The Sacrality of Sacrifice: Vyacheslav Ivanov and René Girard

Vyacheslav Ivanov’s studies of the Dionysian religion make unquestionable scholarly contribution to Classical Philology. At the same time, they transcend that academic discipline in virtue of the paradigmatic principle implicit in his ideas, being rooted in fundamental problems of religious psychology and forms of historical religiosity. In this respect, his concerns touch upon the developments of modern cultural anthropology, as reflected, among others, in the work of René Girard (1923–2015), which achieved the world-wide recognition. This essay aims at juxtaposition of the views argued by two — Russian and French — scholars on a number of issues, such as the origin and meaning of sacrifice; correlation of creative and destructive aspects within Dionysiasm; their representations of sacrificial context in the Dionysian myth and the Passions of Christ; as well as the relevance of their analysis for our current vicissitudes threatened by crisis and conflicts.