Introduction The Slavic people are considered relatively young in history. Under their own name, they were first mentioned in written sources only from the 6th century. For the first time we meet the name of the Slavs in the form oxhabnvos at Pseudo-Caesarius around 525. At present, the area extending north of the Carpathians is recognized as the homeland of the Slavs. But with a closer definition of its boundaries, scientists differ very significantly among themselves. For example, one of the founders of Slavic studies, the Czech scientist Shofarik, drew the border of the Slavic ancestral home at the plant from the mouth of the Vistula to the Neman, in the north - from Novgorod to the sources of the Volga and Dnieper, in the east - to the Don. Further, she, in his opinion, went through the lower Dnieper and Dniester along the Carpathians to the Vistula and along the watershed of the Oder and Vistula to the Baltic Sea. The problem of the origin and settlement of the Slavs is still debatable, but numerous studies by historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, ethnographers and linguists make it possible to draw up a general picture of the early history of the Eastern Slavic peoples. In the middle of the 1st millennium AD. on the general territory of Eastern Europe, from Lake Ilmen to the Black Sea steppes and from the Eastern Carpathians to the Volga, East Slavic tribes developed. Historians number about 15 such tribes. Each tribe was a collection of clans and then occupied a relatively small isolated area. According to The Tale of Bygone Years, a map of the settlement of the Eastern Slavs in the 8th-9th centuries. looked like this: the Slovenes (Ilyinsky Slavs) lived on the shores of Lake Ilmenskoye and Volkhva; Krivichi with Polochans - in the upper reaches of the Western Dvina, Volga and Dnieper; Dregovichi - between Pripyat and Berezina; Vyatichi - on the Oka and the Moscow River; radimichi - on the Sozh and Desnezh; northerners - on the Desna, the Seimas, the Sula and the Northern Donets; Drevlyans - in Pripyat and in the Middle Dnieper; clearing - along the middle course of the Dnieper; Buzhans, Volynians, Dulebs - in Volyn, along the Bug; tiverci, streets - in the very south, by the Black Sea and the Danube. The group of Eastern Slavs includes: Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians. The Slavs bred cattle and pigs, as well as horses, were engaged in hunting and fishing. In everyday life, the Slavs widely used the so-called ritual calendar associated with agricultural magic. It celebrated the days of the spring-summer agricultural season from seed germination to harvest, and highlighted the days of pagan prayers for rain in four different periods. These four periods of rain were considered optimal for the Kiev region and in the agronomic manuals of the late 19th century. , which testified to the presence of the Slavs of the 4th c. reliable agrotechnical observations. Paganism in Russia The pagans looked at a person's life from a purely material side: under the dominance of physical strength, a weak person was the most miserable creature, and again the life of such a person was considered a feat of compassion. The religion of the Eastern Slavs is strikingly similar to the original religion of the Aryan tribes: it consisted in the worship of physical deities, natural phenomena and the souls of the dead, tribal household geniuses. But we do not notice traces of the heroic element, which develops anthropomorphism so strongly, among the Slavs, and this may mean that conquering squads under the command of leaders - heroes did not form between them and that their resettlement was carried out in a tribal, and not in a squad form. East Slavic paganism on the eve of the creation of Kievan Rus and in its further coexistence with Christianity is reflected in a large number of materials that are sources for its study. First of all, these are authentic and accurately dated archaeological materials that reveal the very essence of the pagan cult: idols of the gods, sanctuaries, cemeteries without external ground signs (“fields of burials”, “fields of burial urns”), as well as with preserved mounds of ancient mounds. In addition, these are diverse products of applied art found in mounds, in treasures and simply in the cultural layers of cities, saturated with archival pagan symbols. Of these, women's adornments are of the greatest value, often being wedding sets in burial complexes and, because of this, are especially rich in magical incantatory plots and amulets - amulets. A peculiar, but very poorly studied remnant of the pagan side are the numerous names of tracts: “Holy Mountain”, “Bald Mountain” (the location of witches), “Holy Lake”, “Holy Grove”, “Peryn”, “Volosovo”, etc. A very important source is the testimony of contemporaries, recorded in the annals, or in specially recorded teachings against paganism. For about a century and a half, Kievan Rus was a state with a pagan system, often opposed to the penetration of Christianity. In Kievan Rus IX - X centuries. an influential class of priests (“Magi”) was formed, who led the rites, preserved the ancient mythology and developed thoughtful agrarian spell symbolism. In the era of Svyatoslav, in connection with the warriors with Byzantium, Christianity became a persecuted religion, and paganism was reformed and opposed to the penetration of Christianity into Russia: the so-called "Vladimir Pantheon" was, on the one hand, a response to Christianity, and on the other hand, the assertion of princely power and domination of the warrior class - the feudal lords. The performance of tribal ritual actions (“cathedrals”, “events”), the organization of ritual actions, sanctuaries and grandiose princely burial mounds, the observance of the calendar terms of the annual ritual cycle, the storage, execution and creative replenishment of the fund of mythological and ethical tales required a special priestly estate (“Magi” , "sorcerer", "cloud-devourers", "witches", "indulgences", etc.). A century after the baptism of Russia, the Magi could, in some cases, attract an entire city to their side to oppose the prince or bishop (Novgorod). In the 980s, Greek Christianity found in Russia not a simple village quackery, but a significantly developed pagan culture with its mythology, a pantheon of the main deities, priests, in all likelihood, with their own pagan chronicle of 912-980. The strength of pagan ideas in the Russian feudal cities of the Middle Ages is evident, firstly, from numerous church teachings. Directed against pagan beliefs and pagan rites and festivities held in cities, and secondly, from the pagan symbolism of applied art, which generally desired not only ordinary people in the urban settlement, but also higher, princely circles (treasures of the 1230s). In the second half of the twelfth century, the pagan element was still fully expressed. Rites and ritual actions And so, we already know that the ancient Slavs are pagans who deified the forces of nature. Their main gods were: God mouth - the god of heaven and earth; Perun - the god of thunder and lightning, as well as war and weapons; Volos or Veles - the god of wealth and cattle breeding; Dazh god (or Yarilo) - the solar deity of light, warmth and blossoming nature. The deities associated with those forces of nature that affect agriculture were very important. Also, the ancient Slavs greatly revered the souls of their ancestors, thinking that they are somewhere in the middle sky "aer" - "Irya" and obviously contribute to all celestial operations (rain, fog, snow) for the benefit of the remaining descendants. When on the days of commemoration of their ancestors they were invited to a festive meal, the "grandfathers" seemed to be flying through the air. Ready-made products - porridge and bread from time immemorial have been ritual food and an obligatory part of the sacrifice to such fertility deities as women in childbirth. There were special types of porridge that had only a ritual purpose: "kutya", "kolivo" (from wheat grains). Kutya was cooked in a pot, and in a pot or in a bowl it was served on the festive table or was taken to the cemetery in the "domovina" when commemorating the dead. There were houses of the dead, as a place of communication with benevolent ancestors. In many ceremonies, the inhabitants of the village left their family mansions and participated in the general rural ritual action. Some of these ceremonies were held inside the village, but most of them, in all likelihood, took place outside the outskirts on the hills, near the “treasures” of many honors or between several villages (“games between villages”). It is impossible to exclude the long existence of the ancient common tribal sanctuaries on the sacred mountains that arose back in the Scythian-Skolot time. An example of a Zarubenets cult place inside the village can be a settlement (breast) near Pochep in the basin of the Middle Desna, where for the first century AD Slavic colonization from the Middle Dnieper region headed in the middle of the excavated space, among a large number of rectangular dwellings with traces of powerful stove pillars, a building round in plan was found . Interesting utensils with magical signs “Pots for illuminated brew” were found there; a bowl with a sign of fertility and a pot with four signs were found there, which indicate a variety of signs of fertility, ideograms of a plowed or sown field. An ornament of drop-shaped round impressions goes around the neck of the vessel from the girdle of these drops, triangles of three drops descend down. In general, the ornament on this pot is very eloquent: “heavenly moisture irrigates the fields”, i.e. contains the main idea of ​​agrarian magic spells. In this small house, in all likelihood, only sacred dishes were kept, and the ceremony of boiling the first fruits was carried out, judging by the excavation data, in a neighboring round room, in the middle of which there was a large hearth - an altar. At the altar, closer to the entrance, there are traces of pillars and massive remains of burnt wood, which can naturally be regarded as the remains of the main idol, which occupied the main position in the entire sanctuary. In the depths of the rotunda, to the left and right of the altar-hearth and the central idol, two large niches were arranged, near which, on the circumference of the building, there were pillars, obviously, idols of lesser importance. It is natural to assume that with the round construction of the temple and with the central position of the hearth-altar, a wide smoke hole in the center of the conical roof. It gave an outlet for flame and smoke to the sky and at the same time illuminated the entire temple from above with natural daylight. In Slavic embroideries, the motif of the goddess in the temple is very common, but the temple is presented in three forms: firstly, in the form of a house with a gable roof (in this case, the goddess in childbirth) and secondly. Like a building in the form of a barn with a suspended middle part and a magnificently decorated closed roof. On such embroideries in the middle, to the full height of the building shown as if in a section, a huge idol of Mokosh was depicted with his hands down to the ground; calendar, this pose of the goddess can be timed to the Kupala ritual (June 23 - 29), by the time of the initial ripening of ears and the appearance of the first fruits of this year (peas, beans) Makosh points to the ground that has already grown a plant, while in embroideries associated with spring rites , Makosh raises his hands to the sky, to the supreme deity with a prayer for the sun and rain for the newly sown seeds. The large central idol of Mokosh is accompanied by two idols of women in labor - Lada and Lely, standing on the sides of the "Mother of the Harvest" - Mokosh. The coincidence with the Pochep temple is complete - one idol in the middle and two on the sides. Embroidery gives something that archeology can rarely give - all three idols are female. But there is a third type of temple buildings in Russian embroideries, inside which the idol of Makosh is also placed, but the roof over the head of the goddess is not closed and leaves a significant opening. Mokosh's idol is placed in the middle under the roof opening. On the sides of the huge Mokosh there are not idols of women in childbirth, but images of horsemen (or horsewomen?). The upper part of the building on the embroidery is usually occupied by images of birds and star-shaped signs (it will not be a stretch to recognize these embroideries as the image of the firmament). However, another assumption is also possible, that the embroidered temple of Mokosh with a cut off roof is, as it were, a section of the Pochep-type sanctuary. The heavenly signs do not contradict this, since the sky was clearly visible from the koliba. The presence of riders on the sides of the main idol contradicts this assumption, but, given the season (“crown of summer”), it can be assumed that the sanctuary was not an enclosed space, but was a canopy with pillars that walked in a circle (traces of nine pillars were preserved) inside which there were three idol and altar. In this case, all the internal elements of the temple were visible to the entire village from the outside. It is possible that horsemen should not be taken too realistically - the spring goddesses Lada and Lelya on ritual towels intended for the festivities of meeting spring were depicted on horseback, with plows behind the saddle, the presence of horseback riders around Mokosh could be just an image of a familiar symbol, and not confirmation of real horsewomen in the inside of the temple. The perimeter of such a dugout could serve as a circular earthen bench, a kind of "syntron" around the main idol and the hearth, on which a sacred brew from the first fruits was brewed in a pot with signs of fertility. Approximately 30 - 35 people could sit on the "syntron" with a circumference of 15 m. P. Bessonov recorded an interesting cycle of Kupala ritual songs. Songs for Kupala (the night of June 23-24, solstice) constitute a special, clearly distinguishing and very archaic cycle; they are accompanied by the refrain “so-and-so!” or “tu-tu-tu” (typical only for Kupala songs) and obligatory stomping and knocking at this time. Obviously, these are the remains of a ritual dance. The Kupala holiday, Bessonov writes, is “the highest summer point of the most ancient sacred rites, legends and songs ... As if exhausted in the revelry of Kupala, songwriting from here on for a long time falls silent ...”. Kupala is called "sobotka" i.e. "co-existence", a joint collection. The plots of the Kupala songs are associated with traditional erotica at the games (No. 62 according to Bessonov), with the obligatory bathing and with the echoes of the sacrifices of girls to the deity of the river, the “Danube” (No. 68, 72), with the collection of healing potions (No. 79), etc. One of songs (No. 94) tells about the preparation of a ritual potion (angelica) in a pot; in some way it is connected with the death of a woman (“I’m talking about a pot, an uncle at a piss”). Ritual food at the festival is vegetable and dairy. The main thing in the Kupala ritual was, as you know, a fire, through which they jumped in pairs. An echo of ritualism is the game of burners (“burn, burn clearly so that it does not go out ...”). the construction of the fire was entrusted to a woman (“young is young, lay out the bathing suit”; No. 87). The basis of the future bonfire was a pillar or stake driven into the ground: “just as Kupala catfish was depicted as a pillar, and her head is in gold or all of it is green, so in her image a stake is made in the rite, stuck into the ground, wrapped around with straw, threshed ears, hemp, and at the top is a bundle of straw, which is called Kupala and which is lit on the Kupala night. People come running to this sign, the famous Kupala bonfire flares up. An important role in the songs is played by the oak; oak branches go to the fire. The connection of the Kupala rites with the agrarian magic of the “crown of summer” is undoubted. An analysis of Russian embroidery showed that ritual towels with the image of Makoshi-Kupala belong to this season, where the goddess is surrounded by solar signs and is always shown with her hands lowered to the fruit-bearing earth; Kupala's head is often entwined with ears of corn; ears of corn were also depicted at the feet of the goddess. If in the spring cycle, women were depicted on the sides of the goddess - riders with plows behind their backs, then riders - men were embroidered on the towels of the Kupala cycle. Makosh, the goddess of earthly fertility, was the mediator between heaven and earth (in the spring cycle, she was always depicted with her hands raised to the sky). This duality can be compared with a curious detail of women's Kupala clothing: "In the decoration of those celebrating, the main attention is paid to the female head and shoes." Girls, in addition to wreaths and greenery, put on their heads a “warrior” made of fabric, always blue, heavenly, in color; stockings and garters were decorated on the legs. On the face of attention to the symbolism of the sky (blue warrior) and earth (shoes, stockings), the ritual archaic song about the unclean Kupala - Mokosh is very fully correlated with the excavation data. Both here and there the sanctuary is located “syared sala”; and here and there the cult place was like a small building with a canopy. Syarod syala Vouchkovsky That's it! (chorus with tapping and stomping) Tu-tu was an oak lantern (canopied canopy, open chapel) Tu-tu-tu! And the kids (guys, well done) went to pray to God: That's it! Stoub was hugged, the stove was kissed Tu-tu-tu! Pereryad Sopukha (Kupala) lay with a roof That's it! Yana thought - hidden, Tu-tu-tu! And the knife of Sopukha (Kupala) is not clean! That's it! According to folklore data, the main object of worship was the pillar, which the worshipers hugged, and the stove, which they kissed. Both the stove and the pillar in the center of the building were discovered during excavations. The embroideries convey to us the image of Mokosh as the center of a three-figured composition with three upcoming deities. Excavations also allow us to speak of three figured compositions: in the center there is a pillar near the stove (Makosh - Kupalo), and on the sides - forthcoming in the side niches. In combination with dishes marked with magical signs of fertility, found in a house adjacent to the sanctuary, the entire ritual complex of the Zarubinets village "Grudka" (Pochepskoye settlement) can be interpreted as the temple of Makoshi, called Kupala for the Kupala ritual on June 23 - 29, which is common in folklore personification of the holiday. So from the winter carols the god of carols took shape by the 17th century, and the deity Kupala came from the summer festival of Kupala. A rural sanctuary was also found, intended for winter New Year fortune-telling about the fate of the coming year. In it were found places for sacrifices and general rural feasts - bratchins, again three stone idols. Of particular interest is the first four-sided idol; it is decorated in the upper part in the form of a round head with four faces in each face, respectively. In this respect, he resembles the Zbruch Svyatovit-Rod. Faces looking "on all four sides" - an apotropaic, protecting from evil. Front and back, right and left. No wonder the expression “from all four sides” has taken root in the Russian language. “Everything” is the four indicated directions, which sometimes could also indicate geographical coordinates: from the north and south, from the west and from the east. Since the "evil winds" were considered the bearers of evil, the geographical concept is quite appropriate in the idea of ​​ubiquity. The outcome of evil was regarded not only in relation to the individual (behind, on the left), but also in relation to nature as a whole - according to the cardinal points or, in modern terms, according to geographical coordinates. Such idols, more than once found in excavations, were supposed to guard the village from all four sides. Of the diverse annual cycle of pagan rites recorded by ethnographers, only a small part was held inside the village and in houses. These are winter Christmas time with their carols, New Year and Veles Day. But already Shrovetide with its rolling fiery wheel. Riding with bells, burning an effigy of winter, mummers, a spell of spring, fisticuffs, etc. went beyond the boundaries of the village and turned into "games between the village." The entire spring cycle and summer, Kupala, are connected with nature, with fields, with “red hills”, river banks, birch groves. The calendar timing of rituals, preserved both by the wooden carved calendars of the Russian village, and agricultural signs, later dated to the calendar, arose long before the baptism of Russia, as evidenced by the most interesting calendars of our era. The vast majority of ancient Slavic pagan festivals and prayers were held publicly, were an "event", a joint spell of nature and were held not in a house or in a village, but outside the everyday household circle. The ancient farmer needed, first of all, to influence nature, to appeal to its vegetative power, to turn to various "groves", sacred trees, to water sources - springs, wells of students, to the fields in the process of plowing, sowing and in time for the ripening of the precious harvest. In addition to these very specific sections of nature, where seven-mile magic is very easy to see, there was also the veneration of mountains and hills, associated with the generalization of nature, with those rozhanitsari and Rod, who controlled nature as a whole, controlled it from the sky on which they were. Universal is the veneration of the mountains and holding special prayers on them, addressed to one or another supreme deity. Sacrifice to the forces of nature and the religious prayerful attitude to the forces of nature are recorded by many ancient Russian sources, which the clergy in their teachings very much condemned, explaining either by not knowing the truth of the faith or by the machinations of the devil, who “you are deceived into believing in the creature and in the sun and fire and in the sources of the same and in the tree and in the other things are different. ..". And so, a more accurately recorded place of annual prayers were high hills, mountains, elevating the worshipers above the level of ordinary life and, as it were, bringing them closer to the heavenly guardians of the world, women in childbirth or the Family. “Red Hills”, “Red Hills”, where Shrovetide burnings of winter effigies were held, the rite of conjuration of spring, the meeting of Lada and Lelya, rolling eggs on Thomas's week (which was called the “Red Hill”) were probably near each village. In the plains, where there were no noticeable hills, the peasants marked the first spring thaws in the meadows, where the snow began to melt first of all, and there they held the ceremony of welcoming spring. Sacred mountains often bear the name "Bald" or "Maiden". there is an assumption that the first name could be associated with one or another male deity, with a goddess - a virgin who was a distant predecessor of the Christian Mother of God, the Virgin Mary. Often, idols of a naked male deity were found on bald mountains. There were often rumors about such mountains that witches lived on them. The Maiden Mountains in some cases confirm their name. On one of the maiden mountains, a kind of altar oven was found, which is a composition of nine hemispherical recesses. The number nine, combined with the maiden name of this huge and very imposing mountain, suggests (as with the fortune-telling bowl with nine month marks) that the creators of the altar with nine components primarily associated this central structure of the Maiden Mountain with nine months of pregnancy. The goddess - a virgin, as a stable idea of ​​a female agrarian deity, was obviously thought, like the Christian Mother of God, not just a girl, but one who had already "suffered in her womb" and she had to prepare the birth of a new life for nine months. The number nine is included in the category of common Slavic sacred numbers (“for three to nine lands”, “to the three to ninth kingdom, three to tenth state”, etc.). Also in the Pogan settlement, the nine-hole complex is located near the wall of the pagan temple, which preceded the construction of the church. There were also Babina Mountains dedicated to a female deity, but, obviously, of a different type than the virgin goddess; it could be a mother goddess like Ma-kosha, the goddess of harvest and fate, the personification of all earthly nature (mother-earth). Near some Babin mountains, burial grounds with cremations and corpses were discovered. Their peculiarity was in the preservation of infant skulls without ritual inventory. Based on these findings, one can recall the words of medieval writers about ancient pagan sacrifices. Kiril Turovsky, in his sermon for Fomin's week ("Red Hill"), wrote: "from the village (from now on) do not accept hell, the slaughtered fathers of the baby, not the death of honor - stop idolatry and pernicious demonic violence." Another author, somewhat earlier, wrote: "Tavera child-cutting with an idol from the first-born." * * * Ethnography knows many beliefs about werewolves - ghouls (Vovkodlaks), confined mainly to the territory of Belarus and Ukraine, i.e. to those places where the Milograd culture is known. It was believed that once a year they became wolves for a few days and then returned to their previous state again. The marsh settlements and the pagan essence of this cult are still mysterious and unsolved for us. Of course, there is no doubt a connection with the cult of water and the underwater-underground "lower world", best expressed by the swamp itself with its unknown and inaccessible depths, marsh lights, the deceit of marsh greenery and bogs, the malignancy of swamp fevers. The sanctuary in the swamp was given a perfectly round shape. It is possible that here, as in the creation of the mound, a model of the visible earth was conceived, the correct circle of the horizon-horizon, as an antithesis to the semi-hostile element of water. There is an assumption that the swamp settlements (sometimes heaped, artificially made by people) could be dedicated to the owner of this lower world, in the role of which the lizard often acts. In the cosmological composition of the mountain or Samogil shamanic plaques, the lower world was always depicted as a lizard with a wolf's ear and open mouth - the lizard swallows the evening setting sun. The absence of real traces of consumption of the victims by the ritual participants on the settlement may indicate a special form of sacrifice, different from the usual laying of sacrificial meat on the fire and then eating it. Two forms of sacrifice are reported by one of the main teachings against paganism: 1. And they (the pagan gods) slaughter chickens, and then the bluffers also eat themselves ... essence. And the monks pray to the wells that bring and throw into the water, offering sacrifice to Velear. This relatively late teaching deals with the sacrifice of chickens. And how was the situation among the peoples - werewolves (Neurs) who lived in a "bestial way" one and a half - two thousand years before this teaching, who then were "thrown into the water"? we see some hint of this in the children's game "Lizard": children lead a round dance; in the center of the circle sits a boy imitating a lizard, the choir sings: The lizard sits under the fireworks On the walnut bush, Where is the walnut bush. .. (I want to Zhanitisya) - Take yourself a girl, Which you want ... In some versions, the beginning of the song contains the words: I'll give you, lizard, a red girl. In other versions, there is a funeral motif: digging a hole and commemorating a lizard. The lizard game is widely known in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus. Judging by the fact that the lizard plucks nuts from the bush, the rite refers to the second half of summer, when the nuts ripen. Many children's games are a transformation of ancient pagan rites and a transformation, of course, softened. Let us compare with this the belief that watermen marry drowned women. The same cycle of rites of propitiation of water or underwater underground forces should include numerous widespread rites (also turned into games) of the “Kostroma funeral”, “Morena’s funeral”, “Kupala’s funeral”, when a doll dressed in girl’s clothes is drowned in water. All fragments and echoes of Slavic rituals are brought together into a single complex: the ancient Slavs, like the ancient Greeks, had a rite of propitiation for the deities of the underworld, which affects fertility by making sacrifices thrown into the water. Rituals associated with “throwing into the water” of sacrifices to the deity of the underwater world, directly related to the fertility of the soil, and, consequently, to the harvest, were held in the middle of summer on the semik, on Kupala, when the grain began to sprout and the final result of the season was not yet clear. In these rituals, the masculine, fertilizing principle and the feminine, bearing and giving birth, were intertwined. Among the ancient Greeks, in the middle of summer, two victims were drowned in the sea from a chip - a man and a woman. In Slavic rites, we also know the funeral of Yarila (Ivan) as the personification of the masculine principle, which has already given a new life and therefore has become useless, and the funeral of Kostroma, Kupala, whose images, dressed in women's clothes, were escorted by funeral crying, and then drowned in water. The duality of the masculine and feminine principles was reflected in the fact that the doll-effigy of Kostroma was sometimes dressed like a man. The drowning of Kostroma in water remains unknown. Etymologically, the word "kostroma" is associated with words denoting "shaggy top of grass", "broom", "beard of ears". Based on this, perhaps the word Kostro-ma should be considered as a compound: Mother of ears? Then the drowning of Kostroma should topologically correspond to the departure of Persephone-Proserpina to the underworld, and the Slavic Lizard, who married the drowned girl, should correspond to Hades, the god of the underworld, the spouse of Persephone. The seeming illogicality of the sacrificed images of Yarila, the god of fierce spring vegetative power, and Kostroma, the Mother of ears, is eliminated by calendar terms: the personification of these natural forces was drowned or burned only when spring sprouts appeared instead of old grain, when ears were already formed. In the temporal transformations of the rite, the dolls of Kostroma or Kupala replaced not the deity Kostroma or Kupala (the researchers who deny the existence of the idea of ​​such goddesses are right), but a sacrifice, a human sacrifice, brought in gratitude to these forces of seasonal action, but to the constantly existing ruler of all underground and underwater forces that promote fertility, i.e. Lizard, Hades, Poseidon. This ceremony was performed among the Greeks in the month of targelion in the middle of summer, and among the Slavs on Kupala (June 23) or on Peter's Day (June 29). Through the softened form of later theatricalization and game convention, one can discern the cruel primary form of the primitive rite. A. A. Potebnya, in his study of the Kupala festival, cites the tragic cry of a mother for a drowned (in ancient times - drowned) girl: people, do not take water, do not fish, do not mow grass on the bends of the river - this is the beauty of my daughter, this is her body, her braid... This song was sung when the ceremony of drowning Kupala was performed. The widest distribution of rites of drowning dolls (mainly female) on the days of the “crown of summer” (late June), coinciding with the summer solstice, is quite consistent with the abundance of swamp settlements in the forest zone that arose in the Scythian time and existed until Kievan Rus. As a warning that requires archaeological and folklore verification, one can suggest that the swamp settlements of the Milograd and Zarubinets culture zone (and for a later time, and wider) are part of the ritual sites of the ancient Slavs (along with revered mountains), dedicated to the archaic cult of the underground-underwater the deity of the Lizard, whose victims were drowned in the water of the swamp surrounding the sanctuary. In Russian folklore, as we see above, a gloomy2 image of the rite of sacrificing a goat has been preserved. This, as V. Ya. Propp established, is a song version of the tale about brother Ivanushka and sister Alyonushka, drowned by an evil sorceress. Ivanushka wants to return her drowned sister Alyonushka, my sister! Swim out to the shore: Fires are burning flammable, Cauldrons are seething, They want to kill me ... The drowned girl replies: (I would be glad) to jump out - Combustible stone pulls to the bottom, Yellow sands sucked my heart out. The name of brother Ivanushka may indicate a rite on the night of Ivan Kupala; then sister Alyonushka - - Kupala herself, a victim doomed to become "sinkable in water." On the Kupala night and "great fires burn" and rituals are performed near the water, imitating the drowning of the victim: bathing a girl dressed up as Kupala, or dipping a stuffed doll depicting Kupala into the water. Ancient Russian sanctuaries Outwardly, the sanctuary looked like a real fortress on the high bank of the Desna: a deep ditch, a high horseshoe-shaped rampart and wooden walls (fence?) along the upper edge of the site. The diameter of the rounded (now triangular) area was approximately 60 m, i.e., equal to the diameter of medium-sized swamp settlements. The internal structure of the courtyard of the sanctuary-fortress was as follows: along the entire rampart, close to it, in the western part of the site, a long structure 6 m wide, curved in the shape of a rampart, was built. Its length (including the collapsed part) should have been about 60 m. 5 - 6 meters from the long house, vertical pillars were dug into the mainland to a depth of more than a meter, located, like the house, in a semicircle. These are idols. At the eastern end of the site, opposite from the house and idols, there was a certain structure, from which (or from which, if one was replaced by another) there were vertical pillars, coals, ash, calcined earth. At the southern wall of the site - ash, coals, animal bones and an abundance of so-called "horned bricks" - stands for skewers. The middle of the yard, free from structures, was about 20-25 meters in diameter. The entrance to the settlement was from the side of the plateau. The fortification is an impressive sight, but it was purely symbolic, since the ditch was blocked by an earthen "rowing", and the rampart was cut in the middle. The only real defense here could only be the gate, from which only one massive pillar survived, giving us the mentioned line of symmetry. The structure on the eastern edge of the settlement, located at the opposite end from the entrance, could have been a scaffold-altar, on which a fire burned often and in large quantities and cutting of sacrificial carcasses took place. Abundant traces of fires near the southern wall testify to the roasting of meat on numerous skewers. All this took place in front of a semicircle of idols that bordered the empty center of the sanctuary courtyard. The idols were probably tall, as their bases were dug very deep into pits carefully dug into the dense material. In the surviving part of the settlement, pit-nests of only 5 idols have been preserved; there could have been 10 - 12 in total. Near the idols, at the very foot, small clay vessels were found, and at the idols located in the center, at the entrance, bronze torcs were found, cast, but not cleaned, with foundry burrs. A living woman could not physically wear such a hryvnia. Obviously, they either decorated wooden idols or were offered to them ex voto. Near these female idols, near the entrance, the most remarkable find of the Annunciation Mountain was made - the neck of a huge thick-walled vessel in the form of a bear's head with a wide-open mouth. The middle position of the vessel on the hill fort on the line entrance - altar, at one of the central idols of the goddess with a bronze torc around her neck, reveals to us the content of the entire sanctuary. The goddess with a bear is well known to us from ancient mythology - this is Artemis, or Diana, the sister of the solar giver of blessings Apollo, the daughter of the goddess Leto, known since Crete-Mycenaean times. In honor of Artemis Brauronia, the priestesses of the goddess performed sacred dances, dressed in bear skins. Artemis is associated with the creation of the constellation Ursa Major. Artemis was dedicated to the month of Artemision - March, the time when the bears woke up from hibernation. According to the solar phases, this coincided with the spring equinox around March 25. The bear holidays were called by the Greeks comoedia, which served as the basis for later comedy. Bear holidays with exactly the same name, which has preserved the ancient Indo-European form of "komeditsa" - are known among the Slavs. In Belarus, komoyeditsy was held on March 24, on the eve of the Orthodox Annunciation. Housewives baked special "comas" from pea flour; dances were arranged in clothes turned inside out with fur in honor of the spring awakening of the bear. The ancient Shrovetide turned out to be shifted from its calendar period by the Christian Great Lent, incompatible with Shrovetide revelry. And since the post was subject to a movable Easter calendar, the pagan Maslenitsa, although it survived after the baptism of Russia and has survived to this day (at least in the form of pancakes), but its timing is changeable. The initial term of the undisturbed Maslenitsa is the spring equinox. The indispensable mask at the Maslenitsa carnival was the “bear”, a man dressed up in a bear coat or a turned-out sheepskin coat. Inside, a longitudinal, flat-bottomed recess was dug in the entire length of each half of the "house" and on both sides of it solid benches were made in the mainland, also in full length. On the flat floor in three places (in the surviving half) bonfires were laid without special hearths. In total, 200 - 250 people could sit on four earthen benches in both halves of the building. This premise was built, obviously, for those feasts and brotherhoods that were an integral part of the pagan ritual. Having made a sacrifice, stabbed the victim on a distant platform, bestowed and praised a semicircle of idols, cooked sacrificial meat on horned bricks, the participants of the ceremony completed it with a “conversation”, “table, honorable feast” indoors, sitting on benches near small (obviously, lighting ) campfires. The entire clothing material of the Blagoveshchensk Mountain differs sharply from the material of ordinary Yukhnov settlements. There are no ordinary dwellings, no hearths, no fishing sinkers, no spindles for spindles. Everything found here is intended specifically for feasts: large vessels (for beer?), small goblets, knives, animal bones, stands for skewers. The entrance to the sanctuary was arranged in such a way that at first the person entering the bridge passed through the ditch (“rowing”), then he got into the narrow space of the gate, which was in the middle of the rampart and in the middle of the long house. It is possible that some kind of ceremony of “groaning” with the contents of the bear-vessel took place here. From this middle room, two gentle descents led to the left, to the northern half of the building, and to the right, to the southern half. Directly from the entrance was the entire courtyard of the sanctuary. It is possible that a clear division of the premises into two halves is associated with the phratral division of the tribe. The presence of an enclosed space, which compares favorably with open-air tebisches, confirms the assumption about Lada as the main mistress of this unique temple: songs in honor of Lada were sung on New Year's Eve and then in the spring, from March 9 to June 29, - half of the holidays associated with in the name of Lada (including the annunciation) falls on the cold winter and early spring season, when it is preferable to celebrate not in the cold. However, it cannot be excluded that the most massive actions could take place on the entire plateau of the high bank of the Desna and outside the actual sanctuary. Fibulae The ancient Slavs had magical figures, or amulets, consider one of them. A. Sky: ruler with swans. This is where rain and sunshine come from. B. The earth receives rays and jets of rain. The living principle of the earth is represented only by waterfowl and snake-snakes. All attention is paid to the theme of water. B. The underworld. Birds and snakes connect him with the upper worlds. The Lord of the lower world is the Lizard (or the Lizard?). The lower world is not opposed to the middle one, but merged with it. Six birds represent the daily course of the Sun. The Kiev Historical Museum has two paired complex-compositional brooches, which, according to the general pattern of the base, are very close to the fibula from Blazhkov disassembled above, but in their content are identical to the pastoral fibula No. There is no lizard on such brooches (pastoral and Kyiv ones) either - it has been replaced by a woman, obviously Makosh. If we continue the thought of the ritual purpose of such brooches, then the composition with horses and a female figure in the center should be compared with a similar plot in embroidery and attributed to another category of festivities - not to prayers for rain, but, for example, to the Kupala holiday, when rain was not asked for. ; the goddess Makosh lowered her hands to the ground. Both varieties of complex compositional brooches reveal to us different forms of showing the macrocosm, attracted in one form or another to the magical designs of the ancient plowmen of the Dnieper region, and, in all likelihood, are associated with the specific ritual function of one or another category of brooches. Each of them contained a reflection of a complex picture of the world, but different elements of the macrocosm were put forward for different sacred purposes. For prayers for rain, they turned to the heavenly Dazhdbog and saturated the jewelry with figures of waterfowl, snakes and pangolins. For the festivities of spring sowing or the “crown of summer” - Kupala, a female deity - Makosh - was displayed and surrounded (as in later Russian embroidery) by horses, which were necessary as a real force during a flash, and were symbolically associated with the sun (Phoebus's chariot ) and with the water element - horses were sacrificed to the water; ancient Poseidon is also firmly connected with horses. Toponymic accounting of tracts at its present level gives, unfortunately, an extremely fragmentary and incomplete picture, since there was no systematic study and it is extremely difficult to carry out. Such prayers. As if "who prays under a barn or in the rye under the grove or near the water," they did not even leave toponymic traces. Sacred Trees Sacred trees and sacred groves, "trees" and "groves" according to the terminology of medieval scribes, were not sufficiently mentioned in historical sources. One of the revered trees was the birch, which is associated with a number of spring rituals and round dance songs. It is possible that the birch was dedicated to coastlines, the spirits of goodness and fertility. Ethnographers have collected a lot of information about the "curling" of young birches, about spring ritual processions under the bound branches of birches. A felled birch tree in Semik (ancient date - June 4) served as the personification of some female deity and was the center of all Semitsky rituals. The trees involved in the pagan ritual were lavishly decorated with ribbons and embroidered towels. The embroidery on the ribs contained the image of those goddesses who prayed and sacrificed during these periods: the figures of Mokosh and two women in labor (mother and daughter) Lada and Lelya, prayers in “groves”, in “trees” can be functionally likened to a later church deity, where the temple corresponded to a grove or clearing in the forest, fresco images of deities - individual revered trees (or idol trees), and icons - images of Mokosh and Lada on the timbers. Trees located near springs, springs, springs, enjoyed special reverence, since here it was possible to simultaneously turn to the vegetative power of "growing" and to the living water of a spring spouting from the earth. The meaning of turning to spring water and the emergence of the fabulous concept of “living water” is explained by the thought often carried out in anti-pagan literature: “Recoste: we create evil, so that good things will come upon us - we will devour students and rivers and this, so that we will improve our petitions.” "Ov demanded to create on the student, waiting for lawsuits from him." From the cult of birch and trees growing among students, the cult of oak differs significantly. Oak - the tree of Zeus and Perun, the strongest and most durable tree of our latitudes - has firmly entered the system of Slavic pagan rituals. The Slavic ancestral home was located in the zone of oak growth, and the beliefs associated with it must go back to ancient times. Until the XVII - XIX centuries. oak and oak forests retained their leading place in rituals. The village wedding train, after the wedding, circled the lone oak tree three times; Feofan Prokopovich in his "Regulations of the Spiritual" forbids "singing prayers in front of an oak." Live roosters were sacrificed to the oak tree, arrows were stuck around, and others brought pieces of bread, meat and what each had, as their custom demanded. Hostile and Evil Deities Altars have also been found dedicated to some special, exceptional occasion: a natural disaster, a drought, an epidemic. The epidemic, pestilence, fully explains the combination of a stuffed altar with a cemetery and stealing near it. Such altars had a female outline. The female deity, absorbing her gifts, could be Makosh (in case of a threat to the harvest), and in the case of pestilence and a threat to people's lives, this could be the personification of that hostile and evil deity like Mara, Morena, (from "pestilence", "starve"), which later took on the well-known appearance of the fabulous Baba Yaga. Fairy tales often emphasize the immensity of this creature: Baba Yaga lies in the hut from corner to corner: “in one corner of her legs, in the other her head, her lips on the lintel, her nose stuck to the ceiling”; “Baba Yaga, the bone leg is a clay muzzle, she plugs the stove with her chest” (sometimes - “her boobs hang in the garden”). Baba Yaga's counterpart is Likho One-Eyed: "Likho is personified in our legends as a giant woman, greedily devouring people." Ukrainian fairy tales. In which the main opponent of the hero is Likho, they equate Likho with Baba Yaga: this giantess lives in the forest, barely fits in her hut, fries the people she slaughtered in the oven. The blacksmith, who has fallen into the power of Likh, only by cunning gets rid of the monster giantess. The blacksmith opposing the personification of evil is a character from the ancient epic of the beginning of the Iron Age. The one-eyed Likho "was taller than the tallest oak." As for the one-eyedness of the Drevlyan ritual figure that interests us, it should be said that in the entire semicircle of its head (“northern ledge”) only one point is marked in the place of the first eye - four large stones are laid there. Such altars were a public sacrifice to the evil deity of death and evil in some special frightening circumstances. Likha was brought, seeing from the excavations, animals and people, judging by the abundant folklore material, the heads of the sacrificed were separated and exhibited around the dwelling of Baba Yaga or Likha on stakes - “stamens”. In many fairy tales, Baba Yaga's hut is furnished with such poles with skulls on them; Likha's one-eyed guest is treated with severed heads; palace of Baba Yaga, the leader of the cavalry. “Fenced with a tyne, on each stamen there is a head and only one head is missing” (it is intended for the head of the hero of a fairy tale). Present in fairy tales is the motif of making a “cup” from a skull, known from the annals. Priests and Their Role In order to recreate the general picture of primitive Slavic paganism, it is not enough for us to have only village magi. After all, we know that even in the I millennium BC. e. there were "events", "cathedrals", "crowds" - crowded tribal gatherings with a complex scenario of a pagan ritual, with a developed set of rites, accompanied by pre-made props. The tribal nobility should have included people who developed a system of rituals, who knew (or created again) the texts of prayers and chants, melodies of chants, formulas for addressing the gods. The age-old tradition inevitably had to be intertwined with creativity and the expansion of the repertoire. Priests were an integral part of any primitive society, and the more complicated its social structure was, the closer it was to the upper limit of pre-class primitiveness, the clearer and more diverse was the role of tribal priests, priestesses and princes who performed part of the priestly functions. In order to reproduce the composition of the priestly class of the ancient Slavs, in addition to the universal sorcerers, the “cloakers”, the leaders of pagan rites and sacrifices, we must also include blacksmiths in the general list of wizards, who made not only tools and weapons (which already gave them considerable weight) , but also “female forge”, “forge of great value”, showing “cunning” and “blacksmithing art”. From the ancient verb “to forge”, to make something out of metal, the word “deceit” comes, which we use only in a figurative sense, and at one time meant: wisdom, skill, intricacy. "The root of wisdom, to whom it was revealed, and deceit (wisdom), who understand." These "insidious" goldsmiths knew pagan symbols perfectly and widely used their knowledge both for making village amulets and jewelry with amulets, and for the "mane utensils" of the most noble women of the country up to the Grand Duchesses. From the information of the XI - XIV centuries. we have data on the following category of people involved in a pagan cult: Men Women Magi Haraniliki Magi (sorcerer) Wizards Adherents Witches Cloud-catchers Sorcerers Sorceresses Priests Bayans Enchantresses Vedunas Magicians Sorceresses Sorcerers Kobniki Nauznitsa Enchanters Patvors, sorcerers Direct information about the Magi and their role in public life the young state of Russia in the 9th - 10th centuries. we have little. Records about the actions of the Magi in the bearish corners of the northeastern outskirts - in Suzdal and Poshekhonye - date back only to the 11th century. Perhaps that is why such a historically interesting topic as the priestly class has not even been posed in our literature as a problem to be considered. It is not uncommon to look at the Magi, only as village sorcerers, healers of a small scale. Such were the distant descendants of the ancient Magi in the 16th - 17th centuries, who, according to tradition, were still called Magi. But even fragmentary information about the Magi of the 11th century, acting on the very edge of the earth subject to Russia, draws them to us as powerful figures who raised their hands both to the local nobility (“old child”) and to the noble Kyiv boyar, who arrived with a whole retinue. At the time of the introduction of Christianity, the Magi led the people and openly fought with government troops. A century later, in the same Novgorod, “the Vlkhv stood under Gleb (Svyatoslav, the grandson of Yaroslav the Wise) ... To speak to people, acting like a god and a lot of deception - not a whole city is enough ... And bast a rebellion in the city and give him faith and even if you want to beat the bishop ... And they are divided in two: the prince Gleb and his squad stay with the bishop, and the people go for the vlhva ... ". This well-known episode testifies to the power of influence of pagan priests not only in the wilderness, but also in the city, where the episcopal see was established long ago and the majestic St. Sophia Cathedral was built. Among the Slavs, Hilferding writes, “priests had the meaning of a special estate, strictly distant from the people ... they performed popular prayers in sanctuaries and those divinations by which the will of the gods was recognized. They prophesied and spoke to the people on behalf of the gods... They enjoyed special honor and wealth, disposed of the income from the estates that belonged to the temples and the abundant offerings of worshipers. The most famous among the Baltic Slavs was the famous temple of Svyatovit (corresponding to the Russian Family) in Arkona on the shores of the Baltic Sea. Managing religious life was not easy, even at the level of a single village; it was complex at the level of a tribe with a common tribal sanctuary, and it became very complicated and diverse at the level of a state united by about fifty tribes. A simple rural sorcerer had to know and remember all the rituals, incantations, ritual songs, be able to calculate the calendar dates of all magical actions, and know the healing properties of herbs. In terms of the sum of his knowledge, he should have approached a modern professor of ethnography, with the only difference being that the ethnographer has to search for half-forgotten remnants for a long time. And an ancient sorcerer, probably. He received a lot from his teachers-predecessors. Without continuous succession of generations, it is impossible to imagine the thousand-year tradition of all varieties of East Slavic folklore. Koshchuny An important part of the activity of the Magi-wizards was the creation and transmission of diverse ritual folklore. Its origins came from the distant depths of primitiveness, and thanks to the careful preservation of traditions, the echoes of verbal creativity reached the remote corners of Russia until the 19th century, before meeting with ethnographers. Translations from Greek allow us to determine how some words were translated into Russian, for example, “koshchyuns”, “fables”. Blasphemers and fables are close concepts, but not identical: “Inii buzz (play bowed instruments), ini bait him and slander.” Bayat, telling fables, obviously, refers to different types of oral literature, and this action is subjected to much less attacks by churchmen than blasphemers, from whom our modern word to blaspheme, to desecrate a shrine, is also derived. In fables, obviously, there is a large secularity, perhaps of everyday (but not epic), and in blasphemers there is more paganism, mythological, that which seemed especially blasphemous to the church fathers of the 4th-7th centuries. and Russian clergy XI - XIV centuries. The blasphemers were semantically associated with the sorcerers and the magician: "Neither the devils heed, nor the blasphemous magicians." Mythic blasphemers are clearly opposed to true epic-historical narratives. Church writers of that time believed that it should be “in the place of the glorious deles of the story to tell”, i.e. preferred epic to myth. There were special "button accordions" and storytellers of myths - "blasphemers", to which people flocked, despite the prohibitions: "Yes, start relics with a blasphemer - you see many people going to blasphemers." To some extent, blasphemers are associated with the funeral rite: “Many people, for the sake of vanity, cry (for the dead), and when they have departed, they blaspheme and get drunk.” From this phrase it can be seen that blasphemers were performed during the commemoration of the deceased. Moreover, they were performed "for the sake of vanity", i.e. a particularly solemn memorial cake was considered to be the one on which some mythological legends were sung. When determining the original etymology of the word "blasphemer", obviously, one should accept the assumption of its dual basis; the first half (kosh-) is directly stated with the concept of fate, lot, and the second - with a more diverse set of meanings. Russian translators of the XI - XII centuries. steadily translated the Greek word "koshchyuny", combining in it the concepts of fate and a good start. Myths-blasphemers were performed by the elders: "old men's basses", "old men's blasphemers". “Koschyunoslovie” is sometimes combined in one phrase with “kobeniya”, obviously, the performance of legends could be accompanied by certain ritual gestures and body movements. In Sreznevsky's "Materials" (including translated works, according to which we can more accurately imagine the meaning of Russian words), the following terms are associated with folklore: Bayan, charmer (incantator) - "producing or singing spells." Saying, saying. Koshchyun is a myth. Swearing is the telling of myths. Koshchyunit - conjure, tell. Koshchyunnik - a magician, a blasphemer storyteller. Blasphemy (later) - desecration of a Christian shrine. To this material should be added: Koshchnoe - “that is to say, pitch darkness”, “hell” Koschei, Koshui the Immortal, Korchun - a fairy-tale character. The key to penetrating the half-forgotten world of ancient Slavic mythology can be the widespread and stable image of Koshchei the Immortal, whose very name contains an indication of the mythological archaic “blasphemer” and the connection with the infernal essence of the “koshchei”, otherworldly kingdom. The East Slavic fairy tale was called mythological for a long time by researchers, until the famous Ukrainian ethnographer N.F. Sumtsov expressed serious doubts about the possibility of scientific knowledge of Slavic mythology: “The boundaries of mythology hang in the air; there has never been anything solid and stable here, and now, in the current state of folklore, mythology has no definite content. However, with further study of folklore, it turns out that fairy tales and fairy (mythological) fairy tales are indeed the shredded descendants of ancient myths: "The origin of a fairy tale from a myth is beyond doubt." And in the future, in connection with the growth of tribal squads and military clashes, the heroic epic is increasingly woven into the mythological narratives. Thus, the East Slavic magical heroic tale is the keeper of the echoes of archaic myths mixed with each other and fragments of the heroic epic, which was born back in the 1st millennium BC. “The beginning of the magic concludes the so-called remnant moments and, above all, the religious and mythological views of primitive man ... The fairy tale is full of motives containing belief in the existence of the “other world” and the possibility of returning from there ... ". “The space hostile to man is a “different” kingdom, the sea kingdom, the kingdom of the Serpent, Koshchei, Yaga ... Penetrating into this world, destroying it, the hero affirms a single world of human justice and humanism.” The struggle of Christianity against paganism The adaptation of paganism to the needs of the emerging state took place in the conditions of rivalry with such world religions as Christianity and Islam, which was reflected in the legend of "the choice of faith." The Byzantine Empire was directly interested in the Christianization of the young but powerful state of Russia, believing that every nation that accepted the Christian faith from the hands of the emperor and the Patriarch of Constantinople, thereby already became a vassal of the Orthodox Empire. Naturally, with such stable contact with Christian lands, Christianity could penetrate into the Russian environment, which we can see from a number of documents of the 9th century, especially from the 860s. There is a missionary activity of the Greek Orthodox Church: Metropolitan Mikhail (Bulgarian) was sent to Russia, who baptized the Kyiv prince Oskold. One of the ways for Christians to penetrate Kyiv, the well-known historian of the Russian church E.E. Golubinsky rightly considers the arrival at the service of the Kyiv prince of the Varangians from the Norman community of Constantinople, baptized Scandinavians. The Varangians-Scandinavians had their own, well traveled by these sailors, sea route to Constantinople, which for some reason has been mixed up in our scientific and popular literature for two centuries with the route through Eastern Europe. Nestor in his text leads the reader from the Black Sea up the Dnieper and further to the Baltic Sea, pointing out that from the Varangian Baltic it is possible to sail by sea, without any portages, to Rome and Constantinople. Historians are still confused by the general title of this paragraph; since the question of the Varangians is directly related to our topic, I will quote Nestor’s text: “Be the path from the Varangians to Grky and from Grk along the Dnieper and the Dnieper viers dragged to Lovot and along Lovot enter the great lake into Ilmer, from which the lakes will flow Valkhov and to flow into the lake the great Nevo (Ladoga) and that lake to enter the mouth into the Varangian (Baltic and Northern) Sea. The route from the Varangians to the Greeks is designated as the route of the Scandinavian flotillas well known to us along a single body of water (along the same sea) from the Baltic and the North Sea through the English Channel, past Normandy, through Gibraltar in the Mediterranean to the Norman possessions in Italy and to Constantinople, where the Normans served in the Imperial Palace Guard. These Vikings of the Byzantine service naturally adopted Christianity, knew to some extent the Greek language. One can fully agree with E. E. Golubinsky that it was from these Constantinople Varangians that the hired squads of the Kyiv princes were recruited: “The Varangians in very large numbers moved from Constantinople to Kyiv.” The first pagan action described in the chronicle was the sacrifice of a Christian Varangian youth to Perun. “Because the Varangian t (the father of the young man) came from Grk and kept the Christian faith in secret.” The Varangian, as we see, was one of those Constantinople Normans about whom Golubinsky wrote. The religious question was raised to the level of international politics. This was especially clear after Igor's campaign against Byzantium in 943 and the conclusion of the treaty in 944, already in the reign of Igor's widow Olga (since 945). The annalistic texts do not say a word about the priestly class, about the pagan sorcerers in Russia and about their actions at that time, but without taking into account this social element, so well described among the Western Slavs, it will be difficult for us to comprehend many events. The conflict between Svyatoslav and his pagan squad with Olga began at the moment when the regency of the princess ended. Obviously, Svyatoslav forbade the public holding of a Christian cult (prayer services, crusades, blessings of water, etc.), giving the main place to "pogansky tempers." Olga became, obviously, half a Christian, confessing. But without demonstrating their Orthodoxy. With this understanding of events, we will not have to reproach Jacob Mnich for using the inaccurate date of Olga's baptism (955) - he conscientiously said that the princess for 15 years after her baptism pleased God with good deeds. Naturally, the orator of the 11th century kept silent about the renunciation of Christianity or the prohibition of rituals. Concluding the consideration of the last period of the heyday of the paganism of Kievan Rus, when the ancient religion had to be improved not only in the interests of the state, but also in the confrontation with the penetration of Christianity into Russia, we should dwell on the most interesting work that reflected this confrontation in a peculiar epic form - the epic about Mikhail stream. The epic about Mikhail Potok is the most widespread and most significant work of the Russian heroic epic in its volume: it has over 1100 lines, it consists of two parts, and each part is equal to the average size of the songs of the Iliad. The literature devoted to this epic is very extensive; it was studied by V. I. Stasov, A. N. Veselovsky, O. Miller, V. F. Miller, G. N. Potanin, B. I. Yarkho, B. M. Sokolov, V. Ya. Propp, and others. And yet, in the historical interpretation of the epic, much remained unfinished and should be studied in conjunction with Russian and Byzantine historical evidence and archaeological data, which provide a convincing dating of the main plot of the epic. Chroniclers and church writers eventually began to call the Prince of Kyiv Vladimir Svyatoslavovich (980 - 1015) Saint and Equal to the Apostles, crediting him with the baptism of Russia, but in the folk epic epic he remained an archaic mythological epithet, like "Volodimer the Sun". This solar sign made him related to the distant mythical Sokolot (Orthodox) king Kolaksai, the “Sun King”. Vladimir was the last pagan prince of Russia, and only he retained this poetic nickname, coming from great chronological depths. For almost two centuries, Kievan Rus was a pagan power that needed religious and ideological support for the statehood and power of the Kievan princes. Christianity, which had become the state religion in Byzantium already six centuries ago and in kindred Bulgaria for more than a century, by that time had become no longer the hope of a persecuted plebs, but a well-developed religion of a class society with the main thesis: "let slaves obey their masters." The adoption of Christianity was supposed to help strengthen statehood, but there was a great danger in such an act: the Byzantines believed that every nation that received a new faith from the hands of the Greek clergy, thereby becoming a vassal of the Byzantine Caesar, who headed both secular and supreme spiritual power. In the late 980s, Russia adopted Christianity as a public state religion. After the siege and capture of the capital of the Byzantine possessions - Chersonesos-Korsun - the Kiev boyars and Prince Vladimir could no longer fear that the empire would regard the acceptance of the faith from the hands of the Caesar and the patriarch as a sign of recognition of the vassal dependence of Russia on the Greeks. The conditions were dictated by the winner, who wanted to secure peace by marrying a Byzantine princess; "Hedgehog and come true." The adoption of Christianity immediately put Russia on a par with the advanced states of that time, facilitated diplomatic ties, since the people of the Middle Ages attached great importance to religion, and by this time Christianity had covered about three-quarters of Europe, Transcaucasia and a significant part of the Middle East. One of the political results of the baptism was that the son of Vladimir, by agreement with the Caesar of the Byzantine Empire, received the highest European title of "Caesar", i.e. emperor. And the son, grandchildren and granddaughters of Vladimir intermarried with the largest royal houses of the continent. The point was, of course, not in one religion, but also in the objective political power of Russia, but Christianity formalized this new force, and in Europe there were three monarchs of the highest rank: the emperor of Byzantium, the emperor of the "Holy Roman Empire" (Germany) and the emperor ( Tsar) of Russia, Grand Duke of Kyiv. In Russia, Christianity did not appear in its original form, in which it was in the first centuries of its existence; it has long ceased to be the religion of the disenfranchised and the oppressed, who expected compensation only in the other world. From the time of Constantine the Great (306 - 337), who baptized Byzantium, Christianity became the state religion and moved further and further away from the principles of the "new testament", relying more and more on the "old testament" (Bible) full of deceit, cruelty and autocracy. The strength of such state Christianity was the combination of the principle of inviolability and limitlessness of power, taken from the Bible, with the principle of humility and humility, taken from the gospel teaching. All subsequent Christian literature followed this path; Christian clergy took an active part in the development of state legislation. For a millennium, paganism retreated very slowly under the persistent onslaught of the Orthodox clergy. The village essentially became Christian hardly earlier than the 13th century, and the remnants of pagan cremations in the form of huge bonfires over the grave (“smoke” according to the life of Konstantin of Murom) survived in some places until the end of the 19th century. Churches were built in the cities of Kievan Rus; they were supplied with liturgical books, utensils, served by the clergy; around the cities, immediately outside the fortress walls, monasteries arose, which were the "nodes of strength" of the church organization; the clergy organized solemn prayers in the cities, crusades, read sermons; but paganism continued to be strong not only "in Ukraine", but also in big cities. To characterize the correlation in Russian cities between the Christian principle and the pagan one, it is enough to cite the well-known "Word about the Creature ...", compiled by the Russian scribe of the 12th century. The author strengthens the previous generations of Russian people in the fact that they created a pagan religion: "I made our fathers lie, bow down like an idol in the image of a man and serve the creature." The author of the "Word..." also scourged his contemporaries for worshiping the images of pagan gods ("those who wrote the light with a blockhead bow to him"); these images of light (Svyatovich?) are "creature", i.e. the creation of human hands "write in the image of a man for the charm of the unintelligent." Paganism was preserved in the early days of the existence of the Old Russian state and Christianity, coexisting with Christianity, and remnants of paganism are still preserved: Maslenitsa, Ivan Kupala, seeing off winter and much more. Literature 1. S. M. Solovyov Works book 1, volume 1 (c) 1988 "Thought" 2. Rybakov B. A. Paganism of the ancient Slavs. 3. Bessonov Petor. Belarusian songs with detailed descriptions of their creativity and language with essays on folk rites, customs and everyday life M., 1871. 4. Propp V.Ya. Russian agricultural holidays. M., 1963. 5. Levchenko MV Essays on the history of Russian-Byzantine relations. M., 1956. 6. Sakharov A. N. Diplomacy of ancient Russia. M., 1980. 7. Golubinsky EE History of the Russian Church. M., 1901, vol. 1, first half of the volume. 8. Rybakov B. A. Prerequisites for the formation of the Old Russian state (Essays on the history of the USSR III - IX centuries. M., 1958. 9. Rybakov B. A. Ancient Russia ...
To add a page "Paganism in Russia" to favorites click Ctrl+D

Until the middle of the ninth century, that is, before the arrival of the Varangians, in the vast expanse of our plain, from Novgorod to Kyiv along the Dnieper to the right and left, everything was wild and empty, covered with darkness: people lived here, but without government, like animals and the birds that filled their forests. In this vast desert, inhabited by the poor, scattered living savages, Slavs and Finns, the rudiments of citizenship were first brought by newcomers from Scandinavia, the Varangians, about the middle of the 9th century.

The well-known picture of the manners of the Eastern Slavs, as drawn by the compiler of the Tale of the Beginning of the Russian Land, apparently justified this view. Before the adoption of Christianity, the Eastern Slavs lived “in a bestial way, bestially” in the forests, like all animals, they killed each other, ate everything unclean, lived in solitary, scattered and hostile clans.

A more complete description of the tribes that lived on the territory of ancient Russia can be found in N. M. Karamzin. He writes: “Many Slavs, of the same tribe as the Lekhs who lived on the banks of the Vistula, settled on the Dnieper in the Kyiv province and were called glades from their clean fields. This name disappeared in ancient Russia, but became the common name of the Lekhs, the founders of the Polish state. From the same tribe of Slavs were two brothers, Radim and Vyatko, the heads of the Radimichi and Vyatichi: the first chose a dwelling on the banks of the Sozh in the Mogilev province, and the second on the Oka, in Kaluga, Tula or Oryol. The Drevlyans, so named from their forest land, lived in the Volyn province; dulebs and buzhans along the Bug River, which flows into the Vistula; the Luticians and Tivirians along the Dniester to the very sea and the Danube, already having cities in their land; white Croats in the vicinity of the Carpathian mountains; northerners, neighbors of the meadows, on the banks of the Desna, seven and sula, in the Chernigov and Poltava provinces; in Minsk and Vitebsk, between Pripyat and the Western Dvina, Dregovichi; in Vitebsk, Pskov, Tver and Smolensk, in the upper reaches of the Dvina, Dnieper and Volga, Krivichi; and on the Dvina, where the Polota River flows into it, Polotsk people of the same tribe; on the shores of Lake Ilmena are the so-called Slavs, who founded Novgorod after the birth of Christ.

When depicting the manners and customs of the Slavs, it was noted that tribal life caused enmity between them.

The chronicler left us the following news about the life of the Eastern Slavic tribes: "Each lived in his own family, separately, in his own places, each owned his own family." And again: “They have inaccessible dwellings in forests, near rivers, lakes, swamps; in their houses they arrange many exits, just in case of danger; they hide the necessary things under the ground, having nothing superfluous outside, but living like robbers. The Slavs lived in wooden huts, located at a great distance from each other, and often changed their place of residence. Such fragility and frequent change of dwellings were the consequences of the continuous danger that threatened the Slavs both from their own tribal strife and from the invasion of alien peoples. The pagan beliefs of our ancestors are generally little known. Like all Aryans, the Russian Slavs worshiped the forces of visible nature and revered their ancestors.

Tribal, pagan beliefs were, as a rule, based on a misunderstanding of the impact on a person of some unpleasant, unknown forces. The ideas about these forces correlated with tribal life, with the peculiarities of the area, with the specific occupations of the population. Therefore, serious changes in everyday life called into question various elements of belief, gave rise to a religious crisis (thus, the tribes worshiping the spirits of the mountains could not maintain their ideas about them, having moved to plain). Not surprisingly, the most active part of society, warriors and merchants, showed the greatest susceptibility to a change in religion. The baptism of certain influential people contributed to the acquaintance of the entire population with Christianity. Often the motivation for converting to another religion was the victory of the Christian people over the pagans.

The pagans looked at the life of a person from a purely material side: under the dominance of physical strength, a weak person was the most unfortunate creature, and taking the life of such a person was considered a feat of compassion.

By the end of the 9th century, the region of Russia, due to natural influence, was divided mainly into two parts: the tribes living in the southeast were subordinate to the Asian tribe, who camped on the Don and Volga; the tribes living in the northwest had to obey the famous sea kings, the leaders of the European squads, who came from the shores of Scandinavia. Around 862, as the chronicler says, the tribes that paid tribute to the Varangians drove the latter across the sea.

Consisting of various North German, Slavic and Finnish elements, the Old Russian (East Slavic) community at the end of the 1st millennium began to turn into a people united not only politically, but also spiritually, that is, religiously. The slow spread of Christianity among the Varangian and Slavic warriors began in the 9th century. Initially, few soldiers who participated in raids on Byzantium and in trade with Greek Christians were baptized (the professions of a warrior and a merchant at that time very often coincided).

The change of faith of the combatants was a completely natural thing: they spent a lot of time on campaigns, in foreign lands, including Byzantium, where they saw beautiful churches, solemn services, compared their cults with the Christian faith. In the 10th century, the gradual formation of Russian statehood continued. On the one hand, it was necessary to resolve issues related to the expansion of the influence of the Kievan princes “inside” Russia, leading the still scattered Slavic tribes to submission, on the other hand, a permanent external threat required great tension for the young feudal state that had just begun to take shape.

In this regard, all the impetuous activity of the Grand Duke Svyatoslav (Vladimir's father) in relation to Russia was not an inattention to its interests, or an unconscious desire to neglect it (as it is said in some places in the annals). On the contrary, everything was designed to solve major state problems. The most important of them, which consisted in ensuring security by the Khazar Khaganate, was resolved quite successfully (it ceased to exist after the Volga-Khazar campaign). The second task - the creation of a peaceful trading foothold on the western coast of the Russian (Black) Sea (in commonwealth with Bulgaria) - was not completed, because here Russia was opposed by two significant forces: Byzantium and the Pechenegs.

The fight against the Pechenegs became in the tenth century. essential need of Russia. The whole fertile forest-steppe, densely covered with Russian villages and cities, was turned to the steppes, was open to sudden raids of nomads. Each raid led to the burning of villages, the destruction of fields, the deportation of the population into slavery. Therefore, defense against the Pechenegs was not only a state matter, but also a matter of the whole people, understandable and close to all strata of society. And it is natural that the prince, who managed to lead this defense, was to become a folk hero, whose actions were sung in epics. Such a prince turned out to be the bastard son of Svyatoslav - Vladimir. In the city of Lyubech, which guarded the approaches to the Kyiv land from the north, he lived in the middle of the 10th century. a certain Malko Lubechanin. His daughter Malusha was the housekeeper of Princess Olga (Svyatoslav's mother), and his son Dobrynya apparently served the prince. In any case, the epics preserved the memory that he was at the princely court "a groom and a charmer" and later became a courtier - he served as a watchman for nine years.

Malusha Lubechanka became one of Svyatoslav's concubines, and her son Vladimir was born (the year of birth is unknown), who for a long time was reproached for his origin, calling him "robichich" and "slave". His uncle Dobrynya became a teacher with him.

It is not known how the further fate of Vladimir would have developed, but before the next and how it would later turn out to be a tragic campaign in 970, Svyatoslav decided to put his young children to reign. Kyiv was left to Yaropolk, and the Drevlyane land was left to Oleg. At the same time, the Novgorodians, perhaps dissatisfied with the power of the princely governors, sent word to Svyatoslav to give them his son as ruler. Neither Yaropolk nor Oleg agreed to reign in Novgorod. Then Dobrynya suggested to the Novgorodians to ask Vladimir for princes. So the young "robichich" became the prince-governor in Novgorod.

In the first years of his reign, Prince Vladimir, who received a pagan education in Novgorod, where Svyatoslav sent him to reign at the age of eight (in 970), showed himself to be a zealous pagan.

By his order, the idols of Perun, Dazhbog, Stribog, Khors and Mokosh were placed on a hill near the princely palace in Kyiv. Perun stood out with a silver head and a golden mustache. Idols were installed not only in Kyiv, but also in Novgorod, and possibly in other cities.

However, it was not possible to strengthen paganism with a pantheon of the main gods. Slavic pagan ideas were by no means similar to Greek ones. The supreme god was not perceived as the ruler and king of the gods, as was the case with the Greeks with Zeus. If the combatant honored mainly Perun, then the blacksmith - Svarog, the merchant - Veles. It was too difficult to make believe in the old gods in a new way, and in its former form, paganism did not suit the princely power, which sought to strengthen its authority. Apparently, this explains Vladimir's rejection of paganism and the turn to a fundamentally new religion - monotheism.

It should be noted that ancient Slavic paganism developed long before the rise of the Kievan state. As farmers, the Slavs deified the earth, the sun, and the rivers. The most ancient Slavic deities were Rod and women in childbirth - the creator and master of the universe and the goddess of fertility. Later, cults of the god of heaven and the supreme ruler of the world Svarog, his son Dazhbog - the god of the Sun, the sacred solar horse Khors, the god of the wind Stribog, the god of thunder and lightning Perun arose. The "cattle god" Veles, the patroness of women's needlework, the goddess Mokosh, the gods of spring and summer, Yarila and Kupala, were also revered. The clan and women in childbirth remained agricultural gods. Prayers were offered to the gods and sacrifices (sometimes human) were made, for which there were special sanctuaries - temples, which were wooden or earthen structures on elevated places or embankments. In the center of the temple there was an image of a deity, in front of which sacrificial fires were burned. Priests - sorcerers and sorcerers were in charge of the cult. With the strengthening of princely power, the ratio of deities changed. The god of war and squads, the Thunderer Perun, became the supreme god, and the princes especially cared about honoring him. Svarog left the patronage of artisans. Despite the undeniable commonality of the religious ideas of all the Eastern Slavs, they differed in many respects among individual tribes. Unification under the rule of Kyiv required the replacement of various tribal beliefs with a single nationwide religion. The rallying of pagan cults was also dictated by the need to resist the growing influence of Christianity in the Slavic environment.

The states neighboring Kievan Rus professed religions based on monotheism, that is, faith in one God. Christianity dominated in Byzantium, Judaism dominated in Khazaria, Islam dominated in Volga Bulgaria. However, the closest ties existed between Russia and Christian Byzantium.

"The Tale of Bygone Years" says that in 986. representatives of all three of these countries appeared in Kyiv, offering Vladimir to accept their faith. Islam was rejected by the prince, because it seemed to him too burdensome to abstain from wine, Judaism - due to the fact that the Jews who professed it lost their state and were scattered throughout the earth. The prince also rejected the proposal to convert, made by the messengers of the Pope. The sermon of the representative of the Byzantine church made the most favorable impression on him. However, not content with this, Vladimir sent his own ambassadors to see how God was worshiped in different countries. When they returned, they declared that the Muslim law was “not good,” that there was no beauty in the German church service, but they called the Greek faith the best. In Greek temples, they said, the beauty is such that it is impossible to understand whether you are on earth or in heaven. So, according to legend, the choice of faith was made.

With the formation and development of the ancient Russian state, the formation of a single Russian people, paganism, with its many deities in each tribe, the traditions of the tribal system and blood feud, human sacrifice, etc., ceased to meet the new conditions of social life. At the beginning of his reign, attempts made by Prince Vladimir I of Kyiv (980-1015) to somewhat streamline the rituals, raise the authority of paganism, and turn it into a single state religion were unsuccessful. Paganism has lost its former naturalness and attractiveness in the perception of a person who has overcome tribal narrowness and limitation.

The neighbors of Russia - the Volga Bulgaria, which professed Islam, the Khazar Khaganate, which converted to Judaism, the Catholic West and the center of Orthodoxy - Byzantium, tried to gain common faith in the face of the rapidly gaining strength of the Russian state. And Vladimir I, at a special Council in Kyiv, after listening to ambassadors from neighbors, decided to send Russian embassies to all lands to get acquainted with all religions and choose the best one. As a result, Orthodox Christianity was chosen, which impressed the Russians with the splendor of the decoration of cathedrals, the beauty and solemnity of services, the grandeur and nobility of the Orthodox Christian idea - a kind of idyll of forgiveness and unselfishness.

The first reliable information about the penetration of Christianity into Russia dates back to the 11th century. Christians were among the combatants of Prince Igor, Princess Olga was a Christian, who was baptized in Constantinople and encouraged her son Svyatoslav to do this. In Kyiv there was a Christian community and the church of St. Elijah. In addition, long-standing trade, cultural and even dynastic ties (Vladimir the Red Sun himself was married to the sister of the Byzantine emperors Anna) of Kievan Rus and Byzantium played an important role in this choice. By the way, the close family relations of the ruling dynasties, in turn, excluded the vassal dependence of the young Russian state on the Byzantine center of Christianity.

Prince Vladimir of Kyiv, who was baptized in 988, began to vigorously assert Christianity on a national scale. By his order, the inhabitants of Kyiv were baptized in the Dnieper. On the advice of Christian priests, mostly from Bulgaria and Byzantium, the children of the “best people” were handed over to the clergy to be taught to read and write, Christian dogmas and brought up in the Christian spirit. Similar actions were carried out in other lands. In the north of the country, where pagan traditions remained strong, attempts at baptism sometimes met with difficulties and led to uprisings. So, to conquer the Novgorodians, even a military expedition of the people of Kiev, led by the uncle of the Grand Duke Dobrynya, was required. And over a number of subsequent decades and even centuries, dual faith existed in rural areas - a kind of combination of previous ideas about the world of the supernatural, pagan mounds, violent holidays of native antiquity with elements of the Christian worldview, worldview.

The adoption of Christianity was of great importance for the further development of the ancient Russian state. It ideologically consolidated the unity of the country. Conditions were created for the full-fledged cooperation of the tribes of the East European Plain in the political, commercial, cultural fields with other Christian tribes and nationalities on the basis of common spiritual and moral principles. Baptism in Russia created new forms of inner life and interaction with the outside world, tore Russia away from paganism and the Mohammedan East, bringing it closer to the Christian West.

Christianity in Russia was adopted in the eastern, Byzantine version, which later received the name - Orthodoxy, i.e. true faith. Russian Orthodoxy oriented a person towards spiritual transformation. However, Orthodoxy did not provide incentives for social progress, for the transformation of people's real lives. In the future, such an understanding of the goals of life began to diverge from the European-type attitude to transformative activity, and began to slow down development.

When the term “paganism” is mentioned, something very ancient and dark immediately appears, secret magic lost over the millennia of Christianity, Judaism and Islam, rituals of worshiping the forces of nature, amulets and sorcerers. In fact, paganism in Russia peacefully coexisted with official Orthodoxy until the 19th century (calendar rituals and customs), and some of its artifacts remained in modern Russian culture and life.

By the way, interest in paganism in popular culture has not waned to this day: the cult of ancestors, animism, various energy practices and divination draw their phenomenology from Slavic paganism, which once again emphasizes the preservation of "dual faith" in the form in which it developed immediately after baptism Russia. According to Berdyaev, it is in dual faith that the identity of the Russian people lies; one can go further and argue that the mysterious Russian soul is precisely explained by the merging of these two opposite elements - paganism and Christianity.

This article will analyze Russian and Soviet historiography on the influence of the paganism of Ancient Russia on the development of Russian culture. The issues of paganism were most closely studied by the Soviet archaeologist, academician B. A. Rybakov, who published two monographs - “The Paganism of the Ancient Slavs” and “The Paganism of Ancient Russia”. In them, the researcher of Slavic culture shows the enormous influence that paganism had on the state and folk life of Kievan Rus, and also analyzes the continuity and refraction of pagan beliefs in the life of Rus after the adoption of Christianity, and even their penetration into Orthodox rites.

Another prominent scientist who devoted himself to the study of ancient Russian paganism is E. V. Anichkov, who wrote the fundamental work "Paganism and Ancient Russia", published in 1914 in St. Petersburg and, unfortunately, has not been brought into the framework of modern spelling, which, however, does not prevent more and more new generations of historians from getting acquainted with it. Anichkov, being a historian of literature, considered paganism precisely through the prism of folklore and folk art, and was also a supporter of syncretism in the study of culture.

In addition to Rybakov and Anichkov, another Russian scientist made a great contribution to the study of paganism in Ancient Russia and showed its great importance for the development of Russian culture. This is Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor V. Ya. Petrukhin (with V. Ya. Petrukhin's monograph "Ancient Russia. People. Princes. Religion" can be found on the website of the Historian).

In historical science, it is customary to consider paganism (any - both ancient Russian and ancient Egyptian) in two guises. Firstly, paganism is an ideological stage in the development of any modern civilization, it is an established system of ideas about the world and the place of man in this world, based on the deification of the forces of nature, and, therefore, is primitive. Secondly, paganism is also a cultural model for the formation and development of any ethnic group, which gives it characteristic unique features, and gives the people their own identity and to some extent contributes to the formation of their mentality. Within the framework of these two models, we will consider Old Russian paganism in this work.

Sources for the reconstruction of paganism in Ancient Russia

To study paganism, it is necessary to use the entire range of historical sources available today. When analyzing the role of paganism in the development of Russian culture, researchers rely on sources: written, archaeological, folklore, ethnographic and linguistic. It is impossible to say which of the sources is the most important, the opinion about certain phenomena of the pre-Christian culture of Russia should be based on a synthesis of information.

Chronicles, lives of Russian and Byzantine saints, epistolaries, legal documents (contracts, etc.), memoirs of travelers, historical chronicles are available to us from written sources. So it is from the chronicle called the Tale of Bygone Years that we learn about the pagan pantheon of Vladimir, which he ordered to be installed in Kyiv, and then forced the local population to pray for him. In the text of the agreements concluded by the Rus with Constantinople, we see that the princes and the squad swore by Perun, and we understand that he was the supreme deity in the Russian pagan tradition. The data of archaeological excavations tell us about the burial rites, that the pagan Rus preferred to cremate their dead, and to pour burial mounds over the burnt ashes. We also learn that our ancestors were ambivalent about the dead themselves, endowing them often with supernatural powers. Songs, epics and fairy tales that have come down to our time in a form processed by numerous unknown storytellers tell us about the rites, conspiracies and cults that were in use in Ancient Russia. Ethnography forms our view of ancient Russian paganism as an original cultural phenomenon in the relationship of its material and non-material components. So, for example, it is reported that to this day, ancient Russian pagan images are preserved in embroideries and folk crafts. Finally, linguistics determines for us the origin of certain pagan gods, reveals the patterns of borrowing and interweaving of various cultures, and often helps to establish the geographical location of one or another object of material culture.

We find a lot of evidence of what ancient Russian paganism was like in various messages of church hierarchs. The messages themselves, of course, were intended to indicate to a person that it is bad to worship "filthy" gods, however, for the researcher, these sermons represent the most interesting material. Among other things, they themselves are living witnesses to the fact that even after baptism, paganism in one form or another continued to exist in Russia.

Interesting from the point of view of a source on paganism is the "Word of St. Nifont about the Mermaids." Saint Niphon himself was a remarkable personality, his extensive life had a great influence on the Orthodox tradition in Russia. “The Word...”, of course, was said in order to get rid of demonic games, however, thanks to the meticulousness of the Byzantine saint, modern historians have learned a lot of interesting things about mermaids and about mermaids. The mermaid processions were accompanied by singing and dancing, playing the flute and represented a kind of festive procession, involving other passers-by into its orbit, those who could not go and have fun threw money to the mermaids. Such festivities were nationwide and were often held in the streets and squares.

Old Russian pantheon

As mentioned above, written sources on Russian pagan mythology are mostly Christian. In Russia, there was no complex of legends about Slavic gods, such as, for example, in Greek or Scandinavian mythology (saga). We did not have our own Homers and Ovids, who could translate mythology into the language of poetry and prose, and thus popularize it, therefore, among other things, we draw knowledge about the ancient Russian gods from oral folk art. In addition, there are still numerous notes of eyewitnesses - Christian, Arab or Jewish (Khazar) travelers who compiled memoirs about the life and customs of Ancient Russia. Unfortunately, not a single Russian written source created in the era preceding the baptism of Russia is known today. Even the very first historical source - the Tale of Bygone Years dates back to the 11th century at the earliest, there is nothing before it, no written evidence.

As noted, in order to study paganism, scientists have to draw on the entire range of sources available to them - ethnographic, folklore, archaeological, but using them in synergy (and this is the only way it is possible to use them) leads to numerous methodological problems, differences in interpretations, interchangeability of different phenomena, etc. Overcoming such difficulties, historical science still strives to build an integrated approach to the categorization of the pantheon of Slavic gods, which, at the very least, it succeeds.

So, today we know the following Slavic deities:

Perun- the supreme god, the twin of Zeus and Thor, because he throws lightning and is also called the thunderer. He is also the patron of the princely family, the princely squad swears by him when concluding international treaties. It is mentioned in the Tale of Bygone Years, as well as by Procopius of Caesarea, who, however, does not call him directly, but indicates that the Slavs have a god of thunder, to whom they sacrifice bulls.

Horse Apparently a sun god. Historians were unable to find out the origin of the name of this god, and according to several sources (one of which is hagiographic), he was attributed to the personifying sun. In one of the sources, Khors is called a Jewish god, which may indicate that he was borrowed from the Khazar Khaganate, which professed Judaism. The researcher of Russian paganism V. N. Toporov believes that the name Khors is of Iranian origin and passed into the Slavic pantheon from the Scythians and Sarmatians.

Dazhbog, Stribog, Semargl- deities from the pantheon established by Prince Vladimir before the baptism of Russia, in Kyiv. Their purpose is not defined. Dazhbog is associated with the sun (but in this case it turns out that two people already claim the sun - Khors and Dazhbog, which makes no sense), Stribog with the wind, Semargl, unfortunately, could not be classified, to which element or phenomenon it remains unclear. According to O. Bodyansky, Dazhbog is just another name for Khors, in our opinion, this statement really makes sense.

Among the Slavic pantheon there are also female deities (somehow the language does not turn around to call them goddesses), one of them is Mokosh, patroness of weaving and crafts in general. The appointment of Mokosh was derived from her etymology, which does not contradict the folklore traditions and rituals associated with this name. Mokosh in the Christian tradition was transformed into Paraskeva Friday.

All of the above deities are present in the so-called pantheon of Vladimir. When Vladimir Svyatoslavich occupied the Kyiv table, he decided to restore paganism, which was "abolished" by his brother Yaropolk, who previously ruled in Kyiv. The Tale of Bygone Years says that Vladimir “placed idols on a hill outside the Terem courtyard: a wooden Perun with a silver head and a golden mustache, and Khors, Dazhbog, and Stribog, and Simargl, and Mokosh. And they sacrificed to them, calling them gods, and brought their sons and daughters, and sacrificed to demons, and defiled the earth with their sacrifices. And the Russian land and that hill were defiled with blood. Judging by these chronicles, people were sacrificed to Perun and the rest, since blood defilement is applicable only to human victims, animal sacrifices in the annals were not stigmatized (but not encouraged) and were considered simply a demonic custom, one of many. In the Christian tradition, any kind of sacrifice is prohibited.

Vladimir Svyatoslavich at the Millennium of Russia monument in Veliky Novgorod. With his foot he tramples the idol of Perun

V. Petrukhin pointed out one curious moment. All of the deities listed are of Slavic origin, while the squad and princes of the initial centuries of Russian history proper are Varangians. That is, the Varangians-Rus did not bring Scandinavian gods with them - Thor, Odin, etc., but accepted the local ones and even made them their patrons (Perun is the patron of the prince and squad).

The supreme god of the Eastern Slavs (namely the ethnic group, as opposed to the princely gods) is considered to be Svarog, the god who, according to legend, gave fire to mankind and taught to forge metal. Svarog was especially revered by the peasants, since he was the first tiller: having defeated a huge monster - the Snake, he plowed a barrier furrow along the Dnieper on it. The appearance of Svarog in mythology is attributed to the Iron Age, that is, to the Proto-Slavic community.

The material confirmation of the existence of such a pantheon is the Zbruch idol, which was discovered in 1848 in the Zbruch River (hence the name) by the inhabitants of the village of Husyatin in Ukraine. The idol is carved from stone and dates back to the 10th century. B. A. Rybakov identified one of the female figures depicted on the sides of the idol as Mokosh, because she holds a horn in her hands, and the second as Lada, the goddess of spring and marriage, since she holds a ring in her hand. One of the male figures with a sword and a horse was identified by the scientist as Perun (the god of the squad), and the other, on whose clothes the image of the sun appears, as Dazhbog (Khors). The lowest tier of the Zbruch idol is represented by only one male figure, who, as it were, supports the rest of the tiers with his hands. Apparently, this is the figure of Volos (see below for more details about him).

Zbruch idol. OK. X century. Stone. Height 2.67 m. Krakow Archaeological Museum, Krakow, Poland

Separately, it is worth highlighting Mother-Cheese-Earth, as a common supreme female deity. She is not present in the pantheon of Vladimir, however, we find her traces in all chronicles, as well as epics and folklore.

Another interesting Slavic god, mentioned here and there in chronicles and lives - Hair or Veles, the so-called "cattle god". Volos entered the Orthodox tradition as a devil or a demon. Idols of Volos were in many Russian cities, they were located mainly where artisans and peasants lived, that is, residents employed in labor, as opposed to the squad, which they also “fed”.

B. A. Rybakov noted several layers in Slavic paganism, as if replacing each other. These layers can be compared with the historical eras of the existence of Slavic mythology, which, according to the scientist, is the successor of Egyptian and Greek mythology. The connecting link between these epochs is the Rod and women in labor - the deities of fate and tribal unity. Until now, the Russian language has preserved the stable expression “it is written in the family”, which quite accurately conveys the purpose of these pagan phenomena. The clan and women in labor were often denounced in Church Slavonic literature, since the rites of honoring them were preserved throughout the entire Christian era in Russia. In the 16th-century Russian Breed Book, which was used by priests as a kind of program of control questions at confession, there is such a question for women: “did they cook porridge on the day of the Nativity of Christ?” The custom of "cooking porridge", kuti or baking pies and bringing them to church the day after Christmas is an example of Russian dual faith. It was women in childbirth who patronized the fate of the newborn, respectively, for the Russians of that time, it was more than a good reason to propitiate the pagan deities immediately after the birth of the Christ child. The Church tried to condemn, and where it could forbid such rituals, but they, nevertheless, remained in the culture of everyday life of the Russian peasantry.

FROM By birth and rozhanitsi Closely related are the rites of honoring the ancestors (ancestors) and the propitiation of the home (the spirit of the house).

The same Rybakov builds the following sequence of ancient Russian gods worshiped by the Slavs (based on “The words of St. Gregory were invented in the crowd about how the first trash of existing tongues bowed to an idol”): 1) mermaids (ghouls and beregini) water demons; 2) clan and women in childbirth (spirits of clan and destiny); 3) Perun. As we can see, beliefs go from more primitive - the forces of nature, to more and more complex and personified deities. By the way, the data of archeology as a whole confirm such an evolution of pagan beliefs.

Once again we emphasize the fact that we learn about all the gods of the Slavic pantheon mainly from their Christian sources, in particular from the Tale of Bygone Years. Recorded legends about Perun and other gods appear much later. This is due to the fact that the Slavic language, in which the first scribes wrote, was considered the sacred language of the Russian Church, since it was spoken and brought to Russia by the first Slavic ascetics - Cyril and Methodius. Accordingly, the first Russian scribes did not dare to describe on it “poganish” customs and “poganish” gods. Yes, they did not have such a task in principle. For example, Nestor’s task was to derive the history of the Russian land from the cosmogonic beginning of the whole earth in general, that is, from the “languages” that scattered after the Flood, and also to attribute it to the diocese of one of the apostles (in this case, Andrew the First-Called was chosen). Naturally, at that time the influence of the actual folk culture, which professed paganism and animism, on the development of the nation was not recognized. And only in the period of modern history this influence was recognized as fundamental.

Inferior mythology

In addition to the gods, ancient Russian paganism is rich in representatives of lower mythology, all these vampires, mermaids, goddesses and kikimors. The forces of nature and their patrons - goblin, water and field, existed on a par with the patron gods of atomospheric phenomena. The lower mythological entities also include people endowed with demonic properties - witches, witches, plagues, sorcerers, warlocks. Also various demons of diseases are presented in various ways, including diseases of cattle, devils, demons, demons of fate.

The most important witch in the pagan mythology of the Slavs is well known to all of us. Baba Yaga is a witch who lives in a hut on chicken legs. According to the descriptions, this hut is very similar to the domino, in which the ashes of the dead were buried after cremation. Therefore, folklore researchers concluded that Baba Yaga is actually a “bad” dead man, a restless soul living in his coffin hut and harming people. The attributes of Baba Yaga are, in addition to the hut, which always stands on the edge of the forest, a bone leg, a stupa in which she flies and pursues people, and a pomelo. As you can see, the paraphernalia is completely similar to the paraphernalia of medieval witches flying on a broomstick. The bone leg tells us that Baba Yaga is a character of two worlds - this and the other world, in fact, she is the guide of souls to the afterlife. In the initial period of Slavic history, bloody sacrifices were made to her in order to appease her. According to Ibn Fadlan, who attended the burial ceremony of a noble Slav, it was also attended by an old witch woman, whose duties included the ritual murder of concubines who agreed to follow the dead to the next world. It is quite possible that the image of Baba Yaga was transformed from this real-life character.

Hood. V. M. Vasnetsov Baba Yaga, 1917, House-Museum of V. M. Vasnetsov, Moscow

Vampires or ghouls- these are the unburied dead, or those who during their lifetime were sorcerers or witches, whose souls do not accept the other world, and they remain on this one. At night, they rise from their graves, attack people and drink their blood. Belief in vampires is supported by archeological evidence. Numerous burials in which stakes, knives, spears were stuck into the remains, or whose graves were laid with stones, indicate that the belief in the "mortgaged" dead originates in pagan tradition. Belief in ghouls persists in Russian folklore to this day.

A character of Slavic mythology well known to us from fairy tales. Above we have quoted St. Nifont about the mermaid procession. According to the hierarch, this holiday was rather a merry procession, a kind of carnival, which is quite curious, since the mermaids themselves, water nymphs, are rather negative characters. According to legend, they lured people into the swamps and could tickle to death. According to some reports, a mermaid is also a “mortgaged” dead person who died as a result of drowning and remained unburied. Mermaid, as the term implies, is a female character. Later, in the Orthodox tradition, drowned women who remained unbaptized began to be considered mermaids.

Hood. V. Prushkovsky. Mermaids. 1877, National Museum, Krakow, Poland

Goddesses- a rather specific character of lower Slavic mythology, since they are dangerous only for pregnant women and women in childbirth. According to legend, goddesses are old or ugly women who themselves died during childbirth or were not baptized and now attack women in labor and kidnap babies. They also substitute for children, strangle women in labor during sleep, take away milk, etc. Children who are taken away by goddesses or who are killed by their mothers become demons. The habitat of goddesses is similar to mermaids, goddesses also live near water bodies, and sometimes under water.

The word has been preserved in Russian to this day, as today they call an ugly or poorly dressed woman or old woman. Kikimora in lower Slavic mythology is the wife of a brownie, lives in a house behind a stove or in a barn and does little harm to the household. Unbaptized babies, stillborn and with congenital deformities, as well as "mortgaged" dead become kikimors. It is believed that the image of kikimora is similar to the image of the supreme deity Mokosh, which is related to the cult of agriculture, fertility, weaving. Kikimora also spins wool, sometimes shearing sheep, thus stealing from the owners. According to beliefs, it is possible to negotiate with a kikimora and even conduct conversations, ask her about anything, she answers with a knock. If she is in a good mood, she can also predict the future.

Kikimora. Drawing by I. Ya. Bilibin

With the deities and spirits of the loci (patrons of the forces of nature), not everything is so simple. Actually, before the baptism of Russia, many of these supernatural beings were peaceful. Goblin and water were the patrons of their elements and were not seen in sabotage. With the advent of the Christian tradition, all these spirit loci were outlawed and, accordingly, acquired a demonic essence.

It was after the establishment of Christianity that the goblin became the demon of the forest, which confused people, made them wander around the same place. In the pagan tradition, the goblin is a good spirit of the forest, which understands the language of animals and birds, keeps order in the forest and helps (!) Unlucky travelers find their way if they get lost.

Accordingly, the water one is the spirit of lakes, rivers, springs, it is believed that he has power over mermaids and other swamp evil spirits, lives under water, in polynyas, in abandoned mills. The merman has his own livestock, which he grazes, this, of course, is fish - catfish, carps and pikes.

Water. Drawing by I. Ya. Bilibin

Folklore tradition of Ancient Russia

As you can see, Slavic pre-Christian mythology is very rich and diverse. Thanks to ethnographic research, today we can recreate the life and culture of our ancestors in all the diversity and multicolor of folklore traditions, crafts, epics, legends and rituals. We can say that the folklore tradition is a mirror of the life of Ancient Russia.

Although, for example, E. V. Anichkov, considered paganism in Ancient Russia to be “wretched”, Slavic gods “miserable”, and morals “rude”. And indeed, if we compare the myths and legends of the Slavs with the richest mythology of Ancient Greece or Scandinavia, then the comparison will not be in favor of Russia. Pagan Russian rituals are indeed very primitive, but on the other hand, Old Russian folklore can be considered one of the most significant. Rybakov, in order to refute Anichkov's point of view, conducted the most serious research on ancient Russian pagan mythology and, one might say, "proved" that we are no worse, and our paganism can be poetic and comprehensive.

Above, we have given a three-part scheme for the development of Slavic beliefs, to which we will add a few remarks in this paragraph. In particular, it is noted that belief in ghouls, mermaids, brownies and other demonic creatures has long survived the era of paganism and is found up to the present day. The second remark: the worship of Perun, the supreme deity, occurs long before the time of the formation of the Old Russian state (Iranian and Scythian-Sarmatian roots can be traced in the etymology of the name). Thus, it is possible to speak about the inheritance of the stages of development of paganism, singled out by Rybakov, rather conditionally.

All three stages of paganism are reflected in the folklore of Ancient Russia, it is natural that it is rather difficult to analyze the chronology of folklore, therefore both primitive demons and perfect god-heroes exist at the same time.

As already noted, the written tradition in Russia had as its goal to determine the place of the new, newly born statehood in Christian civilization, and therefore swept out from the book pages everything that contradicted Orthodoxy. All this was, first of all, paganism, with its "filthy" fables and heroes, the Church called them "blasphemers." However, it was not possible to completely expel paganism from the life of the people of that time. If earlier the worship of pagan gods required certain ceremonials, sacrifices and rituals, then from the moment of the baptism of Russia, it lost its sacredness and remained in everyday life in the form of fun, tales, fables, youth games, fortune-telling, etc. In this, one might say, paganism has survived in a relaxed form to the present day, influencing the development of the entire Russian culture and continues to do so to this day.

In general, the ancient Russian folklore tradition and the rituals and customs associated with it had close ties with the agricultural calendar. The change of seasons was considered by our ancestors as a struggle between cold and heat, symbolic death and rebirth.

Ancient Russian paganism also had its own priests, they were called Magi and attributed to them magical power and authority. Already after the Christianization of Russia, the sorcerers tried to regain power in the minds of the inhabitants, however, their attempts, which received the name “revolt of the sorcerers” in history, failed. In the 11th century, rebellious sorcerers are announced either in Novgorod or in Kyiv, sometimes the people and princes take their side, sometimes the sorcerers are “beaten”.

Hood. A. P. Ryabushkin. Prince Gleb Svyatoslavovich kills a sorcerer at the Novgorod Veche (Prince's Court), 1898, Nizhny Tagil Art Museum of Fine Arts, Nizhny Tagil

The very phenomenon of the sorcerer, sorcery, is a cross-cutting plot of the Slavic folklore tradition. Let us recall the death of the Prophetic Oleg from a horse, prophesied by the Magi, the legend of Vseslav Polotsk, who was born not from love, but from sorcery (witchcraft), the Magi predict the victories and defeats of the Russian princes. Characteristically, the Magi fight witches, accusing them of hiding crops or sending drought, famine, and disease (pestilence). In order to remove the curse, the witch had to be killed and a loaf of bread or a fish cut out of her stomach, after which the disasters receded. The priests struggled with these cruel customs as best they could, sorcery was declared heresy and, thus, outlawed.

Hood. V. M. Vasnetsov. Oleg's meeting with the magician. 1899, watercolor, State Literary Museum, Moscow

The most famous phenomenon in the Russian folklore tradition is, of course, epics. We adhere to the point of view that epics as a heroic epic originated precisely in Ancient Russia, and perhaps even earlier, with the coming to power of a prince with a retinue.

There are many theories regarding the origin of the epic as a genre, in modern science the sum of these theories is recognized as correct. That is, epics are also legends in which the heroes (a kind of twins of the Slavic gods) fight misfortunes (forces of nature) and emerge victorious from them; in epics we also see echoes of real historical events, romanticized by subsequent retellers and censuses; certainly, some epics or their elements were borrowed from the folklore of the western and eastern neighbors. Thus, Russian epics are a complex phenomenon, depending on who turns to its study (historian, literary critic, linguist), one or another of its facets is revealed.

From the point of view of history, of course, real historical events are reflected in epics. “The Tale of Igor's Campaign”, epics of the Vladimirov cycle, Zadonshchina - are based on real facts that have been confirmed in official science. In this regard, the epic epic received the status of historical folklore.

Two major stages can be distinguished in the development of the epic epic. The first is the birth of the epic as a genre, the actual pagan period. In the epics of this cycle, almost mythical heroes-heroes act. They personify the forces of nature and have not just physical, but supernatural strength. This is how we portray the giant Svyatogor, who is not held by Mother-Cheese-Earth, Mikula Selyaninovich - the pre-Christian hero-plowman who challenged Svyatogor. Mikula's daughter, Vasilisa, is a cross-cutting female character in the entire Russian epic epic. Volga Svyatoslavich is another ancient character of epics, he can turn into different animals and "reads from books."

Hood. A. P. Ryabushkin. Mikula Selyaninovich. 1895. Illustration for the book "Russian epic heroes"

After the ancient period of epics, two more are distinguished - Kyiv and Novgorod, which were formed after the baptism of Russia and therefore do not pertain as such to ancient Russian paganism. In the Kiev cycle, heroes-heroes are grouped near the figure of Vladimir the Red Sun (most likely a poetic image of the real-life Prince Vladimir), Sadko and Vasily Buslaev act in the New City cycle.

In conclusion, we note that paganism in Ancient Russia was quite multifaceted. We do not agree here with the opinion of Anichkov, who considered him miserable and miserable. Of course, ancient Russian mythology cannot be compared with the ancient Greek pantheon, but in Russia the lower sphere of mythology is strong, with its mortgaged dead, demons of the elements and other evil spirits. There is no such wealth of goblin, brownies and kikimor in any other pagan religion.

An important feature of ancient Russian paganism is its all-pervading nature, as well as the preservation of "dual faith" throughout the history of our country. Rites, spells, amulets and divination have remained in our culture to this day, pagan semiotics has firmly entered the Orthodox tradition despite the numerous prohibitions of church leaders that were distributed already in the first years after the baptism of Russia.

The influence that paganism had on Russian literature is enormous: epics, fairy tales, ritual songs can be traced in almost all works of classical and modern Russian literature. Pushkin, Gogol, Platonov and even Mayakovsky turned to pagan sources in their work.

The pagan tradition of Ancient Russia has played and continues to play a huge role in the development of the entire Russian culture.

1. Paganism. 5

1.1. Stages of development of pagan religion. 5

1.2. The influence of paganism on the culture and life of the Eastern Slavs. eight

2. Adoption of Christianity. ten

2.1. Reasons for the adoption of Christianity. ten

2.2. Baptism of Russia. 13

3. Christianity. fifteen

4. Consequences of the adoption of Christianity. 16

4.1. political consequences. 16

4.2. cultural implications. 17

Conclusion. twenty

References. 23

Introduction

Christianity in Ancient Russia existed long before it was given the status of an official religion, but it was not widely spread and, of course, could not compete with paganism. But trade relations with Greece made it easier for Russia to get acquainted with the Christian faith. Varangian merchants and combatants, earlier and more often than the Slavs, who went to Constantinople, before the Slavs began to convert to Christianity there and brought a new teaching to Russia, passing it on to the Slavs. At first, the Christian churches were small pockets in a sea of ​​paganism. Only later, with the support of state power, the church began to take root in the people's environment, cities and villages, despite the fact that the main part of the population of Russia actively or passively resisted the new religion. It was the general rejection of it in the conditions of even limited democracy that thwarted the plans of the Kyiv nobility and turned the introduction of Christianity into a centuries-old process. In most of the cities that openly rebelled against Christianity, the local secular and former spiritual nobility came forward.

Paganism has passed a complex centuries-old path from the archaic, primitive beliefs of an ancient person to the state princely religion of Kievan Rus by the 9th century. By this time, paganism was enriched with complex rites (one can single out the burial rite, in which many ideas of the pagans about the world were concentrated), a clear hierarchy of deities (the creation of a pantheon) and had a huge impact on the culture and life of the ancient Slavs.

The Christian faith formed a new, but not completely freed from the influence of paganism, picture of the world of ancient Russian man. At the center of it were ideas about the relationship between God and man. The idea of ​​love as a force dominating in people's lives and in their relationship with God and with each other organically entered Russian culture. The idea of ​​personal salvation, which is the most important for the Christian faith, oriented a person towards self-improvement and contributed to the development of individual creative activity. However, while promoting the development of culture and literacy, the church at the same time suppressed the culture based on pagan traditions and rituals with all its might. Happy holidays, carols and carnivals were persecuted, like demonic ones, buffoonery, playing folk instruments were punished.

But paganism did not give up completely. Russia became a country where an unusual and rather strong combination of Christian dogmas, rules, traditions and old pagan ideas was realized. There was a so-called dual faith. Christians prayed in churches, bowed before home icons, but at the same time celebrated the old pagan holidays.

The popular consciousness stubbornly intertwined the old pagan beliefs into its way of life, adapting Christian rituals to the phenomena of nature blown through the centuries, which were so carefully and accurately determined by paganism. Dual faith has become an amazing hallmark of the history of the Russian and other Christian peoples who inhabited Russia.

1. Paganism

Paganism is a religious form of human exploration of the world. The religious views of the ancient Slavs reflected the worldview of our ancestors. They developed, became more complex, not differing significantly from the similar development of the religions of other peoples. Man lived in a mythological picture of the world. In its center was nature, to which the collective adapted.

1.1. Stages of development of pagan religion

At the first stage, the forces of nature were deified. All of it was inhabited by many spirits, which had to be propitiated, so that they would not harm a person, help in labor activity. The Slavs worshiped Mother Earth, water cults were quite developed. The god of the sun - Dazhdbog, the god of winds and storms - Stribog was revered. In addition to them, the Slavs also worshiped Veles, the god of cattle and wealth, Khors, associated with the solar cult. God Yarilo was responsible for the germination of cereals, Kupalo was responsible for the ripening of fruits, the Court was in charge of human destinies, Chur guarded the boundaries between the fields and all kinds of borders. In addition to the characters of higher mythology (gods and goddesses), the Slavs also inhabited their world with less significant creatures: mermaids (spirits of nature, originally living everywhere: in forests, meadows, valleys, and not just in the water), goblin, water, brownies, barns, banners and other small gods and spirits.

At the second stage, in Russian-Slavic paganism, the cult of ancestors develops and lasts longer than other types of beliefs. According to B.A. Rybakov, the god Rod came to the fore. The Slavs revered Rod - the creator of the Universe and Rozhanitsa - goddesses of fertility, and believed in the other world. Death was perceived not as disappearance, but as a transition to the underworld. They burned the corpses or buried them in the ground. In the first case, it was assumed that after death the soul remains to live, in the other it was assumed that they continue to live, but in a different world. After being burned, the soul retained connections with the material world, taking on a different image, moving into a new body. The Slavs believed that the ancestors continued to live with them even after death, constantly being nearby. “Own” dead helped their relatives in every possible way, “strangers” harmed them. “Hence the superstitious fear that seized the Russian man at the crossroads: here, on neutral soil, the relative felt himself in a foreign land, ..., outside the sphere of help of his protective gurs”

At the third stage of the development of the pagan religion, according to many scientists, the cult of Rod broke up into many smaller cults, of which, in the end, the cult of the “God of Gods” became the most important. This is already a celestial being, the head of the hierarchy of the gods. In the 6th century, the God of Thunder Perun, the patron of the prince and his squad, the god of war and battles, throwing lightning at his opponents, was recognized as the ruler of the Universe. Despite this, the Slavs still revered other gods, which confirms the polytheism of religion. But it is also worth listening to the opinion of B.A. Rybakov: in Russia, “the idea of ​​monotheism in its patriarchal male form arose before Christianity, completely independently of it and, in all likelihood, long before it.” As evidence, the text of Procopius of Caesarea, dating back to the 6th century, is usually cited: “They (Antes and Slavins) believe that only one god, the creator of lightning, is the ruler over all, and bulls are sacrificed to him and other sacred rites are performed.” The only question that remains is which god this statement refers to - Rod or Perun.

The priestly class of ancient Russia played a special role here. The general name of the priests was "wizards" or "wizards". There were many different ranks in the entire priestly class. There are known "magicians-clouders", those who were supposed to predict and, by their magical actions, create the weather necessary for people. There were sorcerers-healers who treated people with folk medicine, "magicians-keepers" who led the complex business of making various kinds of amulets-amulets and, obviously, ornamental symbolic compositions. The work of this category of sorcerers can be studied both by archaeologists on the basis of numerous ancient ornaments that served as amulets at the same time, and by ethnographers on the vestigial plots of embroidery with the goddess Makosh, the goddesses of spring, riding horses "with a golden plow" and numerous symbolic patterns. The most interesting category of the Magi was the "blasphemer Magi", the narrators of "koshchyun" - myths, the keepers of ancient legends and epic tales. In addition to the magicians-sorcerers, there were also women-sorceresses, witches (from "to know" - to know), enchantresses, "intrigues".

Prince Vladimir, being at the top of the process of creating a unified Russian statehood, decided to give the pagan religion a socially significant state character. To this end, in 980, he established a single pantheon, obligatory for the veneration of all his subjects. This pantheon included: Perun, Khors, Dazhdbog, Stribog, Semargl and Mokosh. “From political calculations, his own retinue-Rurik Perun had to be furnished with the gods of the tribes subordinate to the Igorevichs and Novgorodians.” However, the reform did not satisfy the prince, who was building a unified state. A few years later, he decided to adopt the Christian religion, actively spread by the most powerful state of that time - the Byzantine Empire.

1.2. The influence of paganism on the culture and life of the Eastern Slavs

The culture of Russia from the very beginning was influenced by various cultural trends, styles, and traditions. Russia not only blindly copied other people's influences and recklessly borrowed them, but applied them to its cultural traditions, to its people's experience, which came down from the depths of centuries, and understanding of the surrounding world.

The pagans knew many kinds of arts. They were engaged in painting, sculpture, music, and developed crafts. Here, archaeological research plays an important role in the study of culture and everyday life.

Excavations in the territories of ancient cities show all the diversity of life in urban life. Many found treasures and opened burial grounds brought to us household items and jewelry. The abundance of women's jewelry in the found treasures made it possible to study crafts. On tiaras and earrings, ancient jewelers reflected their ideas about the world; with the help of ornate floral ornaments, they could tell about the change of seasons, about the life of pagan gods and other events. Unknown animals, mermaids, griffins occupied the imagination of the then artists.

The largest in human history, the Second World War was a logical continuation of the First World War. In 1918, Kaiser's Germany lost to the Entente countries. The result of the First World War was the Treaty of Versailles, according to which the Germans lost part of their territory. Germany was forbidden to have a large army, navy and colonies. An unprecedented economic crisis began in the country. It worsened even more after the Great Depression of 1929.

German society survived its defeat with difficulty. There were massive revanchist sentiments. Populist politicians began to play on the desire to “restore historical justice”. The National Socialist German Workers' Party, headed by Adolf Hitler, began to enjoy great popularity.

The reasons

Radicals came to power in Berlin in 1933. The German state quickly became totalitarian and began to prepare for the coming war for supremacy in Europe. Simultaneously with the Third Reich, its "classic" fascism arose in Italy.

The Second World War (1939-1945) is an event not only in the Old World, but also in Asia. Japan has been a source of concern in this region. In the Land of the Rising Sun, just like in Germany, imperialist sentiments were extremely popular. China, weakened by internal conflicts, became the object of Japanese aggression. The war between the two Asian powers began as early as 1937, and with the outbreak of conflict in Europe, it became part of the general Second World War. Japan became an ally of Germany.

In the Third Reich, he left the League of Nations (the predecessor of the UN), stopped his own disarmament. In 1938, the Anschluss (accession) of Austria took place. It was bloodless, but the causes of World War II, in short, were that European politicians turned a blind eye to Hitler's aggressive behavior and did not stop his policy of absorbing more and more territories.

Soon Germany annexed the Sudetenland, inhabited by Germans, but belonging to Czechoslovakia. Poland and Hungary also took part in the division of this state. In Budapest, the alliance with the Third Reich was observed until 1945. The example of Hungary shows that the causes of the Second World War, in short, were, among other things, the consolidation of anti-communist forces around Hitler.

Start

On September 1, 1939 they invaded Poland. A few days later, Germany declared war on France, Great Britain and their numerous colonies. Two key powers had allied agreements with Poland and acted in its defense. Thus began the Second World War (1939-1945).

A week before the Wehrmacht attacked Poland, German diplomats signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union. Thus, the USSR was aloof from the conflict between the Third Reich, France and Great Britain. By signing an agreement with Hitler, Stalin was solving his own problems. In the period before the start of World War II, the Red Army entered Eastern Poland, the Baltic States and Bessarabia. In November 1939, the Soviet-Finnish war began. As a result, the USSR annexed several western regions.

While German-Soviet neutrality was maintained, the German army was engaged in the occupation of most of the Old World. 1939 was met with restraint by overseas countries. In particular, the United States declared its neutrality and maintained it until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Blitzkrieg in Europe

Polish resistance was broken after only a month. All this time, Germany acted only on one front, since the actions of France and Great Britain were of little initiative. The period from September 1939 to May 1940 received the characteristic name of the "Strange War". During these few months, Germany, in the absence of active action by the British and French, occupied Poland, Denmark and Norway.

The first stages of World War II were short-lived. In April 1940, Germany invaded Scandinavia. Air and naval assault forces entered key Danish cities without hindrance. A few days later, the monarch Christian X signed the capitulation. In Norway, the British and French landed troops, but he was powerless before the onslaught of the Wehrmacht. The early periods of World War II were characterized by the overwhelming advantage of the Germans over their enemy. The long preparation for the future bloodshed had an effect. The whole country worked for the war, and Hitler did not hesitate to throw all new resources into her cauldron.

In May 1940, the invasion of the Benelux began. The whole world was shocked by the unprecedented destructive bombing of Rotterdam. Thanks to their swift throw, the Germans managed to take key positions before the allies appeared there. By the end of May, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg capitulated and were occupied.

In the summer, the battles of World War II moved to French territory. In June 1940, Italy joined the campaign. Her troops attacked the south of France, and the Wehrmacht attacked the north. An armistice was soon signed. Most of France was occupied. In a small free zone in the south of the country, the Pétain regime was established, which went to cooperate with the Germans.

Africa and the Balkans

In the summer of 1940, after Italy entered the war, the main theater of operations moved to the Mediterranean. The Italians invaded North Africa and attacked British bases in Malta. On the "Black Continent" then there was a significant number of English and French colonies. The Italians at first concentrated on the eastern direction - Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and Sudan.

Some French colonies in Africa refused to recognize the new government of France headed by Pétain. Charles de Gaulle became the symbol of the national struggle against the Nazis. In London, he created a liberation movement called "Fighting France". British troops, together with de Gaulle's detachments, began to recapture the African colonies from Germany. Equatorial Africa and Gabon were liberated.

In September, the Italians invaded Greece. The attack took place against the background of the battles for North Africa. Many fronts and stages of World War II began to intertwine with each other due to the ever-increasing expansion of the conflict. The Greeks managed to successfully resist the Italian onslaught until April 1941, when Germany intervened in the conflict, occupying Hellas in just a few weeks.

Simultaneously with the Greek campaign, the Germans launched the Yugoslav campaign. The forces of the Balkan state were split into several parts. The operation began on April 6, and on April 17 Yugoslavia capitulated. Germany in World War II looked more and more like an undisputed hegemon. Pro-fascist puppet states were created on the territory of occupied Yugoslavia.

Invasion of the USSR

All previous stages of the Second World War faded in scale compared to the operation that Germany was preparing to carry out in the USSR. The war with the Soviet Union was only a matter of time. The invasion began exactly after the Third Reich occupied most of Europe and was able to concentrate all its forces on the Eastern Front.

Parts of the Wehrmacht crossed the Soviet border on June 22, 1941. For our country, this date was the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. Until the last moment, the Kremlin did not believe in the German attack. Stalin refused to take the intelligence data seriously, considering it disinformation. As a result, the Red Army was completely unprepared for Operation Barbarossa. In the early days, airfields and other strategic infrastructure in the west of the Soviet Union were bombed without hindrance.

The USSR in World War II was faced with another German blitzkrieg plan. In Berlin, they were going to capture the main Soviet cities of the European part of the country by winter. For the first few months everything went according to Hitler's expectations. Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltic States were completely occupied. Leningrad was under blockade. The course of World War II brought the conflict to a key turning point. If Germany defeated the Soviet Union, she would have no opponents left, except for overseas Great Britain.

The winter of 1941 was approaching. The Germans were in the vicinity of Moscow. They stopped on the outskirts of the capital. On November 7, a festive parade was held dedicated to the next anniversary of the October Revolution. Soldiers went directly from Red Square to the front. The Wehrmacht was stuck a few dozen kilometers from Moscow. The German soldiers were demoralized by the most severe winter and the most difficult conditions of warfare. On December 5, the Soviet counteroffensive began. By the end of the year, the Germans were driven back from Moscow. The previous stages of the Second World War were characterized by the total advantage of the Wehrmacht. Now the army of the Third Reich has stopped its world expansion for the first time. The battle for Moscow was the turning point of the war.

Japanese attack on the USA

Until the end of 1941, Japan remained neutral in the European conflict, while at the same time fighting with China. At a certain moment, the country's leadership faced a strategic choice: to attack the USSR or the USA. The choice was made in favor of the American version. On December 7, Japanese aircraft attacked the naval base at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. As a result of the raid, almost all American battleships and, in general, a significant part of the American Pacific Fleet were destroyed.

Until that moment, the United States did not openly participate in World War II. When the situation in Europe changed in favor of Germany, the American authorities began to support Great Britain with resources, but they did not interfere in the conflict itself. Now the situation has changed 180 degrees, since Japan was an ally of Germany. The day after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Washington declared war on Tokyo. Great Britain and its dominions did the same. A few days later, Germany, Italy and their European satellites declared war on the United States. Thus, the contours of the unions that clashed in a face-to-face confrontation in the second half of the Second World War finally took shape. The USSR had been at war for several months and also joined the anti-Hitler coalition.

In the new 1942, the Japanese invaded the Dutch East Indies, where they began to seize island after island without much difficulty. At the same time, the offensive in Burma developed. By the summer of 1942, Japanese forces controlled all of Southeast Asia and much of Oceania. The United States in World War II changed the situation in the Pacific theater of operations somewhat later.

Soviet counteroffensive

In 1942, the Second World War, the table of events of which, as a rule, includes basic information, found itself at its key stage. The forces of the opposing alliances were approximately equal. The turning point came towards the end of 1942. In the summer, the Germans launched another offensive in the USSR. This time their key target was the south of the country. Berlin wanted to cut off Moscow from oil and other resources. For this it was necessary to cross the Volga.

In November 1942, the whole world anxiously awaited news from Stalingrad. The Soviet counter-offensive on the banks of the Volga led to the fact that since then the strategic initiative has finally been with the USSR. In World War II, there was no more bloody and large-scale battle than the Battle of Stalingrad. The total losses of both sides exceeded two million people. At the cost of incredible efforts, the Red Army stopped the Axis offensive on the Eastern Front.

The next strategically important success of the Soviet troops was the Battle of Kursk in June - July 1943. That summer, the Germans made their last attempt to seize the initiative and launch an offensive against the Soviet positions. The plan of the Wehrmacht failed. The Germans not only did not succeed, but also left many cities in central Russia (Orel, Belgorod, Kursk), while following the "scorched earth tactics". All tank battles of the Second World War were marked by bloodshed, but the battle of Prokhorovka became the largest. It was a key episode of the entire Battle of Kursk. By the end of 1943 - the beginning of 1944, Soviet troops liberated the south of the USSR and reached the borders of Romania.

Allied landings in Italy and Normandy

In May 1943, the Allies cleared North Africa of the Italians. The British fleet began to control the entire Mediterranean Sea. The earlier periods of World War II were characterized by Axis successes. Now the situation has become just the opposite.

In July 1943, American, British and French troops landed in Sicily, and in September - on the Apennine Peninsula. The Italian government renounced Mussolini and a few days later signed a truce with advancing opponents. The dictator, however, managed to escape. Thanks to the help of the Germans, he created the puppet republic of Salo in the industrial north of Italy. The British, French, Americans and local partisans gradually recaptured more and more new cities. On June 4, 1944, they entered Rome.

Exactly two days later, on the 6th, the Allies landed in Normandy. So the second or Western Front was opened, as a result of which the Second World War was ended (the table shows this event). In August, a similar landing began in the south of France. On August 25, the Germans finally left Paris. By the end of 1944, the front had stabilized. The main battles took place in the Belgian Ardennes, where each of the parties made, for the time being, unsuccessful attempts to develop their own offensive.

On February 9, as a result of the Colmar operation, the German army stationed in Alsace was surrounded. The Allies managed to break through the defensive Siegfried Line and reach the German border. In March, after the Meuse-Rhine operation, the Third Reich lost territories beyond the western bank of the Rhine. In April, the Allies took control of the Ruhr industrial region. At the same time, the offensive in northern Italy continued. April 28, 1945 fell into the hands of the Italian partisans and was executed.

Capture of Berlin

Opening a second front, the Western allies coordinated their actions with the Soviet Union. In the summer of 1944, the Red Army began to attack. Already in the fall, the Germans lost control of the remnants of their possessions in the USSR (with the exception of a small enclave in western Latvia).

In August, Romania withdrew from the war, which had previously acted as a satellite of the Third Reich. Soon the authorities of Bulgaria and Finland did the same. The Germans began to hastily evacuate from the territory of Greece and Yugoslavia. In February 1945, the Red Army carried out the Budapest operation and liberated Hungary.

The path of the Soviet troops to Berlin ran through Poland. Together with her, the Germans also left East Prussia. The Berlin operation began at the end of April. Hitler, realizing his own defeat, committed suicide. On May 7, an act of German surrender was signed, which entered into force on the night of the 8th to the 9th.

Defeat of the Japanese

Although the war ended in Europe, bloodshed continued in Asia and the Pacific. The last force to resist the allies was Japan. In June, the empire lost control of Indonesia. In July, Britain, the United States and China presented her with an ultimatum, which, however, was rejected.

On August 6 and 9, 1945, the Americans dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These cases were the only ones in human history when nuclear weapons were used for combat purposes. On August 8, the Soviet offensive began in Manchuria. The Japanese Surrender Act was signed on September 2, 1945. This ended World War II.

Losses

Studies are still underway on how many people were injured and how many died in World War II. On average, the number of lives lost is estimated at 55 million (of which 26 million are Soviet citizens). The financial damage amounted to 4 trillion dollars, although it is hardly possible to calculate the exact figures.

Europe has been hardest hit. Its industry and agriculture were restored for many more years. How many died in World War II and how many were destroyed became clear only after some time, when the world community was able to clarify the facts about Nazi crimes against humanity.

The largest bloodshed in the history of mankind was carried out by completely new methods. Entire cities perished under the bombing, centuries-old infrastructure was destroyed in a few minutes. The genocide of the Second World War organized by the Third Reich, directed against Jews, Gypsies and the Slavic population, terrifies with its details to this day. German concentration camps became real "death factories", and German (and Japanese) doctors conducted cruel medical and biological experiments on people.

Results

The results of the Second World War were summed up at the Potsdam Conference, held in July - August 1945. Europe was divided between the USSR and the Western allies. Communist pro-Soviet regimes were established in the eastern countries. Germany lost a significant part of its territory. was annexed to the USSR, several more provinces passed to Poland. Germany was first divided into four zones. Then, on their basis, the capitalist FRG and the socialist GDR emerged. In the east, the USSR received the Kuril Islands, which belonged to Japan, and the southern part of Sakhalin. The communists came to power in China.

Western European countries after World War II lost a significant part of their political influence. The former dominant position of Great Britain and France was occupied by the United States, which suffered less than others from German aggression. The process of disintegration of colonial empires started. In 1945, the United Nations was established to maintain world peace. Ideological and other contradictions between the USSR and the Western allies led to the start of the Cold War.