A Record of Dream-Interpretation on Icon in Context of Folk Hagiography

Author

SHEVCHUK TETIANA

a Ph.D. in Philology, a senior research fellow at Ukrainian and Foreign Folk Studies Department of the M. Rylskyi IASFE of the NAS of Ukraine

A Record of Dream-Interpretation on Icon in Context of Folk Hagiography

Abstract

The publication deals with a record of dream-interpreting text made in the XVIIth century and detected on the 1881 icon of the Virgin at the Nativity of the Mother of God Church in Pereyaslav (at present – Pereyaslav-Khmelnytskyi). The authoress analyses the original of the text written in Old Ukrainian, as well as submits it in modern graphics (rendition was made by Vasyl Balushok). The inscription informs about a dream of a sick priest’s wife Fedora, in which the Mother of God besought for the icon’s restoration with promising the healing of Fedora’s feet ailment. This appeal was later satisfied by a lame painter Ivan, who afterwards grew well, as did the priest’s wife Fedora.

It was the XVIth to XVIIIth centuries, when wonder-working icons were associated with many oral narrations, in which dream-interpretations functioned as constant motifs. A separate genre – apparitions – has been formed, being spread by means of hagiographical texts and by the representation of respective subjects on icons.

The icon is endowed with a sacral status regardless of the context of their operation. The record of dream-interpretation on the reverse of the icon is taken as a sacral text as well, since the question in it is the Virgin, a sacred character. Dreams in which She appeared are considered prophetic in Ukraine, as it is also attested by recordings of modern folklore students (O. Britsyna, I. Holovakha), as well as by answers to the questions of the Programme for Gathering the Materials for the Ukrainian Folk Dream Book by K. Hrushevska accomplished through 1925 to 1928.

Keywords

dream-interpretation, folklore, icon, folk hagiography.

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