RSSS 315 Second Week

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RSSS 315 (Second Week)

• Slavic Folklore Vampires and Werewolves

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Basic information

• Instructor George Gutsche
• Teaching assistants Kenny Cargill, Paula
  McCambridge
• gutscheg_at_u.arizona.edu
• D2L http//russian.arizona.edu/courses/vampires
• Office hours T 11-1230 or by appointment

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Last Time

• Syllabus, D2L
• Definitions
• Documentary
• Eastern Europe languages and cultures

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Film Issues

• Casual generalizations
• Terminological conflation
• Sensationalism

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Problems

• Earlier vampires Jiang Shi and Kali
• Historical figures really vampires?

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Vlad Tepes 1431-76 Legend and Historical Reality
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Features

• Warrior-ruler caught between competing empires
• Noted for cruelty violence of punishments
• Numerous enemies (e.g., boyars)
• Years of imprisonment
• Mixed message on justness

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Sources

• German tracts, Russian accounts (our reading for
  today)
• Romanian legends
• Biography put together from anecdotes about his
  behavior and semi-historical accounts

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Reading about Vlad (15th century)

• Sense of humor
• Attitude toward etiquette with leaders
• Fondness for impaling
• Appreciation of honesty
• Attitudes toward women
• Conversion to Catholicism
• Death by own troops

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Bran Castle
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Dinner at Vlads
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Snagov Monastery
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Link with Vampires?

• Tenuous
• Violence (sustenance through blood?)
• Immortality (lives on in history?)

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Erzsébet Bathory another historical notable

• 1560-1614
• Special powers of blood
• True vampirism (she drank it and bathed in it)
• Is she a vampire?

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Assignments

• Reading
• Machal on Slavic mythology
• Early account of Vlad the Impaler
• Reading and Writing
• Peter Plogojowicz
• Arnod (Arnold) Paole
• Reading Stokers Dracula

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Origins Eastern Europe?
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Peter Plogojowitz

• Petar Blagojevic/????? ??????????) d. 1725
• Rod Blagojevich?
• Serbian
• Kisilova Kisiljevo
• Austrian authorities

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Arnold (Arnod) Paole

• Arnaut Pavle d. c. 1725
• Medvedja, Serbia
• Sometimes called Johannes Fluckinger Report
  (1732)

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Stokers Chapter 1

• Journal, letters, simultaneity
• Journey England to the Castle

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Where is Transylvania?
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Transylvania and the Carpathians
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Equivalences

• Buda-Pesth Budapest
• Széchenyi Bridge Chain Bridge
• Klausenburgh Cluj-Napoca
• Bistritz Bistri?a
• Borgo Pass Prundul-Bârgaului or Bistrita-Nasaud

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Chain Bridge
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Mountain Ranges
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First Reading Assignment Slavic Mythology CN

• Variety of supernatural figures
• Many unrelated types
• Magicians, sorcerers closest to our topic

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Categories

• Introduction complex matters, no easy
  generalizations
• Some areas have more proof than others
• Accounts always suspect religious biases of
  writer
• Accounts often mixed with influences from later
  belief systems
• Poor and scanty

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Areas

• East Slavic (not just Russian!)
• West Slavic
• South Slavic

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Generalizations

• Rich, imaginative belief system
• Populated by variety of spirits and forces
• Exotic but similar names throughout E Europe
• Close relationship with people (even
  intermarriage)
• Co-exist with Christianity (dvoeverie)
• Mora, vukodlak, upir, oboroten are most relevant
  to us

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Categories

• The Soul
• Ancestors
• Gods
• Genii spirits of fields, forests, household,
  water
• Rituals

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Celebrations, festivals

• Appeasing gods is important
• Sacrifices are part of the appeasement
• Dual faith issues prominent

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East Slavic

• Language early form of Russian, Ukrainian,
  Belarusian
• Orthodox Christianity (Constantinople)
• Prince Vladimir converted Kiev Slavs in 988
• Idols destroyed, but belief system remained

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Leshii (leii) (two of them)
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Vodyanoy
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Rusalka
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Other Rusalki
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Relevance?

• Soul beliefs
• souls can freely come and go from bodies
• lots of variations, depending on the area
• they are not immortal, and they can quarrel and
  fight with each other
• They can pass into other bodies, shapes
  (butterflies)
• Treat them well!

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Genii

• Genii guiding spirits of persons or places
• They can shape shift all kinds of creatures
• Moras ,vampires and werewolves 21-22 24-25
• S.S. Vukodlak relevant today
• Good and bad genii in the house

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Film Leptirica (Butterfly)

• 1973 made for Serbian TV
• Based on story by Milovan Gliic 1847-1908
• Director Djordje Kadijevic

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Writing assignment for September 10

• Read Gogols story
• Write two pages on the following the
  supernatural beings and events in the story
• Along the way answer the question Are there any
  vampires in this story? Be sure to explain your
  answer.