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DOI: 10.24234/wisdom. v16i3.386 Svitlana FORMANOVA, Olena MATUZKOVA, Tetiana YABLONSKA, Volodymyr OLEKSENKO, Evelina BOIEVA, Serhi DMYTRIEV
DEMONOLEXIS IN MYKOLA GOGOL'S WORKS: PHILOSOPHICAL AND LINGUOCULTURAL PERSPECTIVES
Abstract
The peculiarities of functioning of demonological lexis in the works of Mykola Gogol in the philosophical and linguocultural perspectives are considered in the article. Demonological lexis is determined to be one of the essential segments of ethnocultural representation. It is projected on linguistic culture and creates a peculiar semiotic culture of a particular ethnic group. Ukrainians' belief in non-Christian culture various mystical forces along with sincere faith in one God, promotes active development of their spiritual culture and philosophical worldview. It is reflected in the artistic heritage.
The purpose of the article is the analysis of Ukrainian demonology in Mykola Gogol's works.
The subject of the research is demonological lexis in Mykola Gogol's works.
The methods such as analysis and synthesis, descriptive, observation, contextual-interpretive, linguistic-stylistic were used for achieving the goal.
Ukrainian demonology is proved to be a part of Slavic mythology identity and its attributive element. The philosophical aspect of the article is realized in demonological magic, the connection of the corporeal, spiritual, soul with the body, psychophysiological phenomena, altered states of reality etc. The authors analyzed the existing classifications of demonological lexis and defined that the Ukrainian demonological lexis forms structural, impaired, open microsystem in its constant development.
Keywords: demonological lexis, demon name, anthroponym, onym, philosophical aspect, linguocul-tural perspectives, paganism, mythological system, personification, Christianity.
Introduction
vytsky, P. Chubynsky, I. Ogienko) and linguistic (A. Vasylenko, J. Dzendzelivsky, T. Lukinova, N. Tyapkina, N. Hobsey).
Ukrainian demonology, as a component of spiritual culture, has attracted researchers' attention for an extended period. Scientific research was conducted in different directions: ethnographic (V. Gnatuk, M. Kostomarov, I. Nechuy-Le-
Mykola Gogol, who used the pictorial phenomena of demonological symbolism (symbol-lism associated with the images of devils, witches, hobgoblins, mermaids, mavkas, dog-heads,
syroids, ghouls, etc.), the philosophical and eth-nocultural paradigms embedded in the pheno-type of Ukrainian linguistic consciousness, can be attributed to the most famous Ukrainian writers who use demonological lexis in their works since ancient times.
The very term "demonology" is a set of mythical ideas of people, based on the belief in evil spirits (demons). The demon in Greek mythology is "a generalized idea of a certain indefinite and unformed divine power of evil, rarely good. Early Christian ideas about demons are associated with the image of an evil, demonic force. The demon is a symbol of those supernatural characters who are not gods and occupy a lower place in the hierarchy compared to the gods or are at lower levels in this mythological system. In a narrower and more precise sense, demons are evil spirits" ("Myths of Nations of the World", 1980, pp. 366-367).
The term "demonological lexis" refers to a combination of lexemes denoting mythical ideas based on the human belief in supernatural forces and abilities of demonic beings that harm or assist man in his affairs, mystical buildings and structures, magical cults and rituals involving otherworldly forces. Demonological lexis should also include non-personified demon names such as rethinking of dominant emotions, feelings, specific substances, objects, phenomena that perform the functions of internal and external demons in relation to man and temporarily or permanently "live" in human consciousness or subconscious.
It should be noted that the demonological lexis of mythological and biblical origin is part of the system of any language and is a separate complex category of anthroponyms. Unlike onyms, that denote real objects, they have a broader meaning which can be explained by rich ex-
tralinguitic information they contain, as well as, their usage in the speech of teams and in artistic speech, i.e. in the occasional individual - author's usage. This is important for the expressive possibilities of proprial units because each case of their usage in fiction and other arts adds additional connotative components to their meaning.
Ukrainian demonology reflects the world-view of Ukrainians, the features of their national way of thinking, features of culture, which gives grounds to study demonolexics in the context of both philosophical and linguocultural. The subject of the research represents traditional demo-nological characters in the area of the literary text and identifies different levels of cultural layers and transformations, identifies trends in semantic development of these nominations, namely, expansion, narrowing of their meanings, deseman-tization, features of functioning.
According to our observations, the principle of the dualism of Good and Evil in folk demono-logy is represented by animistic mythological characters, which Mykola Gogol vividly showed in his works. His demonological images have a dual nature and are almost never the embodiment of a single principle. They are ambiguous, dynamic, able to transform and develop their philosophical symbolism over the course of fiction. Po-sitivity or negativity of demon names is conditional because it is determined by the dominant role in the work, constructive or destructive.
The study of demonolexis in M. Gogol's works was carried out by comparing the folklore meanings of images of folk demonology, which are fixed by the Ukrainian mythological legend, depicting the ancient Ukrainian beliefs. They are drawn artistically and semantically. We found that in its artistic space there are all types of tote-mistic demonological characters, which, in addi-
tion to the totemistic basis, also combine the ability to be a werewolf and connected with the practice of initial rites. Moments of the werewolf in the analyzed stories, in contrast to folklore, do not just articulate the fantastic potential of the images. They are symbolic and denote important spiritual changes, events of the inner life of the hero (Vakula, Khoma Brut). Initiation also acquires a philosophical sound. In its context interpreted demonological images of this type are explained as the initiation of the human in man through trial, self-realization or the redemption of evil, its comprehension in itself and victory over it.
The typological similarity of the appellation anthroponymic bases, which developed in differ-rent East Slavic languages and the Indo-European peoples, is due to the common source categories on which they are based. We include the attitude of man to nature, to other people, the interaction and interaction of forms of thinking and perception, the nature of the worldview.
As rightly noted by O. V. Superanskaya (1988), proper names are words related to social culture. These words reflect physical parameters and relationships, as well as various proper names that give a mediocre description of the named person (p. 10). However, in some nation-nalities, people are given their names from the fund of common names and appellations. Besides, the onomasticon of different peoples, even highly developed ones, is based on "originally appellate vocabulary of long-extinct and often genetically unrelated foreign languages or extinct and ossified in their names and now not always clear common names of any of the historical levels of their language" (Khudash, 1977, p. 148).
The functional transformation of proper names in a literary text, in our opinion, primarily lies in the fact that the priority of differentiation
(nomination) retreats under the onslaught of sty-listics. Also, the main task of the linguistic interpretation of the text, according to L. V. Scherba (1957), is "to show those linguistic means through which the ideological and associated emotional content of literary works is expressed" (p. 97).
As for onyms of mythological and biblical origin, it is an open system that is constantly evolving and changing, interacting with the system of demonolexis. One can observe the processes of onimization and appellation of names. Since the transition of the name from one status to another there is a change of referent with the transfer of certain features, it can be confirmed that the basis of onimization and appeal of demo-nolexis with broad cultural-historical connoteti-ons is the process of metaphorization.
W. Humboldt (1984) stated: "Language is an activity, not a finished business", language is intertwined with the national spirit, they arose not separately but consistently, and "both are inseparable activities of the mental strength of the people" (p. 48). Language is much higher than the human and is not a human matter: it is a set of particulars, which assumes the plurality of words and their choices, existing rules, emerging analogies, exceptions - all this, at first glance, is perceived as chaos. The creation of language is a constant and spontaneous phenomenon, each individual participates in it, but in general, language is the embodiment of the "people's spirit". People are the primordial creators and reformers of the language. Language is associated with the formation of the spiritual strength of the nation, it "is its spirit, and the spirit of the people is its language, and it is difficult to imagine something more identical" (Humboldt, 1984, p. 68).
O. Potebnya (1958) emphasized that the content of scientific knowledge does not entirely
arise from the work of human thought, but only testifies the word's belonging to two worlds -consciousness and nature, which confirms its "existential content" (p. 237). The word stands between man and nature, acts as an objectified form that allows man to see his own opinion about the world. In the word, the human comes to the comprehension of being, to the knowledge of the subject. It is the substantive meaning that allows a person to have the opportunity to transform reality perfectly. Taking into consideration that V. Humboldt and O. Potebnya in their linguistic studies consider the opposition language -world, the philosophers (O. Losev, P. Florensky, S. Bulgakov, etc.) focus on the problem of naming and reflecting the essence of the name in relation to the denoted in the word.
For the representatives of this trend, the philosophy of the name has become a kind of paradigm of understanding life because the name and the process of naming has an ontological character. In the philosophy of the name written by S. Bulgakov, P. Florensky, O. Losev, "name", "word" and "word that sounds" are used as synonyms. The human word appears as an instance of a broader understanding of the name; the nature of language has an energetic basis. These philosophers analyze, above all, the relationship between energy and essence, name and energy.
O. F Losev (1990) in "Philosophy of the Name" dwells on the analysis of the opposition "word (name) - thing", namely, on the process of naming. The most important, in his opinion, is that the word is the energy of the essence of the thing and carries "intelligent" mythological and personal functions. The main statement of O. F. Losev's philosophy is that the name is the energy of the essence. The scientist emphasized that the formation of the logical construction of the name is impossible without symbolism. "Only in the
symbolic and magical myth does the essence reach its full definition ... this is the name. To deduce a name means to deduce the whole essence with all its subordinate moments" (p. 171).
In S. Bulgakov's philosophy of language, the anthropological essence of language is revealed. According to the researchers (1953), the energetic nature of naming determines that it comes in different forms. He emphasizes that the names of all things are hidden in a human: "they are the microcosms, and the beings from which all names come" (p. 104).
No less important in the philosophy of the name are the works by P. Florensky. While developing the problem of nouns, he covers related issues such as the essence of language, the problem of naming, the problem of expressing the concept in words. P. Florensky, starting from the Platonic doctrine of ideas as true reality, said that the word acts as a metaphysical principle of existence and cognition in ontological philosophy. The name in the ontological concept of the scientist "is force - idea and substance - words". The name of a thing is the substance of a thing, because "in a thing lives a name, a thing is created by a name" (Florensky, 1998, p. 185). The ability to know things is determined only by the knowledge of their names, which is clearly seen in demonology.
At the stage of culture formation, the beliefs of different periods of existence of the same people collide. For example, there was a synthesis of Christianity with elements of paganism on the territory of modern Ukraine. Indeed, along with a sincere belief in the one God, Ukrainians continue to believe in hobgoblins, fate, vodilo, ghost, and even, under the influence of foreign culture, vampires and werewolves. In the cultural traditions of different peoples, there is an interference of several closely related semiotic systems. In
this regard, the use of different modifications of the same demon name is observed though in different cultural planes. Therefore, the problem of studying demonolexis in the context of the linguistic and cultural process with the separation of different levels of cultural layers and transformations is considered to be actual.
Research Methods
In achieving the goal, we used a variety of methods such as analysis and synthesis - for the implementation of theoretical generalizations and systematization of factual material; descriptive - for the general description of the features of demonolexis; observation - to highlight the typical linguistic indicators of demonolexis units; contextual-interpretive for identifying the functional-semantic load of the actual material; linguistic-stylistic analysis for determining the stylistic and emotionally expressive load of demonolexis in a literary text.
Discussion
Ukrainian demonology, as a mental and figurative-personified relative unity, is one of the links of all-Slavic and world mythology. It should be noted that in the images-characters of demonological paradigm, the ethnos accumulates the information about the proto-basis of philosophical ideas about the world as a separate nation and a whole group of more or less related ethnic groups: "The primitive man stared eyes wide open at everything that surrounded him, everything his whole life depended on, and what was stronger than him. All around in nature were living spirits that ruled over certain areas. The primitive man was perfectly familiar with nature - forests, fields, rivers, animals, birds, trees, poti-
ons, etc. Thus, it was easy to think of how to make it so as not to harm oneself, how to live with him in complete harmony. All this, stronger than man, later began to take revenge, as a higher power, as a deity with whom it was necessary to form a corresponding loyal relationship" (Ogien-ko, 1992, p. 3). Consistent adaptation of the Ukrainian people to the linguophilosophical system of Christian traditions had applied nature. In the interaction of primitive (pagan) and Christian views of the world, there was significant interference, which served as a decoration of rites for a long time: Christian - pagan and, on the contrary, pagan - Christian. Describing the pre-Christian beliefs of the Ukrainian people, Ivan Ogienko wrote: "The original beliefs were most closely connected with life - with the nature of their environment, as it was required by their economic life - they were naturalistic beliefs - built on nature. Man wanted to be in the best relationship with his nature because he could see that everything depends on him. Therefore the original religion was based on the struggle with its environment for its existence, in fact, on the particular attitude to this environment - the sun, water, land, trees, etc., and especially to animals. The original faith was a practical, domestic, economic faith, necessary for the man at every step because it was strongly connected with his work. It was the religion of real life, later farming, as part of human life, when his faith and life were inextricably linked through hundreds of threads. Ancient faith was animistic faith (Latin animus -soul, living), that is, the man believed that everything around him lives: feels, understands, has his desires, fights for his existence, like any living thing, and therefore primitive man treated nature as a living being. The cult of nature was the basis of an original religious worldview, and religion was spiritualization of the whole envi-
ronment" (Ogienko, 1992, p. 5).
No single point of view might be found in the domestic sciences as for the definition of "demonology" and the delineation of the system of demonological characters. This word is more often interpreted as"mythical ideas about evil spirits (demons), which arose based on the original belief in spirit" (Lukinova, 1981, pp. 56-68).
The stages of fixing knowledge of Ukrainian demonology, as part of the worldviews of our ancestors, are associated with the development of writing, uniqueness of historical conditions and the level of national consciousness of the population. Understanding and generalizing the legacy of researchers, finding parallels with the present is quite a real thing. This should once again testify to the continuity of the functioning of the elements of paganism in the language.
One can learn about the demonology of the times of Kievan Rus from chronicles and some theological works. "At the critical stage of the transformation of folk worldviews, chronicles preferred folk terminology as a more established sphere of religious and magical beliefs; theological teachings tried to refute these beliefs, seeing in them "demonic temptation, hostile to Christian piet" (Gritsenko, 1998, p. 27). Christian clergy struggled against the philosophical and nominative paradigm of paganism in the ethnic consciousness of Ukrainians until the nineteenth century. According to O. O. Potebnya (1989), "Slavic mythology was buried in us too early: a comparison of Greek and Sanskrit names shows that religion was already developed before the partition of Greeks and Hindus. It would be strange if the Slavs did not have it. The silence of Ukrainian and other chroniclers, or passing mentions of folk beliefs, is explained by the contemptuous attitude of monks to these beliefs" (p. 483). However, even now we see rudimentary ritual and fi-
gurative fragments of paganism, which are wonderfully woven into Christian culture: the symbols of the Green Holidays, Kupala, Christmas carols and others. It is worth noting that other Slavic peoples, who were Christianized at the end of the first millennium AD, preserved their own pagan traditions of the solar cycle: Bulgarians, Serbs, Macedonians, Russians and others. As I. Ogienko (1992) remarks, "The Slavic people have received a lot in their beliefs since the Indo-European era when they lived a more or less common life with all other peoples, and this is clearly evidenced by the fact that in the folk beliefs of Indo-European peoples now has a lot in common. Even more common in the original faith of the Slavic peoples, and, therefore, it is often impossible to distinguish purely Ukrainian beliefs from it. And, in general, it should be emphasized that to study ancient beliefs, the development of purely spiritual life, is very difficult now, for thousands of years, compared with, for example, the experience of an ancient religious cult (rites), which is given to us much easier" (p. 3).
Among the studies related to Ukrainian de-monology, the prominent place is occupied by the work by O. Potebnya "On the mythological significance of some rites and belief", which mentions and analyzes the demonological characters of Baba Yaga, Snake, Chakhlyk the Immortal. The value of the scientist's scientific studies for researchers of demonology is shown in the close attention of O. Potebnya to the discovery of the semantics of mythological nominations. The semantic structure of mythological images is associated with ethnocultural traditions, through the clarification of which the deep meaning of the objects of the mythological world is determined.
According to the researcher, myths can be
considered as personifications that do not have an objective existence, or as beings to which it is inherent. In the first case, mythical images can be called personification, and in the second - they are mythical characters (Potebnya, 1989, p. 483).
Numerous investigations on Ukrainian and Slavic mythology were published in periodicals and magazines: "University News" (1861), "Proceedings of the Kyiv Theological Academy" (1860), "Notes of the Southwestern Department of the RGO" (1874), "Readings in the Historical Society of Nestor the Chronicler "(1879)," Kyiv Antiquity "(1882)," Life and Word "(1894)," Ethnographic Collection "(1895)," Ethnological Materials "(1899). The articles, reports and abstracts contained in them were primarily aimed at attracting the widest possible regional material, imbued with the idea of poeticizing ancient Slavic mythological and demonological ideas.
The publication of seven volumes of P. Chubynsky "Proceedings of the Ethnographic and Statistical Expedition to the Western Russian Territory" became a remarkable phenomenon in the cultural life of the Ukrainian people. The fifth volume of "Works" with a foreword by P. Chu-bynsky contains folk beliefs, which, according to the author, will help to understand the worldview of the people. In them the author singles out the rubrics "Devils" (water spirit, man-forester, swamp spirit, reed spirit, caduceus, devil, gloom, ghost, bust, etc.); "Spirit-people" (witch, witcher, ghoul, werewolf, mavka, mermaid, magician, fortune teller, etc.); "Mythical creatures" (snake, vulture, poverty, syroids, pygmies, heroes); "Personification" (fate, death, Friday); "Diseases" (fever, cholera, plague) (Chubynsky, 1995, p. 10).
In 1876 I. Nechuy-Levytsky (1993) published an ethnographic and folkloristic survey "Worldview of the Ukrainian people", where he
described the lower mythological level in the second chapter which he divides into spirits and half-spirits (mermaids, nyavkas, mavkas, field spirits, wood goblins, hobgoblins, evil water spirits, devils) and fate and semi-mythical creatures (witches, witchers, ghouls, werewolves) (p. 42).
Victoria Krasnykh (2003) in her research "Just one among strangers: myth or reality?", in the section "Mentefacts of cultural space", reveals the meaning of bestiaries (spirits, demons that "inhabit" the reality of a national linguistic and cultural society, surrounded by its representatives) (p. 156).
A significant contribution to the solution of the problems of Slavic demonology, and in its composition also Ukrainian, was made by Russian researchers, compilers of the ethnolinguistic dictionary "Slavic Antiquities", edited by M. Tolstoy (Moscow, 1995). The dictionary contains a large amount of Ukrainian language material with an indication of the region of distribution.
Over the years, the study of demonology has carried out several classifications of demons, such as the place of residence, mode, occupation, planetary classification, areas of influence, etc. During the years of independence of Ukraine, and within the current increase of the relevance of the problem of spiritual revival, the interest in the spiritual and cultural aspect of human activity has significantly risen. In this regard, the Ukrainian demonology, as part of Slavic mythology, is an attributive element of the Ukrainian nation, a manifestation of its identity. In this way, scholars have become more interested in folk beliefs and superstitions. Numerous works of contemporaries (V. Voitovych, S. Plachynda, V. Skurativ-sky, etc.) are devoted to their study.
Thus, the stages of formation of knowledge in Ukrainian demonology can be divided into
two periods - the period of accumulation and the period of comprehension of knowledge. It should be noted that in domestic science, despite significant achievements in the field of Slavic mythology, no researches have tackled the composition and structure of Ukrainian demonolexis. In ethnology, only the general features of this microsystem within Ukrainian mythology have been identified so far (V. Gnatuk, I. Nechuy-Levyt-sky, I. Ogienko, V. Skurativsky, P. Chubynsky, etc.).
As Filin (1982) noted, Ukrainian demono-lexis has undergone centuries of development and transferred its traditions to the modern author's vocabulary. Therefore, an important stage of the study is the creation of a certain structural classification of demonolexis in the literature. For this purpose, it is necessary to allocate certain lexical-semantic and thematic groups. "Lexical-semantic groups of words are a product of laws and patterns of lexical semantics of the language, while thematic groups of words, their composition depends only on the level of knowledge of a nation - creator and native speaker, the ability to classify the phenomena of reality, which got their vocabulary designation" (pp. 233-234).
Based on N. Tyapkina's classification, we believe that all demonolexis units can be classified by:
1. the origin (traditional: biblical, pagan, actually Ukrainian, mythologies of the world, common; and actually author's),
2. the presence of a person (personified and non-personified),
3. the purpose of functioning (expressive nomination, transfer of state, emotions, treatment, comparison, etc.),
4. the place of functioning (colloquial style (swear words and expressions), ceremonial,
ritual, toponymic names and onomastics),
5. the scope of action (for good - positive, for evil - negative, neutral),
6. the physical features (anthropomorphic, zo-omorphic, anthropozoomorphic, without physical features),
7. the spirituality and material expression (material, which can be divided into warmblooded and "dead"; here we include buildings and structures; intangible - spirits and some non-personified demon names),
8. the presence of a magic helper (with a magic helper, without a magic helper, he is a magic helper),
9. the nature of perception (visual, acoustic, tactile, imaginary and complex),
10. symbolic meaning in work (Tyapkina, 2006, p. 19).
Among all the variety of demon names that writers use in their works, we can distinguish two large groups: traditional and non-personified demon names. According to the research by N. Tyapkina (2006), traditional demonic characters can be divided into three subgroups: anthropomorphic (who have human features similar to humans or are people with supernatural abilities: witches, sorcerers, magi, fortune tellers etc.), zo-omorphic (which have animal features, totemic basis, similar to the representatives of the animal world, animals with supernatural abilities: Sivka-burka horse, magic cat etc.) and anthropozoo-morphic (which have both human and animal features: mermaids, centaurs, minotaurs etc.) (p. 19).
All traditional demon names are mostly personified but should be separated into a separate subgroup of non-personified demon names. The problematic question immediately arises: what demon names can be called non-personified? Non-personified demon names include dominant
emotions, feelings, certain substances, objects, phenomena that perform the functions of internal and external demons in respect of a person.
Thus, we proceed from the understanding of the system as a set of interconnected elements that constitute a more complex unity, which is characterized by these elements - its constituent parts, and the understanding of the structure as a whole (Melnychuk, 1970, p. 27). All means of depicting evil spirits are in a holistic system of demonological vocabulary.
Most of the images of Ukrainian folk demonology are of pre-Christian origin. The demono-logical idea was associated with natural phenomena, household life, and so on. Folk fantasy often gave demonic creatures a human likeness, i. e. they were endowed with anthropomorphic features. Such representatives of folk demonology as hobgoblin, vodilo, devil, witch/sorceress/ enchantress, mermaids, mavkas/nyavkas/she-de-vils, werewolves, wolfman, ghouls, the deads, Viy, magicians/whirlwinds/sorcerers, ghost etc. exist in different linguocultures.
The problems of the poetics of "Evenings in Khutir near Dykanka" and "Mirgorod" attract the attention of many modern researchers. Among them are Yu. V. Man, E. V Boieva, S. F. Vasilyev, M. Filevich and many others. P. Mi-khed made a significant contribution to Gogol studies. The topic "Gogol and the Devil" was thoroughly researched in his work by D. S. Me-rezhkovsky.
M. Gogol's image of the devil is multiface-ted. The devil is the character of most of the writer's works. "The Evil Spirit" appears before us in the image of Basavryuk ("The Evening on the Eve of Ivan Kupala") as a "demon man ", "the devil in human form ", who forces the hero to kill a child; in the image of a witch-stepmother from "Evenings in Khutir near Dykanka" ("May
night"), which leads a poor stepdaughter to suicide. Whereas in "Mirgorod" it is depicted in the image of Viy, the lord of the evil.
M. Gogol uses the image of the devil to show the negative features of man, to emphasize the philosophical dualism in human consciousness. The author concentrates in it the image of eternal evil, which is manifested in human nature. The main idea, which was the leitmotif of the writer's work and life, is: "How to expose the devil as a fool?". "For a long time now, I have only bothered to make people laugh at the devil at will after my writing" (Letter to Shevyrev from Naples dated April 27, 1847) (Merezhkov-sky, 2007, p. 3).
In Mykola Gogol's story "The Night Before Christmas", the devil appears as a demon name. According to N. Tyapkina's (2006) structural classification, we will analyze this image: its origin is defined as mythological, the image is personified, it is directed to evil, it is also anthropomorphic, spiritualized. He has no magical helpers, and he acts by himself, he is perceived visually (p. 7).
The devil appears before us as an image of endless, eternal vulgarity. He tries to seduce a person with his lowest and most selfish desires to distract a person from a specific path. Furthermore, according to the classics of the genre, which comes from the Faustian Mephistopheles, in the story "The Night Before Christmas" the devil also asks for help from Vakula the most valuable thing - his soul.
In his study, D. S. Merezhkovsky (2007) states: "In Gogol's religious understanding, the devil is a mystical essence and a real being, in which the denial of God, eternal evil, is concentrated. Gogol as an artist in the light of laughter explores the nature of this mystical essence; as a man, he fights this real being with a weapon of
laughter: Gogol's laughter is a man's struggle with the devil" (p. 10).
In the story "The Night Before Christmas" the devil appears to us like an ordinary man. This is one of the few works of the writer, where the devil is not terrible.
M. Gogol (1989) describes in detail the portrait of the devil, such as: "In front is completely German: narrow, constantly spinning and sniffing everything that came across, the muzzle ended, as in our pigs, with a round piglet, the legs were thin. However, behind him was a real provincial sorcerer in uniform, because he had a tail as sharp and long as the current uniform folds; only by the goat's beard under his snout, by the small horns sticking out on his head, could one guess that he was not a German, but simply a devil... " (p. 92).
From the description, it becomes clear that Gogol in a comic aspect depicts the "evil spirit" in this work. The effect of comedy is achieved with the help of affectionate suffixes: instead of a snout - he has a muzzle; not horns, but bunny ears; round piglet instead of a snout. His behave-our, like that of an ordinary man: "sucked his toes, shook his foot (foot, not hoof!) and ran to the other side, and jumped back and withdrew his hand, like a man who got fire with his bare hands for his cradle" (Gogol, 1989, p. 92).
The devil is also characterized by several human traits, in particular, such as meanness, thirst for revenge, impudence, malice, "smartness" and boastfUlness: "Here the devil laughed with joy, remembering how the lame devil will be furious, considered among them the first to invent" (Gogol, 1989, p. 111).
Extremely interesting in the story is the courtship of the devil to Solokha, where he already appears in the image of Don Juan: "Here the devil, who drove a small demon, took her by the
arm and began to whisper in his ear the same thing that is usually whispered to all women" (Gogol, 1989, p. 94). Furthermore, satirically M. Gogol (1989) shows how the devil got emotional on Solokha: "... he kissed her hand with such antics as an assessor at a priest's, took hold of her heart, groaned" (p. 101).
About fifteen famous in the Ukrainian de-monology of the "horned evil", Gogol chooses the most frequent (standard) image of the devil. However, it is synonymous with such as Satan, devil, demon and evil. Sometimes the devil causes the reader's pity: "The frost increased, and it became so cold at the top that the devil jumped from one hoof to another and blew his fist, wanting to warm his frozen hand" (Gogol, 1989, p. 101). Nevertheless, at the same time, M. Gogol (1989) sarcastically notes that in hell "it is not as cold as in our winter, and where, putting on a hat and standing in front of the hearth, as if in fact a cook, he roasted sinners with such pleasure as usually the woman fries sausage for Christmas " (p. 98). However, despite the similarity of the devil with a man, the author jokes that "this animal is more agile than any dude in stocking" (Gogol, 1989, p. 99). Gogol's idea of "how to expose the devil to a fool" is clearly evident in the scene when the blacksmith mocks him: "He was amused to the extreme, as the devil sneezed and coughed when he removed the cross from his neck and brought it to him. He deliberately raised his hand to scratch his head, and the devil, thinking that he was going to be baptized, flew even faster" (Gogol, 1989, p. 117).
The magical abilities of the Gogol devil include the ability to be a werewolf (turned into a horse in St. Petersburg) and decrease in size. M. Gogol continues the tradition of Pushkin, who in his work "Of the Priest and of his Workman Bald" constantly uses the phrase "poor devil".
And Vakula himself resembles Pushkin's Bald in character traits. M. Gogol (1989) once called the devil poor, as if sympathizing that this "fallen" soul had chosen an unjust path: "Then, grabbing a twig, he gave him three blows, and the poor devil started to run like a peasant who had just been vaporized by the assessor..." (p. 97). Further in the text, Gogol ridicules the devil: "...instead of leading, seducing and fooling others, the enemy of the human race was himself fooled" (p. 125). At the end of the work, the writer notes that Vakula completely defeated the devil in himself, exposing him as a fool. And as a sign of victory, he painted it so disgusting that even women frightened their children with it with the words: "He sees what poop is drawn" (Gogol, 1989, p. 127).
In the same way, Oksana coped with her shortcomings and defeated the devil in herself. Thus, one of the brightest images in the story "The Night Before Christmas" is the devil, which the author represents in the image of "eternal vulgarity". Mykola Gogol detailed the image of the devil, gave it a satirical look, showed his attitude to people and material goods. This image is an important segment of the picture of the world of the Ukrainian people. At the same time, they fear it, try to get rid of it or defeat it, decorate household spells with it, oppose the forces of GOOD and so on. So, if it is treated negatively, then only to protect against temptation and impudence. This tradition originates in Goethe's Faust, which testifies to the Baltic-Slavic unity of the pre-Christian linguistic-philosophical paradigm.
M. V. Gogol's fascination with Ukrainian ethnomythology gradually evolved in his own consciousness. First, in his letters to his mother, he tries to look deeper into the folk philosophy of Ukrainian folk interpretation of Slavic (some-
times Balto-Slavic) demonology, and later - represents material collected from various sources in one of the most famous European horror films of the first half of the nineteenth century. The work lacks the humorous and ironic mood inherent in "Evenings...". The struggle of two principles of world order: GOOD and EVIL unfolds before the reader grows. The text is devoid of heroes who are the bearers of a naive picture of the world. An educated spidey who knows not only the possibilities and characteristics of the antipode but also has the means to combat it fights against the forces of EVIL. M. Gogol textually builds a scientific picture of the world of representatives of the Ukrainian clergy, who had it as the basis of professional philosophy. No wonder the author chooses a representative of the pre-Christian demonological pantheon by identifying the forces of Evil.
Mention of Viy can be found in some myths of the Eastern Slavs.
It is believed that Viy, like Basilisk, can kill a person or animal with his gaze. According to legend, his eyelids reach a considerable length, so he cannot lift them. For this purpose, next to him are always servants - small evil spirits with pitchforks in their paws: howling lives underground in a deep damp pit or a dark cave. Their origin is not mentioned in any of the myths - perhaps it is one of the oldest spirits on earth. Therefore, Mykola Gogol in the story "Viy" quite accurately conveyed the appearance of this creature, based on ancient legends (Vasilyev, 1992, p. 7). However, the demonolexeme Viy is not characteristic of the Ukrainian language in its structure, because it is not used in the masculine and singular, so, in our opinion, the author emphasizes the "non-standard" nature of this character.
It is well known that the choice of name for
M. Gogol was of great importance. Gogol calls Viy "the chief of the dwarves". However, dwarves do not belong to either Ukrainian mythology or East Slavic beliefs. Dwarves are characters from German mythology. The Iranologist V. I. Abayev suggests that the name and image of Viy correspond to the Indo-Iranian god-demon Vayu (Weyn), which in the Old Slavic and Russian languages had a phonetic correspondence to VYU, and in Ukrainian, respectively Viy. During the transition to Slavic mythology, ancient Iranian deity lost his greatness but retained certain features of the "underground" pagan god of death. V. I. Abayev (1958) explains the absence of the name Viy in Slavic folklore and its presence only in Gogol by the action of a kind of "ban on the names of evil spirits" (taboos), when such words were excluded from the usage (p. 303).
In M. Gogol's story, the main character Viy appears to the reader as full, clawed, slightly squat, covered from head to toe with moist black earth. His legs and arms resemble tree roots. His gait is difficult and uncertain because with his eyelids lowered, he cannot see the road in front of him, and he is carefully led by faithful servants (Sumtsov, 1891, p. 233).
"Viy is a powerful work of people's imagination. This is the name of the Ukrainians of the elder over the dwarves that his eyelids go down to the ground in front of his eyes. This whole story is a folk tale. I did not want to change it, so I tell it almost as simply as I heard it" (Gogol, 2008, p. 129). Mykola Gogol begins the story with these words.
In the story "Viy" Gogol also uses demono-lexics, such as: "devil", "witch" and "viy".
At the beginning of the work, when three students were going to the farm, the philosopher Khoma exclaimed: "What the hell! It seemed as
if there would be a hamlet now!" (Gogol, 2008, p. 131). In this case, the demonological unit conveys the surprise of the guy. To convey the surprise that nothing is visible, the author uses the following phrase: "No damn fist is visible!" (Gogol, 2008, p. 131).
When the students arrived at the farm and came to the old woman's hut, Gogol described her appearance: "the bursaks saw a woman in an uncovered coat" (Gogol, 2008, p. 132). That is, before us is the image of an elderly man, of normal appearance, without any defects. But after the old woman let the boys spend the night in her house, she added: "It brought the devil such tender panic" (Gogol, 2008, p. 133). In this sense, the devil is mentioned as a wicked and evil man.
As soon as the boys were asleep, the woman came to Khoma with her arms outstretched. He refuses her, and she pushes everything on him. Just then the woman jumped on his back, hit the side with a broom, and the student carried her on his shoulders. Furthermore, it was from this episode that Khoma decided: "Yes, this is a witch " (Gogol, 2008, p. 134).
A witch is a female person who is engaged in witchcraft, divination, evil eye and other "black" affairs. In this case, the witch from the "Viy" appears before us in the form of an old woman who enchanted the philosopher Khoma and forced him to carry her on his back. The demon "witch " is often used in the story. The author interweaves this demonological image with images of other demonological creatures: viy, gnomes, evil spirits.
Being under the spell of a witch, Khoma feels differently: "He was overwhelmed by some devilishly sweet feeling" (Gogol, 2008, p. 135).
Returning to the seminary, Khoma learns that the rector is calling him and orders him to go to the named centurion to read prayers to his sick
daughter. However, Khoma had a bad feeling. To which the rector rebuked: "...no devil asks you" (Gogol, 2008, p. 136). That is, the token devil is used with such a meaning as if no one asks Khoma whether he wants it or not; no one takes his opinion into account. A strange fact is the use of such a token by a high clergyman.
Gogol describes the church and the prayerful actions of Khoma in a very subtle way. On the first night after the prayers, Khoma saw the dead girl raise her head and sit down. This episode contains a bizarre, untrue, mystical meaning. Moreover, all the following nights of prayer, the witch woke up and flew in the coffin, trying to get to Khoma and take him with her. Gogol built the plot on the fact that the witch takes revenge on Khoma for killing her, and therefore, he must also die, and she makes much effort to do so, seeking the help of an evil force. An important factor is that Khoma, although an adult, but relatively inexperienced in entertainment and debauchery, pious, which in Ukrainian Christian philosophy is a prerequisite for a successful fight against evil spirits.
The most mystical moment of the story is the description of the third funeral night after the dead witch. It was on this night that all the unclean forces gathered in the old church. Right now the author describes Viy: "some huge monster in his tousled hair, like in a forest; two eyes looked terribly through the net of hair, raising their eyebrows a little " (Gogol, 2008, p. 158).
In Mykola Gogol's novel "Viy", Viy appears as a demon name. According to N. Tyapki-na's structural classification, we will analyze this image: its origin is defined as mythological, the image is personified, it is directed to evil, it is also anthropomorphic, spiritualized. He has magical helpers, gnomes and is perceived visually (Tyapkina, 2006, p. 9).
Viy had assistants who raised his eyelashes and helped kill Khoma with his gaze. Although the inner voice asked the philosopher not to look, curiosity and horror prevailed. Thus, evil spirit, monsters remained in the abandoned church, which did not have time to escape through the windows and doors before dawn. Khoma feared that eventually lost him. Viy takes his soul to himself, to the realm of the dead. Khoma Brut died of fear, but at the cost of his life, he lost an evil force. M. Gogol fully assumed that the evil spirits, like God's providence, can appear to man, either in a dream, or from drunken eyes, or in another psychophysical state, including in a state of love. Furthermore, between them, there is a struggle for the human soul. In Gogol's story, the young lady seduces Khoma with a devilish soul, bad beauty, and because he does not succumb to temptation, does not kiss her, does not fall into her arms, she calls on Viy to help her take revenge on Khoma (Vasilyev, 1992, p. 12).
The motif of blindness, associated with Viy, arises during the crossing of the border between the living and the dead, which is traditional for the myths of most peoples of the world. But it should be noted that Viy with raised eyelids is unable to see the living Khoma. He can do this only when the man himself looks into his eyes, that is, crosses the invisible boundary between the living and the dead, perishes in the soul.
Viy in Gogol's novel is the lord of the underworld, the master of the earth's interior. No wonder, he has got an iron face and iron fingers. At Gogol's power is hidden for centuries. The writer combined the Belarusian Chakhlyk with the Ukrainian Iron Viy.
M. Sumtsov (1891) noted: "There is no end, no beginning, no idea - there is nothing but a few scary, incredible scenes in "Viy". He who writes down a folk tale for a story must still give it mea-
ning - only then will it become a refined work" (p. 230).
M. Gogol's novel "Viy" is one of the most significant in the work of the great artist. In addition, the publication of the story "Viy" is an important stage in the development of East Slavic literary traditions. Demonolexics, which is used in the story, gives the story a whimsy, mysticism, mystery, fear of reading. Thus, the mythological system certainly reflects the worldview traditions and philosophy of a particular ethnic group.
Undoubtedly, these are not all the nuances that M. Gogol creates in the context of his stories, demonstrating all the connotative possibilities of the mythological system, and the amplitude of these variations is too large because the artist's creative world is full of rich philosophical and linguocultural information. The informative weight of the mythological system (and, in general, demonolexis) allows the author to make the work semantically rich. In our opinion, the individual-author specificity of the use of various components of the anonymous space of M. Gogol's works is manifested in the considerable depth and certain concealment, sophistication of the artist's anonymous writing. Thus, the analysis of the functions and stylistic load of demonolexis presented in M. Gogol's novels allows us to state that proper names are an organic component of his idiostyle, one of the important means of image creation, in-depth understanding of the concept of both work and author's idea.
Conclusion
As a result of the study, the following lexical and semantic groups of demonolexis were identified: modified (black forces of evil), ceremonial and ritual (rite of chanting the dead), abusive words and expressions (the devil will fly
away with you, where the hell, damn it), from the mythologies of the world (Viy, devil), international and common demonolexis (evil spirit, other-world), buildings, structures, territories (abandoned church, which after the events with Kho-ma overgrown with grass and tree roots so as not to find it), physical conditions and processes (old age).
Traditional demonic characters can be divided into three subgroups: anthropomorphic, zoo-morphic, anthropozoomorphic.
The most frequently used in the stories is the demon name "devil" and its derivatives: "the deuce knows" - in the sense of not knowing where; "The devil knows what", "What the devil" - it is unknown what; "Where you are Devils " 1) about a person who is detained; 2) about a person who walks where he should not; "Damn!" - exclamation, used in adverse situations; "Go to hell" ("go to the Devil") - emotionally coloured negative appeal to the person.
The functioning of the demon name "devil" is the desire to convey the identity of Ukrainian culture, its connection with the sacred, with ancestors; speech of Ukrainians, their mood and emotions. This demon name transmits the essence of speech of people of the particular profession, a certain social group. The use of the demon name "devil" sometimes indicates the emotional colour of the utterance, has an expressive meaning and colour.
Thus, the mythological system, which includes mythological language units depends on the national vision of the world (acts as a verbal code of mythological ideas and worldviews) and is represented in the context of the relevant eth-nocultural and artistic-linguistic systems. The mythological system of domination reveals its specificity on linguocultural level, as mythologi-cally marked concepts indicate the features of the
mythological and philosophical life. Mythonymy forms a specific complex of the nominative space of language, actualizing the idio-ethnic potential of spiritual culture. We not only define pandemonological names mythologically marked but also names that denote the specifics of the mythological worldview of the nation. My-tholexis includes personal names of ancient pagan gods, common names of idols and deities, demonological, archetypal, astral, toponymic nominations, as well as names of animals and plants, which in the context of artistic creativity acquire mythological markings. That is why de-monolexis, reflecting fragments of philosophical and linguistic and cultural consciousness, is one of the lexical microsystems of language. Its specificity is manifested primarily in the analysis of the semantics of mythonyms, the establishment of ways of naming them, the study of mythole-xemes in the functional aspect.
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