svyatogor, on the offer to "shake hands," gives the blind giant a piece of red-hot iron, for which he receives praise: "Your hand is strong, you are a good hero."

Both in Gogol and in the tale recorded by Afanasyev, the presence of iron attributes is not surprising. Gogol's Viy has an iron face, an iron finger, the fairytale has an iron bed, an iron pitchfork. Iron ore is mined from the earth, which means that the Lord of the underworld, Viy, was a kind of master and patron of the earth's interior and their riches. Apparently, therefore, N.V. Gogol ranks him among the gnomes, who, according to European tradition, were the keepers of underground treasures.

The Bulgarian Bogomil sect describes the Devil as turning to ashes all who dare to look him in the eye.

It is likely that later Viy merges with the image of Koshchei-Immortal - the king of the dead, the god of death. In one of the tales, there is a mention of Koshchei raising his eyelids with seven pitchforks, which indicates his similarity or kinship with Viy. Noteworthy is the kinship of words: poker, koshevoy, Koschey, kosh-mar. "Kosch" means chance, lot (cf. "Makosch"). It was assumed that Chernobog was stirring up the coals in Pekla with pokers, so that new life would be born from this dead matter. Christian saint Procopius of Ustyug, depicted with pokers in his hands, as, for example, on the bas-relief of the Church of the Ascension on Bolshaya Nikitinskaya Street in Moscow in the 16th century. This saint, introduced in the 13th century, is responsible for the harvest, he has three pokers, if he carries them with the ends down - there is no harvest, up - there will be a harvest. Thus, it was possible to predict the weather and yield.

In the tale of Vasilisa the Beautiful, who lived in the service of Baba Yaga, it is said that she received as a gift for her labors - in some cases - a pot (oven-pot), in other cases - a skull (which is most likely related to to Koschei, for the Koschee kingdom was strewn with human skulls and bones). When she returned home, the skull pot burned to ashes with its magical gaze her stepmother and stepmother's daughters.

Koschey, in a later era, stood out as an independent cosmogonic character who makes living matter deader, associated with chthonic8 characters such as a hare, a duck and a fish. Undoubtedly, it is associated with seasonal necrosis, is the enemy of Baba Yaga, who leads the hero into his world - the Miserable Kingdom. The name of the heroine (in one of the Russian folk tales), kidnapped by Koshchei - Marya Morevna (mortal death) is also interesting.

In Orthodox Christianity, Viy is replaced by Saint Kasyan.

In Russian legends, legends, beliefs, the image of St. Kasyan (who lived in the 10th century and became famous for preaching monastic life and founding monasteries in Galia), despite all the righteousness of his life, is portrayed as negative. In some villages, he did not even recognize as a saint, and his very name was considered shameful. Usually the image of Kasyan was associated with hell and demonic traits were assigned to him in appearance and behavior.

According to popular beliefs, Saint Kasyan is unfriendly, selfish, stingy, envious, vindictive and brings people some misfortune. Kasyan's outward appearance is unpleasant, his slanting eyes with disproportionately large eyelids and a deadening gaze are especially striking (a "saint" is good, isn't that so?). Russian people believed that "Kasyan looks at whatever he looks, he will pull everything away", "Kasyan mows everything with a scythe", "Kasyan is hard on the people - it is hard for the people", "Kasian is on the grass - the grass is drying, Kasian is on the cattle - the cattle is dying." In Siberia, it was believed that Kasyan loves to "wrap" the heads of chickens, after which they die or become ugly. On his holiday - "Kasyanov Day" (Kasyan Nemelostivy, Kasyan Zavistnik, Krivoy Kasyan), which is celebrated on February 29 in a leap year, Kasyan amuses himself by looking at the world around him: he looks at people - there will be a pestilence, at cattle - death, fields - crop failure. The veneration of Kasyan also fell on January 14-15.

In addition, it was believed that Kasyan was subject to all the winds that he kept behind all kinds of constipation; most likely, it was on this basis that a version appeared about the similarity of Viy-Kasyan with the Hindu god Vayu, who is really similar in descriptions to our Viy. Vayu is the god of the wind, as well as the giver of boons, he provides shelter and can scatter enemies. He is represented with a thousand eyes, but at the same time his appearance is vague.

Our oldest Navier deity Wii has an analogue also among the ancient Irish, who call it Balor. In Irish mythology, this deity is the one-eyed god of death, the leader of the ugly Fomorian demons. Balor struck enemies with the deadly gaze of his one eye. During the battle, the god's eyelid was raised by four servants.

List of used literature:

1) Holy Russian Vedas. The book of Kolyada., M .: "FAIR-Press", 2007.

2) N.V. Gogol. - Viy, from Collected Works in nine volumes. Volume 2. M .: "Russian book", 1994.

3) Gavrilov D.A., Nagovitsyn - Gods of the Slavs. Paganism. Tradition, M .: "Refl-book", 2002.

4) A.N. Afanasyev - Russian Folk Tales. Issue IV., K. Soldatenkov and N. Shchepkin, 1860.

5) M. Dragomanov - Little Russian folk legends and stories, Kiev, 1876, p. 224, as well as I. Ichiro - All-Slavic folklore source of Gogol's Viy, Izvestia of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, ser. lit. and Russian language N5, 1989.

6) A.F. Hilferding - Onega epics, M., 1949.

7) Yordan Ivanov - Bogomil books and legends, Sofia, 1925.

8) P. Vinogradov - Life of the Saints ... M., 1880, p. 29.

1 D. Moldavsky - Leningrad critic and folklorist.

2 Pluto - in ancient Greek mythology, the god of the underworld of the dead and the name of the kingdom of the dead itself, the entrance to which, according to Homer (the ancient Greek poet-storyteller) and other sources, is somewhere in the far west, across the Ocean River, which washes the earth. "

3 Jan Dlugosz (1415-1480) - Polish historian and diplomat, a prominent Catholic hierarch, author of "History of Poland" in 12 volumes.

4 Gniezno is a city in Poland, part of the Greater Poland Voivodeship, Gniezno County.

6 Badnyak is a log burned on Christian Christmas Eve on the hearth, and the main rite of the Christmas cycle of holidays among the South Slavs.

7 Alexander Ivanovich Asov is a writer, journalist, historian and philologist, one of the most famous modern researchers and experts in ancient Slavic culture and Slavic paganism.

8 Chthonic - belonging to the underworld.

Perhaps the correspondence of the image of Viy Koshchey the Immortal. According to E. Dmitrieva, the features of the pagan god Veles were transferred to the image of Viy.

The motive of the terrible look in the Ukrainian tradition is associated with two characters - Saint Kasyan and the mangy Bunyak (Polovtsian khan). Saint Kasyan, in one of the Poltava beliefs, raises his eyelashes on February 29 - and "what he looks at then, everything perishes." The leader of the horde, Bunyak (from an unidentified chronicle), destroys the city with the power of his gaze. Also in Ukraine, whirlwinds and tornadoes were associated with "vim" (that is, "wee"). According to the Belarusian legend, Kasyan sits in a cave and does not see the "light of God" because of the eyelashes that reach his knees. On the basis of the Ukrainian legend about Viy, Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol created the story “Viy”.

The word "vii" is not recorded in Ukrainian dictionaries until the appearance of the story of the same name by Nikolai Gogol.

Viy Gogol

Viy - there is a colossal creation of the common people's imagination. This was the name of the head of the gnomes among the Little Russians, whose eyelids, before their eyes, go to the very earth. This whole story is a folk tradition. I didn’t want to change it in any way and I tell it almost in the same simplicity as I heard it.

Note by N. V. Gogol

The name of the evil spirits "vii" and his long eyelashes clearly indicate the word in Ukrainian Ukrainian. via - eyelash and povika - eyelid, and also, possibly, Ukrainian. vii - howl.

In the work of Gogol, Viy is squat, clubfoot; with sinewy arms and legs like strong roots; all in black earth; with iron fingers and face; long eyelids down to the ground. His appearance is preceded by a wolf howl. He does not kill with a glance, but rather removes the effect of all amulets from evil spirits when looking at him. He is, as it were, a guide, and not the killer himself. And the main character of the story, Khoma, dies not from the gaze of Viy, but from his own fear.

In modern culture

see also

Notes (edit)

1. , with. 90.
2. , with. 124.
3. , with. 176.
4. // Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron: in 86 volumes (82 volumes and 4 additional). - SPb. , 1890-1907.
5. , with. 310.
6. Keyshtor Alexander. Stribog // Words "Yanska Mythology / Translated from Polish. - K.: TOV" Vidavnitstvo "Klio" ", 2014. - P. 178. - ISBN 978-617-7023-22-6.
7. , with. 90.
8. Rustam Shayakhmetov. On the absence in the Ukrainian language of the concept of вій and the time of fixation in the dictionaries of the onyms вій // Toronto Slavic Quarterly. - No. 38 (Fall 2011). - S. 225-228.
9. Levkievskaya E.E. To the question of a hoax, or Gogolevsky Viy in the light of Ukrainian mythology // Studia mythologica Slavica. - Ljubljana: Piza, 1998 .-- T. 1. - S. 307-315.
10. , with. 152-154.
11. , with. 307.
12. , with. 309.
13. Eihwaz. Single "Wii" Eihwaz (unspecified) .

Literature

• Abaev V.I. The image of Viy in the story of N.V. Gogol // Russian folklore. Materials and research. Volume III / Ed. A. M. Astakhova and others. - M., L.: Publishing House of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, 1958. - P. 303–307.
• Viy // Shaparova N.S. A Brief Encyclopedia of Slavic Mythology - M .: AST: Astrel: Russian Dictionaries - 2001 .-- 624 p. - P. 169
• Dmitrieva, E. Viy - who is he? // Science and life. - M., 2002. - No. 8.
• Golden rules of folk culture / O. Kotovich, I. Kruk. - Mn. : Adukatsya i vyhavanne, 2010 .-- 592 p. - 3000 copies. - ISBN 978-985-471-335-9.
• Ivan Bykovich// Folk Russian fairy tales by A.N. Afanasyev: In 5 volumes - M.: TERRA - Book Club, 2008. - T. 1. - 320 p. -

In East Slavic mythology, a character whose deadly gaze is hidden under huge eyelids or eyelashes, one of the East Slavic names of which is associated with the same root: cf. ukr. viya, viyka, Belarusian. eyelash wake. In Russian and ... ... Encyclopedia of mythology

I AM; m. In Slavic mythology: a supernatural creature with a deadly gaze hidden under huge eyelids or eyelashes. ● According to popular beliefs, Viy is a formidable old man with eyebrows and centuries to the ground. By itself, he cannot see ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

In East Slavic mythology, a spirit that brings death. Having huge eyes with heavy eyelids, Viy kills with his gaze ... Big Encyclopedic Dictionary

Face from Little Russian demonology; an old man with eyebrows and eyelids down to the ground; but if you raise his eyelids and eyebrows, then his gaze kills and destroys everything that he sees. This legend was processed by Gogol in Viy. Dictionary of foreign words included in ... ... Dictionary of foreign words of the Russian language

Noun, number of synonyms: 4 fictional creature (334) hero (80) niy (2) ... Synonym dictionary

Viy- Viy, Vii, offer. n. about In (mythol.) ... Russian spelling dictionary

viy- I am; m. In Slavic mythology: a supernatural creature with a deadly gaze hidden under huge eyelids or eyelashes. According to popular beliefs, Viy is a formidable old man with eyebrows and centuries to the ground. By itself, he cannot see ... ... Dictionary of many expressions

VIY- (character of the story of the same name by N. V. Gogol; see also VIEV) Jealousy, / wives, / tears ... / well, them! - / eyelids swell / fit Viyu. / I am not myself, / but I am / jealous / for Soviet Russia. M928 (355); The terrible heritage of the bourgeoisie, They are visited at night by Non-existent, ... ...

-VIY- see KIEV VIY ... Proper name in Russian poetry of the 20th century: a dictionary of personal names

In Little Russian demonology, a formidable old man with eyebrows and centuries to the very earth; V. cannot see anything by himself, but if several strong men manage to raise his eyebrows and eyelids with an iron pitchfork, then nothing can hide in front of his formidable ... ... Encyclopedic Dictionary of F.A. Brockhaus and I.A. Efron

Books

• Viy, Gogol Nikolai Vasilievich. The gift edition of the story "Viy", timed to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Nikolai Gogol, will allow the reader to plunge into the mystical world of one of the most extraordinary works of world classics. ...
• Viy, Gogol Nikolai Vasilievich. The peculiarities of the religious worldview of the great Russian writer Nikolai V. Gogol and his "mystically gifted spirit" are reflected in the story "Viy", which at one time was ambiguous ...