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HISTORICAL MYTHOLOGY: NEW APPROACHES, OLD PROBLEMS. SCIENTIFIC AND POST-RELIGIOUS MYTHS IN MEDIEVAL PAGAN STUDIES
Abstract
This work is devoted to the historical mythology as a new field in social & human sciences. The author examines the causes of appearance and vitality of myths both in traditional, modern and post-modern societies throw the point of situatedness. Medieval pagan studies provide a good example of mythology development. Every period in historiography has its own paganism due to socio-cultural peculiarities of contemporaries. In practice all of investigators try to create their reconstructions of pre-Christian beliefs. However, they often use old ideological mythological schemes about paganism saved in medieval manuscripts. Christian bookmen created them as myths about other beliefs and myths for apology of their own religion. Scientists believe that these book constructions are fully connected with authentic paganism and even unconsciously embed them in subjective elements of scientific works and interpret them according their own socio-political views and even religious feelings. So, ideological myths about paganism have a new life. They become scientific and then they get a great social impact being post-religious. As for example the author reviews a history of the ideological myth of pantheon of gods both in Old Russian and West Catholic medieval literature and its spreading to modern historiography and socio-cultural life. The investigation is provided with materials from Russian archives.
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References15
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