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DOI: https://doi.org/10.34069/AI/2022.59.11.17
How to Cite:
Binbin, S., Kravchenko, N., & Matvieieva, S. (2022). Archaic archetypes and symbols of the Ukrainian and Russian peoples: to
debunk the myth of a single people. Amazonia Investiga, 11(59), 184-193. https://doi.org/10.34069/AI/2022.59.11.17
Archaic archetypes and symbols of the Ukrainian and Russian peoples:
to debunk the myth of a single people
Архаїчні архетипи та символи українського та російського народів: розвінчання
міфу про єдиний народ
Received: November 5, 2022 Accepted: December 15, 2022
Written by:
Shen Binbin55
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0019-4901
Nataliia Kravchenko56
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4190-0924
Svitlana Matvieieva57
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8357-9366
Abstract
The article models the protocultural fields of the
archetypal-mythological memory of Ukrainians
and Russians as consisting of divergent elements.
The core of the fields are archaic cultural
archetypes and archetypal motifs “mother”,
“field”, “plowman”, “labor”, “individualism”,
and “equality” for Ukrainians, and “father”,
“distance”, “vastness”, “inertia”, “collectivism”,
and “submission” for Russians. The сore
archetypes determine the differences in the
ethnic mentality of two peoples and can enter the
subsequent semiospheres and political
mythology without significant adaptation,
transforming into symbols of national identity.
The periphery is formed by archetypes common,
but re-articulated in subsequent semiospheres to
be adapted to national narratives of different
periods. The general archetype Sacred space was
associated in the archaic consciousness of
Ukrainians with the “House”, symbolizing the
maternal principle and the Motherland, while the
Russians embodied this archetype in the symbols
of the Holy Mountain, metonymically expanded
to the symbols of “Holy Rus”, Heartland,
Rimland, defining the motif of messianism in
symbolic politics of Russia. The archetype of the
Hero is manifested in Ukrainian folklore by the
images of the legendary plowmen, who conquer
the steppe elements from the nomads, while in
the Russian ethnic consciousness it is interpreted
as the Messiah-Savior of the world.
55
PhD in Philology, Lecturer, Zhejiang Yuexiu University, Shaoxing, China.
56
Dr. hab. in Philology, Professor, Kyiv National Linguistic University, Kyiv, Ukraine.
57
Dr. hab. in Philology, Professor, Kaunas University of Technology, Kaunas, Lithuania.
Binbin, S., Kravchenko, N., Matvieieva, S. / Volume 11 - Issue 59: 184-193 / November, 2022
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Keywords: archetypes, ethnо-mentality, field,
semiosphere, symbol.
Introduction
The Russian-Ukrainian ongoing conflict gave
rise to the confronting national grand narratives,
rooted not only in historical memory of the two
peoples but also in the sacred archetypal basis of
their ethno-cultures. Verbal-sign symbolization
of the cultural and social experience of ethnic
groups carried out through archaic symbols and
archetypes, is an invariable focus of
interdisciplinary research, since it enables to
identify the functions of such sign structures in
the self-determination of ethnic groups, their
linguistic culture, and society (Hill, 2005;
Orlova, Lemish, Matvieieva, Aleksieieva,
Vainorenie & Safonova, 2022), the formation
and reproduction of national identities (Lemish,
Matvieieva, Orlova & Kononets, 2022; Murphy,
2005). The identification of (a) different
linguocultural codes rooted in the archaic-
mythological basis of the cultural and spiritual
heritage of the parties to the conflict, and
(b) common codes re-articulation in subsequent
textual semiospheres, is important to refute the
mythologeme of a “single people”, which is
fundamental to the modern Russian grand
narrative.
The paper is aimed to refute the mythologeme of
a “single people” by substantiating the
archetypes and symbols of the archaic Ukrainian
and Russian ethnoculture as linguocultural codes
diverging in the fields of the archetypal-
mythological memories and subsequent
semiospheres.
Theoretical Framework
The theoretical basis of the project relies on four
approaches that form its conceptual framework
and concern (a) the functions of symbols in the
transmission and retransmission of values,
beliefs, attitudes, the mentality of ethnic and
national groups and the construction of national
identities, (b) archetypal nature of symbols,
(с) differentiation of symbolic structures
according to the criteria of their stability
dynamism, and different significance for the
construction of national identities, which enables
to present their configurations in the form of field
structures and (d) Yu. Lotman’s (2005) concept
of the semiosphere, which allows to model the
archetypal mythological fields of cultural
memory of two peoples in view of their
subsequent interpretation aimed at self-
identification of ethnic groups.
Starting with the well-known work of V. Propp
(1998), the fairy tale narrative has become the
constant focus of researchers in the fields of
linguistic and cognitive semiotics (Bauman,
1982; Kravchenko, Goltsova & Snitsar, 2021;
Langlois, 1985; Martirosyan, Gyurjinyan 2017;
Volkova, 2018) and archetypal symbolism
(Mayor, 2009; Kravchenko, Davydova,
Goltsova, 2020; Kravchenko, Prokopchuk,
Yudenko, 2021; Vaz da Silva, 2014), with
paramount attention to the fairy-tale symbols,
which, according to Yu. Lotman (1992) are
inherently archaic structures.
Symbols as the mental constructs traced from the
most ancient layers of culture contain “folded”
encoded messages, deep and extensive
“programs” of texts and plots, being a
mechanism for the unity and memory of culture.
They permeate the culture along the vertical, not
belonging to one of its limited layers (Lotman,
1992). The symbolization of images, plots,
motives, characters and their acquisition of
conventional meanings transforms the text into a
metasign (Kravchenko, 2017, 107), a certain
invariant, which in its internal form embodies the
ideas and beliefs of different peoples and is the
basis for studying archaic reality and
consciousness (Ryan, 2009). Despite the
universality of most archetypal symbols based on
the universal structures of protocultures, they
have ethno-specific features, since they retain
their semantic basis when incorporated into
particular ethno-culture, transforming in its
subsequent semiospheres into national
archetypes that distinguish a certain culture from
others. Studying the culturally significant
elements of a certain ethnic group, one can learn
about the ethnic group itself, since the archetype,
cultural code, and mentality are closely related
(Mishchenko, 2014).
The symbol has an archaic nature, which is
determined by its ability to preserve extensive
and significant texts in a folded form and, when
included in any syntagmatic series, maintain
semantic and structural independence. Symbols
are the core, the quintessence of archetypal
representations, which, in turn, are defined as
“certain presuppositions […], which in different
eras are realized in images that may differ in
means of expression, but structurally form
certain prototypes or can be reconstructed as
prototypes” (Krymsky, 1998, 74). Fundamental
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to our research is the idea of a multi-level
structure of an archetype containing archaic
meanings that are the basis for the production of
new ones (Averintsev, 1970), which makes it
possible to reinterpret archetypically based
symbols in subsequent narratives to substantiate
ethnic and national identity.
This is consistent, in our opinion, with the
possibility of semiotic modeling of the
archetypal-mythological representations of two
ethnic groups presenting their re-articulation in
the form of a communicative process in which
“language” acts as a code that determines the
perception of certain facts in the appropriate
historical and cultural context. By that,
“language” should be understood both in the
traditional and in a broad, semiotic sense
(Uspensky, 1998), close to Assmann's concept of
“figures of memory” (Assmann & Czaplicka,
1995, 129). Since codes change due to changes
in the historical situation, and the same concepts
can be filled with new content (Uspensky, 1998),
the configuration of “myths, symbols and values”
is supplemented, rethought, selected and
recombined in response to external challenges”
(Smith, 2006, 330). This ability to reinterpret
stems from the dual nature of the symbol –
although the semantic potential of the symbol is
wider than its specific implementation, it is
transformed under the influence of the context
and already in the transformed form itself
transforms this context.
Based on this, we assume the configuration of
symbolic cultural codes as changing fields, with
a choice from the semiosphere of archetypal
symbols what is important or less important for
national self-identification. In this vein, the paper
assumes a relatively stable core of the fields and
their dynamic periphery, the signs of which are
reinterpreted by passing through subsequent
fields. This idea is reinforced by the
differentiation of symbols into important and
unimportant, central, and peripheral, local and
interlocal, depending on how they function in the
production, representation, and reproduction of
the group’s self-image (Assmann & Czaplicka,
1995, 131). When modeling archetypal
mythological fields, we rely on Lotman’s
concept of the semiosphere (Lotman, 2005, 207)
as a space of texts interpreting each other, which
provides all the communicative information
processes of culture. In such a semiotic space,
there is a constant creation of new and
modification of old codes with a redistribution of
the center and the periphery. According to
Lotman, the center can be symbolically
represented at any point in the space of culture
and history. The periphery is an asemiotic, that
is, an alien space. In article considers the
periphery as those elements of the field that do
not agree with the subsequent mythologemes and
ideologemes and therefore become a mobile
element that needs to be adapted to sign
structures significant for a particular ethnic
group. Semiosphere is characterized by
diachronic depth, mutual exchange, and
projection into it of “fundamental worldview
values of social, cultural or religious life”
(Lotman, 1977, 218).
Methodology
The research material includes Ukrainian and
Russian fairy folk tales, epic legends, proverbs,
and sayings based in which the paper intends to
verify the general hypotheses that archetypically
bound symbolic imagery is iconically related to
the structures of collective knowledge and the
collective unconscious of the Ukrainian and
Russian ethnic groups underlying the differences
in their mentality and predicting and constituting
their current national identities.
To prove the hypothesis, the article uses an
integrative interdisciplinary methodology, which
includes a set of linguistic, semiotic, and
anthropological methods. The underlying in the
paper is the method of archetypal analysis of
symbolic imagery and narrative motifs, in
combination with linguo-mythopoetic analysis
(Bieliekhova, 2014; Kravchenko, Snitsar,
Blidchenko-Naiko, 2020) to establish the cross-
cutting sign structures underlying ethic-specific
cultural codes.
The paper operationalizes the concept of
semiosphere and the model of semiospheric
modelling based on the explanatory functions of
semiosphere (a) in considering culture in its
different chronological layers as a kind of global
“text-generating device” and at the same time as
a metatext that includes a complex, hierarchically
organized system and (b) in distinguishing in the
semiosphere space and in each of its constituent
formations variable (mobile, changeable) and
invariant (stable, constant) elements (Lotman &
Clark, 2005). Another argument in favor of using
the semiosphere model is the intersection or
commonality of several symbolic and archetypal
structures of the two peoples, as significant for
the conceptualization and categorization of the
surrounding world at the proto stage of their
cultures. Proceeding from this, the same fixed
points will be semiotically the same signifiers in
the semiosphere of the protoculture (e.g., sacred
toposes, nominations of symbols of vegetative
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and animal fertility, etc.), but divergent signified
elements in the fields of ethnocultural symbols
and archetypes, that is differently reinterpreted in
subsequent texts and narratives of the two
peoples.
In this vein, in addition to the study of archaic
archetypes and symbols of the two peoples, the
article will attempt to identify the “retrospective
ethnicization” (Özkırımlı & Sofos, 2008, 9) of
cultural and semiotic codes in accordance with
the method of ethno-symbolic research,
substantiating the “ethnic origin of nations”
through the study of ethnic symbols, myths,
values and traditions of earlier eras as a
significant factor in the formation and self-
reproduction of nations (Smith, 2006). To this
end, we will also apply the ethno-symbolic
distinction between visions of communities
(Smith, 2006, 329) in view that ethnic vision,
with its search for authenticity, underlies grand
narratives of the Ukrainian nation in its quest for
self-preservation from the Russian pan-
nationalistic vision of cultural unions of cognate
nations and ethnic communities.
To distinguish isomorphic and allomorphic
characteristics of archetypes, the paper involves
the comparative analysis.
Procedures of data analysis consists of three
stages including
(1) To sample the research material based on
cross-cutting repeating symbols and motifs
associated with ethno-specific
characteristics of two peoples in terms of the
common and different features of the
identified sign structures.
(2) To distribute the identified structures into
the core and periphery (based on the
Lotman’s idea of the nuclear-peripheral
organization of the semiosphere and its
constitutive formations) in accordance with
the criterion of their ethnic specificity and
ability to become the ethno-cultural codes in
the subsequent formation of the mentality of
two peoples.
(3) To clarify the reinterpretation of the
archetypes or symbols in mythologemes and
ideologemes in subsequent semiospheres of
culture, history and symbolic politics of two
peoples, including in their contemporary
grand narratives.
Results and Discussion
The prognostic and constitutive functions of the
core and periphery of the archetypical-
mythological semiosphere are associated with
the role of sacred myths and archetypes as cross-
cutting symbolic structures that permeate all
stages of the development of a particular people,
“from the very beginning to the present”, which
chart the way forward predicting and constituting
differences in the mentality of the two peoples
(Krymsky, 1998, 74–87). The identification and
clarification of these structures are important,
respectively, for debunking one of the key
ideologemes of the Russian political myth of a
single people.
The archaic layer of cultural memory is
characterized by condensation of symbols, dating
back to the preliterate era, when certain signs
were folded mnemonic programs of texts stored
in the oral collective memories. Such structures
of ethno-national consciousness determine the
worldview and behavioral differences of
Ukrainians and Russians, as they retain their
semantic and structural independence (Lotman,
1992, 191–199) even included in subsequent
semiospheres and narratives of two states, which
allows myth-symbolic complexes to be a
necessary element of the existence of ethnic and
national communities.
Differentiating semiospheric fields of two
people, we will analyze both common
mythological archetypes, which can be adopted
in the subsequent semiospheres, and primordially
different archetypes, indicating differences in the
ethnic mentality of two peoples. Semiotic
construction at the first stage of the project will
consist in modeling the semiospheres of the
archaic fields as the complexes of symbolic
structures with (a) a core – archaic and ancient
ethnic archetypes, which determine the
differences in the mentality of the two peoples
and can be used in subsequent semiospheres and
in contemporary political mythology without
their significant adaptation, (b) the periphery –
common archetypes, which are rearticulated in
subsequent semiospheres (of especially historical
and political texts) to adapt them to the national
grand narratives of different historical periods.
The core of the archetypal-mythological fields in
semiospheres of ethnic memory.
The core is formed by the divergent for two
peoples’ ethnic codes, that determine their
inherent differences, the “language” (Krymsky,
1998, 74–87) of their cultures. The central role in
the archetypal foundation of Ukrainian national
identity belongs to the archetype “Mother”
(Medinska, 2006), which testifies to the
matriarchal mentality of Ukrainians and is
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manifested by the dominance of the female
element in Ukrainian ethnography.
“Feminocentricity” of Ukrainian culture is
associated with the sacralization of the archetype
of the “Great Mother”, which in further
semiospheres is metonymically personified with
the “Mother Earth” and Mother-Ukraine and
becomes the ethnic dominant of the national
character, minimizing the degree of
aggressiveness of the Ukrainians’ worldview, but
defining the initial desire of the Ukrainian people
to protect their native land. This symbolic image
is preserved in the Ukrainian proverbs, e.g., “It is
a sin to beat the ground – she is our mother”, “It
is a sin to beat the ground in the spring – she is
pregnant”.
On the contrary, the Russian ethno-mentality is
characterized by the archetype of the father
(Novichkova, 2001), which determines the
foundations and continuity of the authoritarian-
patriarchal political culture (Vovk, 2010), with
an approach to society as a single large family
headed by a “father”. The image of the father in
Russian fairy tales is compared with the image of
the king, who gives tasks to his sons, demands
from them obedience, can expel from home for
disobedience (“The Tale of Ivashka the Thin
Ladder”, “Bulat-well done”, “The Monster –
Copper forehead”) (Afanasyev, 2014) or punish
them for disobedience in other ways (“The Tale
of Ivan Tsarevich, the firebird and the gray
wolf”, “The Tale of Rejuvenating Apples and
Living Water”) (Afanasyev, 2014). Daughters in
fairy tales, at the behest of their father, choose
suitors for themselves and can be imprisoned for
disobedience. The patriarchal foundations of
Russian culture are reflected in proverbs and
sayings: “God gave a son, gave an oak tree”, “An
unpunished son is dishonor to his father”. In
subsequent semiospheres the image of the tsar-
father is transferred into the image of the ruler,
who, on the one hand, is responsible for his
children, and on the other hand, is free to control
their destinies. It underlies the mythologemes of
divine power (under the influence of Orthodoxy)
of the Grand Duke and the “Tsar-father”, whose
subjects were called “отроки” (children).
Mythologemes, metonymically associating the
ruler and the Fatherland are embodied in the
motto “For Faith, Tsar and Fatherland” and
heraldically reflected in the Great State Emblem
of the Russian Empire adopted in 1882, as well
as in the motto “for Stalin and for the
Motherland” in the Soviet period, which became
the ideologeme and resulted in the allegiance of
the Soviet type, with the veneration of leaders. In
the projection into modern political myths, the
mythologeme of the parent and children
correlates with the mythologemes of the
“fraternal people” and “older and younger
brother” motivating one of the strategies in
Russia’s justification for the invasion of Ukraine.
Another example of the core archetypes is the
spatial archetypes of “поле” (field), derived from
the agrarian Ukrainian civilization, and
archetypes “Даль” (distance), “Ширь”
(vastness) and “Путь-Дорога” (Path-road),
specific for Russian ethnic mentality.
The image of a field is presented in many
Ukrainian fairy tales (“and they had their own
field. They sowed wheat in that field. As the
wheat also bore them – they began to share the
grain”, Egg-raitse) (Magic fairy tales, 2022). The
locus “field” is defined by Ukrainian researchers
(Naumovska, 2017, 72–75) as the most frequent
among loci with mythological background, and
as opposed to the “lower world”. On the axis of
symbolic syntagmatics the “field” archetype is
associated with archetypes of “ploughman” and
“native house”, metonymically extending on the
image of Mother-Ukraine. In Ukrainian
mythology there is an image of a field mother –
a pre-polytheistic image-totem, which was used
in relation to a woman, who was the best in the
family (community) versed in field work, was the
best reaper, etc. (Plachynda, 1993, 63). In
subsequent semiosphere the “field” archetype
interacts with the “khutor” archetype as a symbol
of the transformation of the steppe element into a
“plowed field” – habitable corners of nature,
personally conquered from the nomadic space.
In contrast, the archetypes Dal, Shir, Path-road
indicate the need for the Russian people to
overcome endless distances and the conquest
new spaces. In this vein, N. Berdyaev
emphasized that “the organization of vast spaces
into the world’s greatest state was not easy for
the Russian people” and, as a result, all its
external forces were directed to the service of the
state (Berdyaev, 2004, 95). Another projection of
this spatial archetype is the “non-spatial nature of
Russian culture” noticed by Russian
philosophers, geographers and anthropologists
and the inertia of the spatially scattered Russian
people resulted in the following of any authority,
be it a king, an emperor, or a modern ruler.
The archetypes-images that make up the core of
the archetypal-mythological field of the
semiosphere are associated with archetypal
motifs that also differ for the ethnoculture of the
two peoples. For example, the motive of work,
associated with the archetype “field” and the
importance of agriculture in the life of
Ukrainians, is embodied in the Ukrainian fairy
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tales “About the Grandfather’s Daughter and the
Grandmother’s Daughter” (the grandfather’s
daughter is hardworking, and the grandmother’s
daughter is lazy), “A Wise Girl”, “About a Sticky
and Greedy Woman”, “Mare’s Head” (Magic
fairy tales, 2022), in which the monster rewards
the hardworking and eats the lazy, etc.
In contrast, the vastness of the Russian space did
not contribute, as was noted by Berdyaev, to “the
development of self-discipline and initiative in a
Russian person” (Berdyaev, 2004, 63–64). The
motive of laziness, elevated to the rank of ethos,
can be traced in many fairy tales “At the behest
of the pike”, “Ryaba Hen”, “The Frog Princess”
and “The Tale of the Goldfish” (Afanasyev,
2014), where the main characters want to acquire
wealth, fundamentally avoiding physical and
intellectual costs.
Other core archetypes that determined the
different ethnic mentality of the two peoples are
the individualism of Ukrainians versus the
collectivism of Russians, the equality of sons and
daughters of Ukraine versus the subordinate
relationship of men and women, reflected in
Russian folklore. For example, a model of
attitude towards a woman is recorded in Russian
proverbs, “A woman lies in such a way that you
won’t even ride a pig”, “Whoever believes a
woman will not live for three days”, “Wherever
the devil is in time, he will send a woman there”,
“A chicken is not a bird, but a woman not a
human”. Later, a similar status of women was
recorded in the famous Domostroy, the first
edition of which was compiled in Veliky
Novgorod at the end of the 15th – beginning of
the 16th century.
In contrast, in Ukraine there was no such thing as
“domostroy”. And the fact that “wife” in the
linguistic consciousness of Ukrainians was
designated not only by the common Slavic word
“жена” that is, giving birth (“wife”) but also as a
“дружина” (yokefellow) reflects her position in
society.
The position of a woman in Ukrainian society is
confirmed by the fact that the “spouse” in the
linguistic consciousness of Ukrainians was
designated not only by the common Slavic word
“жена” (wife), that is, giving birth, but also by
the nomination “дружина” (yokefellow), a
derivative of the word “friend”.
The archetype of free individuality and equality,
among other archetypal structures, occupies a
significant place in the holistic picture of the
Ukrainian national mentality and was legally
fixed in Yaroslav’s Pravda (which established a
fine for insulting a woman).
The periphery of the archetypal-mythological
fields of ethnic memory.
The periphery of the fields includes common
mythological archaic cultural archetypes –
symbols of vegetative and animal fertility,
sacredly marked points of space and time, etc.
Such symbolic structures cannot be ethno-
specific, as they reflect archaic ideas about the
world order of most ethnic groups. However,
they are re-articulated in the semiospheres of
subsequent texts to adapt to national narratives in
the fields of memory of the two peoples.
An example of the periphery is of the common
for two ethnic groups archetypes of Sacred space
(“Holy place”, “Holy Mountain”, “Holy World”
in fairy tales (Toporov, 1995), which is further
reinterpreted in Russian narratives into the
symbols of “Holy Russia” and its related
concepts. In this case, we should talk about the
ordering of symbols along the axes of
paradigmatics, that is the transmission of abstract
information of different content by one symbol:
Russia is Heartland, Messiah, “a wandering
Kingdom”, Rimland (which includes Ukraine
along with the rest of Central-Eastern Europe),
which was formulated by Elder Philotheus (“Яко
два Рима падоша, а третий стоит, а
четвертому не быти”) (Østbø, 2016, 61).
Precisely the mythologeme of “holy Russia”, of
its universal, worldwide significance, put
forward as far back as the 16th century, is the
basis for deriving all later political concepts that
substantiate the “all-human vocation of Russia”.
In a perspective dimension, the danger of shifting
the ideologeme of the “wandering kingdom” to
the core of the semiosphere of modern Russian
mythology lies in the association of this
ideologeme with the mythologemes of the
sacredness of Russia’s political power and the
end of history on the third Rome (“there will be
no fourth Rome”). Such a configuration of
mythologemes is resulted in the narrative motif
of apocalyptic political time: Russian political
time is extremely compressed, its historical
perspective is shortened, which requires the
utmost responsibility, since in the Russian
political consciousness the fate of Russia and the
world are inextricably linked, that is, the fate of
history depends on Moscow as the “Third
Rome”.
In this vein, in subsequent semiospheres, the
archetype “Holy World” syntagmatically
involved the archetypal motif of “Messianism”
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as the basis of the mythologeme about the role of
Russia as the Messiah, the Savior of the world,
which acquired the status of an invariant, that is,
the fundamental value of cultural tradition, from
which other mythologemes of Russian history
and culture. With various transformations of the
messianic image of Russia, all historical periods
of Russian statehood – Muscovite Rus’ –
Petersburg (imperial) Russia – Soviet Russia
(USSR) – Putin’s Russia in all fields retain its
attributive features: choosiness, maximalism,
“Salvation” of the World. Messianic ideas,
genetically connected with Orthodoxy, then
manifest themselves in the image of Liberation
Russia, transforming over time into
revolutionary and Soviet Russia and the Russia
of today’s war, with the exclusive calling of the
Russian people to the world “feat” – the
“Salvation” of mankind.
For Ukrainians, the sacred topos is the “House”
archetype (Mishchenko, 2014, 90–94), which is
divided into sacred loci, reproducing the model
of the universe and the world tree with a roof – a
top, walls – a trunk, and a cellar – roots, and turns
into a symbol of the “maternal principle, the
inviolability of the family, continuity, home and
homeland” (Zhaivoronok, 2006, 456). The house
is interpreted in Ukrainian fairy tales as a magical
locus, whрокich is a refuge and protection from
death and evil spirits (having got into the house,
the brothers “could become people again”
(“About seven brother-larks and their sister”)
(Magic fairy tales, 2022).
In the periphery of the fields of archetypal-
mythological memory, the article also highlights
the archetype of the Hero. This archetype,
common to all ethnic groups, in the folklore
memory of the Ukrainian people is associated
with the image of the legendary plowman-
bogatyr Mykola Selyanynovych and is further
embodied in the mythologeme of Ukrainian
Cossacks, associated with the community and
manifesting such archetypal values of Ukrainians
as desire for freedom (Chizhevsky, 1992, 19–20),
democracy and equality with a pronounced spirit
of non-aggression, an effort to defend rather than
attack.
In the field of archetypal memory of the
Ukrainian ethnos, the hero archetype is also
associated with the legendary princes Boris and
Gleb (the sons of the Kiev Grand Duke Vladimir
Svyatoslavovich), who forged the first plow, into
which they chained the terrible Serpent and dug
the Serpent Walls on it – ancient earthen
fortifications on the border with the Wild Steppe
(Plokhyi, 2011, 92). In this vein, the archetype of
the hero is related in the mythological
semiosphere of the proto-Ukrainians with the
archetypes of the field and “the border between
the worlds”, which, in turn, are connected
between themselves since the archetype of the
“plowed field” is a symbol of the transformation
of chaos – elements associated with the Eurasian
steppes of nomads, into an “ordered” civilized
space of settlements. In subsequent
semiospheres, these associated archetypes are
transformed into the mythologeme "Ukraine is a
cultural border and a place of interaction between
worlds”, first between nomads and civilizational
settlements and then between the “East and
West” (Hrytsak, 2012) transforming today into
the ideologeme of the modern national grand
narrative “Ukraine is the border between the
world and a world-threatening superpower”.
In contrast, the archetype of the fairy tale Hero
associated with the fabulous archetypal motif of
the fight against evil and victory over it, is
reinterpreted in the Russian political myth as
liberating the world from the power of its
destructing Western values, with a metonymic
transfer of world evil to the images of NATO, the
West and Ukraine as an instrument of evil, the
victory over which is a sacred duty. This motif
explains modern variations of the Russian “Tale
of a Just War”, including narratives of “salvation
of world” (Russia – Salvator, NATO / United
State / Western World – Evil, World – Victim),
“self-protection and self-preservation” (Russia –
Victim, Ukraine = Anti-Russia – Villain, and
NATO / United State / Western World – Resident
Evil that controls the Villain) and of “salvation of
Ukraine” (Ukrainian authorities – Villain,
Ukraine – Victim and Hostage, Russia – Hero
and Liberator of Ukrainians from the Villain)
(Kravchenko, 2022) and others.
Some common archetypes from the archaic
period are used by Russian propaganda in a
“ready form” as metaphors that contribute to the
construction of mythologemes and ideologemes.
For example, the archetypes of the “Russian
hero” (of the period of Kievan Rus’) and “living
and dead water” are included in the modern
mythologeme that the collapse of the USSR was
“the greatest geopolitical catastrophe”, because it
dismembered the body of the Russian hero. Such
an interpretation of a fairy tale plot is presented
on one of the Russian sites: “From the ancient
Russian epic it is known that evil people wither
from Dead Water, and good people restore their
strength and even splice the dismembered bodies
of the killed heroes. And then they revive them,
sprinkling them with Living Water. To unite and
revive Russia you need Dead and Living Water:
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the theory of rebirth and practical actions to
implement it” (Ryltsev and Kostrov, 2012).
Conclusions
Among the core archetypes that constitute the
symbols of Ukrainian national identity, there are
the archetypes of “Mother”, associated with the
matriarchal mentality of Ukrainians, and the
spatial archetype “field”, symbolically extending
to the images of the “plowman”, “home”, and
Mother-Ukraine.
Russian ethno-mentality is associated with the
archetype of “Father”, embodying the
authoritarian-patriarchal approach to society, and
spatial archetypes of Distance, Vastness and
Path-road, projected into the conquest of new
spaces and the spatially based inertia of the
Russian people resulted in their following any
power. The core archetypes are individualism of
Ukrainians vs. the collectivism of Russians, the
equality vs. subordination.
The periphery of the fields includes common
archaic archetypes – symbols of vegetative and
animal fertility, sacredly marked points of space
that are re-articulated in subsequent
semiospheres to be adapted to national narratives
of two peoples. The common for two ethnic
groups archetype of Sacred space is reinterpreted
in Russian narratives into the symbols of “Holy
Russia”, which on the axes of paradigmatics
involves symbols of Heartland, Rimland,
Messiah, “a wandering Kingdom”, entered in the
contemporary Russian grand to substantiate the
“all-human vocation of Russia”, the sacredness
of its political power and the narrative motifs of
apocalyptic time and “messianicity”.
For Ukrainians, the sacred topos is the “House”
archetype that turns into a symbol of the maternal
principle, the inviolability of the family,
continuity, home and homeland.
The common archetype of Hero is associated in
the Ukrainian ethno-mentality with the images of
the legendary plowmen and the “plowed field” as
a symbol of the struggle against the Eurasian
steppe of nomads and the ordering of chaos into
a civilized space of settlements, which in
subsequent semiospheres is transformed into the
mythologeme “Ukraine is a cultural border
between the East and West” and the ideologeme
of the modern national grand narrative “Ukraine
is the border between the world and its
threatening superpower”.
In semiospheres of Russian texts the archetype of
the fairy tale Hero is reinterpreted as a sacred
duty of Russia-Hero to liberate the world from its
destructing Western values.
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