Introduction to mythology. Barkova A. L.

“Studying mythology, we are not engaged in gray -haired antiquity and not exotic cultures. We study our own worldview ” - this thesis made the course of Alexandra Leonidovna Barkova forever memorable to her students. Ancient legends about gods and heroes appear in its lectures as part of a single complex of ideas, permeating centuries and peoples. The mythological systems of Ancient Egypt, Greece, Rome, Scandinavia and India are revealed in interconnection, thanks to which the individual features of each culture are clearly visible. A special place is given to mythological universals, manifested through centuries and millennia. A living language, figurative, sometimes ironic presentation of the most serious material creates the effect of direct communication with a professor, at the lectures of which not a single student fell asleep in a quarter century.