Sources of Slavic Pre-Christian Religion

Abstract

A general presentation of the book may be precisely the one made by the editor on the very first page: “Sources of Slavic Pre-Christian Religion (henceforth, SSPCR) brings together, for the first time in a Western European language, the edition and translation of all the medieval texts which refer to Slavic pre-Christian religion.”It is not, therefore, a book of analysis but, first of all, an anthology of the most relevant texts useful to all those interested in the study of the pre-Christian religions of Europe, specifically the religion of the Old Slavs. To that end, even if the anthology is aimed at selecting the most relevant texts in the field of pre-Christian beliefs of the Slavs, there are many instances where we are informed about historical details and nonreligious events. The Introduction also specifies that the reconstruction of the Slavic beliefs is based on three pillars: the texts, archaeological finds, and deductions from folklore understood as a continuation of certain elements of paganism.Of course, there are many dangers in dealing with such texts. They are not always reliable, in their entirety or partially, because they often reflect a disdainful approach to the mentality of others, in our case, the Christian or Muslim description of the pagan cults. Having this in mind, the purpose of the anthology is not to offer a reconstruction of Slavic pre-Christian beliefs but to offer the basic data as well as cross-references and/or comments referring to the information available in the selected texts. Thus, the time span is from the fifth to the sixteenth centuries, that is, eleven centuries of written documents. All may be assigned to the period known as the “ Middle Ages,” even if it is understandable that the mentality of the authors and the type of information they offer cannot have the same common denominator. There are, therefore, texts in Greek, Latin, Old Church Slavonic (divided into South and East Slavic, as well as West Slavic, i.e., Czech), Old Icelandic, and Arabic. A final chapter (“Doubtful Texts”) includes documents in various languages (Greek, Latin, Old Church Slavonic) that are labeled as “doubtful” because some details cannot be verified for their accuracy (or lack of accuracy).The documents are organized in chronological order (sometimes approximative because some documents cannot be dated with accuracy) within the chapters of the book, which, in their turn, reflect the language in which the documents were written, with the exception of the last chapter, which includes documents in various languages. This review cannot, of course, analyze each text, not even each chapter; nevertheless, some details may be highlighted. The first, and perhaps the most relevant from a historical perspective, is that this is the third such anthology, after the first anthology of V. J. Mansikka published in 1922, referring to the East Slavs only, and the second, of C. H. Meyer (1931), reflecting the ideology of those times. Because the two previous anthologies are now rarities, this one updates little- or lesser-known data and offers an easy tool for all those interested in Slavic antiquities.It is worth mentioning all the authors who have contributed to this anthology (in the order specified on pp. 18–19): Juan Antonio Álvarez-Pedrosa (the general editor), Matilde Casas Olea, Pilar Fernández Álvarez, Teodoro Manrique Antón, Inés García de la Puente, Enrique Gutiérrez Rubio, Eugenio R. Luján Martínez, Julia Mendoza Tuñón, Aránzazu Minguet Burgos, Sandra Romano Martín, and Enrique Santos Marinas. Other specialists contributed to the final form of the anthology: proofreading, bibliography, terminology, and so forth.The structure of the subchapters dedicated to a certain author and the chosen text(s) may be summarized as follows:For the purpose of this review, I shall choose some relevant fragments. The selection cannot, of course, be considered objective—its aim is to show the complexity of many problems regarding the history of early Slavs, not, ultimately, their religious beliefs.The life of Saint Otto, Bishop of Bamberg (p. 116 ff.), is represented by several fragments. From the perspective of the history of religious beliefs, the most relevant is perhaps fragment 2.19.3, in which the author describes the golden image of the god Triglav (the god with three heads: auream imaginem Trigelawi). The author also gives details about the rites associated with this god, such as how the Slavs were dressed and how sacrifices were dedicated to Triglav. This fragment ends with a solemn oath that the Slavs would eventually abandon their pagan cult, and the idol would be destroyed: “. . . ut cultura Trigelawi penitus abdicaretur, et confracta imagine aurum omne in redemptionem captiuorum erogaretur.”The Book of the Statutes of the City of Ragusa (today, Dubrovnik, written in 1348 and 1358, p. 210) is interesting because it describes a widespread habit in southeastern Europe, that is, the Christmas wooden stump, which was burned on Christmas Eve; see the terms Bădni večer (Bulgarian), badni veće (Serbian), nata e buzmit (Albanian), and so forth, all meaning “Christmas log,” a wooden stump burned on Christmas Eve:The term boljare, “boyars,” is associated with the cult of Perun and Volos in Povesť vremennyh let (pp. 277 ff.):Notably, the term boljare or boyare largely spread all over southeastern Europe, too, and is also present in many other fragments of the anthology. It would require an updated analysis, though.A fragment from Tale of Igor’s Campaign (Slovo o polku Igoreve, pp. 300 ff.) could not be absent, with the necessary note that the authenticity of the text has often been doubted. The authors of the anthology make a brief incursion into the history of this debate without inclining toward a firm position. Nevertheless, they highlight the peculiarities of this text, among these, the influence of Scandinavian literature, specifically the epithets kenningar (once analyzed by Jorge Luís Borges, too: Historia de la eternidad [1936], with many subsequent reprints).The fragments chosen refer to battles and some gods, among these, Veles and Stribog, but also to Trojan, a remote reference (perhaps interpolated) to the famous Roman emperor.Of particular interest are the fragments written in Arabic (Chapter 7, pp. 454 ff.). The texts written by Arab travelers have lately been analyzed by several orientalists. Perhaps the most consistent of all is Ján Pauliny’s analysis, but there are others, such as the remarkable book by Urszula Lewicka-Rajewska and, over the last years, several studies of Andriy Danylenko (some of them available on academia.edu).The fragments chosen for this anthology are interesting, for example, from the Book of Precious Gems (Abū ʿAli Aḥmed b. ʿUmar b. Rusta, pp. 454 ff.), where we find the old practice of the sacrifice of a woman (or more than one woman) upon the death of a military leader, known under the generic name suttee: “They have priests who [counsel] their kings as if they were their masters and order them to sacrifice women, men and cattle because their creator so wishes” (p. 457).A fragment excerpted from Aḥmed Ibn Faḍlān’s Dictionary of Countries (pp. 457 ff.) refers to the king of Ṣaqāliba, the name under which the Slavs were known to the Arabs, even if it is certain that there were several ethnic groups labeled as such (the analysis is in Pauliny’s book mentioned previously).From the historical perspective, perhaps the most interesting fragment is the fragment from The Land of Rus’ by Muʿğam al-Buldān (pp. 458 ff.):When one of them falls sick, they prepare a hut for him at some distance from the rest, place him in it and provide him with bread and water. . . .They have told me that when their superiors die they do things, one of which is to cremate them. . . .When it is a rich man, they gather his possessions and divide them into three parts: a third for his family, a third to make his funeral attire and a third to buy mead to drink when his female slave commits suicide and is cremated together with her lord.(See the previous discussion of the suttee ritual.)This seems to be one of the most useful books published in recent years and a reference book in general for any attempt to study the history of early (pre-Christian) Slavs. The fragments chosen, in their original language, with the English translations and with generous notes and annotations, offer a wonderful tool for all those who wish to study the history of the Slavs and their pre-Christian religious beliefs.The authors should be congratulated for this great achievement, as well as the editor for updating such useful fragments, which are otherwise rare and very difficult to consult until now.