Słowiańskie wierzenia o Leszym

Evidence: 52 • authority: 72

Leshy is a tutelary deity of the forest in pagan Slavic mythology. As Leshy rules over the forest and hunting, he may be related to the Slavic god Porewit. Leshy often appears as a masculine humanoid, and possesses an ability to disguise himself as any person, including changing in size and stature. In some accounts, Leshy is described as having a wife (Leshachikha, Leszachka, Lesovikha, and sometimes the Kikimora of the swamp) and children (leshonki, leszonky). Leshy is known to misguide wanderers and abduct young ones, traits he shares with the notorious Chort, the "Black One" or "Devil", thus leading some to perceive him as a malevolent entity. Leshy's attitude towards humans can vary, d…

Evidence: 51 • authority: 88

WILDNESS VS HUMANITY IN THE UDMURT PEOPLE’S PERCEPTION OF FOREST SPIRITS. The author considers wildness as a mythological category peculiar to some folklore characters, nature spirits in particular. A group of mythological characters can be identified under the conditional name “wild people” in many regions of the world. They are characterized by a close connection with nature, humaneness and isolation from the human world. The article examines the images of Udmurt spirits of the forest space as agents combining signs of anthropomorphic and zoomorphic properties, as well as manifestations of demonic nature. Based on published folklore and ethnographic sources, media and archival data, as we…

Evidence: 45 • authority: 88

Paraphrasing of the folklore image of leshy in the novel „Russian Forest” by Leonid Leonov. This article discusses the paraphrasing of one of the ancient Slavic mythological images – leshy – in the novel „Russian Forest” by L.M. Leonov. Old man Kalina is a key figure in the system of images of the novel, although he may appear to be a minor image. This article examines the importance of this image for a writer who builds a hierarchy of values in the Russian world. „Keeper of the Forest” – this definition can be attributed to a number of characters, but the main, basic image will be Kalina, who transfers his status and powers to Ivan Vikhrov. This relationship of characters is important for…

Evidence: 38 • authority: 88

Borat the Trickster: Folklore and the Media, Folklore in the Media. Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan (2006) elicits extreme and contradictory audience responses. Some filmgoers find it amusing and clever, while others consider it repulsive, even obscene. Analyzing the film's hero as a traditional and archetypical trickster figure, a master of contradictions, a violator of boundaries, can help explain audience reaction. But while traditional folklore tricksters act in a fantasy world, Sacha Baron Cohen entered the lives of real people in trickster (dis) guise. For theater audiences removed from the interactions that created Borat, this film…

Evidence: 38 • authority: 72

Slavic paganism encompasses the historical pre-Christian religious beliefs, mythologies, and ritual practices of the Slavic peoples before their gradual Christianization between the 8th and 13th centuries. Rooted in broader Proto-Indo-European religion, the historical Slavic faith was polytheistic and animistic, characterized by a deep reverence for nature, ancestor worship, and rituals tied closely to the agricultural calendar. While a unified pan-Slavic pantheon likely never existed due to geographic fragmentation, certain core deities and cosmological concepts were shared across the East, West, and South Slavs.

Evidence: 38 • authority: 72

The Russian folklore, i.e., the folklore of Russian people, takes its roots in the pagan beliefs of ancient Slavs and now is represented in the Russian fairy tales. Epic Russian bylinas are also an important part of Slavic paganism. The oldest bylinas of Kievan cycle were recorded in northwest Russia, especially in Karelia, where most of the Finnish national epic Kalevala was recorded as well. In the late 19th-century Russian fairy tales began being translated into English, with Russian Folk Tales (1873) by William Ralston, and Tales and Legends from the Land of the Tzar (1890) by Edith Hodgetts. Many Russian fairy tales and bylinas have been adapted for animation films, or for feature movi…

Evidence: 38 • authority: 72

Other than the many gods and goddesses of the Slavs, the ancient Slavs believed in and revered many supernatural beings that existed in nature. These supernatural beings in Slavic religion come in various forms, and the same name of any single being can be spelled or transliterated differently according to language and transliteration system.