CODES OF SLAV CULTURES
Tatiana A. Agapkina suggests a way for the systematic description of plants in Slav traditional culture using the aspen as an example. Based upon the etymology of the names for the black poplar and its characteristics, Aleksandar Loma reveals the old cult-mythological importance of this tree on the Slav, paleo-Balkan and Indo-European planes. Departing from the Slav concept of the willow separating this world from the other one, Miriam Mencei arrives at a general Slav mythologem of this tree as the world axis. Andrey B. Moroz views the symbolism of the apple tree and its fruit in Serbian ritual poems and Russian wedding folklore. The following two papers focus on broad-beans, beans, peas, onion, cabbage, walnuts, grapes et al; Ana A. Plotnikova analyses them within the symbolism of birth and death, while Biljana Sikimich focuses on the erotic connotation of their names in folk riddles. Deian Aidachich elaborates the motif of the pagan and Christianized magic tree in the folk poems of Balkan Slavs. Ana Radin writes about plants used to deter vampires. Marta Bieletich researches the connections between phytonymia and family terminology. Ljubinko Radenkovich sets forth a summary of plants as symbolic elements of Slav cosmology. The anthology closes with a register of phytonyms and selected bibliography of Slav ethno-linguistic, folkloristic, ethnographic and linguistic works devoted to plants.
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