ACOUSTIC PICTURE OF THE WORLD IN KOMI MYTHOLOGY

Abstract

The article examines the uniqueness of the acoustic picture of the world in Komi mythology and identifies its characteristic features: the sphere of the audible and sounding is diverse; sound sources are divided into sounds of real nature, including human voices, sounds of musical instruments and surreal, imaginary sounds of magical characters. The key opposition of the audible and inaudible correlates with other fundamental oppositions of the mythopoetic model of the world – visible-invisible, sacred-profane. The semantics of the sound sphere is determined by the ritual practices of fortune telling and makes it possible to identify sounds with positive and negative functions. Positive sounds are sounds that harmonize man’s relationship with nature and support a high attitude towards the Word, perceived under the influence of Christian culture. Excessively loud sounds and rude speech have a negative meaning. The high status of the acoustic picture of the world is confirmed by cosmogonic images of thunder and lightning as signs of higher powers.