The tragedy Prometheus by Vyacheslav Ivanov in the light of studies of the Cabeiri cult in German classical philology of the XIX century

The tragedy Prometheus by Vyacheslav Ivanov has repeatedly become the subject of historical, literary, and hermeneutic analysis, however, researchers have paid little attention to the subtextual field of the work, limiting themselves to the allusions explicated by Ivanov himself. The aim of the research was to establish one of the ritual and mythological subtexts of the Ivanov’s play, namely, the relationship between the image of the sons of Prometheus, one of the key actors in the tragedy, with the mythological Cabeiri. The material for the research was the text of the tragedy, Ivanov’s epistolary, his research works, as well as the studies of the Cabeiri cult by Friedrich Welcker, Ludwig Preller and the authors of Roscher’s Mythological Lexicon - it is a documented fact that all these sources were known to Ivanov. In the course of the research, the comparative, hermeneutic, and structural-semantic methods were used, as well as the method of contextual and motivic-thematic analysis. The result of the study was the discovery of a close relationship between the image of the sons of Prometheus and the Cabeiri. They are united by the relationship with the orphic mysterious Dionysian plot of Dionysus’ laceration by the Titans and his rebirth, by the motif of the sacred marriage, and by the participation in the establishment of the mysteries and the first ritual actions (running with torches, heroic funeral feast, funeral rite, soil cultivation). The sons of Prometheus appear as the first people. Like the Cabeiri, they form a mystical community of a pious and god-fighting character. Ivanov inscribes his tragedy into Aeschylus’ Prometheia and uses all three events that Welcker considered the main content of Prometheus the Fire-Bringer: Prometheus’ wedding, stealing fire from Olympus and giving it to people. The stage space of Ivanov’s tragedy resembles Lemnos - the island where Prometheus stole fire and passed it to the Cabeiri.