Klaipėdos universitetas

The combination of imagological and semiotic approaches allows us to consider ethnic stereotypes in fiction as elements of national imagomythology. Their totality (and related cultural elements) can be interpreted as a special semiotic system. Like an element of traditional mythology, an ethnic stereotype can take various forms of expression, but what remains unchanged is its place in the general picture of the world, which is transmitted by literary tradition as a set of plots and stories. The totality of such narratives constitutes the national imagomythology – a nation’s description of itself in comparison with other nations. Both mythological images and ethnotypes can be desemanticised, reduced and used in artistic practice as elements of stylisation and imitation. Ethnic stereotypes, as well as elements of traditional mythology, like literary tropes, do not require critical thinking from a rational point of view (they are initially understood as fiction).

In The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia there is a description of “divine trial” in Turaida (Latvia), where the “horse of destiny” was used to decide the fate of Christian preacher in the Turaida brother Theodoric. The overall depiction of the trial bears strong likeness to Germanic traditions account of which comes from as early as the writings of Tacitus, in 98. However, the historical context shows similar patterns of mythological thought both with the Livs, the Balts and Germanic tribes. Also similar is the role of the horse in the mythology of these peoples.

I have previously presented some evidence concerning the possibility of a Baltic zodiac, documented by archaeological artefacts and supported by historical sources (Vaiškūnas 2000). It seems clear that such knowledge was imported into the Baltic region from Classical and Medieval cultures to the south. If the Baltic zodiac was a simple copy of the Mediterranean one, it would be of minor interest for the iconography of Baltic constellations, but in the Baltic versions we observe very important differences from the Classical model. In this paper I analyse the relevant traditions in more detail and discuss these differences in the hope that it can offer us valuable information about sky mythology in northern traditions.