Journal of Physical Studies 20(4), Article 4801 [17 pages] (2016) DOI: https://doi.org/10.30970/jps.20.4801 UNIVERSALITY AND NETWORK ANALYSIS OF BYLYNY P. Sarkanych{1,2,3}, Yu. Holovatch{1,3}, R. Kenna{2,3}, P. Mac Carron4 1 Insitute for Condensed Matter Physics, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 79011 Lviv, Ukraine 2Applied Mathematics Research Centre, Coventry University, Coventry, CV1 5FB, England 3{\mathbb L}^4 Collaboration \& Doctoral College for the Statistical Physics of Complex Systems, Leipzig--Lorraine--Lviv--Coventry, D--04009 Leipzig, Germany 4Social and Evolutionary Neuroscience Research Group, Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford. OX1 3UD, England

Universality is one of the essential concepts in statistical physics. It means that the typical behaviour of a macroscopic system consisting of many interacting agents is independent of the system's structural details. This concept gains more and more popularity, not only in purely physical problems, but also in general scientific and cultural contexts. In this paper the concepts and methods of statistical physics and complex networks science are used for the detection and quantitative description of universal properties of social networks of Bylyny characters. Bylyny are heroic epics of eastern Slavs. We consider the epics covering the heyday of the Kyivan Rus (end of the tenth century to the middle of the twelfth century). By this analysis, we continue a series of works initiated in [P. Mac Carron, R. Kenna, EPL 99, 28002 (2012); P. Mac Carron, R. Kenna, Eur. Phys. J. B 86, 407 (2013)], where such quantitative methods were used to analyse several prominent European epics. The method we are using allows obtaining additional reasoning on some hypotheses about the origin of Bylyny characters and their connection to the historical figures. By comparing our results with those previously obtained, one can detect common (universal) characteristics of various epic narratives. These properties remain unchanged in time and are shared by different cultures. Thus, epics have universal properties, allowing for an additional classification based on their quantitative analysis.

PACS number(s): 89.75.-k, 89.75.Hc, 89.65.Ef

pdf