Since the pioneering work of Joseph Campbell in the 1960's, universality emerged as an important qualitative notion in the field of comparative mythology. In recent times, the advent of network science permitted new quantitative approaches to literary studies. Here we bring the Kyiv bylyny cycle into the field East Slavic epic narratives originating in modern-day Ukraine. By comparing them to other prominent European epics, we identify universal and distinguishing properties of the social networks in bylyny.

The article is devoted to the application of a certain mathematical apparatus–the theory of complex networks–to quantitatively describe and compare myths belonging to different cultures. One of the fundamental results of comparative mythology is the finding of structures common for many cultures–monomyths. In our study, we focus on other aspects that are also common to different narratives. The approach we take is based on a new way of getting information about the relationships between the characters in the narrative. These characteristics are uniquely expressed in numerical form, and thus there is the possibility for quantitative comparison of different characters of the same text and texts belonging to different periods and different cultures. The method of analysis we use is based on the study of social connections between the characters of a particular epic narrative and on the quantitative analysis of these connections. To this end, the structure of a narrative is depicted as a network (graph) where the nodes are the characters and the edges are the connections (friendly or hostile) between the characters. This enables one, within a unique approach, to carry out a quantitative analysis and comparison of network structures that correspond to different texts. In particular, our work covers such texts as Homer’s epic poem The Iliad , the Irish sagas Táin Bó Cúailnge and Gaedhel re gallaibh, the five largest Icelandic sagas, and Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon heroic epic. A quantitative analysis of the networks of connections between the characters of these works suggests that, in addition to the existence of monomyths, there are common universal characteristics in the structure of characters’ social networks. Among the common properties is the small characteristic size of the network (the average length of the shortest path) and significant correlations between the network nodes (high value of the clustering coefficient). Common features of these networks include the social balance corresponding to the location of hostile and friendly relationships and characteristic behaviour under the node removal from the network. Our findings suggest that network analysis can serve as another way of addressing issues related to the classification or study of narratives.

The article attempts to reveal some probable biographical aspects of two artistic and philosophical dialogues of Hryhoriy Skovoroda, written in 1783: Archstrategist Michael’s Struggle with Satan and The Devil’s Controversy with Varsava. The dedication of the first work to Mykhaylo Kovalyns’kyy and the later preface to this dialogue could have been inspired by the family tragedy of the Kovalyns’kyy couple – the death of their young son. It is probably not by chance that H. Skovoroda addressed the theme of the Resurrection three times in the preface, persistently reminding that the death of the body is not the end of human life, but only a rough appearance of the end. Everyone who crosses the threshold of apparent death actually passes to a new life, so the father of the dead son had to believe that in time he would meet his beloved child again, and already forever. The second dialogue is perhaps the most autobiographical in H. Skovoroda’s writings. The lines of both protagonists of this work (Daimon and Varsava) sound like the inner voices of the author of the dialogue. At the same time, according to one of the hypotheses, the prototype of Daimon can be considered not just some abstract force of doubt that was either outside the soul and consciousness of H. Skovoroda, or within his rational understanding of the metaphysics of the universe, but a specific person – Samuyil Myslavs’kyy, a younger friend of H. Skovoroda during the years of study at the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, and later the bishop and head of the Kharkiv College, because of whom, perhaps, the “official” pedagogical career of our philosopher ended forever. In general, the issue of the biographical “fullness” of certain prose works of H. Skovoroda is extremely complex and debatable in Ukrainian literary studies. Perhaps the versions highlighted in the article will somewhat bring the two “heavenly” dialogues of 1783 closer to their “earthly” reader’s perception.