Ivanchuk V. Deceased in the rites and beliefs of the late XIX – early XXI century (on the Hutsul region materials).

Relying on the ethnographic materials from the Hutsul region, the thesis comprises a comprehensive study of three related thematic components (funeral rites, demonological characters of manistic genesis as components of lower mythology, funeral/burial motives in the folk calendar), it depicts the historiographical interpretation of the given topic as well as theoretical and methodological grounds of it scientific study. The study focuses on the structural elements of the funeral rites: the “right” death marking, getting the deceased ready to depart to the “other world”, use of the dead body properties of the in magical practices, preventive and neutralizing measures, sacrifices, basic manistic rites. It has been determined that the opposite phenomenon of a “right” death is a “wrong” death; combined with various factors (like internal grudge) the latter one causes posthumous demonization, appearance of “impure” deceased. The demonized deceased in lower mythology include infantile images, female creatures representing nature loci, suicide victims, drowned people, vampires, those who over-lived “their age”, yet due to independent factors they are integrated into the human world. The Hutsul rites calendar includes periods of time to commemorate, while polymorphic incarnations of the deceased perform locative movements between “this” and “that world”. Funeral rites are considered through the prism of their action, object, verbal, agency, temporal, and semantic elements.