“Paganism” is an extremely unclear term that appeared in church circles to refer to the pre-Christian era where people had diverse religious worldviews. Those were beliefs of primitive tribes, pre-Christian beliefs of the Slavs, Finns, Germans, Celts and pre-Islamic religion of the Tatars.
In East Slavic paganism there can be found all the stages that were intrinsic to other pagan cults that existed in other nations. The ancient extant sources testify the worship of the ancient Slavs to objects and phenomena. The worship of, for example, stones, trees, groves was the important constituent of those beliefs. The cult of stone fetishes is very ancient. Trees and forest were also the objects of worship.
Totemism was very popular; it suggested that human kind descended from animals. The question of totemic cult of the Eastern Slavs is quite complex. In some cases there is a transformation of totemism into the ancestor cult in the similitude of animals. Archaic layers of Russian folk tales testify to the existence of totemism among the Eastern Slavs. (Anglickienė, 124)
World Perception of the Ancient Slavs
The world of the pagans consisted of four parts: earth, two heavens, and an underground-water zone. The pagans as many ancient peoples portrayed the Earth as a circular flat plane, surrounded by water.
For the pagans agricultural aspect of the earth was very important: earth is the soil producing the harvest; “Mother Earth” - the soil, saturated with moisture, feeds the roots of plants, with which a series of rites and spells is associated. Mokosh was the goddess of the fertile soil, “mother of the harvest”. In the Russian Pantheon of major deities, Mokosh is the goddess of fertility.
Farmers` beliefs about the sky and its role in nature and in human life differed significantly from hunters`. If hunters needed to know the stars and the winds, farmers were interested in clouds (rain clouds that promote fertility) and Sun. A lack of knowledge of the process of water evaporation, formation of clouds and mist had led to a peculiar view about permanent reserves of water somewhere high above the ground, in the sky.
The Sun was also valued by farmers as a source of light and heat and favorable life condition.
The entire annual cycle of pagan rites was built on four solar phases and fell into line with 12 solar months. The Sun in visual art of all centuries had been presented as a symbol of goodness, the sign of light dispersing the darkness.
The important part of beliefs about the underworld was a panhuman concept of the underground ocean in which the Sun descended at sunset, floated at night and emerged on the other end of the Earth in the morning. The night movement of the Sun was carried out by water birds (ducks or swans), and sometimes it was an underground lizard that swallowed the Sun in the evening in the West and spat it out in the morning in the East. In the afternoon the Sun was carried by horses.
The Pantheon of Pagan Gods
About one and a half centuries Kyivan Rus was the state with the pagan system, often resisting the penetration of Christianity. In the era of Prince Svyatoslav, in connection with the wars with Byzantium, Christianity became a persecuted religion, and Paganism was reformed and contraposed to Christianity. The reality demanded some ordering of the primitive pagan religion with its tribal cults to bring it into line with the new level of public life. (Berit & Strandskogen, 214)
Perun - the head of the Princely Pantheon, Russian Zeus - the Thunderer, God of Thunder and Lightning, was put in the first place in terms of military expeditions in the Balkans in IV century and in the process of formation of the statehood of Kievan Rus in IX-X centuries as the patron of warriors, weapons, and wars. After the Christianization he was likened to the Prophet Elias.
Stribog - Svarog (“Heavenly”). An ancient preeminent deity of the sky and the universe, “God the Father”. He is akin to the Christian Savaof.
Dažbog - the Sun. The ancient deity of nature, sunshine, “white light”, the giver of wealth. He is fully identified with the antique Apollo and is opposed by the Christian the “Son of God”. Dažbog and Stribog were both heavenly gods.
Mokosh - the ancient goddess of earth and fertility. Mermaids ensuring the irrigation of cornfields with dew usually accompanied her. She is identified with the Greek goddess Demeter and the Christian Mother of God. Mokosh is often portrayed with the goat's “horn of plenty”.
Simargl - God of Seeds and Plant Roots, the protector of seeds and green. He is the mediator between the Supreme deity of heaven and earth, his messenger. Simargl had a direct relationship to Mocosh as the deity of plants, associated with soil.
Hors - god of the solar disc. He represented a kind of an inseparable part of Dažbog-Sun. The name of Hors is associated with circle dances and Russian adverb “good”. The relation of Hors to Dažbog can be defined by an analogy with Helios and Apollo in Greeks.Veles - God of Livestock, the guardian of herds. Originally he was the God of Sun.
As a result, there appeared three categories of gods: the first category was taken by the princely God Perun, perceived not only as the god of thunder, but also as the god of weapons, warriors and princes. The second category was shared between the ancient gods of heaven, earth and “white light” - Stribog, Mokosh, and Dažbog. In the third category there were so-called complementary deities: Hors (complemented Dažbog), Simargl (Mokosh). (Glinski)
The Slavic Paganism reached its apogee on the eve of the formation of the Kievan state and in the first two (IX-X) centuries of its formation, when the cult of Perun, God of Thunder and patron of warriors and princes, became the state religion of Kievan Rus. (russia-ic.com)
The priestly caste of ancient Russia played a special role. In those times priests had not yet become a separate class; sacrifices for family and heavenly gods were brought by representatives of tribal unions; freely practicing magicians (volkhvs) battled against inferior demons and their harmful influence on people. There were different kinds of volkhvs: those whose duty was to chase the clouds away, those who predicted with their magical actions and created the necessary weather, healers who treated people by means of folk medicine; guardians, who controlled a manufacture of various kinds of amulets, talismans, and symbolic ornamental compositions. (Margo-sama)
Archeological Researches
Archaeological researches play an important role in the study of culture and everyday life of Pagans, thanks to which it has become known that Slavic Pagans were familiar with a lot of kinds of art. They did painting, sculpturing, played music, developed crafts. Excavations on the territories of ancient cities show the diversity of the city life.
Lots of found treasures and open burial grounds have brought us various utensils and jewelry. (paganspace.net) Ancient jewelers conveyed their view of the world to the diadems, rings, earrings. Unknown beasts, mermaids, and griffins occupied minds of artists of those days.
Pagans set a high value on clothes. It carried not only a functional load but also a certain ritual. Clothing was decorated with images of guardians, pregnant women, symbols of the Sun and the Earth, and reflected layers of the world. The upper layer - the sky - was associated with the headwear, the ground – with shoes, etc.
Unfortunately, practically all of the pagan architecture was wooden and almost lost for descendants, but in the extant early Christian stone churches there are pagan motives in the decoration and ornaments. This is typical for the period of dual faith, when the artist could put together a Christian saint and a pagan deity or combine a cross and ancient Slavic symbols in the intricate ornament.
Conclusion
Paganism had travelled a thorny centuries-old way from archaic primitive beliefs of ancient man to the state princely religion of Kievan Rus by the IX century.
Paganism helped ancient man to resist unknown and hostile environment making the world closer and clearer. Ethnographic studies show remarkable vitality of many beliefs about the world that Slavs carried over to Christianity. Blending two faiths together, Christianity and Paganism, the people`s consciousness partly merged their gods with Christian saints, partly reduced them to the level of “devils”. But even such a mixture of pagan concepts with Christian ones did not force Slavs to forget the original meaning of their gods. Perun turned into Saint Elijah, riding across the sky in his chariot, has not ceased to be the God of Thunder. (paganspace.net) Still there is a custom of the pagan celebration of “Kolyada” (derived from the Greco-Roman “calendae”) – the day of winter solstice. Still they burn an effigy of Marena welcoming spring, paint eggs (for the Easter), although the original custom was associated with worship to Perun.
Paganism is a huge cultural layer representing interest to ethnographers and historians, which influence on the further destiny of the Russian state is hard to overestimate.
Works Cited
Anglickienė, Laima. “Slavic Folklore”. esparama.lt. (ISBN 978-9955-21-352-9) 2013. Web. Accessed April 24 2016 at <http://www.esparama.lt/es_parama_pletra/failai/ESFproduktai/2013_metodine_priemone_Slavic_Folklore.pdf>
Berit, Ase and Rolf Strandskogen. Lifelines in World History. Routledge, New York, USA. 2015. Print
Glinski, Mikolaj. “What Is Known About Slavic Mythology”. culture.pl. March, 2016. Web. Accessed April 23 2016 at <http://culture.pl/en/article/what-is-known-about-slavic-mythology>
Margo-sama. “Druid and Volkhv”. margo-sama.deviantart.com. (n.d.) Web. Accessed April 25 2016 at <http://margo-sama.deviantart.com/art/APH-England-Russia-Druid-and-Volkhv-490600806>
Pagan Space. “Ancient Slavic Mythology”. paganspace.net.(n.d.) Web. Accessed April 25 2016 at <http://www.paganspace.net/group/AncientSlavicMythology>
Russia-IC. Day of Christening of Russia. russia-ic.com. Jun, 2010. Web. Accessed April 23 2016 at <http://www.russia-ic.com/culture_art/history/1103/#.Vx3d2OFIQrI>
