E-mail: kyldysin@yandex.ru Tel.: +372 5555-64-59
42, Vanemuise str., Tartu, 51003, Estonia
PhD, Researcher, Folklore Department, Estonian Literary Museum Tel.:
+ 7 (462) 68-89-11
4, Lomonosov str., Izhevsk, 426004, Russian Federation
Researcher, Department of Philological Studies, Udmurt Institute of History, Language and Literature of the Udmurt Federal Research Center, Ural Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences
This article is devoted to a little-studied character from Udmurt mythology — the buchyra, a name that has local variants in folk terminology. A demonological character of Turkic origin, in some local traditions the buchyra is an unambiguously positive persona, in others more ambivalent; in one case it enriches, helps and/or sexually satisfies its master, in another it brings anxiety, commits sexual violence, and provokes physical and mental illness. Buchyra can take a variety of forms: anthropomorphic, zoomorphic, “zero-morphic.” Based on the available materials, it is possible to distinguish three main signs that determine its nature: traits of а home spirit-enricher, traits of а spirit-lover, and traits of а spirit of illness. All of them may coexist in the semantics of one image or may be diminished.
This analysis of the modern existence of folk ideas about the spirit of buchyra was carried out both on the basis of the available literature and on the author’s field materials collected in expeditions to local Udmurt groups, mainly the Eastern Udmurt. The collection of material was also carried out through the Internet resources VKontakte, Facebook, Odnoklassniki, as well as the WhatsApp messenger application. The main kind of text hat allows reconstructing folk beliefs are mythological stories about the spirit of the buchyra. This article introduces a previously unpublished corpus of new texts into scholarly circulation and offers terms describing this character for the first time.
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