Death penalties of Princess Olga. “Threefold Death” and transformation of cult paradigms
https://doi.org/10.28995/2658-5294-2022-5-4-53-62
Abstract
There are no pre-Christian descriptions of the afterlife and wanderings to the “other world” in the Old Russian tradition. Of particular importance for the understanding of these ideas are the traditions of the Initial Chronicle (Tale of Bygone Years) – “Stories about the first Russian princes” (“Varangian sagas” in the terminology of A. Stender-Petersen). The most lengthy text of the ““Death penalties” is a description of the massacre of the Drevlyans the murderers of her husband Igor, by Princess Olga. The massacre includes three episodes: the burying of the Drevlyan ambassadors in the boat, the burning in the “bath”, the extermination with weapons of the remaining Drevlyans, who drank on the Igor’s trizna. Olga’s “death penalties” are transmitted by the chronicle in accordance with traditional cult paradigms: “rites of passage” – wedding and funerary. All three motifs (burial, cremation, death from weapons) correlate with the mythoepic traditions of Northern Europe (Old Irish and Scandinavian – Old Icelandic), but rather reflect not the three functions of Dumezil, connected with mythological cosmology, but the legend of the establishment of the nontribal state order in the Russian land after the tribal uprising of the Drevlyans.
About the Author
V. Ya. Petrukhin
Institute of Slavic Studies ; HSE University
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Vladimir Ya. Petrukhin, Dr. of Sci. (History), professor
bld. 32a, Leninskii Av., Moscow, 119334
bldg. 3, bld. 21/4, Staraya Basmannaya St., Moscow, 105066
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Review
For citations:
Petrukhin V.Ya. Death penalties of Princess Olga. “Threefold Death” and transformation of cult paradigms. Folklore: Structure, Typology, Semiotics. 2022;5(4):53-62. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.28995/2658-5294-2022-5-4-53-62
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