Naumovska O. Mythological Triad “Life → Death → Immortality” in Folk Prose.

The dissertation is devoted to a complex conceptual study of the mythological space of the Ukrainian prose tradition, related to the themes of life, death and rebirth / resurrection of the hero and humanity in general. The dissertation presents a comprehensive description of the historiography of scientific discourse from antiquity to the present on the issues of the mythological basis of folk prose, thanatological ideas, beliefs and ideas about afterlife and immortality. The spatial model in the mythological worldview of Ukrainians in a comparative light with the cultural traditions of other peoples, which is manifested in mythological prose, is comprehended. The analysis of the texts confirms the presence of both vertical and horizontal planes with the semantics of the space of death. The horizontal plane does not have any vector (the folk prose does not emphasize the eastern, western, southern or northern directions of the hero's movement to the otherworld), but these planes always belong to the boundary space. The vertical plane of the death locus is located in the underground (lower projection of the vertical vector ) and the celestial (upper projection of the vertical vector ) worlds with the domination of the lower projection (). A survey was conducted on Ukrainians' perceptions of the afterlife of mankind and its results are analyzed. The concept of «death» in folk prose texts is analyzed at three levels: 1) as an object (embodied in a concrete character); 2) as a 42 process (implemented through a motive); 3) as a spatial concept (expressed through the locus). The peculiarities of the formation of a fairy tale (magic tale) and a non-fairy tale (legend, bylytsia) epic are highlighted.