The Conceptual Dichotomy "God" - "Devil" in Russian Phraseology and Paroemiology (Against the Slavic Background)

The article analyzes the paroemias of the Rusin language "God" - "devil" against the background of Slavic languages. The aim of the article is to present a semantic analysis of the concepts "God" and "Devil" on the basis of the material of the Rusin language, which, like other East Slavic languages, reflects the general process of movement from polytheism to monotheism and to the opposition under study. In developing the research concept, the works in the field of Rusin phraseology and paroemiology (O.V. Lomakina, V.M. Mokienko, D.I. Pop) and the studies of the theonymous and the demonic in the language (O. Gnevek, M.I Golikova, E.I. Koryakovtseva, T.G. Krapotina, E.E. Kruglikova, N.I. Tolstoy, N.V. Shvedova) were used. The article analyzes the phraseologisms and paroemias of the Rusin language, extracted by the continuous sampling method from lexicographical sources (N.V. Shvedova's Dictionary of Phraseological Units with the Component "God" and Dictionary of Phraseological Units with the Component "Devil"; V.M Mokienko, T.G. Nikitina & E.K. Nikolayeva's Large Dictionary of Russian Proverbs; D. Pop's Rusin-Ukrainian-Russian and Russian-Rusin-Ukrainian Phraseological Dictionaries; M.M. Pazyak's Proverbs and Sayings). Though Slavists' attention to the study of the Rusin language is increasing, some aspects of the language still remain poorly understood. One of the topical problems is the linguistic cultural interpretation of Rusin phraseology and paroemiology against the Slavic background. The authors of the article offer this aspect of research. The article, first in Rusin studies, deals with the comparative analysis of one of the most important linguistic cultural oppositions: the conceptual mythological dichotomy "God" - "Devil". The analysis reveals characteristics common to all the East Slavic area of the chosen mythologems as part of phraseology and specifically Rusin linguoculturally marked features. The study of the phraseology and paroemiology of the theological and demonological circles of a language must be based on historical evidence of the religion of the people. Pop writes that the Slavic people of the Carpathians was one of the first Slavic peoples of Central and Eastern Europe to adopt Christianity. The semantic dominants "God that gifts, endows, gives" and "God that is merciful and just" are mostly presented in the proverbs of the Rusin language. The group of units of demonological semantics in the Rusin language is not numerous, which reflects the common Slavic tradition. When compared with similar Ukrainian and Russian ones, the specificity of Rusin phraseology and paroemiology is manifested mainly in the form of units, not in their content that usually reflects universal paroemiological ideas and didactic recommendations. There is a similarity in the rethinking of phrase-forming components in different Slavic languages. Some variants of Rusin proverbs, found against the background of the East Slavic ones, as well as Slovak and Czech parallels, are also specific. The greatest genetic affinity of Rusin paroemias is found with Ukrainian proverbs; although, in general, the present study confirms the authors' thesis about the inter-Slavic language interaction in the Rusin language zone.