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  TALE, LEGEND AND ART OF NARRATION :
(texte français: cliquez ici)   From tale to legend

 

From tale to legend : interpretation of "Petar's revenge". From tale to legend: interpretation of "Petar's revenge"
INTRODUCTION
FOREIGN LOOK, INNER LOOK
TECHNIQUES, EMPIRICAL KNOWLEDGES
TERRITORY AND MEANING OF THE PLACE
KINSHIP AND SOCIAL ORGANISATION
CUSTOM, CEREMONIAL AND RITE
TALE, LEGEND, ART OF NARRATION
1 Narration to produce sense
2 From tale to legend
3

Under a marvellous tale

4 Interpretation of a tale

5

Reinterpretation
EPIC, DEPHTS OF HISTORY
WHAT IS CALLED VAMPIRE
IMAGINE AND THINK THE NEXT WORLD
Tower of Xilendar monastery, Mount Athos.
 
This story illustrates all fundamental oppositions of Bulgarian culture, most Balkanic cultures and a number of Mediterranean cultures. It treats the theme of the youngest brother creating the event, opposed to the eldest one, who lives a conformist life, according to a recurrent scheme in many European societies : the brother who must avenge his sister's honor; the family sanctuary tarnished by the suicide of the raped sister, making the duty of revenge still more pressing; the fight against the barbaric Turk who is so different from the familiar Moor of the western imaginary; the refuge taken in the monastery; the function of refuge, of faith fortress, of centre of diffusion of high culture exercised by the Sveta Gora, the Holy Montain. All these elements together contribute to give "Petar's revenge", such as it is related in Bansko in the Pirine, a double effect : to sacralize the habitation where the initial drama took place by a narrativization of the architectural programme about one of its most characteristic elements, the tcherdak; to dramatize so much the life of Father Païsij that he appears to Balkanic Slavs rather as a hero than a monk. So narrated, the father's Vita is similar to that of St John of Rila, like the Vita of a fighter for the greatness of Bulgarians is similar to that of a fighter for the greatness of faith. But, since this popular hagiography is rather that of a hero than of a saint, this Vita is to be compared with the legend relating the foundation od the Church of the Trinity. Its form is more precisely that of a chanson de geste, of one of these familial and ethnnic sagas (...) concerned with family estate, tribal fight, blood vengeance, fraternal faithfullness, murder, women, but treated in a most exaggerated manner. Will Païsij of Hilendar (name of the Serb monastery on the Mount Athos where he lived till his death) die and leave no trace of him in that unknown place, like another still more legendary fighter, Marko, son of a king ?  next
    J.C.: Les Noces de Marko, Le rite et le mythe en pays bulgare, Paris, PUF,1998, pp.84-85
   
 
 
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