THE CATEGORIES OF TIME AND SPACE: POINTS OF VIEW OF M. KOSTOMAROV AND M. SUMTSOV

Abstract

Introduction. The categories of time and space are one of the most important ontological concepts in the mythological worldview. In the current context there are only fragmentary researches of them in the ballad continuum. For this reason there is an importance to analyze temporal and spatial factors using the example of Ukrainian (and Slavic) ballads. The purpose of the article is an attempt of considering the opinions about the time and space that belong to famous folklorists of XIX century – M. Kostomarov and M. Sumtsov. It’s necessarily to place greater focus on temporal and spatial lexical unites in the context of the ballad chronotope. Results. The analyzed scientific works confirm the interest to the ontological categories of time and space in the XIX century. M. Kostomarov separated the symbols of locality into the independent group and considered that spatial factor determinates the human way of thinking and, as a result, their folklore. We pointed up the spatial lexical units that take place in the ballads analyzed by the scientist. It’s really important that he made it in the Slavic context. For example, he draw an analogy between the Ukrainian text in which an ash tree and a poplar grew up on the graves of two lovers after their death and the Scottish ballad that is named William and Margareth. Another famous folklorist – M. Sumtsov – compared 54 variants of a ballad about “sister-the-poisoner” in the Slavic and non-Slavic regions. We remarked the temporal and spatial lexical units in the ballad fragments that are used for the purpose of demonstration of the every variant’s plot. Specifically, the fragment №7 (from Galicia) shows the time frame of a realized crime in the culmination and the localization of an artful intention : “When the brother comes home from the hunting, his sister gives him a poison in a black beer”. Before this crime the listeners got to learn that she decided to obtain a poison “from the serpent’s head”. Some of ballads contain the initial spatial lexical unit as for instance № 11 (also from Galicia) : “Oh you are from the mountain, and I am from the second”. M. Sumtsov also analyzed the hydronym Danube and confirmed that this symbol personifies any reservoir as a whole. Originality. A lot of works were written by scientists about a genre specific, but until now there isn’t the complete systematized scientific research which would touch ballad chronotope. This article is the attempt of analysis of the categories time and space by famous Ukrainian scientists by the example of folk ballads. Conclusion. The Slavic ballads are an favourable basis for the reconstruction of archaic representation of the world by the analysis of its categories time and space. The researches of such Ukranian folklorists as M. Kostomarov and M. Sumtsov confirmed the scientific interest to these ontological concepts in the XIX century. Although there wasn’t any integrated systematized research of this problem, they called attention on the certain aspects of this problem