Thoughts on Slavic Polytheism

I just needed to get some of my thoughts out on this topic so this may seem very unorganized and chaotic, but I hope to have better organized posts that are much more informative and stick to a single point, but I do not have the time for that currently with everything going on at university. The concerns I raise are found consistently in Western academia, “Slavic academia” (whatever that means), and of course on tumblr which pulls heavily on outdated materials because thats all they have access to. I am currently compiling a list of articles in English which I think may help clear some of the misunderstandings and offer actually credible/up to date sources, but you’ll have to wait for that.

Also, as a disclaimer, I am not an academic on Slavic polytheism or a professional on the matter (yet!), but these random musings come from years of personal research. And when I say years I mean years. But to just quickly state the biases I might have: I am practitioner of the folk religion of the Slavic peoples, but more specifically the Ukrainian branch of it. Most of my resources have focused on the Ukrainian flavor of the Slavic pre-Christian faith, but most definitely not exclusively as that would be impossible to get any sort of understanding of the faith without comparing it to my neighbors. 

First and for most, Slavic polytheism has had influence from the Nordic and Germanic polytheisms, but it is no where the closest or most related. I see this mostly in imagery and how people conceptualize the deities. Thor and Perun are not two sides of the same coin, sure they might have similarities being both derived from an Indo-European source, but seeing Perun as a Slavic Thor is very much bad academia. Slavic polytheism and folklore has a whole load of connections to ancient Iranian polytheism. I would even venture to say that Slavic polytheism is a very interesting blend of Baltic and Iranian mythologies and folklores. This is not to say it is one and the same, but when looking into comparative studies these will offer the richest and most accurate comparisons. 

We need to stop seeing Slavic polytheism in terms of Christianity and other institutionalized/state religions (Like Greek or Roman polytheism). Knyaz Volodymyr attempted to institutionalize the Slavic pantheon and failed, converting the people to Orthodoxy only a couple years after this attempt. His pantheon was not universal to Slavs. It pulled from various Slavic tribes and non-Slavic tribes and therefore is perhaps more representative of the elite’s conceptualization of the deities, and not of the common people.

Attempting to reconstruct the Slavic religion without recognizing ancestor veneration is impossible. This is the backbone of the entire religion. The deities were seen as the first ancestors, not like in Greek polytheism where the Gods are a different “species”, for a lack of a better term. We see this reflected in folklore about the Saints being the people’s ancestors, or naming the Moon as an ancestor. 

(This concern is more pointed towards people who wish to worship the slavic gods: You can not worship Perun or Veles or Mokosh, etc. without worshiping ancestors. I mean you can, but you aren’t reconstructing the slavic faith, but rather implanting Perun into a, dare I say, New Age/Wiccan(?) structure/conceptualization of paganism.)

People need to start changing how they conceptualize the Slavic pantheon not as a rigid religion controlled by a state, like Greek or Roman polytheism, but rather look into folk religions like Vodou, and rely more on Folklore then on sources writing about the Slavic pre-christian faith through a Christian lens. Of course these few and far between sources can point us in a direction, but when reconstructing the “theology” of the Slavic faith it gives us close to nothing. What I mean is, these sources do not offer anything in terms of how the pre-christian slavs conceptualized the the cosmos, spirits and their gods.

I’m not even going to touch the embarrassing amount of fake gods propagated in academia and on tumblr. I tried making a post about this and failed because i didn’t even know where to start. And many gods are just mislabeled rather than being outright forgeries (I’m looking at you Svarog and Stribog). But please don’t say that every holiday name (Koliada, Kupala, etc.) are gods... and stop with Bilobog and Chernobog... I can’t take it anymore (sarcasm, I will fight you to my grave and then some more in the afterlife).

These ideas and theories are of course are based of my own research, and these ideas will continue to shift as more knowledge is brought to light. Also do not take this as gospel, this is mostly ramblings. When the Gods and ancestors allow it, I want to support these claims with sources so people can read them and decide for themselves. Would love for people to submit their own evidence and theories and claims, so we can have a discussion about the faith that means so much to us. 

Glossary of Terms: Pagan Edition

The following are concepts and terms which I will refer to often in my posts. These terms are not necessarily used solely within paganism, and may have slightly different meanings depending on the context - however, this is the way in which I understand and use them. 

This is also by no means an exhaustive list and will be added to over time or upon request. Please send me an ask if there are any other words/phrases you’d like defined or if my definitions aren’t clear enough.

Under a cut for the sake of future edits!

Heathen - an individual who worships and is particularly devoted to the gods of the ancient Norse pantheon. Heathens may describe themselves as Ásatrúar (a follower of the Æsir, similar to the Ancient Greek concept of the Olympians) or Vanatruar (a follower of the Vanir, primarily Njörðr, Freyr and Freyja) depending on the deities they focus their worship on.

Hellenic - an individual who worships the Theoi, or gods of Ancient Greece. Because the Ancient Greek civilization existed for thousands of years and combined its people and culture at different times with those of Ancient Egypt, the Roman Empire, and others, there are many different ways to understand and worship the gods. There are several modern Hellenic groups including Hellenion, which tend to be more strictly recontructionist in nature. Note that this is sometimes confused with, but not equivalent to, Hellenistic.

Hellenistic - refers to a specific period of Mediterranean and Indo-European history following the death of Alexander the Great. During this era, the kingdoms established as part of Alexander’s conquest (including the Ptolemaic Kingdom in Egypt, the Seleucid Empire and Kingdom of Pergamon in Asia Minor and Mesopotamia, and the Indo-Greek and Greco-Bactrian Kingdoms in South and Central Asia) engaged in unprecedented levels of cultural exchange and migration.

Kemetic - an individual who worships the Netjeru, or gods of Ancient Egypt. There are several modern religious organizations, the best-known being the Kemetic Orthodox Temple, though most Kemetics are solitary practitioners.

pagan – an individual who considers themselves to be a part of a non-major world religion. Note that this is a personal descriptor which some may choose not to use for a variety of reasons (either because they feel it does not accurately describe their practice, or because of negative connotations sometimes attributed to the word). Some sources describe pagan as “non-Abrahamic”, however this is incorrect as Eastern religions (including Hinduism, Taoism, etc) and indigenous religions and spiritualties (such as those among First Nations and Native American groups) are not considered pagan, and referring to them as such is considered derogatory and offensive unless an individual self-identifies as such.

polytheism – the belief in, and worship of, more than one deity. Not all pagans are polytheists, and not all polytheists are pagan, though there is often overlap between the two terms. Most polytheists believe in the existence of many (or all) deities, but choose to focus their worship on one or a few with whom they feel closest or believe they share values and interests.

reconstructionism – a particular approach to paganism which attempts to bring “dead” religions (such as Norse and Ancient Greek), which were at one point or another replaced by (usually) Christianity, back to life. This approach works to adhere as closely as possible to the way these religions were practiced in antiquity. This is easier for some – for example, we know a great deal about religious belief and practice in Ancient Egypt due to their extensive written tradition, but we know relatively little about the ways in which people worshipped and the specific festivals or holidays they celebrated in places like Gaul and Poland – than for others, and in the absence of written sources we must infer almost everything we do know from archaeological evidence. Reconstructionists usually place a large emphasis on scholarship and the necessity of research, though existing sources vary hugely in accessibility and accuracy. In cases where academic (or ancient) sources are poor or non-existent it becomes almost impossible to accurately rebuild an ancient religion, and as such some polytheists believe that strict reconstruction is either prohibitively difficult and expensive (because books and articles typically aren’t free!) or simply unnecessary in a world which is far different from the one in which these religions originally existed.

revivalism – an approach similar to reconstruction, but generally with less importance placed on the need for complete accuracy. Revivalists may feel that reconstruction and worshipping as the ancients did is not relevant to our modern, mostly urbanized, technology- and electronic-filled lives, especially when so many ancient festivals revolve around agricultural abundance and other themes which most of us don’t deal with in our daily lives. Others may feel that true reconstruction is actually impossible due to incomplete historical records and the fact that many practices changed over time and in different regions (for example, Ancient Greek religion was far different in Sparta than it was in Athens, and neither one was more or less “correct” than the other).

syncretism/syncretisation – the process by which religious beliefs or deities of different pantheons become combined or equated with one another due to their proximity and sharing of similar traits. Perhaps the best known example of this is the Ancient Roman practice of equating their gods with those from other cultures and civilizations they came into contact with – such as equating the Greek Dionysos and the Etruscan Fufluns with the god Bacchus. This practice was also continued by medieval and Renaissance scholars to the point that Greek and Roman gods became virtually interchangeable, and people today often assume that the pantheons were in fact identical or that the Romans “stole” the Greek gods, which is untrue. The practice of syncretisation occurred many other times throughout history, including in Ptolemaic Egypt where Egyptian gods were combined with Greek ones (such as in the case of Zeus-Ammon) so that the new Greek rulers of Egypt could be seen worshipping local gods and thus increase their popularity among the general populace. Syncretisation also took place during the spread of Christianity, with local deities being equated with Christian saints to either help ease conversion or to allow individuals to continue worship of their ancestral gods in secret.