What does Viy, the antipode of Veles, look like? Viy is an underground god in Slavic mythology.
In many, including academic works, the character in Gogol’s story is described completely differently from how Viy looks in the writer’s work. Researchers claim that the author, in the image of the famous monster, combined the ancient Roman Niy with human age, although N.V. Gogol himself wrote that he sets out the legend exactly as he heard it.
And the reader believes, because, in addition to this story, he created several more works of a similar genre, in which, in Gogol’s characteristic ironic manner, folk characters are described.
The Wise Veles
This is exactly how this god is called in ancient Slavic myths. He is the ruler of the bodily, organic life of all people and animals. He knows when the body asks for rest for sleep, and when for eternal rest. Veles tirelessly makes sure that everything that is taken from the earth returns there. And at the same time he is not a servant of death. Veles looks completely different from Viy. In the minds of our ancestors, Veles is a man of about 50 years old, strong and ideally built, wise and balanced.
He is a kind of controller of bodily existence, as they put it in the old days, of bestial truth. Veles did not interfere in the mental, much less spiritual, activity of a person. This god did not condemn or punish gluttony, sexual promiscuity, or the killing of animals for entertainment and not for food. He simply removed his protection from the body and this human nature fell into the power of Viy.
Viy. Brief description
What does Viy look like? He is an ugly creature, with many physical defects and a vicious mental strength. This monster attracts to itself everything musty, bodily depraved and unbridled. Without others, he cannot satisfy his bodily needs, he cannot even lift his eyelids. But he lives a powerful spiritual life. And monster creatures are drawn to him, for his mental strength ready to serve. This is exactly what the lady is like. The writer points to this three times in the story: twice with a hint, and the third - in open text, putting words about this into Thomas’s mouth: “it’s obvious that she’s done a lot of sin in her life, since she deserves such evil spirits for it.” And she’s talking about Thomas: “Let Brutus read for three nights. He knows."
Some exact details from the story by N.V. Gogol
Before the lady, three people came to the farm - the rhetorician Tiberius Gorobets, the philosopher Thomas Brutus and the theologian Khalyava. Gogol, as expected, speaks three times about Thomas’s bodily promiscuity. And it is to him that the one who lives “according to Viy” comes. They are similar in the passions that overwhelm them, and therefore are not under the protection of Veles. The lady saddles the philosopher (what a subtle detail!), and he feels the sweetness of flying with the witch on him. But he has his own mental life, which defeats the spell of his own body, and not the charm of the lady, who in this situation is only a means. It's already morning, the roosters have crowed. But Foma kills the lady. And Veles does not protect his body. Viy gets him in Kyiv, in God's institution, through the bodily depravity of the rector.
Viy’s servants and, invisibly, Viy himself constantly walk around Thomas Brutus. The description of the meeting between the philosopher and the centurion is striking in the realistic details. “It’s not like that with me,” says the centurion, “Do you know the leather caps?” "At large quantities this is an unbearable thing." “You won’t get me up.”
This is where the philosopher ended up (what a detail!). That's why he died of fear.
Viy is an evil spirit, and Koschey is an ordinary evil person
Some authors who, without reading the entire work, quote “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” and claim in their works that Koschey and Viy are related images. Yes, this is nonsense. The “Word...” specifically states that Gzak, Konchak and Gzak’s father Bonyak are Slavic nomads and koschei, i.e. owners of livestock (in Old Slavonic: bones, koschei). A.S. Pushkin directly points out this: “... he is wasting away over gold. There’s a Russian spirit there, it smells like Russia.” You have to be deaf and blind not to distinguish between what Viy looks like in mythology and what Koschey looks like.
Viy's Habitation
Viy is constantly in the depths, in the bowels of the earth, where the bodies of his servants are warm, humid and endlessly rotting. He has sisters - Villas, who sometimes fly out and prowl over human villages, looking for servants for their terrible brother. They compete with another character in our mythology, the Fire Serpent, for the souls of fallen people.
And it’s not hard to imagine what Viy looks like. The photo of the painting by the artist who presented and painted Viy and his servants is known throughout the world. Some details can be debated, but general artist I captured the essence of this character correctly. This is decaying flesh, which her powerful but evil soul does not want to return to the earth, that is, it does not submit to the wise Veles.
There is no fight between Veles and Viy
The struggle takes place in human souls. The soul of Thomas Brutus flew away along with the triumphant song of the roosters, who greet the rise of Yaril and the light that he brings to the world. And souls should not return to dead bodies, as was the case with the lady. This contradicts the canons, which are observed by the bestial god Veles.
Thomas returned to the earth what he had so carelessly used in this bright world. And therefore he is remembered by two friends - the philosopher Tiberiy Gorobets and Freebie, who hides drunk in the weeds.
Viy - god underground kingdom. In Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian mythology, it was considered a creature whose one glance could bring death. His eyes were always hidden under eyelids, eyebrows or eyelashes. He was the son of Chernobog and Marena, the goddess of death. He served as a governor in the army of Chernobog, and in peacetime was a jailer in the underworld. He always had a fiery scourge in his hands, with which he punished sinners. His eyelids were lifted with pitchforks by his assistants. Anyone could die from his gaze. He could not stand sunlight, which is why he lived in a dungeon. Helped Dyyu, whom Veles threw into the dungeon, to return to earth. Then he imprisoned Veles, but yielding to the requests of Azovushka, he released him. Viy gave a magic ring to Dazhdbog so that he would free Zlatogorka from the enchanted coffin. To continue the family line, he gave birth to blind sons Gorynya, Kashchey, goat-legged Pan, who tried to kidnap Veles, and after all he kidnapped the daughters of the Heavenly Cow Zemun - Buryona and Dana. Viy put his daughters to sleep and named them his children. Later, Pan and Dana had children Vrita and Valu, who were killed by Indra, the son of Dyya. Some Ukrainian legends mention that Viy lived in a cave where there was no light; he was often depicted covered with wool. He looked like the Ukrainian Kasyan, the Byzantine Basilisk, the Volyn sorcerer “mangy Bunyaka”, the Ossetian giant warrior and others. Possible correspondences of the name Viy and some of its attributes in Ossetian ideas about the Vayug giants force us to recognize the ancient origins of the legend about Viy. This is also evidenced by the parallels to the image of Viy in the Celtic epic, and the abundance of typological parallels in the mythological functions of the eye. In Belarusian legends, a common motif with raising the eyelids is most likely due to the name of eyelashes in Ukrainian “viya”. Niy (Zap.-Slav) in Orthodoxy - St. Kasyan - god of Naviego underworld and a posthumous judge, according to Dlugosz (“History of Poland”, 15th century), perhaps one of the incarnations of Veles: “KH.I. ... Pluto was nicknamed Nya; he was considered the god of the underworld, the keeper and guardian of souls, who left their bodies, and happened to spend with him after death in best places the underworld, and they built the main sanctuary for him in the city of Gniezno, where people from all places converged." N.V. Gogol's story "Viy" brought fame to this mythological creature. In the epics of Belarusian Polesie, death was represented in the form of a woman with large eyelids. In the chronicle legend of the 16th century, which described last days Judas, it was specified that his overgrown eyelids completely deprived him of his vision. Another Ukrainian legend about the origin of tea says that the devil who seduced the hermit cast a spell on his eyelids, so that he could not open his eyelids, then the hermit tore them off and buried them in the ground. Tea grew from them. A similar legend goes around in Ancient China about the origin of tea from the age of Bodhidharma. Maciej Stryjkowski in the “Chronicle of Polish, Lithuanian and All Rus'” in 1582 writes: “Pluto, the god of pekelny, whose name was Nyya, was revered in the evening, they asked him after death for better pacification of the weather.” “And suddenly there was silence in the church: it was heard in the distance there was a wolf howl, and soon heavy footsteps were heard sounding through the church, looking sideways, he saw that they were leading some squat, hefty, clubfooted man, he was covered in black earth, like sinewy, strong roots protruded from his arms covered with earth. He walked heavily, constantly stumbling. His long eyelids were lowered to the ground. Khoma noticed with horror that his face was made of iron. I see!” Viy said in an underground voice. “And the whole crowd rushed to lift his eyelids.” We know that in fairy tales like "The Battle of Kalinov Bridge"The hero and his sworn brothers cope with three miracle-Yudas, then reveal the machinations of the miracle-Yudas' wives, but the mother of the snakes 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 cover 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 pitchforks: the old man looked..." Isn't it true, it looks like Gogol's Viy. The old man arranges a test for Ivan Bykovich with kidnapping his bride for him. And then competes with him, balancing over a fiery pit, standing on a board. This old man loses the test and falls into a fiery pit, that is, into the very depths of his lower world. In this regard, it is worth mentioning that the southern Slavs spent the winter. New Year's holiday, where the old, serpentine god Badnjak (correlated with the old year) was burned, and his place was taken by the young Bozhich. In Ukraine, there is a character, Solodivy Bunio, or simply Naughty Bonyak (Bodnyak), sometimes he appears in the form of “a terrible fighter, with a glance that kills a person and turns entire cities into ashes, the only happiness is that this murderous gaze is covered by clinging 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 considered the embodiment of a nightmare. Ilya Muromets, who came to stay with the blind (dark) father of Svyatogor, responded to the offer to “shake hands” and gives the blind giant a piece of red-hot iron, for which he receives praise: “Your hand is strong, you are a good hero.” The fairy tale about Vasilisa the Beautiful, who lived in the service of Baba Yaga, says that she received a gift for her work - in some cases - a pot (stove-pot), in other cases - a skull. When she returned home, the skull-pot burned her stepmother and her stepmother's daughters to ashes with its magical gaze. These are not all the sources about the ancient navy deity Viy, who has analogues among the ancient Irish - Yssbaddaden and Balor. In the future, he probably merges with the image of Koshchei (the son of Mother Earth, initially an agricultural god, then the king of the dead, the god of death). Close in function and mythology to the Greek Triptolemus. The duck, as the keeper of the egg after Koshchei’s death, was revered as his bird. In Orthodoxy it was replaced by the evil saint Kasyan, whose day was celebrated on February 29. *Kasyan looks at everything - everything withers. Kasyan looks at the cattle, the cattle fall; on the tree - the tree dries. *Kasyan on the people - it’s hard for the people; Kasyan on the grass - the grass dries; Kasyan for livestock - the livestock dies. *Kasyan mows everything with an oblique... It is curious that Kasyan is subordinate to the winds, which he keeps behind all sorts of locks. Noteworthy is the relationship between the words KOCHERGA, KOSHEVAYA, KOSHCHEY and KOSH-MAR. Koshch - “chance, lot” (cf. Makoshch). It was assumed that Chernobog stirred the coals in the inferno with pokers, so that from this dead matter would be born new life. There is the Orthodox saint Procopius of Ustyug, depicted with pokers in his hands, as, for example, on the bas-relief of the Church of the Ascension on B. Nikitskaya 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 their ends down - no, up - there will be a harvest. In this way, the weather and crop yields could be predicted. Koschey in more late era stood out as an independent cosmogonic character who causes living matter to be deader, associated with chthonic characters such as the hare, duck and fish. Undoubtedly, he is associated with seasonal necrosis, he is the enemy of Makoshi Yaga, who guides the hero into his world - the kingdom of bones. The name of the heroine abducted by Koshchei is also interesting - Marya Morevna (mortal death), i.e. Koschey is an even greater death - stagnation, death without rebirth. The annual veneration of Viya-Kasyan took place on January 14-15, as well as on February 29 - Kasyan Day.
VIY (aka - Vy, Niy) - Voivode, king of the underworld, ancient god hurricanes
NAME: The word "vii" means "eyelashes".
APPEARANCE: Viy is the most terrible and strongest representative evil spirits living underground. Staggering, clubfooted, arms and legs like tree roots, covered in the ground. He walks with difficulty and appears only in cases when other representatives of evil spirits are unable to cope. The eyelids are long, right down to the ground, he can’t lift them himself, usually they do it bats. Like all evil spirits, they disappear with the third roosters.
ELEMENTS. Viy belongs to the elements
ABILITIES: Viy kills people with one glance and turns cities and villages to ashes; His murderous gaze is covered by thick eyebrows and eyelids that are close to his eyes, and only when it is necessary to destroy enemy armies or set fire to an enemy city, do they lift his eyelids with a pitchfork.
HIERARCHY: Viy was considered one of the main servants (Trait). The image of Viy is closely connected with - in his guise as a guide souls of the dead and custodian
SPHERE OF INFLUENCE: He was also considered a judge over the dead. Viy was also considered the sender of nightmares and visions; is also associated with the seasonal death of nature during winter.
Viy, Khud.Orlova
ACTIVITY: In peacetime, he is a jailer in . He holds in his hand a fiery scourge with which he treats sinners.
They also say that Viy, together with, participated in sending the Great Flood to the earth.
IN LITERATURE: - Viya! - the voices of the travelers became like strings: they will disappear, I can’t live here, - that same Viy: Raise my eyelids, I don’t see anything! - The same one about the iron finger. Today Viy is at rest,” the two-headed horse yawned with one head, and licked his lips with the other head, “Viy is resting: he destroyed a lot of people with his eye, and from the country-cities only ashes lie. Via will accumulate strength and get down to business again.
A. M. REMIZOV “To the Sea-Ocean”
Lift my eyelids: I can’t see! - Viy said in an underground voice.”, N.V. Gogol “Viy”
IN THE LITERATURE: ... Instantly the door of the hut opens,- and, with the continuous flash of lightning, I see a young knight, in silver armor, girded with a formidable sword. Not even the fierce Niy himself would have shocked my timid heart with his appearance.
V.T. NAREZHNY “Slavic Evenings”
Kasyan looks at everything - everything withers. Kasyan looks at the cattle, the cattle fall; on the tree - the tree dries.
Kasyan on the people - it’s hard for the people; Kasyan on the grass - the grass dries; Kasyan for livestock - the livestock dies. Kasyan squints at everything...
It is curious that Kasyan is subordinate to the winds, which he keeps behind all sorts of locks.
(137) Found on the Internet and edited for the site.
Who is Viy?
In traditional mythology Eastern Slavs Viy is a creature from the underworld that kills with a look. Viy's eyelids and eyelashes are so heavy that he cannot lift them without outside help (which, apparently, should indicate the character's age). The etymology of the word itself supposedly comes from “viya”, “veika” - in East Slavic languages it means “eyelash”.
Folk image
So who is Viy, what is his origin as a character in folklore? According to some scientists, some features of another were transferred to the image of Viy pagan god Veles, his darker sides. Veles was perceived by the Eastern Slavs as a contrast to Perun (the pagan deity of thunder, heaven, war). Perun lived in heaven. Veles, on the other hand, connected with the underworld and deceased ancestors (it was not without reason that after the harvest, people left a bunch of spikelets “for Veles’s beard” in order to appease and gain the favor of their ancestors).
But Veles is also wealth in the house, the well-being of the family, he is the patron saint of livestock. Viy is the embodiment of only negative qualities. By the way, the names both “Viy” and “Veles” have the same root and come from the words “hair”, “eyelashes”. And plants in ancient times were popularly called “hair of the Earth.” These are the analogies.
In fairy tales
In Russian, Belarusian, and Ukrainian folk legends, Viy was depicted as a hairy, wiry old man (some mentioned not hair, but branches), whose eyelids (eyebrows or eyelashes) usually had to be lifted with outside help. The fairy tale “Ivan Bykovich,” for example, mentions a witch’s husband who lives underground and whose heroic assistants lift his eyelashes with iron pitchforks. The images of an iron fork, an iron finger, an iron face obviously go back to more ancient times, when this metal was difficult to obtain and highly valued.
If the monster managed to lift his eyelids and look at a person, he would immediately die. In this regard, scientists admit that Viy is related to folk beliefs about the evil eye or the evil eye (a bad look causes everything to deteriorate and begin to die). It is also possible that there is some correspondence between the creature’s features and another character in fairy tales—Koshchei the Immortal.
Gogolevsky Viy
In his story of the same name, Gogol reveals this image, as the writer says, “a creation of the common people’s imagination.” In the work the creature is squat, clubfooted. His arms and legs are like intertwined roots. Viy has an iron face and an iron finger, centuries to the ground. Rather, he does not kill with a glance, but removes all effects of amulets against evil spirits. In this regard, we can talk about the literary continuity of this folk image.
The fair and incorruptible Judge Viy is looking forward to all of them.
To the east Slavic mythology Viy is the spirit that brings death. Having huge eyes with heavy lids, Viy kills with his gaze. In Ukrainian demonology - a formidable old man with eyebrows and eyelids reaching down to the ground.
Viy cannot see anything on his own, he also acts as a seer of evil spirits (which can be seen in the work of N.V. Gogol); but if several strong men manage to lift his eyebrows and eyelids with iron pitchforks, then nothing will be able to hide before his menacing gaze: with his gaze Viy kills people, sends pestilence to enemy troops, destroys and turns towns and villages to ashes. Viy was also considered the sender 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 associated - that everything perishes and deteriorates from a bad look. Viy is also associated with the seasonal death of nature during winter.
There are two assumptions about the origin of the name Viya: the first is the Ukrainian word “vii” (pronounced “viyi”), which is translated from modern Ukrainian language means "eyelids"; and the second - with the word “to curl”, since the image of Viy resembles some kind of plant: his legs are entwined with roots and he is all covered with dried pieces of earth.
According to the “Book of Kolyada”: “The commander in the army of Chernobog is Viy, the brother of the sky god Dyya. In peacetime, Viy is the jailer in Pekla. He holds in his hand a fiery scourge with which he treats sinners. He has heavy eyelids, they are held with pitchforks by Viy’s minions. If Viy opens his eyes and looks at a person, he cannot bear to die. sunlight, that’s why 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 howl was heard in the distance, and soon heavy steps were heard echoing through the church; looking sideways, he saw that they were leading some squat, hefty, club-footed man. He was all in black earth. Like stringy strong roots, arms and legs covered with earth protruded from it. He walked heavily, constantly stumbling. Long eyelids were lowered to the ground. Khoma noticed with horror that his face was iron. They brought him by the arms and stood him directly in front of the place where Khoma stood.
Lift my eyelids: I can’t see! - Viy said in an underground voice. “And the whole host rushed to lift his eyelids.”
"Don't look!" - some inner voice whispered to the philosopher. He couldn’t bear it and looked.
Here it is! - Viy shouted and pointed an iron finger at him. And everything, no matter how much it was, rushed at the philosopher. He fell to the ground lifeless, and the spirit immediately flew out of him out of fear. That’s why you can’t look Viya in the eyes, because he’ll take you away and drag you into his dungeon, 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 given to the Little Russians for the chief of the gnomes, whose eyelids go down to the very ground. This whole story is a folk legend. I did not want to change it in any way and I tell it almost in the same simplicity as I heard.”
According to the research of D. Moldavsky1, the name Viya arose from Gogol as a result of a phonetic mixture of the name of the mythological ruler of the underworld Niya and Ukrainian words: “viya” - eyelash and “poviko” - eyelid.
Famous Russian folklorist A.N. Afanasyev sees in Viya a reflection of the ancient and powerful deity of the Slavs, namely the thunder god (Perun).
The religious symbol of God Viy is the All-Seeing Eye - meaning “nothing can hide from the judge’s gaze.” Presumably, his idol was also depicted with such a symbol.
Niy (West Slavic) or Viy (Eastern Slavic) - also correlates with Pluto2, according to Dlugosz3 ("History of Poland", 15th century), perhaps one of the incarnations of Veles:
"Book I... Pluto was nicknamed Nya; he was considered the god of the underworld, the guardian and guardian of souls who left their bodies, and they asked him to lead him to the best places of the underworld after death, and they built him the main sanctuary in the city of Gniezno4, where converged from all places."
Maciej Stryjkowski5 in the “Chronicle of Polish, Lithuanian and All Rus'” in 1582 writes:
“They revered Pluto, the god of the sun, whose name was Nya, in the evening; after his death, they asked him for better pacification of bad weather.”
Religious symbol of God Viy
In Russian folk tales with similar plots (such as “The Battle on Kalinov Bridge”, “Ivan - peasant son and Miracle Yudo") and also recorded by A.N. Afanasyev, the hero and his named brothers fight with three monsters (Miracle Yudos) and defeat them, then reveal the machinations of the monsters' wives, but the Mother of Serpents was able to deceive Ivan Bykovich and "dragged him into dungeon, brought her to her husband - an old old man.
On you, he says, our destroyer.
The old man lies on an iron bed, sees nothing, his long eyelashes and thick eyebrows completely cover his eyes. He then 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 pitchforks: the old man looked..."
The old man arranges a test for Ivan Bykovich with the kidnapping of his bride. And then competes with him, balancing over a fiery pit, standing on a board. This old man loses the test and is cast into a fiery pit (the Christian “Fiery Hyena?”), i.e. to the very depths of the lower world (the Underworld). In this regard, it is not superfluous to mention that the southern Slavs held a New Year's holiday in winter, where the old, serpentine god Badnyak6 (correlated with the old year) was burned, and his place was taken by the young Bozhich.
In Ukraine, there is a character, Solodivy Bunio, or simply the Naughty Bonyak (Bodnyak), sometimes he appears in the form of “a terrible fighter, with a look that kills a person and turns entire cities into ashes, the only happiness is that this murderous look is covered by clinging 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 considered the embodiment of a nightmare.
It is not without reason that the epic father of Svyatogor is identified by A. Asov7 with Viy. Having come to stay with the blind (dark) father of Svyatogor, Ilya Muromets, upon 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 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 Viy has an iron bed, an iron pitchfork. Iron ore is mined from the earth, which means that the Lord of the underground kingdom, Viy, was a kind of master and patron of the earth’s bowels and their riches. Apparently, that’s why N.V. Gogol classifies him among the gnomes, who, according to European tradition, were the guardians 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 in the future Viy merges with the image of Koshchei the Immortal - the king of the dead, the god of death. In one of the fairy tales there is a mention that Koschey lifts his eyelids with seven pitchforks, which indicates his similarity or relationship with Viy. Noteworthy is the relationship between the words: poker, koshevoy, Koschey, kosh-mar. "Kosh" means chance, lot (cf. "makosh"). It was assumed that Chernobog stirred up the coals in the 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, such as 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 their ends down, there is no harvest, upwards, there will be a harvest. In this way, the weather and crop yields could be predicted.
The fairy tale about Vasilisa the Beautiful, who lived in the service of Baba Yaga, says that she received a gift for her work - in some cases - a pot (stove-pot), in other cases - a skull (which most likely relates specifically to Koshchei, for the kingdom of Koshchei was strewn with human skulls and bones). When she returned home, the pot skull burned her stepmother and her stepmother's daughters to ashes with its magical gaze.
Koschey, in a later era, stood out as an independent cosmogonic character who causes living matter to be deader, associated with chthonic8 characters such as the hare, duck and fish. Undoubtedly, he is associated with seasonal necrosis, he is the enemy of Baba Yaga, who guides the hero into his world - the Koshny Kingdom. The name of the heroine is also interesting (in one of the Russian folk tales), kidnapped by Koshchei - Marya Morevna (death to death).
IN Orthodox Christianity Viy was replaced by Saint Kasyan.
In Russian traditions, legends, and beliefs, the image of Saint 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 depicted as negative. In some villages he was not even recognized as a saint, and his name itself was considered shameful. Usually the image of Kasyan was associated with hell and he was assigned demonic traits in appearance and behavior.
By popular ideas, Saint Kasyan is unkind, selfish, stingy, envious, vindictive and brings people nothing but misfortune. Appearance Kasyan is unpleasant, especially striking are his slanting eyes with disproportionately large eyelids and a deathly gaze (the “saint” is good, isn’t it?). Russian people believed that “Kasyan looks at everything, he turns everything around,” “Kasyan cuts everything with a sideways eye,” “Kasyan hits the people—it’s hard for the people,” “Kasyan hits the grass—the grass dries, Kasyan hits the cattle—the cattle die.” In Siberia it was believed that Kasyan liked to “wrap” the heads of chickens, after which they died or became monsters. On its holiday - “Kasyan Day” (Kasyan the Unmerciful, Kasyan the Envious, Crooked Kasyan), which is celebrated on February 29 in leap year, Kasyan amuses himself by looking at the world around us: looks at people - there will be pestilence, at livestock - death, at fields - crop failure. The veneration of Kasyan also took place on January 14-15.
In addition, it was believed that all the winds were subordinate to Kasyan, which he kept behind all kinds of constipations; most likely, it was on this basis that the version of Viya-Kasyan’s similarity with the Hindu god Vayu, who is indeed similar in description to our Viy, emerged. Vayu is the god of wind and also the bestower of boons, he provides shelter and can disperse enemies. He is represented as having a thousand eyes, but at the same time his appearance is vague.
Our ancient Navier deity Viy also has an analogue among the ancient Irish, who call it Balor. In Irish mythology, this deity is the one-eyed god of death, leader of the ugly Fomorian demons. Balor struck enemies with the deadly gaze of his single eye. During the battle, the god's eyelid was raised by four servants.
List of used literature:
1) Holy Russian Vedas. Book of Kolyada., M.: "FAIR-Press", 2007.
2) N.V. Gogol. - Viy, from the 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. Soldatenkova and N. Shchepkina, 1860.
5) M. Drahomanov - Little Russians folk legends and stories, Kyiv, 1876, p. 224, as well as I. Ichiro - General Slavic folklore source Gogolsky Viy, Izvestia of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 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 - The Life of 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 located somewhere in the far west, beyond the Ocean River, which washes the earth."
3 Jan Dlugosz (1415-1480) - Polish historian and diplomat, major Catholic hierarch, author of the "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 the hearth on Christian Christmas Eve, and the main rite of the Christmas cycle of holidays among the southern Slavs.
7 Alexander Ivanovich Asov - writer, journalist, historian and philologist, one of the most famous modern researchers and experts on ancient Slavic culture and Slavic paganism.
8 Chthonic - belonging to the underworld.
