Theoretical Problems in the Reconstruction of Ancient Slavic Intellectual Culture

Abstract

Abstract In recent years there has been a revived interest in the problem of reconstruction of traditional culture, including ancient Slavic (Proto-Slavic) culture in its classical state. Dozens of articles and several substantial monographs have been published: e.g., B. A. Rybakov, The Pagan Religion of the Ancient Slavs [Iazychestvo drevnykh slavian] (Moscow, 1981); V. V. Ivanov and V. N. Toporov, Semiotic Systems for Modeling Slavic Languages [Slavianskie iazykovye modeliruiushchie semioticheskie sistemy] (Moscow, 1965) and Studies in Ancient Slavic Culture. Lexical and Phraseological Questions in the Reconstruction of Texts [Issledovaniia v oblasti slavianskikh drevnostei. Leksicheskie i frazeologicheskie voprosy rekonstruktsii tekstov] (Moscow, 1974); B. A. Uspenskii, Philological Explorations in Ancient Slavic Culture [Filologicheskie razyskaniia v oblasti slavianskikh drevnostei] (Moscow, 1981); the four-volume monograph Calendrical Customs and Rituals of the Peoples of Europe Outside the USSR [Kalendarnye obychai i obriady narodov Zarubezhnoi Evropy], including chapters on the Slavic peoples (Moscow, 1973, 1983), etc. The articles on Slavic mythology in the two-volume dictionary Myths of the Peoples of the World. An Encyclopedia [Mify narodov mira. Entsiklopediia], Vols. 1-2 (Moscow, 1980-1982) in their entirety are a noteworthy source on ancient Slavic intellectual culture. Another series of articles was published recently by N. I. Tolstoi and S. M. Tolstaia and their students, T. V. Tsiv'ian, A. K. Baiburin, and others. A number of studies on later Slavic rituals have appeared that provide considerable material for a comprehensive study of the ancient forms of Slavic culture (V. K. Sokolova, A. K. Baiburin, T. A. Bernshtam, etc.). Some of these studies have been reviewed in Sovetskaia etnografiia.1