RSSS 315 Tier 2: Second Week

1
RSSS 315 (Tier 2) Second Week

• Vampires and Werewolves Slavic Folklore in Our
  Culture

2
Announcements (2nd Meeting)

• Friday night 20/20 segment on vampires
• Today origins and terms

3
Origins Eastern Europe
4
Mountain Ranges
5
9th Century Kingdoms and Empires
6
A Century Later
7
Folklore

• Classified by genre, area of origin
• Oral and performance based (like drama, opera)
• Transcribed from oral performance by collectors
  (Brothers Grimm, Vuk Karadic, Afanasev)
• Fictional by implication
• Functions in various ways (warnings ritual
  accompaniment entertainment)

8
Two Important Generalizations About FolkTales

• Motifs are interchangeable
• Development is not serial

9
Empires in Contact and Conflict

• Byzantine Empire
• Ottoman Empire
• Austrian and Austro-Hungarian Empire

10
Another important fact

• Languages (and customs and folklore) dont
  respect national borders

11
Slavic Mythology

• Variety
• Many unrelated types
• Magicians, sorcerers closest to our topic
• Co-exist with Christianity (dvoeverie)
• Mora, vukodlak, upir, oboroten are most relevant
  to us
• Ancestor rituals, death rituals

12
Celebrations, festivals

• Appeasing gods is important
• Sacrifices are part of the appeasement
• Dual faith issues prominent

13
East Slavic

• Language early form of Russian, Ukrainian,
  Belarusan
• Orthodox Christianity (Constantinople)
• Prince Vladimir converted Kiev Slavs in 988
• Idols destroyed, but belief system remained

14
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

• Paradjanov, 1964 film
• Armenian, both in Georgia
• 1924-90
• Ukrainian (Hutsul) culture Slavic, Hungarian
• 19th century setting
• Isolation from rest of world

15
Characters

• Ivan
• Marichka
• Palagna
• Iura (Hradyvnyk and Molfar)

16
Qualities

• Ethnographic document
• Authenticity
• Colorful apparel, rituals (marriage, funeral)
• Strong, elemental passions

17
Ending of Shadows

• Ivan unhappy children the key
• Palagna also discontent
• Fertility through ritual
• Tempts Iura
• Infidelity
• Conflict, death of Ivan
• Reinforcement of children-ancestor theme

18
Links Vampires and Werewolves?

• Animals, nature
• Rituals, blood
• Sorcerers, death, other world

19
Vampires and werewolves?

• Unseen forces at play
• Ritual and sorcery important
• Feeding, mating, dying have special significance
• Nature involved (weather, moonlight bloody
  forest)

20
Legend Historical Content
21
Vlad Tepes 1431-76
22
Features

• Warrior-ruler caught between competing empires
• Noted for cruelty violence of punishments
• Numerous enemies (e.g., boyars)
• Years of imprisonment
• Mixed message on justness

23
Sources

• German tracts, Russian accounts
• Romanian legends
• Biography put together from anecdotes about his
  behavior and semi-historical accounts

24
Transylvania Draculas Castle
25
Bram Castle
26
Dinner at Vlads
27
Snagov Monastery
28
Link with Vampires?

• Tenuous
• Violence (sustenance through blood)
• Immortality (lives on in history)

29
Vampire cults

• South Slavic in origin pre-9th areas where they
  settled
• Terminology complex, but probably S. Slavic

30
Cults

• A small religious group that exists in a state of
  tension with the predominant religion
• Neutral, sociological definition
• Contrast with "...if you believe in it, it is a
  religion or perhaps 'the' religion and if you do
  not care one way or another about it, it is a
  sect but if you fear and hate it, it is a cult."
  Leo Pfeffer

31
Conditions

• Homeland of Slavs

32
Slavic migrations
33
Periods

• Scythian period 750-200 BC
• Sarmatian period 200 BC-400 AD
• 5th century Slavs moved out in different
  directions
• South to the Balkans
• North to Russia and Baltic Sea
• West along the Elbe

34
Migration and settlement

• 5th through 9th
• Christianity comes in 9th and 10th
• Great Moravian Empire 863 (West Slavs)
• Bulgarian Empire 865 (South Slavs)
• Poland 966 (West Slavs)
• Kiev 988 (Kievan State, Rus) (East Slavs)

35
Pre-existing belief systems

• Slavic mythology
• Manichaeanism (dualistic system)

36
Dualism

• God and Satan, Good and Evil, Mana (Gods grace)
  and Matter
• Light and dark
• People have a divine soul and evil body body is
  tomb of the soul
• Soul needs to return to heaven Satan wants to
  keep it in the body, to keep the light in the
  dark.

37
Dualism in second stage

• Contact with Christianity led to new sect tried
  to reconcile (heretical)
• Bogomilism probably from Armenia in 7th century,
  moving west
• Reached South Slavs in 9th and 10th
• Bogomilism in Bulgaria through Bulgaria to
  Eastern Slavs 10th-14th

38
Lasted in Bosnia (Patarene Serbs)
39
Souls and demons

• Demons live in non Bogomils
• Remain there after death
• Properly buried believers die their souls are
  released to enter new people
• Souls are immortal

40
Spread

• East and West under the surface of Orthodoxy
• Joined with ancestor worship

41
Summary of beliefs

• God good, creative, associated with light, fire,
  celestial bodies, souls
• Bad God evil, destructive, saps strength,
  associated with darkness, bodies, material world
• Water, air, fire and earth all function in
  symbolic ways
• Sunrise and sunset as transition periods
• Weather animistic, important interface between
  man and deities, elements associated with
  unpredictable and violent phenomena

42
Migration of souls

• Souls consist of heart (emotions) and head
• Stake in the heart and cutting off head are ways
  of dealing with demons

43
Vampire cults

• Atomistic same motifs are used in different
  combinations
• Various symbols and instruments (garlic, stakes)
  function differently in different accounts from
  different areas or villages

44
Background

• continuing cultural disturbances
• Roman Empire, Eastern Roman Empire, Byzantine
  Empire, Ottoman Empire, Austrian Empire and
  Austro-Hungarian Empire 20th century
• Tribes in contact and conflict
• belief systems in contact and conflict
• migrations of tribes to new areas
• adoption of new belief systems.

45
Werewolf cult different

• English word at base
• Central and Southeast Europeans had cults, but
  different terms

46
Pre-historic times (all before 9th AD)

• ritual wearing of wolf pelts all before 9th AD

47
Later

• Stories of vukodlaks (and related forms) chasing
  clouds, devouring sun and moon 13th 16th
  centuries
• Mythological sense Slavs adopted term ala and
  ale for these beings
• Related terms (utilizing wolf as root) refer to
  vampires in South and Central Europe
• E.g., Dark Wolf (2003 one star, lots of nudity)
  is titled Vukodlak in Czech
• Some linguistic change vurdalak in Russian now
  can mean both

48
Etymology of vampire and werewolf words

• Terminological complexity
• Perkowski books
• Classification of written accounts

49
Erzsébet Bathory
50
Vseslav of Polotsk

• Belarusan Prince, 1030-1101
• Great Grand-Grandson of Vladimir
• Werewolf-sorcerer reputation (Vseslav the
  Magician-Charodei)
• Could turn to a grey wolf, a clear falcon or a
  deer with gold horns