MOTIF OF WANDERINGS IN THE MYTHOLOGICAL DISCOURSE

Different chronotope variations of a way and road are important for mythological discourse where space and time are inseparable. Archaic consciousness clearly structures the infinite space. Here one can meet such archetypal symbols as the hub of the universe, the stone, the world mountain, the world tree and others. If we speak about local oppositions, which are typical for mythological scope, first of all there will be such oppositions as space and chaos, earth's world and deadman kingdom, underground world and divine, north and south, and others. As for temporal oppositions they are: contrasting of spring, summer and of autumn, winter. The physical movement of characters in the locus and the time, their mental wandering always act as basis for the plot and sense in the mythological discourse. Usually the locus and time represent a single whole in the archaic conscious which is strikingly traced in specific examples from Indian, Old Russian and ancient Greek mythology. The Slavic mythology is not the exception – it has the Indo-European origin. Here the space and the time are important for realization of the motive of wanderings. Different local and temporal orients are necessary in the mythological hypertext; it helps the characters to fight with the evil and to surmount difficult obstacles. The concept of a way gives rise to different kinds of travel – from a physical way to a mental one. And the physical wandering is impossible without spiritual wandering; it always entails mental growing of the character. It often bears different variants of this motif. So, the motif of wanderings in the mythological discourse is presented as the invariant which can attract various meanings.