Moscow Archive of the Commission on anomalous phenomena in the natural environment as a source on folk mythology

Abstract

The meteorological information from the archives is rarely considered by folklorists or ethnographers. The article is the first to publish letters that reflect on unusual celestial and meteorological phenomena and were received by the Moscow branch of Archive of the Commission on anomalous phenomena in the natural environment in 1984–1989. In total, about 4 thousand letters on various topics from various regions of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine were analyzed. The sample included only those stories that can be interpreted as narratives about encounters with supernatural beings and phenomena mainly in the first half of the XX century (signs and omens, miracles, “fiery dragon”), materials on folk astronomy, as well as evidence of the reaction of the population to these events. The letters demonstrate how educated senders attribute the supernatural to certain natural phenomena (halos, light poles, auroras, comets, fireballs, etc.). The messages under consideration are more full of details than traditional narratives, they almost always fairly accurately indicate the chronological framework of what happened. The messages themselves, which for the most part can be attributed to post-folklore contain modern folklore narratives, where the folklore can generally be blurred, giving way to the “scientific”, but at the same time fits into traditional folklore schemes.

Received 30.06.2020.

Citation
Butov I. S. Moscow Archive of the Commission on anomalous phenomena in the natural environment as a source on folk mythology // Slavic Almanac. 2021. No 3–4. P. 229–259 (in Russian). DOI: 10.31168/2073-5731.2021.3-4.3.03