Carpatho-Ukrainian skusa – from word to character

Abstract

The article attempts to explain the appearance of the character skusa in Western Ukrainian mythology through the origin of its name, while exploring the motives of temptation in East Slavic folklore. The formation of skusa as a mythological character is due to the high frequency of the verb kusyty and its derivates in Western Ukrainian dialects. This verb has negative connotations and denotes Satan’s function to tempt a person, to provoke him or her to commit unrighteous deeds. Against the background of the relatively high “activity” of the verbs of temptation in local mythological prose, this function is personalized over time and character names (skusa, pokusa) appear, similar to other single-functional characters such as lyakayla or blud. Skusa, essentially identical to the devil, due to its weak formedness as a character, is devoid of any specific external features and even by its grammatical gender appears in texts either as a female or as a male character. Subsequently, the word skusa begins to denote not only a demon, but also various diseases, mainly “caused”; finally, the same verb and its derivatives spokušaty / spokusyty / skusyty are used to denote medicinal plants (skusivnyk) used to get rid of skusa.

Received: 13.03.2022.

Citation
Agapkina T. A. Carpatho-Ukrainian skusa – from word to character // Slavic Almanac. 2022. No 1–2. P. 190–208 (in Russian). DOI: 10.31168/2073-5731.2022.3-4.2.03