Народная демонология Полесья в контексте восточнославянских традиционных верований

Abstract

This article studies folk demonological beliefs that are widespread on the territory of Polesye, located on the border of Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia. The traditional culture of this region is of great interest for ethnologists of the broadest profile, since it preserves many archaic elements of all-Slavic significance. In the first part of the study, two blocks of the regional mythological system were considered: spirits of domestic and natural loci, and a group of characters originated from the souls of deceased. The second part of the work considers two groups of mythological characters: spirits not assigned to a specific locus (the devil, spirits of diseases, personification of death, characters for intimidation of children) and different categories of living people endowed with supernatural knowledge (witches, sorcerers, healers, werewolves). The study is based on data from the East-Slavic demonology.