Narten

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The Narten are a fabulous people of semi-divine heroes from the myths and epics of several peoples of the northern Caucasus , especially the Circassians , Abkhazians , Ossetians , Karachayans , Balkars , Ingush , Abazins and Chechens .

The name is perhaps derived from the Mongolian word narta (sun). Chechen means nart "giant".

The original mother of all kinds is the seductive and wise Satanaya (also Satana ), who has many similarities with the ancient Greek goddess of fertility, Demeter . The Narten legends have a balanced relationship between men and women, goddesses and heroines enjoy great respect in the stories.

According to Ossetian belief, the Narten lived on the peaks of the Caucasus. They were awarded unbridled anger, great bravery, cunning, and contempt for anything soft. The horses of the Narten are said to have galloped through the air like Odin's steed . The Ossetians are considered to be descendants of the Alans , an Indo-European equestrian people and part of the Sarmatian tribe, who , according to Herodotus , are said to have originated from a mixture of Scythians with the Amazons .

Nartan deities such as the sky smith Kurdalagon, the thunder god Uazilla and Sapha, the patron of the local hearth, have parallels to Nordic legends and myths. The Narten sagas are also similar to Greek mythology in many elements. The figure of Nazran z. B. resembles the fire-bringing titan Prometheus , whom the father of the gods Zeus has tied to a mountain in the Caucasus, of all places.

The French historian of religion Georges Dumézil (1898–1986) assumed the Narten sagas had a Scythian origin and praised them as an important piece of Eurasian literature . The Narten play a role in his studies because their clan structure could reflect the functional tripartite division of society into priests , warriors and peasants , which is the basis of many ancient Indo-European traditions . Dumézil sees the small-grown Narten rogue Syrdon as a forerunner of the tricky Loki from Germanic mythology . John Colarusso traces the Nart legends back to Indo-European, Turkish and Mongolian traditions.

The Russian Orthodox clergyman André Sikojev (father Ossetian , mother German) translated the Narten epic into German for the first time from a Russian version that had existed alongside an Ossetian one since 1948. According to Sikojev, the Narten legends originated in the Ossetian settlement area and were once told and sung throughout the northern Caucasus . Sikojev compares the arguments of the nartic heroes with their god with the battles in the Serbian saga of the sun robbery and with the battle of Thor against the Midgard serpent in the Nordic sagas.

"Nart" is part of the name of several localities (including Nartkala and Nartan in Kabardino-Balkaria ) as well as sports clubs in the Caucasian region, including Nart Tscherkessk or Nart Suchum .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ About the Narten in relation to the book Children of the Sun by André Sikojev  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.tscherkessen-berlin.de  
  2. ↑ Vasily Ivanovich Abaev : Historical-Etymological Dictionary of Ossetian language
  3. ↑ Georges Dumézil: Loki. Darmstadt 1959.
  4. ↑ John Colarusso: Nart Sagas from the Caucasus: Myths and Legends from the Circassians, Abazas, Abkhaz, and Ubykhs. Princeton 2002, (Introduction on: circassianworld.com ) ( Memento of the original from August 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (online at: books.google.de ) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.circassianworld.com

literature

  • André Sikojev (ed.): Children of the sun. The Narten - The great epic of the Caucasus . Hugendubel Verlag, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-7205-2629-1 .
  • André Sikojev (translator, ed.): The Narten. Sons of the sun. Myths and sagas of the Scythians, Sarmatians and Ossetians . Diederichs, Cologne 1985, ISBN 3-424-00880-X .
  • Georges Dumézil: Loki. Darmstadt 1959.
  • Georges Dumézil: Myth and Epic. The ideology of the three functions in the epics of the Indo-European peoples. Part 1: The eased earth . Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1989, ISBN 3-593-33929-3 (translation from French)
  • John Colarusso (transl., Ed.): Nart Sagas from the Caucasus. Myths and Legends from the Circassians, Abazas, Abkhaz, and Ubykhs . Princeton University Press, 2002, ISBN 0-691-02647-5 . ( Digitized version ) (without Ossetian myths)
  • Scott Littleton, Linda A. Malcor: From Scythia to Camelot: A Radical Reassessment of the Legends of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and the Holy Grail . Garland Publishing, New York 2000, ISBN 0-8153-3566-0 . (including the nartic origins of the Arthurian legend)
  • Batıray Özbek: The Circassian Nartensag (= ethnography of the Circassians. 3). Esprint-Verlag, Heidelberg 1982, ISBN 3-88326-071-1 (also: Heidelberg, dissertation, 1979).

Web links

Commons : Narten  - collection of images, videos and audio files