SOME REMARKS ON ACTION-INITIATING PERFORMATIVES IN CZECH MAGIO SPELLS Cover Image

Заметка о перформативах со значением начала действия в чешских заговорах
SOME REMARKS ON ACTION-INITIATING PERFORMATIVES IN CZECH MAGIO SPELLS

Author(s): Ekaterina V. Vel’mezova
Subject(s): Anthropology, Language and Literature Studies, Applied Linguistics
Published by: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Sklodowskiej
Keywords: performative verbs; Czech spells related to diseases; casting [a spell]; parallelism; Jesus Christ; magic force; the return to the “mythical proto-time”; cyclical time; mythical time

Summary/Abstract: In spells relating to diseases, Czech performative verbs such as počinati, začinati ‘to begin-IMPERF’, počiti, začiti ‘to begin-PERF‘, designating the beginning of an activity, can be associated with performatives designating the process of speaking, casting a spell or healing: žehnati ‘to cast a spell’, vzývati ‘to call (somebody)’, zaháneti ‘to chase away’.The first category of verbs participate in creating a parallelism in which the active agents are, on the one hand, the subject of the spell (the sorcerer), and on the other hand Jesus Christ. For, it is only the sorcerer, similarly to Christ, that can initiate meaningful magic actions. The magic actions of the sorcerer acquire an open character on the time arrow: with each instance of its realization, a spell receives magic power thanks to is ability to return to the ‘mythical primeval time’. In the process, human actions are likened to cosmogonic acts.The parallelism of actions, concrete doers and external forces is raised onto the level of important archetypes of human activity and receives the ability to reappear infinitely. Contrary to the profane linear historical time, a spell functions in cyclical, mythical time, which combines the ideas of the beginning and end. In the Czech tradition, performative verbs of the beginning of an action prove to be points of convergence of what is human and secular (the sorcerer) with magie and the sacred (the life and deeds of Jesus Christ).

  • Issue Year: 13/2001
  • Issue No: 13
  • Page Range: 149-154
  • Page Count: 6
  • Language: Russian