Professor Eleazar Moiseevich Meletinskii (also Meletinsky or Meletinskij depending on the transliteration; Russian: Елеазр Моисеевич Мелетинский) (October 22 1918 Kharkiv - December 17, 2005 Moscow) was a Russian scholar famous for his seminal studies folklore, literature, philology and the history and theory of narrative; he is one of the major figures of Russian academia in those fields.^[1] Transliteration is the practice of transcribing a word or text written in one writing system into another writing system. ... 1918 (MCMXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar (see link for calendar) or a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar. ... Map of Ukraine with Kharkiv highlighted. ... December 17 is the 351st day of the year (352nd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Position of Moscow in Europe Coordinates: , Country District Subdivision Russia Central Federal District Federal City Government  - Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov Area  - City 1,081 km²  (417. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... Old book bindings at the Merton College library. ... Philology is the study of ancient texts and languages. ...

He has been Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities at RGGU for several years until his death.^[1]

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.^[2] Bakhtin summarized Meletinsky's analysis in his work on Rabelais:

This double aspect of the world and of human life [the existence of a second world and life outside officialdom] existed even at the earliest stages of cultural development, in the folklore of primitive peoples. Coupled with the cults which were serious in tone and organization were other, comic cults which laughed and scoffed at the deity ("ritual laughter"); coupled with serious myths were comic and abusive ones; coupled with heroes were their parodies and doublets. These comic rituals and myths have attracted the attention of folklorists. This article does not cite any references or sources. ... This article does not discuss cult in its original sense of religious practice; for that usage see Cult (religious practice). ... A young child laughing For the 1930 film see Laughter (film). ... Scoff a meal, can be packed lunch type meal to a full meal, used widely in the North West of England. ... Look up Myth in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

Meletinsky also cites Frejdenberg's analysis of the comic alter egos of the heroes.^[3] Alter Ego has multiple meanings: Alter Ego is a game for the Commodore 64 computer. ...

In a class-based society, ritual laughter in popular culture creates an anti-clerical world of feasts, playful parody, and carnivals.^[4] Popular culture, sometimes called pop culture, consists of widespread cultural elements in any given society. ... Carnival or Carnivale is an annual Christian festival season. ...

Hermes is a deified trickster, and Ulysses, the main character of the Odyssey, has a matrilinear discent from Hermes.^[5] In the Legendary Troy the mythological element also includes comic moments.^[6] Hermes bearing the infant Dionysus, by Praxiteles, found at the Heraion, Olympia, 1877 Hermes (Greek, , IPA: ), in Greek mythology, is the Olympian god of boundaries and of the travelers who cross them, of shepherds and cowherds, of orators and wit, of literature and poets, of athletics, of weights and measures... Deifying is the act of raising something to the status of a deity. ... The trickster figure Reynard the Fox as depicted in an 1869 childrens book by Michel Rodange. ... Head of Odysseus from a Greek 2nd century BC marble group representing Odysseus blinding Polyphemus, found at the villa of Tiberius at Sperlonga Odysseus or Ulysses (Greek Odysseys; Latin: Ulixes or, less commonly, Ulysses), pronounced , is the main hero in Homers epic poem, the Odyssey, and plays a key... Matrilineality is a system in which one belongs to ones mothers lineage; it may also involve the inheritance of property or titles through the female line. ... Troy or Ilion, see Troy (disambiguation) and Ilion (disambiguation). ...

Origins of Heroic Epic

In his 1963 work "Origins of Heroic Epic: early forms and archaic monuments", he studied and compared elements of four ancient civilizations: Karelian-Finnish (pp.95-155), Caucasian (156-246), Turkic-Mongolian (247-374) and Sumerian-Akkadian (375-422).^[7] Here the author examines very ancient myths and their role in the formation of the archaic epic.^[8] Among the discussed ones is the Alpamysh, ancient Turkic epic.^[9] The Karelians is a name used to denote two related, yet different ethnic groups of Finnic-language speakers. ... This is the disambiguation page for the terms Turk, Turkey, Turkic, and Turkish. ... Sumer (or Shumer, Sumeria, Shinar, native ki-en-gir) formed the southern part of Mesopotamia from the time of settlement by the Sumerians until the time of Babylonia. ... Akkadian language city of Akkad or Agad Akkadian Empire Sargon of Akkad the Amarna letters and Amarna Letters EA 296(Yahtiru) This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The epic is a broadly defined genre of narrative poetry, characterized by great length, multiple settings, large numbers of characters, or long span of time involved. ... Alpamysh, also spelled as Alp-amish or Alpamish (Turkish: Alpamis, Kazakh Cyrillic script: Алпамыс, Bashkir: Алпамыша и Барсын-хылуу, Russian: Алпамыш, Azerbaijani: Alpamıs, Kazan Tatar: Алпамша), is an ancient Turkic epic or dastan — ornate oral history, generally set in verse — and one of the most important examples of the Turkic oral literature of Central Asia. ... The Turkic people are any of various peoples whose members speak languages in the Turkic family of languages. ...

Meletinskii also makes an interesting analysis of comic doublets (particularly in "Primary sources epic" pp.55-58, bibliography included).^[10] See comedian Stand up comedian List of Comedians List of British comedians comics comic book comic strip underground comics alternative comics web comic sprite comics manga graphic novel List of comic characters This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the... Categories: Stub ...

The book also contains a bibliography (pp. 449-459), Primary sources epic (21-94).

This work doesn't seem to be translated in other languages.

Notes

Mikhail Bakhtin. ...

List of works

• 1963, Proiskhozhdenie geroicheskogo éposa. Rannie formy i arkhaicheskie pamiatniki (meaning "The origins of the heroic epic: early forms and archaic monuments"). Moscow. (462 pages) ISBN 5020184764 [2] [3] [4] (Russian)
• 1964 Primitive heritage in archaic epics, Reports of the International Congress of antrhopological and ethnological sciences, Moscou : Nauka.
• 1976, Poetika Mifa
• 1977 Mif i istoricheskaia poetika folklora (Mythe et la poétique historique du folklore), Moscou : Nauka.
• 1986, Vvedenie v istoričeskuû poétiku éposa i romana. Moscow, Nauka.(Russian)
  • Introduzione alla poetica storica dell'epos e del romanzo (1993) (Italian)
• Dostoevskii v Svete Istoricheskoi Poetiki;
• 1996, MELETINSKY E. M. (1)  ; BELMONT N. La poétique historique du folklore narratif (The historic poetry of folklore narratives); journal: Ethnologie française ISSN 0046-2616; 1996, vol. 26, no 4, pp. 573-747 (dissem.), pp. 611-618 (French)
• Kak Sdelany “Brat’ia Karamazovy (1996)
• 1998, E.M. Meletinskii. Izbrannye Stat’i. Vospominaniia
• 2000, The Poetics of Myth translated by Guy Lanoue
• 2001, Zametki o Tvorchestve Dostoevskogo

References

• Mark Lipovetsky (2003) New Russians as a Cultural Myth Russian Review 62 (1), 54–71.
• Seth Benedict Graham A CULTURAL ANALYSIS OF THE RUSSO-SOVIET ANEKDOT 2003
• Laura Beraha The Fixed Fool: Raising and Resisting Picaresque Mobility in Vladimir Vojnovic's Conkin Novels The Slavic and East European Journal, Vol. 40, No. 3 (Autumn, 1996), pp. 475-493

See also

• Emil Draitser

External links

• Brief obituary and photo (Russian)
• The Archaic Epic and Its Relationship to Ritual