Musicology Annotation << Back The Archetypal Image of the Sea Maiden In Julia Weisberg’s Creativity Verba Natalia I. The article deals with the archetypal image of the sea maiden. This image is multilaterally imprinted in the culture. The popularity of the mermaid theme especially increased during the romantic XIX century. The frequency of renderings of the image of mermaids in different literary and musical genres contributed to the formation of a kind of “Bank” of expressive means, which most vividly reflected the features of this character. The Opera “The little Mermaid” and the vocal cycle “Three Songs of Rautendelein” by Julia Weisberg are unknown to the modern listeners. Despite this fact they still represent not only archival treasures, but, at the same time, one of the brightest “installations” of the magic plot about the sea maiden. The article focuses on the history of these works, the analysis of preserved manuscript and published works, intonation, orchestral and dramatic solutions, as well as intertextual links with other works on the mermaid theme. The article highlights several important points. Along with the preservation of the most characteristic features, Julia Weisberg, as well as the author of "The little Mermaid" Sofi a Parnok offer their own interpretation of the image, emphasizing the sacrifice, fragility and spiritual beauty in it. The methods of the composer’s musical characterization of the heroine are correlated with those resorted to by other authors. Named features and their realization are similar to those depict in music the images of Undine by Hoffmann, L’vov, Lorzing, Little Mermaid by Dvorzak and other sea maidens. This allows us to conclude about the conditionality of the found intertextual connections by the archetypal image of the sea maiden. Keywords: Julia Weisberg, archetype, images of artwork, archetypal image, intertext. DOI: 10.25791/musicology.05.2019.641 Contacts: - Pp. 09-31.