Online, you will find the same information on the Slavic gods copied over and over again. It is important to understand where much of the information that currently exists on the Slavic religion came from. The pagans themselves had no written records. Most information on the Slavic religion has been drawn from the same sources, written records by the male monks and priests who came into the region around Middle Ages. So let’s take a look at that time…
It was around the year 988 CE that most Slavic countries were forced to convert to Byzantine Orthodox Christianity. For almost a thousand years before that, the Slavs had been communing with their pagan gods. Around the end of the early Middle Ages, Bulgaria was conquered by Basil II, a Byzantine emperor, whose realm covered the Balkans, Mesopotamia, Georgia and Armenia,(1) while Vladimir (or Volodymyr) Sviatoslavich had consolidated the Kievan Rus area which covered many Slavic countries ranging from Belarus, Ukraine, Russia to the Baltic Sea. Vladimir was originally a follower of the Slavic pagan faith. He had tried to consolidate the varied Slavic cultures under him, by erecting carved statues “And Vladimir began his reign in Kiev alone and erected idols on the hill outside his palace with porch: Perun of wood with a head of silver and mustache of gold and Hors Dažbog and Stribog and Simargl and Mokosh,"(2) on a hill by his palace in their honor (and Volos (Veles) down in the marketplace.) However, Vladimir attempted to assert the primacy of Perun, the sky god, by decorating him with a silver head and golden beard and putting him in the center of the ring of statues. Which was fine with the southern Slavs who worshipped Perun, but probably didn’t go over well with the northern Slavs because they held Veles in more reverence.(3)
So in 988,(4) Vladimir the Great converted to Christianity. Not particularly out of any great spiritual revelation but because he believed that the Orthodox religion would consolidate his varied lands as Christianity and Islam had done for his neighboring countries. It would be obvious to anyone that Islam would not work for the Slavs, for pork and alcoholic drink were a staple in their diet. When a convenient marital alliance with Basil II’s Christian Orthodox sister became a possibility, Vladimir converted, promptly causing a forced conversion of the lands under him.
Living in the capital city and living in the country are completely different. I have a deep understanding of this, because for many years I lived immersed in the woods, and my days were entirely dictated by the season and weather. This applies to the rural Slavic peasants whose lives were based on the cycle of the seasons and at the mercy of natural forces of snow, rain, hail, drought and thunderstorms.
This beautiful description of the rural areas was recorded by W. F. Bailey about a hundred years ago:
“… the meadows of the Carpathians are incomparable. Immense seas of grassland, interwoven with brightest colour, interspersed with golden buttercups, cornflowers, scarlet poppies, scabins, ox-eyed daisies, and crimson clover, slope swiftly upwards towards the green foothills, towards the oak and birch and fir, and larch woods, on up to the dark frontier of the pines, and on past the gloomy ravines, right up to the great, savage, all-encircling mountain ranges, the crests of which look from the distance like the waves of an angry, storm-tossed ocean….The blood dances in one’s veins, and every sense becomes attuned with nature...”(5) But of course, nature could be unpredictable and violent as well. Winters were tough and storms could wipe out crops. Russell Zguta writes, “In an agricultural society the sun and the seasons are the focus of the economic, social, and spiritual life of the people. In spring they plant and sow; in summer they watch over and rejoice in their forthcoming harvest; in fall they reap; in winter they rest and await the return of the sun’s warming rays. With their very survival dependent on the beneficence of nature and the success of the harvest, nothing could be left to chance. A continuous cycle of rites and ceremonies had to be performed to placate and ward off malevolent spirits and to invoke the aid of benevolent ones.” (6)
The farmers (and their Pagan religion) were closely tied to the cycle of the seasons and these natural forces, unlike the Roman Catholic Church and the Orthodox Christian faith which developed around the Mediterranean with its balmy climes and homogeneous weather. Vladimir lived in quite the different world than his subjects as well. He certainly wasn’t farming or herding, so it was easy for the nobility to be disconnected from the pagan religion of their subjects. This created a duel-belief in the country folk. Outwardly they went to the Orthodox church and paid reverence to the saints, but really they just replaced the Pagan representations of their gods on their home altar to a corresponding icon of a saint with the same qualities. The Russians call this “dvoeverie” or “double faith." (7)
It was recorded by W.F. Bailey, as recently as a century ago that the duel faith still was strong.
“…Church bells ringing for Benediction, warning the unwary to return from following after the strange gods before which these … pagans bow down and worship, and which, Christian though they be, the Slavs have never been able, and never will be able, to turn from as false and non-existing. For the Slavs love beauty and nature so passionately, so supremely, that they will not go through this world with their eyes shut and there senses held in bondage in the hope of reward in a life to come. And it was this extraordinary Slavonic adoration of the beautiful which made the task of their first Christian missionaries so difficult. The Gospel of Galilee was preached to them late, and by teachers who had already begun to reinterpret its meaning and spoil its beauty… the earliest Missioners to the Slavonic tribes had adopted the blighting Christian idea that all which pleased the senses savoured of evil and paganism and must, therefore, be suppressed… For long years the Northern Slav tribes not only rejected, but made war against the missionaries, and at last, only adopted Christianity under compulsion, their objection being that its laws made men “barbarous and cruel!” Their natures make it difficult if not impossible to eliminate the pagan spirit from the soul of the Slav… Truth to tell, they regretting parting from the old religion of their fathers, and when their pagan altars were destroyed at the instigation of the missionaries, they refused to throw down the foundations of those altars or the pedestals on which had been erected the images of their heathen gods. Though the Cross was raised on the ancient holy places, the people continued to plant flowers and trees round what was left of their pagan altars, and these flowers and trees, in growing, so united the old stones of the but half-abandoned religion with the new stones Christianity that they became, in time, indistinguishable one from the other.” (8)
The Slavic “Old Believers” were intimately aware of the cycles of nature. Their viewpoint on life was cyclical; just as a tree dies and a new tree sprouts from the stump, their gods went through these same cycles too through the year. Yet the writers chronicling this, unwittingly transformed it through their lens of Christianity and then in light of their classical education in Greek and Roman deities. Greek gods were eternal and unchanging and the people lived linearly; they were born, died and went to Hades and very rarely “escaped” from there. Through archeological evidence, the early Slavs show a belief in the independent life of the spirit/soul and the potential for rebirth. I will show where this different core belief caused a huge distortion on how Slavic beliefs were recorded.
On top of this, the stories of the Slavic religion was written down by the Orthodox church from their dualistic, good/bad perspective and one might say their “War on Paganism.” Here’s how the priest Thietmar of Merseburg prefaces his description of the Slavic gods, “Although I shudder to say anything about them, nevertheless, in order that you, dear reader, may better understand the vain superstition and meaningless worship of this people, I will briefly explain who they are and from whence they have come.” (9) As you can see, not really an unbiased literary source!
Even the scholars who came along later and wrote down these beliefs were steeped in the Edwardian and Victorian culture of their day and recorded this information as those silly little things that rural, uneducated people believed. They were not looking at it through the eyes of a believer themselves, nor as a person who understood how energy worked. They were not familiar with the concepts of archetypes (which was first elucidated by Carl Jung in 1919,)(10) and panentheism (that the Divine is in every part of the Universe and transcends it as well, which was introduced by Karl C. F. Krause in the early part of the Nineteenth Century.) (11) Usually, these ancient researchers were dualistic patriarchal Christians as well. Myroslava Znayenko recorded in his book, The Gods of the Ancient Slavs, that the first Slavic scholar that did a systematic study of Slavic Mythology was V. N. Tatiscev in the early 18th century. The titles of Tatiscev’s chapters gives you an idea of where he was coming from as they are entitled “On Ancient Idolatry” and “On Ancient Customs and Superstitions.” (12)
Znayenko records that the earliest native sources that Tatiscev would have been drawing upon were back to the Medieval sources around the early twelfth century; certainly an era that was hardly known for its fair treatment of women! “Throughout the Middle Ages, the place of women in society was often dictated by biblical texts. The writings of the apostle Paul, in particular, emphasized men's authority over women, forbidding women from teaching, and instructing them to remain silent.” (13) Women were understood to be weaker than men, and to be the cause of all evil. You can see this in the manuscript illustrations of the time, where the snake that tempted Adam in the Garden of Eden was often given the head of a woman (and sometimes even naked breasts!) This ingrained misogyny is shown in The Russian Primary Chronicle recorded in 1071 where it was related, “... magic is performed through infernal instigation. Particularly through the agency of woman are infernal enchantments brought to pass, for in the beginning the devil deceived woman, and she in turn deceived man. Thus even down to the present day women perform magic by black arts, poison, and other devilish deceits.”(14)
The Medieval sources were often written diatribes by the clergy against women, the pagan customs, and magic. The priests were going to record the information a) in the light of the visible surface impression, b) in the context of their own dualistic religion and c) from a male perspective that was often *extremely* misogynistic. Researchers Burnett & Ryan conclude in their paper written in 2006 that the early Christian writers’ “texts reveal a common, deliberately cultivated tendency within the Balkan monastic centres [sic.]… aimed at publicly stigmatizing magic practices.” (15)
However, the masculinization of the deities was occurring even before that. As the Slavic people engaged in more combat the warrior gods came more into prominence. We can see this reflected in the petroglyphs studied by Professor Jacobson-Tepfer, where the Mother Goddess became eclipsed by warriors (or warrior gods.) Scholar Enid Welsford writes about the Old Prussian “Mother Earth” goddess, Curche who was “later replaced by the masculine Gurcho.”(16) (We’ll get into many other examples as we explore the deities.)
In the Victorian Era it didn’t get any better. A prime example of the masculinization of lore interpreted in the late 1800’s would be this spell that came through Russia from shamanic Finns, that was then “gilt with Greek Christianity.”
A Charm Against the Bite of a Serpent, recite:
"The holy Virgin sent a man
Unto Mount Sion,
Upon this mountain
Is the city of Babylon,
And in the city of Babylon
Lives Queen Volga.
Oh Queen Volga,
Why dost thou not teach
This servant of God
(Here the name of the one bitten by a serpent is mentioned)
So that he may not be bitten
By serpents?"
{The reply of Queen Volga )
"Not only will I teach my descendants
But I also will prostrate myself
Before the Lord God."
The Victorian man that interpreted this, Prof. Dragomanoff, started tracing it back to Volga, the name of a legendary Pagan princess of Kiev (who was sainted by the Russian Church.) But then he veers off into a male-centric explanation explaining, “The feminine form, Olga, or Volga, corresponds to the masculine name Oleg, or Olg, the earliest legendary character of Kief. His surname was Viechtchig — the sage or sorcerer " (i.e., wizard, and from a cognate root). "In popular songs he is called Volga, or Volkh, which is related to Volkv, a sorcerer. The Russian annals speak of the Volkv of Finland, who are represented as Shamans." (17) This professor automatically assumed that Volga couldn’t have been powerful in her own right, and translated it to a male shaman. He ignored the fact that both Finnish and Russian shamans/healers can be female as well as male, in fact, the ancient female shamans of this area were called “volva,” no great stretch from Volga.
Around the same era in the Slavic areas, a father might not even admit to having daughters or might apologize for it. A father might say, “I have a little son, and forgive me, two daughters.” (18) In the 19th century woman just accepted this contempt of their sex. For example a Croatian or Serbian woman was never supposed to cross the road or provide any impediment when a man was walking down it. When the women served the daily meals, she was to serve it to the male head of the household first and kiss his hands, as well as all the other men at the table. She was the first to rise, and last to bed, meanwhile making sure that all the household chores (which were women’s jobs alone) and then half of the planting and harvesting chores that were her’s as well were done. Women made the household pottery, all their clothing, including the home-made leather shoes and if the family traveled to town and purchases couldn’t fit on the cart, the women were forced to walk behind it and carry the rest of the burdens on their heads. Much of this was recorded in Bailey’s book, The Slav’s of the War Zone, written on the eve of World War II. But what really jumped out at me was how many times the author repeated that the Slavs were a historically downtrodden race, a subjugated people, etc. It is a classic example of an abusive scenario; the man feels his power taken away (by conquering invaders) and attempts to regain it by asserting his power over someone less so (usually a wife.) “... violence is used to enforce gender hierarchies, particularly when men feel powerless because their social position makes them appear as failures…” (19) Enforcing these gender hierarchies involved enforcing them on the deities as well. Certainly it is easier to accept that the eldest male of the household has complete control, when the religion shows a male sky god dominating over any female goddesses.
If there was any glimmer of oral tales that show a contrary opinion, it was unlikely to even be noticed and recorded by the patriarchal priests chronicling the histories of the time. One’s viewpoint totally alters the “facts.” For example, I once picked up a book to read entitled Red Man’s Religion. After I read a few pages, it hit me that I should have realized from the prejudicial title that I would get only a distorted view of Native American beliefs. As an example, the author, Ruth Murray Underhill relates, “Fear of the menstruating woman is widespread throughout the world. Female catamenia, related to childbearing, indicated a power impossible to males. In time, there grew up a feeling that it was harmful to all male activity, including ceremony.” (20) The author could not see the Native American beliefs, because she brought in her own blinding prejudices. Underhill had grown up thinking menstruation was “dirty.” So she could not see in the society that she was studying that many nature religions view menstruation as a hugely powerful time for women. The Native Americans refer to it as a woman's "moon time" since just like the moon influences the tides, it tends to influence a woman's period.
When the perspective is looked at by a Shaman trained in the native ways, such as Nicholas Noble Wolf it is recorded very differently. “We traditional people do not see it this way [harmful], as moon-time is a place of honor and beauty.” He goes on to explain, “… when a woman is embodying the moon, she is embodying a huge reservoir of power—all that is contained within her sister, Grandmother Moon. This means that lesser amounts of power around her will inherently flow into her. That would include power charged with negative emotion. This can make a woman sick… Those cramps are but the negative emotions that surround a woman through whomever she comes in contact with.” (21) During her moon time a woman is prevented from touching sacred objects; not because she will “contaminate” the item, but because these medicine objects are seen are living, empowered beings and the woman holding so much energy could draw the life-force out of them. What a different perspective!
It is easy to see that the vengeful actions against different cultures, sexualities and woman were simply the reflection of the prejudices of these early writers and not the teachings of Spirit. We now understand that the knowledge of the old Slavic gods was recorded in the Middle Ages, at a time when the thought of a strong, independent woman goddess was incomprehensible at best or evilly demonic at worst. We have those stories gathered and recorded by Edwardian and Victorian male writers, when the social climate was such that women were not permitted to own property, that they themselves were the property of their husbands and were thought that their brain was “lighter” and they were incapable of “mental labor.” (22) Consequently, we have current writings that have been recorded on the Slavic Native Faith, like Dimitry Kushnir’s misogynistic and neo-nazi viewpoint espoused in “The Slavic Way” book series. It includes statements such as, “women, do not wear the clothes of men, for you will lose your feminism, but wear the clothes women should wear... and do not marry a woman who has black skin, but only white skin.” (23) Recognize that these reflect a Fundamentalist viewpoint that has not expanded into the full realm of Spirit.
I have also not given much weight to the relatively recent tales about the gods and spirits. The Victorian researcher Evgeny Anichkov took the same approach. He explained that in examining a religion, “faith without deeds is dead.” He stated, “For instance, the domovoi [a house spirit] is the same in popular tales as in popular rites. In both we see a belief in a supernatural being, who takes care of the cattle and of the household in general. When a new house is built, or a new animal brought into the stable, a special rite is performed to make sure whether the domovoi approves of the proceeding or not. It is the rite which proves the existence of the belief in the domovoi and not the tale.” (24) The information I have recorded on the gods comes from looking at the deity’s attributes and understanding their qualities from their worship and rituals. I have learned about the qualities of each god or goddess based on how people interact with them. As Jung pointed out, “You may ask many civilized people in vain for the reason and meaning of the Christmas tree or of the coloured eggs at Easter, because they have no idea about the meaning of these customs. The fact is, they do things without knowing why they do them.” (25) The myths and legends germinate from the traditions as a way to justify why things are done the way they are.
Like the careful conservators who recently restored the Sistine Chapel using new knowledge, I am working to clear away the dark distortions of patriarchal authority, disparate hierarchies and Aryan supremacist rhetoric that have accumulated over time. Like the conservators who were criticized for restoring the famous ceiling to its jewel-like hues, I expect there will be those who refuse to look at this rich tradition of spirituality in a new light. But Baba Yaga’s independence and power will not be denied. In one of the old tales of Baba Yaga, the young girl Vasalisa goes to get fire from Baba Yaga. Baba sets her three very daunting tasks before granting the gift. So like Vasalisa in the tale, I have been given the task to sort out the grain from the weed seeds.
1-Encylopaedia Britanica - Basil II
2-Cross. The Russian Primary Chronicle
3-Lesiv. The Return of the Ancestral Gods. p. 63
4-Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine - Volodymyr the Great.
5-Bailey. The Slavs of the War Zone. p. 89-90
6-Zguta. Russian Minstrels. p. 107-108
7-Rock. What's in a Word? A Historical Study of the Concept Dvoeverie.
8-Bailey. The Slavs of the War Zone. p. 138-139, 212-213
9-Warner. Ottonian Germany: The Chronicon of Thietmar of Merseburg. p. 253
10-Jung. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious
11-Pantheism and Panentheism in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy" Encyclopedia Britannica
12-Znayenko. The Gods of the Ancient Slavs p.9
13-Bovey. Women in Medieval Society
14-Cross. The Russian Primary Chronicles. p. 154
15-Burnett & Ryan. Magic and the Classical Tradition p. 67-68
16- Welsford. "Old Prussians" Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics Vol. IX, p. 488
17-Dragonmanoff. M. Niya Predania i Raskazi (Traditions and Popular Tales of Lesser Russia)
18-Bailey. The Slavs of the War Zone. p. 155
19-Bannon. The Other Half of Gender: Men's Issues in Development. p. 241
20-Underhill. Red Man's Religion
21-Noble Wolf. The Gift From the Moon
22-Women in the Victorian Era. Wikipedia
23-Kushnir. Slavic Faith: Deities & Commandments (The Slavic Way, Vol.2)
24-Anichkov. "Old Russian Pagan Cults" Transactions of the Third International Congress for the History of Religions Vol. II
25-Jung. The Collected Works of C.G. Jung. p. 235