The mythology of the Slavic Civilization has been mysterious to the world for a long time. But the civilization is so interesting that we cannot stop ourselves from digging more into its details. The stories and the beliefs are complex but magical. The stories of the Slavic people’s migration, their religious beliefs, rituals, cultural diversity, and faith in gods that was hard to shake, even for a powerful king, are still alive and talked about to this day.
We do not have ancient documents written by ancient Slavic people, but archaeological findings suggest they belong to the ethnical group of Indo-Europeans. The oldest Slavic writings are by Saints Cyril and Methodius. Indo-Europeans dominate the northern hemisphere and much of the world. From the most western coast of North America across the Atlantic and Europe to the Indian subcontinent, through the Russian steppes all the way to the very far eastern city of Vladivostok, Indo-European languages spread like a wildfire. Today, there are approximately 350 million Slavic people in the world. There are 13 Slavic countries and 13 official languages.
Ancient Slavic People
Before the 8th century, all Slavic people spoke the same language – known as Proto-Slavic. Although today Slavic languages are quite different and Slavic people may have different appearances, all had evolved from a common heritage in the past 12 centuries. With the help of archaeological findings, ancient Slavs can be traced from the period between 2000 and 1000 BC. According to Herodotus, an ancient Greek historian, the Slavic people were a tribe living beyond the Scythian – he called them Neuri – in the upper stream of the Dnieper river. There are no certain documents that suggest the original homeland of Slavic people, which is why this topic has always been controversial. Most evidence suggests that the Slavic homeland was to the northeast of the Carpathian Mountains, in the area around the Vistula River, Pripyat, and the Dnieper River. In the north, the Slavs traded and maintained contact with the ancestors of today’s Baltic peoples. In the east, they had connections with the Finns and, on the West, with the Germanic tribes. Lastly, on the other side of the Carpathian Mountains lived the Thracians.
Iranian Connection to the Slavs
An extremely important role in the development of Slavic culture and mythology was early contact between the Slavs and various Iranian tribes. In the 1st century AD, the Iranian tribe, known as the Sarmatians, penetrated deep into Slavic territory and inhabited the territory of today’s Ukraine, around the Dnieper River. During the time between the Romans and the Greeks, a period of mutual cultural influence began between the Slavs and the Iranian tribes. In this period, the Slavs borrowed quite a few Iranian words. Slavic words such as god (bog), paradise (raj), and the world (svet) all have an origin in Iranian languages.
Slavic Deities
Like the Iranians, the Slavs worshiped the sun. They thought that the sun and fire were the children of the god Svarog, the creator of the sunlight, heat, and sky. The other deities that come from the Iranian pantheon are the god Stribog, whose children are the winds in the skies; Simargl is the Iranian god Simurgh, a winged dog, who protected the tree that provided the seeds for all of plants. Another important deity was a female goddess, Mokoš, who is very similar to the Iranian goddess of Anahita. The name Mokoš comes from the Slavic word “moker,” which means wet. The goddess was related to water, rain, and the cult of fertility and abundance. The origin of the god Veles is not clearly known.
The god of animals, underground and war, also known as Volos, was one of the most important gods of the Slavic pantheon. Ancient Slavic people believed that god Veles could change shape – into a dragon, snake, bull, or wolf. When the Slavic people adopted Christianity, Veles was merged with the Byzantine god Saint Blaise, who Slavs called Vlah or Vlaho, and he remains the protector of livestock to this day.
Slavic Expansion
In the 6th century, Slavic tribes crossed the Danube River and began to march towards the south of the Balkan Peninsula. Although they encountered resistance from the Thrace, Greece, and Illyricum, the Slavs were too numerous and strong for their advance to be stopped. Slavic tribes reached the walls of the grand Constantinople. As described by several reports, they raided deep into Roman territory and presented a great threat to everyone on the Balkan Peninsula. The Byzantine Empire wanted to stop the advance of the Slavic army by setting all of their settlements on fire, but they were unsuccessful.
The first mentioned supreme chieftain of the South Slavs, Daurentius, reportedly stated that: “Others do not conquer our land, we conquer theirs […] so it shall always be for us.” John of Ephesus noted in 581: “The accursed people of the Slavs set out and plundered all of Greece, the regions surrounding Thessalonica, and Thrace, taking many towns and castles, laying waste, burning, pillaging, and seizing the whole country.”
John perceived the Slavs as God’s instrument for punishing the persecutors of the Monophysites. By the 580s, the Slavic communities around the Danube became larger and more organized. Along with the support of The Pannonian Avars, raids became larger and resulted in permanent settlements.
Animal Sacrifice and Belief in the Supernatural
According to the Byzantine-Greek scholar, Procopius, Slavs regularly sacrificed animals to their supreme god – the master of thunder, the mighty Perun. A regular gift was a rooster, and on big holidays, they killed and offered goats, bears, and bulls. After a sacrifice, worshippers ate the animal as they believed it was covered with the holy manna of god and that it would give them power and strength. Procopius also describes how Slavic people worshipped the rivers, forests, nymphs, and other demons to which they regularly sacrificed animals.
Perun reincarnated into Saint Elijah in Russia. In the Baltic area, he reappeared as the Baltic god of thunder, Perkunas. It was believed that any subject – tree or human – that was hit by Perkuna’s lightning would automatically become holy.
There’s a tale from the year 1652 about an old man who traveled across Lithuania and ate a burned saddle that lightning had hit. He believed that, by eating it, he would regain his strength and resistance to disease.
In Slavic folklore, there are many tales about rivers that drowned travelers when they were behaving disrespectfully. Stenka Razin, a Cossack leader, supposedly sacrificed a Persian princess to the river Volga in the 17th century. When he threw the body in the river, he screamed: ”O mother Volga, you great Russian river! You gave me lots of gold and silver and other gifts. You raised me, you fed me and you brought me the glory. And I have done nothing in return to show my gratitude. Here’s a gift – accept it from the hands of your loyal servant, Don Cossack.” In spite of the sacrifice, he was caught and executed by Tsar guards a few years later.
Ancient Slavs understood the concept of life quite differently than we do today. Through the spiritual and belief in superstition, they perceived many things as supernatural.
Spiritual Beings
Slavs believed that objects, creatures, and even places all possessed a distinct spiritual essence. This religious belief is what we know today as animism. Trees and animals were worshiped as ancestors and respected as they were older and wiser than men. Certain animals were believed to have supernatural strength, while others were perceived as a manifestation of God. It was prohibited to kill or eat animals that were worshipped. Their beliefs are similar to cow-worshiping in India, where it is believed that the cow is a manifestation of the Mother Goddess.
Another important spiritual symbol in Slavic folklore was the tree of life. Certain trees marked holy places. In Russia, not so long ago, it was considered a sin to cut an old tree. According to folk mythology, the one who cut an old tree would go mad, break his arms and legs, or die. People believed that inside the trees lived the souls of the dead. From this myth, the tree ghost, in Russian “Lesnye,” was born.
Seasonal Celebrations
An important role in Slavic mythology was celebrations during the changing of the seasons. In the winter, they celebrated Koljada in honor of the god of winter. In the spring, they celebrated several holidays in honor of the sun. The sun was a very important symbol in the Slavic pantheon as it was associated with the end of winter and with the life that came after. A burning wheel was a typical symbol of the sun. First, the wheel was covered with tar, and after burning, it was spun on a stick. Summer celebrations were dedicated to the cult of Perun, the god of thunder.
Life after Death
Ancient Slavic mythology is very closely related to funeral customs and rituals. At that time, not many people believed that everything ends after death. On the contrary, people believed that, after their death, they would go to an unknown land and life would continue. That is why the dead were buried with various objects from the previous life; in certain cases, men were even buried with a living widow. People also believed that cracks and holes in the ground were entrances to the underworld – the place where “Predniki roda,” or in English, “ancestors of the people” were resided.
The Replacement of Slavic Gods with the Christian God
Around 862, Viking Rurik and his followers gained control of the north Russian city of Ladoga and, later, most of the major Russian cities. He is the founder of the Rurik Dynasty, which ruled the Kievan Rus’ and its successor states, including the Grand Duchy of Moscow and the Tsardom of Russia, until the 17th century. During the dynasty, many Slavic rituals and beliefs were merged with Scandinavian ones, and original Slavic gods lost their power.
Around 100 years later, in the time of the first Russian Christian king, Vladimir the Great, true Slavic gods gained their power back. Chroniclers described Vladimir as a cruel and rough barbarian who came to power in 980. He celebrated his rise to power by putting the statues of various Slavic gods in front of his palace in Kyiv. The biggest and most important statue was the wooden statue of Perun with its head made of silver and mouth made of gold.
At the beginning of his reign, Vladimir sacrificed nearly one thousand people to these gods. Nine years later, in 989, Vladimir accepted Christianity under Byzantine influence. As he adopted the new religion, he forced his people to do the same. The goal needed to be achieved by force. He started by removing all of the statues in front of his palace. Some statues were chopped down; others were burned. But the statue of Perun was brought to the bank of the Dnieper River where it was thrown into the water. Vladimir ordered the soldiers to accompany the statue to the rapids so that it wouldn’t wash up on the bank.
Whenever Slavs adopted Christianity, they replaced old gods with new ones by burning them or throwing them out. Similar things happened every time the Slavic people adopted Christianity. This is why there are not more images of Slavic deities.
Although the newly converted kings, such as Vladimir or the Danish king Waldemar, destroyed Slavic symbolism, the people were resistant to the change.
Despite everything that happened, interest in folk customs and rituals in the Slavic countries is widespread and has been preserved. Great examples of that are Bulgarian Kukeri, Slovenian Kurenai, or Kupala Night that is annually celebrated in Ukraine, Poland, Belarus, and Russia. There is still a lot we don’t know for sure about our ancestors. But we do know that Slavic mythology is one of the most wonderful and complex worlds that you could imagine. Their beliefs in everything seem like a mix of every culture out there. The more we find out about these people, the more surprised we become.
