UDC

398.1

Authors

Lyubov’ A. Yurchuk
Pskov State University; pl. Lenina 2, Pskov, 180000, Russian Federation;
e-mail: lak131@rambler.ru
Il’ya V. Kazakov
Pskov State University; pl. Lenina 2, Pskov, 180000, Russian Federation;
e-mail: lak131@rambler.ru

Abstract

This article analysed the general composition of folk legends about churches and settlements gone underground or underwater recorded between 1982 and 2015 during the folklore expeditions of the Faculty of Philology, Pskov State University, and kept in the university folklore archives. We found that such stories are widespread in the Pskov Region. In half of the cases, the stories referring to archaeological sites formally and substantively relate to the genre of legend. Ranging among other stories about rural sacred objects and places, they at the same time include the knowledge about the structure and functioning of the local spiritual space and create its specific mythological model. Pskov stories about religious buildings and settlements gone underground or underwater are formed by a system of motifs traditional for this plot type. However, although detailed narratives including the whole set of motifs specific to this plot type are rarely encountered in the region, we can clearly distinguish certain groups of texts with permanent plot elements, the motif of miraculous disappearance of a sacred object being the central one and defining the relationship between other plot elements. In addition to the motif of miraculous disappearance, the motif of news is also thoroughly developed. It shows the relationship between the time and the process of action in a legend and the motif’s continuous link to the present, expressed in the ritual practice of the local inhabitants. Narrating about the meeting of humans with the phenomena of the sacred world, the legends of disappearing places become closer to true stories and share certain narrative features with them.

Keywords

Pskov Region, oral non-fairy tale prose, folk legend, religious buildings and settlements gone underground or underwater, rural sacred place, motif of miraculous disappearance of a sacred object, motif of news

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