Mythology as the Basis of Collective Identity

The article presents the author's view on the phenomenon of myth as a factor in the identity of an ethnic community formation. Myth is interpreted in line with the concept of the formation of ethnic identity as one of its foundations, responsible for the transmission of information about the origin of the group (the myth of the origin of the people), and the origin of man as such through generations in the form of allegory – a certain code consisting of symbols. Thus, myth, primordial in its essence, constitutes the group's knowledge of itself, its origin, and, in general, its past. At the same time, myth is an object of construction, both at the stage of creation and within the framework of transmission from the carrier to the recipient, which determines its historical transformation, and subsequently, the degeneration or death of the myth, as having lost its symbolic content in the perception of recipients. The author interprets the form of mythologization of the past as one of the tools for preserving historical memory, which dominates in preliterate cultures, but retains influence in developed societies, where the form of myth may change, but its function remains the same. When writing this article, the author relied on the classic works of Mircea Eliade and Joseph Campbell, which detail the functions of myth and its nature, as well as the change in mythological models that occurred in the context of the development of society and the complication of social order. In conclusion, the author examines myth beyond the traditional worldview that stands at the origins of myth-making, and comes to the conclusion that complex ideological systems aimed at the destruction of ethnic identity are also subject to mythologization, which leads to competition between mythological systems, in which myths become a form of argumentation for a certain paradigm of social order.