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In spring ceremonies it is embodied in a duel of forces of death and forces of life (fisticuffs), in trains-catafalques which bury winter, in swinging-copulations of youth on the hills.
In summer ceremonies the matter concerns dying and revival of a deity (Yarylo, Chіurylo, Mara, Marena, Madder), a sexual freedom of participants of a ceremony is allowed, and they, being joined in pairs, render a divine married couple of Adonis and Aphrodite (at us – Ivan and Mary) with a derived institute of nepotism with the allowed in its limits sexual relations between godfather and godmother, canalized later on Midsummer Day, and nepotism on graves and during christening.
The perinatal ceremonies, called to remove a threat of death from the newborn child, get paradoxical features of courting death upon the child and its symbolical burial in limits of dialectic understanding of dying as a guarantee of revival. A well-known lullaby „Do not sleep on the edge...” has such continuation „Lullaby, lullaby, at once if you die, tomorrow mother’ll have a kissel and pancakes, this is your funeral repast … ”. In such a way the death was removed from a baby allocated: it will come, and there is already nobody to take away.
The ceremony of a social birth (initiation) in general has as semantic centre the idea of dying of an adolescent in the old status and revival in a new, adult status, through imitation of staying in „the world beyond”.
In wedding ceremonialism the towel, stepping over of which symbolizes passing the Styx, the „weirdness” of newly-weds (a prohibition of touching them and their movement as the dead, against the sun), identifications of getting married with dying (crying-lamentation), a veil of the bride as a muslin which covers the face of the deceased, etc. all these factors clearly indicate a mortally-immortal basis of all this ceremony.
And again, as well as in a New Year's holiday, there appear the died ancestors as only from their sanction the birth of a new member of a clan-tribe was allowed. At first it was shown in the form of a cult, when the bride copulated with a totem animal (a goat, a horse, a bull) in a "natural" way.
Then the right of superiority directly from a totem animal, passed to its personification, to the chieftain-priest. As a result, the first man of the bride at marriage night, often in presence of relatives, her mother and bridegroom, was not the bridegroom, but friends to the bridegroom, respected people of settlement and, according to absolutely recent ethnographic data on the Odessa area (1920th), the groomsman-boyar.
Residual echoes of this element of a wedding ceremony in a fairy tale is cohabitation of Mary and the Bear, and in modern weddings – a ritual seating of the newly-weds on the bear, sheep or bull skins, or, in a degenerated variant, on a fur coat or simply on a pillow.
To the same remnants concerns steady, but already not clear euphemism of conjugal infidelity - "to cuckold" (once the chieftain-totem, having copulated in public with the bride, gave his cap decorated with horns, to the bridegroom, handing him in such a way the force of ancestors). Thereby, the died ancestors symbolically generated a new life.
The main point of funeral ceremonialism is reduced, eventually, to marking this event as a system of actions which will provide an indispensable revival of the deceased, the display of that is an embryonic, crooked position of a died man in a hole-bosom or preservation of ashes in a cremation urn, in a vessel-womb.
To this range of reproduction of the basic formula „life – death – revival” refer also the erotic games of Europeans near the deceased, traditional strewing him with grain-seed (by the ancient Egyptians and modern Ukrainians) which should symbolically germinate, an Indo-Iranian ceremony of „dikshi”, reproduced already in a tomb for those who could not lead it during lifetime because of expensiveness, in the form of sexual poses a posteriori (dogstile) of man and woman, (imitation of self-conception of the dead with the purpose of reincarnation), copulation of the Kyїv combatants near a funeral fire with the widow of Duke „instead of the husband”, a ceremonial reconstruction in 19 century by Mordvinians of wedding during a funeral (including the ritual defloration of a died virgin by the Jews of Volhynia so that the devil could not copulate with her and she would not given birth to a dangerous monster) etc.
Consideration of a myth from this point of view of the universal-cultural approach has shown that categories of ultimate bases and world outlook codes literally penetrate through their contents. Thus, in mythological figures of fauna – a bull and a cow, a horse, a goat, a bear, a lion, a tiger, birds, fishes and insects, etc. the genitive, vitality and mortality, and also certain codes make their semantic background. For example, the pigeon was understood as allegory of a soul of the dead (immortality).
References to vegetative symbols of mythological consciousness shows, that their dependence on seasonal cycles makes them successful analogue of embodiment of a basic triad „life – death – revival”. The last CUB is shown here because a drink of immortality was made exactly of plants.
If to speak about abstract mythological symbols, then the mythological thinking was developed enough to form in its structure the abstract symbols, having risen above an individual-sensual character of objective images. One of the most widespread world abstract symbols was a circle which was often concretized in illustrative images of the snake turned into a ring and others circular things.
The circle symbolized the coincidence of the beginning and the end, of birth and death (genitive and mortality) and, eventually, eternity (immortality). The erotic code in a circle appeared in its understanding as female beginning and when in its center there was a throne settled down, a trunk, columnar or world mountain – in its unification with male beginning.
The analysis of typological myths, mythological symbols and figures has shown, that in astral, solar and lunar myths there is precisely presented a genitive universalia, connected, in particular, with the description of occurrence of the Sun and others celestial bodies.
Rather a widespread motive within the limits of erotically coded genitive in the given type of myths was the motive of a heavenly marriage of the Sun and the Moon and generation of children-stars from this pair. But here we also see aggressively-mortal motives shown in constant struggle between spouses.
The basic world outlook formula „life – death – immortality” was realized in the given myths in stories about lunar phase cycles as its birth, dying and revival. Alimentary coding of the formula is visible in fairy tales about the diminution of the Moon as a result of its eating up by a witch or a dog.
Studying of concrete national mythological systems, in particular, Ukrainian one, has shown, that all CUB and codes were present in it. In the "lowest" mythology the Mermaids (drowned women) are young, beautiful girls who attract young men, and then lead them up to death by means of a wearisome sexual act though sometimes marry them and even have children from them.
In a pantheon of "high" mythology gods, for example, Svarog, personified the current of time and its triadic structuredness that was embodied in the motive of a star which lives, dies and revives (movement of the Sun).
Consideration of the epic writings (Hillyads, Odysseys and Тhe Story about Igor’s Regiment) has shown also their monosemantic CUB-structure with that only difference when the basic universal formula „life – death – immortality” in myths of an agrarian cycle was represented in a narration about a deity which dies and revives, and in myths of adventurous type - in a story about never-ending dangerous trials of the main character with his indispensable rescue from death.
In religious consciousness, in particular, Christianity, the display of CUB and codes was showed in a wide set of concepts, in the basis of which there is the same world outlook base. These codes are most essentially represented in laconic Christian definitions of God, such, as „ I am bread” (an alimentary code), „ I am love” (an erotic code), „ I am word” (an informative code). An aggressive code in the concentrated form is represented in understanding of God as the victorious Force that is not dependent on the death, though usual concepts also have here the most universal-world outlook significance (wine, pupils, vine, fornication, virginity, etc.).
In the architectonics of the Bible the universal basic formula is displayed at least three times:
A. 1) Birth (creation of the world and people); 2) life of people in Paradise; 3) the Fall, exile from Paradise and transformation of people into mortal beings; 4) sinful life of people; 5) punishment by flood; 4) rescue (survival) of a part of mankind.
B. 1) Birth (Christmas) of Jesus Christ; 2) Jesus Christ's terrestrial life; 3) the death of the Saviour on the Cross; 4) Jesus Christ's Resurrection as the victory over forces of death.
C. 1) Sinful life of people; 2) threat of eternal death to sinful mankind; 3) rescue of people in the Christ, revival in the Holy Spirit and getting of a prospect of an eternal life and a victory over the enemy – death.
Even in this extremely simplified scheme we can fix the main motive of development of the big drama of eternal struggle of Life with Death as it has been presented in one of the forms of practically- religious ideology. Besides, the basic formula is represented in separate episodes of the Book (revival of Lazarus, revival of the daughter of a synagogue servant).
Revealing of a universal-cultural basis in literary consciousness and entertainment art was realized in this work through the CUB-analysis of such writings, as Ivan Bunin's story A Light Breath, short stories of Marguerite de Navarre from the collection of stories The Heptameron, Anna Ahmatova's poems.
I have also analyzed short stories which Michael Bakhtin and Olga Frejdenberg used as examples. Besides at a level of „concepts” the given type of a discourse was examined by us on the material of a methodological reflection on the structure of works of art by Michael Bakhtin, Lеv Vуgotsky, Yuri Lotman and other researchers.
In the first named piece of literature the formula „life - death – immortality” was reconstructed by Me at a level of a disposition, the key moments of that are oppositional pairs „childhood – a tomb”, „sex with Malyutin – murder”, „conversation on a light breath – funeral”.
In wide meaning these pairs express a global opposition of life and death. A Light Breath – it is a figuratively designed culmination category of universal-cultural structure of the text of this piece of literature at the basis of which there is the CUB – immortality. Olga Meshcherskaya after her death, as well as Snow Maiden and Mauka (The Wood Song) "was dissolved" in the nature, but she did not totally disappear – her „light breath” is now everywhere.
Except for a full representation in The Heptameron of the CUB and the codes, considered by Me, in these collected stories the basic world outlook formula also is precisely traced. The short story from examples of M. Bakhtin is regarded by him as a narration about a victory of forces of life over forces of death when the legionary who watched over a crucified robber, under food and drink consoles the widow directly on the tomb of her husband, and she for this pleasure releases from the pressure of grief and comes back to plenitude of life. This plot tells, he writes, about a continuous chain of victories of life over death.
The same universal-cultural structure underlies the short story of Giovanni Boccaccio, which was investigated by Olga Frejdenberg (enamoured of the wife of his comrade, the man rescues her, wrongly buried, and she gives birth to the child).
In the science-fiction the motive of increasing threat of a life with the following victory over danger of death is expressed in an unusual way. Frequently it is the description of invasion of enemy civilizations to the Earth, their encroachment on beautiful women, hunting of the aliens who have come back from the future, for children who aftertime become their enemies, consuming of people from within through penetration into their body of ugly extraterrestrial forms of a life, destruction of a genotype of people or manipulations with it, etc.
It is easy to see, that stereotyped schemes of science-fiction rotate around the basic formula of world view, opening it in forms of unusual sources of mortal danger to the person with a following victory of vital positive characters.
If we turn to novel, its universal-cultural substructure entirely entering a triad „life – death – revival” was extremely successfully and laconically outlined by J. Lotman. This author directly turns to consideration of this triad in that kind of it, in which it was realized in the Russian novel. Raskolnikov, Mitja Karamazov, and other characters of Feodor Dostoevsky recreate Муcola Gogol's scheme from The Dead Souls where Tchitchikov goes to Siberia (a hell, death). Having passed a hell of Siberia, these characters "revive".
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