Myths of the ancient Slavs. Slavic mythology

Unlike ancient mythology, well known from fiction and works of art, as well as the mythologies of the countries of the East, the texts of the myths of the Slavs have not survived to our time, because at that distant time when myths were created, they did not yet know writing.

In the 5th - 7th centuries after the Great Migration of Peoples, the Slavs occupied the territories of Central and Eastern Europe from the Elbe (Laba) to the Dnieper and Volga, from the southern shores of the Baltic Sea to the north of the Balkan Peninsula. Centuries passed, and the Slavs became more and more separated from each other, forming three modern branches of the most numerous family of kindred peoples in Europe. Eastern Slavs are Belarusians, Russians, Ukrainians; western - Poles, Slovaks and Czechs (the Baltic Slavs were assimilated by their Germanic neighbors in the 12th century);

Southern - Bulgarians, Macedonians, Serbs, Slovenes, Croats, Bosnians. Despite the division of the Slavs, their mythologies are still preserved by many common features. So, all Slavs know the myth about the duel of the thunder god with his demonic opponent and about the victory of the thunderer; everyone Slavic traditions sign ancient custom at the end of winter, burn a scarecrow - the embodiment of gloomy evil forces, or bury a mythical creature like Shrovetide and Yarila among Russians and Belarusians and German - among Bulgarians.

Slavic mythology and the religion of the Slavs was composed of the deification of the forces of nature and the cult of ancestors. The only supreme god, the "creator of lightning", which was Indra among the Hindus, Zeus among the Greeks, Jupiter among the Romans, Thor among the Germans, Perkunas among the Lithuanians - among the Slavs was Perun. The concept of the thunder god merged among the Slavs with the concept of the sky in general (namely, the moving, cloudy sky), the personification of which some scientists see in Svarog. Other higher gods were considered the sons of Svarog - the Svarozhichs; such gods were the sun and fire. The sun was deified under the name of Dazhdbog, as well as Khorsa. The brother of Svarog, the most mysterious god and guardian of the herds, Veles was also originally a solar god. All these names of the supreme god are very ancient and were used by all Slavs. Common Slavic ideas about the highest god received further development from individual Slavic tribes, new, more definite and more bizarre forms.

So, among the Western Slavs, Svyatovit was considered the highest god, and Triglav corresponded to him - a three-headed idol, which was worshiped in Shchetin (Stettin) and Volin. In the city of Retre, the same supreme god, the son of Svarog, was called Radegost, and in Czech and Polish legends he appears under the name of Krok or Krak. Already ancient writers assumed that the name of Svyatovit appeared as a result of mixing the pagan god with the Christian Saint Vitus; the name Radegosta was also supposed to have been transferred to the god from the name of the city, and the city received this name from one of its princes. Krak, according to Cosmas of Prague, was a wise and just judge and ruler of the people. Whatever these conjectures, it is certain that all the listed names meant the same supreme god and that they all appeared later.

The vague testimonies of the Slavic gods that have come down to us, which are explained in folk tales and songs, come down to the struggle of light and dark forces of nature, fertility with barrenness, summer with winter, light with darkness, life with death, Belbog with Chernobog. Intertwined with these ideas were views on afterlife and the cult of ancestors. The souls of the dead lived in some distant country at the end of the world, where the sun sets; This country was called by the Slavs Naviem, Vyry, Iriy, paradise, inferno. It is necessary to equip the deceased to this country, as to a long journey, which is achieved by a proper burial. Before the funeral ceremony, the soul wanders on earth; among the southern Slavs, the soul in this state is called vidogonya. The soul is doomed to eternal wandering on earth if the correct rite has not been performed; so, the souls of girls or children drowned in water become mermaids, mavkas, pitchforks. To make it easier for the deceased to travel to the kingdom of the dead, the Slavs resorted to burning: the fire of the funeral pyre instantly separated the soul from the body and sent it to heavenly dwellings. In this fire, P. N. Milyukov sees a connection between two independently emerged systems of religious ideas: the deification of the forces of nature and the cult of ancestors. On the one hand, fire was a manifestation on earth of the heavenly solar god, a messenger of the heavenly gods; on the other hand, he contributed to the purification of the soul of the deceased and thus he himself turned into a symbol of the soul of the ancestor, which, under the name of Rod, Chura, brownie, became a household deity, the guardian of the family and clan. On the hearth, both of these meanings of fire merged into one inseparable whole; on it, the elemental heavenly god and the tribal deity of the family community were equally honored.

This dual meaning of fire finds the most striking confirmation in the belief of the Western Slavs about a domestic creature (its Czech name is Křet, Sloven. Skrat), which, under the guise of a fiery serpent, flies through a pipe and brings to the owner any bread and other fruits of the earth, and sometimes various treasures. In the Tula province, there is a belief that from the day of Epiphany (winter solstice) a fiery serpent (sun) appears, visiting red girls (earth). By the time Christianity began to spread among the Slavs, Slavic mythology had not yet created such distinct ideas about the gods as, for example, the Greeks came to: the Slavic gods continued to merge with the elements that they personified, and did not yet have clear anthropomorphic features. In the same way, the cult of ancestors among the Slavs did not yet develop into such distinct, finished forms and did not have such strict legal consequences as among the Greeks and Romans.

The religious beliefs of the Slavs are reduced to those ancient layers of religious beliefs that constitute the common heritage of the peoples of the Aryan tribe: they developed before the beginning of the history of the Slavs as a separate tribal group and hardly moved further. Accordingly, they did not develop strict forms of worship, and there was no special priestly class. Only among the Baltic Slavs do we find a strong religious organization: idols for whom temples were erected, priests who performed divine services according to a certain order, with well-known rites, who had a hierarchical structure and over time acquired the significance of a primordial caste. Other Slavic tribes had no public idols, no temples, no priests; representatives of tribal unions brought sacrifices to tribal and heavenly gods. Russian Slavs only under the influence of the Varangians came to the idea of ​​depicting their gods in idols.

The first idols were placed by Vladimir, Prince of Kyiv, on the hill to Perun, Khors, Dazhdbog, and in Novgorod, Dobrynya - to Perun over the Volkhov. Under Vladimir, for the first time, temples appear in Russia, probably built by him, in which, according to the saga of Olaf Trygveson, he himself made sacrifices. But under the same Vladimir, Christianity was introduced into Russia, which put an end to the development of the Slavic cult, although for a long time it was still not able to supplant the remnants of pagan beliefs. Upon the adoption of Christianity, the popular consciousness of the Slavs mixed the new faith with the old, partly merged their gods with Christian saints, partly reduced them to the position of "demons", partly remained faithful to their tribal gods. Cosmas of Prague († 1125) tells: “and until now, among many of the villagers, as if between pagans, one honors springs or fires, another adores forests or trees or stones, another makes sacrifices to mountains or hills, another bows to idols, deaf and dumb, which he himself made, praying that they rule over his house and himself. By these idols, Kozma obviously means household gods, which among the Czechs were called skritkas and nets, among Russians - brownies, etc.; the Czech brownie Křet was depicted among the Czechs in the form of small bronze statuettes, the size of a finger, which is why it was called Paleček (a boy with a finger).

Mythology of the Slavs and Christian holidays

The most interesting reflection of Slavic mythology is the association of pagan beliefs with Christian holidays. Like other Aryan peoples, the Slavs imagined the whole cycle of the seasons as a continuous struggle and successive victory of the light and dark forces of nature. The starting point of this cycle was the onset of a new year - the birth of a new sun. The Slavs poured the pagan content of this holiday into the celebration of the Nativity of Christ, and the very celebration of Christmas time received from them the Greco-Roman name of carols. The rites with which the pagan Slavs met the onset of spring and the summer solstice, also to a greater or lesser extent lesser degree were dated for Christian holidays: such are Rusalia, Semik, Kupalo.

With the pagan nature of the holidays, the name of the holiday turned into the name of the deity in whose honor it was once celebrated. Thus, other Slavic gods appeared, such as Yarila, Kostroma, etc., the number of which probably increased due to the near accusatory zeal of Christian missionaries, who did not think about the general religious thought of the Slavs and saw a special god in every name.

The peculiarity of Slavic mythology, which, like any other, reflected the worldview of its creators, lies in the fact that their life was directly connected with the world of lower spirits that live everywhere. Some of them were credited with intelligence, strength, goodwill, others - cunning, malice and deceit. The ancients believed that all these creatures - coastlines, pitchforks, watermen, field workers, etc., constantly interfere in their lives and accompany a person from the day they are born until their death.

Slavic beliefs

The Slavs believed that good and evil spirits were with them, that they helped to harvest a bountiful harvest and brought illness, promised a happy family life, order in the house, and punished unseemly acts. The gods, who were relatively few and who controlled natural phenomena and elements - thunderstorms, fire, rain, were feared and revered by the Slavs, trying to propitiate with prayers and sacrifices. Since actually Slavic texts and images of gods and spirits have not been preserved due to the fact that Christianization interrupted pagan tradition, the main source of information is medieval chronicles, teachings against paganism, chronicles, archaeological excavations, folklore and ethnographic collections. Information about the gods of the Western Slavs is very scarce, for example, the "History of Poland" by Jan Dlugosh (1415 - 1480), which gives a list of deities and their correspondences from Roman mythology: Nyya - Pluto, Devana - Venus, Marzhana - Ceres.

The Slavs had a belief in a future afterlife. They buried their dead in the ground, and sometimes burned them. With the deceased, they buried his belongings, utensils, as well as weapons and a war horse, if the deceased was a warrior, in a grave or laid with him on a fire. Our ancestors believed that the dead would rise again and then they would need everything that surrounded them in life. After burial, feasts were made on the graves - feasts.

The Slavs also believed in omens. They thought that the gods, by various signs, give people the opportunity to know the future. This is where the custom of divination begins. Those people who knew how to explain signs and fortune-telling were called magi, sorcerers, sorcerers and witches. According to the beliefs of the Slavs, with spells and sorcery, they could avert misfortune or invite it.

The Czech and Slovak data on the gods are considered by many scholars to be in need of critical scrutiny. Little is known about the mythology of the southern Slavs. Early falling into the sphere of influence of Byzantium and other powerful civilizations of the Mediterranean, having adopted Christianity before other Slavs, they largely lost information about the former composition of their pantheon. The most fully preserved mythology of the Eastern Slavs. We find early information about it in the "Tale of Bygone Years" (XII century), which reports that Prince Vladimir the Holy (? - 1015) sought to create a nationwide pagan pantheon. However, his adoption of Christianity in 988 led to the destruction of the idols of the so-called Vladimir pantheon (they were solemnly thrown into the Dnieper), as well as the prohibition of paganism and its rites. The old gods began to be identified with Christian saints: Perun turned into Saint Ilya, Veles - into Saint Blaise, Yaril - into Saint George. However, the mythological representations of our ancestors continue to live in folk traditions, holidays, beliefs and rituals, as well as in songs, fairy tales, incantations and signs. Ancient mythological characters like goblin, mermaids, mermen, brownies and devils are vividly imprinted in speech, proverbs and sayings.

Development of Slavic mythology

Developing, Slavic mythology went through three stages - spirits, deities of nature and gods-idols (idols). The Slavs revered the gods of life and death (Zhiva and Moran), fertility and the plant kingdom, heavenly bodies and fire, sky and war; personified not only the sun or water, but also numerous house and forest spirits; worship and admiration was expressed in bringing them blood and bloodless sacrifices.

In the 19th century, Russian scientists began to study Russian myths, tales and legends, realizing their scientific value and the importance of preserving them for future generations. The works of F. I. Buslaev, A. A. Potebnya, I. P. Sakharov, such as concrete work, as a three-volume study by A. N. Afanasyev " Poetic views Slavs to Nature", "Myths of Slavic Paganism" and "A Brief Essay on Russian Mythology" by D. O. Shepping, "Deities of the Ancient Slavs" by A. S. Famintsyn.

The mythological school was the first to arise, based on the comparative historical method of study, the establishment of an organic connection between language, folk poetry and folk mythology, the principle of the collective nature of creativity. Fyodor Ivanovich Buslaev (1818-1897) is considered to be the founder of this school.

“In the most ancient period of the language,” says Buslaev, “the word as an expression of traditions and rituals, events and objects was understood in the closest connection with what it expresses: “the name imprinted a belief or event, and a legend or myth arose again from the name.” Special "epic ritualism" in the repetition of ordinary expressions led to the fact that what was once said about any subject seemed so successful that it no longer needed further modification. Language thus became "the sure instrument of tradition. " A method originally associated with comparison languages, establishing common forms of words and raising them to the language of the Indo-European peoples, for the first time in the Russian spider, Buslaev was transferred to folklore and used to study the mythological traditions of the Slavs.

Poetic inspiration belonged to everyone and everyone, like a proverb, like a legal saying. The whole nation was a poet. Individuals, however, were not poets, but singers or storytellers, they only knew how to tell or sing more accurately and more skillfully what everyone knew. The power of tradition reigned supreme over the epic singer, not allowing him to stand out from the team. Not knowing the laws of nature, neither physical nor moral, epic poetry presented both in an indivisible totality, expressed in numerous similes and metaphors. The heroic epic is only a further development of the primitive mythological legend. The theogonic epic is replaced by the heroic at that stage in the development of epic poetry, when legends about the deeds of people began to join pure myth. At this time, the epic epic grows out of the myth, from which the fairy tale subsequently stood out. The people preserve their epic traditions not only in epics and fairy tales, but also in individual sayings, brief spells, proverbs, sayings, oaths, riddles, signs and superstitions.

The Slavs, like other Indo-European peoples, rose from the lowest level of demonology associated with magic to the highest forms of religion. However, we know very little about this process. What we know is mainly the richest world of lower spirits and magic that surrounded the Slav. This world of spirits and magic underlay the religious worldview of the Slavs from ancient times to the end of the pagan period. Russian medieval writers - chroniclers and church preachers - followed the traditions of the ancient Christian church fathers, who scourged and ridiculed ancient paganism, but did not describe it as it was around and in reality. The ancient Russian authors did the same. They appealed to the audience that was full of pagan thoughts, actions, constant witchcraft spells, which avoided church services and willingly participated in colorful and intoxicating riotous and popular pagan games. Therefore, they did not so much describe as condemn. In XV - XVII centuries Slavic historians have already overcome the neglect of their predecessors to the mythological ideas of their ancestors and began to collect written and ethnographic data about the ancient pagan gods and the details of the cult of the Slavic peoples.

Unfortunately, in these Renaissance writings by various authors, be it the Pole Jan Dlugosh or the Russian author of the Gustyn Chronicle, the main idea was a comparison with such an international standard as Greco-Roman mythology. In essence, from the total amount of Slavic and foreign sources, we can reliably draw only a list of the names of Slavic gods and goddesses. Russian chronicles call the gods, whose cult was established by Prince Vladimir in 980, - these are Perun, Stribog, Dazhbog, Khors, Semargl and the goddess Makosh. In addition, Veles, Svarog, Rod and women in labor are mentioned. Ethnography already in the 17th century added several mythological characters such as Lada and Lelya.

Catholic missionaries in the West Slavic lands call the gods Svyatovit, Svarozhich, Yarovit, Virgin, Zhiva, Radogost and other gods. Since the actual Slavic texts and images of gods and spirits have not been preserved due to the fact that Christianization interrupted the pagan tradition, the main source of information is medieval chronicles, teachings against paganism, chronicles, archaeological excavations, folklore and ethnographic collections. Information about the gods of the Western Slavs is very scarce, for example, "History of Poland" by Jan Dlugosh (1415 - 1480), which gives a list of deities and their correspondences from Greek and Roman mythology: Perun - Zeus, Nyya - Pluto, Dzevana - Venus, Marjana - Ceres, Share - Fortune, etc.

The Czech and Slovak data on the gods are considered by many scholars to be in need of critical scrutiny. Little is known about the mythology of the southern Slavs. Early falling into the sphere of influence of Byzantium and other powerful civilizations of the Mediterranean, having adopted Christianity before other Slavs, they largely lost information about the former composition of their pantheon.

The most fully preserved mythology of the Eastern Slavs. We find early information about it in the "Tale of Bygone Years" (XII century), which reports that Prince Vladimir the Holy (? - 1015) sought to create a nationwide pagan pantheon. However, his adoption of Christianity in 988 led to the destruction of the idols of the so-called Vladimir pantheon (they were solemnly thrown into the Dnieper), as well as the prohibition of paganism and its rituals.

The old gods began to be identified with Christian saints: Perun turned into Saint Ilya, Veles - into Saint Blaise, Yaril - into Saint George. However, the mythological representations of our ancestors continue to live in folk traditions, holidays, beliefs and rituals, as well as in songs, fairy tales, incantations and signs. Ancient mythological characters like goblin, mermaids, mermen, brownies and devils are vividly imprinted in speech, proverbs and sayings. Developing, Slavic mythology went through three stages - spirits, deities of nature and gods-idols (idols). The Slavs revered the gods of life and death (Zhiva and Moran), fertility and the plant kingdom, heavenly bodies and fire, sky and war; not only the sun or water were personified, but also numerous house spirits, etc. - Worship and admiration was expressed in bringing blood and bloodless sacrifices.

In the 19th century, Russian scientists began to study Russian myths, tales and legends, realizing their scientific value and the importance of preserving them for future generations. The key to a new understanding of Slavic mythology were the works of F. I. Buslaev, A. A. Potebnya, I. P. Sakharov, such works as the three-volume study by A. N. Afanasyev "Poetic views of the Slavs on nature", "Myths of Slavic paganism" and "A Brief Essay on Russian Mythology" by D. O. Shepping, "Deities of the Ancient Slavs" by A. S. Famintsyn and others.

The mythological school was the first to arise, based on the comparative historical method of study, the establishment of an organic connection between language, folk poetry and folk mythology, the principle of the collective nature of creativity. Fyodor Ivanovich Buslaev (1818-1897) is considered to be the founder of this school.

In the most ancient period of the language, says Buslaev, the word as an expression of legends and rituals, events and objects was understood in the closest connection with what it expresses: "the name imprinted a belief or event, and from the name a legend or a myth arose again." A special "epic ritual" in the repetition of ordinary expressions led to the fact that what was once said about any subject seemed so successful that it no longer needed further modification. Language thus became a "faithful instrument of tradition." The method, originally associated with comparing languages, establishing common forms of words and raising them to the language of the Indo-European peoples, was first transferred by Buslaev to folklore in Russian science and applied to the study of the mythological traditions of the Slavs.

“Poetic inspiration belonged to everyone and everyone, like a proverb, like a legal saying. A whole people was a poet. Individuals were not poets, but singers or storytellers, they only knew how to tell or sing more accurately and more dexterously what was known to everyone. The power of tradition dominated undividedly over the epic singer, not allowing him to stand out from the group.Not knowing the laws of nature, neither physical nor moral, epic poetry represented both in an inseparable totality, expressed in numerous similes and metaphors.The heroic epic is only a further development of the primitive mythological legend "Theogonic epic is replaced by heroic at that stage in the development of epic poetry, when legends about people's deeds began to join pure myth. At this time, an epic epic grows out of myth, from which a fairy tale subsequently emerged. The people retain their epic traditions not only in epics and fairy tales , but also in separate sayings, short sentences thieves, proverbs, sayings, oaths, riddles, signs and superstitions.

These are the main provisions of Buslaev's mythological theory, which in the 60-70s of the 19th century gradually develops into a school of comparative mythology and the theory of borrowing.
The theory of comparative mythology was developed by Alexander Nikolaevich Afanasiev (1826-1871), Orest Fedorovich Miller (1833-1889) and Alexander Alexandrovich Kotlyarevsky (1837-1881). The focus of their attention was the problem of the origin of the myth in the very process of its creation. Most of the myths, according to this theory, go back to the ancient tribe of the Aryans. Standing out from this common great-tribe, the peoples spread its legends all over the world, therefore the legends of the "Pigeon Book" almost completely coincide with the songs of the Old Norse "Elder Edda" and ancient myths Hindus.

The comparative method, according to Afanasiev, "gives the means to restore the original form of legends." Epics are of particular importance for understanding Slavic mythology (this term was introduced by I.P. Sakharov; before that, epic songs were called oldies). Russian heroic epics can be put on a par with heroic myths in other mythological systems, with the difference that the epics are largely historical, telling about the events of the 11th-16th centuries. Heroes of epics - Ilya Muromets, Volga, Mikula Selyaninovich, Vasily Buslaev and others are perceived not only as individuals related to a certain historical era, but above all - as defenders, ancestors, namely epic heroes. Hence their unity with nature and Magic power, their invincibility (there are practically no epics about the death of heroes or about the battles they played). Initially existing in the oral version, as the work of singer-storytellers, epics, of course, have undergone considerable changes. There is reason to believe that they once existed in a more mythologized form.

Slavic mythology is characterized by the fact that it is comprehensive and does not represent a separate area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe people's idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe world and the universe (like fantasy or religion), but is embodied even in everyday life - whether it be rituals, rituals, cults or an agricultural calendar, preserved demonology (from brownies, witches and goblin to banniks and mermaids) or a forgotten identification (for example, the pagan Perun with the Christian saint Ilya). Therefore, almost destroyed at the level of texts until the 11th century, it continues to live in images, symbolism, rituals and in the language itself.

Peoples about the world, expressed in religious beliefs, rituals and cults. It is closely connected with paganism and cannot be considered separately from it.

Slavic myths (summary and main characters) are the focus of this article. Consider the time of their occurrence, similarity with ancient legends and tales of other peoples, sources of study and the pantheon of deities.

The formation of Slavic mythology and its connection with the religious beliefs of other peoples

The myths of the peoples of the world (Slavic myths, ancient Greek and ancient Indian) have much in common. This suggests that they have a common beginning. Links their common origin from the Proto-Indo-European religion.

Slavic mythology was formed as a separate layer of the Indo-European religion over a long period - from the 2nd millennium BC. e.

The main features of Slavic paganism, reflected in mythology, are the cult of ancestors, belief in supernatural forces and lower spirits, and the spiritualization of nature.

Ancient Slavic myths are strikingly similar to the legends of the Baltic peoples, Indian, Greek and Scandinavian mythology. In all the myths of these ancient tribes, there was a god of thunder: the Slavic Perun, the Hittite Pirva and the Baltic Perkunas.

All these peoples have the main myth - this is the confrontation of the supreme deity with his main opponent, the Serpent. The similarity can be traced in the belief in the afterlife, which is separated from the world of the living by some kind of barrier: an abyss or a river.

Slavic myths and legends, like the legends of other Indo-European peoples, also tell about heroes fighting a snake.

Sources of information on the legends and myths of the Slavic peoples

Unlike Greek or Scandinavian mythology, the Slavs did not have their own Homer, who would be engaged in the literary processing of ancient legends about the gods. Therefore, now we know very little about the process of formation of the mythology of the Slavic tribes.

The sources of written knowledge are the texts of Byzantine, Arabic and Western European authors of the period of the 6th - 13th centuries, the Scandinavian sagas, ancient Russian chronicles, apocrypha, teachings. In a special place is the "Word of Igor's Campaign", which contains a lot of information about Slavic mythology. Unfortunately, all these sources are only a retelling of the authors, and they do not mention the legends in their entirety.

Slavic myths and legends are also preserved in folklore sources: epics, fairy tales, legends, incantations, proverbs.

The most reliable sources on the mythology of the ancient Slavs are archaeological finds. These include idols of gods, cult and ritual places, inscriptions, signs and decorations.

Classification of Slavic mythology

Gods should be distinguished:

1) Eastern Slavs.

2) Western Slavic tribes.

There are also common Slavic gods.

The idea of ​​the world and the Universe of the ancient Slavs

Due to the lack of written sources, almost nothing is known about the beliefs and ideas about the world of the Slavic tribes. Fragile information can be gleaned from archaeological sources. The most obvious of them is the Zbruch idol, found in the Ternopil region of Ukraine in the middle of the 19th century. It is a four-sided limestone pillar, divided into three tiers. The bottom one contains images underworld and the deities that inhabit it. The middle one is dedicated to the world of people, and the upper tier depicts the supreme gods.

Information about how the ancient Slavic tribes represented the world around them can be found in ancient Russian literature, in particular, in the Tale of Igor's Campaign. Here, in some passages, a connection with the World Tree is clearly traced, myths about which exist among many Indo-European peoples.

Based on the sources listed, the following picture emerges: the ancient Slavs believed that there was an island (possibly Buyan) in the center of the oceans. Here, in the very center of the world, either the sacred stone Alatyr lies, which has healing properties, or the World Tree grows (almost always in myths and legends it is an oak). The Gagana bird sits on its branches, and under it is the snake Garafen.

Myths of the peoples of the world: Slavic myths (the creation of the Earth, the appearance of man)

The creation of the world among the ancient Slavs was associated with such a god as Rod. He is the creator of everything in the world. He separated the obvious world in which people live (Yav) from the invisible world (Nav). Rod is considered the supreme deity of the Slavs, the patron of fertility, the creator of life.

Slavic myths (the creation of the Earth and the appearance of man) tell about the creation of all things: the creator god Rod, together with his sons Belbog and Chernobog, decided to create this world. First, Rod from the ocean of chaos created three hypostases of the world: Yav, Nav and Rule. Then the Sun appeared from the face of the supreme deity, the moon appeared from the chest, and the eyes became stars. After the creation of the world, Rod remained in Prav - the dwelling place of the gods, where he leads his children and distributes responsibilities between them.

pantheon of deities

Slavic gods (myths and legends about which have been preserved in very small numbers) are quite extensive. Unfortunately, due to the extremely scarce information, it is difficult to restore the functions of many Slavic deities. The mythology of the ancient Slavs was not known until they reached the borders Byzantine Empire. Thanks to the records of the historian Procopius of Caesarea, it was possible to find out some details of the religious beliefs of the Slavic peoples. The Laurentian Chronicle mentions gods from the Vladimir pantheon. Having ascended the throne, Prince Vladimir ordered to place idols of the six most important gods near his residence.

Perun

The god of thunder is considered one of the main deities of the Slavic tribes. He was the patron of the prince and his squad. Among other nations, it is known as Zeus, Thor, Perkunas. First mentioned in The Tale of Bygone Years. Even then, Perun headed the pantheon of Slavic gods. They sacrificed to him, slaughtering a bull, and oaths and agreements were secured in the name of God.

The god of thunder was associated with heights, so his idols were set on the hills. The sacred tree of Perun was the oak.

After the adoption of Christianity in Russia, some of the functions of Perun passed to Gregory the Victorious and Elijah the Prophet.

solar deities

The god of the sun in Slavic myths was in second place in importance after Perun. Horse, that's what they called him. The etymology of the name is still unclear. According to the most common theory, it comes from the Iranian languages. But this version is very vulnerable, since it is difficult to explain how this word became the name of one of the main Slavic deities. The Tale of Bygone Years mentions Khors as one of the gods of the Vladimir pantheon. There is information about him in other ancient Russian texts.

Khors, the god of the sun in Slavic myths, is often mentioned along with other deities related to the heavenly body. This is Dazhbog - one of the main Slavic gods, the personification of sunlight, and Yarilo.

Dazhbog was also a deity of fertility. The etymology of the name does not cause difficulty - "the god who gives welfare", such is his approximate translation. He played a double function in the mythology of the ancient Slavs. As the personification of sunlight and warmth, he gave fertility to the soil and at the same time was a source of royal power. Dazhbog is considered the son of Svarog, the blacksmith god.

Yarilo - a lot of ambiguities are connected with this character of Slavic mythology. Until now, it has not been precisely established whether it should be considered a deity, or whether it is a personification of one of the holidays of the ancient Slavs. Some researchers consider Yarilo a deity of spring light, warmth and fertility, others - a ritual character. He was represented as a young man on a white horse and wearing a white robe. On her hair is a wreath of spring flowers. In the hands of the deity of spring light holds ears of cereal. Where he appears, there will certainly be a good harvest. Yarilo also engendered love in the heart of the one he looked at.

Researchers agree on one thing - this character of Slavic mythology cannot be called the god of the sun. Ostrovsky's play "The Snow Maiden" fundamentally misinterprets the image of Yarilo as a solar deity. In this case, Russian classical literature plays the role of harmful propaganda.

Mokosh (Makosh)

There are very few female deities in Slavic mythology. Of the main ones, only such as Mother - Cheese Earth and Mokosh can be named. The latter is mentioned among other idols installed by order of Prince Vladimir in Kyiv, which indicates the importance of this female deity.

Mokosh was the goddess of weaving and spinning. She was also revered as the patroness of crafts. Her name is associated with two words "wet" and "spinning". The day of Mokosh's week was Friday. On this day, it was strictly forbidden to engage in weaving and spinning. As a sacrifice, Mokosh was presented with yarn, throwing it into the well. The goddess was represented as a long-armed woman spinning at night in houses.

Some researchers suggest that Mokosh was the wife of Perun, so she was given an honorable place among the main Slavic gods. The name of this female deity is mentioned in many ancient texts.

After the adoption of Christianity in Russia, part of the features and functions of Mokosh passed to St. Paraskeva-Pyatnitsa.

Stribog

Mentioned in the Vladimir pantheon as one of the main gods, but its function is not entirely clear. Perhaps he was the god of the winds. In ancient texts, his name is often mentioned together with Dazhbog. It is not known whether there were holidays dedicated to Stribog, since there is very little information about this deity.

Volos (Veles)

Researchers tend to believe that these are still two different characters of myths. Volos is the patron saint of domestic animals and the god of prosperity. In addition, he is the god of wisdom, the patron of poets and storytellers. It is not for nothing that Boyan from The Tale of Igor's Campaign is called Veles' grandson in the poem. A few uncompressed stalks of cereals were left on the field as a gift to him. After the adoption of Christianity by the Slavic peoples, the functions of Volos were taken over by two saints: Nicholas the Wonderworker and Blasius.

As for Veles, this is one of the demons, the evil spirit that Perun fought.

Slavic mythical creatures - forest dwellers

Several characters were associated with the forest among the ancient Slavs. The main ones were water and goblin. With the advent of Christianity in Russia, they began to attribute exclusively negative traits, making demonic creatures.

Leshy is the owner of the forest. They also called him a forester and a forest spirit. He carefully guards the forest and its inhabitants. Relations with a good person are neutral - the goblin does not touch him, and can even come to the rescue - take him out of the forest if he gets lost. To bad people attitude is negative. Their forest master punishes: makes them stray and can tickle to death.

Before people, the goblin appears in different guises: human, vegetable, animal. The ancient Slavs had an ambivalent attitude towards him - the goblin was revered and feared at the same time. It was believed that shepherds and hunters needed to make a deal with him, otherwise the goblin could steal cattle or even a person.

Water - a spirit that lives in reservoirs. He was represented as an old man with a fish tail, beard and mustache. It can take the form of a fish, a bird, pretend to be a log or a drowned man. Especially dangerous during big holidays. Vodyanoy likes to settle in whirlpools, under mills and sluices, in polynyas. He has herds of fish. It is hostile to a person, always trying to drag under the water the one who came to swim at an inopportune time (noon, midnight and after sunset). The favorite fish of the merman is catfish, on which he rides like a horse.

There were other, lower beings, such as the forest spirit. In Slavic myths, he was called Auka. He never sleeps. He lives in a hut in the very thicket of the forest, where there is always a supply of melt water. A special expanse for Auka comes in winter, when the wood goblin falls asleep. The forest spirit is hostile to humans - it will try to lead a random traveler into a windbreak or make him circle until he gets tired.

Bereginya - this mythical female character has an unclear function. According to the most common version, this is a forest deity that protects trees and plants. But also the ancient Slavs considered the shores to be mermaids. Their sacred tree is a birch, which was very revered by the people.

Borovik is another forest spirit in Slavic mythology. Outwardly, it looks like a huge bear. It can be distinguished from a real animal by the absence of a tail. Under him are boletus mushrooms - the owners of mushrooms, similar to little old men.

Kikimora marsh is another colorful character in Slavic mythology. He does not like people, but he will not touch them as long as the travelers are quiet in the forest. If they are noisy and harm plants or animals, a kikimora can make them stray through the swamp. Very secretive, very rarely seen.

Bolotnik - a mistake would be to confuse it with a water one. The swamp among the ancient Slavs has always been considered a place where evil spirits live. The swamp was represented as a terrible creature. This is either a motionless eyeless fat man, covered with a layer of algae, silt, snails, or a tall man with long arms, overgrown with dirty gray wool. He cannot change his appearance. Represents a great danger to a person or animal caught in a swamp. He grabs the victim, stuck in the quagmire, by the legs and drags him to the bottom. There is only one way to destroy the swamp - by draining its swamp.

Slavic myths for children - briefly about the most interesting

Introduction to samples ancient Russian literature, oral tales and myths is of great importance for the comprehensive development of children. Both adults and the smallest need to know about their past. Slavic myths (grade 5) will introduce schoolchildren to the pantheon of the main gods and the most famous legends. The reading book on literature includes an interesting retelling of A.N. Tolstoy about Kikimor, there is information about the main characters in the mythology of the ancient Slavs, and an idea is given of such a concept as a “temple”.

If desired, parents can more early age introduce the child to the pantheon of Slavic gods and other mythological creatures. It is advisable to choose positive characters, and not tell young children about such frightening creatures as navy, sinister, werewolves.

To get acquainted with the characters of Slavic mythology, you can recommend the book by Alexander Asov "Myths of the Slavs for children and their parents." It will be of interest to both the younger generation and the older. Svetlana Lavrova - another one good author, who wrote the book "Slavic legends".

Brief essay on Russian mythology

The pagan beliefs of the Slavic people in general can be divided into three tribal regions of mythical traditions: southern, western and eastern (Russian) Slavs. Although these areas are closely related both by the philological affinity of the language, and by the customs and rituals common between them, nevertheless, both in the external form of the cult and in its internal meaning, they are completely different from each other. Each of them makes up its own special and completely closed world of its tribal beliefs. These three tribal areas of Slavic mythology also correspond to the three main stages of their pagan religion. The first of these steps is the direct worship of nature and the elements; the second is the worship of the deities who personify these phenomena, and the third is the worship of idols that already command over them. The Western Slavs of the Baltic coast and the banks of the Laba (Elbe) belong, for the most part, to the last, i.e., worship of idols, while, on the contrary, the Serbs and Croats include direct direct worship of nature, enlivened by folk fantasy by crowds of collective spirits, as numerous as the manifestations in nature of the same laws are manifold. Our Russian traditions were destined to serve as a link between these two extreme stages of development. Slavic myth and combine the worship of Western tribes with the worship of the elements and natural phenomena of the southern Slavs. At this first stage in the development of the anthropomorphic trend, a person, not yet understanding the general law of the unity of many different, but related phenomena and wanting to personify each individual phenomenon, each individual object in a human form, creates in his imagination for each phenomenon a crowd of spirits that do not yet have an individual meaning, but understood by him only as collectives of various manifestations of one and the same force of nature. The individual personality of the deity still merges into a common generic concept, but its collective has certain characteristics, such as, for example, the Water Grandfather, Leshy, Brownie, etc. Little by little, these countless collectives merge into one main individuality, which either absorbs them in itself, or submits to his authority. So, for example, until now, all the names of demons and demons in all languages, with their collective meaning, still have another - the proper name of their main leader, the demon of demons, the devil.

Meanwhile, a person, living and studying nature, acquires new concepts every day, flowing one from the other and crushing to infinity in his mind. In this uninterrupted transition from generic concepts to more particular ones, in this fragmentation of human thought, lies the logical process of the development of any polytheism, which clothes abstract concepts in visible images gods and idols. At the second stage of its development, paganism for each general concept of a homogeneous phenomenon creates a separate person, identical with the phenomenon itself, and the meaning of such a person is determined solely by the meaning of the phenomenon specifically associated with it; for example, the god of thunder, the god of rain, are nothing but the very phenomena of thunder, rain, etc. Therefore, both the external forms and the symbols of these deities are still very colorless, and even their very names testify to an undeveloped personality. The reason for this is that these names are either borrowed from the phenomenon itself, as the weather is frost, or are made up of adjectives that determine the general property of not so much a person as a phenomenon and require the necessary addition of a noun. god, pan, king and so on, in order to become the proper name of a deity, for example, Bel-god, Dobro-pan, Tsar-sea, etc. For these deities, folk fantasy creates its own images, oral tradition names them, and rituals explain their meaning; but in spite of this, images, names and attributes still vacillate in some kind of mysterious indeterminacy until, finally, architecture establishes the various shades of the concept of some deity and petrifies him, so to speak, once and for all into certain forms.

Here comes the third period of mythical development. Idols, having ceased to be a means of depiction that arouses popular reverence, become themselves the subject of deification and worship, and, having lost the specific unity of their images with the concepts they express, they take on a completely individual meaning of patrons and managers of those phenomena and forces of nature with which they were previously identical. Temples are built for these idols, entire castes of priests are established to offer sacrifices to them and to perform worship; their names from adjectives expressing general properties nature, turn into proper names or are replaced by other, random and local names. In a word, idols get a well-defined objective individuality.

The people, becoming more and more akin to their deities through their human forms, soon involuntarily conveys to them in their imagination all their passions and enlivens their soulless idols with the physical activity of man. The gods begin to live an earthly life, being subject, apart from death, to all its accidents, and from figurative objectivity they pass to a real subjective existence: they enter into bonds of marriage and kinship, and new idols not only as concepts, by way of thought, flow from their prototypes, but are born from them by the physical birth of man.

In our opinion, the Slavic myth has not grown up to this subjectivity of its gods, although many believe that this last degree of development is only lost in the memory of the people, but nevertheless once existed among us along with other peoples of antiquity. We will not dispute this opinion here, but the fact remains the same that for us, at the present time, this subjective life of Slavic idols does not exist.

So, according to its development, Slavic mythology can be divided into three eras: spirits, deities of nature and gods-idols.

This division is partly confirmed by the words of St. Gregory (Paisievsky collection), clearly indicating three different periods of pagan worship: “They began to lay the rites for the family and women in childbirth before Perun their god, and before that they laid the rites for the upirs and coasts.”

We will find confirmation of the same in the very gradual introduction of Christianity among the Slavs. So, for example, in the legends of the southern Slavs, who were the first to adopt the Christian faith, predominantly collective spirits predominate, while idols are not found among them at all. In Moravia, Bohemia, Poland and Russia, with the existence of some even idols, most of the gods are the deities of nature, belonging to the second era, when, on the contrary, among the Polabs and Pomeranians, the collectives completely disappear and the whole religion is concentrated on some main objective personalities of the Arkon and Retrai idols. Sometimes, with the predominance of objective idols, some signs of the transition of the gods to subjective life are even noticed. So, for example, there was a belief about Svetovit's horse that God himself rode it at night, and Perun spoke in a human voice in Novgorod and threw his club into the Volkhov.

Paying attention to the worship of Slavic paganism itself, we will also find in it a complete confirmation of our opinion. In fact, although the information that has come down to us about the liturgical rites of the Slavs is scarce and insufficient, but with all that they clearly bear the stamp of some kind of diversity, which, in our opinion, can only be explained various times religious development. If, however, we extend our general division of the Slavic myth to the rites of worship, then we will not only confirm the proposed division, but also explain the very facts, which, taken together, often contradict each other.

Indeed, in the first epoch of our myth, man, not even knowing personal gods, naturally had neither definite places of worship nor definite persons for performing it, and as the deities were inseparably merged with the very phenomena of nature, to which they served as allegories, so it is natural that man made his sacrifices directly to the phenomena themselves. Already Procopius testifies that the Slavs made sacrifices to rivers and nymphs; and the customs and rituals of throwing wreaths, food and money into rivers, wells and lakes have survived to this day. “Do not call yourself a god either in stone, or in students, or in rivers,” the “Word of Cyril” says, and Nestor also directly mentions that “sacrifices are offered to the wells and lakes.” The custom of hanging on the branches of trees and placing on stones or at the root of an old oak tree gifts offered by man to invisible spirits fully confirms our idea that sacrifices were once offered to the very phenomena of nature. These sacrifices were brought by everyone, without the intermediary of special priests appointed for that; however, this position, on major national holidays, was sent, perhaps, by the elders, who in the national and civic life of the Slavs always enjoyed great rights.

With a more precise definition of the meaning of the deities of nature, the places of sacrifices and prayers began to be determined. Indeed, before the existence of idols and, therefore, before the construction of temples by them, the Slavs had Famous places on which they used to pray to some deity. This is supported by many testimonies. So, Konstantin Porfirorodny says that the Russians made sacrifices on the Dnieper island of St. George; Sefrid speaks of an oak where some god lives, to whom sacrifices were made; Helmold, Ditmar, Saxon and Andrew, the life writer of St. Otto of Bamberg, knew many sacred groves, where they worshiped some sacred tree, which in later times was sometimes replaced by the idol of some god.

The sacred mountains, hills and all the numerous settlements must also be included in the category of places dedicated to worship, and finally, as a transition to the last era of Slavic myth, and some temples, like the temple of Yuterbok, whose structure clearly proves that there was no idol in it, but the appearance of the first ray of the rising sun was simply idolized. This temple was illuminated only by one small opening, which was turned to the east side so that it was lit up with light only at sunrise; The Arab writer Massudi also mentions a Slavic temple, in the dome of which a hole was made to observe the rising of the sun.

In certain localities, certain persons must also have existed to perform liturgical rites, but, probably, they did not yet constitute a closed caste of priests. Were they not sorcerers, prophetic and sorcerers (miracles), persons who were not consecrated to this title, but caused by momentary inspiration? The answer to this question can be the appointment of the Magi, who, like the priests of other peoples, guessed and predicted the future.

With the advent of idols, special rituals for worship are determined, rich temples appear, and a whole caste of servants and priests is formed, who, taking advantage of the superstitious fear of the people for the idol, not only enrich themselves with his gifts, but often seize the political power of his kings. So it was in Rügen and among the Redarians.

Holidays, sacrifices, ceremonies and divination - everything is concentrated around the idol and his attendants and is surrounded for the people by some kind of inaccessible mystery, under which it is easy to find the cunning deceptions of greedy priests. The last feature sharply divides the entire worship of our ancestors into two, completely separate, halves: direct worship of natural phenomena and pure idolatry. The first, like faith in the spirits and deities of nature, has not yet been eradicated from the life of the common people: its holidays, songs, divination, superstition - everything bears the stamp of these times of paganism and serves us as materials for its study; while everything has disappeared from the time of pure idolatry: the debauchery of Bacchic feasts, and outrageous bloody sacrifices, and rich temples, and monstrous idols - everything, often even the names of these idols. The very fact of erasing from the people's memory everything related to last period of our myth, proves to us the novelty of idolatry among the Russian Slavs, which had not yet had time to firmly take root among them, and was destroyed, along with the idols themselves, at the first appearance of Christianity. This, perhaps, is the reason why among the Eastern Slavs Christianity not only met almost no resistance anywhere, but that the pagans themselves called preachers to themselves. new faith. It is impossible not to notice here that these two completely separate eras of the deification of natural phenomena and the later worship of idols echoed in the information that has come down to us (actually Russian mythology) in dividing this information according to their sources into popular beliefs and historical data. Some have come down to us through oral tradition in superstitious rites, fairy tales, songs and various sayings of the common people, while others have been preserved in the annals and written monuments of our historical antiquity.

The deities of oral tradition still live in popular superstition, and their names are known to almost every Russian commoner; about the idols of written tradition, we do not find the slightest recollection among the people, and if they had not been preserved for us in the annals and spiritual writings of our medieval literature, the names of these idols would have remained forever unknown to us.

Of the few proper names of the idol gods that have come down to us, we have absolutely no information, not only about the personality of these deities, but even about the external form of their idols. We only know about Perun that he was made of wood with a silver head and a golden mustache, and that he had a club that the Novgorod idol threw into the Volkhov. These gods do not have special symbols and attributes, and our imagination cannot be guided by anything to recreate these idols when we meet their names in our annals.

In this absence of any definite appearance, it seems impossible to admit the existence of the subjective personality of these idols, and we rather believe that they have not grown up to the individual life of Thors and Odins, Jupiters and Apollos, than to admit the assumption that the biographical myths (if we dare to say so) of our deities could have disappeared from the people's memory to such an extent that even the external appearance of these gods was not preserved in our traditions.

The only basis for the fact that our gods once lived a human life, entered into marriage bonds and made children for themselves, is, for the defenders of such a thesis, the patronymic of Svarog.

The name of Svarog is found in our written monuments in only one place in the Ipatiev Chronicle, borrowed from the Bulgarian Chronograph and translated by him, in turn, from the Byzantine writer Malala. It is clear that the matter here is about Egypt; but just like in the Greek and Latin texts of Malala, the names of Hephaestus - Vulcan and Helios - are inserted to explain Sol, in the same way, the names of Svarog and Dazhbog are inserted in the Slavic text: “And after the flood and after the division of the language, the first Mestro reigned, from the clan of Khamov, after him Hermias, after him Theost, who also called Savarog the Egyptians, and by this the king’s son his name is the Sun, they will call him Dazhbog. And further: "The sun is the king, the son of Svarogov, the hedgehog is Dazhbog."

The form of Svarozhich is found in the "Word of Superstition": "The fires pray, they call him Svarozhich." Finally, the Baltic Slavs had an idol called Ditmar Zuarosici, which St. Bruno also mentions in his letter to Emperor Heinrich P. For a long time they mistakenly read this name Lvarazik and explained it in many ways, until, finally, Safarik decided the matter, identifying him with Svarozhich "Words about superstition." From these data, some scientists a little arbitrarily made Svarog into the Slavic Saturn, the partially forgotten god of the sky and the father of the sun and thunder, Dazhbog and Perun, whom they therefore call Svarozhichs.

But to base this genealogy of our gods on the words of Malala would be to take Helios for the son of Hephaestus in Greek myth, and it should hardly be divided into two different persons Svarog and Svarozhich or Zuarazik of the Western Slavs and certainly see in the final form of these latter patronymics, other examples of which our mythology does not.

The fragments of Russian paganism, preserved for us in folk rites, beliefs, signs, fairy tales, riddles, incantations and epic techniques and expressions of the most ancient language, all directly relate to the very objects, laws and phenomena of nature. Thus, with these data, we can completely recreate the degree of the religious concept that is associated in the imagination of our ancestors with their physical knowledge of various forces and natural phenomena. The superstitious rites of our pre-Christian antiquity point directly to worship and sacrifice to the elements, such as, for example, jumping over fire and burning in fire, bathing and throwing into water, etc. The main characteristic of such traditions of the Russian people is a deep observational knowledge of nature and life in general. This knowledge is often hidden from the naked eye under the shell of an allegorical fairy tale or a well-aimed epithet, and sometimes it is expressed by transferring (by comparison) an abstract idea to a material object, close to man. Thus, this visible object becomes a symbol and emblem of an abstract thought, the memory of which is inextricably linked with this object. So, for example, the black color, reminiscent of the darkness of the night, constantly serves as an image of everything gloomy, evil and deadly, while, on the contrary, white, red and yellow colors, like the colors of the day and the sun, not only become synonymous epithets of these phenomena, but are associated in the human imagination with all the concepts of good and good.

With this luxuriously epic view of man on nature, the deity-idols, who once personified the same forces and phenomena of nature, have come down to us in the colorless indefiniteness of empty names that do not tell our imagination anything, so that in none of our idols we we will not find the fabulous legends that are accustomed to meet in the classical myths of Greece and Rome.

How many beliefs, signs, riddles and sentences we have that determine not only natural, but also superstitious-mythical qualities and properties of heavenly bodies, natural elements and even many animals and plants, and meanwhile, as we have just noted above, about the most important idols of the Kyiv hill, whose names are constantly repeated by all the chroniclers, we, apart from this empty name, know absolutely nothing.

Of all the places where Nestor speaks of the pagan deities of our ancestors, the most important is where he mentions the idols set by Vladimir in Kyiv. This place leaves its indelible mark on all the later testimonies of our ancient writers on this subject. There, the name of the main god Perun is separated from other idols by a description of his idol; it is followed by Khors, Dazhbog, Stribog, Semargla and Mokosh (Mokosha). This order of counting idols is kept in the same place in our history and with the most minor changes in the Arkhangelsk, Nikon and Gustin chronicles, in the Book of Powers and in the German writer Herberstein, from where it passes to Polish historians, and later, with their changes, comes back to us, as we shall see later. In texts testifying to the beliefs of the Slavs in general, a description of the idol of Perun is published, but nevertheless he holds the first place in them. Of the other deities, apparently, those whom the writers considered less important are sometimes released: Yakov names only Perun and Khors; St. Gregory - Perun, Khorsa and Mokosh; in the Prologue published by Professor Bodyansky - Perun, Khors, Semargla (Sima and Rgla) and Mokosh; in the "Makariev Menaia" - Perun, Khors, Dazhbog and Mokosh, and so on. and so on.

From the time of the influence of the Polish chronicles on our writers, a completely new order of deities appears in the Gustin Chronicle (on the idols of the Rus), in St. Demetrius of Rostov and in Gisel's Kiev Synopsis. In it, Perun occupies the first place, but the description of his idol is supplemented by the remark that he was deified on high mountains and that bonfires burned in honor of him, the extinguishment of which was punished death penalty; the second deity is Volos, the third is Pozvizd, the fourth is Lado, the fifth is Kupalo, the sixth is Kolyada. That this series of gods was directly borrowed from foreign sources is clearly shown in the Gustinskaya Chronicle by the very name of Perun, who is called Perkonos in this place in the chronicle, when a few pages before that we immediately meet Nestor’s pure text about the construction of idols in Kyiv. Even at the end of this alien order, we can still see the influence of Nestor, but already changed in its spelling: in addition to those demonic idols, there are also “and ini idols byakhu, with names: Uslyad or Oslyad, Korsha or Khors, Dashuba or Dazhb”, and other names Nestor's idols. Uslyad came from an erroneous translation of words mustache gold German traveler Herberstein. Further, the names of Korsh and Dashub are also completely alien to our native writers, although the latter is partly explained by the spelling of the Power Book: Dazhaba, but this, perhaps, is a typo, especially since Dazhba is printed elsewhere in the same book, probably derived from non-observance of the title over the abbreviated god (ba).

Volos is not mentioned by Nestor among the idols built by Vladimir; but from the contract of Svyatoslav it is clear that he occupied a very important place among the Slavic deities, almost equal to Perun, with whom he is put as if in parallel, which is why he takes the first place after Perun among Polish writers and their Russian followers. A similar rapprochement between Perun and Volos is also found in the words of mnih Yakov. From this evidence, repeated in The Triumphant and in Makaryev's Cheti-Minei, one can conclude that the idol of Volos was in Kyiv, probably even before Vladimir, which is why it was not mentioned by Nestor. This assumption is even more clearly confirmed by the evidence of the "Book of Powers", where, when creating Kyiv idols, the chronicler, writing directly from Nestor, does not mention Volos; but, on the contrary, when destroying them, he lists everyone by name, and after Mokosh he also names Blasius, the cattle god. In the "Word of St. Gregory" there is a mysterious name Vila in the singular and masculine: "and Khorsu, and Mokoshi, and Vila", which we take here for Volos on the grounds that in the unpublished part of this "Word ..." Vila is called the Phoenician Baal: "There was an idol named Bel, but Daniel the Prophet should destroy him in Babylon."

In addition to the six main idols mentioned by the Laurentian Chronicle, there are several other nicknames for the pagan polytheism of ancient Russia in our ancient written monuments, such as Svarog, Svarozhich, Rod and Rozhanitsa, Ghouls, Beregini, Navia, Plow, etc.

With an insertion in the "Busta Chronicle" (about the idols of the Russians) and Gizel's "Synopsis" begins already literary processing Slavic mythology, the false direction of which flourished among us for a long time, both in the fake chronicles of the 18th century (like Joakimov's), and in the works of native mythologists of the end of the last century: Popov, Chulkov, Glinka and Kaisarov. These writings, under the influence of the Polish-German learning of the seventeenth century and its extremely false direction, flooded our native fables with lists of gods, demigods, heroes and geniuses of every kind and with many traditions and details, based mostly on arbitrary fictions or on facts taken from outside and completely alien to our region.

Most of the names found in these lists belong to the idols of the Western Slavs and partly of the ancient Prussians, deified in the famous temples of Arkona, Retra and Romova. Kievan idols are constantly mentioned in non-Russian forms of Dashuba, Korsha, etc., clearly borrowed from foreign sources. From our popular superstitions and fairy tales, only a few of the most famous names got into these lists: mermaids, goblin, brownies, Polkan, Koshchei and Baba Yaga. The names of the folk holidays Kupala and Kolyada were granted to the special deities of fruits and festive feasts, whose idols seemed to stand in Kyiv; in the same way, the rivers Don and Bug were erected in some special deification by our ancestors, although Great Russian songs and legends know nothing about the latter, when, on the contrary, the Danube, Volga and the fabulous Safat and Smorodina River really have some right to attention Russian mythology. But hardly Mrs. Popov and Glinka knew about our ancient heroic epic when they did not even bother to check the German-Polish information about Kyiv idols by comparing this information with the Russian sources available to them. The rest of the names on these lists are mostly pure inventions. The forgery of many of them is already obvious to us, such as, for example, the above-mentioned Delight, Zimtserla (the goddess of spring, she erased winter), Detinets, Volkhovets, Slovyan, Rodomysl and many others. But it is not always possible for us to accurately point to the initial source of forgery or misunderstanding: where did the idol of the Strong God, described in such detail in Chulkov's dictionary, come from? Where did the information about the Golden Woman, idolized by obdortsy, come from? Where did the walls, lituns and kudy come from, which Glinka got into the same category with brownies, goblin and devils in general, Belly, the keeper of life, and, finally, even Lel and his brother Polel, sung by Pushkin, these imaginary Castor and Pollux of the Slavic fable?

Entire systems of Slavic mythology are still based on such shaky foundations, not only by German scientists, like the mythology of Eckermann (1848), but also by many researchers from the Slavs, especially among the Czechs, such as Hanush, Jungman and Tkani, in mythological dictionary whom (1824) Ilya Muromets is mentioned by the Russian Hercules, and Saint Zosim of Solovetsky - Zosim Schuzgott der Bienen hex den Russen.

In general, Slavic mythology in its German processing has remained to this day in the field of obsolete classicism, which has sought to bring it under the level of Greek theogony and, by all means, find among us deities corresponding to the famous gods of the ancient world.

The second essential mistake of such a direction is the generalization of any purely local legend: not at all taking into account that often the same deity appears in different localities under different names, the scientific methodologist from each such synonym tries to recreate new identity, to which he immediately ascribes, in his imagination, a meaning corresponding to one or another deity of classical legends. With each new work written in this spirit, the number of deities in our country increased by new, if not fictional, then in Russia, at least, positively never existing names. That is why it seems to us that the first modern task of science is to cleanse our Russian traditions of alien deposits and, finally, to determine the correct distinction between Russian and non-Russian sources.

In general, in Russian myth, proper names play for the most part the very last and insignificant role, as we will try to prove this later. Much more important are the rites and festivals of the common people and, in particular, their superstitious concepts and views on natural phenomena, luminaries and elements, mountains and rivers, fabulous plants and animals, about which our poems and songs still speak, conspiracies, fairy tales, riddles and jokes. So, for example, the rites of plowing or cow death, the calling of spring, the obtaining of a living king-fire, beliefs about the flight of fiery kites or the flowering of ferns on Ivanovo night, and, finally, the oldest legends about the creation of the world, Buyan Island and the mysterious Pigeon Book.

In its childhood, humanity fearfully and reverently worships those objects and phenomena of nature that more than others strike its physical senses, and therefore it is natural that celestial phenomena, like the sun and stars, thunder and lightning, become the first objects of superstitious adoration. But when, with a settled life, a person becomes acquainted with arable farming and cultivation of fruits, a sense of personal benefit makes him turn his attention to the earth and the fruitful power of plant nature, then in his religion the sky gods gradually give way to the representatives of the earth. That is why the Western Slavs, who had lived a sedentary life before ours, more clearly formulated the worship of earthly nature in the deification of the goddesses Zhiva and Mora, who divided the entire annual cycle of earthly vegetation among themselves.

Zhiva's share was half a year of the fruitful summer life of nature, while Mora's share was the time of her fruitless winter rest. The concept of everything young, bright, powerful, warm and fruitful has merged with the idea of ​​Zhiva; with the representation of Mora - everything gloomy, cold, frail and barren.

If we in Russia have not preserved the memory of two goddesses who share the annual life of earthly nature among themselves, as among the Western Slavs, then the reason for this should be sought in the predominance of male religion creative power heaven above the deification of the passive female element of the earth. The sun, in its beneficial and malevolent attitude towards earthly nature, is similarly divided into two faces of the winter and summer sun, the bright god of ardent fruitful rays (Belbog) and the god of the barren period of darkness and cold that does not warm (Chernobog). Among the Pomeranian Slavs, the idols of all solar deities were represented with two or four faces or heads, indicating the two main halves, summer and winter, or all four seasons. Massoudi, in his travels through the Slavic lands, saw somewhere by the sea an idol, whose members were made of precious stones four genera: green chrysolite, red ruby, yellow carnelian and white crystal; his head was of pure gold. These colors clearly allude to green spring, red summer, yellowing autumn and snowy winter; the golden head is the most heavenly body. The names of the Pomeranian sun gods all end with a common nickname Vita, just as the multi-colored members of the idol end in one common golden head; and not without some probability it can be assumed that the first half of these names kept in itself a particular meaning - spring, summer or winter, when the word Wit meant general concept god or person. For example, Gerowit - Ierowit involuntarily pushes us to the word yar, which has retained to this day the meaning of spring: spring bread, yary (spring gullies), the Russian deity Yarylo, and so on, when, on the contrary, Korevit or Khorevit resembles the Russian Khors (Korsh) and Karachun.

Of the Kyiv idols mentioned in our chronicles, the sun gods are named Dazhbog and Khors, which, as Professor Bodyansky noted, in almost all texts are inseparably next to each other, as synonyms for one and the same concept; and both of them, according to their word production, one from doug- day (German tag), another from sur or korshid- the sun, in their meaning are identical.

Of these two main personifications of the sun, its formidable significance as the winter Saturn, Sitivrat or Krt (Krchun) of the Slavic-Germanic beliefs of Central Europe belongs to us in Russia, apparently, to Khors. This formidable significance of the winter sun is inextricably linked in the world of fairy tales and superstitions with the concepts of death, darkness, cold and impotence; the same concepts are combined with the representation of the deity of a destructive storm, snowstorm and cold west wind generally as an antithesis of the warm wind of the summer half of the year. That is why the deities of the winter and summer sun could easily merge into one representation with their respective deities of the wind, or at least exchange names and meanings with them. So, in the Alekseevsky Church Slavonic Dictionary, the word choir explained by the westerly wind, and in Sredovsky's Sacra Moraviae historia Chrwors(our Khors, or Korsha) is interpreted by Typhon.

In general, the predominance of the deities of the sky and the air element over the deities of earthly fertility in our country indicates the ancient period of nomadic life, when cattle breeding brought the only wealth to a person who was not yet familiar with arable farming. That is why all the patron gods of cattle in their original meaning of the deity of the sun. Epizootic is still expressed in our word fad, directly indicating the ancient view of man on the air element as the cause of any disease. Thus, Stribog (whose meaning as the god of the wind, according to the Tale of Igor's Campaign, we undoubtedly) passes from Sredovsky into Trzibek- the god of the plague; Carpathian Slovaks attach the same meaning to Karachun. Our Saturn - Horse is in the meaning of the western wind - choir, when the Serbian Hora is the wife of the god of the winds Posvist, whom Sredovsky, in turn, calls Nehoda and translates the word Intertemperae. Thus, the gods not only of the cold winter wind, but also of the winter sun, are also the gods of the deadly craze regarding the animal kingdom. Remarkable in this regard is the Czech nickname of Krta (Saturn) by Kostomlad, i.e., the thresher of bones, which partly corresponds to our Russian Koschei the immortal, who constantly wears the cosmogonic meaning of the evil beginning of the winter sun in fairy tales. In the same way, on the other hand, the cattle god Volos (Veles, Vlasiy), like Yegoriy the Brave of our songs, is nothing more than the personification of the same sun, but in the beneficial meaning of warmth and summer.

Thus, under the influence of this dualism, every phenomenon of nature appears to man from two different sides of his beneficial and harmful influence. If, however, in the eternally renewed struggle between good and evil, the final victory always remains for the good principle, then this is only because a person, studying the laws of nature, is convinced by them that there is no absolute evil and that every apparently harmful phenomenon bears in itself the germ of new good. The falling fruit, by its rotting, releases to life the grain stored in it, and sleep and rest, by their lifelessness, renew the forces of both man and nature.

With a similar conviction, the Russian man also looked at his own death, not as final destruction, but saw in it, on the contrary, the continuation of the same earthly life, only under another, simple eye invisible form.

Nowhere in our pagan traditions do we find the slightest hint of the representation of special heavenly or underground dwellings of the dead. In the grave, they continue to live their earthly life, patronize their living descendants, and directly share with them all the joys and cares of their earthly existence. That is why the patron spirits of the family and the home: Rod, Chur (Shchur) and Grandfather Brownie - are related by family ties to their living descendants and the real owners of the hut. The owner is often used in the sense of Domovoy, so that the actual owner is the earthly representative of his late progenitor - Grandfather, or Shchur - the ancestor.

The grave is revered as the permanent dwelling of the dead, which is why the expressions: go home in the sense of dying house, house- a coffin, sometimes a cemetery; so that the very nickname Domovoy rather carries the meaning of the afterlife than the patron of the house, especially since in the rural common life this last word, in the sense of housing, is uncommon, being replaced by expressions: hut, hut, smoke, nest or yard:“You are the sun, the sun is clear! you rise, rise from midnight, you light up all the graves with joyful light; so that our dead do not sit in the dark, do not grieve with misfortune, do not grieve with longing. Already you are a month, a clear month! you ascend, ascend from the evening, you illuminate all the graves with joyful light, so that our dead do not crush their zealous hearts in the darkness, do not grieve in the darkness for the white light, do not shed burning tears in the darkness.

In the steppe villages they put the first pancake on the dormer window, and they say: “Our honest parents! here for your darling." In Belarus, on the grave, poured with honey and vodka, they cover food and greet the deceased: “Holy rodzitsels! hojitse to us bread and salt to eat. On Easter, they go to Christ with their dead parents at their grave, and red eggs are immediately buried in the hole; orphaned brides go to their parents' graves to ask for the blessings of the dead for marriage.

Finally, in Russia we have many special days and weeks dedicated to folk customs for visiting graves, such as: large and small parental, Radunitsa, Krasnaya Gorka, Navi day; such was the ancient meaning of Maslenitsa. On such days, it is not uncommon for a whole family, gathered at a native grave, to make their meal on it in the superstitious belief that the dead person shares it and is present in an invisible way between them. On the name day of the brownie (January 28), porridge and all sorts of treats are put on the table for him at night with the thought that when everyone in the house falls asleep, he will certainly come to his relatives to celebrate his name day.

In close connection with a similar view of the afterlife and folk beliefs about werewolves and ghosts, ghouls (vampires) sucking blood at night, strangers (dashing) brownies playing their evil jokes on sleeping household members, wolfdogs prowling a fierce beast at night, and galloping navia, spreading pestilence with their mere appearance. The very word navi(navi day, go to the nava) carries the concept of death and the afterlife, as well as the brownie, as noted above, is a synonym for the afterlife; exactly the same way genus sometimes used in regional dialects in the sense of spirit, image, ghost; finally, ancient name the goddess of death Mora or Morena retained almost the same meaning in the Little Russian Mara (ghost) and in beliefs about kikimors. We still have a belief that evil sorcerers, after their death, rise from their graves at night to suck the blood of sleepy people, why, in order to prevent such a disaster, a dead person suspected of sorcery is dug out of the grave, beaten with stakes and burned, or, in other localities, they drive a stake into his heart and bury him again in the grave. There are many stories about drowned and drowned women and about children who died without baptism, who, after their death, continue their earthly existence in the form of water men or mermaids -

Straw Spirit!

Mother gave birth to me

Buried unbaptized -

the latter sing, running all night through the fields and groves. There is, finally, a story about a mermaid (drowned woman), who, visiting her living parents, told them various details about her underwater life.

G. Solovyov rightly considers mermaids to be the dead, and this meaning explains their nickname in one song as dugouts, that is, underground inhabitants of the graves. This nickname, apparently, identifies the mermaids with the coastlines, which St. Gregory mentions together with the ghouls: “And before that they laid the demand for the upirs and the coastlines.” In this rapprochement between the Ghoul and Rod and Beregini with Rozhanitsa, both Rod and Ghoul are dead. Why, and it is very likely to admit that the coasts, like mountain, earthly spirits, had partly the same meaning. In ancient times, mounds were poured over the graves, and in particular they chose coastal places for this place, near large rivers; the very word shore - shore sometimes has the meaning of a mountain (compare the German berg), and in regional expressions the word mountain, on the contrary, it means the bank of a river or even land (not by water).

In general, there are many fantastic creatures in Slavic paganism who, in spite of their human duties, are endowed by superstitious tradition with some higher supernatural (divine) power. They cannot be called deities, and, meanwhile, they are not mere mortals.

In those nationalities where even in times the fabulous managed to stand out from the crowd historical figures wise men or kings-conquerors, their names are often erected by folk memory into the realm of mythical deities; but with us, in the absence of any personality, apparently the same thing happened with some purely human posts and duties, which, adorned by popular imagination with a supernatural divine gift, produced a special demonological sphere of intermediary spirits between man and deity. With the above view of death and the afterlife, such supernatural mediators could easily be represented to the imagination by the dead, who have purely human origin. Thus, the fabulous personality of the Family or Grandfather Domovoy corresponds to the duties of the householder and head of the family; similarly, the position of the liturgical priest corresponds to the concept of the Vedun - the Magician. And just as, under the name of Rod and Grandfather, a person imagines the real personality of his long-dead great-grandfather, in the same way he could assume about the sorcerers that they are also dead priests and elders, who became famous for their wisdom during the life of their things. Witchcraft is a simple human craft, probably originating from the pagan priesthood; witchcraft is already medicine, which has passed through death into the realm of fantastic supernaturalism.

The influence of Christianity in the first centuries of its appearance in Russia did not destroy the pagan superstitions among the people, but deprived them only of their good properties, combining all these beliefs into a general idea of ​​the delusion of unclean, diabolical power. But if we remove from these mythical personalities the coloring imparted to them by Christianity, we will clearly see, both by their names and by the actions attributed to them, that the Veduns are nothing but the priests of ancient worship, elevated to the realm of fabulous demonology.

How medicine man derived from know, similar witchcraft and sorcerer have their origin in to know whence and other derivatives, as prophetic, prophetic, broadcast, foretelling, veche(people's court) and witch as the female form of the sorcerer.

Sorcery is entanglement, enchantment, i.e., supernatural bonds or features. The outline of a circle on earth takes on the magical power of chains and bonds, just as charm is the binding of a person by invisible bonds (such as, for example, by the eyes of a beauty). In its primitive meaning, charm is nothing more than the descent of divine help on a person through conspiracy prayers and sacrifices.

Witchcraft and witch have their origin in the root cold, cloud, meaning purification, rebirth (by means of fire) and sacrifice; in Czech cludity- clean, in Serbian kudipi- to speak. This also applies in its root and our judge- judgment, also purification in its moral sense. The name Magus is produced by philologists from the Sanskrit shaft- shine, shine, just like priest derived from to eat, to burn; the sacrifice is consumed by fire, which is why our eat, and the altar for that matter is mouth(throat) of consuming fire. When faith in pagan rites disappeared, folk humor gave priestly sacrifices the vulgar present meaning of the verb eat; the verb has undergone the same fate lie, i.e., to speak the disease with a divine prayer, whence the words doctor, medicine, in the same way as from miracle workers, conductors of divine miracles, concepts were formed magician and kudes, in the meaning of evil witchcraft, and even more often simple tricks and antics.

In pagan times, religion embraced all the abilities and gifts of the human mind, all the mysterious knowledge of its observational study of nature, all the activities and concerns of its daily life. The area of ​​religion included wisdom and eloquence, poetic inspiration, chanting, the prophetic power of sorcery and knowledge of the future; it overshadowed the justice of the court, the healing of the disease and the happiness of the home shelter, and all this was embodied in one general idea of ​​​​the things of the wisdom of the Magus - the Enchanter. But as the Enchanter is only an intermediary between a person and a higher deity, then the miracles performed by sorcerers and witches do not come directly from them, but are sent to a person through their mediation from higher deities, with the help of conspiracies, sacrifices and ordinary rites.

The only supernatural quality that relates directly to the characteristics of the sorcerers and witches themselves is the ability to fly through the air and werewolf; but even here there is a belief that witches keep miraculous water, boiled with the ashes of the Bathing Fire, and that in order to fly through the air, they must sprinkle themselves with this water, and some kind of conspiracy was probably supposed. The werewolf also required knowledge of known conspiracies and mysterious rites:

Vtapory learned Volkh to wisdom:

And learned the first wisdom

Wrap yourself in a clear falcon,

To another wisdom he studied Volkh

Wrap yourself in a gray wolf

Volkh studied wisdom to the third

Wrap around bay tour - golden horns.

His own deity did not need divination to know the future, just as he would not need to learn wisdom for a werewolf. Indeed, Serbian pitchforks and Khorutan royanits predict the future without any guesswork, which indicates the immediacy of their divinity. Domovoi, mermaids and sorcerers do not make prayers and do not bring expiatory sacrifices; and if gifts and offerings are sometimes brought to them, like hanging yarn for mermaids on trees, leaving dinner for a brownie, or they cover cheeses, breads and honey in honor of the Family, then all these customs are pure in the nature of treats or commemoration of the dead, and not sacrifice.

In his work "War with the Goths" (553), he wrote that the Slavs are people of "tremendous strength" and " tall". He noted that they revere nymphs and rivers, as well as "all sorts of deities." The Slavs make sacrifices to all of them and "do divination" with the help of these victims.

Where are the ideas of the Slavs about the world reflected?

One of the first to tell about our ancestors was the Byzantine historian Procopius of Caesarea. He left us the rarest and priceless information about the Slavs. During the creation of the work "War with the Goths" they barely entered the world stage. At that time, the Slavs still lived as a separate culture, which was far from the culture of antiquity. Our ancestors will touch its achievements much later. This will happen after the adoption of Christianity by our country.

A slightly different version is put forward by other myths of Ancient Russia. Its summary is as follows. When Svarog created (welded) the earth, he found this magic stone. Alatyr grew up after the god cast a magic spell. Svarog foamed the ocean with it. Moisture, having thickened, became the first land. The gods were born from sparks when Svarog hit Alatyr with a magic hammer. The location of this stone in Russian folklore is inextricably linked with the island of Buyan, which was located in the "okiyane-sea". Alatyr is mentioned in incantations, epics and Russian folk tales.

Currant River

Kalinov bridge and are often mentioned in conspiracies and fairy tales. However, in them this river is most often called simply Smolyanaya or Fiery. This matches the descriptions presented in fairy tales. Sometimes, especially often in epics, Currants are called Puchay River. Probably, it began to be called so due to the fact that its boiling surface swells, boils, bubbles.

Currant in the mythology of the ancient Slavs is a river that separates two worlds from each other: the living and the dead. The human soul needs to overcome this barrier on the way to the "other world". The river did not get its name from the berry bush known to us. In the Old Russian language there was the word "currant", used in the 11-17 centuries. It means stench, stench, a sharp and strong smell. Later, when the meaning of the name of this river was forgotten, the distorted name "Smorodina" appeared in fairy tales.

Penetration of the ideas of Christianity

The ideas of Christianity began to penetrate our ancestors from the 9th century. Having visited Byzantium, Princess Olga was baptized there. Prince Svyatoslav, her son, buried his mother already in accordance with the customs of Christianity, but he himself was a pagan and remained an adherent of the ancient gods. As you know, it was established by Prince Vladimir, his son. This happened in 988. After that, the struggle began with the ancient Slavic mythological ideas.