Nearest neighbors of the Slavs on their Urheimat were the ancient Germanic tribes of Goths and the ancestors of the modern Dutch which areas were located to the south. This is supported by borrowings from these languages into Proto-Slavic. The borrowings from the Gothic are numerous and well known, but the Dutch language preserved signs of an old neighborhood with the Slavs too. Slavic word verva “a willow” has a good match only in Dutch werf “the same”. Slavic words zvon “ringing” and maly “small” has good correspondences in the Dutch language, while similar words of other Germanic languages stay phonetically farther. Occupying the area around the Masurian marshes on Kashubian upland and along the Baltic coast, away from the powerful centers of civilization, the Slavs carried out patriarchal life as hunters and fishers for a long time. They were undoubtedly aware of live-stock, but arable farming, if existed, had very primitive forms. It is known that the folk exorcism keeps deep depths of popular culture and reveals that "agrarian magic of the Slavs was deposited in known us exorcising idioms only in a minor extent," while "the fish is represented in a very archaic view of the world" . Evidence that the Slavs did not know many cultivated plants are their names borrowed from the later neighbors. None of the names of the cultural cereal has satisfactory etymology in Slavic basis, not to mention vegetables and fruits. Contrariwise, Slavic loan-words in German for the names of fish confirm the thought about the great importance of fishery in Slavic economy. Giving example of such names as Ukelei, Plötze, Peissker, Sandart, Güster, Barsch etc, A. Popov points out that adoption of these word occurred during the process of the Germanization of the Slavs Slavs in Central and Eastern Germany, "and the Slavic fishermen longest resisted this process" .
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The Slavic languages are one of the major branches of the Indo-European Language family. There are three major branches, West Slavic, spoken by the Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and Wends; South Slavic, spoken by Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenians, Moldavians, Macedonians and the people of Montenegro and Bosnia-Herzegovina; and East Slavic, spoken in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. However, all of these languages are closely related and certainly they are well-known.
The Slavic languages are spoken over the widest geographic region of any language group, except for English and Spanish which have spread from Europe to the Americas and the Pacific. This means that there is a huge amount of information on Slavic-speaking Paganism spread through some 13 countries with additional isolated populations in other countries, including substantial communities of immigrants in the USA.
The early Slavs were a diverse group of tribal societies in Migration period and early medieval Europe (ca. 5th to 10th centuries) whose tribal organizations indirectly created the foundations for today's Slavic nations (via the Slavic states of the High Middle Ages).
The first mention of the name Slavs dates to the 6th century, by which time the Slavic tribes inhabited a vast area of central-eastern Europe. Over the following two centuries, the Slavs expanded further, towards the Balkans and the Alps in the south and west, and the Volga in the north and east.[1]
From the 9th century, the Slavs were gradually Christianized, and by the 12th century, they formed the population within a number of medieval Christian states, the East Slavs in the Kievan Rus' and Lithuania, the South Slavs in Bulgaria and Serbia, and the West Slavs in Poland and the Holy Roman Empire (Pomerania, Bohemia).
Polish mythology comprises beliefs and myths of ancient Poland, including witchcraft and elements of Paganism.
An early Polish settlement featuring an allocated place of pagan worship, which is located near the ancient complex of Poganowo not far from the Polish coast of the Baltic Sea, was unearthed and examined archaeologically as first of its kind only recently, by the scientists from the Wojciech Kętrzyński Museum in Kętrzyn. It is the only find of this type on the entire south-eastern coast of the Baltic so far. Other places of pagan cult and ritual by Slavs and Scandinavians are known from prior analysis of early inhabitation of Eastern Europe, however, these specific areas inhabited by early Polish tribes were not studied until recently.
The worshiped statue discovered in Poganowo constituted one of elements of a stone circle, inside of which the little mound of loose stone was built and a hearth nearby. According to the analyses of fragments of bones, they constitute the remains of horses, deer, and much more rarely cows which were sacrificed as animals devoted to deities.
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving to the modern day. The mythology from the Romanticist Viking revival came to be an influence on modern literature and popular culture.
Norse mythology is the study of the myths told in Germanic countries (Germany, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, Faroe Islands) during the pre-Christian times, especially during the Viking age.
Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.
Branches
Scholars traditionally divide Slavic languages on the basis of geographical distribution into three main branches, some of which feature subbranches:
- South Slavic, which is further split into Western and Eastern subgroups. The Western subgroup is composed of the Slovenian and Serbo-Croatian, languages spoken in Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, and adjacent regions. The Eastern subgroup consists of Bulgarian in Bulgaria and adjacent areas, and Macedonian in Republic of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Greece and Albania.
- West Slavic, which includes Czech in the Czech Republic and Slovak in Slovakia, Upper and Lower Sorbian in Germany, and Lekhitic (Polish and related dialects, Kashubian, Polabian, Obodrits).
- East Slavic, including Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian.
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Given names originating from the Slavic languages are most popular in Slavic countries such as Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Ukraine, and others.
History of Slavic names
In pre-Christian traditions, a child younger than 7 - 10 years old would bear a "subtitutional name" (e.g. Niemój "not mine", Nielub "not loved"), whose purpose was to decrease the apparent importance of a child and protect him or her from the curiosity of evil powers. This practice probably derived from the existence of a high fatality rate for young children at that time. A child who survived 7 - 10 years was worthy of care and was granted adult status and a new adult name during the ritual of a first haircut.
Generally traditional names were dominant until Slavic nations converted to Christianity (e.g. the Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church). For instance, the Council of Trent (1545 - 63) decided that every Catholic should have a Christian name instead of native one.
The Pagan Federation is an international organisation, which is run almost entirely by volunteers. It was founded in 1971 to provide information and counter misconceptions about Paganism. It helps and supports members of the Pagan community and campaigns on issues which affect Paganism.
Its aims and objectives are:
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- To seek to support all Pagans in their personal and public life, to help ensure that they have the same rights as the followers of other beliefs and members of other religions.
- To promote a positive profi le for Pagans and Paganism and to provide information on Pagan paths and beliefs to the media, offi cial bodies and the greater community.
- To facilitate effective communication, education and dialogue within and between Pagan communities and with non Pagans, through publications and events.
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Whether you call them pagans, New Agers, witches or idolaters, there is nothing new about calling modern-day pagans into the family of God. America is a pagan country. The fourth largest pagan population in the world is found in the U.S. This article takes a good look at the early Church and its outreach to paganism in their day and then outlines specific steps we can and should take to reach pagans in ours.
Religion has played a significant role in the history of the Slavs. Though Orthodox Christianity is practiced today by millions of people in Russia and Eastern Europe, it was not the first religion of Kievan Rus'. A polytheistic religion, which attributed natural occurrences to gods and goddesses, prevailed among the early Slavic people. Toward the end of the tenth century, Prince Vladimir of Russia adapted the Byzantine Empire's version of Christianity, supposedly converting all of Kievan Rus' to monotheism. In truth, converting Rus' was a centuries-long process that required modifying the Byzantine faith to traditional beliefs. In other civilizations, the Christian religion underwent similar modifications intended to accommodate local customs; thus the conversion of Rus' is not an isolated case study. Some argue that Rus' did not truly convert until the fourteenth century when the Czar enforced tougher laws aimed at upholding religious piety (Fedotov). As evidenced by the renewed popularity of pagan beliefs in Russia and Eastern Europe in the twenty-first century, contemporary Slavs are rediscovering their Pagan roots.
Before the advent of Christianity, the European population practiced various forms of paganism. Pagan beliefs were not centralized or codified; they exhibited specific regional characteristics that developed within relatively small territories (Afanas'ev). Slavic cities had differing pantheons comprised of deities whom the inhabitants considered to be most important. Overlapping did exist, however, and scholars as well as modern Slavic pagans have reconstructed pantheons based on some of the major deities. Like the Greeks, the head of the Slavic pantheon was a thunder god, Perun, who is said to be the ancestor of all the other gods.
Makosh, the goddess of good luck, harvest, and fertility was also particularly important, as was Dazhdbog, the god of rain. However, unlike the Greeks, the Slavs had deities who directly personified darkness and light: Chernobog, meaning "black god" in Russian, and Belobog, "white god". The Slavs also worshiped a sun and moon deity, comparable to the Greek Helios and Selene (Afanas'ev). They held major feasts on the days of the summer and winter solstices and on autumnal and vernal equinoxes. Belief in supernatural creatures such as house spirits, called "domovye", as well as mermaids, forest spirits, water spirits and many other benevolent and malevolent spirits was widespread. Even though the Slavic pagan religion was not centralized, it would become a formidable opponent for Christianity.