The Cat as a Litmus Test: On Animal Images in the Russian Literature

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Abstract

The images of animals found on the pages of works of art are numerous. The image of he-cat / she-cat refers to the universal images found in folklore and fiction of different linguistic cultures. In Russian linguistic culture (more broadly, in Slavic folk beliefs) this pet appears as a gender pair - a he-cat and a she-cat and is described as having both positive and negative qualities due to the stable archaic idea of the cat’s connection with both the human world and the other world, going back to antiquity.

About the authors

Mariya Borisovna Rarenko

Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences (INION) of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Author for correspondence.
Email: rarenco@rambler.ru

PhD (Philology), Leading Research Fellow of Linguistics Department Institute of Scientific Information for Social Sciences (INION) of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Russian Federation

References

  1. Gura, A. V. (1999). Koshka = The Cat. In Tolstoi, N. I. (Ed.), Slavjanskie drevnosti (vol. 2, pp. 637–640): jetnolingvist. slovar’: in 5 vols. Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniya. (In Russ.)
  2. Baraga, L. G., Novikova, N. V. (Eds.). (1984). Narodnye russkie skazki A. N. Afanas’eva = Folk Russian fairy tales by A. N. Afanasyev (vol. 1): in 3 vols. Moscow: Nauka. http://febweb.ru/feb/skazki/default.asp?/feb/skazki/texts/af0/af1/af1r11. htm1 (In Russ.)
  3. Matveeva, R. P., Leonova, T. G. (compilers). (1993). Russkie skazki Sibiri i Dal’nego Vostoka. Volshebnye. O zhivotnyh = The Russian fairy tales of Siberia and the Far East. Magic. About animals. Novosibirsk: Nauka. (In Russ.)
  4. Poslovicy i pogovorki o kotah i koshkah = Proverbs and sayings about he-cats and she-cats. https://slavclub.ru/poslovicy-i-pogovorki/o-kotah-i-koshkah 22.08.2022. (In Russ.)
  5. Zagadka pro koshku dlja detej = A riddle about a cat for children. https://multi-mama.ru/zagadka-pro-koshku-dlya-detej/#_7-8. (In Russ.)
  6. Rozhkova, E. I. (2016). Obraz kota v tvorcheste M. A. Bulgakova = The image of the cat in M. A. Bulgakov’s works. Jekologija jazyka i rechi. Materialy V Mezhdunarodnoj nauchnoj konferencii. Tambov, 2016. P. 170–173. (In Russ.)
  7. Magomedrasulova, Sh. M., Mazanaev Sh. A. (2018). Mythological images in the novel by T. Tolstaya “Slynx”. The world of science, culture and education, 2(69), 591–593.

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