Speaking about the religion of the Slavs before the process of introducing the so-called world religions into them, i.e. their Christianization, and partly Islamization, we must understand that in this matter we can rely on extremely unreliable sources: either on our guesses based on lists from ancient chronicles and extremely scattered archaeological finds, or on criticism of Slavic paganism by the Christian Church , or to analyze surviving oral folk art of unknown origin.
However, recognizing the unreliability of our ideas about the religion of the ancient Slavs, one cannot deny the obviousness that Slavic polytheism cannot be fundamentally different from pan-European polytheism; Moreover, Slavic polytheism is an integral part of the ancient Indo-European religion, just as Slavic culture and language are a subset of European culture and language.
Unfortunately, the political situation in Imperial Russia and the USSR led to a kind of monopoly on official knowledge about Slavic polytheism. Despite the antagonism of these two systems, they pursued the same goal: the discrediting of pre-Christian beliefs and the rise of Muscovite Rus' as a consolidating force. With all due respect to B.D. Grekov, B.A. Rybakov and his scientific school, these scientists played an unenviable role in presenting the pre-Christian beliefs of the Slavs as a religious justification for the sovereign and nationalist concept of Slavic history.
Meanwhile, it is pre-Christian beliefs that are of interest for scientific research, since they may turn out to be the key to the still unsolved mysteries of the origin of the Slavs. It should be noted that the description of those religious ideas that Christianity found in the Slavic lands in the 5th-10th centuries, although interesting from a cognitive position, however, gives little to understand the historical picture, while the search for general patterns of the Slavic religion can give significantly greater result.
We know that, as in any fragmented society, polytheism was widespread among the Slavic tribes. We deliberately do not use the term “paganism” in this section, since the latter expresses the attitude of the Christian church to polytheism and does not carry the proper semantic load.
Unfortunately, most of the Slavic chronicles available to us were written under the strong influence of Greek culture. The consequence of this is the idea, rooted in the scientific community, of certain parallels between ancient Slavic beliefs and ancient Greek and other Mediterranean religions, at least at the level of pantheons of deities. Thus, the well-known “Tale of Idols” castigates Hellenistic rites and mentions Greek and Asia Minor deities along with Slavic deities.
In fact, based on the history of the development of Slavic writing, it is obvious that such chronicles were compiled either by Byzantine monks, who were carriers of the corresponding culture, or from the words of travelers filled with impressions about the religion of the Greeks and Egyptians.
Meanwhile, the history of the settlement of the Slavs rather testifies to their close and even common cultural space with the Scandinavians, and it is in the Scandinavian pantheon that we should probably look for some parallels with the Slavic religion. Analogies with the Mediterranean gods must be considered only from a functional point of view, i.e. from the commonality of their purpose.
Slavic polytheism is not the religion of one closed community. It is a religion of small communities bound by a common origin, language and cultural elements, and nothing more. It is in the history of the development of these communities that one should look for the roots of religion. It is quite natural that, having been in close contact with the Germanic tribes in the west and even partially assimilated with them, and in the north and northeast with the Finns, the Slavic communities most likely borrowed (and accordingly gave in return) the doctrinal concepts of these very peoples. The authors of the teachings against paganism were envoys of the Mediterranean, primarily Byzantine culture, and could comprehend the Slavic religion only from their own point of view, from the position of their knowledge, and nothing more.
The Russian school of Slavic studies “from Rybakov” divides the pre-Christian period of Slavic religious history into three stages: the worship of “ghouls” and beregins; the formation, under the influence of Mediterranean (Hellenistic and Egyptian) religions, of the cult of the Family and women in labor; formation of a local pantheon of gods led by Perun. Such structuring is based on fragmentary and uniquely interpreted primary sources, significantly adapted to the already existing concepts of the scientific school. It is impossible not to notice that the mentioned school is based on the far from indisputable idea of the commonality of all Slavs in the period described and, as a consequence of this, the commonality of their views and beliefs.
Meanwhile, being in the absence of any reliable information, with the exception of very tendentious teachings against paganism, one cannot but take into account the fact that the Slavic tribes could not follow a path radically different from the historical path of all other peoples, and therefore their religious history in the pre-Christian period had to coincide, to one degree or another, with global trends in polytheistic beliefs,
On the other hand, in almost all Russian scientific schools there are very dubious attempts to interpret teachings against paganism in favor of one theory or another. First of all, this concerns the parallels drawn by the authors of the “teachings” between Slavic and Mediterranean deities. It is quite obvious that for the authors of the “teachings” such parallels were obvious due to their deep knowledge of their own religious reality of that period, and therefore the analogies cited must be taken literally and not allegorically.
Speaking about the parallels between deities in different religious systems, one cannot help but note some scientific primitivism, based on the supposed absolute of the names of deities. There are entire scientific trends that draw far-reaching conclusions solely on analogies caused by some similarities in the pronunciation of names - for example, the Slavic Perun and the Hittite Peruna (or, moreover, the Indian Paryan), while ignoring the spelling of the name, its meaning, origin and chronology.
The path of any civilization began with the stage of gathering and hunting, and the Slavs are no exception. Although at this historical stage there is no written language, and the codification of religious ideas was impossible, nevertheless, the most significant of these ideas remain in oral traditions and are codified subsequently.
Traditional ideas for gatherers and hunters are the deification of nature spirits and the beginning of the formation of ideas about the spirits of ancestors. Actually, the deification of the spirits of nature (for example, the appearance of the thunder god) already presupposes a certain level of abstraction, which a person is not able to achieve immediately, but only at a certain level of development, and therefore initially we could only talk about the deification of the spirits of the area that provide shelter and food. In a generalized form, we can talk about a kind of “Slavic Shinto”, that is, the veneration, first of all, of the immediate place of residence, food, the community itself, and secondly, of certain spirits identified with the listed concepts.
From this point of view, the so-called ghouls and beregins cannot belong to the same chronological period. Beregini, as spirits of a place, are analogues of kami, primitive nameless creatures, which, with the development of the level of ideas and abstractions, begin to acquire both names and accompanying rituals of worship and appeasement. The appearance of names among beregins is directly related to the personification of their appearance, and at this moment a radical change occurs in the ideas of the Slavs, since we are already talking about a complex of ideas about the spirits of ancestors, which requires appropriate abstraction from reality. From the standpoint of modern philosophy, the process of including the spirits of ancestors (spiritual images of the dead) along with the spirits of the place into beliefs is natural, but for ancient people the formation of such a complex was a kind of cultural revolution.
It can be assumed that from this moment on, the place of the beregins is occupied by the pitchforks (in a modified form, preserved to this day in South Slavic mythology), creatures that have both a form, an image, and names. The presentation of pitchforks in a siren-like form, in the form of flying women, testifies to the formation of ideas about the image of the human spirit after death, about the invisible accompaniment of living spirits of ancestors.
Since chronologically pitchforks in the ideas of the Slavs exist simultaneously with the highest deities, and their functional purpose does not exclude communication with both people and gods, then, based on the external appearance of these creatures, they could well serve as intermediaries between heaven and earth.
It is curious, however, that in primitive ideas about the spirits of ancestors there is no place for the so-called “ghouls”, in the form in which they are described in the teachings against paganism. The authors of these teachings quite openly use the image of a ghoul in its vampiric, necromantic interpretation to intimidate the average man of his day. There is no doubt, however, that the Slavs had a cult of the dead, completely similar to such a cult among all the peoples of Europe, Asia and Africa. The basis of this cult is the awe of the mysticism of the fact of death and the subsequent veneration of both the dead themselves and their spirits. Of course, in the ideas of the Slavs there was an assumption about the possibility of reviving the dead; It is likely that such legends are based on real facts of lethargic sleep and other similar conditions. Extremely curious is the assumption of a number of modern researchers that a ghoul was originally called an uncremated dead person who, without freeing his spirit, remained in the world of the living and could come to life under certain accompanying circumstances. The period of cremation of the dead among the Slavs is beyond doubt, confirmed by both chronicle sources and archaeological finds.
Be that as it may, about two percent of all burials in Europe are the bodies of men with severed feet, and in some cases with complete post-mortem dismemberment of the body. At the moment, there is no other version of such dismemberment than the fear of the deceased leaving the grave. At the same time, the developed ideas among the Slavs about blood-sucking ghouls date back to a much later time, to the 13th-15th centuries, and their appearance is probably associated precisely with teachings against paganism and the subsequent mythologization and demonization of such heresies as the Waldenses and Bogomils and Luciferians.
The transition from primitive ideas, from “Slavic Shinto”, to the pantheon of higher deities in Slavic religiosity occurred with an increase in the level of abstractions in understanding the nature of things, along with the development of social relations, trade, accumulation of material values and their revaluation, as well as the growth associated with this process contradictions – both material and spiritual. This transition is essentially of the same nature as the subsequent transition from polytheism to monotheism, and it is associated exclusively with the needs of society. The consolidation of Slavic communities and their transition to agriculture required a restructuring of the management structure, which, in turn, brought about the consolidation of priestly and secular authorities. The need, as a result of this, to transfer spiritual ideas to a higher level gave rise to the formalization of deities and the creation of their pantheon and hierarchy.
There is reason to believe that similar processes, independently of each other, occurred in almost all human communities that moved from the tribal system of gatherers and hunters to a more orderly and economically developed agricultural system. The “appointment” of the highest deities, which occurred naturally, flowed from human nature itself, and therefore we can find analogies between the deities of even completely isolated territories. The pantheon of polytheistic deities is hierarchically analogous to the human community with strong matriarchal motives; Thus, the presence in almost all known pantheons of two goddesses associated with fertility indicates the high importance of the birthing feminine principle and its continuity, and the presence of a supreme deity, the first among equals, indicates the principles of community management.
On the other hand, societies that had not emerged from the state of tribal relations were unable to give rise to ideas about higher deities (if these ideas appeared in such a society, they were borrowed or imposed by external pressure), and their direct collision with the monotheistic idea inevitably produced cultural shock, giving rise to such religious monsters as “black Christianity”. At the same time, the question remains open about the reverse process, when the development of society did not entail the denial of the spirits of ancestors, as, for example, in the Japanese “ancient Shinto”, the traditions of which could not be overcome by either Buddhism, or official Shintoism, or Christianity in all his incarnations.
Developing ideas about the world of the gods, man could not come up with something that he had not encountered in life. It was the development of the hierarchy of human relations that gave rise to ideas about the hierarchy of deities. This process, of course, was very gradual, but could not drag on for centuries, due to the very close communication of peoples on the insignificant European continent. In the human world, the construction of a hierarchy of relationships followed two paths, sometimes intersecting.
The first path is the transition from gathering, fishing and hunting to sedentary living and farming, with the subsequent accumulation of material values and trade. This process caused the stratification of society, the dependence of people within the community, the need for protection from external enemies and competitors.
The second path is the path of sedentary living without giving up hunting and gathering, but with a significant military factor. This path was most clearly observed among the Scandinavian Vikings, when the foundations of the community’s well-being were laid through military campaigns, and everyday life was ensured by hunting and fishing.
Regardless of the chosen path, society was forced to elect a leader, form a social protection system, and community rules. Accordingly, the idea of the gods changed - worship of the spirits of ancestors was not rejected, but was not as pressing as the need for mystical protection from enemies, bad weather, and most importantly, to prolong the family line and increase the size of the community. That is why in all polytheistic pantheons a pair of fertility goddesses, although they never occupy dominant positions, nevertheless enjoy special respect.
Here it is necessary to note that the separation of the cult of the Family and women in labor, accepted in Russian religious studies, into a separate chronological period cannot be correct. The clan, of course, is identified with the head of the community, the head of the clan, and a pair of women in labor symbolize the continuity of the continuation of the clan and the development of the community, and such an idea is possible only if there is a common idea of the highest gods. Each representative of the pantheon had its own analogue in the structure of human society, or identified certain macrocosmic ideas, such as the lord of thunder, lightning and thunderstorms.
As mentioned above, such ideas are very typical of most polytheistic beliefs that have not been exposed to external influence. This is precisely what can explain the presence of similar deities among different peoples, for example, Dazhbog-Osiris-Apollo-Jupiter.
The further consolidation of communities and tribes, associated with the formation of a single state, required a corresponding revision and views on the pantheon of deities. The polytheistic Slavic pantheon assumed the formal equality of the main deities, and the head of the pantheon was only the first among equals - which could not but find corresponding analogies in society. The process of creating a single state, which required strict and individual power, could not leave such democracy unchanged. The transition from a communal form of society to a state one, in principle, could not do without monotheism, and society in this process could take one of two paths: either rethinking the pantheon of deities and establishing a rigid hierarchy with the primacy of one god, or accepting an alien, but monotheistic religion.
The situation was complicated by the fact that, despite the recognition of the power of the Slavic (and not only) gods, the relationship between gods and people in polytheism is quite related and even familiar - thus, almost all polytheistic religions recognize the possibility of communication with the gods, marriage between gods and people, transition man into the status of a deity. The monopoly power, which denied the principles of democratic elections, was forced to rely on mystical justifications for its legitimacy, that is, in the extreme, on the divine origin of this power. Polytheistic deities were in no way suitable for this purpose: a god who proclaimed the divinity of earthly power had to be maximally removed from the human world, alien to it and even incomprehensible.
It is unlikely that the rulers who converted to Christianity or Islam were aware of the theoretical correctness of their actions; however, their actions ultimately led to the desired results, which could not but strengthen the tendency of the spread of monotheistic religions.
The history of the development of the main religions of the world testifies to a spontaneous tendency in the alienation of the supreme deity from the human world: in Buddhism, deities are the essence of the beings of the human world, differing from people only in some revealed, but latently inherent qualities of people; in Christianity, God is much more distant from man, although he can still communicate with him directly; in Islam, God is something incomprehensible; only God’s messenger on earth is understandable, with some convention.
Thus, the development of society increases the level of abstraction of God from man; Protestantism not only destroyed the previous religious system, it created a new level of detachment from God, generated by the crisis of medieval society. Protestantism anticipated the emergence of democratic institutions of modern times; in the world of universal suffrage, the level of abstraction of God should be maximum, God turned into a hierarchy of rules and conventions, and his prophet on earth is everyone who fulfills these rules.
Drawing analogies between Slavic deities and the deities of neighboring peoples, it should be understood that by the time of Christianization, that is, at the apogee of the development of Slavic polytheism, the level of cultural development of Slavic society lagged significantly behind the level of development of polytheism in Scandinavia, Germany, and even more so in ancient countries. According to a number of researchers, the Slavs did not have time to reach a developed system of supreme deities, which by the time of Christianization had only just begun to take shape.
The period of Christianization of the Slavs stretched over a very long period, due to differences for different Slavic communities in contacts with other peoples. Naturally, the territories that became part of the region of political interests of Byzantium and Rome quite early (in the 5th – 7th centuries) if they did not convert to Christianity, then at least they were familiar with it, which subsequently provided significant assistance in the activities of both individual missionaries and and the church in general. In the 8th century the expansion of the Catholic (de facto) Frankish state to the east brought Catholicism to the Slovenes and Croats, which subsequently contributed to the spread of Christianity in the Great Moravian Empire.
The difficulties of introducing Christianity into Slavic lands were partly caused by language problems; they were partially resolved in 863, when the Byzantine preachers Cyril and Methodius introduced worship in local languages in the Great Moravian state.
Despite the geographical proximity of Bulgaria to Byzantium, Christianity according to the Byzantine model was adopted in Bulgaria relatively late - in 865, during the reign of Khan Boris. Unlike the East Slavic lands, this happened relatively voluntarily, since the southern Slavs were closely familiar with Christianity for centuries, and the adoption of Christianity was only prevented by constant wars with Byzantium. Even the attempt to restore polytheism, undertaken in 889 by the Bulgarian prince Vladimir, completely failed, although it led to civil strife, which became another straw in the disintegration of the West Slavic community into small fiefs.
The Christianization of Bulgaria was specifically influenced by the resettlement of a mass of Euphrates Paulicans to Thrace. During this period, Sergius (Tychicus) made significant changes to Paulicanism, which bore fruit during the iconoclastic conflict: the radicalism of the Paulicans led to the fact that even the iconoclasts themselves sought to dissociate themselves from them. In 970, John Tzimisces settled a large colony of Paulicans in Thrace near Philippopolis to guard the border, guaranteeing them complete religious freedom. This colony existed for more than 100 years, until Emperor Alexius Komnenos tried to convert them to the Byzantine faith by force of arms.
From the 10th century In the southern and western Slavic lands, a systematic strengthening of Christianity began, associated with the strengthening of states and supreme power. In 921, Wenceslas I came to power in the Czech Republic, giving carte blanche to the Christian church. In 966, the Polish prince Mieszko I converted to Christianity on the territory of the Old Polish state. In 977, the Hungarian prince, later king, introduced Christianity into Hungarian territory.
At the same time, on the territory of Bulgaria, among ultra-conservative monks, under the influence of Paulican and Euchytic ideas, the Bogomil heresy arose, which had a significant influence on the entire Slavic religious life until the present day. Despite the harsh repressions carried out by the Byzantine emperor Alexios Komnenos against the Bogomil leadership, Bogomilism established itself in Byzantium, and from there it spread to the west. Having passed through Dalmatia and Italy, it reached France at the beginning of the 12th century, from where it was soon supplanted by other heresies. From Bulgaria, Bogomil ideas penetrated into Russia, where they became widespread among the illiterate people, mainly in the form of Christian legends. Due to the special development in Bogomil mythology of ideas about Satanail as the firstborn son of God, terrible tales involving Satan, often contradicting the Holy Scriptures, were accepted both by the common people and, subsequently, by numerous European writers.
The adoption of Christianity by Russia in 988, which had a purely political significance of uniting Slavic and non-Slavic peoples and establishing an alliance with Byzantium, had a significant impact on the adjacent territories and put a barrier to the spread of Catholicism to the east. At the same time, however, the adoption of Christianity according to the Byzantine model occurred only de jure, while de facto the worship of individual polytheistic deities and the preservation of elements of polytheistic religious consciousness among the Eastern Slavs remained and remains to this day.
After the schism of the churches in 1054, Western Christianity was adopted in the newly created kingdoms of Central Europe: Poland, Hungary and Bohemia.
By the end of the 11th century. Christianity became the state religion in almost all Slavic territories. Certain groups of Slavs who did not convert to Christianity were subjected to systematic aggression from neighboring states; Thus, in 1147, German feudal lords organized a great crusade against the Slavs.
At the beginning of the 12th century. In Western Europe, the Albigensian wars began, which also affected the Western Slavic lands. The genetic connection of the Cathars and Albigenses with the Bogomil heresy, which existed in the form of a sect until the 17th century, in some way contributed to the spread of Byzantine Christianity to the West, but the harsh actions of the Catholic Inquisition seriously opposed this advancement.
Beginning of the 13th century associated with the seizure of part of the Slavic lands by the crusaders. In 1224, the Order of the Swordsmen captured the city of Tartu (the territory of modern Estonia), creating a powerful center of Catholic influence in the Baltic states. In 1226, the Masovian prince Konrad, in order to fight the Prussians, called the Teutonic Order to Poland.
In 1234, on the Emajõge River near Tartu, the Novgorod prince Yaroslav Vsevolodovich defeated the troops of the Order of the Swordsmen, stopping the advance of the knights to the east. In 1237, the remnants of the Order of the Swords united with the Teutonic Order, forming a vast Catholic state that included most of the Baltic states.
In 1241, Mongol-Tatar nomads reached the borders of Poland, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, and then Hungary, defeating almost all the armies of these states.
Invasion of Ottoman troops at the end of the 14th century. to Serbia, Albania and Bulgaria dealt a serious blow to Slavic Orthodoxy. Both natural (through the assimilation of the population) and forced (through education and the introduction of qualifications) Islamization of the population of these countries ultimately led to the formation among the southern and south-eastern Slavs of a unique community in religious terms, in which Orthodox, Catholics, Protestants and Sunni Muslims. The exception to this process is Albania, where, due to severe discrimination against the Christian population, most of the population converted to Islam. Only in inaccessible mountainous areas did the population retain Christian beliefs - Orthodoxy in the south and Catholicism in the north.
In the first half of the 15th century. A powerful Hussite movement arose in the Czech Republic and Slovenia. Their most radical wing, the Taborites, had clearly expressed anti-feudal and democratic sentiments. The Taborites interpreted the “thousand-year kingdom of God on earth” chialistically, as a kingdom of universal equality, they denied church sacraments, the Catholic cult, and the most radical part - all Christian shrines and rituals. The contradictions between the Taborites and the Chashniks led to open war between them. Individual Taborite detachments continued to fight until 1437, until their last fortress, Zion, fell.
The Picards, who represented the extreme left radical wing of the Taborites, took a position of harsh physical struggle with the church and completely denied all church rituals, sacraments and shrines. In 1421, the moderate Taborites-Chashniki dealt with the leaders of the Picards. The chashniks themselves proceeded from the democratic principles of church organization and assumed equal rights for parishioners and clergy in receiving communion under both types, i.e. bread and wine. The Hussites intended to make the Chashniki creed the Czech state religion. In 1433, the Chashniki concluded an agreement with the Catholics (“Prague Compactata”) and with their combined forces inflicted a decisive defeat on the Taborites at Lipaja.
In the 16th century Some of the Chashniki became close to the Catholics, others united with the Czech brothers and Lutherans. However, the Counter-Reformation and subsequent missionary activity of the Catholic Church led to a significant preponderance of Catholics among modern Czechs.
The European Reformation did not directly affect the Slavic world, but its consequences had a significant impact on the subsequent religious situation in these countries. Protestants did not receive a decisive advantage in any Slavic country, but their number was very significant in all West Slavic countries. Protestants had a great influence on the formation of a number of renovation movements in Russia in the 19th-20th centuries, and by the end of the 20th century. the expansion of Protestantism in Russia, according to a number of scientists, led to an excess of Protestants over Orthodox Christians without them forming separate churches of their own (?).
In 1548, Protestants lost the First Schmalkalden War, as a result of which the Catholic religion became the only one in Germany. Although this did not directly affect the Slavic lands (with the exception of the Slavs living in Germany), it significantly influenced the spread of Catholicism in the countries bordering Germany. 7 years later, as a result of the Second Schmalkaldic War, the princes received the right to choose between Catholicism and Lutheranism.
In 1876, an uprising against the Turks occurred in Bulgaria, supported by Russia and spreading to Serbia. The uprising ended in victory for the united Slavic forces, but the influence of Islam among the southwestern Slavs remains significant.
Existing at the beginning of the 21st century. The religious situation in the Slavic lands looks very peculiar, although natural from the point of view of history. The extreme eastern lands of Siberia, Tuva, Yakutia are a zone of division of influence between the surviving polytheistic local beliefs (shamanism), Buddhism (mainly the Gelug school) and Orthodoxy brought by the Russian conquerors. Often, being baptized in Orthodoxy, local residents simultaneously profess Buddhism or a synthesis of Buddhism and shamanism. It is curious that, despite the relatively long experience of the parallel existence of three religions in these territories, there were not even attempts to create some kind of syncretic movement.
A similar situation is observed in the south of Russia, in Kalmykia, where, however, the influence of shamanism is minimized, and Buddhism is a formal religion that does not interfere with the expansion of Orthodoxy.
Almost throughout the entire territory of the modern distribution of the Slavs, there are local communities of Muslims, usually of the Sunni persuasion. The interpenetration of Christianity and Islam in these territories is minimized, mainly due to the strict observance of traditions by the Muslim population. The picture is somewhat different in those areas of Muslim expansion that belong to the zone of Turkish occupation in the 15th-16th centuries, for example, in Southern Bulgaria and Bosnia. In these regions, various religious movements collided - Orthodox, Catholics, Bogomils - which created a certain multi-religious atmosphere and facilitated the interpenetration of different cultures.
The border between Orthodox and Catholic Slavs is not clearly defined, since it represents either traditionally Catholic territories with significant penetration of Orthodoxy (Lithuania), or traditionally Orthodox territories with active penetration of Catholicism (Western Ukraine), or Protestant territories with influence of both movements (Latvia) . Almost the entire western part of the Slavs, with the exception of the confusing situation in the former Yugoslavia, is a zone of Catholic influence.
It is not so much the lack of records relating to ancient Slavic fables as the lack of effort in developing the dry legends about this subject, which is the reason that we do not have a systematic description of these gods to this day. The writers who soon enlightened the Slavic tribes with Christianity had reason to mention little or completely remain silent about idolatry, which had not yet been completely exterminated, and may be respected by many as the faith of their fathers.
But there is no danger for us to seek out, develop, and present as fully as possible a fabulous doctrine: for this story for us is nothing more than food for curiosity; and if we can learn anything most important from it, it is from man’s creation of gods for himself, naturally in his own image, that is, according to his national character, morals, way of life, degree of enlightenment, and even the activity of imagination, sowing the first producer of all in every kind of fiction, we can better recognize the intelligent and moral character of our ancestors. Images, deeds, even the very names of the gods of a famous people, are the essence of how many properties thereof.
Among the Indians, a meek people, the gods are meek and kind; the evil ones are deprived of power, at least they spread it in no other way than by stealth from the good gods overseeing them. The happy Achaian sky, the gaiety of the morals of the inhabitants, the vivid imagination, formed the faces of the gods and their actions connected with them, funny, pleasant, and one might think, even during the times of idolatry of the Greeks, for pleasant and often useful tales, revered. The barbarism that reigned in Tauris raised Diana to the level of goddess (perhaps the deity called so by the Greeks, and otherwise called there), demanding the blood of wanderers.
Diverse for each country on the globe, the open natural skies, various aerial phenomena, the dissolution of the air, the resulting fruitfulness of the earth, both in quantity and in the quality of products, the very geologist of those countries, added to the properties of the people, contributed to the understanding of these dreamy creatures. Why, considering in a judicious manner the fable of the ancient Slavs, we hope that we will open a few veils of antiquity, hiding from us the nature of their thoughts about the things around them, the range of knowledge, morals, and, at least somewhat, the very way of their thoughts.
When describing a work of fantasy or daydreaming, I think that I will not be wrong if, given the emptiness and shortcomings encountered in its works, I fill it with my own ancient fantasy. True, erased or faded places in ancient paintings, touched up with new colors, although on an antique basis, reduce the price of the paintings; but is nothing better than something? And wouldn’t Fidasov’s Venus be better with her arms and legs forged in the taste of this famous ancient master than if only her body remained, and that might still be knocked out in places?
It is known that the corrections or corrections of the ancient Greek and Latin writers were done by the best, but were all the corrections made to suit the author’s word or thought? And maybe others did not, under the guise of editing the manuscript, correct the author himself in words and thoughts, for which he himself would be able to thank.
I move into the vast and varied realms of fantasy of the ancient Slavs; wandering through them, I will begin to collect entire dreamy ideas and their small particles, and these latter, in accordance with their structure, will be supplemented with material ones of this same kingdom and according to the laws of imagination or daydreaming.
Although the origin of the gods or the Slavic pheogony has not been preserved for us; which at one time, of course, should have been; however, from the properties of gods, or better, natural things, their actions and phenomena, we can also conclude about their dreamed origin. "Edda" somewhat clearly tells about the rank, the order in the origin of the Celtic gods; from the Greek pheogony, everyone knows their genealogy better than the German young baron’s own. The Slavs lived in proximity to both of them, and it turns out that in their dreams they imitated both of them, and maybe they were both originals. And so, following both the Greek dividers of gods, and especially delving into the Slavic fable itself, and searching for lines that have almost been erased regarding this, I divide from the very properties of these gods into lofty, underworld, earthly and watery.
1 . And so, among the exalted gods, I will place deified beings who are outside the earth, and on it only showing their actions, perceptible to man.
And such gods will be:
Perun, movement of the ether, thunder.
Golden Baba, silence, peace.
Svetovid, sun, vital warmth.
Znich, initial fire, ether.
Belbog, goodness and good beginning.
Strong god, strong god.
Dazhbog, prosperity.
Belly, saving life
Ice, war.
Kolyada, peace.
Delight, pleasure.
Lada, beauty.
Her children:
Lelya, love.
Polelya, marriage.
Did, marriage.
Didilia, childbirth.
Mertsana, dawn goddess of the harvest.
2 . Earthly ones, whose properties are abstracted from earthly useful products, for human needs, or only for the pleasures of these employees, and of whom they seem to have been patrons.
Trigla, earth.
Volos, Mogosh, gods who protect livestock.
Kupala, earthly fruits.
Rodomysl, giver of good advice.
Sva, goddess of fruits.
Zevana, goddess of hunting.
Chur, god of boundaries.
Prone, or Prove, god of prophecy.
Rodegast, god of hospitality and cities.
Kors, god of drunkenness.
Yassa
Pozvizd, god of storms and winds.
Dogoda, marshmallows.
Zimtserla, or Zimsterla, spring.
Freezing, winter.
3 . The underworld gods, who represent revenge and execution following lawlessness and vice.
Niy, who rules over the underworld.
Chernobog, god of vengeance.
Yaga Baba.
Kikimora, god of sleep.
4 . The aquatic ones whose power extends over the waters are:
King of the Sea. Mermaids.
Miracle of the sea. Vodoviki, water devils.
Perfume:
Leshy. Where.
Brownies. Devils.
Steney. Demons.
Lizuny.
Demigods or heroes:
Polkany. Magus
Volots. Volkhovets.
Slavs Ore.
Deified lakes:
Ilmer.
Student.
Rivers:
Bug.
Don.
However, one thing that can be attributed to the purity of mind of the Slavic people is that their faith, of many pagan ones (I’m not saying all), is the purest. For their gods are natural actions, having an influence on man through their beneficence, and serving to fear and punish lawlessness, equally as natural properties and deified perfections.
Having penetrated this, the creator of “Vladimiriyada” says in it:
What the North recognized as sacred deities;
These were the actions and properties of Nature,
Human weaknesses, blind passions of hearts.
And one could also add to this good and beneficial deeds.
In all their fables, there is not a single god who could be considered an offended person, as we find among the Greeks (I am not talking about the Romans, who took everything from them), and their examples are the Phoenicians, Egyptians and Assyrians. And this must be attributed to the natural light of their minds, that mortals cannot be immortal. The situation is simple, but, it seems, poorly understood by the peoples who boast of their enlightenment, and in many ways by our teachers.
However, it seems that the Supreme Being was not unknown to the Slavs, the Almighty, all-creating Being, and in a word, the God of gods, and his proper name was God. The rest were, as it were, subordinate to him, or more like face-formed properties of nature. God, as the giver of light, warmth, fertility of the earth and the revitalizer of nature, is called Svetovid; but abstractly he will be the god of enlightenment and light of the mind. The god who causes thunder and lightning is named Perun; he, in abstraction, is a god who frightens the wicked with the fury of ethereal-fiery blows. Bel-god, or good god, is the giver of all blessings. A strong god, one of the properties of the Most High, a truly moral deity.
But all this will be seen with obvious clarity from the description of each god in particular. I will only mention something about the goddess Lada and her children. There is nothing, it seems, more witty than the beauty of Lada being the mother of her four children; their number is full; There is nothing to add, but subtraction is imperfection. Beauty, Lada, has the first son Lelya, that is, love; Leleya is followed by the second, Polelya, or marriage; what is more moral than love to end in marriage; but this is still not enough; followed by a son, the god of married life, and he is Dido, whose wife Didilia, the goddess of childbirth, patronizes this clean life. There is nothing more beautiful than this family; because there is nothing generally more approved, and it is the truth itself, presented in different faces.
Here is a picture showing that the Slavic fable was reasonable, but their gods were formed from abstract concepts, and, moreover, often witty and always true. If we take away the fabulous names, then now we and our ancestors do not think differently; It even seems that this way of thinking is common to all enlightened peoples. Beauty, love, marriage, marriage, childbirth are interlocking concepts and actions for all people. The sun benefits earthly nature; thunder brings fear; golden nature, the common mother of people; goodness, strength, giving of goods, life-giving, flowing from above, are the ideas of the ancients, on which they created the temple of their polytheism.
GODS HIGH
Perun
A formidable Slavic deity. He was revered as the creator of all aerial phenomena. His hand controlled thunder and lightning. It seems that the Slavic Perun is just as suitable as Homer’s Zeus for the application of a “cloud chaser.” This deity was especially revered in Kyiv and Novgorod. In the first, his temple was built on a hill above the Borichev Stream. G. Kheraskov in “Vladimiriad” describes this temple as follows:
This temple, a terrible temple, above the Borichev current,
It stood built on a high hill;
Smoke rose from the incense before the idol,
Dried blood was visible in front of him.
And he is in another place:
The proud temple of Perun was built high,
He spread shadows far across the mountains:
An unquenchable flame always burns before him,
At the entrance a cornerstone has been established,
And the people called it the stone of destruction;
He is drenched in black blood everywhere;
On it that unfortunate victim was trembling,
The ferocity of the priests which fueled:
There are deadly weapons hanging there,
The vessels are filled with blood.
After accepting autocracy over Russia, Vladimir built many temples in honor of this deity. Standing above the Borichevsky Stream, it can only be renewed and decorated by it, having been built from the most ancient times. Didn't the very name of this stream come from Perun's father's name?
The first settlers of Kyiv were of Sarmatian origin and, having arrived there, probably brought with them the Celtic gods from the Scandinavian Peninsula. Borich may have been called Perun, like Odin, the son of Bor, which is why both the hill and the stream or stream were called Borichev; for Bor was the father of the gods, or better the father of Odin, the lord of the Scandinavian gods. The most Celtic priests claimed that they descended from this Bor.
Perun, in the real meaning of this word, takes on a thunder arrow, or more naturally, lightning, an electric stream, or a thunder spark. But it seems more likely that the common noun got its start from the proper name of the god of thunder. Perun seems to come from the word Torym or Torum, which in the Sarmatian language means the Most Highbeing, god. The idol of this deity was made of more than one substance. The camp was carved from wood; the head is cast from silver; and the ears and mustache are sculpted from gold; the legs are forged from iron; in his hand he held something similar to lightning, which was represented by rubies andcarbuncles. An unquenchable flame burned before him, for neglect of which the priest was punished by death, which consisted of burning him as an enemy of this deity.
In “Vladimiriad” it is described somewhat differently from this; however, it is completely appropriate for such a high deity:
This gloomy temple housed a terrible idol,
He wears a golden crown, crimson purple;
He held Peruns twisted in his hand,
Which he threatened to strike in anger;
He had great golden horns on his forehead,
Silver chest, had iron legs;
His high throne burned with rubies,
And he was called the god of all gods.
From this description it is clear that he was a terrible thundering deity; and therefore, in the moral sense, the lawless are the executioner and destroyer. He was also revered as a ruler among the gods, and strong; in a word, the producer of everything terrible in nature for humans.
The spacious globe of his earthly face trembles.
It reeks of peruns, it sparkles with lightning,
Murder is on the brow, death is in the eyes.
His crown is a serpent, his robe is fear.
"Vladim."
And therefore the sacrifices were consistent with the imaginary properties of the king of the gods. In honor of him, they slaughtered cattle... Superstition, foolishly revered by an essential part of itself, sacrificed to him, that is, the beard and head hair, shaving them.
Of the things dedicated to him, there were entire forests and groves, from which taking any branch was considered a sacrilege worthy of death.
Except for many countries and cities in which shrines were dedicated to this god, the most magnificent was in Kyiv above the Borichev Stream, erected by Prince Vladimir, or better decorated. Another no less magnificent one was in Novgorod, which was built by his uncle Dobrynya, the mayor or governor he granted to Novgorod. Both of them met their end after the enlightenment of Russia with Christianity, as well as the idols of the Perunovs, and the Kiev one was overthrown in the Dnieper, and the Novgorod one in the Volkhov.
Here, by the way, I will attach an excerpt from an ancient or ancient hymn composed:
The gods are great; but Perun is terrible;
The heavy foot is terrifying,
How he precedes his lightning
Cloaked in darkness, surrounded by whirlwinds,
He leads menacing clouds behind him.
Steps on a cloud - lights from under your heels;
If he looks at the earth, the earth will tremble;
He looks at the sea and it boils like a cauldron.
Scarier! Turn your anger away from us!
Throwing a handful of hail a thousand measures;
Only from his heel did the cloud glow;
The heavy foot made a dull rumble.
Who shook the mountains, the sea and the earth,
And only the robes sparkled.
Golden mother
Just as Perun was an angry god, so the Golden Mother was disgusted with him, or in other words, Baba was the goddess of peace and quiet. Her image was made of gold in the form of a woman; and from this it received its name, as well as from the property attributed to it. In her arms she held a baby, who was considered her grandson, and from whom she was called Baba, i.e. Grandmother. This grandson was Svetovid. Around the image there was a great variety of musical instruments, on which her praises were sung during her celebration. Her most glorious temple was built near the Obigo or Obega River. Here she gave the answers; and therefore this temple was considered prophetic, and was in great glory. She was so sacredly revered that no one dared to pass by her idol without offering something as a sacrifice, and if he had nothing, then he offered at least a scrap of his dress with earthly worship. This goddess seems to have been the same as the Celtic Frigga or Freya, to whom alone the prophecy is attributed: “One Frigga knows the future news, but does not reveal this to anyone,” the words of Odin cited in the Edda.
Svetovid
A deity held in great veneration by the Slavs. He had two glorious churches in the North: one on the island of Rugen in the city of Akhron, and the other in Kholmograd, which is located in the very place where the village of Bronnitsy is located, on the hill located thereon, on which the church of St. Nicholas.
His idol was made of enormous wood. He had four faces, one for each corner of the world. He had no beard; his curls were curled; His clothes were short. In his left hand was a bow, and in his right hand was a horn forged from metal. At his hip he had a great sword in a silver scabbard; hanging to the side was the saddle and bridle of his horse, also of exorbitant size. This idol stood in the middle of the temple, hung with magnificent red curtains. He gave answers through the mouth of the priest once a year. At that time, this chief priest entered the sanctuary of this god, holding his breath, and, if necessary, either went out, or only put his head out of the sanctuary. This annual holiday was celebrated with lengthy solemn rituals. It began at the end of the harvest, which will be in the month of Serpent or August.
And then the people gathered in front of the temple, drove in a lot of cattle, both as a sacrifice to their God, and to celebrate this famous holiday of theirs. A day before the solemn day, the commanding priest himself swept out the temple of this god. The next day, the priest took from his hand the light-shaped horn, filled with wine for the year, and predicted the fertility of the next one because how much had decreased in it; for they believed that if much of the horn disappeared, then the year would be barren; if it is not enough, then it should have been fertile. And pouring this wine before the feet of Svetovid, he filled this horn with new, and drank in his honor, praying that he would grant abundance, wealth and victory to his enemies in everything. Then filling this sacred horn with new wine, placing it in his hand, praying together with all the people; after which numerous sacrifices were brought to him, from oxen to sheep. After these sacrifices were made, they brought in a huge round pie made from gingerbread dough, big enough to fit a person.
The servant of the Svetovids entered this pie and asked the people if they could see him? - People answered that no - then turning to Svetovid, they prayed to him that at least a few of them would see him next year. Here it seems that the priest, hiding in the pie, represented the sun at a distance from our hemisphere, or winter time; and then begged Svetovid for his return. Because not only the name, but also all the signs show that this god was the image of the luminary animating our world. There are four faces, there are four years, or seasons. Arrows and a bow, like the Greek Phoebus - Apollo, meant the rays of the sun. The white horse, dedicated to him, marked the visible movement of this beneficial luminary; horn in hand, abundance everywhere flowing from its sacred warmth; the sword meant him as the protector god and patron of the Slavs.
After this ceremony, many livestock were sacrificed with great reverence; and then the priest, having given a lengthy teaching to the people, encouraged him to diligently venerate and sacrifice to this god; and for this he promised them earthly fruitfulness, health, victory over enemies on land and sea. Sometimes they sacrificed their captive enemies to this idol as their protector god in battles; this inhuman rite was carried out in this way: the slave (it was clear from everything that he was a military man) was dressed in armor or in full armor; They put him on a saddled horse, whose legs were tied to four stilts, as well as an unfortunate horse, and, placing firewood under it, they burned them both. The priests assured the people that such a sacrifice was pleasing to Svetovid.
It seems that by this they wanted to arouse in the people greater cruelty towards their enemies, in which they hoped to take advantage of his victories over them, which brought considerable profit to the priests; for from any military booty Svetovid was probably brought no more than a third. What seems to be very natural, considering only the circumstances of that time, where idolatrous priests alone had free access to the mysterious sanctuary of the sciences, while gross ignorance was the common lot of the common people; and therefore the influence of the former on these latter should have been omnipotent, and which was notselfish priests allowed them to penetrate. After all the rituals of worship and sacrifice were completed, the people began to eat, drink and have fun...
A white horse was dedicated to Svetovid, on which no one except the first priest could mount. Everything about this horse, even down to the hair, was sacred, and under the danger of losing his life, it was not allowed to pull a single thing out of his tail or mane. They assured that Svetovid rode on it to defeat their enemies. And this was confirmed by the fact that when the horse was left cleaned in the evening, in the morning it was found sweaty and dirty; from which they concluded that Svetovid rode it to defeat their adversaries. Depending on whether Svetovid’s horse was more or less tortured, they thought the success of the battle would be the same. This horse also served as a soothsayer whether to start or not to start, whether the continuation of the war would be good or bad.
For fortune telling, six horses, two in a row and at a certain distance, were placed in front of the temple. Each two had a spear tied across them as high as a horse could step over. Before the horse began to be led between the spears, the priest prayed to Svetovid with well-known rituals, reading many prayers specially composed for him. Then, with reverent ceremonies, he took the horse by the bridle and led it through three transverse spears. If the horse walked forward through them with its right foot and, moreover, through all three without getting tangled, then they promised themselves the most prosperous end of the war. Otherwise, they trembled about any misfortune; and for this reason they postponed the war itself.
The Svetovid Temple was very rich; for in addition to various contributions, he received a third part from the spoils of war, and three hundred horsemen fought from Svetovid himself, bringing all the resulting booty. The fate of the Rugen Svetovid temple and its idol was that Waldemar, the Danish king in 1169 A.D., having taken the island of Rugen and the city of Achron, destroyed and robbed the temple, and having stripped the idol, he ordered it to be cut up and burned. As for the Kholmograd Svetovid Temple, it had the same fate as other idol temples, being destroyed after Russia received holy baptism.
Znich
By this deity, the Slavs understood the initial fire, or life-giving warmth, contributing to the creation and preservation of all creatures. The Slavs had the same thoughts about this initial and life-giving fire as the Parsis or Hebrians about their sacred fire, believing it to be the life-giving agent of all living beings.
And in fact:
In adamant it shines,
He will light up in the yacht;
It burns in the cold ice
It thunders in the dark cloud.
Proud heads of Siberian
Raises cedars to the clouds;
The grasses are inhabited by low ones;
Gives beauty to flowers.
It puts strength and vigor into the lion;
The tiger has aspiration and heat.
Everything gives birth, raises, nourishes,
And everything is a gift itself.
He is the soul of all nature;
He is the beginning of all things.
The Slavs saw him everywhere; they were surprised at him; but not being Eulers, they could not interpret and explain it: could they, in their simplicity and little enlightenment, have conceived such a subtle thought that this initial fire, initial heat, is even the cause of fire itself, heat itself: is it ether? that subtle substance, diffused throughout nature, forming adamant and found in it, giving color to a rose, growth to a cedar, shining in the ice itself, and of which a weak shock in a thing produces warmth, and a strong heat either melts it, or devours it with flame? - They, like other peoples living in simplicity, made a deity out of this incomprehensible creature for themselves, calling him Znich.
Now let's talk about this initial fire as a Slavic deity. Znich had no image; but there was only an unquenchable fire, like the Vestina fire in Rome. Temples that contained this sacred fire were located in many cities. This unquenchable fire received sacrifices for itself, which, like Svetov’s, consisted of part of the self-interest received from the enemy. Captives were also sacrificed to him. And from this we can conclude that military fervor and courage were attributed to Znich’s action. Those who were seriously ill also resorted to it, wanting to get relief. The servants of Znich, showing themselves inspired or inspired by this deity, in his name gave answers to the infirm, containing the means to heal them. In conclusion, I will add a description of this deity from “Vladimiriad”:
Then the brave Znich, shining all from the outside;
He said: these intentions are not like me.
I illuminate huts and illuminate thrones;
In the being of fire I give life to the Russians,
I nourish them, warm them, and see their insides.
Belbog
The name itself means it is good. In other dialects of the Slavic language it was also called Beltsy Bug, which means the same thing.
He was depicted covered in blood and covered in a great number of flies, which seems to be a sign of the feeder of creatures, and in his right hand he held a piece of iron.
He had a temple on the island of Rugen in the city of Akhron, where he, just like Svetovid, was given veneration, especially by the Slavs who lived near the Varangian (Baltic) Sea.
No blood was sacrificed to him, but feasts, games and various amusements were held in his honor. By this deity, our forefathers understood the benefits bestowed upon creatures by nature, which preserves them. It is true that the mob revered what they sensed, that is, the idol itself; but the ministers or interpreters of their faith, of course, understood in an abstract sense the goodness of nature, the daughter of the good king and the father common to all worlds.
Strong God
Among all ancient peoples, physical strength was considered a gift sent from above; and therefore such people among the Greeks were demigods, that is, born immortal by a father or mother, and vice versa by either of two mortals. The Greeks called them heroes; what the Slavic-Russians meant by the word hero. This word, according to the explanation of one of our experts on Russian history, is the Tatar batyr, and means strongman; One could believe this if it had not been in use before the communication between the Russians and the Tatars; or rather, it is composed of the Slavic god of the Sarmatian tyr or tirar (according to his own interpretation) stepson; that the very thing, both in name and in meaning, is closer to the concept of a hero; and I better believe that the Tatar hero is a spoiled Russian hero.
Under this deity the Slavs honored nature’s gift of bodily strength; it was the face-formed Greek Mars or Ares. His image was in the form of a man holding a dart in his right hand, and a silver ball in his left, as if thereby making it known that the fortress possessed the whole world. Under his feet lay a lion and a human head, since both serve as an emblem of bodily strength.
Dazhbog
This deity was also noble, the giver of all earthly blessings, wealth, happiness and prosperity. They sacrificed to him only through fervent prayers and asking him for mercy; for charity requires nothing more than petition and gratitude. G. Kheraskov decently calls him in “Vladimiriad” - “Dazhbog the prolific”, when they believed that they received all sorts of benefits from him, as from an inexhaustible source. He had a goddess in Kyiv. It served as an emblem of prosperity, which was idolized by the ancient Romans.
Stomach
This deity was revered by the Polyanian Slavs; his name means life-giver or preserver of life. This was another Slavic Vishnu. And since the very name of the Greek Zeus or Jupiter is derived from the Greek word for life, did not both peoples draw their initial concepts about these creatures from the same beginning? And didn’t the Greeks transform theirs into a formidable creature when they saved the name of the glade and the associated concept of life-guard and life-giver? This deity was one of the first in the glades, and had its own temples. However, the concept of a life-preserving being seems to me more accurate and purer than the concept of a healing god, whether it was Apollo or his son Esculapius. This deity is mentioned only in Polish antiquities; That’s why I call him my own deity of the Polyan Slavs.
Ice
The Slavs prayed to him for success in battles, and he was considered to be in charge of military actions and bloodshed. This ferocious deity was represented in the form of a terrible warrior, armed in Slavic armor, or all weapons. At the hip is a sword; spear and shield in hand. This deity had its own temples; the war brought him casualties. Going against their enemies, the Slavs prayed to him, asking for help, and making promises to bring him abundant sacrifices after defeating the enemies. It is likely that this deity received bloody sacrifices more than other primary ones; and in a more honorable sense, courage, immortality and courage.
However, the ancient Slavs cannot be blamed for human sacrifices, whereas we see the ancient Greeks making such sacrifices, and, what is even more terrible, sacrificing their only begotten children. The Irmenzul temple, stained with human blood among the Germans, the Syrian Moloch, the Norman stones, prove that in primitive rudeness, or after falling into it, almost all peoples possessed bloody vainness. Moreover, the Slavs (not to mention all generations, but meaning those accustomed to warfare and bloodshed) sacrificed only enemies to their gods.
From the ancient chroniclers it is clear that, at a distance from the temples of Leda, they honored him with a sword or saber, taken out of the scabbard and stuck into the Earth, worshiping him and begging for help.
Here it seems appropriate to mention the former Slavic heroes before Rurik. The oldest is Prince Slaven. This name seems to be a common noun, meaning Slavic prince, or its own, but given to him from the glory he acquired; for the Slavs before him bore their name. His children, the glorious Volkhv, who fought with the peoples who lived along the banks of the Volkhov River, formerly called the Mutnaya River, and his brothers Volkhovets and Rudotok. The famous Burivoy, who fought with the Varangians (sea robbers, maybe Norman, not Russian), the wise Gostomysl, his son, hero and legislator.
But what kind of Slavic and Slavic-Russian heroes were can be seen from the following fabulous heroic narrative.
A fairy tale begins
From Sivka from Burka
From the thing korka
For honor and glory
To the father's son,
To the daring knight,
To the brave knight,
Good fellow,
To the Russian prince,
that all sorts of forces
Flogs, beats;
Mighty and strong
Kicks you off your horses;
And Baba Yaga
On the floor he throws;
And the stink of Kashchei
Keeps him on a leash;
And the snake Gorynych
Trampling;
And the red girl
Far beyond the sea
In the thirtieth Earth
From under menacing eyes
From under strong locks
In white Rus' takes away.
Is the guy doing well?
In an open field?
He will whistle, he will bark
With a heroic whistle,
A valiant shout:
“You, my good horse!
You, Sivka, you, Burka,
You're a creepy thing!
Stand in front of me
Like a leaf before the grass."
To the heroic whistle,
To the cry of the brave girl,
No matter where it comes from
The horse is gray-brown.
And gray bark.
Where will the horse run?
There the Earth will tremble:
Where will the horse fly?
There the whole forest will rustle.
In flight, a horse from the mouth
It bursts with flames;
From black nostrils
Throws bright sparks;
And smoke from my ears
Like blowing pipes.
Not in the day and not in the hour,
In one minute
He will stand in front of the knight.
Our brave fellow
He will pet Sivka.
Put it on your back
Sedeltse Cherkasy,
Bukhara blanket,
On the neck frenulum
Made from bedov silk
Made from Persian silk.
Buckles in the bridle
From Krasnov gold
From Arabic,
There are buckles in the buckles
Made from blue damask steel.
Bulat Zamorskova.
The silk will not tear;
Damask steel will not bend;
And red gold
It won't rust.
Good fellow
Shield on the chest
On the right hand there is a ring;
Club under my arm
Silver;
And under the left is a sword
With a pearl.
Hero's hat;
There is a falcon on the hat.
Quiver on my shoulders
With red-hot arrows.
Well done in battle
Both batets and sagittarius:
Not afraid of the sword
No arrow, no spear.
He sits on the burqa
Daring flight;
He will hit the horse
Along the steep hips
Like on solid mountains.
The horse rises
Above the dark forest
To the thick clouds.
He and the hills and mountains
It passes between the legs;
Fields and oak groves
Covers his tail;
Runs and flies
Across the lands, across the seas,
To distant lands.
And what a good horse is;
That's how well done he is:
Can't see, can't hear,
Not a pen can describe
Only in a fairy tale to say.
Here is an image of a Russian hero! Here is an example of ancient Russian epic poetry!
Kolyada
By this god our ancestors meant peace and the bliss accompanying it, and therefore holidays in honor of this deity were celebrated with games and fun. These began at the end of the month of Jelly, or December 24th. In winter, perhaps, holidays were established for him, so that the Slavs never fought during this annual time, but enjoyed the peace of military labor. They sacrificed singing, dancing, games and various amusements to this ever-youthful, cheerful, all-good deity who spreads abundance everywhere.
Those dedicated to him celebrated the holidays with feasts and merriment. The current wishes of girls about Christmastide, it seems, existed then; for when is it better to think about love and marriage, if not during rest, peace, enjoying the abundance of the rich autumn? However, they prayed to this deity, asking him for peace, silence and abundance in earthly fruits and livestock. Likewise, according to what was done to the enemy of the world, thanksgiving was brought to him, and his holidays were celebrated with feasts and fun. Special celebrations began in honor of him on the evening of the 25th. A remnant of them still survives among us to this day. This evening, girls (sometimes young guys) gather, and when they come under the window of each hut, they sing the following song, which, judging by the syllable, seems to be very ancient.
Here she is:
Why do you recognize the grapes as red?
Why Ustin Malafeevich's house?
His yard is all silk grass,
His courtyard is all silver;
Its gate is oak;
Fish tooth collars.
He has three towers in his yard:
In the first chamber the moon is bright;
In the second chamber there is a red sun;
In the third chamber there are frequent stars.
As the month brightens, then Ustinov’s house;
As red as the sun, so is its Julitta;
As stars are frequent, children are small.
God forbid Ustin Malafeevich
Marry sons from greyhound horses;
God forbid Ulita Khavronyevna
It is a high priority to give away daughters.
Give, sir, carolers;
Our carol is not a ruble, not a half ruble,
Our carol is only half an altyn.
After singing these songs, the carolers receive a few money, or more baked trinkets from wheat dough; and in other places young carol-players are given a bucket or more of beer, which they pour into a barrel they carry with them.
All the so-called Christmas games are the remains of ancient celebrations in honor of the god of the world. At this time, girls wonder about their betrothed, that is, their fate-determined future husbands; they sing sacred sacred songs called after Christmastide, which I do not cite here because they are too familiar to any of my readers.
Delight
Joy on the brow, blush on the cheeks, smiling lips, crowned with flowers, carelessly dressed in a light robe, playing kobza, and dancing to the voice of this, is the god of fun and life's pleasures, the companion of Lada, the goddess of pleasures and love.
A delight that seduces with just one glance...
"Vladim."
He was revered as the patron of all pleasures and amusements. It seems that this deity originally depicted mental and physical pleasures; but just as everything abstract among the people is transformed into the sensual and coarse, and the mental into the material, then Delight was revered as the god of luxury, feasts, comforts, amusements, amusements, and especially dining, obvious pleasures, like Kors of drunkenness. A sensual person loves to adapt everything to his passions, which he in turn attributes to everything extracted from sensuality and passions. Finally, I will say that at all feasts (in which, just like in drinking, all human bliss was supposed in ancient times) this deity was invoked and implored.
Lada, Lelya, Polelya, Did, Didilya. Here is a wonderful family, which even the playful Greek imagination could not invent! What is more natural than beauty with its children, love, marriage or combination, married life and childbirth?
Lada
The goddess of beauty and love was most revered in Kyiv. Before his baptism, Vladimir, being in love and collecting beauties everywhere, greatly revered this Queen of love. He erected a magnificent and decorated temple for her on the Mountain. G. Kheraskov describes it this way:
Ladin Temple proud of its colorful pillars,
It is hung around with flails woven from roses.
The goddess, holding the boy in her hand,
She appeared wearing beads and a myrtle wreath;
Her hair is flowing like gold;
For her generosity, flowers are brought in payment.
"Vladim", canto III.
and in another (11) song:
And in it (the temple) the majesty of heaven is depicted.
There are seven steps, and seven pillars around the idol...
From this copy of Piit it is clear that her temple was magnificent, and perhaps more magnificent than Perunov.
Lada was depicted as a beautiful young woman wearing a pink wreath; Her hair was golden-colored; dressed in Russian clothes, girded with a gold belt and adorned with pearls. She held the hand of the baby, who is the god of love Lelya.
And golden-haired Lada is visible with her baby.
Kheraskov.
Serving this pleasant goddess was similar to her properties. They sang songs in honor of her and brought her incense and flowers.
The Russian epic creator describes it this way:
The girls, surrounding the idol in orderly rank,
With tenderness they sang honor to the goddess:
“Oh, who keeps the flowers of our youth!
Give us, Lado, a peaceful marriage!”
The mastics smoked like clouds in front of her,
And the name Ladino was repeated a hundred times.
At that time there was a loud sound of cymbals;
The girls are sacrificial, forming a chain of hands,
They began dancing while singing around the idol.
Priestesses and priests come to the altar,
The goddesses wear crowns for the maidens,
Whom it is sacred to lay upon the heads,
The prince is obliged to repair love out of respect.
Vladimir irrigated, starting the ritual like this,
And hands and forehead with sacred water.
Here is a description of serving the goddess of love, which does not require any addition: because in another place the author of “Vladimir Reborn” added it like this:
Redder than the morning dawn of a maiden
They are already bringing flowers to the queen’s temple of love;
A beautiful meadow is transformed into a platform,
And the young maidens stood around the idol.
The number of burning stars they depict,
Which surrounds the shining moon...
The one among them shines more than all...
The crown was prepared for her first by lot,
Which the prince or the priest entrusts to the maidens.
Developing the few words remaining in our chronicles about the fables of the Slavs, we can conclude that this goddess was given the greatest veneration in Kyiv during the reign of Vladimir until his enlightenment with the divine light of Christianity. Being, according to the ancient chroniclers, a lover of women, he gave great honor to the goddess of love, and perhaps the rituals of service described by the creator of “Vladimiriad” were established with him; and this because these rituals served him as an aid to choosing the most beautiful of maidens.
Lelya
A fiery god, scattering or throwing sparks from his hand. Its power lay in the ignition of love. He is the son of beauty, just as beauty naturally gives birth to love. He was depicted as a golden-haired, like his mother, fiery, winged baby: the property of love is to ignite. He threw sparks from his hands: love does not inflame hearts with sparks, as if coming from the eyes, from the lips of a beautiful or better loved (because in the language of love, beauty is called what each of the inseparable in particularity passionately likes) person? He was constantly with his mother: it is very natural for love to always be with beauty; beauty always produces love. He is the eldest son of Lada: when two sexes unite, love precedes everything else. However, Mr. Kheraskov gives him a bow and arrows in the likeness of Eros:
Son Ladin flies his wings in the air,
And he strains his bow with feathered arrows.
After this comes Marriage, who is the second son of Lada and is called Polelya.
Polelya
Second son of the goddess of love. Every pure and virtue-based love entails marriage. Why did the Slavs invent, or better yet, cover the truth with the veil of this fiction? This deity, smiling in a wreath of thorns, gives the wreath of thorns with an outstretched hand, and in the other holds the horn of the drink of fidelity. He is naked, like his brother, but dressed in a thin robe or shirt. This deity also had its own shrines in Kyiv, although it was revered in other places. Kheraskov defines it this way:
A field of gaiety saw off the goddess;
In it, Kyiv adored marriage unions.
Did
Here is the third child of the mother of love, married life; This one, like his brother, is always young. Because the conjugal bond, established by nature for the propagation of the human race, should not weaken or grow old. Spouses cease to be spouses only when the heat of love fades little by little: then they become friends. This last connection is broken only by death. He is dressed in full Slavic clothing; a wreath of cornflowers on it; he caresses holding two turtledoves in his hands. This god had his own temple in Kyiv, and married people prayed to him for a prosperous marriage and childbirth.
Didilia
Also from the Lada family. She was revered not only as the patroness of successful births, but also as the permission of barren women. That is why both pregnant and barren people resorted to her for prayer. Her idol represented a beautiful young woman with a bandage decorated with pearls and stones on her head like a crown; One of her hands was unclenched, and the other was clenched with her back or fist. Her most famous temple, above all others, was in Kyiv. This goddess ends the Ladino family, the invention of which is very natural, complete, true and beautiful. The Greeks gave Venus only Eros or Love: Cymen and Hymen were alien to her; and Juno was in charge of childbirth. But the Slavic imagination, being more correct, although not so lively and volatile, made up of all these one perfect family.
Merzan
By this name the Slavs meant the dawn. Therefore, we can give it the same applications that Homer, copying from nature, applies to his dawn; he calls it “rudo-yellow dawn,” sometimes “golden-crimson.” It appears to him twice a day. When Phoebus rides into heaven; then in the morning, lifting the gloomy cover of the night with his pink fingers, he shows for a short time his golden-purple clothes. As soon as Phoebus enters heaven, he disappears again; and another time, as soon as Phoebus approaches the western gates of his house, she opens them and greets him, waits until he passes, and until then her golden-purple robe is visible, until she again lets go of the veils of night. But the Slavic dawn, when performing this service to Svetovid, sometimes comes out at night to frolic over the fields, fluttering over
maturing classes. And then they call her Zarnitsa. And since they believed, and even now still believe, that lightning contributes to great abundance and speedy ripening of the harvest, then it was revered as the patroness of cornflowers. And therefore they prayed to her for a grain harvest. Her sign, as the goddess of the harvest, is a class wreath; like dawn, blush and in golden-purple clothes, which consists of an extensive cover or veil covering the back half of the head, pinned at the chest or extending to the ground. This goddess was especially revered by the villagers.
EARTH GODS
Triglava
Also called Trigla for short. This goddess did not have a temple in cities and villages, but it was located in the fields of Kyiv; her image represented a woman with three heads. The Slavs, it seems, acted wisely by not placing the temple of the goddess, who represented the earth, among their dwellings. Its three chapters mean the three principles that make up the globe, i.e. earth, water and air: for the existence of fire was supposed to be outside the earth. Prometheus, who stole fire from the sky, serves as proof of this. There is nothing better than this guess of how to build a temple of the earth in the open air, since the very image of this temple and the goddess meant earth. Moreover, its three heads can represent mountains, valleys and forests. In an abstract sense, this goddess seems to depict the continuation of time, the present, past and future.
Hair
Because of the benefits received from livestock, of which this god was considered the patron, after Perun, the god of horror, Volos, the giver of great benefits and blessings to people through the preservation of livestock, was given the greatest veneration. The name itself means that he is great: for Veles, through the interpretation of the word, means great, i.e. great, and Volos, the one who brings power, i.e. the owner. This high veneration of the Slavs for him is visible in the chronicles from Svyatoslav’s treaties with the Greeks, when the Greeks swore an oath to maintain peace by kissing the cross and the Gospel, and Svyatoslav, taking his saber out of the scabbard, swore over it to Perun and Veles by the god of cattle. The name of Veles, as the guardian of cattle, is still preserved to this day in the consonant name of St. Vlasius, or simply Vlas, whom the villagers call the cow god, just like St. Egor, the horse and sheep god. He has bull horns, in simple clothes, holding a bowl of milk in his hand: for he preferred to patronize cattle. Cows and bulls were sacrificed to him. In Kyiv, shrines were erected for him, and even in other cities he had his own temples. Kheraskov says this about this idol:
There Veles is the god of the flock...
Which agrees with my description.
Mogosh
And this, according to Nestor, is also the god of cattle: however, it is necessary to notice the difference between Mogosh and Veles. The first is the god of large livestock, the other is the god of small livestock, such as sheep, goats, etc. And since the benefit received from small livestock consists firstly in skins and then in meat, then the image of this god will be corresponding to this: with a shaggy goat’s beard, with ram’s horns, in a sheep’s fur coat inside out, in his hands a stick or a shepherd’s crook, in a lamb will be placed on his feet. This god also had his temples in cities; and he was revered most of all by the villagers.
Kupalo
A cheerful and beautiful god, dressed in light clothes and holding flowers and field fruits in his hands; on his head having a wreath of swimsuit flowers, the god of summer, wild fruits and summer flowers, Kupalo. He is revered third according to Perun and second according to Veles: for in cattle breeding the fruits of the earth serve most of all for the maintenance and food of human beings.life, and constitute its abundance and wealth. Mertsana loved the fields, flying to them at night, playing and frolicking over them, and perhaps with the very classes, her favorite plants, which she contributed to the ripening: this same deity cared for the abundance and successful ripening of all field plants. It is likely that upon bringing the classes to maturity, Mertsana left them and entrusted their further care to Kupala. And he had to protect them from bad weather, strong winds, and patronize the farmers who collected them. Or, since Mertsana only went at night to admire them, it would turn out that Kupala took upon himself daytime care. Be that as it may, the very sacrifices made to him before the start of the harvest prove that, in addition to other field works, he also patronized the fields.
The celebration for him was established for the month of the worm on 23 and 24 days. Then young people of both sexes in wreaths and aprons (garlands) of bathing suits and other flowers danced around the fire while singing songs, often jumping over it. These songswere either in honor of Kupala, or only his name was chanted in them. Such songs still continue to this day in some villages. More than eight hundred years have passed since Russia adopted the Christian faith, and yet the traces of ancient fables still cannot be erased: so much to man are the gods formed by him in his own image, passions and morals!
Rodomysl
Deity of the Varangian Slavs, patron of laws, giver of good advice, wisdom,red and smart speeches. At the beginning of city meetings or gatherings related to the prosperity of the city, or to avert a threatening general misfortune, they prayed to him, making sacrifices. For every important undertaking requiring wisdom, Rodomysl was called upon. This deity had its own temples in cities near the Varangian Sea. His idol represented a man in thought, with the index finger of his right hand resting on his forehead; in the left hand there is a shield with a spear. This deity seems to be the same as among the Celts Bidder, the god of wisdom and eloquence.
Sva
Actually the goddess of autumn and garden fruits. She was depicted as a naked woman with full breasts, hair hanging down to her knees, and holding an apple in her right hand and a bunch in her left. Superstition, which made gods out of everything, out of the goodness of the air, the moderation of the weather, and the ordinary fruitful year, formed for itself a special deity, as if blessing his gardens and orchards, and he prayed to him and asked for his protection. However, the image of this goddess is witty. Her nakedness depicts the state of nature during the fruitful part of the year; full breasts and long hair, the common nourisher of all creatures, abundant in everything; The apple serves as the emblem of a mother who tenderly cares for her dear children, while the bunch is a luxury that everyone hopes for. Sva was the deity not only of garden fruits, but also of the time of their ripening, autumn. She was especially revered by the Slavs who lived near the Varangian (Baltic) Sea.
Zevana
Goddess of animal hunting. And for the truly Slavs, who lived almost all over Russia among forests and hunted animals for a living, this goddess was not of the least importance. Vekshi (Vekoshi and Nogat) and martens (Kun) in ancient times not only made up their clothing (here we are talking about the Drevlyan Slavs, that is, those who lived in the forests), but they were also used instead of walking coins. This goddess is depicted in a marten fur coat, the top of which is covered with squirrel skins. On top, instead of an epancha, the skin of a bear is worn, the head of which serves instead of a cone. In the hands is a bow, strung with a blunt arrow or a trap, next to it are placed skis and dead animals, as well as a spear and a knife. There is a dog at my feet. Hunters poured in to this goddess, asking her for luck in hunting. Temples were built for her in the forests. In honor of her, part of the spoils obtained by hunting was brought.
Chur
He was revered as the god of boundaries. He had no temples; but there was a mental deity. He was asked to maintain boundaries in the fields. In thinking, perhaps the stones placed to define the boundaries between the fields did not represent it? The word “chur” is still used today, meaning the prohibition of any action. This is a mysterious word among sorcerers, with which they again drive away the summoned devil. In conclusion, I will say that I do not vouch for my word reproduction: I only hinted at my guess, and the guess for this is not yet self-true.
Prove
It is also called Prono. These two words have similar meanings. Prove or Provet, prophesying, prophesying: It is proper to know from the word, that is, to foretell, or to penetrate. He was revered by the Vendian and Pomeranian (i.e. Pomeranian, coastal, Pomeranian) Slavs. They considered him second after Svetovid, to whom they paid the greatest veneration. The idol of this deity stood on a tall, leafy oak tree, in front of which an altar for sacrifices was placed; around the oak tree the ground was dotted with two-faced, three-faced and four-faced blockheads. It seems that by this deity the Slavs understood predestination, ruling the world and controlling the future. However, it was not the priest who predicted through the mouth of God, but they thought that Prove himself, having possessed the priest, spoke through his mouth. Captives were sacrificed to him: after the slaughter, the priest drained their bloodinto the bowl and bit it; and from this they believed that through this he received greater power to predict. After completing the sacrifice and receiving a favorable prediction, the idol worshipers began to eat, drink and have fun.
Radegast
He was also adored by the Varangian Slavs. He was revered as the protector of cities. His idol was like a Varangian Slav, armed with a spear, holding in his left hand a shield with an image of an ox’s head on it; wearing a helmet on which was represented a rooster with outstretched wings. All these signs mean in him the guardian of the city: a spear, a slayer of enemies; shield, city ruler and protector, ox's head, strength and fortress; rooster, vigor and vigilance in preserving the cities, which among the ancient Slavs (just like the ancient Greeks and Italians) constituted for each a particularly special nation or state.
Radegast, as his very name explains, means the destroyer of enemies. In addition to other sacrifices, they offered him human blood. Being evenly revered by the soothsayer through the priest, he had to give part of the barbarian sacrifice to his servant, who, when draining his blood from the unfortunate victim, bit it, as if through this he was communicating with God. At the end of the sacrifice and prediction, a public feast began, after which they played musical instruments and danced. Here we will once and for all notice about all the Slavs who lived near the Varangian Sea, that their gods were as inhuman as they themselves.
The Slavs, when they settled on these shores, and mixed with the Pomeranian Finns, who traded in raids and robberies along the Varangian Sea, they adopted their barbaric trade from them, and also traveled across the seas for robberies. And this very exercise reduced or completely eliminated in their eyes the horror and aversion to unnatural sacrifices, since, according to the well-known laws of nature, the habit of strengthening becomes second nature. Svetovid himself, the meek and beneficent god, was dared to offer human blood; Finally, let us add that when slaughtering both animals and people, they dreamed of sacrificing to the gods the soul, which among all unenlightened peoples was believed to be in the blood; and therefore blood was the most holy offering to the idol.
Kors
Here is the patron saint of beer and honey hunters. The naked, puffy wreath on it is woven from hop vines with leaves; the bandage on it is made of hops. In his right hand he holds a ladle from which he wants to drink; around him lie piles of skulls from broken jugs; he himself sits on a fragile, upturned barrel. The Slavs prayed to him when they went to drunken fights. For in ancient times, not only among the Slavs, but also throughout Europe, he was considered no small hero who could outdrink everyone. Then, as in our purified times, drunkenness not only did not bring shame, but those who either did not drink or could not drink much had to endure ridicule.
The Caesar says the same thing about the Germans, that they drink a drunken drink, brewed in a certain way (beer), to excess, and whoever drinks more than others receives greater honor. But didn’t the Persians also say in honor of Alexander that he was brave, handsome, smart and outdrinks everyone? Among the Greeks for a long time (and hardly even now) this vice was considered a virtue, or better yet, boasting and valor. Anacreon, singing love, together with her glorifies his horns, from which they used to drink, and in the form of these very horns there were pocks made of metal or wood. But our ancestors, especially warriors, loved to drink from the skulls of their worst enemies at ceremonial feasts, as a sign of triumph over them. And this custom is not actually Slavic. Almost all semi-enlightened peoples, who considered war to be their main exercise, did this. An example of this is the Tzelts (Danes), Normans (Swedes), etc. And even now this custom is preserved among many wild peoples.
Yassa
Deity of the Polanian and Hert Slavs.
Pozvizd
The fierce god of bad weather and storms. The Russian epic poet says about him this way:
There's a Whistle; entwined around with storms, like a robe...
And here is the old concept about it:
Torrential rains pour down from the bard,
Evil fogs pour out of your mouth.
Will Pozvizd shake his hair?
Falls to the ground in stripes,
Niv fighter, large hail.
Will it wave the cold hollow?
Star snow is falling in flakes.
Is it flying through cloudy land?
There will be noise and whistling before him;
A regiment of winds and storms rushes behind him,
Calling to the sky dust and leaf;
The hundred-year-old oak cracks and bends;
The forest bends to the ground like grass,
Rivers tremble on their banks.
Is he spinning in the bare rocks?
Whistles, roars, roars, rages.
Will it hit the cliff with its wing?
The mountain will tremble; the cliff is falling:
And thunder rolls in the abysses.
So, Pozvizd looks fierce, his hair and beard are unkempt, his cap is long and his wings are wide open. He, like Virgil’s Aeolus, should have his residence on the high mountains. He had a temple on a field near Kyiv: because superstition thought that this fictional god, formed from the acts of nature, could fly into this inn built for him. The people of Kiev spread his power; they revered him not only as the god of storms, but also of all air changes, both good and bad, beneficial and harmful. That’s why they asked for the granting of red days and the aversion of bad weather, which were considered to be under his power and control. And even more likely it seems that they prayed to him not so much to give them good, but not to cause them harm, for which reason itself and all harmful gods were given veneration. In Vladimiriad, Pozvizd boasts of his strength in this way:
I will move the clouds and disturb the waters,
I will send rain and hail down to the earth like rivers.
In storms I will resort to my characteristic ferocity;
I will overthrow the cities, I will overthrow the royal court...
Dogoda
Here is a sweet deity, the opposite of the ferocious Pozvizd! Young, ruddy, fair-haired, wearing a cornflower blue wreath with blue-edged gilded butterfly wings, in silver-shiny bluish clothes, holding a thorn in his hand, and smiling at the flowers, flying over them and waving them, is the Slavic god of a pleasant spring time; quiet, cool breeze, Dogoda. He had his own temples, and they sacrificed songs and dances to him.
Zimsterla
Under this name, our ancestors revered the goddess of spring and flowers. She had her own shrines, and her holidays were in the month of bloom (April): because in the southern countries of Russia spring begins from this month. This goddess, although she sometimes hides, in due time appears again in her former youth. She is depicted as a beautiful maiden, dressed in a light white Russian dress, girded with a pink belt intertwined with gold; on her head is a wreath of roses; Holding a lily in his hands, he smells it. Her chest is all open; on the neck is a necklace of chicories. Floral shoulder sling. Flowers were sacrificed to her, which, collected in ladles, were placed in front of her idol, just as the temple was cleaned and strewn with flowers on her holidays.
Dogoda is always in love with this goddess, as well as with her gifts.
Zimerzla
The goddess is harsh. Breathing cold and frost. Her clothes are like a fur coat made of frost woven together. And since she is the queen of winter, she wears purple from snow, woven for her by the frosts, her children. On the head is an ice crown, studded with hail. They prayed to this goddess to moderate her cruelty.
UNDERGREATN OR UNDERGROUND GODS
Chernobog
A terrible deity, the beginning of all misadventures and disastrous events, Chernobog was depicted dressed in armor. Having a face filled with rage, he held a spear in his hand, ready to defeat, or more - to inflict all sorts of evil. In addition to horses, not only prisoners were sacrificed to this terrible spirit, but also people specially given to him for this purpose. And how all the national disasters were attributed to him; then in such cases they prayed and sacrificed to him to ward off evil. Mr. Kheraskov describes this terrible false god as follows:
Chernobog comes rustling with weapons;
This fierce spirit left the bloody fields,
Where he glorified himself with barbarity and rage;
Where the bodies were scattered as food for the animals;
Between the trophies where death weaved crowns,
They sacrificed their horses to him,
When the Russians asked for victories.
The strong god was the god of bodily strength and courage; Ice, god of war, courage and military valor, god of victorious glory; But this terrible deity delighted in bloodshed and fury. They erected altars of gratitude, as if for the military gifts they had sent, and prayed to them, asking for strength to protect themselves and drive away enemies: but to this terrible spirit they built temples of Fear and Horror. He was asked only to avert evil as its source; but they did not hope to find goodness in him, and they did not look for it.
From some descriptions it is clear that his temple was built of black stone; the image was forged from iron, in front of which stood an altar for burning victims. The platform of his temple, they say, was filled with blood; which is likely when they imagined him as such a brutal and blood-sucking creature.
Niy
I see fiery Nya:
In it, Russia wanted to be the judge of hell.
He held a fiery scourge in his hands against sinners.
"Vladimiriad"
The mental image of the immortality of the soul and hope endowed in man by nature itselflife after death, whose happy or ill-fated state depends on a vicious or virtuous present life, provided a means for all peoples to invent gods who avenge after death for the iniquities committed in this life. Just like those who spent their lives here piously, but were persecuted by cruel fate without pity, and suffered innocently, the reward prepared for them in the future life consisted of the people’s favorite pleasures, special to them.
The Celtic paradise of heroes or Valhalla delighted the knightly spirit of its saints with militarygames as battles, in which those killed at the onset of dinner time again awakened from mortal sleep, and went with the winners without any enmity to the same table, where they were treateddelicious dishes prepared from wild boar meat, and fed to excess with beer; upon completion, they always returned to their knightly exercises. But the wicked were all in the power of Midgar and Fernis, or their very existence disappeared.
The Slavs believed (following the example of many other peoples) that the place of execution for lawless people was inside the earth. The judge and executor of executions was assigned to them a special inexorable and merciless god Niy,
Who has his throne inside the earth,
And surrounded by a boiling sea of evil.
"Vladimiriad"
This judge of the dead was also considered the sender
Horrible night ghosts.
"Vladim."
From oral traditions remaining in ancient fairy tales, it is clear that the idol of the Chernobogs was forged from iron. His throne was a cornerstone made of black granite, carved as a sign of his dominion; he had a jagged crown on his head, a lead scepter and a fire-like scourge in his hand.
They sacrificed to him not only animal blood, but also human blood, especially duringany social misadventures.
Stribog
A deity who punishes lawless people in the underworld, and the scourge of atrocities in this world. He is also the destroyer of everything visible, like the Indian Siba, or destroyer, just as the god Preserver of the Belly is similar to the Indian deity Vishnu. Those who deserved the curse indulged in his vengeance.
Yaga Baba
This is a very evil, old and powerful witch or sorceress, she looks scary. She doesn'tAs many live in hell as in this world. Her house is a hut on chicken legs, it stands and turns on its own. Our ancient heroes always nursed her lying on a bench; her nose hangs over the garden bed (the hanging pole in the hut is reinforced). This old witch does not walk, buttravels around the world in an iron mortar (i.e., a scooter chariot); and when she walks in it, she forces it to run faster, striking with an iron club or pestle. And so that for reasons known to her no traces of her are visible, they will sweep after her in special ways.mortar made with chalk and broom.
Kikimora
God of sleep and night ghosts. They were imagined to be numerous; and for this reason they can be honored as ministers and ambassadors of the Nieves. They are given origin from the human race; they also live in houses; common people believe that they spin in the dark at night, and although they themselves cannot be seen, they claim that the movement of the spindle can be heard. In fact, either the cat is cooing at the time, or worms are whittling away at the wood, or cockroaches are crawling. However, these spirits are not dangerous; They do not harm anyone, although sometimes they disturb, but not as much as the brownies, whom the common people consider the most restless pranksters. Kikimoras, according to experts subtle in this matter, are the essence of the female race, and from communication with house spirits they continue their own and the latter’s race. They live in houses having been sent there for assigned hours; but their fatherland is hell.
WATER GODS
King of the Sea
The idolatrous Slavs entrusted dominion over the seas to a special deity, calling him the king of the sea. Being as ancient as the sea itself, it has a crown of sea ferns; travels the seas in a shell carried by sea dogs; in one hand he has an oar, a sign of taming the waves, in the other a spear, a sign of their excitement. His abode is in the depths of the ocean, where the palaces and throne are depicted by Mr. Lomonosov:
In the side inaccessible to mortals,
Between the high flint mountains,
What we used to call shoals based on our vision,
The valley covered with golden sand stretched out:
The pillars around it are huge crystals,
Beautiful corals are entwined around them.
Their heads are made of twisted shells,
Surpassing the color of the arc between the thick clouds,
What does the thunderstorm seem to us to have tamed;
A platform of slate and pure azure,
The chambers from one are carved into mountains;
The tops under the scales of great fish are tubercles;
Dressings of the internal cover of craniodermals
Countless beasts in the depths of the possible.
There is a throne strewn with pearls and amber,
On it sits a King like the gray waves.
He extends his right hand into the bays and into the ocean,
He commands the waters with a sapphire scepter.
Royal clothing, purple and fine linen,
What the strong seas bring before his throne.
"Petriad"
He was especially revered by the Pomeranian Slavs, Varangians, that is, sea riders, begging for a happy voyage on the waves.
Miracle of the sea
Servant and messenger of the King of the Sea. He seems to be exactly like the Triton of the Greeks.
HALF-SPIRIT
I give this general name to such dreamed creatures, which we imagined to be neither completely incorporeal nor corporeal, and which seemed to live in their elements, while others lived in forests, rivers, whirlpools, etc. They are:
GOBBLES, inhabitants and guardians of forests. These are of a special nature. When they walk through the forest, they are equal to the forest, but when they walk through the grass, they are equal to the grass; and sometimes they appear to people in human form.
WATER SPIRITS, or Grandfathers, live in deep places of rivers, where they have magnificent houses. They carry away people bathing in those places, especially boys, whom they teach to live in their houses; and these later times take the place of these Grandfathers. Likewise, goblin carry away young children, and, having raised them in their forest abodes, make them their own successors.
Brownies, who live in houses and courtyards. If in a house the Brownie loves the owner, he feeds and cares for his horses, takes care of everything, and braids the owner’s beard. Whose house he doesn’t love, he ruins the owner completely, transferring his livestock, disturbing him at night, and breaking everything in the house.
MERMAIDS, half-spirits of the female gender. They usually live in rivers, from which they often come ashore in red weather, where, sitting, they comb their green hair with a comb; but as soon as they notice someone walking, they immediately rush to the bottom of the streams.
BOGATYRS
They were revered not as gods, but as people gifted above the other highest gifts of heaven, or like the Greeks as their demigods. These were:
VOLOTY, giants of exorbitant size and strength. From the fairy tales of the ancients it is clear that in addition to their strength, they also had the gift of invulnerability. However, it should be noted that the ancient Slavs, under the name Volotov, meant the Romans. The glory of the strength and power of the Roman people represented them as giants; and therefore they made themselves from the Romans special tall, invincible creatures.
POLKAN, also a hero, but only of a wonderful physique. He was half a husband; and from the waist to the bottom a horse. He ran extremely fast; was dressed in armor; fought with arrows. It seems that many were Polkans.
SLAVYAN. The prince of the Slavs, the brother of Vandal, was revered as a demigod. He was credited with excessive strength, courage and bravery. Upon arrival, he and his family and Slavs built the city of Slavyansk on the Volkhov River; After its destruction by the Varangians, after a while it was built again, but under the name of Detinets, and after the destruction of Detinets, Novgorod was erected in its place.
SAG WITH BROTHERS. Volkhv with his brothers Volkhovets and Rudotok were the children of Slaven, all three were heroes. But the Magus was a great wizard. He not only traveled along the Volkhov River, named after him, and before that was called the Mutnaya River, and along the Russian Sea, but even sailed for prey in the Varangian Sea. When he was in Slavyansk, when the enemies approached, he turned into a great snake and lay down from bank to bank across the river, and then not only could no one drive along it, but there was even no way to escape.
Lakes: ILMER and STUDENETS
Rivers: BUG and DON
were adored along with other deities. The huge black forests along the banks were dedicated to them, where, under the death penalty, not only did the shooter or bird-catcher not dare to enter for his craft, and the fisherman did not at all dare to fish, but the water itself was not otherwise allowed to be drawn from them by the coastal inhabitants, as if they were young maidens, neatly dressed in colorful clothes, took water with reverence and deep silence. These red young women believed that the sacred forests were not filled with modest Spirits, which carried every loud word, as a sign of disrespect for the deity, to the guardians of the pagan religion, and whispered meek sighs of love into the ears of their lovers. Preferably a fat ox according to the color of the waters was sacrificed to them, when with the terrible roar of their waves and the howling of fierce winds they terrified people, who predicted destruction for themselves from this. The ancient Slavs did not build temples in honor of their beloved rivers and lakes; but sacred ceremonies were usually performed on the shore. The most magnificent celebrations took place in the spring, when the waters, having destroyed their winter shackles, appeared to their amazed admirers in full majesty. The people fell on their faces. The prayers began. They immersed people in water with great ceremonies; enthusiasts of religion, in the heat of their zeal, voluntarily drowned themselves in a sacred river or lake out of reverence. Excerpts that have survived to us from ancient manuscripts and folk songs in honor of water deities confirm what I said here, and Lomonosov thinks that the Slavs derived the very name of God from the sacred river Bug.
TEMPLE OF SVETOVID
Mertsana still rested in the arms of the King of the Waters; The clock guarded the entrance and exit from Solntsevo's house, and the ever-young Svetovid rested on a golden bed in the arms of Trigla, as Rurik and Oleg ascend the illuminated hill, where the temple of Svetovid rises, a temple exalted and worthy of the god glorified in it! The High Priest of the Svetovids, the God-Speaker, accompanied by the priests, is coming to meet him. Rurik approaches the temple gates; but is surprised to see them closed. “They cannot be opened,” says God, “until the first rays of the sun hit the face of God; and then the sound of the trumpet will announce his presence. When the last ray leaves Svetovidov’s face, the voice of a mournful horn and a dull tambourine announce the hiding of the beneficial luminary from us. In our laws, a dark day is equal to night.” - The night was bright and similar to a winter day, when the sun shines with weak rays through the frost.
The prince, waiting for the first rays on the survey, walked around the temple, wanting to examine it. From below it seemed small to him; but Rurik was surprised to find it huge. It was 1460 steps in circumference. Twelve huge jasper pillars of the Krinthian order supported the canopy of its roof; their heads were made of gilded copper. Three hundred and sixty windows and twelve gates were closed with copper shutters. At each door stood two priests with trumpets. The twelve famous feats of the good god were depicted on the copper gates; how for the benefit of naked people he produced a ram, which at the same moment rushed towards them and offered them his wave; how, having tamed the indomitable ox and given it to them to serve, he invented for them the plow and all the agricultural implements; how he fights and defeats the Black God, who kidnapped his children, the twins Dazhbog and Zimtserla.
There you can see the Miracle of the Sea, the child of Chernobog, how it, having turned into a great cancer, wants to steal the sun; but scorched by its burning rays, it falls - and with a strong blow of its ridge, the flowing Volkhov splashes like a drop, and making a hole in the ground, produces the Russian Sea. Here a terrible lion, with a copper tail and diamond teeth, steals the cattle from Veles, and puts this god in awe; but Svetovid strikes him with a blow from a golden self-cutting hook, takes his tail (from which the snakes were born) and teeth, and places them in the sky, where we still see them and call them a lion. It depicts his love with the beautiful Triglav, and the torment of Chernobog, who is in love with her. Svetovid, playing the harp, sings tender poems to her; she crowns him with a cornflower blue wreath, and Zimtserla, Lada, Seva and Mertsana dance around them. Ruddy-cheeked Didilia with flowing golden hair, in a light scarlet robe, brings them golden heavenly honey, the drink of the gods, in a diamond bowl. Lelya, sitting next to the harp, listens and smiles slyly. Dido, soaring into the air, shoots heavy arrows at Chernobog. Bel-god, hovering above them on a cloud, smiles pleasantly.
There Perun holds the great scales, which he lowered from heaven to resolve the cruel feud between Belbog and his children, and between Chernobog and his children, when a cruel war began between them, which was supposed to destroy the world; when Niy in a frenzy shook the earth, spewing flames from it, the Miracle of the Sea shook its shores, and Yaga, the daughter of Chernobog, armed with an iron club, rode around on her winged chariot and knocked mountains out of their places. But the great Perun wanted to reconcile them and sent one of the Lightnings who served him, so that his will would be proclaimed. Then the clan of Belbog sat in one scale, and the clan of Chernobog in another. Perun raised the scales, and the bowl with Chernobog rose above the dark clouds; but the cup with the children of Belbog remained on the ground. - In another place it was seen how Svetovid struck the great Scorpio when he kidnapped his daughter Zimtserla, mourned by Dazhdbog. Niy, in vain, hid out of fear, and Svetovid returned Dazhbog his sister and wife. But the evil Niy, taking revenge on him for this, brought down night, fierce scum, snow, blizzards onto the earth... Svetovid, having struck them all with golden arrows, drove them back to the region of Niy. Niy, still burning with anger against him, sent the house spirit to kill his beloved horses; but Svetovid created a brave goat with silver horns and waves of silver, and sent it out to exterminate this spirit. - On the tenth doors there is depicted the god of light, a liyu from the mountains, from golden water carriers, abundant water, from which they receive the beginning of the rivers: Volga, Dnieper, Dvina, Don, and the glorious Lake Ilmen. He populates them with fish, releasing two of each kind. Jealous of this, the Sea King sent a whale to devour them; but Striba struck him at the same time with a spear he had invented, and took him out and laid him in the place where the Svetovid temple stands; the hill was made of whale dust. - These were the images on the doors.
The temple was built from light gray wild stone. The overhangs from the wall to the pillars were measured in two large steps, having six steps to the rise. The roof, in a hemisphere, consisted of gilded copper. In the middle of it stood a gilded copper idol of Svetovid; Along the edges on four sides, four idols were placed, carved from marble. In the east is the idol of Mertsana, the goddess who rules over the beginning of the day and always precedes the Sun, the daughter of Dazhbog and Zimtserla, the goddess of spring, the wife of the King of the Sea; her position was to open the gates of his heavenly home for Svetovid when he appeared in the world.
To distinguish her, Svetovid gave her a crown of a single star; and her robe is golden-purple. Joy always shone on her rosy cheeks, and at feasts she offered heavenly honey to the gods. Mertsana, like Svetovid, is ever-young. An idol of Kupala, the son of Mertsana and Seva, was placed in the south. He had the appearance of a young man, wearing short and light clothes. The fire of fruitfulness burned in his eyes; whatever he touched, everything gave birth: not only animals, cattle, fish and reptiles, but even... tree and grass. He lived in the south. They sacrificed to him by lighting only rods, with songs and dances: this represented fruitful fire and gaiety. There is a rabbit at his feet; flaming fire in hand; on his head is a wreath of flowers, called bathing suits after his name. Dogoda, his brother, is the most amiable, meekest and most beautiful of all the gods. The image of Dogodin stood in the west.
His hair flutters over his shoulders: a wreath of thorns; he has blue wings behind his shoulders, and a thin blue robe on him. A smile is always on his rosy face. He is so loved by everyone that he boldly kisses Lada herself; he had a fan in his hands. The idol of the ferocious Pozvizd stood in the north. His face is wrinkled and angry. The head is shrouded in a flap of polar bear skin; frozen beard; deerskin clothing; the feet are shod in eider skin. He held the fur in his hands, ready to untie it for the outpouring of frost, storms, snow, hail, rain and bad weather. He was considered the god of all winds. They say that his dwelling is on the northern edge, on the Scandinavian mountains, where he has his throne, and where he has many children, cruel like him. This god, being the son of Strong God, has fun raising storms, sinking ships, breaking trees, sending scum and bad weather everywhere.
He often demands people as sacrifices. These were the four idols that stood on the roof of the temple. On the hill, up to three hundred and fifty triangular altars were arranged in a proportionate manner. While Rurik was examining and asking the God-Master about the meaning of what he had seen, the voice of trumpets was heard from the twelve gates and the gates opened... The great high priest God-Master entered the western gate intended for him alone to enter. - Rurik and Oleg enter the temple through the eastern gate, and divine fear envelops their soul: they see the face of Svetovid, shining like copper in a crucible. The Great High Priest - as usual, dressed in four thin tunics, one longer than the other: crimson, green, yellow and white; in a guard on which the twelve labors of Svetovid are skillfully embroidered; wearing a golden crown, decorated with seven precious stones, he held in his hand a golden cup filled with the purest spirit of wine. Twelve priests surrounding him held a great silver basin, which had three different legs: one like an eagle, another like an ox, and the third like a whale.
The other priests made up seven singing faces and twelve faces blowing trumpets and horns and beating tambourines, and four faces playing strings and harps. Then the great high priest approached the throne, knelt down, and, raising the golden cup, read prayers; then he touched the horn in Svetovid’s hand with the cup: the wine spirit ignited, and the vaults shook from the voice of trumpets and horns, from the sound of tambourines, from the ringing of strings, harp and guns, and from the voices of singers exclaiming: “Glory!” Meanwhile, the God-knower brought the flaming cup to the Prince, who, having accepted it, poured it into a silver basin, and the azure flame of a pleasing sacrifice rose before God. And then the seven faces, although one at a time around, led by the first songwriter, sang:
FIRST FACE AND TURNOVER
The moon is clear at midnight,
The stars shine brightly at night,
The moon silvers the dark waters,
The stars golden the blue sky;
SECOND FACE AND TURNOVER
It warms and nourishes us;
His call is frightened;
Looks - Zimerzla is running from
eye,-
And Zimtserla comes down to us.
How beneficial it is for us!
THIRD FACE AND TURNOVER
In the east it is joyful to see him:
When it appears on the review,
The golden door then opens
His palaces are led.
He comes from a high mansion,
From high, from heaven,
Like a mighty knight with victory.
Svetovid! We worship you!
FOURTH FACE AND TURNOVER
How cheerful the whole creature is here,
Having met the father and the king!
The heads lift up the trees;
The flower and grass were refreshed;
Birds flutter, sing,
They give glory and honor,
Raising your name.
FIFTH FACE AND VERVER
Trembling with joy
Fields of glassy waters;
The ice sparks brightly,
Seeing him coming...
The forest worships him
Syrbor bows to the earth;
The wind doesn't move the leaves,
And Dubrova does not make noise;
The river rapids only say:
“Great, great Svetovid!”
SIXTH FACE AND TURNOVER
The gods are great; but Perun is terrible!
The heavy foot is terrifying,
Like him, before the terrible
thunderstorms,
Cloaked in darkness, surrounded by whirlwinds,
He leads menacing clouds behind him;
Steps on a cloud - fire from under the feet;
If he waves his robe, the firmament will turn purple;
Looks at the earth - the earth trembles;
He looks at the sea - it boils with foam;
The mountains bow like blades of grass before him.
Your terrible anger is from us
turn me away!..
Throwing a handful of hail a thousand measures,
As soon as I set foot, I was already a thousand miles away;
Only from his heel did the clouds glow,
The strong foot made a dull sound
(He shook the earth and the sea)
And the last one sparkled the floor!..
Quiet, kind Svetovid!
come back,
Comfort us helpless and orphaned!..
It’s cute how he grins at us,
Marching in troubles to console people.
SEVENTH FACE AND TURN
Celestials are revered
For their valor and power;
But the most excellent of all virtues
Virtue with mercy, with meekness;
In mercy there is omnipotence,
The omnipotence of Svetovidovo.
King of the stars, we bow to you,
We bow down before you! -
CHORUS
Only one clear sun warms.
How beneficial it is to us!
Svetovid! We worship you
Raising your name.
How great, how great is Svetovid,
Marching in troubles to console
of people!
King of the stars, we worship you,
We bow down before you!
Therefore, twelve faces playing trumpets, horns and tambourines surrounded the inside of the temple, singing solemn songs in honor of Svetovid.
The loud trumpeting ended, and four young maidens entered; Each of them has a purse in their hands. One was in a scarlet dress, with a blue belt over her shoulder; the head is covered with leafy thorns. Another is dressed in green, having a red bandage, and a wreath of myrtle on her head; the third is in golden color, having a wreath of clas and a crimson sash; the fourth is in a white dress, wearing a silver diadem (diadem), and a gold belt. The first, kneeling down and taking flowers out of the box, scattered them in front of Svetovid; another offered different fruits; third class and grapes; fourth golden crown. Soon the string playing and singing began, and at first each face played especially, and each maiden danced in front of Svetovid; then all four faces, uniting, played songs, and the four maidens danced.
Svetovid’s face became lighter; At the end of the dance, the idol wavered. The high priest, the twelve priests, the rejoicing, the singers, the players, the trumpet-players, the coming prophets and creators fell to the ground; and then Svetovid rivers:
Your name is from the west to the east,
And from my border to the north is your border;
Let your glory fill the world;
Like the sand on the shore, like your flame;
I will honor your age for a thousand years;
And let every person bow to you!
The songwriters collected these verbs, wrote them on a golden board and handed them to Rurik: after reading them, he gave them to the prophets for interpretation.
Then Svetovidov’s face lost its radiance, and the faces announced their departure on trumpets, horns and tambourines. The generous and pious Rurik ordered a white ox to be brought to Svetovid on all altars and sacrificial meat to be divided among the army and the people. - Oleg marched to fulfill this; the Grand Duke and the God-Knower went to his palace to talk with the high priest about everything he had seen, and to learn from him the essence of the Slavic faith.
Abstract on ethnogeography and geography of religions.
Topic: “Religion of the ancient Slavs.”
Introduction.
The beliefs of the ancient Slavs (Slavic paganism) are a complex of views, beliefs and cults of the ancient Slavic tribes, a powerful religious and cultural layer that precedes the Christian one in terms of its existence.
Paganism is a Christian theological term to cover all faiths other than Christianity, Islam and Judaism. Paganism is a very broad concept, covering both the primitive religious ideas of ancient peoples (animatism, animism, ancestor worship, magic, totemism, etc.), and the developed polytheistic systems of the cultural peoples of the ancient world: Egyptians, Sumerians, Greeks, Romans, Celts, Scandinavians , Slavs, etc. Since the religion of the Slavs combined both archaic elements of primitive beliefs and ideas about many gods, the use of this term in relation to it is adequate.
Sources for studying Slavic beliefs
The study of paganism seems to be a very difficult task due to a number of factors. Firstly, this is a huge territory of settlement of Slavic tribes and, as a consequence, different internal trends in their development and the different influence of external factors. Secondly, the uneven pace of historical development in different zones of settlement of Slavic peoples; thirdly, the lack of reliable mythological and religious texts; fourthly, the destruction of the traditional picture of the world and mythological and religious ideas by introduced Christianity.
Due to the lack of authentic pagan texts, the study of this cultural layer is very difficult. The sources of information in this kind of research are the texts of Greek and Arab travelers, various ethnographic information and archaeological sites.
Stages of development of Slavic beliefs.
The question of the ethnogenesis and ancestral homeland of the Slavs still remains debatable, and therefore, it is impossible to indicate the approximate spatial and temporal framework for the emergence of the religion of the ancient Slavs. The first mentions of the Slavs (under the name “Vends”) by ancient authors date back to the 1st-2nd centuries. AD, but at that time these tribes already had a fairly developed system of religious ideas, and were also actively in contact with other ethnic groups, partially adopting their traditions.
The religion of the Slavs has come a long way of changes from primitive animistic ideas to a complex and branched system of polytheistic beliefs.
Animism is one of the central and most ancient Slavic religious views. Initially, it arises as an idea of the existence of a person’s incorporeal double: spirit, shadow. From these ideas gradually grows the belief in the existence of the soul. Moreover, it is not only people who are spiritual. All natural phenomena in the pagan imagination have their own souls.
Also among the Slavs, totemistic beliefs were quite widespread. The characteristic totem animals of the Slavs are elk, bear and wild boar. Over time, the praise of animal ancestors took the form of veneration of the sacred animal of a particular deity. So, the wild boar was considered the sacred animal of Perun, and the bear was considered Veles.
The Slavs also had widespread plant totems. Most often they were oaks, birches, and willows. Trees were widely revered in pagan times, not only as ancestors, but also as sacred objects. This can be confirmed by the veneration of sacred groves or isolated trees near which certain rituals were performed.
Ideas about the soul give rise to belief in the souls of the dead, a kind of other world, which, in turn, leads to the emergence of the cult of ancestors. Scientists associate the emergence of these beliefs with the formation of a developed communal-tribal system among the Slavs and the creation of a separate class of elders. The most respected senior relative was revered in the family even after his physical death, in the role of a patron spirit. Some tribes even decided to bury respected relatives right in the hut, under the threshold or in the red corner. It was believed that in this way the protective ancestor would protect his family from the influence of evil forces.
The cult of ancestors, widespread among the Slavs, evolved over time into polydemonism. Demons are essentially the same spirits that were previously perceived as doubles, “shadows” of things and living beings. In the process of developing ideas, spirits “separate” from their previous carriers and become independent supernatural beings with an anthropomorphic image.
Over time, spirits begin to differ, each spirit having its own “sphere of influence”; There are different types of perfumes. Each of them becomes the “master of the place”, practically omnipotent on his territory. They differ in relation to a person, respectively, into “evil” and “good”. One can also distinguish a separate type of demons that are neutral towards humans. These are brownies, as well as other types of spirits that are closest to human habitation: barns, banniki, etc. Most likely, these demons are the result of the evolution of ideas about guardian ancestors.
Demons, despite all their superhuman strength, are not yet gods. Demons don't create. They are only guardians of a certain area. The gods are creators. It is impossible to name a specific historical moment when polydemonism was replaced by beliefs in gods; one can only assume that this process was associated with the collapse of the communal clan system and the formation of a feudal state-principality. The religious tradition sensitively reflected the socio-cultural changes taking place in ancient Slavic society. As disparate tribes unite into tribal unions, the fragmented and numerous pantheon gradually acquires clearer contours. A certain hierarchy of deities is identified, and the supreme god of the ruling tribe is recognized as superior to all others. But this process was never completed. The last attempt to create a common Slavic pantheon was made by Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavovich immediately after his accession to the Kiev throne in 980. The pantheon of Prince Vladimir, also called the Kyiv pantheon, included six deities. These were mainly South Slavic deities, and their selection not so much reflected the actual beliefs of the people of Kiev, but served political purposes. The god Perun, the patron saint of princes and military squads, was placed at the head of the pantheon. Other deities are Dazhdbog, Stribog, Khors, Simargl and the only female deity of the pantheon - Makosh. At the same time, one of the most respected gods among the people, Veles, the patron of trade, wealth and livestock, was not included in the official princely pantheon, and his idol was located on Podol, at the foot of the Starokievskaya Mountain.
However, this religious reform did not bear much fruit and it was decided to replace the existing faith with a new, Byzantine one.
In 988, Christianity became the official religion of Rus'. The end of the pagan era has come. But echoes of paganism are still preserved in folk culture in the form of song traditions, beliefs, fairy tales, fortune telling and rituals. Christianity was not able to completely displace the ancient tradition, but it significantly transformed it, introducing new cultural meanings. Christian saints in folk tradition acquire the features of ancient gods. In Saint Elijah the image of Perun is clearly visible, in Saint Paraskeva - the image of Mokosh, in Saint Blaise - the image of Veles. Pagan elements are added to Christian holidays, and symbols of Christianity are added to pagan holidays, etc.
Gods of the ancient Slavs.
The Slavs did not have a single polytheistic pantheon of deities. Each tribe had significant differences in their beliefs in gods: their own pantheon was formed, the same gods received different names, there was no single supreme god for all tribes. Although there are a number of deities that researchers recognize as common Slavic. These are such gods as Svarog, Perun, Makosh, Lada, Veles.
Svarog is the god of sky and fire, the father of other gods. B.A. Rybakov believed that Svarog was once the supreme deity of the Slavs, but later his cult faded into the background compared to the cult of Dazhdbog, the god of sunlight.
Perun is the thunder god, patron of warriors and princely power. Among the Western Slavs it is also known under the name Perkunas. Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavovich tried to establish the cult of Perun as the supreme deity in Kyiv.
Makosh is the goddess of fertility, the patroness of women in labor, the goddess of fate. Also referred to as the goddess of water. The personification of the feminine principle. As the goddess of fertility, Makosh is often depicted with a horn, which is considered a symbol of wealth and prosperity.
Lada and her daughter Lelya are goddesses of “birthing women” associated with the ancient cult of fertility. Lada is the goddess of beauty, love, patroness of the summer harvest. Lelya is the goddess of spring, the guardian of young shoots and seedlings. On traditional Russian embroidery, Lada and Lelya are depicted standing next to the “mother of the harvest” Makosh.
Veles is the “god of cattle,” the patron saint of merchants, the god of wealth. Also referred to as the god of the dead. Considered an antagonist of Perun, at least in the Kiev pantheon. Veles was also revered as the patron saint of travelers. Read more about the gods of the Slavs in the article “Gods of the Slavs”.
Idols in the religion of the ancient Slavs.
Idols are stone and wooden sculptures that convey the image of a deity and serve as an indispensable attribute of the religious rites of Ancient Rus'. Very few idols have survived to this day, but this is due not only to the persecution of paganism, but also to the fact that the majority of Slavic idols were wooden. This is probably due to the ancient cult of trees.
Most often, idols were placed on hillocks, on river banks, and in groves. There were also small household idols, which were often hidden from prying eyes. Most likely, the idols were made according to the same pattern, but they differed in design. For example, the idol of Perun in Kyiv, as the chronicle says, was, although wooden, with a silver head and a golden mustache. Sometimes idols were dressed, sometimes weapons were placed near them. Some idols held horns in their hands (for example, the idol of Mokosh, with a horn in his hands as a symbol of wealth) or bowls.
It is characteristic that for the Slavs, like any other pagans, an idol is not just an image, it is the deity itself. Therefore, damaging a statue is the same as harming God himself. Therefore, when the people of Kiev were supposed to be baptized in 988, many of them hid household idols in Kyiv caves, saving them from destruction. Read more about idols in the article "Slavic idols".
Priesthood and sacrifices of the ancient Slavs.
The Eastern Slavs did not have a centralized priestly apparatus. Rituals of individual family significance were often performed by the eldest man of the family, and rituals of collective, communal significance were performed by its head, elder. Among the Western Slavs, who were under the influence of the Baltic and Germanic tribes, the institution of priesthood was formed. Western Slavs built temples in honor of their gods. At the same time, temples often housed idols of the entire pantheon, and not of any individual deity. The Eastern Slavs did not build temples and prayed to their gods in the open air. The role of temples for them was played by temples located in sacred groves or on the dominant heights of a certain area. The temple consisted of two main parts: the “temple” itself, where the idols of the revered gods were located, and the “treasure”, where the altar was located and sacrifices were made. Among the Western Slavs, the temple was fenced off with screens and curtains, only the priest could enter it; Among the Eastern Slavs, any believer could approach idols.
The role of the altar was often played by a large fireplace. One of these altars was excavated at the beginning of the twentieth century. V.V. Khvoyka on Starokievskaya Mountain. The altar was the remains of a pillar in which layers of burnt clay alternated with layers of ash and charcoal. A large number of bones of various animals were found around the pillar, which gives an idea of the nature of the sacrifices. The Slavs have no convincing information about human sacrifices.
Magi in the religion of the ancient Slavs.
The Slavs also had so-called Magi. Contrary to popular belief, they were not priests, although some researchers associate the name “magician” with the name of the god Veles. Rather, they played the role of guardians of ancient knowledge, healers and seers. The motif of “prophetic” wise men is mentioned quite often in the chronicles of Kievan Rus.
The Magi compiled calendars, stored and transmitted ancient myths, and served as soothsayers and sorcerers. Mentions have been preserved, including in chronicles, of miracles performed by the Magi. According to the report of the Arab traveler Ibn-Dast, the Magi had enormous influence on the prince of Kyiv and that it was they who appointed sacrifices to the gods.
Ideas about the afterlife among the ancient Slavs.
The Slavs have quite varied ideas about the life of a person’s soul after the death of his physical body. First of all, there was an opinion that a person after a violent, unnatural death, or one over whom the correct funeral rites were not performed, becomes a spirit of nature, often hostile to people. Such spirits include ghouls, goblins, water spirits and other evil spirits. The souls of witches and sorcerers, who continue to harm people after death, do not find peace either.
In the ideas of the Slavs there was also a mysterious afterlife called Iriy, Vyriy. After death, the souls of those who were buried according to custom, the “pure” dead, fell into it. Such dead people were called “grandfathers” and they believed that they could help their descendants who remained in the world of the living. According to Slavic beliefs, life “in the next world” was a continuation of earthly life.
Holidays and rituals of the ancient Slavs.
It would be appropriate to divide the ritual component of Slavic paganism into two spheres. The first of them are rituals of communal, national significance, which include calendar holidays associated with the agrarian cult, and holidays in honor of the gods. The second is rituals and ceremonies of individual and family significance, such as weddings, “maternity” rites, and funerals. Otherwise, they can be called rites of passage. If most community rituals are determined by the calendar cycle, then family rituals are life cycle rites, akin to initiation rites, recording the change in a person’s status both in the family and in society as a whole.
The calendar holidays of the Slavs were associated with the agricultural cycle and, accordingly, with the solar cult. There are many reconstructions of the calendar of Slavic holidays, but there are no reliable sources on this issue. Archeology and ethnography provide important information about festive rituals, but these data do not have an unambiguous interpretation. Moreover, in each locality the rituals had their own characteristic features. For example, the effigy of Madder (Mara, Witch, etc.), which was subject to ritual destruction on the Kupala holiday, was performed in different areas by burning, tearing into pieces, or drowning the effigy. The scarecrow itself could be replaced by a decorated tree, a cow skull, or just a bunch of herbs.
Also major pan-Slavic calendar holidays include Maslenitsa (“komoeditsa”) and Kolyada, Kupala and Tausen.
Maslenitsa is a holiday of farewell to winter and welcoming of spring. Pancakes are an obligatory attribute of Maslenitsa. It is believed that the round pancake is a symbol of the sun.
Kolyada is a winter holiday of the sun, marking the turn of the sun from winter to summer. It was celebrated by the Slavs on December 21, the day of the winter solstice - the shortest day of the year. Integral attributes of the holiday were gifts and dressing up (dressing up, the custom of “leading a goat”, “caroling”).
Kupala is the holiday of the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. A huge number of legends and beliefs are associated with the Kupala holiday. On the festive night they tell fortunes, look for the legendary fern flowers, and burn an effigy of Madder, which symbolizes victory over death.
Tausen is the autumn equinox holiday associated with the harvest, the end of all peasant seasonal work.
Rites of passage are rites that mark the most important milestones in a person’s life, a change in his social status. Such rites are divided into two subtypes: “extreme” (maternity and funeral rites, respectively, entry and exit from the life cycle) and “middle” (wedding rites, various initiations and dedications).
The maternity and wedding rites of the Slavs were reconstructed on the basis of chronicle records and ethnographic material.
The ritual complex associated with the birth of a child occurs in several stages and is, in part, not only family, but also community in nature. First of all, the midwife prepares the expectant mother for childbirth, which is accompanied by a certain set of ritual actions, such as stepping over a rope. Sometimes the father of the child also participates in such rituals. After childbirth, which took place not in the house, but in another room (often in a bathhouse), a ritual is performed to welcome a new member of the community. This is usually ablution, i.e. ritual cleansing of the child, as well as his mother and midwife.
The wedding ceremony takes place in three stages, in each of which the same ritual actions are repeated, which gradually develop and become more complex. These main steps are:
1) matchmaking;
2) engagement;
3) the wedding itself.
All three stages of the wedding are characterized by the motive of the groom kidnapping the bride and paying a ransom for the bride. The complex of wedding rituals also includes purification rituals associated with the ancient cults of water and fire and reflecting the idea of the purifying properties of the elements. (see Wedding customs of the ancient Slavs)
The funeral rite of the Slavs has been most accurately reconstructed in comparison with other ritual complexes, mostly thanks to archaeological data. Judging by them, the funeral rite of the Slavs went through a long development path from the culture of the fields of funeral urns, characteristic of the end of the Bronze Age, to the complex burial mounds of the 10th century AD. Almost all burials of the pagan era were carried out according to the rite of cremation (cremation). This was probably due to the nature of the Slavs' beliefs in the soul and its afterlife. The ritual of inhumation (deposition of a corpse) replaced cremation only with the final introduction of Christianity in Rus'.
The ancient burial grounds of the Slavs were collective. Urns containing the ashes of the dead were buried in the ground within the tribe’s burial complex, a kind of cemetery. Sometimes some of the deceased’s belongings were buried along with the urn. Later burials were carried out in the form of round (Polesie, Dniester) or long (the basin of lakes Ilmen and Pskov) mounds. Most burial mounds are collective. Individual burials spread in the 10th – 11th centuries. (for example, on the territory of the Chernigov principality).
Conclusion.
The religion of the ancient Slavs is a fairly developed system of pagan beliefs, professed by Slavic tribes before the adoption of Christianity. The specificity of Slavic paganism lies in the free coexistence of both developed polytheistic and archaic agrarian cults, animistic and polydemonic ideas, and the cult of ancestors. Another characteristic feature of the religion of the ancient Slavs is its heterogeneity, the difference between cults among different tribes, the veneration of different deities, and excellent cult practices in different areas. The paganism of the Slavs is not only a system of cults, but also a worldview, a worldview, reflected in the further development of the cultures of the Slavic peoples.
We, modern people, are accustomed to looking at the world through the prism of science: soberly and rationally. Even the most striking manifestations of the elements, such as earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions, solar and lunar eclipses, do not evoke in us the same horror of the unknown that once possessed our ancestors. For we know that behind the phenomena of nature there is not God, not the Devil, not evil spirits, but blind forces tamed by those general laws that are known to us from the world of physics, forces that we are able to comprehend, calculate and measure. Therefore, modern man sees himself more as the ruler of nature than as its victim. However, in ancient times, people perceived the world completely differently. He was mysterious and enigmatic. And since the reasons for everything that happened to them and around them were beyond their understanding, and since they could not explain what the essence of thunderstorms and hail, droughts and floods, plague epidemics and invasions of insect pests, diseases and death, nightly nightmares and mental illnesses - they involuntarily attributed all these terrible phenomena, events and blows of fate to dark forces: gods and demigods, fairies and elves, necromancers and gnomes, devils and demons, ghosts and restless souls who lived in the sky, underground or in water. People imagined themselves to be prey to these omnipresent spirits, because happiness or misfortune, health or illness, life or death could depend on their mercy or anger. Every religion originates from the fear of the unknown, paganism is no exception.
The topic of Slavic (in particular, East Slavic) paganism has recently become very popular. In addition to scientific interest itself, its relevance today is also determined by other factors: many political movements (primarily “patriotic”, including “ultra-patriotic”) are trying to exploit it for their own purposes. This, naturally, does not contribute to increasing the objectivity of the results obtained. However, this situation is not unique. The study of paganism in pre-revolutionary Russia was under the rather solid pressure of the state religion. Moreover, spiritual censorship at that time exceeded secular censorship in its severity. Nevertheless, it should be noted that the increased interest in pagan issues has led to the appearance of a huge number of works in which it is studied using a wide variety of material and at a variety of levels: from purely academic studies to completely fantastic constructions. Even for a specialist, navigating this array of publications is far from easy.
The word “culture” comes from the word “cult” - the faith, customs and traditions of ancestors. Anyone who forgets this has no right to be considered a cultured person.
Before Christianity and other monotheistic religions, all peoples were pagans. The culture of earthlings dates back thousands of years. In Russia, the countdown of national culture, at best, dates back to the baptism of Rus', at worst - from 1917. In both cases, the ancient history of peoples, and, most importantly, their views on space, nature and man, is excluded from the sphere of knowledge of ordinary people. In particular, not a word is said about paganism in schools. Not only the students, but also the teachers have no idea about paganism.
Christianity, which originated far from the Slavic tribes, perceived Slavic paganism as an alien religion, and it was cruelly destroyed from above. The people resisted this for several centuries and introduced paganism into Christianity in different ways (through allegory, coding, hint, essence, etc.). We still believe in some pagan signs and customs to this day.
Pretending that our ancient ancestors did not have any views, ideals and cults, we thereby squeeze the understanding of the history of the people, and especially their spirituality, into the bed of Darwinism, which denies all spirituality (the Divine origin of the spirit) of man and explores him only with the help of apes physiology.
Paganism is surrounded, on the one hand, by the secrets of oblivion and many losses, like an ancient lost and therefore completely unfamiliar world. On the other hand, there is an unspoken “taboo” on it. This latter phenomenon - the phenomenon of trampling, erasing their original culture from the consciousness of people - began among the Eastern Slavs with the introduction of Christianity and was not canceled with the advent of atheists to Rus' in 1917. Therefore, if anyone treats paganism and atheism as equally godless phenomena, he is deeply mistaken.
Atheism is opposed to any religion and spirituality. Paganism is a religion, and it is close to any other religion in its main essence - faith in God. That is why paganism, while simultaneously drawing closer to each other through its different channels, also came closer to other, later, monotheistic religions that came along an evolutionary path (man became more complex, his ideas about the cosmos and God became more complex), merged with them and, in many ways, dissolved in them.
Paganism - from “tongues” (essence: peoples, tribes); this word combines the principle of faith of different peoples. The very faith of these peoples, even within the framework of a tribal union, could be very different among themselves.
Slavic paganism developed in different directions: some tribes believed in the forces of space and nature; others - into Rod and Rozhanits, others - into the souls of deceased ancestors and spirits (spiritualized forces); fourth - in totem animals-ancestors, etc. Some buried their dead ancestors in the ground, believing that they would then help the living from the Other World and leave them something to eat. Others burned the dead in boats, sending their souls on a heavenly voyage; they believed that if the body was burned, the soul would quickly rise to heaven and there each would be assigned to its own star (hence, reposed).
In ancient times, the Slavs had certain places for burning the dead and for making pagan sacrifices - altars in the open air in the form of a triangle, square or circle, which were called krada; stealing was also the name given to a burning sacrificial fire. “Thefts and idolatry”, wrote Nestor the chronicler. There was also a deity guarding the altar, probably called Krada (Crodo). In the funeral cult, a combination of opposing aspirations was universally widespread: to remove a potentially harmful dead person to another world and at the same time keep a beneficent ancestor close to the collective, to ensure the possibility of contact with another world; The presence of funerary monuments, burial grounds, etc. is associated with the latter. The Slavic tradition of corpse burning includes various methods of handling ashes - from simple scattering to burial in a hole and collecting in an urn. In traditional Slavic rituals directed against ghouls, actually in Russian, cremation is important as the only radical way to deal with a ghoul. In one of the Russian fairy tales, a deceased sorcerer, who after his death terrorized the entire village, himself describes a way to get rid of him: “Now, if someone gathered a hundred cartloads of aspen wood and burned me with it, then maybe he would have dealt with it.” by me!
There was a belief that the burnt person is carried away to paradise-vyry (Iriy, Aryan; hence the ancient name of the Aryans), immediately, in front of his loved ones. The soul was associated with breath and smoke. Then the soul was picked up by the larks, the first birds to fly from the paradise of Vyria in the spring. The day of arrival of larks - March 9 - was considered the day of remembrance of ancestors and was called Radunitsa. During the period of struggle with the pagan gods, an image of the enemy was created, so the day of remembrance of the dead, according to Slavic customs, was initially moved to May 1, in connection with the Easter calendar, and was considered a demonic, unclean day, or rather at night (Walpurgis Night). But later, imperceptibly, the Slavic day of remembrance of the dead and Christian Easter came closer.
The most ancient non-personified gods of the Slavs are Rod and Rozhanitsy. The genus was sometimes identified with the phallus, sometimes with the grain (including the solar rain grain that fertilizes the earth). Women in labor are the female generative principle that gives life to all living things: humans, flora and fauna. Later, Rod and Rozhanitsy began to perform more functions, unified into the supreme gods and were personified in different tribes of the Slavs - they received proper names: Yarovit, Svetovid, Rigevit, Makosh, Golden Baba, Didilia, Zizya, etc.
Ancient Slavic customs include the worship of ghouls and beregins, also non-personalized deities personifying the souls of once dead people - good and evil, helping and harming. The souls of those who died in a foreign land, were innocently killed or were not buried according to the customs of their ancestors were considered especially restless and restless. Only under the shadow of the customs of their ancestors could a person feel calm even after death. Such souls were also called navyi and tried to appease them, always presenting them with sacrifices - food.
Beregini (like the Greek penates) protected the well-being of different places and types of nature, as well as the house. There were many house spirits: brownie, kutny drowma (domestic peaceful deity of sleep), bayunok (storyteller, night storyteller, lullaby songwriter), laziness, otet (extreme laziness), okoyom, prokurat, prokudy (rogues, unhearing, pranksters), bannik (spirit of the bathhouse), evil spirits (Ukrainian “butt you evil spirits!”), demons, devils, shishigi (devils with hair sticking out like a shish), kikimora or shishimora (devil with hair sticking out like a shish, the deity of restless dreams and night phenomena). The Proto-Slavic “chert” means damned, who has crossed the line, the border.
There were many beregins; they saved people everywhere: at home, in the forest, in the field, on the water, they protected crops, barnyards, children, sang lullabies to them, told them fairy tales (tales), and brought them dreams. Later they received their own names, some - their own group names, for example, their own Did, Baba - ancestors; group - mermaids, goblins, etc.
Grandfather (did) – ancestor, ancestor. For those who believed that they descended from Perun (Olgovichi and others), this is also a synonym for Perun. The grandfather is the guardian of the family and, above all, of the children, of course. The eldest man, a representative of the clan eldership, who pacifies passions within the clan, preserves the basic principles of the morality of the clan, strictly monitoring their implementation. Some East Slavic tribes called grandfather (did) the house deity who guards the hearth (way of life), the stove fire, like a small Perun fire, in contrast to the big one in the sky. The forest deity, the keeper of Perunov’s treasure (gold, silver, that is, lightning, thunderstorms, silver rain), was also called grandfather. They prayed to the grandfather for instructions, for the discovery of the treasure. According to legend, where the light flashes, there is this treasure (rain with a thunderstorm), which is vital and important for people (for the clan, home, Perun’s descendants). Grandfather (did) is mentioned in old Slavic songs:
“And we sowed millet, we sowed, oh did-lado we sowed, we sowed,
And we’ll trample down the millet, we’ll trample down, oh did okay we’ll trample down…”
Woman. The most ancient of them is Baba Yaga. Everyone has questions: what does Yaga mean? Why is she so scary? And even more so, no one believes that Baba Yaga was initially a caring caretaker.
The word “Yaga” is coarsened from “Yashka”. Yasha in Slavic songs was called foot-and-mouth disease - who once lived on earth and disappeared, the progenitor of all living things; hence our more understandable one - ancestor. Baba Yaga is initially a progenitor, a very ancient positive deity of the Slavic pantheon, a guardian (warlike if necessary) of the clan and traditions, children and the surrounding (often forest) space. During the period of the introduction of Christianity, all pagan gods, deities, spirits, including those who protected people (beregins), were given evil, demonic features, ugliness in appearance and character, and evil intentions. So the pagan strict ancestor was turned into an evil demon, which is still used to scare small children.
In various Slavic tribes there were later other ancestors who received proper names: Golden Baba, Golden Mother, Makosh, etc.
There are especially many beregins (they were also later given evil traits) among the goblins: forester, woodsman, leshak, wild man, Mikola (Nikola) Duplyansky, companion, boletus, crafty (bent and twisted like a bow, and the same internally, which is the main thing) , grandfather, grandfather; as well as demons (the Slavic “demon” means literally “without”, and then a positive concept could follow, for example, a person without... conscience, God, concept (knowledge), goodness, justice, honor, mind, etc.; devils; shishigi; forest ghouls; anchutki (a cross between a devil and a duck); the miraculous king; small spirits, the one-eyed bird; , which were the embodiment of the forest as a space hostile to humans.
At times, the goblin was almost no different from people, but more often the owner of the forest appeared dressed in animal skin (dlaka); sometimes he had animal attributes: horns, hooves, etc. Endowed (possibly later) with negative signs, “left”: the left side is draped over the right, the left bast is put on the right leg, the goblin could be one-eyed or crooked in the left eye, lame in the left leg, etc.
In winter, the “habitual” goblin in the forest were supplanted by Perun’s assistants, who were even more strict towards people, the Kalinniki (from the word “kalit”): Morozko, Treskunets, Karachun. Thus, a person, leaving home for the forest or field, prepared himself for a constant struggle with unforeseen circumstances and merciless elements; and on the other hand, he could always count on the unexpected help of the forest deity, the forest owner, so I tried to please him: not to harm the forest, not to beat animals unnecessarily, not to break trees and bushes in vain, not to litter the forest, not even to shout loudly, not disturb the peace and quiet of nature.
The fact that they tried to make an evil spirit out of the Slavic kikimora (shishimora) - the deities of sleep and night ghosts - is evidenced by the second part of the word - “mora”. Mora (Mor), Mara - the goddess of death (many universal gods had female and male hypostases - and this speaks of their antiquity: they went through the stages of matriarchy and patriarchy). But still, kikimora is not death. If she gets angry and plays pranks, for example, disturbs the kids at night, confuses the yarn left out at night, etc. - does not mean that someone will die as a result of her evil tricks (as we understand the word “hilarious”). Kikimora is a weak, like a crooked mirror reflection of only the fear of death, or even just fear.
Christianity managed to turn into its opposite the mermaid, the oldest species of shore goddess who lived in the waters. She was always depicted with a woman's face and bare breasts, a fish body and tail. The word “bereginya” itself comes from the concept of protecting, helping a wandering, sailing, or distressed person to get to the shore. The Slavs did this with mermaids. However, during the period of criticism and denial of paganism, demonization of pagan gods, the idea was gradually introduced that mermaids were drowned women and dead unbaptized children. They began to be afraid. It was believed that they were most dangerous for people during Rusal Week (June 19-24), before Ivan Kupala, especially on Thursday (Perunov's Day). During the mermaid week, they sang mermaid songs, hung yarn, threads, and towels on trees and bushes - symbolic clothing for mermaids; either to appease them, or to pity them.
The ancient Semargl, a sacred winged dog that guards seeds and crops, ascended to the shores. Semargl is, as it were, the personification of armed (militant) good. Later, Semargl began to be called Pereplut, perhaps because it was more associated with the protection of plant roots. The cult of Pereplut celebrated its mermaid week. And seeds and crops began to be protected by Yadrei and Obilukha. Mermaids and pitchforks were also involved in this, they brought news of rain.
Beregins also included birds with a female face: the sweet-sounding Sirin, the Phoenix bird reborn from the ashes, Stratim - the mother of all birds, the oldest and largest, the Firebird, swan girls (swans), Nail-bird, etc.
The mythical half-animals, half-humans were also called chimerical or chimeras. The purpose of many beregins has now been lost. There is especially a lot of confusion with chimerical creatures. For example, the dog name Polkan was common; many researchers believe that in ancient times there was such a winged dog (confusing it with Semargl), while polkan (polkon) is literally a half-horse. The half-horse guarded the solar horses of Svetovid, the horses (herd) of the sun gods and the thunder gods. Among the half-horses are the Russian Little Humpbacked Horse, Sivka-Burka, etc. In appearance, they are half or much smaller than the heroic horses of God, they are inconspicuous, sometimes even ugly (hump, long ears, etc.). In a metaphorical sense, they are precisely half-horses, half-people: they understand the affairs of people (gods, demons), speak human language, distinguish between good and evil, and are active in affirming good (this remains from the beregins).
There is also an extraordinary deity: Chur - the deity of the border, one of the most ancient deities-beregins. Derived from "shchur".
The land in which the ancestors (ancestors) of any clan rested, and which was passed on by inheritance from generation to generation, was considered inviolable. According to the beliefs of many tribes, the souls of those who do not respect the sanctity of borders, move boundary stones (pillars), manage the land of other people's ancestors, are cursed, and after death wander without refuge. Or such people are forever forced to carry stones and rush through the fields, finding peace nowhere; or rush through the fields like a will-o'-the-wisp.
Chur is connected to the world. It illuminates and protects the right of property (cf. “keep away - mine!”), the settledness of man on earth, humane moral principles, divides everything fairly: “keep away - in half!”, “keep away - together!”.
The word “chur” is associated with “devil”, “outline”, “outline”. The Proto-Slavic “chert” is a cursed person who may have violated borders, boundary, geographical, and then inevitably, moral; replacing good with evil.
Many references to solar cosmic pagan gods have reached us. These gods are late, they no longer had their own personal names and, as a rule, their “retinues” or entourage of deities and spirits promoting their affairs and destiny (like earthly kings; truly man, becoming more complex from century to century, created gods according to own image and likeness).
In “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign”, Svarog is mentioned - the god of the sky (Indian Svarga - sky), hence, by the way, our expression “swara”, “boil” - to swear, scold, to be like heaven in bad weather. Dazhdbog in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” is called “fire Svarozhich”.
Connected with Svarog, Stribog is the god of air currents and elements. Apparently, it was he who controlled the winds, the proper names of some of them are lost, perhaps one of them was called Wind, another Hurricane, etc. But the name of the two winds has reached us. This is Pogoda (Dogoda) - a light pleasant westerly breeze. It is no coincidence that all other states of the atmosphere, except for the one named, are called bad weather. Posvist (Pozvizd or Pokhvist) is the elder wind living in the north. He was depicted wearing a huge flowing cloak. In fairy tales, Pozvizd is sometimes replaced by the Nightingale the Robber, who figuratively embodied all the evil and destructive power of the wind.
Among researchers of Slavic culture, there is no single answer to the question, who was the sun god of the ancient Slavs? Some believe that the sun god of the ancient Slavs was Yarilo, others - Dazhdbog, others call Svetovid - this is not entirely true. In part, each of the main tribal pagan gods, such as Dazhdbog and Svetovid, had the characteristics of the Sun God, on the other hand, these gods and the sun were given masculine properties, the properties of the Family (Yarila). However, the Slavs actually had a sun god, his name was Khoros. It is known most of all among the southeastern Slavs, where there is, of course, a lot of sun, the sun there simply reigns over the rest of the world. It is no coincidence that in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” Horse is mentioned precisely in connection with the south, with Tmutarakan. Prince Vseslav, making his way to Tmutarakan at night, “crossed the path of the great Khorsa with a wolf,” that is, he made it before sunrise. It is believed that the southern city of Korsun also received its name from this word (originally Khorsun).
From the ancient roots “horo” and “kolo”, meaning circle, the solar sign of the sun, the words “round dance”, “mansions” (circular building of a yard), and “wheel” are formed. The Scythian plowmen (proto-Slavs who lived precisely in the south) called themselves the descendants of the sun (the sun god) - the Skolots. The most famous king of Skolot bore the name Koloksai, that is, the king of the solar people, or the people descended from the sun.
Two very large Slavic pagan holidays of the year are dedicated to Khors (associated with Svetovid, Yarila, Yarovit, etc.) - the days of the summer and winter solstice. In June - when a heavy wheel was necessarily rolled down from the mountain to the river - a solar sign of the sun, symbolizing the sun's retreat for the winter) and December - when Kolyada, Yarila, etc. were honored).
Many, even those who have heard carols, do not know what “Kolyada” means. Kolyada is a diminutive of “kolo”, the sun-baby (it was represented as a boy or a girl, because for a small child, gender does not yet play any role; the sun itself is neuter). This deity arose from the holiday of the winter solstice, from the poetic idea of the birth of a small sun, that is, the sun of the next year (this ancient idea of the annual baby has not died to this day. It is transferred to the concept of “new year” both on cards and in the New Year’s decoration of festivities It is no coincidence that artists depict him as a boy flying in space.
On December 25th (June month) the sun begins to turn towards spring. Kolyada (cf. bell-wheel, circle - solar sign of the sun) was represented as a beautiful baby captured by the evil witch Winter, who turns him into a wolf cub (cf. synonym for wolf - fierce - with the Proto-Slavic name of the harshest month of winter (February - fierce) Only when the wolf's skin, and sometimes other animals, is removed and burned on fire (spring warmth), then Kolyada will appear in all the splendor of its beauty. Kolyada was celebrated on winter holidays from December 25 (Christmas Eve) to 6. January (Veles Day) This time coincides with severe frosts (cf. Moro - death), blizzards (cf. Viy) and the most violent dens of unclean (in the Christian view) spirits and evil witches, who hide the month and the stars. Everything is covered with frost. covered and seems dead. However, winter holidays are the most joyful revelry of Slavic festivities. The sun dresses up in a sundress and a kokoshnik and rides “in a painted cart on a black horse” to warm countries (for spring and summer, boys and girls “dressed up”). in hari" or "larva and scarecrow", the mummers walked around the courtyards, singing carols - songs glorifying Kolyada, who gives blessings to everyone. They also glorified the well-being of home and family (they wished for everything “that the owner likes”), where carolers cheerfully demanded gifts and gifts (or rather, gifts for caroling), jokingly predicting ruin for the stingy. The gifts themselves are ritual cookies: bagels, cows, kozulki, pies and loaves - symbols of fertility. The loaf, for example, symbolizes the obesity of a cow (old-fashioned - kravy).
On the nights of winter Christmastide, fortune-telling took place for the future harvest, for the offspring, and most of all for marriages. There are countless ways of fortune telling. This custom comes from the desire to communicate with the ancient Slavic goddess, who was represented as a beautiful spinning girl spinning the thread of fate, the thread of life - Srecha (Meeting) - in order to find out her destiny. For different tribes, the synonyms “court”, “fate”, “share”, “fate”, “lot”, “kosh”, “sentence”, “decision”, “choice” have the same meaning.
Srecha is a night goddess. No one saw her spinning, so fortune telling took place at night. Most often they guessed about the betrothed (cf. the word “bride” literally means “unknown”). It is assumed that the duties of the goddess of fate among other East Slavic tribes were performed by Makosh, who patronized household work, including spinning. On spinning wheels, the Slavs often depicted their idea of the universe, encrypting its symbols and signs.
If during the winter holidays fortune-telling took place at night, then during the day - ladins - brides' consorts, and then weddings.
The Slavic holiday Kupalo is associated with the summer solstice. Summer Solstice Day is the most important holiday of the Slavs. On this day, the sun (Horse, Kolo) in a smart chariot rides out from its heavenly palace to meet the month - its husband. The summer solstice is the time of the highest development of the creative forces of nature. At this time, Yarilo, Kupalo (bunch - bush, sheaf of plants, grass) can and should die until next spring.
On the night of June 24, there was a custom not to sleep: to watch the meeting of the month with the sun, so as to see how “the sun shines.” The Slavs went to ritual hills, called differently (Yarilina bald spot - near Pereslavl Zalessky, Bald Mountain - near Saratov and in other areas, there were Vorobyovy, Devichy or Devin Mountains), or to clearings near rivers, burned bonfires, sang, danced in circles , caddisflies. Jumping over fires was both a test of dexterity and fate: a high jump symbolized good luck in plans. With jokes, feigned cries and obscene songs, straw dolls of Yarila, Kupala, Kostrubonka or Kostroma (bonfire - woody parts of flax, hemp) were burned.
At dawn, everyone participating in the holiday bathed in order to relieve themselves of evil infirmities and illnesses.
On Kupala night, according to legend, all sorts of miracles happened: rare mysterious herbs bloomed - gap-grass, fern, etc.; unprecedented treasures were discovered. Evil spirits - witches and sorcerers - also indulged in all sorts of revelry, stealing the stars, the month, etc.
From the merger of the name of the pagan Slavic holiday Kupala and the Christian Midsummer Day (meaning John the Baptist), a new name for the holiday emerged - Ivan Kupala.
If Khors was the god of the sun, then Svetovid, Dazhdbog, Rugevit, Porevit, Yarovit, Belbog carried within themselves the masculine generic principle, and the solar, cosmic one. These gods of late Slavic paganism are the supreme (tribal) gods of different tribes, so their functions have a lot in common.
Dazhdbog is one of the most famous gods of the East Slavic tribes. The author of “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” calls all Russians God’s grandchildren. That is, this is literally our grandfather, ancestor, ancestor, progenitor. This is a giving god, a giver of earthly goods, and also a god who protects his family. He gave man everything important (by cosmic standards): the sun, warmth, light, movement (of nature and the calendar - the change of day and night, seasons, years, etc.). It is likely that Dazhdbog was more than the sun god, although he was very close to this; he meant what we call “the whole white light.” In addition, like all tribal gods, he carried the light, creative masculine principle, the heavenly principle, in contrast to the dark, feminine, birthing, earthly principle. Metaphorically it is called “Svarozhich fire”. Svarog is the god of the sky (as the cosmos), which means Dazhdbog is the fire (light) of heaven.
Belbog is also a guardian (conservative) and a giver of goodness, good luck, justice, happiness, and all blessings. In the word “byblago” there is a reduced vowel, after its fall the word is read “good”.
An ancient sculptor made a statue of Belbog with a piece of iron in his right hand (hence justice). Since ancient times, the Slavs knew a similar (test with iron) method of restoring justice. Having picked up a piece of iron, you had to take several steps with it. The hand damaged by the test was greased and allowed to heal. A few days later, “informed people” examined her. If the scars healed well, the person was considered innocent.
Such tests, which seem cruel and senseless to us now, were carried out, however, in Rus' before the time of Ivan the Terrible. It is no coincidence that bloody sacrifices were offered to God, who administered justice, so that he would not allow a terrible punishment for a person: to be condemned, and, moreover, convicted unfairly. The execution is heavy, but the burden of shame is even heavier. Since ancient times, the concept of “branded with iron” was equivalent to “branded with shame.” From here we learn that the supreme Slavic gods had another function - the Supreme Judge, Conscience, Zealot of Justice, as well as the Punishing God, protecting the race from moral decline.
Of all the gods, the temple and the four-faced statue of Svetovid, as well as the ritual of the festival associated with it, are described in most detail by eyewitnesses. This happened because the temple of Svetovid was located in the distance and existed longer than all the pagan temples - until the 12th century.
Holidays in honor of Svetovid began at the end of the harvest, in August. The Slavs brought fruits collected from fields, gardens and vegetable gardens as gifts to God. The priest filled Svetovid's horn with new wine, symbolizing the fullness of the next year's harvest. Many young animals were sacrificed to Svetovid, which were immediately eaten during the feast.
Svetovid, like Dazhdbog, meant what we used to call “the whole white world”, and therefore the god of the Western Slavs was well known in the East Slavic world, it is no coincidence that the word “Yuletide” - games in honor of the god Svetovid - is common among the Eastern Slavs: Russians , Ukrainians, Belarusians and throughout the Slavic world.
On the same island of Rugen in the city of Karenze there was an idol of Rugevit, the supreme god of one of the Slavic tribes. Ruge - (meadows) - the name of the tribe (possibly a self-name), and vita - life. Just like the word “Svetovid”. Consists of “light” and “vit”. The statue of Rugewit was made of a huge oak tree, and the temple had walls made of red carpets or red fabrics. Rugewit had seven faces. On his belt hung seven swords with knives, and he held one sword in his right hand. Rugevit stood guard over the life of his tribe.
In the same city of Karenze there was also a statue of Porevit. Probably also one of the tribal supreme gods, but more ancient, the connection with which was lost, so many historians found it difficult to explain its purpose. It's time (spore) - nothing more than a seed, vito - life. That is, this is the god of the male seed, the giver of life and its joy, love, just like the East Slavic Yarovit and the already named Svetovid, Belbog, Dazhdbog, Rugevit.
These gods, whom different tribes considered their ancestors, ancestors, patrons and warlike defenders of the tribe, their clan and people, were depicted with pronounced male attributes, the warlike all-seeing heavenly ancestors of the tribe. In “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” the epithets “yar”, “buoy”, “tur” are attached to the names of the bravest princes, real men.
During the celebrations of the summer holidays, the Slavs made a stuffed Yarila from grass with pronounced male attributes and a male phallus. The root of the word “yar” was associated with male power, male seed.
In some way close to all these gods is Perun, the thunderer, the god of the Western Slavs. Just before the adoption of Christianity, he came to Rus' together with pagan warriors. Prince Vladimir I the Saint erected a statue of him in Kyiv, and his uncle Dobrynya erected a statue of him in Novgorod.
Perun had a huge retinue of relatives and assistants: Thunder, Lightning (Aunt Malanitsa; lightning and arrows were also called Peruns), Hail, Rain, mermaids and water winds, of which there are four, like the four cardinal directions. Hence Perun’s day is Thursday (cf. “after the rain on Thursday”, “clean Thursday”), sometimes there are seven, nine, twelve or simply a lot of winds (Old Russian “Perun there are many”).
Perun and other gods, personifying the power of nature, are served by heroes and volots. If they go wild, stones are pulled out of the mountains, trees are felled, and rivers are dammed with rubble. There are many such heroes of varying strength in Slavic mythology: Gorynya, Verni-gora, Valigora, Vertigor, Dubynya, Duboder, Vertodub, Vyrvidub, Elinya (spruce), Lesinya (forest), Duginya (arc oppression), Bor, Verni-voda, Zapri -water, Stream-hero, Usynya, Medvedko, Nightingale the Robber (hurricane wind), Strength the Tsarevich, Ivan Popyalov (Popel), Svyatogor, Water, etc.
Forests and rivers that were considered sacred, for example, the Bug and Volkhov, were dedicated to Perun.
Snakes are also associated with Perun. Snakes (as symbols) had several meanings and purposes.
In the Slavic calendar there are two holidays during which snakes are remembered (most often these are harmless snakes). March 25 is the time when cattle are driven out “to St. George’s dew” and snakes crawl out of the ground, the earth becomes warm, and agricultural work can begin. September 14 - snakes leave, the agricultural cycle basically ends. Thus, these animals symbolized the cyclical nature of rural field work and were a kind of natural climatic clock. It was believed that they also helped to beg for rain (heavenly milk, breasts falling from the sky), since snakes love not only warmth, but also moisture, hence in fairy tales snakes often suck milk from cows (clouds).
Images of snakes - snakes - decorated ancient vessels with water. The snakes from Perunova's retinue symbolized heavenly clouds, thunderstorms, and a powerful rampant of the elements. These snakes are multi-headed. If you cut off one head, the other grows and shoots out tongues of fire (lightning). Serpent-Gorynych is the son of the heavenly mountain (cloud). These snakes kidnap beauties (the moon, stars and even the sun). The snake can quickly turn into a boy and a girl. This is due to the rejuvenation of nature after rain, after every winter.
Snakes are the guardians of countless treasures, medicinal herbs, living and dead water. Hence - snake doctors (in Indo-European mythology - Indra, Donor, Asclepius, Panacea) and symbols of healing.
Snakes from the retinue of the gods of the underworld - Viy, Death, Mary, Chernobog, Kashchei and others guard the underworld. A variant of the serpent - the ruler of the underground kingdom - is the Lizard, less often - the Fish. The lizard is often found in folk songs of archaic times; sometimes, having lost the ancient meaning of symbolism, it is called Yasha.
During the period of Christianity in Rus', snakes were honored on St. George's Day (Yuri - George) - April 23.
Many tribes, especially in hunting forest regions, believed that their ancestor was a mighty gigantic beast. For example, bear, deer, foot and mouth disease, etc. The cult of Veles is associated with such ideas. Ancient people believed that the family descended from God, who appears only in the form of a beast, and then again goes to the heavenly palaces (constellations Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, etc.).
Veles is one of the oldest East Slavic gods. At first he patronized hunters. Due to the taboo on the deified beast it was called “hairy”, “hairy”, “hair”, “veles”. It also denoted the spirit of a killed animal as hunting prey. “Vel” is the root of words meaning “dead.” To die, to repose, means to attach one’s spirit, one’s soul to one’s heavenly ancestors, whose soul flies to heaven, but whose body remains on earth. There was a custom of leaving a harvested field to “reap the ears of hair on the beard,” that is, the Slavs believed that the ancestors resting in the ground also helped fertility. Thus, the cult of the cattle god Veles was somehow connected with the ancestors, with the harvest, with the well-being of the clan. Herbs, flowers, bushes, trees were called “hair of the earth.”
Since ancient times, livestock was considered the main wealth of a tribe or family. Therefore, the bestial god Veles was also the god of wealth. The roots “volo” and “vlo” became an integral part of the word “volode” (to own).
The cult of Veles goes back to the cult of Rod and Rozhanits. Therefore, together with Yarila, the Slavs paid tribute to the voluptuous cattle gods Tur and Veles on the Semik holiday (June 4), on the oil week from March 20 to 25 and from December 25 to January 6, sacrificing to them round dances, singing, kisses through a wreath of fresh flowers and greenery, all sorts of loving actions.
During the period of Christianity in Rus', Veles's day on January 6 corresponded to Vlas's day - February 11.
The concept of Magi is also associated with the cult of Veles, since the root of this word also comes from “hairy”, “hairy”. When performing ritual dances, spells, and rituals in ancient times, the Magi dressed in the skin (dlaka) of a bear or other animal. Magi are a kind of scientists, sages of ancient times who know their culture, at least better than many.
Most of the names of gods, phenomena and objects given by the people under the inspiration of artistic creativity are based on very bold metaphors. But those original threads to which they were initially attached were often torn, metaphors lost their poetic meaning, were taken for simple, intolerable expressions and in this form passed from one generation to another, surviving centuries, splitting up across localities, wandering with peoples. Some sounds were replaced by others. Words were given new meanings. The meaning of ancient sayings became more and more mysterious and darker, the metaphorical language lost its accessibility and clarity. The help of prophetic and interpretive priests who knew their language and culture was needed. Among the Slavs these were magicians.
Women goddesses were highly revered among the Slavs, dating back to the ancient cult of Rozhanitsa, as well as the pantheon of gods of the Indo-European world.
The most ancient is the goddess of the Western Slavs Triglav (Trigla). She was depicted with three faces; her idols always stood in the open air - on mountains, hillocks, and near roads. She was identified with the goddess of the Earth. The decoding of the concept of “Triglava” must be sought in the thousand-year-old culture of the Indo-Iranian world.
In Indian mythology, Triloka (loka - a place, a certain spatial limit) is a three-membered universe, consisting of sky and water, earth and water, the underground lower world and water, although the concept of “water” most often falls out when interpreting the triad, it always seems to hold on in the mind.
In Indian pagan mythology, there was a triple image of the god Trimurti: Brahma - the creator of the world; Vishnu is his guardian; Shiva is the destroyer. Most often, all three functions were represented by Vishnu. Later (in the 1st millennium BC) - Shiva. In the first millennium BC, the ancestors of the Slavs formed as one of the branches of the Indo-European peoples. That is why the ancient deities of different tribes (differently pronounced) here in their female form have names that are largely consonant: Alive (cf. Shiva - literally life, the god of life); Siwa; Diva (“div” - Indian god); Virgo; Dziva; Ziva; Cisa; Zize (Zize among the Poles means a woman’s breast); Didilia (from a child); Lala (Lelya, Lel), etc. Thus, all these goddesses embodied the movement of life on earth.
The word “alive” (Shiva) is associated with many in the sphere of designations of fertility and, as a result, wealth, security, contentment: “belly”, “housing”, “profit”, “get rich” (get rich), “survive”, “heal” ", "zhito", "breadbasket", "livestock" (food supplies), "fatten" (material sufficiency), "prosperous", "pasture" (pasture), etc.
Makosh is one of the main goddesses of the Eastern Slavs. Her name is made up of two parts: “ma” - mother, and “kosh” - purse, basket, shed. Makosh is the mother of filled koshes, the mother of a good harvest. This is not the goddess of fertility, but the goddess of the results of the agricultural year, the goddess of the harvest, the giver of blessings.
The volume of the harvest with equal labor costs of the year is determined by lot, fate, share, lucky chance. Therefore, Makosh was also revered as the goddess of fate. This goddess connected the abstract concept of a happy fate with the concrete concept of abundance, patronized the hearth, sheared sheep, spun, and punished the careless. According to Belarusian belief, it is not good to leave a tow at night, otherwise “Makosha will be in trouble.”
Makosh patronized marriage and family happiness. The specific concept of “spinner” was associated with the metaphorical one: “spinning the thread of fate”, Fate - Srecha. Serbs say: “Nesrecha thinly stranded.” That is, if the thread of fate is too thin, happiness and life can end at any moment.
In Russian Orthodoxy, Makosh was reincarnated as Praskeva Friday. Since she had all the fruits of the earth at her disposal, she was also in charge of the fate of the harvest, that is, the distribution of products, raw materials, and handicraft items. That is why she managed the market and patronized trade. In Novgorod in 1207, the Church of Praskeva Pyatnitsa on Torg was built, the same churches were erected in the 12th-13th centuries. in Chernigov, Moscow in the shopping and hunting row. Friday in Rus' is a trading day.
A special apocryphal Friday calendar is known, consisting of 12 Fridays. This is a well-thought-out chain of changing holidays. No other deity in the Christian world has received so much attention.
The holiday of Praskeva Friday is October 28, when the harvest is harvested, cattle are not driven into the field, winter household work begins: spinning, weaving, preparing a dowry, etc.
The Slavs especially loved Lada, the goddess of love, beauty, and charm. With the onset of spring, when nature itself enters into an alliance with Yarila, Ladina’s holidays also come. These days they played burners. To burn is to love. Love has often been compared to the color red, fire, heat, fire. Cool - dislike. Red color - kinship, kinship, blood, love, as well as solar signs: kinship - heat; dear, dear, red - red; to rejoice, to blush - to blush.
Many words of marriage, union and peace are associated with the root “lad”. Lad – marital consent based on love; to get along - to live lovingly; to get along - to woo; frets - engagement; got along - matchmaker; Ladniki - dowry agreement; ladkanya – wedding song; okay - good, beautiful. And the most common one is Lada, that’s what they called their loved ones. This can be found in The Tale of Igor's Campaign.
Lada is associated with her child, whose name is found in both female and male forms: Lel (Lelya, Lelio) or Lyalya (Lelia). Lel is the child of Lada, he encourages nature to fertilize, and people to marriage.
In many regions, on April 22, a spring holiday was held - Lyalnik. The girls gathered in the meadow, chose Lyalya, dressed her in white clothes, and bandaged her arms and waist with fresh greens. A wreath of spring flowers was placed on the head. They danced around her, sang songs, and asked for the harvest. Dodols - girls in dresses with fringes at the bottom - performed a rain dance, praying for rain.
Polelya is the second son of Lada, the god of marriage. It is no coincidence that he was depicted in a simple white everyday shirt and a crown of thorns; he gave the same wreath to his wife. He blessed people for everyday life, a family path full of thorns.
Znich is also associated with Lada - fire, heat, ardor, love flame, sacred ardor of love (cf. supine).
The gods of the sun, life and love, and the earthly kingdom were contrasted with the gods of death and the underworld. Among them is Chernobog, the ruler of the underworld, the representative of darkness. Associated with it are the negative concepts of “black soul” (a person who died for nobility), “black day” (a day of disaster).
One of the main servants of Chernobog was Viy (Nii). He was considered a judge over the dead. The Slavs could never come to terms with the fact that those who lived lawlessly, not according to their conscience, deceiving others, and unfairly enjoyed benefits that did not belong to them, were not punished. They sincerely believed that they would take revenge and pour out someone else’s grief, at least not in this world, but in the next world. Like many peoples, the Slavs believed that the place of execution for lawless people was inside the earth. Viy is also associated with the death of nature during winter. This god was considered the sender of nightmares, visions and ghosts, especially for those who do not have a clear conscience.
Kashchei, the deity of the underworld, is associated with the seasonal death of nature during winter. It symbolizes ossification, numbness from frost in the winter of all nature. “Kosh” is also “kosht”, “bone”, “bony”. Many heroes of fairy tales turn for some time into stone, wood, ice and another state - ossify. Then the hero comes - a red maiden, a good fellow (spring, sun) and they come to life from a kiss (ray) or a tear (drop).
Hence the Russian “blasphemous”, “sorcerer”, “to create blasphemies”.
“Vyazen” - “uzen” are somehow related to this concept. A prisoner is an enemy who has been captured. It is in this meaning that the word “koschey” is used in “The Tale of Igor’s Campaign” and in many Russian fairy tales. Kashchei is not a real god of death, his power is short-lived.
The real goddess of death was Mara (Mor). Hence, probably, the words “die”, “death”, “die”, “die out”, “dead”.
The Slavs also had touching images of the female deities of mortal sorrow Karna (cf. okarnat, suffered punishment) and Zheli, which are found in the “Tale of Igor’s Host”; Kruchina and Zhurba (in other tribes) - embodying boundless compassion. It was believed that just the mention of their names (to regret, pity) relieves souls and can save them from many disasters in the future. It is no coincidence that there is so much crying and lamentation in Slavic folklore.
The root “three” is associated with the negation of an unfavorable sign – “odd”, as a symbol of misfortune, which is why it is often found in spells. Yaroslavna cries: “Bright and bright sun!” It is no coincidence that the day established in memory of the deceased, which included several ritual actions in its program, was called Trizna. The funeral games of warriors, also called funeral feasts, recalled the earthly affairs of the deceased and the fact that man equally belongs to three worlds: heavenly, earthly and underground (hence the sacred “three”). Then there was strava - a wake, which is sometimes incorrectly called a funeral feast.
Christianity has ruled our land for a thousand years. If it had come to bare ground, it would not have taken root so firmly. It fell on prepared spiritual soil, its name is faith in God. Paganism and Christianity, despite the fact that one can find in them the most opposite positions in relation to certain phenomena (for example, to sacrifices, to the concept of sin, enemies), the main thing is similar: both of them are faith in God - the creator and preserver the entire world we see.
A person changed, his thinking changed, his faith became more complex and changed. Christianity, which came to Rus' with the sword of Prince Vladimir I the Saint and trampled pagan temples and shrines, could not resist the ethics of the people, their aesthetic preferences, and could not ignore the established rules of life.
So Easter - the optimistic holiday of Christian salvation and resurrection - was combined with the pagan Radunitsa - the day of remembrance of the ancestors of all the dead. In Christianity, it was not customary to remember the dead with food - this is a purely pagan tradition, but it is this that has now taken over. Even seventy years of atheism did not erase from the routine of the life of an Orthodox Slav the day when he was accustomed to commemorating deceased relatives. During the height of the most terrible bacchanalia of the union of militant atheists, during the years of war and famine, the flow of people to the cemetery on Easter days was not interrupted, for this tradition is not a thousand years old, but several thousand years old.
Thus, not only Christianity influenced paganism, but also vice versa. After a thousand years of Christianity, the pagan holiday - Maslenitsa - passed safely. This is farewell to winter and welcome to spring. The pagans baked a pancake - a symbol of the hot spring sun - and ate it hot, thus filling themselves with the solar energy of life, solar strength and health, which should have been enough for the entire agricultural annual cycle. Some of the food was given to animals, without forgetting to remember the souls of the dead.
Winter and summer Christmastide - games in honor of the god Svetovid during the period when the sun turns to summer or winter are also not completely forgotten. Summer holidays partly merged with the Christian Trinity, and winter holidays - with the Christmas holidays.
More examples of the merging of holidays and individual gods can be given. Thus, both faiths have undergone many changes from their original nature and now exist unitedly and monolithically, not accidentally receiving the name Russian Orthodoxy.
All the current debate is about which is better - paganism or Christianity? – are groundless. Well, let's say paganism is better. And what? After all, it does not exist in its pure form, in popular belief, in widespread knowledge. Ask people, who knows what the Slavic sun god was called? – not many will answer. Also Christianity - it was split into many movements: Catholicism, Lutheranism, Gregorianism, etc.
The only acceptable thing for modern Russian people is to return to Russian Orthodoxy. But this does not mean that we should consider everything pre-Christian worthless and worthless. Paganism needs to be studied as the most ancient period of our culture, the infant period of the life of our ancestors, which will strengthen our spirit, give each of us the strength of the spiritual-national soil, which will help us withstand the most difficult moments of existence.
The spiritual state of the Russian people before the adoption of Christianity was completely prepared by its entire previous history, which determined the political and cultural consequences of this step. It is from these positions that the importance of the Christianization of Rus' increases as a spiritual holiday: the return of faith corresponding to the spiritual worldview of the Russian people, the curse of self-interest and acquisitiveness, the anthem of fraternal community and a common goal - the establishment of a just kingdom of God for people on Earth, as opposed to the disunited forces of evil. These are the most important provisions for the formation and unity of society.
The study of the religion of the ancient Slavs is necessary for the current generation in order to comprehend and discuss the historical, cultural and moral aspects of the life of our ancestors, which will help us, now living, to recognize our distant, distant past, a bright and worthy past. A past that has no limits of antiquity for establishing anniversary dates.
A past that every Russian person should know and have the right to be proud of.
The ancient, pre-Christian religion of the Slavic peoples is still not well known to us. Scientists began to be interested in it from the end of the 18th century, when national self-awareness arose among many Slavic peoples, and interest in folk culture and folk art began to show itself in European literature. But by this time all the Slavic peoples, who had long since been converted to Christianity, had forgotten their ancient beliefs; They have preserved only some folk customs and rituals that were once associated with these beliefs.
The ancient Slavs were never united either politically or economically, and they could hardly have common gods or common cults. Obviously, each tribe had its own objects of veneration, and even each clan had its own. But, of course, much was the same or similar among different tribes.
Funeral cult and family-tribal cult of ancestors
The Slavs maintained a patriarchal clan system for a very long time. According to the Kyiv Chronicle, “I live each in my own place and in my own place, owning each of my kind.” Therefore, it is natural that they also preserved the family-tribal cult in the form of veneration of ancestors, associated with the funeral cult.
Throughout the territory inhabited by Slavic tribes, there are numerous burial grounds and mounds with burials. Funeral customs were complex and varied: cremation (especially among the Eastern and partly Western Slavs; not attested among the Southern Slavs), corpse deposition (everywhere from the 10th-12th centuries), often buried or burned in a boat (a relic of water burial). A mound was usually built over the grave; They always put different things with the deceased; during the burial of nobles, they killed a horse, and sometimes a slave, even the wife of the deceased. All this is connected with some ideas about the afterlife. The word "paradise" - a pre-Christian common Slavic word - meant a beautiful garden, which was apparently the image of the afterlife; but it was probably not available to everyone. Subsequently, the Christian doctrine of the “future life” blocked these ancient ideas; Perhaps, only the Ukrainians have preserved a vague mythological belief about some blessed country - Viry (Iriy), where birds fly in the fall and where the dead live.
But beliefs concerning the relationship of the dead to the living were amazingly firmly held, and they are completely different from Christian ones. The dead were divided very sharply into two categories. This division, preserved in the beliefs of at least the Eastern Slavs, was perfectly defined by D.K. Zelenin: one category - “pure” dead people who died a natural death: from illness, old age - they were usually called, regardless of age and gender, parents ; the other is the “unclean” dead (the dead, the dead), those who died an unnatural, violent or premature death: murdered, suicides, drowned, drunkards (those who died from drunkenness); this also included children who died unbaptized (the influence of Christianity!), and sorcerers. The attitude towards these two categories of the dead was fundamentally different: the “parents” were revered and looked upon as the patrons of the family, while the “dead” were feared and tried to be neutralized.
The veneration of “parents” is a real family (and previously, obviously, ancestral) cult of ancestors. It is attested by medieval authors (Thietmar of Merseburg: “domesticos colunt deos” - “they honor the household gods”) and has partly survived as relics to this day. Russian peasants remember their parents on certain days of the year, especially on parental Saturday (before Maslenitsa, as well as before Trinity), on Radunitsa (after Easter week). Belarusian peasants celebrated the holiday of dzyads (that is, grandfathers who died) several times a year, especially solemnly in the fall (mostly on the last Saturday of October). They diligently prepared for the holiday, cleaned and washed the home, prepared ritual dishes; Dzyadov were invited to take part in the meal, which was always held very solemnly. Serbs and Bulgarians still practice - and not only peasants, but also city dwellers - strangulations, commemoration of the dead in cemeteries, where they bring food supplies, eat and drink at the graves, and leave some for the dead. It is unclear whether the dead are viewed as patrons of the family. But before, undoubtedly, they looked at it that way.
The custom of celebrating family glory (krano ime), which has survived to this day among the Serbs, should also be considered a relic of the ancient family cult of ancestors. Glory is celebrated on the day of the Christian saint - the patron saint of the family; but the very nature of the holiday and its origin are undoubtedly pre-Christian, and before it was celebrated, apparently, in honor of the ancestors - the patrons of the family.
Another trace of the once existing cult of ancestors is the fantastic image of Chur or Shchur. It is very likely that this was a revered ancestor. His cult is not directly attested, but convincing traces of it have been preserved in the Slavic languages. Exclamations of “Church!”, “Church me!”, “Church, it’s mine!” apparently meant a spell, calling Chur for help; now it is preserved in children's games; Ukrainian (and Polish) “Tsur tobi” - also in the sense of a spell. The verb “to shy away” is to stay aloof, that is, as if to be protected by Chur. And the word “too much” clearly comes from the concept of Chura, as if guarding some boundaries, the borders of the ancestral land, probably. That Chur-Shchur was precisely an ancestor is evident from the word “ancestor,” great-ancestor. Perhaps the images of Chur were made of wood, as hinted at by the Russian word “churka” - a stump of wood *.
* (See A. G. Preobrazhensky. Etymological dictionary of the Russian language. M., 1958, pp. 1221-1222.)
Finally, the last remnant of the ancient family-tribal cult of ancestors is the belief in the brownie, which has survived to this day, especially among the Eastern Slavs, where the patriarchal family structure lasted longer. The brownie (housekeeper, housekeeper, owner, neighbor, etc.) is the invisible patron of the family; according to popular belief, he is in every house, usually lives under the stove, behind the stove, under the threshold; humanoid; monitors the household, patronizes hardworking owners, but punishes the lazy and careless; requires self-respect and small sacrifices - a little bread, salt, porridge, etc.; loves horses and takes care of them, but only if their color is to his liking, otherwise he may ruin the horse. The brownie can appear in the form of an old man, a deceased owner, or even a living one. His image seemed to personify the well-being and ill-being of the family and household. The preservation of this image from ancient times is explained by the stability of patriarchal life in Russian and Belarusian peasant families; Ukrainians have preserved this way of life less well, which is why faith in the brownie has faded. The Western Slavs have similar images: skrzhitek - among the Czechs, Khovanets - among the Poles.
Unclean Dead
The attitude towards the “unclean” dead, who had not the slightest relation to either the family or clan cult, was completely different. The unclean were simply feared, and this superstitious fear was obviously generated either by the fear of these people during their lifetime (sorcerers), or by the very unusual cause of their death. In superstitious ideas about these unclean dead, there are apparently very few animistic elements: the Slavs were afraid not of the soul or spirit of the dead man, but of himself. This is evident from the fact that until recently there were popular superstitious methods for neutralizing such a dangerous dead person: in order to prevent him from rising from the grave and harming the living, the corpse was pierced with an aspen stake, a tooth from a harrow was driven in behind the ears, etc.; in a word, they were afraid of the corpse itself, and not of the soul, and believed in its supernatural ability to move after death. The unclean dead were also credited with having a bad influence on the weather, such as drought; to prevent it, they dug up the corpse of a suicide or other corpse from the grave and threw it into a swamp or filled the grave with water. Such unclean dead were called ghouls (a word of unclear origin, perhaps purely Slavic, since it is found in all Slavic languages), among the Serbs - vampires, among the northern Russians - heretics, etc. Perhaps the ancient word "navier" (" naviy") meant just such unclean and dangerous dead; at least, in the Kyiv Chronicle there is (under 1092) a story about how the frightened people explained the pestilence (epidemic) that happened in Polotsk by saying that “the navye (the dead) are beating the Polochans.” Among the Bulgarians, navii are still the souls of unbaptized children. This is probably where the Ukrainian Navkas and Mavkas come from.
Community agricultural cults
Along with family and clan forms of cult, the Slavs also had communal cults, associated primarily with agriculture. There is, however, no direct and clear evidence about them, but numerous and very stable remnants of the agrarian cult have been preserved in the form of religious-magical rites and holidays dedicated to the most important moments of the agricultural calendar and subsequently merged with church Christian holidays: Christmastide falling on the winter solstice (Christmas-New Year cycle); Maslenitsa at the beginning of spring; spring rituals, now attributed to Christian Easter; the summer cycle of holidays, partly dedicated to Trinity Day, partly to the day of John the Baptist (Ivan Kupala); autumn brothers - community meals after the harvest. All these customs and rituals of the agricultural cycle are very similar among all Slavic peoples, as well as among non-Slavic peoples. They once arose, in all likelihood, from simple meals, games and holidays dedicated to the beginning or end of certain agricultural work (V.I. Chicherov showed this well in his studies), but magical rituals and superstitious ideas were intertwined with them. Agricultural magic was either beginner ("magic of the first day" - customs and fortune telling on New Year's Eve), or imitative (ceremonies during sowing, for example, burying a chicken egg in a furrow, etc.). These magical rituals were preserved until recently.
Much less clear is the question of those personified images of deities - patrons of agriculture, which the Slavs undoubtedly had. In the literature, however, there are names of some mythological creatures that supposedly patronize agriculture (Koleda, Yarilo, Kupala, Lel, Kostroma, etc.), and previous authors, especially supporters of the mythological school, wrote a lot about them. But all these images are very doubtful: they were either formed under the influence of Christianity (Kupala is John the Baptist, because people associated Christian baptism with bathing; Lel - from the Christian “hallelujah”), or are simple personifications of holidays and rituals (for example, Koleda - from the ancient holiday of the Kalends, which coincided with the Slavic winter holidays).
Ancient Slavic pantheon
Written sources preserved the names of ancient Slavic deities, and some of them - later lost - apparently had something to do with agriculture. These were, presumably, the solar deities Svarog, Dazhdbog, Khors. Apparently, there was also a cult of the earth goddess, although it is not directly attested. It is possible that the thunder god Perun (the name seems to be an epithet and means “strike”), who later became a princely god in Rus', was also associated with agriculture; whether he was revered by the peasants is unknown. The patron of cattle breeding was undoubtedly Beles (Volos), the cattle god.
The female deity Mokosh mentioned in Russian sources is very interesting. This is not only almost the only female image attested in the ancient East Slavic pantheon, but also the only deity whose name has been preserved among the people to this day. Mokosh is apparently the patron goddess of women's work, spinning and weaving. In the northern Russian regions there is still a belief that if sheep shed, it means that “Mokosh is shearing the sheep”; There is a belief that “Mokusha goes around houses during Lent and disturbs spinning women” *.
* (G. Ilyinsky. From the history of ancient Slavic pagan beliefs. "News of the Society of Archeology, History and Ethnography at Kazan University", vol. 34, no. 3-4. 1929, p. 7.)
The religious and mythological significance of Rod and Rozhanitsy, which, according to various sources, was worshiped by the ancient Slavs, is unclear. Some researchers see in them ancestral spirits-ancestors (Kin - ancestor), others - spirits of birth and fertility. According to B. A. Rybakov, Rod in the pre-Christian era managed to become the supreme deity of all Slavs; but this is doubtful.
In general, did common Slavic deities exist? There was a lot of debate about this. Many authors, in their romantic Slavophile passion, considered almost all well-known mythological names, even the most dubious, as names of common Slavic gods. Subsequently, it turned out that some gods are mentioned by the Eastern Slavs, others by the Western Slavs, and others by the Southern Slavs. Only the name Perun is repeated among different groups of Slavs, but, as already said, this is simply an epithet of the thunder god. Svarog and Dazhdbog, and sometimes Beles, are often considered common Slavic; but this is all unreliable.
One can also speak only speculatively about the cult of tribal gods. Some names, apparently of tribal or local gods of the Western, especially Baltic, Slavs are given by medieval writers and chroniclers Adam of Bremen, Thietmar of Merseburg, Samson the Grammar and other authors. It is possible that some of these tribal gods became more widely known and perhaps became intertribal. Such was Svyatovit, whose sanctuary stood in Arkona, on the island of Ruyan (Rügen), and was destroyed by the Danes in 1168; Radgost was the god of the Luticians, but traces of his veneration were preserved even among the Czechs. Triglav was God's Pomeranian. Also known are the tribal gods Rugevit (on Ruyan), Gerovit, or Yarovit (in Volgast), Prov (among the Vagrs), the goddess Siva (among the Polabian Slavs), etc. Among the Serbs, the tribal patron was believed to be Dabog, who later turned into an antagonist Christian god. Many other names of deities have been preserved, but they are doubtful.
"God", "demon" and "devil"
Salyu the word "god" is originally Slavic, common to all Slavic languages, and also related to the ancient Iranian baga and the ancient Indian bhaga. The main meaning of this word, as shown by language data, is happiness, good luck. Hence, for example, “god-aty” (having God, happiness) and “u-god” (“u” is a prefix meaning loss or removal from something); Polish zbože - harvest, Lusatian zbožo, zbože - livestock, wealth. Over time, ideas about luck, success, happiness, luck were personified in the image of a certain spirit that gives good luck. Back at the beginning of the 15th century. in Moscow, at the royal wedding, one boyar said to another, arguing with him over a place: “Your brother has God in his kika (that is, happiness is in his kichka, in his wife), but you don’t have God in his kika”: the brother of the second boyar was married on the king's sister *.
* (See V. Klyuchevsky. Course of Russian history, part 2. 1912, p. 195.)
Another common Slavic designation for a supernatural being is demon. This word, apparently, initially meant everything supernatural and terrible (compare Lithuanian baisas - fear, Latin foedus - terrible, disgusting). The words “mad” and “besitsya” are still preserved in the Russian language. After the adoption of Christianity, the word “demon” became synonymous with an evil spirit, equivalent to the concept of the devil, Satan.
The same fate befell the idea of the trait. But the pre-Christian meaning of this image is unclear, just as the etymology of the word “devil” is not entirely clear. Of the various attempts to explain it, the most plausible is the old assumption of the Czech Karel Erben: he traces it to the Old Slavic krt, which sounds in the name of the Western Slavic god Krodo, in the names of the household spirit among the Czechs křet (skřet), among the Poles skrzatx among the Latvians krat. Apparently, the same root is in the word “krachun” (“korochun”), which is also known to all Slavs and some of their neighbors. The word "krachun" ("korochun") has several meanings: the winter holiday of Christmastide, ritual bread baked at this time, as well as some kind of spirit or deity of winter, death. "Korochun grabbed him" in Russian means: he died .
One might think that the ancient Slavs believed in a certain deity of winter and death, perhaps the personification of winter darkness and cold. There are also traces of some kind of bifurcation of the krt-crt image, which may be associated with the beginnings of a dualistic idea of a light and dark beginning. But the root “krt” has almost disappeared, and “chrt” - devil - has been preserved in almost all Slavic languages as the personification of all kinds of evil supernatural power. The devil has become synonymous with the Christian devil.
Development of tribal cults into state cults
When the Slavic tribes, as class stratification began, began to move to state forms of life, conditions arose for the transformation of tribal cults into national and state ones. Perhaps the cult of Svyatovit spread among the Pomeranian Slavs precisely in connection with this. Among the Eastern Slavs, an attempt to create a national pantheon and state cult was made by the Kiev prince Vladimir: according to the chronicle, in 980 he gathered on one of the hills of Kyiv a whole host of idols of various gods (Perun, Veles, Dazhdbog, Khors, Stribog, Mokosha) and ordered pray to them and make sacrifices. Some hypercritical researchers (Anichkov) believed that these “Vladimir gods” were from the very beginning princely or warrior gods and their cult had no roots among the people. But this is unlikely. The solar deities Khors, Dazhdbog and others, the female goddess Mokosh, apparently were also folk deities; Vladimir only tried to make of them, as it were, the official gods of his principality, in order to give it ideological unity. It must be assumed that the prince himself was not satisfied with the attempt to create his own pantheon of gods of Slavic origin - just 8 years later he adopted Christianity from Byzantium and forced the entire people to do so. The Christian religion was more consistent with the emerging feudal relations. Therefore, although slowly, overcoming the resistance of the people, it spread among the Eastern Slavs. The same thing happened among the southern Slavs. And the Western Slavs, under great pressure from the feudal-royal authorities, accepted Christianity in the Catholic form from Rome.
The spread of Christianity was accompanied by its merger with the old religion. The Christian clergy itself took care of this in order to make the new faith more acceptable to the people. Old agricultural and other holidays were timed to coincide with the days of the church calendar. The old gods gradually merged with the Christian saints and for the most part lost their names, but transferred their functions and attributes to these saints. Thus, Perun continued to be revered as the deity of thunderstorms under the name of Elijah the Prophet, the bestial god Veles - under the name of Saint Blaise, Mokosh - under the name of Saint Paraskeva or Saint Friday.
"Lower mythology" of the Slavs
But the images of “lower mythology” turned out to be more stable. They have survived almost to this day, although it is not always easy to distinguish what in these images actually comes from ancient times, and what was layered on them later.
All Slavic peoples have beliefs about nature spirits. Spirits - personifications of the forest are known mainly in the forest zone: Russian goblin, Belarusian leshuk, Pushchevik, Polish duch lesny, borowy. They personified the cautious hostility of the Slavic farmer towards the dense forest, from which land had to be conquered for arable land and in which a person was in danger of getting lost and dying from wild animals. The spirit of the water element - Russian water, Polish topielec, wodnik (topielnica, wodnica), Czech vodnik, Lusatian wodny muž (wodna žona), etc. - inspired much more fear than the relatively good-natured joker goblin, for the danger of drowning in the pool, the lake is much worse than the danger of getting lost in the forest. The image of the field spirit is characteristic: Russian poludnitsa, Polish poludnice, Lusatian pripoldnica, Czech polednice. This is a woman in white, who supposedly appears to be working in the field in the midday heat, when custom requires taking a break from work: midday punishes the violator of the custom by twisting his head or in some other way. The image of midday is the personification of the danger of sunstroke. In the mountainous regions of Poland and Czechoslovakia, there is a belief about mountain spirits guarding treasures or protecting miners: skarbnik among the Poles, perkman (from the German Bergmann - mountain man) among the Czechs and Slovaks.
The image of a pitchfork, especially common among the Serbs (among the Bulgarians - samovila, samodiva), is more complex and less clear; it is found in both Czech and Russian sources. Some authors consider it to be primordially and pan-Slavic; others are still only South Slavic. Vilas are forest, field, mountain, water or air maidens who can behave either friendly or hostile towards a person, depending on his own behavior. In addition to beliefs, pitchforks appear in South Slavic epic songs. The origin of the image of the pitchfork is unclear, but it is certain that different elements are intertwined in it: here is the personification of natural elements, and, perhaps, ideas about the souls of the dead, and the power of fertility. The word itself is apparently Slavic, but its etymology is controversial: from the verb “viti” - to drive, to fight, or from “vility” - to rush around in a stormy dance (Czech vilny - voluptuous, lustful, Polish wit - scarecrow, scarecrow, wity - nonsense, crazy antics).
The question of the origin of the image of the mermaid is clearer, although the latter is even more complex. The image of a mermaid, or at least some similar one, is known among all Slavs. There was a lot of debate about it: some considered the mermaid to be the personification of water, others believed that the mermaid was a drowned woman, etc. The word itself was derived either from “brown” (light, clear), or from “bed” (river), etc. Now, however, it can be considered proven that the word is not of Slavic, but of Latin origin, from the root “rosa”.
The most detailed study about East Slavic mermaids belongs to D.K. Zelenin *; he collected enormous factual material about these beliefs, but his view of their origin suffers from one-sidedness. Already from the time of the works of Miklosic (1864), Veselovsky (1880) and others, it became clear that it was impossible to understand the beliefs about mermaids and the rituals associated with them if we did not take into account the influence of ancient and early Christian rituals on the Slavs. Among the peoples of the Mediterranean, the spring-summer holiday of the Trinity (Pentecost) was called domenica rosarum, pascha rosata, in the Greek form ρoυσαλια. These Greco-Roman rusalia were transferred along with Christianity to the Slavs and merged with local spring-summer agricultural rituals. Until now, the Bulgarians and Macedonians know rusalia, or rusalnitsi, as summer holidays (before Trinity Day). The Russians also celebrated mermaid week (before Trinity), as well as seeing off the mermaid; the mermaid was depicted by a girl or a straw effigy. The mythological image of a mermaid itself - a girl living in the water, or in a field, in a forest - is late: it is attested only from the 18th century; this is largely the personification of the holiday or ritual itself. But this image apparently merged with ancient purely Slavic mythological ideas, and quite diverse ones at that: here is the personification of the water element (the mermaid loves to lure people into the water and drown), and ideas about women and girls who died in the water, about unbaptized dead children (unclean dead), and beliefs about fertility spirits (mermaids in southern Great Russian beliefs walk in the rye, roll on the grass and thereby produce a harvest of bread, flax, hemp, etc.). Obviously, this new and complex image of a mermaid replaced the original Slavic ancient images of beregins, waterworts and other female water spirits.
* (See D.K. Zelenin. Essays on Russian mythology. Pg., 1916.)
Modern Slavic peoples have preserved many other superstitious ideas about supernatural beings, some hostile, some benevolent to humans. They personified either fear of the elements of nature, generated by the underdevelopment of material production, or social conditions. Some of these ideas date back to the pre-Christian era, others arose in relatively new conditions of life; Among the later ones are, for example, Ukrainian beliefs about evil spirits - small spirits personifying the ill-fated fate of the poor peasant. Under church influence, most of these mythological images were united under the collective name of evil spirits (among Belarusians - evil spirits).
Ancient Slavic cult and its servants
The question of ancient Slavic clergy, performers of religious rites is very unclear. The ritual of the family-clan cult was most likely performed by the heads of families and clans. The public cult was in the hands of special professionals - the Magi. The word itself has not been satisfactorily explained, despite numerous attempts. There is an opinion that it reflected the connections of the Slavs with the Celts ("Voloh", "Valach" - the former designation of the Celts), or with the Finns (from the Finnish velho - sorcerer), or even with the Germans (vo"lva - prophetess). In any case In this case, there is no doubt that the word “magician” is connected with the word “magician,” “magic.” But who were the magi? Simple sorcerers, shamans, or priests of the gods? Were there any differences, ranks, or specializations between the magi? However, other designations for performers of religious and magical rituals have also been preserved: sorcerer, sorcerer, prophet, accordionist, sorcerer, magician, etc.
There is news that after the adoption of Christianity in Rus', the Magi acted as defenders of the old faith and at the same time as leaders of anti-princely and anti-feudal uprisings (for example, in 1071). And this is understandable, because Christianity came to Rus' as a purely feudal-princely religion. In later times, all Slavic peoples retained sorcerers, sorcerers, and warlocks, to whom secret knowledge and relations with evil spirits were attributed. But along with them, specialists in healing magic associated with traditional medicine - healers (whisperers, sorcerers) - have survived from the ancient era. In popular beliefs, they distinguished themselves from sorcerers and often contrasted themselves with them, claiming that they acted with the help of the power of God, and not evil spirits.
It is very characteristic that the Russians considered foreigners to be more powerful sorcerers and healers: Finns, Karelians, Mordovians, etc. This phenomenon, however, is known to other peoples.
In the ancient Slavic religion, undoubtedly, there were sacred and sacrificial places, and in some places real sanctuaries and temples with images of gods, etc. But only very few are known: the Arkon sanctuary on the island of Rügen, the sanctuary in Retra, the pre-Christian sanctuary in Kyiv (under Church of the Tithes).
The question of mythology and the general nature of the Slavic religion
Unfortunately, ancient Slavic mythology has not been preserved at all, although it probably existed. The scarcity of the remains of the ancient Slavic religion prompted some researchers to consider this religion pitiful and wretched in comparison with the religions of other ancient peoples. “The paganism of Rus' was especially wretched,” said, for example, E.V. Anichkov, “its gods were pitiful, its cult and morals were rude.” But the point, apparently, is simply a matter of insufficient knowledge of the religion of the ancient Slavs and the paucity of sources. If we knew as much about it as about the religion of, for example, the ancient Romans, the Slavic religion would hardly seem to us more wretched and pitiful than the Roman one.
* (E. V. Anichkov. Paganism and Ancient Rus'. St. Petersburg, 1914, p. XXXVI.)
