Folklore is oral folk art. It represents the main part of culture, plays a huge role in the development of Slavic literature and other arts. In addition to traditionally popular fairy tales and proverbs, there are also genres of folklore that are currently almost unknown to modern people. These are texts of family, calendar rites, love lyrics, social work.

Folklore existed not only among the Eastern Slavs, which include Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians, but also among the Western and Southern, that is, among the Poles, Czechs, Bulgarians, Serbs, and other peoples. If you wish, you can find common features in the oral creativity of these peoples. Many Bulgarian fairy tales are similar to Russian ones. Commonality in folklore lies not only in the identical meaning of the works, but also in the style of presentation, comparisons, epithets. This is due to historical and social circumstances.

First, all Slavs have a related language. It belongs to the Indo-European branch and comes from the Proto-Slavic language. The division of people into nations, the change in speech was due to the growth in numbers, the resettlement of the Slavs to neighboring territories. But the commonality of the languages ​​​​of the Eastern, Western, Southern Slavs is observed at the present time. For example, any Pole can understand a Ukrainian.
Secondly, the similarity in culture was influenced by the general geographical location. The Slavs were mainly engaged in agriculture and cattle breeding, which was reflected in ritual poetry. The folklore of the ancient Slavs contains for the most part references to the earth, the Sun. These images still take place in the mythology of the Bulgarians and Serbs.

Thirdly, the similarity of folklore is due to a common religion. Paganism personified the forces of nature. People believed in spirits guarding homes, fields and crops, and reservoirs. In the epic, images of mermaids, kikimors arose, which could harm or help a person, depending on whether he observed the laws of the community or lived dishonestly. The image of a snake, a dragon could come from the phenomena of lightning, meteors. The majestic phenomena of nature found an explanation in mythology, in ancient heroic tales.

Fourth, close economic, social, and political ties influenced the similarity of folklore. The Slavs have always fought together against enemies, therefore some heroes of fairy tales are collective images of all eastern, southern, western peoples. Close cooperation also contributed to the spread of techniques, epic plots, and songs from one nation to another. This is what largely influenced the related similarity of the folklore of the ancient Slavs.

All folk works known today originated in ancient times. In this way, people expressed their vision of the world around them, explained natural phenomena, and passed on experience to their descendants. They tried to pass the epic to the next generation unchanged. The storytellers tried to remember the song or fairy tale and retell it to others exactly. The life, way of life and work of the ancient Slavs, the laws of their kind for centuries shaped people's artistic taste. This is the reason for the constancy of the works of oral creativity that have come down to us through the centuries. Thanks to the immutability and accuracy of reproduction of folklore, scientists can judge the way of life, the worldview of people of antiquity.

The peculiarity of folklore is that, despite its amazing stability, it is constantly changing. Genres arise and die, the nature of creativity changes, new works are created.

Despite the general similarity in plots and images, national customs and details of everyday life have a huge influence on the folklore of the ancient Slavs. The epic of each Slavic people is peculiar and unique.

oil and gas them. Gubkina I.M. in Orenburg

Content

Introduction

Veles book
book history
Veles book about the origin of the Slavs
triglav gods
mother cult

Svarog
Spiritual relationship of the cultures of the Slavs and Indo-Aryans
Perun and Sventovit

The connection of customs with natural forces
Dual Faith: Paganism and Christianity

The writing of the ancient Slavs
First alphabets
What came first: Glagolitic or Cyrillic?
Nodular writing
The prototypes of pictographic writing

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

Myth and folklore of the ancient Slavs

1.1 Veles book
1.1.1 History of the book

At present, a lot of work has been done to restore the Slavic anthropotheoccosmogonic myths on the basis of folklore and the texts of the tablets of the Book of Veles. The history of the book, which is dedicated to the god of wealth and wisdom of the ancient Slavs Veles or hair, mysterious and tragic. During the civil war of 1919, she was found by an officer of the white army, F.A. Izenbek near the Veliky Burluk station near Kharkov in the estate of the princes Kurakins. In Brussels, the book fell into the hands of the writer Yu.P. Mirolyubova in 1924. The writer rewrote and deciphered ancient records for 15 years, copying about 75% of the text. In German-occupied Brussels, after the death of Isenbek, his entire archive disappeared in 1943, as well as the original Veles book. Only Yu. P. Mirolyubov's notes and a photograph of one tablet remained.

1.1.2 Veles book about the origin of the Slavs

The Book of Veles is a complex and voluminous monument. It is as difficult to forge it as it is impossible to recreate the Rigveda, the Avesta or the Bible. This book resolves the ancient dispute about the origin of the Slavs. She tells the fate of various tribes that participated in the Slavic ethnogenesis. The oldest event presented in it is the exodus of the Indo-European tribes from Semirechye, an area that is concentrated near Lake Balkhash and currently bears the same name because of the seven rivers flowing into it. The migration of Indo-European tribes, according to archeology, from Central Asia took place in the last third of the 2nd millennium BC. e. and unfolded over a vast territory from the Balkans (Hellenes-Dorians) to the Yenisei and Northern China (Massagets and Saks). The Veles book shows the events of the mythical and ancient history of the Slavs at the end of the 2nd millennium BC. e. - the end of the 1st millennium AD e.

1.1.3 Triglav gods

The beginning of the Book of Veles is shown with a call to bow before Triglav gods: Svarog, Perun and Sventovit. This Slavic archaic trinity is close to the Hindu Vedic Trimurti, in which the ancient Aryans involved Varuna - the heavenly god (among the Slavs Svarog), Indru the Thunderer (analogous to Perun) and Shiva - the god of the destroyer of the Universe (Slavic Volos or Veles). Different priestly ancient Slavic schools understood the mystery of the Trinity in different ways. In Kyiv, it included Svarog, Dazhbog and Stribog. In addition to them, the most revered were the god of fire Semargl, an intermediary between people and heavenly gods, who appeared in the form of the sacred falcon Rarog and won the first battle of the light and dark forces of the Black Serpent; god of wealth and livestock Veles, guide to the afterlife and its king, the destroyer of the universe and at the same time a symbol of wisdom, the son of a heavenly cow Zemun, rival of Perun in the wedding myth, cast down to earth from the vault of heaven; mother of a happy lot, goddess of fate and the water element Makosh, who, together with assistants share and Nedoley spins the threads of human destiny, like antique moirae; sisters of the goddess of life and death Alive and Madder(Marmara).
Triglav was understood differently in Novgorod. It originally included Svarog, Perun and Veles. Reflections of this understanding are preserved in the Book of Veles under the names Did - Oak - Sheaf. Veles was later replaced Sventovit. Novgorodians considered only Svarog, who awaits people in the heavenly paradise of Iria, or Svarga-Yasuni, to be the heavenly father, the grandfather of the gods. He is the beginning of the entire Family, the male half, the hypostasis of the Family. The most ancient supreme male deity of the Slavs was Genus - god of the sky, thunderstorms, fertility. Genus is the ruler of all living things moving. The genus, according to the ancient Slavs, is the whole Universe, but it was also understood as a domestic ancestor, ancestor god, progenitor. The genus, as an individual, rarely spoke, therefore they glorified not him himself, but the male incarnation of the genus - Svarog. He acts as the creator of the Universe, takes the Earth out of the Ocean. Striking with a hammer on the "white combustible stone", like a blacksmith of heaven, revives Semargla(the god of fire) and creates the first people, teaching them blacksmithing, giving them laws. The female hypostasis of the Family and the wife of Svarog, the mother of the gods Lada. She is a Rozhanitsa, mother-Rodikha - helps with childbirth. Lada is the goddess of marriage, abundance, the ripening time of the harvest. The goddess was addressed with prayers, petitions, supplications. Her name was found more than once in the refrains of songs - “Oh, Lado!”

1.1.4 Mother cult

The veneration of female ancestors is closely related to the widespread maternal cults. From France to Baikal, everywhere you can find stone figures of female gods, women in labor with pronounced gender features, which are called paleolithic evening and served as features of fertility magic. During the patriarchy, maternal cults change into female incarnations of the gods, while retaining the full weight of the archaic semantic load and symbolism. At the same time, they acquire a certain single function - they become the patrons of the house, hearth, fire, territory, country, person, family, love in the form of hostesses (the Mistress of the Copper Mountain in Bazhov's tale), grandmothers, mothers (for example, Mother of India or Mother Swa, patroness bird Russia, the incarnation of the Great Mother). Women's cults, in whatever changes they may meet, always rush to one of their two manifestations: either they personify the world of heavenly love (Ishtar, Astarte, Aphrodite, Venus, Slavic Lelya), or the earthly one (Gaia, Juno, Slavic Mother of Cheese Earth).

Cosmogonic representations of the ancient Slavs

2.1 Svarog

The increase in the organization of the structure of the socio-political life of the Slavs caused the promotion of the god of an ordered cosmos - Svarog. The name Svarog comes from Sur (Skt.), Suar, Svar, Svarga, hence Svarog. Researcher D. Dyadechko points to the explanations in the annals of the Old Czech Sur (Svor) by the word Zodiacus - the zodiacal path of the Sun (ecliptic). In the Ipatiev Chronicle, “The Sun is the Tsar, the son of Svarog, the hedgehog is Dazhdbog,” according to other sources, the son of Svarog, the Sun, is called Fire: “And the Fires pray, they call him Svarozhich.” In Ukraine, the zodiac itself or the zodiac path of the Sun was considered the heavenly Fire, which in each constellation acquired the characteristic features and properties of a new deity.
Svarog is the god of the sky (as space), and Dazhdbog is the fire (light) of heaven. 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, it is literally our grandfather, ancestor, ancestor, progenitor. This is a giving god, a giver of earthly blessings, as well as a god protecting his family. He gave man everything that is important (by cosmic standards): the sun, heat, light, movement (of nature or calendar - the change of day and night, seasons, years, etc.).
The archaic philosophy of the ancient peoples, the level of their spiritual maturity is most accurately and completely reconstructed according to the cosmogonic myths of the main sacred books. With name Svarog the ancient cosmogonic myth of the Slavs is connected, which opens the content of the "Russian Vedas":

Before the birth of white light, the world was shrouded in pitch darkness. Only Rod was in the darkness - our Ancestor. Rod - the Source of the Universe, the Father of the Gods.
In the beginning, the Genus was enclosed in an egg, it was an unsprouted seed, it was an unopened bud. But the end came to imprisonment. Rod gave birth to Love - Mother Lada.
Rod destroyed the dungeon with the power of Love, and then the world was filled with Love.
And He gave birth to the kingdom of heaven, and under it created the heavenly. He cut the umbilical cord with a rainbow, separated the Ocean - the blue sea from the heavenly waters with a firmament of stone. He erected three vaults in the heavens. Divided Light and Darkness, Truth and Falsehood.
Rod then gave birth to Mother Earth, and the Earth went into the dark abyss, she was buried in the Ocean ...
The heavens and all under heaven were born for love. Rod - Father of the gods. Rod and Mother of the gods. The genus is born by itself and will be born again.
Rod - all the gods and all under heaven. Genus - what was and what is to be, what was born and what will be born.
Rod gave birth to the heavenly Svarog and breathed into him his mighty spirit. He gave him four heads so that he could look around the world in all directions ... Here Svarog walks around the sky and looks around his possessions. He sees - the Sun rolls across the sky, The bright moon sees the stars, and under it the Ocean spreads ... He looked around his possessions, did not notice only Mother Earth.
Where is Mother Earth? - saddened.
Then he noticed - a small dot in the ocean-sea turns black. It’s not a dot in the sea that turns black, it’s a gray duck swimming, generated by sulfur foam.
- Do you know where the Earth lies? - Svarog began to torture the gray duck.
- Under me the Earth, - she says, - is buried deep in the Ocean...
- At the behest of the Heavenly Family, at the will and desire of Svarog, you get the Earth from the depths of the sea!
The duck said nothing, dived into the Ocean-Sea and hid in the abyss for three years. As the term is over - rose from the bottom.
She brought a handful of earth in her beak.
Svarog took a handful of earth, began to crush in his palms.
- Warm up, Red Sun, light up, Bright moon, you, violent winds, - blow! We will mold from the damp earth the Earth-mother, the mother-nurse. Help us. Genus! Lada, help!
Svarog crushes the earth - the Sun warms, the Moon shines and the winds blow. The winds blew the Earth from the palm of your hand, and it fell into the blue sea. The Red Sun warmed her - Mother Earth was baked on top with a crust, but the Light Moon cooled her.
So Svarog created Mother Earth. He established three underground vaults in it - three underground, infernal kingdoms.
And so that the Earth would not go into the sea again, Rod gave birth under it to Yusha, a powerful one - a wondrous, powerful snake. His fate is hard - to keep him for years and centuries Mother Earth.
Thus Mother Earth Cheese was born. So on the Serpent she rested.
If Yusha-Serpent moves - Mother Earth Cheese will turn.

2.2 Spiritual kinship of the cultures of the Slavs and Indo-Aryans

There was then neither non-existent, nor existing ... There was then neither death, nor that which lives forever; no sign dividing night and day. This single breathless breathed only its own essence. There was nothing else besides him. There was darkness: hidden at first in the darkness, it was all a formless chaos. Everything that existed then was empty and formless. This unity was born by the great power of warmth. Then desire arose first - the primary seed and the germ of the spirit ... Who knows truly and who can say here when this was born and when this act of creation took place?
The gods appeared after the creation of this world. Who then knows when the world appeared? He is the source of everything created, it doesn't matter whether he created it all himself or not. He whose eye watches over this world from the height of heaven, he truly knows this, or perhaps he does not know.

The single sacred primordial source, which once existed as a common spiritual cradle, determines the similarity of ideas in the Slavic and Indian Vedic cultures about the initial anthropomorphic being, the owner of the highest life principle - love or warmth - tapas, and the initial grain, the golden embryo (hiranya garpkh), sprouting during development of humanity, the power of desire.
Thus, by the power of Love in Slavic mythology, the Sun was called, which came out of the face of the Family, the bright month - from His chest, the frequent stars - from His eyes, the clear dawns - from His eyebrows, the dark nights - from His thoughts, the violent winds from His breath , Rain, Snow, Hail - from His tears, Thunder and Lightning - from His voice. In the source of India, the Upanishads, such an original anthropomorphic being Purusha ("purusa", literally from the Sanskrit. man, man), the guardian of the worlds, was drawn from the waters by Atman, who was truly one at first, and who gave Purusha an external appearance.

2.3 Perun and Sventovit

Son of Svarog Perun, the second face of the Slavic Trinity - Triglav, the god of war and thunderstorms, revived the manifest, followed the peaceful order, rotating the solar golden wheel.
The cult of the winner of the beast-Skipper, Tsar Pekla, the Sea Tsar and Veles was supported by the highest strata of the patriarchal Slavic society, princes and combatants, especially in the era of opposition to the world of nomadic tribes. After the Christianization of Russia, the cult of Perun was changed by Ilya the Prophet, and in the folk tradition - by Ilya Muromets and Egor the Brave.
The third hypostasis of Novgorod Tritlava-Sventovit was originally the god of light among the Western Slavs. His four-headed idol stood in Arkon, the main sanctuary Baltic Slavs on Ruyan Island in the Baltic Sea. Faith in him was brought to Novgorod by settlers from the western lands - encouragers and ruyans. The Veles book speaks of the great secret of the trinity of Svarog - Perun - Sventovit, whose power penetrated all levels of life, multiplied the worlds of gods and people with the power of love. The sacred knowledge of the ancient Slavs had features monotheism, but combined it with primitive forms of religion: totemism, fetishism, animism and magic.
So, both for the worldview of the Indo-European peoples, and for the worldview of the ancient Slavs, it was characteristic anthropotheocosmism, i.e., the indivisibility of the spheres of the human, divine and natural, reflected in each other. This is what Heraclitus put into the concept of “spheros” as a world not created by anyone, “an ever-living fire, lit up and dying out in a measured way, for which all things smelted from it like ingots of golden sand are exchanged.”
Signs of the cult of ancestors, which received the name manism, are most clearly stated in the fact of erecting the genealogy of the Slavs to the forefathers, relatives of the gods, who taught people various crafts and the ability to handle iron. Knowledge is presented as an instant penetration into the being of all that exists, carried out with the help of magical operations, and with the aim of ordering the space of the ancient man from the chaos of the habitat. Sacrifices to the deified forces of nature, based on the Sun, were part of the practice of life magic, which did not divide word and deed and served the goals of man's victory over non-existence, over death.

Rites and customs of the ancient Slavs

The incessant struggle and the changing victory of the light and dark forces of nature is most clearly expressed in the ideas of the Slavs about the cycle of the seasons. Its starting point was the onset of the new year - the birth of a new sun at the end of December, a celebration that received a Greco-Roman name from the Slavs "carols"(calendae is the first day of a new month). The final victory of the new thunderer over winter - "death" on the day of the vernal equinox was celebrated with a funeral rite Madder. This also applies to the custom of walking with May(symbol of spring), a small Christmas tree decorated with ribbons, eggs, paper. The deity of the sun, seeing off for the winter, was called Kupala, and also Yarila and Kostroma. In one of the ancient monuments of the XVII century. he was described thus:

In the evening on the eve of Ivan's Day, young people and girls gather together and weave wreaths of different flowers, putting them on their heads or hanging them from their belts. They light a fire and, holding hands, dance around it and sing songs in which the Dome is often mentioned. Then they jump over the fire.

The burning or drowning in the river of a straw effigy or other image of Kupala reminds of the connection of the holiday with the solar deity.
Ancient folk holidays, such as New Year's fortune-telling, rampant Shrovetide, round dances and green birch trees "semika", "mermaid week" and many others, were accompanied by incantatory magical rites and were like prayers to the gods for general well-being, harvest, deliverance from thunderstorms and hail. Thus, on the gloomy Ilyin's day, Russian peasants back in the 19th century. a bull fed by the whole village was slaughtered in honor of the lord of Lightning, the successor of ancient Perun.
Large deep vessels in ancient Russia were called charms and used for New Year's fortune-telling about the harvest (witchcraft). They often drew 12 different drawings in the form of a closed circle - a symbol of 12 months. In the village of Lepesovka in Volhynia, an ancient sanctuary of the Chernyakhov culture of the 2nd-4th centuries was found. The altar of the sanctuary was assembled from fragments of large clay bowls. Along the rim of one of them was an ornament of 12 rectangular frames with various patterns. They had three oblique crosses, which denoted the three terms of the main solar holidays: December 25, March 25 and June 24. The other three drawings depicted ralo, ears and braids of flax, which is similar to the months: in April - plowing with ral, in August - harvesting, and in October - flax threshing. Lepesovskaya Chara - a characteristic ritual vessel of the ancient Slavs, prepared for New Year's divination. Vessels used for sowing-harvesting rituals, spring-summer water rituals held in sacred groves, near springs and associated with the virgin goddess, the patroness of fertility, were also found and recognized.

3.2 Dual faith: paganism and Christianity

By the time of the adoption of Christianity, the Slavic religion had not yet managed to develop strict forms of worship. The priests did not yet belong to a special class. Representatives of tribal unions presented sacrifices to tribal and heavenly gods, and free-practicing sorcerers took care of intercourse with the lower demons of the earth, delivering people from their harmful influence and receiving various services from them. Place of sacrifice temple, did not turn into a temple even at the time when they began to put a cap-idol depicting the gods (cap-temple) on this place.
During the accession of Vladimir I in Kyiv, he carried out in 980 a kind of pagan reform. In an effort to raise the ancient folk beliefs to the level of state religion, next to his towers, on a hill, the prince ordered to place wooden idols of six gods: Perun with a silver head and a golden mustache, Khors, Dazhbog, Stribog, Semargl and Makoshi. Vladimir even established human sacrifices to these gods, which should have given their cult a tragic, but at the same time very solemn character.
The cult of the main god of the retinue nobility was introduced in Novgorod by Dobrynya. Near the idol of Perun, eight unquenchable bonfires burned there, and the memory of this eternal fire was preserved by the local population until the 17th century.
By the end of the pagan period, in connection with the development of the squad element, the funeral rites of the Slavs. With noble Russians they burned their weapons, armor, horses. According to the Arab traveler Ahmed Ibn Fadlan, who made a trip to Volga Bulgaria as an ambassador of the Baghdad caliph, he saw a Russian funeral and described the ritual murder at the grave of a rich Rus of his wife.
A huge barrow as high as a four-story building ("Black Grave" in Chernigov) confirms this. According to legend, the prince of Chernigov was buried at this place. During excavations in the mound, gold Byzantine coins, weapons, women's jewelry, silver-bound turya horns with chased patterns of an epic story - the death of Koshchei the Immortal in Chernihiv forests - were found.
Since ancient times, man, protecting himself from evil forces, covered his clothes and dwelling with images - amulets, weaving protective symbolism into a single image of the universe. This is exactly what the dresses of ancient Russian princesses from the times of dual faith (paganism and Christianity) and the images on the facades of Russian huts that have survived in the North to this day looked like.
The headdress of the princess symbolized the sky and was crowned with a diadem depicting the main heavenly powers, in the center was Dazhdbog or Christ (depending on whether the entire headdress was pagan or Christian). The princess's forehead was decorated temple rings, representing the movement of the sun across the sky. Chains descended from the crown - cassock, symbolizing airspace. They were covered with images of either streams of rain, or birds, or seeds falling from the sky. They hung from the cassocks colts(pendants) depicting mermaids, winged pitchforks irrigating fields. These kolts were located on the same level with necklaces depicting blossoming sprouts. Paintings were presented on women's bracelets mermaids(spring holidays in honor of the goddesses - givers of rain). A long chain with two heads of the Lizard, fastened with a ring symbolizing the sun, was worn around the neck. Thus, the whole picture of the universe was reflected in the women's costume - heaven, earth and the underworld.
On the facade of the Russian hut, the skies and the course of the sun were depicted. The sky seemed to be two-layered, consisting of "firmament" and "abysses", i.e., inexhaustible reserves of water. The abysses were depicted with wavy lines. On the firmament, located below the abysses, the position of the sun was shown in three positions - in the morning, at noon and in the evening; to emphasize that it moves below the abysses, images of the luminary were placed on wooden "towels" descending from the roof. The central “towel”, which symbolized noon, was especially brightly and richly decorated with a pattern - there the brightly shining sun was depicted several times, or the sign of the sun (a circle divided into eight sectors) was duplicated by the roof ridge, which meant the Sun-horse. A thunder sign (a circle divided into six sectors) was often placed on the central “towel” - a symbol of Rod or Perun, which protected the house from lightning.
etc.................

Art of ancient Russia.

Writing and education Socio-political thought and literature.

Acceptance of Christianity.

Slavic paganism. Folklore.

The first mention of the Slavs in Greek, Roman, Arabic and Byzantine sources date back to the turn of the 1st millennium AD. e. By the VI century there was a separation of the eastern branch of the Slavs. In the VI-VIII centuries. in the face of growing external danger, the process of political consolidation of the East Slavic (Polyane, Drevlyans, Severyans, Krivichi, Vyatichi, etc.) and some non-Slavic tribes (Ves, Merya, Muroma, Chud) proceeded, culminating in the formation of the Old Russian state - Kievan Rus (IX century) . Being one of the largest states of medieval Europe, it stretched from north to south from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the shores of the Black Sea, from west to east - from the Baltic and the Carpathians to the Volga. Thus, Russia historically was a contact zone between Scandinavia and Byzantium, Western Europe and the Arab East. But the interaction of cultures for Russia was not limited to slavish imitation or mechanical combination of heterogeneous elements. Having its own cultural potential, pre-Christian Russia creatively assimilated influence from outside, which ensured its organic entry into the pan-European historical and cultural landscape and gave rise to "universality" as a characteristic feature of Russian culture. After the unification of the East Slavic tribes, the Old Russian nationality gradually developed, which had a certain common territory, language, culture and was the cradle of three fraternal peoples - Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian.

A high level of figurative-poetic, irrational worldview developed among the Eastern Slavs in the "pre-literate" period, in the era of paganism. Slavic paganism was an integral part of the complex of primitive views, beliefs and rituals of primitive man for many millennia. The term "paganism" is conditional, it is used to refer to the diverse range of phenomena (animism, magic, pandemonism, totemism, etc.) that are included in the concept of early forms of religion. The specificity of paganism is the nature of its evolution, in which the new does not displace the old, but is layered on it. The unknown Russian author of The Lay on Idols (XII century) singled out three main stages in the development of Slavic paganism. At the first stage, they "laid trebs (sacrifices) to ghouls and shorelines", that is, they worshiped the evil and good spirits that controlled the elements (water sources, forests, etc.). This is the dualistic animism of ancient times, when people believed that a deity in the form of a spirit lives in various objects and phenomena, and animals, plants and even rocks have an immortal soul. At the second stage, the Slavs worshiped Rod and women in childbirth. According to B. A. Rybakov, Rod is the ancient agricultural deity of the Universe, and women in childbirth are the deities of prosperity and fertility. According to the ideas of the ancients, Rod, being in heaven, controlled rain and thunderstorms, water sources on earth, as well as underground fire, are associated with it. The harvest depended on the Sort, not without reason in the East Slavic languages ​​the word freak was used in the meaning of the harvest. The holiday of the Family and women in childbirth is a harvest festival. According to the ideas of the Slavs, Rod gave life to all living things, hence a number of concepts: people, nature, relatives, etc. Noting the special significance of the cult of the Family, the author of the "Word of the Idols" compared it with the cults of Osiris and Artemis. Obviously, Rod personifies the actual Slavic trend of transition to monotheism. With the foundation in Kyiv of a single pantheon of pagan gods, as well as in times of dual faith, the significance of the Family decreased - he became the patron of the family, at home. At the third stage, the Slavs prayed to Perun, i.e., the state cult of the princely retinue god of war, which was originally revered as the god of thunder, developed.

In addition to those mentioned, at different stages of paganism among the Slavs there were many other deities. The most important in pre-Perun times were Svarog (the god of heaven and heavenly fire), his sons - Svarozhich (the god of earthly fire) and Dazhdbog (the god of the sun and light, the giver of all blessings), as well as other solar gods, who had other names among different tribes - Yarilo, Khors. The names of some gods are associated with the veneration of the sun at different times of the year (Kolyada, Kupalo, Yarilo). Stribog was considered the god of the air elements (wind, storms, etc.). Veles (Volos) was the patron of cattle and the god of wealth, probably because in those days cattle was the main wealth. And the retinue environment Veles was considered the god of music and songs, the patron of art, not without reason in the "Lay of Igor's Campaign" the legendary singer Boyan is called Veles' grandson. In general, the cult of Veles was unusually widespread in all Slavic lands: judging by the chronicle, all of Russia swore by his name. According to folk beliefs, the goddess Mokosh (Makosh, Mokosha, Moksha), who was somehow connected with sheep breeding, and was also the goddess of fertility, the patroness of women, the hearth and the economy, was the companion of Veles. For a long time after the adoption of Christianity, Russian women revered their pagan patroness. This is evidenced by one of the questionnaires of the 16th century, according to which the priest at confession had to ask the parishioners "Have you gone to Mokosha?"

Temples, tremies, temples served as the place of worship, in which the Magi - priests of the pagan religion - prayed, performed various rites, made sacrifices to the gods (the first harvest, the first offspring of livestock, herbs and wreaths of fragrant flowers, and in some cases living people and even children).

Realizing the importance of religion for strengthening princely power and statehood, in 980 Vladimir Svyatoslavich tried to reform paganism, giving it the features of a monotheistic religion. The most revered by different tribes gods were included in the single pantheon for all of Russia, including, in addition to the Slavic, the Persian - Khors, the Finno-Ugric (?) - Mokosh. The primacy in the hierarchy of the gods was given, of course, to the princely retinue god of war Perun, to increase the authority of which Vladimir even ordered the resumption of human sacrifice. The composition of the Kyiv pantheon reveals the goals of the reform - the strengthening of the central government, the consolidation of the ruling class, the unification of the tribes, the establishment of new relations of social inequality. But the attempt to create a unified religious system, preserving the old pagan beliefs, was not successful. The reformed paganism retained the remnants of primitive equality, did not eliminate the possibility of traditional worship only of one's tribal deity, did not contribute to the formation of new norms of morality and law that corresponded to the changes taking place in the socio-political sphere.

The pagan worldview found its artistic expression in folk art even in the pre-Christian era. Later, during the period of dual faith, the pagan tradition, persecuted in the sphere of official ideology and art, found refuge precisely in folklore, applied art, etc. Despite the official rejection of pre-Christian culture, it was the mutual influence of pagan and Christian traditions in the pre-Mongol period that contributed to "Russification" Byzantine artistic norms and, thus, the creation of an original culture of medieval Russia.

From time immemorial, oral folk poetry of the ancient Slavs developed. Conspiracies and spells (hunting, shepherd, agricultural); proverbs and sayings reflecting ancient life; riddles, often containing traces of ancient magical ideas; ritual songs associated with the pagan agricultural calendar; wedding songs and funeral laments, songs at feasts and banquets. The origin of fairy tales is also connected with the pagan past.

A special place in oral folk art was occupied by the "old" - the epic epic. Epics of the Kyiv cycle, associated with Kyiv, with the Dnieper Slavutich, with Prince Vladimir Krasno Solnyshko, heroes, began to take shape in the X-XI centuries. They expressed in their own way the social consciousness of an entire historical era, reflected the moral ideals of the people, preserved the features of ancient life, the events of everyday life. Oral folk art has been an inexhaustible source of images and plots that have nourished Russian literature, fine arts, and music for centuries.

Let us recall the system I spoke about, that Slavic mythology consists, as it were, of three levels - the highest, the middle and the lowest. The highest level is the pantheon of gods that Prince Vladimir established in 980, the middle one is the gods of the Slavic tribe, seasonal gods (Kostroma, Yarila) and abstract gods (Krivda, Pravda, Dolya). The middle gods either show up new or disappear. Some believe that there were no such gods in Slavic mythology, in particular, there was no god Rod (as the founder of the Slavic family). But at that stage there was no written language, then Slavic myths were not recorded. On the contrary, the Christians fought the myths. The most important thing is that this mythology has remained in artistic creativity, it has remained as an ideological and aesthetic design of views. This should be taken seriously, because after the adoption of Christianity, allegedly, the Slavs developed a dual faith. And this dual faith lasted almost a millennium, when in the end they abandoned all faith. Mythology is not yet faith. It is difficult to say how much the Slavs believed in their Perun. That's what they believed in, so it's in the lower gods. Superstition has been preserved as a powerful layer in the minds of not only the peasantry, but also of all groups of the population. But superstition is not faith. I advise you to read the encyclopedia "Slavic Mythology" (M., 1995) - from this book I took articles by V.V. Ivanov and his co-author V. Toporov. There is also a good article by N.I. Tolstoy on ritual belief and superstition .

Today I will briefly talk about oral folk art, which has been preserved for a millennium and which is drying up, but to some extent still lives. Oral folk art is also associated with mythology, it is also part of a religious ritual. One of the largest researchers of Slavic oral folk art A.N. Veselovsky (1838–1906) wrote about ancient Slavic folklore. And he wrote that syncretism is inherent in this folklore, i.e. the indivisibility of poetry, magic, rituals, musical verbal rhythm in general, as well as choreographic performance (for example, a round dance in which they sang and pronounced some words). It is not known exactly to what extent this was the case. Later, Veselovsky established that in the X-XI centuries. syncretism disintegrates and ritual poetry comes to the fore, then lyrics and epics. This is also quite speculative. In fact, syncretism is a property not only of Slavic poetry. It is also present in Africa. To some extent, syncretism is a form of religious ritual, where there are words, music and choreography. This form of existence of folk art is the most primary, according to Veselovsky. This is the beginning of aesthetic creativity in general. And then there is a disintegration of these syncretic forms into epic, lyrical, and also into fairy tale forms (as in fairy tales and epics). There are many of these stable folklore genres in the Slavic and Old Russian folklore tradition. And they were fixed, of course, late - in the XVIII-XIX centuries. This is primarily ritual folklore - calendar songs, lyrical, comic, military songs, fairy tales, legends, epics and bylichki, folk epos, etc.

In more detail, then, probably, you need to start with epics. In terms of content, the Russian epic epic has no analogues in ancient European poetry. This is not an epic of skalds, this is not an epic that sings of the exploits of Charlemagne in Old French. We have only two cycles - the Kyiv cycle and the Novgorod cycle. The Kyiv cycle is the well-known epics about Ilya Muromets, Dobryn Nikitich, Alyosha Popovich, Svyatogor, etc. They were recorded in the 19th century. What actually remains of antiquity is hard to say. Since there is a lot of Christianization of these epics, but there is little paganism. The Kyiv cycle of epics is very patriotic in spirit and is all imbued with the idea of ​​protecting the Russian land, it is imbued with the antithesis of good and evil. There is a clear division into good heroes and evil Gorynych Serpents who attack our land. The struggle between good and evil actually forms the basis of the Kyiv cycle. In general, these epics are short (400–500 verses), but there are epics with more than 1000 verses. Allegedly, they were very popular among the people. In fact, there is no such evidence in the Russian chronicles, but this is evidenced by the fact that they have been preserved in the memory of the people.

Novgorod cycle of a different plan. It is dedicated primarily to the disclosure of the secret strength, power and secrets of wealth. Novgorod epics are epics about travel, about merchant guests, about feasts, about Slavic prowess, about the generosity of heroes. There is still a Scandinavian influence in the Novgorod cycle. It does not have such patriotic pathos as in Kyiv epics. Kyiv epics are epics, the action of which takes place in Kyiv, and the epics themselves were composed in different places. The Novgorod cycle fully reveals the Russian national character. Sadko - breadth of soul, prowess, generosity, interest in mystery, interest in travel (such a continental longing for travel that those who live on the seashore do not have). But in fact, the Russian national character is already a literary transformation of the Novgorod cycle. We know the opera "Sadko" - there is a special libretto and music. These are later additions. First, in all oral folk art, some deep archetypes of all Slavs are presented. And the Russian character itself is a processing of the 18th-19th centuries. The heroes are both daring and generous, but unpredictable, which is supposedly characteristic of a Russian person. It was these epics that served as the basis for literary and musical and even symphonic arrangements. There is, for example, a musical theme written in the north, and then expanded into a whole symphony. For example, at Arensky.

The Russian fairy tale tradition - Russian fairy tales - is considered by many researchers to be the most archaic form in all of Europe. Apparently, this is due to the origin of the Slavs. Slavic Russians since the end of the VI century. for a long time they were in isolation and retained archaic forms in their work. Especially fairy tales about living and dead water, about the resurrection of a dying hero, fairy tales “go there - I don’t know where”, fairy tales where the boundaries between the two worlds are overcome. The territory occupied by Baba Yaga and her hut, which connects two worlds - fabulous and real, is such a border. This is a kind of third world - a neutral zone, as it were. There are few such stories in Europe. There is an entrance to another world. In Russian folk tales there is a third world, mediated, between the magical world and the real one. And there is also the middle one, where you can get the key and find out the way to the enchanted world.

Ritual poetry and ritual songs (not only ritual, but also lyrical) - there is no such wealth in the Western European oral tradition. Even if you count primitively, then in the ancient Russian lyrics there are more than 3 thousand songs. Ritual song is connected with a person's life, with his destiny. And all his life - from birth to death - a person is accompanied by songs. The second form of ritual song is also very developed - these are calendar folk songs associated with agricultural work. I'm talking about songs that accompany a person through life. There are ritual songs, or rather, were dedicated to pregnancy. The person has not yet been born, but the song is already there. They are dedicated to keeping the baby. And when a person is born, his life is accompanied by a whole cycle of songs. There are songs for children and teenagers. Huge cycle of wedding songs. They begin with the matchmaking, then the songs of the groom, the songs of the bride, then the actual wedding, the marriage song. The end of the wedding is a spree. This cycle is well represented and recorded in different versions and forms in different provinces in the 19th century. Songs accompanying warriors going to battle, and laudatory songs, and incantations, stalking, a lot of game, fortune-telling songs. There are just lyrical love songs. I will read you a small fragment of the spell, but this is already a spell transformed by Christianity. And there are probably purely pagan spells. Witchcraft with the help of words is a pagan form of influence on the human psyche. It still exists. Conspiracies against diseases, against enemies-enemies, conspiracies-drying (there are about a hundred options for how to dry a loved one) were distinguished by special emotional strength. In conspiracies about love, there is always an ancient image of a fire-flame, which symbolizes love and should ignite the heart, melt it and inspire “longing longing” in the soul. In these conspiracies, real ancient sorcery is heard. Magi are sorcerers. I'll give you an example. Let's say the guy Ivan fell in love with a girl and went to a sorcerer or an old woman who knows such things: “Hurt her heart, burn her conscience, endure her fierce blood, fierce flesh. Languish in her thoughts day and night, and at the dead of midnight, and at clear noon, and at every hour, and at every minute about me, God's servant Ivan. Give her, Lord, a fiery game in her heart, lungs, liver, sweat and blood, bones, veins, brain, thoughts, hearing, sight, smell, touch, hair, hands , in the legs. Put melancholy, and dryness, and torment, pity, sadness and care for me, God's servant Ivan. The beginning here is the usual: “I will stand, blessed, go, crossing myself, from door to door, from gate to gate, to an open field ...”. But if there is “crossing”, then there is already the influence of Christianity. But the very idea of ​​the spell is undoubtedly pagan. This kind of spells, spells, spells can be used in original work. Those who write poetry know this well. I will give just one example of the brilliant use of this kind of spell in M. Voloshin's poem "The Spell on the Russian Land." It was written in 1919, during the Civil War, when the state was falling apart, everything was crumbling and blood was oozing everywhere. And here there is an image of reunification, the restoration of the kingdom as a whole:

I will rise and pray

I'm going to cross

From door to door

From gate to gate

morning paths,

fiery feet,

In the open field

On a white combustible stone.

I will face east

To the west along the ridge

I'll look at all four sides:

On the seven seas

For three oceans

For seventy-seven tribes,

For thirty-three kingdoms -

To the whole land of Holy Russia.

Don't hear people

No churches to be seen

No white monasteries -

Russia lies -

busted,

Bloody, scorched.

All over the field

Wild, great -

Bones are dry, empty,

Dead-yellow.

cut with a saber,

bullet marked,

Trampled horses.

Iron Husband walks across the field,

Hitting the bones

Iron wand:

- From four sides

From the four winds

Breathe, Spirit,

Revive the bone!

Not the flame is buzzing

It's not the wind that rustles

Not rye rustles, -

The bones rustle

The flesh rustles

Life is on fire...

How bone meets bone

As flesh dresses the bone,

How living flesh is sutured,

As a muscle gathers flesh, -

So - get up, Russia, get up,

Revive, gather, grow together, -

Kingdom to kingdom, tribe to tribe!

The blacksmith forges an ash crown -

Forged hoop:

Kingdom of Russia

Collect, forge, rivet

firmly,

Tight-tight;

So that it is the Kingdom of Russia

Didn't fall apart

Didn't get famous

Didn't spill...

So that we him - the Kingdom of Russia

They didn’t walk around in the hut,

They didn’t dance in the dance,

Not traded at auction

We didn't talk in words

In boasting they did not boast!

So that it is the Kingdom of Russia

Rdelo - glared

the life of the living,

The death of the saints

Tormented by torments.

Be my words strong and sculpting,

Salty salt,

Burning flame...

I will close the words

And I will lower the keys to the Sea-Ocean.

As you can see, paganism is alive, folk art is alive. Folklore, it turns out, can be used in beautiful art, and even in the most difficult historical situation. To this day, the collection of folk art continues, although there are already many pseudo-Russian and spells, and legends, and fairy tales. This is the trend to restore paganism. One priest counted that throughout the former territory of the Soviet Union there were about 7 thousand sects of various kinds, but primarily with a pagan direction. I point this out because paganism never really died.

Calendar poetry is also very developed. It is connected, first of all, with agricultural labor. These are stoneflies when preparing for spring sowing, this is a cycle of songs dedicated to summer work, autumn songs during the harvest. There are also winter songs when the boring time comes. They foretell the future harvest.

The new topic - "The Beginning of Slavic Writing" - is important for us primarily for the reason that there was a short time (120-150 years) when Slavic unity was based on a single Slavic writing. But this unity was lost by the end of the 11th century. Those. Slavic writing was on the territory of modern Czech Republic, modern Slovakia, in the south of Poland. Let me remind you of the terms that we use in relation to the ancient Slavic languages. The term "proto-Slavic language" is used only by linguists. As if it existed before the middle of the 1st millennium AD. (the beginning is unknown), and then broke up into separate Slavic languages. The concept of "Old Church Slavonic" is the language of the oldest Slavic monuments that have come down to us. These are monuments of the 10th - early 11th centuries. There are very few of these monuments, only 17. And even this figure is controversial. Those. what Cyril and Methodius translated into Old Church Slavonic has not been preserved at all. And if it survived, then only in copies of other monuments. Further, as if a continuation of the Old Slavonic language, according to tradition, the Church Slavonic language is considered. This is an ancient Slavic literary language - the language of the Orthodox Church on a Slavic basis. The New and Old Testaments are written in this language. Actually, there was no big difference between Old Church Slavonic and Church Slavonic - the question is in terminology. A living Old Russian language is a different concept. There was the language of the church service, but there were living people who spoke their own language. When they received writing, they began to record their conversations. It's like a second language. On the one hand, Church Slavonic, and on the other, Old Russian. According to some concepts, bilingualism in Russia existed until the 17th century, other scholars object. The Church Slavonic language has been preserved even now - services are conducted in it in our Orthodox churches. You know different trends in this regard, which are considered heretical so far. There is an opinion that services should be conducted in modern Russian. Such churches are organized, but so far they are heretical. Such an opinion leads to a split in our church, which is only being revived.

I have already listed how the Slavs adopted Christianity. Serbs, Croats, Bulgarians, Poles, Czechs. But for instruction in the faith, Christian texts were needed. Such texts were in Greek. The Slavs did not understand them. But this is not the main problem. It was possible to teach the clergy the Greek language. In the West, they also taught the Christian faith on incomprehensible texts, using Latin texts. All Latin texts have been translated from Greek, and some from Hebrew. Famous publicist of the XX century. Georgy Fedotov was very lamented that we adopted Christianity in the Slavic language. We would be much more educated if we were taught religion in Greek. Byzantium, in comparison with Rome, pursued a more progressive policy - it allowed translations from Greek into other languages. It was allowed to make translations into Slavic languages, but there was no alphabet. And then the Slavic alphabet was created. With the help of the Byzantine Church in the 5th century. translations of the New Testament into Armenian were made. Armenians are pioneers in Christianity. Even before the Roman Empire, in 301, they made Christianity the official religion. This is the first state that made Christianity the state religion. They say that in the V century. and into Georgian (but this is more controversial) some translations of the New Testament were made. And into other languages.

In order to create the alphabet, the brothers Constantine and Methodius were sent from Constantinople to Great Moravia (the state that was located on the territory of modern Slovakia, on the Morava River). The date of their arrival is 863. This date is considered the beginning of Slavic writing. Perhaps they invented this alphabet at home, in Constantinople. It is believed that they were also Slavs. They were philosophers, great scientists. The Slavic alphabet was created on the basis of the Greek alphabet. Actually, we are talking about two alphabets - first the Glagolitic alphabet was invented (a very complex alphabet, it went out of use, but the texts on it were preserved) and then the Cyrillic alphabet. Cyrillic came into use after the death of Cyril, but by tradition it is called Cyrillic. Inventing the alphabet - this was only the beginning of Slavic writing. It was necessary to translate the most complex texts from Greek into Old Slavonic. Cyril and Methodius, with the help of their students, translated the entire New Testament and some fragments from the Old Testament (in particular, the Psalter). They translated, creating a new literary Slavic language. With a literal translation, word by word. It was a total rip-off. As we read, starting with the first union, and so word by word. It so happened that Church Slavonic and Old Church Slavonic, and thus Russian, are very similar to Greek. Most of all, the Russian language is similar to Greek in syntax. Compound words are also borrowed from Greek. Now this principle of compound words is losing force, fading away. If in the XV and even in the XVII century. 500 words were recorded with the word good (well-being, blessing etc.), now our dictionary fixes about 75 such words. This principle is also found in German. But we copied it from Greek. So, the most important merit of Cyril and Methodius is not so much that the alphabet was invented, but that translations were made, a written language was created. Church sources tell a lot about the life of the great Slavic enlighteners. There is a life of Constantine (died in 869), a life of Methodius (died in 885). There are historical sources. There are enough materials here.

There is one difficult question related to Slavic writing. Now they talk and write a lot about whether the Slavs had a written language before Cyril and Methodius? There are enthusiasts who believe that it was. In particular, the life of Constantine says that during his journey through the Russian land, he saw Russian letters. Historians say that this is not true. It's hard to prove anything here. But you can fantasize. About 20 years ago, a young writer Sergei Alekseev wrote a novel called The Word. It said that there was ancient Russian writing, and then it was destroyed by Christian priests. The whole plot of the novel is based on the search for sources of ancient Slavic writing before Cyril and Methodius. Pseudo-texts like the Book of Veles, created in the 20th century, are also used as arguments. It is said to have been written in the 5th century. in ancient Slavic.

I want to say that the struggle for Slavic writing is the spiritual struggle of the Slavic peoples for their native sacred language and for their writing. Before that, there were three sacred languages ​​- Hebrew, Greek and Latin. These three languages ​​were inscribed on the Cross on which Christ was crucified. But the Bible was translated into Latin only at the end of the 4th century. Blessed Jerome translated from ancient Greek into Latin both the New Testament and the Old Testament at the end of the 4th century. And then a thousand years later, at the Council of Trent in 1545, Latin books were canonized. Only from that time did the Latin text become sacred. And our church did not consecrate the Slavic text. The sacred language of the Slavs did not work out. In Church Slavonic, the full text of the Bible - all 77 books - was collected only at the very end of the 15th century. Archbishop Gennady, this is the so-called "Gennadiev Bible" (1499). The official text on which Lomonosov, Pushkin, and Dostoevsky read the Bible was created under Elizaveta Petrovna in 1751-1756. During this five years, this translation was completed, edited and published in a typographical way. There were great objections to the Russian translation for a very long time, for about 40 years the Bible was translated into Russian. The final date for the translation of the Bible into Russian is 1876.

They translated the Bible into English with great difficulty. The King James Version in 1611 is the most important. Before him, there were 5-6 more translations into English. One translator was even burned. Luther translated the Bible into German in the 16th century. In total, the Bible was translated into 1,400 languages, including such exotic languages ​​as the Chukchi language, into the languages ​​of all the peoples of Siberia. Among all these languages, let's not forget the translation into Church Slavonic in 863. This translation actually created for us both writing, and Church Slavonic, and the literary language, which brought us the benefits of civilization. From here, with the adoption of Christianity and writing, our civilization began - the civilization of Ancient Russia and Russia. This is the date of the beginning of our civilization.

Most likely, this refers to the book: Tolstoy N.I. Language and folk culture: Essays on Slavic mythology and ethnolinguistics. M., 1995.

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