Shotaeva, Veronika M.
Kavkaz Forum. 2024. Issue 19.

Abstract:
Comparative studies are a special genre of historical science, which opens up
wide opportunities for objective search. The article is devoted to the study of the
historical phenomenon of two similar social myths about women who acted as
saviors of the nation - the myth of Jeanne d’Arc and the myth of Zadalesky Nana (the
heroine of the Ossetian legend dating back to the period of Tamerlane’s invasion
of Ossetia), brought to life by similar historical circumstances in France during the
Hundred Years’ War and in medieval Alania. The scientific novelty of this study is
due to the lack of special works devoted to the designated problem. The relevance
of the topic is determined by the ever-growing interest in the heroic myths of the
past in the context of the intensification of processes caused by the search for
national self-identification of peoples in the context of globalization. The main
research methods are historicism and the method of structural anthropology
of Claude Levi-Strauss. The article analyzes the reasons for the emergence of
myths about women saviors in the history of the French and Ossetian peoples,
their role and significance, their influence on the further development of both
societies, the reasons why women became the unifying link for the formation of
national identity. In the course of the work, cartoons, frescoes, newspaper articles,
television reports dedicated to Nana were studied. Various kinds of symbolism
associated with both women are considered, which made it possible to form
holistic images as their contemporaries saw them. Similarities between Zadalesky
Nana and the Madonnas of Mercy (Madonna della Misericordia) - a genre image
of the Virgin Mary in the framework of the Italian Renaissance - are revealed. The
idea of identifying both saviors in the minds of the people with the Virgin Mary is
introduced into scientific circulation.

Keywords: Jeanne d’Arc, Zadalesky Nana, social myth, women saviors, nation formation.

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