Animistic consepts of Turkic peoples of the North Caucasus

The article is devoted to animistic beliefs - one of the most archaic layers of religion of any nation, dating back to the era of primitive society, or rather to the early primitive society era. According to V.M. Atalikov, animism is a belief in souls and spirits, universal spirituality of nature. Various sources have been used in this work, since the process of the evolution of the religious worldview can be traced only through the comprehensive study of multiple and diverse data. For this purpose, much information has been collected in the villages of Karachay-Cherkessia and Kabardino-Balkaria. The study of this subject is impossible without the involvement of folklore, where many stories about the people's worldview can be found, which can be seen through the prism of animistic conceptions and other typical components of ancient spiritual culture of the nations studied. For all the values of these sources, yet the primary base of the current study is ethnographic material and historical literature on the Karachais, Balkars, Nogais and Kumyks. Religion, like all spiritual characteristics of people evolved and changed over the centuries under the influence of real life. Animism is also a historical phenomenon, which varies throughout the centuries. The phenomena of nature were gradually endowed with the properties of alive beings, often with human abilities of thinking, feelings, speaking like an animal or human. But before people started to endow natural phenomena with such images, they have long believed that they themselves are living beings, that is, what we can see here is not the personification, but animating the nature. According to L.Y. Sternberg it is the most primitive form of animistic worldview, called animatism. The four great elements of nature concept is the main and most important one in the mythology of the Turkic peoples of the North Caucasus. The man, who began to learn the surrounding world, must have cherished his discovery - he was able to understand and name the elements that make up the world -fire, water, earth and air. And only later the process of impersonation begins, the powerful elements of nature - earth, fire, water, wind were personified by our ancestors in the form of animals. Not only the specific forces of nature, but also, for example, seasons were personified. The most important trend in myth development at ancient times was the emergence of mythical creatures, some of which were endowed with demonic features. The research of animistic worldview in the culture of the Turkic peoples of the North Caucasus lets us say that in the early mythology of the Karachai and Balkar people there was quite rational knowledge about the environment. This knowledge had been empirically acquired for centuries. Sometimes these skills were the reason for endowment of certain natural objects with magical powers and properties. "Magic" views were often confirmed by practical experience and subsequently became the basis of scientific knowledge.

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