Eleazar Moiseevich Meletinskii (also ''Meletinsky'' or ''Meletinskij''; russian: Елеаза́р Моисе́евич Мелети́нский; 22 October 1918,

Kharkiv Kharkiv ( uk, Ха́рків, ), also known as Kharkov (russian: Харькoв, ), is the second-largest city and municipality in Ukraine.

– 17 December 2005,

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

) was a Russian scholar famous for his seminal studies of

folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, rangin ...

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to ...

philology Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as ...

and the

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

and theory of narrative; he was one of the major figures of Russian academia in those fields. He was Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at Russian State University for the Humanities for several years until his death.mail from Seth Graham for decease announcement, retrieved on Google cache on June 2, 200

/ref>

His analysis of comic doublets

The traditions of the mythological narration, dealt with the figures of the ancestors-heroes civilizers, and their comic-demoniac doublets. Mikhail Bakhtin, Bakhtin summarized Meletinsky's analysis in his work on Rabelais:

This double aspect of the world and of human life he existence of a second world and life outside officialdomexisted even at the earliest stages of cultural development, in the
folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, rangin ...
of primitive peoples. Coupled with the
cult In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. Thi ...
s which were serious in tone and organization were other,
comic cult a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...
s which laughed and scoffed at the deity (" ritual laughter"); coupled with serious
myth Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narrat ...
s were comic and abusive ones; coupled with heroes were their parodies and doublets. These comic rituals and myths have attracted the attention of folklorists.

Meletinsky also cite
Frejdenberg
s analysis of the comic

alter ego An alter ego (Latin for "other I", "doppelgänger") means an alternate self, which is believed to be distinct from a person's normal or true original personality. Finding one's alter ego will require finding one's other self, one with a different ...

s of the heroes. In a class-based society, ritual laughter in

popular culture Popular culture (also called mass culture or pop culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as, popular art or mass art) and objects that are dominant or prevalent in a ...

creates an anti-clerical world of feasts, playful parody, and

carnival Carnival is a Catholic Christian festive season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent. The main events typically occur during February or early March, during the period historically known as Shrovetide (or Pre-Lent). Carnival t ...

s.Meletinsky, Eleazar Moiseevich
The Poetics of Myth
' (Translated by Guy Lanoue and Alexandre Sadetsky) 2000 Routledge p.110

Hermes Hermes (; grc-gre, Ἑρμῆς) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology. Hermes is considered the herald of the gods. He is also considered the protector of human heralds, travellers, thieves, merchants, and orat ...

is a

deified Apotheosis (, ), also called divinization or deification (), is the glorification of a subject to divine levels and, commonly, the treatment of a human being, any other living thing, or an abstract idea in the likeness of a deity. The term has ...

trickster In mythology and the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a character in a story ( god, goddess, spirit, human or anthropomorphisation) who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherwi ...

, and Ulysses, the main character of the ''Odyssey'', has a

matrilinear Matrilineality is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which each person is identified with their matriline – their mother's lineage – and which can involve the inheritance o ...

discent from Hermes.

Meletinskii Eleazar Moiseevich Meletinskii (also ''Meletinsky'' or ''Meletinskij''; russian: Елеаза́р Моисе́евич Мелети́нский; 22 October 1918, Kharkiv – 17 December 2005, Moscow) was a Russian scholar famous for his seminal stud ...

1993, ''Introduzione'', p. 131 In the Legendary Troy the mythological element also includes comic moments.

1993, ''Introduzione'', pp. 132-3

''Origins of Heroic Epic''

In his 1963 work "Origins of Heroic Epic: early forms and archaic monuments", Meletinsky studied and compared elements of four ancient civilizations: Karelian-

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

(pp. 95–155), Caucasian (156-246), Turkic- Mongolian (247-374) and

Sumer Sumer () is the earliest known civilization in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. It is one of the cradles of ...

ian- Akkadian (375-422). Here the author examines very ancient myths and their role in the formation of the archaic epic. Among the discussed ones is the Alpamysh, ancient Turkic epic. Meletinskii also makes an interesting analysis of

comic a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...

doublets (particularly in "Primary sources epic" pp. 55–58, bibliography included).Note
found in Hélène Iswolsky's translation of

Mikhail Bakhtin Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin ( ; rus, Михаи́л Миха́йлович Бахти́н, , mʲɪxɐˈil mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ bɐxˈtʲin; – 7 March 1975) was a Russian philosopher, literary critic and scholar who worked on literary theor ...

''Rabelais and His World''

941 Year 941 ( CMXLI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * May – September – Rus'–Byzantine War: The Rus' and their allies, th ...

Bloomington: Indiana University Press The book also contains a bibliography (pp. 449–459), Primary sources epic (21-94).

Notes

List of works

*1963, ''Proiskhozhdenie geroicheskogo éposa. Rannie formy i arkhaicheskie pamiatniki'' (meaning "The origins of the heroic epic: early forms and archaic monuments"). Moscow. (462 pages)

*1964 ''Primitive heritage in archaic epics'', Reports of the International Congress of anthropological and ethnological sciences, Moscou : Nauka. *1976, ''Poetika Mifa'' *1977 ''Mif i istoricheskaia poetika folklora'' (Mythe et la poétique historique du folklore), Moscou : Nauka. *1986, ''Vvedenie v istoričeskuû poétiku éposa i romana''. Moscow, Nauka. **Introduzione alla poetica storica dell'epos e del romanzo (1993) *Dostoevskii v Svete Istoricheskoi Poetiki; *1996, MELETINSKY E. M. (1) ; BELMONT N.
La poétique historique du folklore narratif
' (The historic poetry of folklore narratives); journal: Ethnologie française ; 1996, vol. 26, no 4, pp. 573–747 (dissem.), pp. 611–618 *Kak Sdelany “Brat’ia Karamazovy (1996) *1998, E.M. Meletinskii. Izbrannye Stat’i. Vospominaniia *2000, ''The Poetics of Myth'' translated by Guy Lanoue and Alexandre Sadetsky *2001, Zametki o Tvorchestve Dostoevskogo

References

*Mark Lipovetsky (2003)
New Russians as a Cultural Myth
'

Russian Review ''The Russian Review'' is an independent peer-reviewed multi-disciplinary academic journal devoted to the history, literature, culture, fine arts, cinema, society, and politics of the Russian Federation, former Soviet Union and former Russian Empir ...

62 (1), 54–71. *Seth Benedict Graham
A CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF THE RUSSO-SOVIET ANEKDOT
' 2003 *Laura Beraha
The Fixed Fool: Raising and Resisting Picaresque Mobility in Vladimir Vojnovic's Conkin Novels
' The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 40, No. 3 (Autumn, 1996), pp. 475–493

External links

Brief obituary and photo

{{DEFAULTSORT:Meletinskii, Eleazar M. Russian folklorists Mythographers Russian literary critics 1918 births 2005 deaths Soviet literary historians Soviet male writers 20th-century Russian male writers Moscow State University alumni