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DOI: 10.46698/i0757-2449-5941-a

ON AMBIVALENT IMAGE OF DEATH IN THE LANGUAGE OF OSSETIC CULTURE

Bessolova, Elena B.
Kavkaz Forum. 2020. Issue 2.
Abstract:
Linguistic, archaeological, ethnographic, folklore and epic material indicates
that the Alans, the ancestors of the Ossetians, in the form of interconnected
and interdependent rituals, had diverse parallel forms of religious notions that
eventually moulded into a system of religious beliefs and cult practices. They
were extended with new forms, passed down from generation to generation,
having developed into tradition. The content of the syncretic religion of the Alans-
Ossetians arose on the basis of a belief in the real actions of a certain supernatural
character that had been formed in their minds under the influence of the nature
of social relations and religious traditions. The formation and preservation of
the religious beliefs of the Alans-Ossetians was affected by the spontaneous
development of the ethnos itself, internal sources of self-development, inherent
in it, making it distinctive, unique. External influences are just elements that
contributed to this development. It is common knowledge, that the Alans, the
ancestors of the Ossetians, had a high spiritual culture, as evidenced by the
works of verbal folklore. They capture the ideology of the Alan society, which was
an amazing but complex system of beliefs, customs and rituals that developed
dynamically over time.
The article makes an attempt to trace in the mythological and religious
symbiosis of traditional beliefs the Alanian ideas about the afterlife that
permeated the Alans worldview and left legacy to their descendants − Ossetians,
to justify their ambivalent nature, symbolic and conventional language.
Keywords: Ossetian language, dældzækh, dzænæt, folklore term, ritual and mythological, feature and property
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