Eleazar Moiseevich Meletinskii (also ''Meletinsky'' or ''Meletinskij''; ; 22 October 1918,

Kharkiv Kharkiv, also known as Kharkov, is the second-largest List of cities in Ukraine, city in Ukraine.

– 17 December 2005,

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

) was a Russian scholar famous for his seminal studies of

folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

philology Philology () is the study of language in Oral tradition, oral and writing, written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also de ...

and the

history History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...

and theory of narrative; he was one of the major figures of Russian academia in those fields. He was Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at

Russian State University for the Humanities The Russian State University for the Humanities (RSUH; ), is a university in Moscow, Russia with over 25,000 students. It was created in 1991 as the result of the merger of the Moscow Urban University of the People (est. 1908) and the Moscow Sta ...

for several years until his death.mail from Seth Graham for decease announcement, retrieved on Google cache on June 2, 200

/ref>

His analysis of comic doublets

The traditions of the mythological narration, dealt with the figures of the ancestors-heroes civilizers, and their comic-demoniac doublets. Mikhail Bakhtin, Bakhtin summarized Meletinsky's analysis in his work on Rabelais:

This double aspect of the world and of human life he existence of a second world and life outside officialdomexisted even at the earliest stages of cultural development, in the
folklore Folklore is the body of expressive culture shared by a particular group of people, culture or subculture. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, myths, legends, proverbs, Poetry, poems, jokes, and other oral traditions. This also ...
of
primitive peoples ''Primitive Peoples'' is a 1949 three-part documentary about the people of Arnhem Land. It was narrated by Peter Finch who also worked as camera assistant during filming. References External links''Primitive Peoples''at National Film and Soun ...
. Coupled with the
cult Cults are social groups which have unusual, and often extreme, religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals. Extreme devotion to a particular person, object, or goal is another characteristic often ascribed to cults. The term ...
s which were serious in tone and organization were other, comic cults which laughed and
scoff Scoff or SCOFF may refer to: * Scoff, a colloquial term for the act of eating, usually quickly * "Scoff" a song by Nirvana on their album ''Bleach'' * Scoff, a colloquial term for fellatio Fellatio (also known as fellation, and in slang as blo ...
ed at the deity ("
ritual laughter A ritual is a repeated, structured sequence of actions or behaviors that alters the internal or external state of an individual, group, or environment, regardless of conscious understanding, emotional context, or symbolic meaning. Traditionally ...
"); coupled with serious
myth Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...
s were comic and abusive ones; coupled with heroes were their parodies and doublets. These comic rituals and myths have attracted the attention of folklorists.

Meletinsky also cite
Frejdenberg
s analysis of the comic

alter ego An alter ego (Latin for "other I") means an alternate Self (psychology), self, which is believed to be distinct from a person's normal or true original Personality psychology, personality. Finding one's alter ego will require finding one's other ...

s of the heroes. In a class-based society,

ritual laughter A ritual is a repeated, structured sequence of actions or behaviors that alters the internal or external state of an individual, group, or environment, regardless of conscious understanding, emotional context, or symbolic meaning. Traditionally ...

popular culture Popular culture (also called pop culture or mass culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of cultural practice, practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as popular art

f. pop art F is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet. F may also refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * F or f, the number 15 (number), 15 in hexadecimal and higher positional systems * ''p'F'q'', the hypergeometric function * F-distributi ...

or mass art, sometimes contraste ...

creates an anti-clerical world of feasts, playful parody, and

carnival Carnival (known as Shrovetide in certain localities) is a festive season that occurs at the close of the Christian pre-Lenten period, consisting of Quinquagesima or Shrove Sunday, Shrove Monday, and Shrove Tuesday or Mardi Gras. Carnival typi ...

s.Meletinsky, Eleazar Moiseevich
The Poetics of Myth
' (Translated by Guy Lanoue and Alexandre Sadetsky) 2000 Routledge p.110

Hermes Hermes (; ) is an Olympian deity in ancient Greek religion and mythology considered the herald of the gods. He is also widely considered the protector of human heralds, travelers, thieves, merchants, and orators. He is able to move quic ...

is a

deified Apotheosis (, ), also called divinization or deification (), is the glorification of a subject to divine levels and, commonly, the treatment of a human being, any other living thing, or an abstract idea in the likeness of a deity. The origina ...

trickster In mythology and the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a character in a story (god, goddess, spirit, human or anthropomorphisation) who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherw ...

, and

Ulysses Ulysses is the Latin name for Odysseus, a legendary Greek hero recognized for his intelligence and cunning. He is famous for his long, adventurous journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, as narrated in Homer's Odyssey. Ulysses may also refer ...

, the main character of the ''Odyssey'', has a

matrilinear Matrilineality, at times called matriliny, is the tracing of kinship through the female line. It may also correlate with a social system in which people identify with their matriline, their mother's lineage, and which can involve the inheritanc ...

descent from Hermes.

Meletinskii Eleazar Moiseevich Meletinskii (also ''Meletinsky'' or ''Meletinskij''; ; 22 October 1918, Kharkiv – 17 December 2005, Moscow) was a Russian scholar famous for his seminal studies of folklore, literature, philology and the history of narrative, h ...

1993, ''Introduzione'', p. 131 In the Legendary Troy the mythological element also includes comic moments.

1993, ''Introduzione'', pp. 132-3

''Origins of Heroic Epic''

In his 1963 work "Origins of Heroic Epic: early forms and archaic monuments", Meletinsky studied and compared elements of four ancient civilizations: Karelian- Finnish (pp. 95–155),

Caucasian Caucasian may refer to: Common meanings *Anything from the Caucasus region or related to it ** Ethnic groups in the Caucasus ** ''Caucasian Exarchate'' (1917–1920), an ecclesiastical exarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Caucasus re ...

(156-246), Turkic-

Mongolian Mongolian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Mongolia, a country in Asia * Mongolian people, or Mongols * Bogd Khanate of Mongolia, the government of Mongolia, 1911–1919 and 1921–1924 * Mongolian language * Mongolian alphabet * ...

(247-374) and

Sumer Sumer () is the earliest known civilization, located in the historical region of southern Mesopotamia (now south-central Iraq), emerging during the Chalcolithic and Early Bronze Age, early Bronze Ages between the sixth and fifth millennium BC. ...

ian- Akkadian (375-422). Here the author examines very ancient myths and their role in the formation of the archaic

epic Epic commonly refers to: * Epic poetry, a long narrative poem celebrating heroic deeds and events significant to a culture or nation * Epic film, a genre of film defined by the spectacular presentation of human drama on a grandiose scale Epic(s) ...

. Among the discussed ones is the

Alpamysh Alpamysh, also spelled as Alpamish or Alpamis (, , , , , , Kazan Tatar: ''Аlpamşa'', Altay: ''Аlıp Мanaş''), is an ancient Turkic epic or dastan, an ornate oral history, generally set in verse, and one of the most important examples ...

, ancient Turkic epic. Meletinskii also makes an interesting analysis of

comic a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicat ...

doublet Doublet is a word derived from the Latin ''duplus'', "twofold, twice as much",