Regimieji mirties pavidalai skirtinguose lietuvių tautosakos žanruose

LTRemiantis lietuvių tautosakos ir etnografijos, meno duomenų analize, straipsnyje aptariami sugyvintos mirties vaizdinio ypatumai lietuvių liaudies tradicijoje. Apžvelgus mirties pavidalų įvairovę, konstatuojama, kad kelių mirties vaizdinių – senojo mirties kaip moters baltu apdaru įvaizdžio ir mirties kaip griaučių su dalgiu traktuotės – egzistavimas pastebimas ir lietuvių tradicijoje. Vis dėlto tautosakoje ryškėja mirties vaizdinio sinkretiškumo tendencijos. Mitologinėse sakmėse vyrauja archajiškasis giltinės kaip keistos, baltai apsirengusios moters įsivaizdavimas. Pasakose giltinės pavidalas yra gana neapibrėžtas, o kartais artimesnis krikščioniškajam, ypač nuo baroko epochos išplitusiam personifikuotos mirties įvaizdžiui. Su krikščioniškąja tradicija sietinas naujesnis mirties, dalgiu nukertančios žmones, vaizdinys sakmėse, tikėjimuose bei frazeologijoje gana lengvai prigijo turbūt todėl, jog numarinimo būdas atitiko ankstesnę mirimo kaip nužudymo sampratą, kuri ryškiau atsispindi paremijose. Be to, toks įvairiopas sugyvintos mirties vaizdavimas rodo, kad tradicinėje kultūroje pagoniškoji ir krikščioniškoji mirties reiškinio sampratos gyvavo greta. Todėl, analizuojant regimuosius mirties pavidalus, straipsnio autorės nuomone, derėtų ieškoti mitine logika pagrįstų dėsnių, kurie leido skirtingiems, o neretai ir prieštaringiems įvaizdžiams pritapti vieniems šalia kitų.Reikšminiai žodžiai: Mirtis; Giltinė; Animacija; Personifikacija; Sakmės; Pasakos; Death; 'giltinė'; Animation; Personification; Tales; Fairy-tales; Tautosaka; Mitinis pasaulėvaizdis; Mithic world-view; Personifikacija.

ENAnimation of natural phenomena is an inherent way of interpreting the surroundings in the mythical worldview. This principle partly forms the basis for interpretation of the mystery of death in Lithuanian folklore as well, i.e. death on the mythological level is often animated, or even more frequently, personified. Abundant data regarding possible shapes of death is supplied by Lithuanian belief legends and by some fairytales and legendary tales. These folk narratives of several genres present slightly differing picture of the animated death. Greater variety of the death appearances is found in the belief legends, while the Reaper’s image in the tales is closer to the Christian one, especially to the imagined picture of the personified death that grew particularly popular since the baroque era. Death as a living being is present in the Lithuanian idiomatic sayings as well. It should be noted, that in Lithuanian folklore the personified death is described as a female being and is related to the white color. Among other colors, black is also significant in the image of death. In Lithuanian countryside, these changes of color are more readily observed in clothing of mourners, yet this is a rather late phenomenon, originating already in the 20th century. Whereas in folk narratives the personified death is rarely characterized by black color, while such connection is practically absent in phraseology.In folk belief legends, the death personification (giltinė) is most frequently an elderly woman. Another tendency could also be noted, namely, that of depicting death as a being of the same age as the dying person. This is particularly prominent in belief legends describing children’s death, whereas in folktales the age of death personification is hardly ever emphasized. Death in Lithuanian folklore is rarely presented as a male being, while sometimes it can assume an animal shape. Another question worth special attention is that of the number of beings accompanying death. In folktales and in the majority of belief legends, which straightforwardly notify of the identity of the encountered mythical being, it appears alone. This is probably the most typical way for Lithuanian tradition. Still, in those belief legends that only implicitly allude to the relations of the acting beings with the sphere of death, yet the names of those beings may not necessarily be mentioned, they tend to appear in groups. Besides, giltinė is mentioned in plural form in Lithuanian phraseology, e.g. in figurative comparisons and expletives. In this case such form may be used to enhance the suggestiveness of the comparison or the “impact” of the curse. It may be concluded, that Lithuanian folklore reflects tendencies towards increasing syncretism in the image of death. Attributing the death image to the category of the alien unifies all the variety of death shapes revealed by the Lithuanian figurative sayings and folklore texts.Therefore death is typically characterized by attributing negative features, quite often some demonic ones or just alien to the human sphere. In folk belief legends, the archaic image of giltinė as a strange female being dressed in white is the most popular one. In folktales, the giltinė image is quite ambiguous, although in some texts, most probably due to the influence of the respective Christian imagery it is depicted as a skeleton. The image of death as the Reaper cutting humans with its scythe was rooted in Christian tradition, but it became comparatively easily adapted in folk legends, beliefs and phraseology most probably because the way of taking one’s life directly corresponded to an earlier concept of dying as being killed, which is still reflected in figurative sayings. Generally, such type of death image illustrates the parallel existence of pre-Christian and Christian conceptions of death in traditional culture. Therefore purpose of analyzing the visible images of death should be revealing of those principles based on mythical logic that enabled side-by-side existence of quite different and sometimes even contradictory images. [From the publication]