Azyren, Kiyamat, souls of the dead people. The personification of death in the Mari mythological culture

Abstract

The article, based on the author’s field materials and the analysis of ethnographic literature, describes the features of several Mari folklore characters, who are associated with plots about death and the “wires” of the deceased. This character category includes the “angel of death” Azyren (Azreni), the deity of the “afterlife” Kiyamat and the spirits of deceased people. These characters have the function of “guides” to the “afterlife” and harbingers of death. One of the hypostases of Kiyamata – the god Kiyamat-tyura, appears in folklore as the patron saint of the deads. Another hypostasis is Kiyamat-savush. He performs the role of seeing off to “the next world”. Some of these mythological characters are presented in narratives abstractly, the others are visualized more detailed. Azyren and the “deads”, as a rule, are heroes of non-fabulous prose (legends, epics and fairy tales), they are not considered to be the objects of worship. The image of Kiyamat, on the contrary, is sacred, and some traditions of the memorial ritual are associated with him. Kiyamat (kiyamats) is revered during the ceremonies devoted to a deceased person. The image of Azyren has demonic essence. He is believed to be the “evil spirits” and he scares alive people. Despite the semantic association between the spirits of death and the chthonic world, they do not perform the function of intimidation as other demons do. Their role in the folklore is to take away the soul of the deceased without violating the natural boundaries between the worlds. The article includes historiographical descriptions of these characters, etymological and comparative data, fragments of interviews.