Müütide ja muistendite roll prantsuse antropoloogias

The article introduces research into myths and legends in French anthropology, giving a general theoretical and historical overview of the discipline and its trends. Among the approximately five hundred abstracts, which have recently been published in “Fichier Central des Thèses”, the database of French higher educational institutions, and which include the word “myth” either in the heading or the body of the text, less than 5% are researches into ethnology or anthropology, whereas the others come from the field of literary studies, psychology, sociology, linguistics, politology, etc. This proves that myths cover a considerably wider range of disciplines than anthropological studies. This brief overview presents only a part of the diverse and complicated French myth and legend studies. From the point of view of terminology, it would be essential to establish if all the authors who discuss the notion of the myth mean one and the same thing. The article focuses on anthropology, disregarding research into stories and legends in literary disciplines and myth-critical trends, as well as myth studies carried out by psychologists. Recent studies using myths in a figurative meaning – for instance, politology – have not been included either. Only printed materials have been used, leaving aside cultural activities, including museums, where myths, folk tales and legends find wider response than among the readers of academic publications. The facts presented in the article direct the reader to the key texts, in order to arouse curiosity and interest in this so far poorly studied topic in the era where anthropology is meant to regulate, above all, social and intercultural problems.