building. We shall compare different approaches to the nature of myth and national consciousness in order to draw a picture of this phenomenon.
First of all, it is necessary to concentrate on the description of myth as a social and cultural entity as well as on possible ways to investigate myth. Then the relationships between myth and national consciousness/identity will be explored through a psychological complex, such as a belief system, i.e., a cognitive structure consisting of separate beliefs and their particular components. Also, it is important to take into account the concrete historical circumstances in which these relationships take place, and their dynamic. This means that the only way to analyze the nature of these phenomena correctly is to treat them as historically continuous.
On the whole the notion of “myth,” while it indicates one of the intrinsic attributes of human society, remains a concept which social scientists still prefer not to consider as a fundamental issue. This can be explained by the difficulties connected with the dual meaning of the term; for a long time it had an entirely religious context, and only relatively recently has it possessed a wider conceptualization and implementation. Although Claude Lévi-Strauss skeptically characterized the situation in the study of myths as “chaotic, because of the lack of a commonly assumed approach to the phenomenon” (Levi-Strauss 1983, 207), we can distinguish two main approaches toward the problem of myth, namely, the functionalist and the phenomenological. The former points out the social function of myth, putting the emphasis on those myths that serve as definite goals of the social group; whereas the latter considers the appeal to the past, treating origins as the intrinsic essence of myth.
For instance, Anthony Smith considered that “myths are neither illusions nor mere legitimation, they may perhaps be regarded as widely believed tales told in dramatic form, referring to past events but serving present purposes and/or future goals” (Smith 1988b, 2). Lévi-Strauss suggests a similar definition: “myths are actually a posteriori attempts to construct a homogeneous system on the basis of disparate rules. This hypothesis would also imply that, sooner or later, mythical thinking conceives of these rules as so many possible answers to a question” (Lévi-Strauss, 1983, 159). As a working definition therefore, the notion of “myth” further will be used in its wider context, namely, as a widely shared social belief, related to a particular event in the historical past and bound up with the present and the future. The concepts of “belief” and “belief system” are used as they were developed by Rokeach (1968, 1969) and are widely applied in cognitive psychology.
On the one hand, scholars usually agree that myth is a special means of information transfer, that “myth is the part of language where the formula traduttore, tradittore reaches its lowest truth value” (Lévi-Strauss 1983, 210). We can add that myth is a particular kind of language that consists of symbolic information in allegorical form. On the other hand, when scholars start to discuss the practical functioning of this special kind of language, their viewpoints become contradictory. For instance, Benedict Anderson estimates the role of this language in the nature of nationhood: “from the start the nation was conceived in language, not in blood, and that one could be ‘invited into’ the imagined community. ... Through that language, encountered at the mother’s knee and parted with only at the grave, pasts are restored, fellowships are imagined, and futures dreamed” (Anderson 1991, 145,154).
Harald Harman, who works on sociolinguistic problems, stressed “the relativity of language as a symbol” of national identity in itself (Harman 1986, 258). The importance of language for the national phenomenon was stressed also by Fishman (1973), though in his work language does not have such a defining role. Soviet (Russian and Ukrainian) scholars stressed that language powerfully differentiates people into “we” and “the other” (Bromley 1981; Gumilev 1989; Guboglo 1979; Nikitina 1989; Shkliar 1991), but the experience of Slavic and other national histories shows that language could well be in the shade as a national marker. There are cases when different national groups share the same language but use it for different national discourses (like Serbs and Croats, Romanians and Moldavians, Americans and Canadians, not to mention the English who “leased” their language to so many people in the world). So, it seems that to consider myth as a special kind of (national) language is not enough.
Lévi-Strauss suggested a few rules for the interpretation of the role and meaning of myths in order to encompass the opposition of different approaches. According to him: 1) a myth must never be interpreted on one level only. No privileged explanation exists, for any myth consists in an interrelation of several explanatory levels; 2) a myth must never be interpreted alone, but in its relationship to other myths which, taken together, constitute a transformation group; 3) a group of myths must never be interpreted alone, but by reference: a) to other groups of myths; and b) to the ethnography of the societies in which they originate (Lévi-Strauss 1983, 65).
To illustrate the last point, we can take the example of the myth of common ancestry that is very common in different ethnic communities. The listed rules suggest we analyze this particular myth not only in the context of other similar myths but also in relationship to other main attributes of the ethnic community (ethnie), which Smith, for example, identifies as 1) a collective proper name; 2) shared historical memories; 3) one or more differentiating elements of common culture; 4) an association with a specific “homeland”; and 5) a sense of solidarity in significant sectors of the population (Smith 1991a, 21).
Also, according to Lévi-Strauss, we should take into account that there must be, and that there is, a correspondence between the unconscious meaning of a myth—the problem it tries to solve—and the conscious content it makes use of to reach that end, i.e., the plot. “However, this correspondence is not necessarily an exact reproduction; it can also appear as a logical transformation” (Lévi-Strauss 1963, Vol. 1, 204)
Such an interpretation leads to a completely new view of the nature of myth as a social phenomenon, namely, that the kind of logic in mythical thought is as rigorous as that of modern science, and that the difference lies, not in the quality of the intellectual process, but in the nature of the things to which it is applied. As Lévi-Strauss put it: “What makes a steel ax superior to a stone ax is not that the first one is better made than the second. They are equally well made, but steel is quite different from stone” (Lévi-Strauss 1963 Vol. 1, 230). Or, as Leszek Kołakowski said, the difference between scientific knowledge and narrative (mythical) knowledge is that the former uses one universal language, while the latter usually uses different ones (Kołakowski 1990). By analogy, if we follow the logic of Lévi-Strauss “the same logical process operates in myth as in science, and … man thinks equally well in both. The improvement lies, not in an alleged progress of man’s mind, but in discovery of new areas to which it may apply its unchanged and unchanging powers” (Lévi-Strauss 1963 Vol. 1, 230). The Russian philosopher Aleksei Losev stated something similar when he defined myth as “poetic estrangement given as a thing.” Losev wrote: “Science, morality and art are intelligent constructs while mythology realizes in fact these or other constructs” (Losev 1991, 163). Therefore it is important to differentiate our understanding of the usage of the term “myth” from another possible variant wherein it is implied in wider social concepts, namely, belief systems.
For instance, John Talmon (1981) used the term in this way:
The French Revolution bequeathed a colossal myth, which continues to have an incalculable effect as an inspiration and example all over the world: the vision of a people’s revolutionary war, in which patriotism and ideological revolutionary ardor became fused. The defense of native land then became identified with the struggle for a political-social ideal; against a counter-revolutionary league of selfish traitors and foreign reactionary powers. “Patrie” became synonymous in France with ‘La Revolution’, revolutionary “Liberté,” “La République une et indivisible.” Such slogans as “la patrie en danger,” “levée en masse,” and symbols like the tricolor, the “Marseillaise” and the red cap, came to evoke an almost religious response. In the cases of the Bolshevik, Chinese, Cuban, Vietnamese and other revolutions,
