Abstract
<jats:p>This article aims to develop philosophical-anthropological knowledge of myth and ideology as symbolic forms through which human beings appropriate and make sense of the world, with contemporary populism serving as the test case – the form in which their convergence in current political life is most clearly legible. The article establishes the connection between the archetypal foundations of myth and the hegemonic functions of ideology, examines the existential, psychological, intersubjective, and cultural dimensions of each phenomenon, and identifies both their structural affinities and functional divergences. The originality of the study lies in two contributions: first, the conceptualization of the modern political myth as a simulacrum of archaic myth – a category that captures the distinctive process by which sacred narrative degenerates into an instrument of ideological domination; and second, the theorization of a mechanism of conspiracist immunization, whereby a fragmented image of the enemy in populist discourse is rendered resistant to rational critique. The study concludes that myth and ideology are anthropologically grounded forms of narrative meaning-making whose boundary is historically unstable and situationally determined.</jats:p>