THE “PILGRIMAGE “ OF THE DECEASED SOULS TO THE WORLD OF HUMANS – AN EXAMPLE OF DEALING WITH TRAUMA OF DEATH IN GEORGIAN TRADITION

Abstract

The purpose of my article is to show, on the one hand, what kind of festivals Lipanaali and Jerusalemtoba-Sultakrepa are, and on the other hand, what were the traditional ways of dealing with the trauma of death.

Study showed that both holidays are syncretic in nature. By their Christian stratum, they are associated with Easter and its theological meaning.

As you know, one of the main human feelings is the fear of death. Being in touch with departed souls, having a connection with them and feeling their presence has a deep psychological beckground. Traditions and religious structures in society enable individual control and manage anxiety through well-established mechanisms. When significant changes take place in society, these mechanisms begin to diminish and collapse.

In my opinion, these changes often severely affect structures formed over the centuries, or severely damage them, so that they cannot positively affect the collective psychological balance. Therefore, the tradition should not be destroyed, but developed, adapted to the new requirements of society and transformed into something new that society needs.

The strong instinct of birth-death-rebirth desperately pushes a person to reunite death with life and find life in death, conditioned by love. With the help of the holidays of "pilgrimage", the call of God and transcendental forces, with the help of mythical images, man tried to open the doors and destroy insurmountable, "delimited" threshold for creating a single entire space of eternal life. In my opinion, to create the third, as according to Jung, is a result of union of opposites.

The study was conducted on the basis of ethnographic materials, ethnological and psychological scientific literature and is an interdisciplinary study.

 Keywords: Trauma of death, tradition, religion, ethnology, psychology