RSSS 315 Third Week

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RSSS 315 (Third Week)

• Slavic Folklore Vampires and Werewolves

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Basic information

• Instructor George Gutsche
• Teaching assistants Kenny Cargill, Paula
  McCambridge
• gutscheg_at_u.arizona.edu
• D2L http//russian.arizona.edu/courses/vampires
• Office hours T 11-1230 or by appointment

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In the News Chupacabra

• http//www.kvue.com/news/top/stories/073107kvuechu
  pacabrafind-cb.cc11e691.html

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First written assignment
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Last Time

• Syllabus, D2L
• Summary of readings about Peter P. and Arnold
  Paole
• Discussion of first chapter of Stokers Dracula
• Discussion of Slavic folklore, mythology
• Discussion of historical Vlad and Bathory
• Serbian film about vampires Leptirica

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Generalizations

• Rich, imaginative belief system
• Populated by variety of spirits and forces
• Exotic but similar names throughout E Europe
• Close relationship with people (even
  intermarriage)
• Co-existence with Christianity (dvoeverie)
• Vampir, mora, vukodlak, upir, oboroten (just some
  names) are most relevant to us

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Important Categories

• Soul
• Ancestors
• Gods and devils
• Genii spirits of fields, forests, household,
  water
• Rituals

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Relevance?

• Soul beliefs
• souls can freely come and go from bodies
• lots of variations, depending on the area
• they are not immortal, and they can quarrel and
  fight with each other
• They can pass into other bodies, shapes
  (butterflies)
• Treat them well!

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Film Leptirica (Butterfly)

• 1973 made for Serbian TV
• Based on story by Milovan Gliic 1847-1908
• Director Djordje Kadijevic

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Lastovo Island
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Types of vampires

• Folkloric supernatural characteristics, cultural
  variation
• Psychotic person with mental illness criminally
  attacks victims in the manner of Stokers Dracula
• Psychic people who feed on others emotionally
• Literary Stoker has the paradigm, but others
  helped form it.

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Chapters 2-3 of Stokers Dracula

• Harker meets Dracula
• What does Dracula look like? Describe him!
• One person show
• Entrapmentwhy?
• Ethnographic detail yields to focus on castle and
  surroundings
• Harker explores, gets into trouble in 3

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Romanticism

• First half of the 19th century
• Poetry, then short stories, novels and plays
• Exotic settings, unusual heroes
• Dreams, fantastic and supernatural phenomena

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Nikolai Gogol

• Slavic (Ukrainian and Russian folklore)
• Gogols story Vij (1835 1967 film)
• Gogolian humor, style

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Story Itself

• Part of Mirgorod collection (1835)
• Gogol said it was based on folk stories, beliefs
• No evidence of Vij (Viy) in folklore
• Witches, sorcerers dominate East Slavic folklore
• Connections with religion Khoma relies on folk
  beliefs and basic needs, not doctrine
• Magic circle pagan, and later Christian

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Contamination

• Poltergeist lots of noisemaking
• Succubus (very close to vampire here)
• Shape-shifting power
• Feeding on energies (sexual dimension)
• Repeated visits to victims in dreams
• Mara/mora death of victim results (usually by
  suffocation here Khoma faints and dies)

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Question are there any vampires here?

• Yes and no.or, it depends..

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Rusalka
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Other Rusalki
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Story vs. Film

• Erotic elements stronger?
• Vampire elements stronger?

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Literary Vampires

• Derived from folk stories accounts of 18th
  century epidemics
• First developed in poetry (German and English),
  then prose
• Other influences late 18th Gothic fiction

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Key Work

• Dom Augustin Calmet 16721757
• French biblical scholar, a Benedictine abbot at
  Nancy and Sens
• Major work Dissertations sur les Apparitions
  des Anges, des Démons et des Esprits et sur les
  revenants et vampires de Hongrie, de Bohême, de
  Moravie, et de Silésie, Paris, 1740

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Next time Werewolves
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Werewolf cult different

• English word at base
• Central and Southeast Europeans had cults, but
  different terms
• Universal changelings, animal-human relations

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Characteristics of East European Werewolves

• Changelings rusalki, samovily
• Animal cults link with mysteries of universe
• Cannibalism, eating flesh, drinking blood

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Pre-historic times (all before 9th AD)

• ritual wearing of wolf pelts all before 9th AD

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Later

• Stories of vukodlaks (and related forms) chasing
  clouds, devouring sun and moon 13th 16th
  centuries
• Related terms (utilizing wolf as root) refer to
  vampires in South and Central Europe
• E.g., Dark Wolf (2003) is titled Vukodlak in
  Czech
• Linguistic changes in different areas many
  similar terms for vampires and werewolves in
  Eastern Europe, the Balkans (different language
  groups)

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Etymology of vampire and werewolf words

• Terminological complexity
• Perkowski books
• Classification of written accounts

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Vseslav of Polotsk Early Historical Werewolf?

• Belarusian Prince, 1030-1101
• Great Grand-Grandson of Vladimir
• Werewolf-sorcerer reputation (Vseslav the
  Magician-Charodei)
• Could turn to a grey wolf, a clear falcon or a
  deer with gold horns

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Igor Tale

• In the seventh age of Troian, Vseslav cast lots
  for a girl,         a maiden he desired for
  himself.Sustained by cunning, he mounted a horse
  and galloped to Kiev,         touched the shaft
  of his spear on the gold Kievan throne.He leapt
  away from them at Belgorod        like a wild
  beast at midnight wrapped in a blue mist. Three
  times he grasped good fortune, opened the gates
  of Novgorod,        smashed the glory of
  Iaroslav, and as a wolf leapt to the Nemiga. He
  blew clean the threshing floor.On the Nemiga
  sheaves are spread like heads         they
  thresh them with damask flails.On the threshing
  floor they lay down life and winnow souls from
  bodies. The Nemiga's bloody banks were sown with
  evil,        sown with the bones of the sons of
  Rus.Prince Vseslav judged the people he ruled
  the cities for the princes,         but at night
  he roamed as a wolf.From Kiev, before the cock's
  crow, he could lope to Tmutorokan         as a
  wolf he crossed the path of great Horus.They
  rang the bells for him at matins, early at St.
  Sophia, in Polotsk         he heard the sound
  in Kiev.And though his wizard's soul journeyed
  in another body,         still he often suffered
  misfortune.Of him the wizard Boian first spoke
  well-devised words        "Neither the skillful
  one nor the craftiest creature,        not even
  the cleverest bird, will escape the Judgment of
  God." 0 groan, Russian land, recalling the first
  time and the first princes.