Towards the other mythology--the offspring of darkness: Jocasta's daughters and granddaughters.
"It all started with the doubt (perhaps exaggerated) that the Gods do not know how to talk". The author presents the situation and tendencies in contemporary mythological research. The article starts out from the mythos-logos antithesis and from the twofold conception of the myth as both a fabricated and a sacred story. The allopersonages as characters of different names, who function as markers for the identical element in the structure, are contrasted by the author with the isopersonages bearing names of the same characters, who simultaneously function as markers for diverse elements or semantic strata in the structure. The term sociogony is introduced in analogy to the terms theogony and cosmogony. On the basis of a review of Croatian and mainstream mythological trends, the author perceives two main orientations in mythological research: the historical reconstruction of the Proto-Slavic myth, and research into the myth, mythic consciousness and mythic language in contemporary everyday life. The author supports the idea of differentiating mythology and religion and analyses the role of the myth, and scholarship on the myth, in forming national and cultural identity. From that aspect, we can also identify the contemporary transitional scholarly myth in today's reconstructions of the unifed Proto-Slavic myth. Remythologisation is part of retraditionalisation: Proto-Slavic fellowship is the spiritual solace by which the East responds to the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.
Lozica
Ivan
I
Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research, Zagreb, Croatia. lozica@ief.hr
D017523:Croatia; D003469:Culture; D006801:Humans; D009229:Mythology; D012933:Social Identification; D029181:Spirituality