Extra Information & Clarifications Sources for all my videos are in the bibliography of my scripts which are available to download for free on my Patreon: www.patreon.com/mlaser?filters[tag]=script Go check out the website of the Museum of the Origins of the Polish State in Gniezno: en.muzeumgniezno.pl/ And also consider checking out their TH-cam channel: www.youtube.com/@muzeumpoczatkowpanstwapols7860 If you're interested in getting my merch with the embroidery of the M. Laser logo click here: mlaserstore.com/ The names of people or manuscripts in the bottom right corner throughout the video are not things I am referencing but they are names of artists and codices I am using as visuals to show on the screen. The footnotes in the bottom left represent the sources and historians I am quoting and referencing and to find out more about that go download my script with the bibliography for free on my Patreon. 0:20 At least that we know of. 0:30 I am aware that Beowulf has many Christian characteristics in it and was definetly written in a Christian context but it also tells us about pagan practices like pagan funerals or references to other pagan stories like the hero Sigurd killing the dragon Fafnir. That is why I am using it here as an example of a story that was heavily influenced by Christianity but still showing some pagan elements which is something that we don’t have from the christinized Slavs as stated in the video. 2:45 Here I mean that some modern folk traditions, like the fact that a Rusalia type festival, celebrating the dead, was practiced in the Balkans until the 19th century, can help substantiate the claims made by the medieval sources. However, I would never use modern oral and folk traditions as evidence of any kind of pre-Christian pagan practices if not substantiated by medieval sources. 3:22 I am aware that for some of you this merch may be expensive, and if you can’t afford it please do not buy it. I made this merch for me and hopefully some of you to enjoy, not to make bank off of. Trust me the profit margins on this are not big when you’re operating at the scale of a small TH-cam channel which is also trying to use higher quality materials with embroideries rather than cheap prints. I simply do not have the sales volume and company scale were I could lower the prices to more resonable levels. I need to pay for payment processors, website hosts, materials, embroidery, all on my own for each individual purchase, and that is why the merch is expensive. I hope you like the merch because it’s very good quality but that good quality combined with the small scale of my operation means the prices have to be high.
6:23 Procopius doesn’t actually mention Perun by name but almost every historian agrees that the way Procopius described the Slavic 'lightning' god means there is pretty much no other god he could have been referring to other than Perun. 9:24 The picture I am using to represent Svarožić was drawn by the artists as a picture of a different attested Slavic god, Simargl, but I needed a visual placeholder for Svarožić so I instead used this picture to represent Svarožić. 9:58 Svarog, Svarožić, and Dažbog could possible be a ‘triad’ (so could Triglav), which is a common grouping of 3 gods that are worshipped together that is found across multiple pagan religions, but, we don’t have enough information to deduce whether these 3 gods were actually 3 different gods that could represent a triad as the sources about them are sparse and disconnected. 12:10 A lunar god isn’t attested in written records as already stated but the worship of the moon is attested in all Slavic areas and lunalae are also found across the entire Slavic world so I grouped a likely existent lunar deity as one that can be attested in all Slavic areas but I might be wrong. Arguments can also be made for other gods being ‘attested’ across all the Slavic area. For example, cattle worship is attested across all Slavic areas but Veles or Volos, the god of cattle, is only mentioned in eastern Slavic sources. Therefore, you could argue that due to cattle worship you have Veles attested everywhere but I decided this wasn’t enough of a connection. The lunar deity was already a stretch. 13:01 Some historians believe the attested western Slavic goddess of Živa was the same as Mokosh in eastern Slavic lands, however, we know very little about both goddesses so it’s hard to tell if we are again dealing with a Svarog, Svaorzic, and Dazbog kind of situation or not. With that said, I am using a picture labeled as 'Živa' by Andrey Shishkin to represent Mokosh because I couldn't find a good picture of Mokosh. 13:36 It is debated whether Sventovit was a Slavic god or was a paganised version of St Vitus. It wasn’t uncommon for pagans to take Christian saints or even Jesus himself and appropriate them into their pagan pantheon. 13:36 Creative Commons picture credits to Marek Hapon and Andrey Shishkin. 16:26 Obviously the map is just a representation of the idea and isn’t supposed to be 100% accurate. We know from sources that in the early middle ages there was a Vulgar-Latin speaking population in the Balkans, Dacia, and Pannonia but the extent of this population and its geographical locations are very hard to pinpoint which, in any case, is far beyond the scope of this video. 16:41 The Roman Rosalia festival was also about venerating the dead. As I stated at the end of the video it is unknown whether Slavs had a similar type of festival as the Romans because of a common Indo-European heritage or because they borrowed it from the Romans. However, one thing is for certain, the name for the festival was definitely borrowed from the Romans. 17:42 It doesn’t have to be though. Increasingly, Vily and Rusalky have been melding together in modern folklore, and are both becoming more benevolent fairy type creatures which can often be interchangeable in all but name. 20:04 Sometimes buried in a mound, sometimes buried on a sort of wooden altar, and sometimes simply buried in the ground. 20:10 Simple things like small beads, jewelry, arrow heads or the blade of a dagger that survived the fire are found. More things are also found ones some pagans started practicing inhumation which they copied from the Christian world, but from the very early medieval period, when pagan Slavs practiced cremation, lavishly furnished graves don’t really exist. 22:08 Unless you take into account Ibn Fadlan's writing about a Rus' ship burial but that is most likely of a Varangian not a Slav. However, it could be argued that at that point Slavic and Norse paganism had melded together in Eastern Europe in which case it could give us an idea of why they practiced cremation. However, the reasoning given by Fadlan's account is the same as is given by Slavic folk tradition so in the end it doesn't even change the theorized reasoning I give in my video. 22:27 According to this theory, this is why a lot of Slavic folk traditions, like zvoncari (in Croatia) or kukeri (in Bulgarian) or other such dress up customs in other Slavic areas are supposed to ‘scare away evil spirits’. These spirits being the ‘restless dead’ . 23:48 Striga could mean undead being, witch, warlock, and even upyr and volkodlak. This Latin word was often used in the middle ages as a catch all for any kind of undead nefarious magical creature that was human or humanoid. 24:01 This interchangeability of the words can be seen, for instance, in the fact that in 19th century Russian, the words for vampire and werewolf were switched. That is, in 19th-century Russian vurdulak meant a vampire and upyr meant a werewolf or an undead witch. 27:03 This change in burial customs wasn't an overnight change nor was Christianization. This change took centuries in some parts as there was a gradual embracing of cultural ideas. In some areas Christianized Slavs still practiced cremation burials while in others pagan Slavs started to practice inhumation before embracing Christianity. This is where we get most of our “pagan” burial artifacts from, but to what extent these artefacts can actually point to pagan practices is hard to say as inhumation burials already go against pagan practices. Inhumation was without a doubt brought to the Slavs from the Christian world and often the switch in burial costumes did correlate with the switch in religious believes.
I really enjoy your content but I think putting your bibliography in your patron is pretty stupid, nobody's going to check unless they want to join your patreon
@@totallynotatree8718 How else am I supposed to share it? The bibliography is often too long to put in a pinned comment or description (they both have word limits). Plus, if I want to keep Chicago style or Oxford style footnote citations, which I do since that is the academic standard, I have to use a word processor, so it's going to be a text file that needs to be uploaded somewhere and TH-cam doesn't support that. Plus, it's not like I require people to subscribe to get it, it's free and I even give you a direct link! Whether I upload it on a different website than Patreon or not doesn't matter because it will always require the same amount of clicks.
@@totallynotatree8718 I have no idea what pastebin is and through a quick google search this seems out of my realm of technical understanding. I still think the two clicks (yes two clicks) you need to do to download a script from my Patreon is not a huge barrier to anyone who wants to get the bibliography.
The Slavic mythology looks very connected with the Greek Mythology. Hephaestus was both the god of fire AND forging. Maybe an indication that Svarog and Svarožić are the same god (or at least by certain Slavs in certain periods) that maybe later split, or vise-versa.
Legends tell of the defense economics contractor from Emutopia, who spins fables of the follies of fellows in financing their fights. He conveys this to his audience of acolytes assisted by the ancient art of "PowerPoint". He also occasionally obliges his obedient order to opt for "Private Internet Access". The ritual regaling mentioned recently reoccurs every Sunday. I have no clue what I was writing. I just wanted to jump in.
@@andrewzebic6201 Certainly, the Australian Perun is far superior to the slavic one. Only one of them has ever taught me about how corruption, politics and lies destroy armies.
the Gniezno museum is really doing the work lately, their debunk exhibition on turboslavs is one of the better attempts at fighting anti-intelectuallism imho
You can see the remains of Mokoš and Veles being worshipped in the Balkans through toponyms. In my hometown in Bosnia there is a creek called Mokoš, and the neighborhood surrounding it was named Mokošnice. Mokošica is also a neighborhood near Dubrovnik and Velež is a mountain surrounding Mostar in Herzegovina.
Additionally, Velež is also a football club in Mostar 😁 The highest point of Yugoslavia was Triglav in Slovenia - there is also an insurance company called Triglav Osiguranje.
Speaking of fire worship, i come from western Serbia and we have a tradition that for every night on St Peter's day children are given literal torches, you light them and you run around in the dark for the glory of St Peter (or whichever god he replaced once Christianity was adopted). Come to think of if, awful lot of fire worship was preserved in the folk customs, only now with a Christian veneer.
In Bosnian Posavina we have the same tradition. Night before St. Elijah (sv. Ilija) children run around with torches and bonefires are burned trough whole village. Rom. Catholic speaking.
Amazing video on an incredibly interesting topic. Edit: It turns out the sources are not locked behind a paywall on the Patreon. Thank you for making it available
Even the little of what we know about Slavic mythology is so spooky and cool. I mean, we gave the world both vampires (btw. that's the only serbian word used worldwide) and werewolves. Shame our ancestors didn't write.
@@skin4700It reminds me a lot on the history from the fantasy books series ASOIAF, where the new faith, symbolic of christianity, claims that paganism-like culture before it did not have a written memory - but then it turns out it is history rewritten by the victors
@@hypatiakovalevskayasklodow9195 if you look at the russian cronicles. The last pagan king was at the same time the first christian king. He made a lot of huge idols of his gods. But when the truth was revealed he destroyed all of it
In addition to Rusalia, the roman festival for the first day of the month Kalendae might have inspired the festival of Koleda which now means Christmas in Bulgarian and Christmas Eve in Macedonian.
Interesting in Polish kolenda means chriatmass carol(as in the song) and also a custom of walking from house to house in costumes and singing(a bit like halloween)
@Alaryk111 And also the Halloween style singing from door to door for treats happens in Macedonia but without costumes for Chrismas Eve in the morning and is called koledarenje.
It is interesting how in Romania we have two different interchangeable names describing a wolf monster, pricolici and vârcolac, the latter clearly from slavic origins, thanks for the great video 👍
I’ve studied more about Celtic polytheism and history. It’s really interesting seeing the similarities between the ancient Slavs and Celts. Revenant comes from Celtic Irish mythology and folklore and was the first thing I thought of when you spoke about the restless dead. Same with the idea of fairies replacing people and veneration of aquatic related spirits. The ancient Irish also cremated their dead as part of their rituals.
Most Indo-European pagans cremated their dead. In fact, when you research into it there are a lot of similarities in various ancient Indo-European pagan practices which shouldn't be surprising I guess.
@@MLaserHistory Yeah I was thinking that too. Hindu Indians, the pre-Christian Romans, Celts, and Scandinavians immediately come to mind. I took a class in college about Early Irish history and archaeology about Ireland from the copper age to the Flight of the Earls in 1602. I got to visit a few of the already dug up grave sites for the class which was awesome.
@@MCKevin289 mentioning all of them and NOT the Greek and Egyptian pantheons is certainly a choice, especially as the Roman pantheon borrowed so heavily from the Greek pantheon.
12th of july in sumadija region of Serbia there is a tradition of Lilanje. Bark is tied to sticks and burned. This is spinned and visible from all around the hills. I was fortunate to experience this many years ago. It was magical.
Good video, In case of Polish pagan tradidtions you should take look at Catholic Church holidays, for example Day of All Saints was put to replace Slavic Dziady/Zaduszki ceremonies. In short Church in Poland take some pagan traditions and incorporated them with Christian motivs. Another example is a cult of Licho( God of mischief/bad luck) and on place of his cult there is Church in village called Licheń Stary( stary means old) In case of Silesia, the mountain Ślęża had a cult from local natives with sacrifives. There is also a pagan tradition of sunking image of woman in lakes/rivers during early springs, when snow melts, it is called topienie Marzanny( my own class with teacher in early 2000s had done that when were kids- ironically it happened 200m from nearby Church :) ) From my perspective as a person who live in contryside in South-Eastern Mazovia( region where Warsaw is) there is still strong believ about caring of family members who passed away, There is still also some talks about being visited by ghosts or lesser beings. There are also other examples of Polish pagan traditions but this post is too long for that.
Just a small thing that could be added although highly inconsequential, Veles was prominent enough in South Slavic Paganism to have a city in North Macedonia named after him, so he was certainly at least a part of that pantheon (or I could be regurgitating a folk ethymology but I'm fairly certain I'm right)
Also old Czechs called the devil by the name veles (the term being derogatory thanks to christianisation). A.Szyjewski proposes him as panslavic deity.
10:43 We actually still do this in Croatia, google: "svitnjak", just not at that time, at least not anymore. However, in my town the tradition is that the children gather the wood and pile it on, adults fire it up and later use the hot charcoal from it to prepare the meat for the feast that is held right after. This was done multiple times a year a long, long time ago, even though the church disaproved such practices for like, a millennium, so for the last 100 years it is only done for the st John's eve (or midsummer, summer solstice or what ever you call it). Or, at least, that is how old people tell the story. I would guess that, what you mentioned, was done on the winter solstice and I would imagine that such a great fire would bring great joy on the shortest (and probably among the coldest) day of the year. Edit: Yes, it was also done around Easter, as mentioned
@@norna8 Oh, well, thank you too! I had no idea about vuzmica. It's sad that we don't know about it here in the south. Do you maybe know any other ones in Croatia, perhaps that are done on the winter solstice? That would really complete the set!
@@Galic44 Well, the only thing that comes to my mind is the Pust bonefire (maškare), although it's not really for the solstice, but it was rather to celebrate the end of winter, but it includes fire :). We used to jump over the fire as kids, for good health.
we have a similar thing in southern serbia too, it's called karaveštice. a bunch of smaller bonfires get lit and people (mostly children) jump over them theres also something about putting ashes on people's faces but I don't remember how exactly that that works haha
The sacrifice of the wife when the husband dies reminds me of the story of Meda of Odessos, a Thracian Princess who became the fifth wife of Philip the second, father of Alexander the Great. When Philip died Meda jumped into the pyre with him. This act, widely unknown as a custom amongst the Macedonian people caused great shock but also endearment towards Meda and the devotion she showed to her husband. For this reason Alexander commanded that she was burried in the same regal tomb as his father in Vergina. Her artifacts, namely the golden wreath of Vergina were later discovered in the tomb's chambers by Manolis Andronikos dusting the last century.
The Rusalia festival survived until 10 years ago. But it was in honor of a saint I forget his name. Either John or Duym. Most slavic traditions are still alive but the people dont know how ancient those rituals are and are not used for the same purpuse like they have been before. Great video and pozdrav iz Hrvatske!!!
Some of my thoughts: 1. "Fire worshippers" may not mean much if we take into account that Muslims called pagans by this name in general. 2. Are you sure that Weles was mainly a cattle deity? from what I remember, his main role was to be the ruler of the underworld and magic, and the theory about the guardian of cattle is abandoned. 3. It's a pity you didn't spend more time on these other local deities because it is an interesting and important topic even if it is based on speculation. E.g.: Chernobog is most likely not a separate deity but a version of the pan-Slavic ruler of the underworld (Veles?). Jarowit was supposed to be a deity of war associated with fire. Maybe it's just a local version of Perun or maybe some mix of deities or, most interestingly, it's a more authentic image of the Slavic god of war (similar to Ares and Mars) before the influence of the Scandinavian Thor. 4. It is also a pity that there is no Chors, which is most likely a deity borrowed from Iranian nomads. I know there's a lot of complaining, but overall the material is very good :)
Veles / pl. Wołos has cattle in his name. The name has the same root like Polish words for ox - pl. wół, beef - pl. wołowina, hair - pl. włosy, wool - pl. wełna and ancient Slavic diviner - pl. wołchw,
@@jorzemjo642 Veles gets his name from the words for Ox and forest. It's thought that he was originally a nature spirit but because of hunters and farmers praying for protection he morphed into a God throughout time. Chernobog was not the God of the underworld, and is never associated with it. He is the Slavic God of evil, these two aren't connected. He is essentially the avatar of the abstract idea of Evil, in a similar way to how Morana represents the abstract idea of Death, yet isn't seen as an evil goddess. The reason why Veles is the God of the underworld is because the slavs envisioned the underworld as a massive forest, so having the God of Nature and forests be in charge of it makes sense.
@@dimitrijearsenijevic5597 Chernobog does not exist. He is a Christian distortion of Veles and his relationship with Perun (Bialobog) by imposing the Christian conflict of God with the devil on the incomprehensible belief of the Slav
Im latvian and i really loved Imperator:Rome and its mod "Imperator Invictus". Unfortunatrly, few years ago they decided to change the baltic/aestii religions and ethnicities into entirely ficticious balto-slavic ones. Not only did it erase the nuancies of the two seperate ethnic groups, but it equated both of them to some weird amalgamation of polish and czech interperations, entirely wiping out the baltic pantheon, even renaming the religion to "We' ra", a term that does not exist in Baltic languages, not even the letters (w). Worst part - the devs did not budge on the decision and dismissed any and all criticism.
15:30 vodni mož in slovenia, Triglav was almost certanly worshiped in the slovenian alps, we still have a moutain named after him. It may be a left over of the west slavic migration to the region (in slovenia we had bouth south and west slavic migration). Tri galv is a very important simbol in slovenia and survives to today (as of justice).
There is no mention of Triglav in Blakan medieval sources, and the name of that mountain has been known under multiple names throughout history. Not the most convincing evidence.
There are tons of toponyms named after pagan deities in Balkans. Troglav is the highest peak of Dinara mountain, Velež is also a mountain in BiH, near Dubrovnik there is a place called Mokošica and so on
@@MLaserHistory there was a historian/linguist/theologist in Serbia who wrote books about old religions/customs from the area although I don't know how much of his work is translated but I do know some of his work was published in German and Latin so maybe that would help. His name was Veselin Čajkanović. Unfortunately due to communist regime many of his works were not published after ww2 but they did have older ones reprinted at least.
This is genuenly something i've wished to study, but was way to broad topic to start. So thank you so much. But yeah, from what i have researched, sounds about right. There is an etymological theory that Vampire, stems from upyr, as you have written, literaly meaning those not burned
Slavic gods and heroes, rourtledge Rituals in Slavic Pre-Christian Religion, de gruyter Sources of Slavic Pre-Christian Religions, (just a compilation of primary sources but very interesting I think) These are three good books to start off with.
Slavic Gods and Heroes seems to be good on going through a certain range of sources, but it's main thesis doesn't seem too popular... at least I've seen enough remarks in paper introductions and a review by Dynda to think so. But I've also seen similar views elsewhere and who knows given the scarcity of sources. Scholars seem either too dismissive on lack of sources or too optimistic theory extrapolators.
@@jankrizkovsky9446 I think it's an ok book, just a bit too subjectivist for some. As you said it all comes down to how you want to treat the sources and I think it's an important book to read in order to get a more subjectivist view of the material than most other books give. It's all part of the academic discourse.
@@MLaserHistory It's good in that it goes pretty thoroughly in going over and reproducing the sources in it's chosen time range in English, that is a good starting point. Which are hard to come by in English... and it is true that that perspective if not taken alone could be a good regulator to the other ones. Anyway. Good video. It is rare to find a thorough enough (in broadness of the overall picture) treatment of this topic that seems to carefully and truthfully reflect the literature with its caveats and is not some neopagan fabulation or poorly sourced romantic amalgamation.
The key to understanding “Slavic Paganism” is by understanding that it evolved from “Aryan Paganism” just like Greek, Roman, Germanic and Celtic Paganism just as did all the Balkan and Iranian Paganism along with Hinduism. Essentially, you can make educated guesses based upon its brother Pagan religions.
PIE makes sense when talking about language. In archeology, they are the Kurgan Culture. In genetics, they are Yamnaya. But in a religious and ethnic sense, Aryan is a fine name. Academic objections to it are mostly pedantic. It is attested and the modern use doesn't need to reflect every exception at every time and place.
In Macedonia we still light big fires every Christmas Eve night, which seems like a pagan custom we inherited. There is also a carnival in the city of Vevchani that happens every year, where people wear pagan-like animal masks with skulls and horns, but it has also evolved into people wearing masks that parody politicians/people of current times.
Cutting trees, waiting, then burning, then transferring ashes to a different house hearth are weather manipulation rituals for agriculture. The Kelvins brought these practices.
As far as I have come into contact with that word it seems to mean more "match maker" rather than a priest. This is not to say that the matchmaker didn't have priestly qualities but there is nothing in the sources explicitly stating that Žrec had any other function other than a matchmaker, where as, when it comes to Volkhv they are explicitly mentioned in the Eastern Slavic sources as priests. So Žrec could be a name for a priest, there's just no explicit evidence for it.
@@MLaserHistory From my understanding a Zhrets was more involved in sacrifices compared to a volkhv (related word: Proto-Slavic "žьrtva" meaning "sacrifice")
Well we have two different word for match-maker: 'dziewosłęb' and 'swat'. Very much indicator that 'żerc' is a priest is that in orthodox churches they call sacrifice 'żertwa' and table for sacrifice 'Żertwiennik'. I think that is enough to state that żerc is a Slavic word for 'the one who makes sacrifices'.
@@neymarmessironaldo5881 and I said żerc not zerc - žrec and żerc it's the same word, different orthography en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/%C5%BE%D1%8Cr%D1%8Cc%D1%8C
Interesting point about Svarog/Svarozic: There is a common mythological pattern attached to Indo-European Sun Gods fathering an incarnation of themselves as their own sons that's preserved in a few ways, an especially striking parallel being Surya/Karna as attested in the Mahabharata and Srimad-Devi Bhagavatam and Elatha/Bres in the Cath Maige Tuired. Not entirely sure that's really what's going on here, but it could be a plausible explanation. This as well as a lot of other mythologemes related to the Divine War of the great IE epics seem to have been preserved a lot more conservatively than one may expect and therefore offer a great point of comparison for puzzling details in fragmentary traditions if one takes the time to familiarise himself with (admittedly very complicated) net of available sources. The book 'Taliesin's Map' by J. Dolan gives a great overview and some interesting insights into how the Mahabharata and Iliad stand in relation to the wider IE tradition at large and to the Irish/Welsh epic corpus specifically in that sense, and I can't recommend it enough! The author does some great work here on TH-cam as well
Awesome video. I really appreciate your research, for I didn't know much about slavic history and also it is not so easy for a normal history enthusiast to get hold and work through those sources, so thank you for your work. I really really loved the paintings you put in your video they are so beautiful, also the artists are people I have never heard of before so now I am googling them and their paintings.
When a friend of mine sent this video to me, I thought "Oh, no, yet another crappy video about Slavic paganism!" Boy, was I wrong! This is a surprisingly well made video. I just have to mention that the most similar to Beowulf would pobably be "Slovo o polku Igoreve", but that is the closest one. Warmest regards from Montenegro!
To be honest, it would mean "all Slavic countries dependend of Russia", because Russian panslavist were very kenn on strong union of Slavic countries... only under their rule.
@25:35 - this background and the way the text appear on the screen looks like visual novel. When can we expect kawaii slavic, pagan waifu visual novel ?
It is fascinating the degree to which we may not be able to trust what we already do know. I remember it being brought up by the one Islamic traveler who met Scandanavians in Eastern Europe & wrote extensively of his stay with them that they had a whole thing about requesting women to die alongside a chief & have to imagine there could have been some cultural contamination going on, for all we know. The big questions come in the point where these similar traditions & beliefs occured- before Christianity or after it.
The passage about a funeral you are referring to is by Ahmad ibn Fadlan and it is debated by historians whether that passage refers to Varangians or Slavs. You could also argue that at that point the pagan practices of the Slavs and the Norse settlers melded together in Eastern Europe but we simply don't know. Fadlan isn't very specific in his passage about what kind of Eastern European pagans he is actually describing when talking about the burning ship burial but to me it does seem more like a Norse burial than a Slavic one.
A video on Perun’s Axe amulets might be cool? Great video and thank you for posting. I just found out I’m 56% Slav and I’m trying to learn as much as I can!
In my area we still do some pagan rituals like making a big bonfire and a "feast" and some parts of my country people still dress up in costumes to "scare off" the evil spirits, there are also "Rusali" which are men dressed up in traditional clothes and they do dances with swords or smth, there is also a city named Veles and we call fairies "Justvili" (самовили) interesting how paganism has left a mark on culture
Thank you for this. Not sure it's the right niche but if anyone's very (very) much into early Slavic history and warfare I strongly recommend Schwerpunkt's videos series. I'd love to see a coop. Keep up with the great work
16:16 as a Slav myself I find this connection with the Roman festival quite interesting. So far I thought Rusalia comes from the word for mermaid in Slavic languages (rusalka). But maybe it’s the other way around
12:53 Mokoš reminds me of a polish word Kokosz which, as I thought, meant a hen. Because we have a saying "Grosz do grosza a będzie kokosza" which means "A penny to a penny and there will be a hen" meaning that when you save money you will have prosperity but now I think: what if it was "Grosz do grosza a będzie Mokosza?" Because when you save money you have prosperity?
Many European languages actually have the word striga, it's just taken from Latin. As for Romania, that is a very complicated one because we have even less information about Dacian and later Valach folk practices let alone "paganism". Rosalia could have easily been a Romanian thing since it's a latin word that was appropriated by the Slavs but we only have early medieval references of Slavs celebrating such festivals not latin speaking people who at that point were mostly christian. So whether Slavs took the entire festival, than just the name, from Latin speaking people or Balkan/Easter European Latin speaking people took it from the Slavs, which is why you have Rusalii in Romania, is impossible to know for sure and since there's only early medieval Slavic written references about it historians attribute it to the Slavs.
@@MLaserHistory there is Mărțişor which is derived from Mars as an example of pagan greco-roman tradition throughout the balkans, and I think there are much more, dacians weren't documented so much, but their south relatives the thracians and illyrians had some influence on south slavs/and other balkanic people. Also Orpheus, (Dyonisus most likely) is a thracian influence on hellenism.
My Polish side of my family came in the USA in the 1890s. I often wonder about the beliefs of my ancestors and I really appreciate that you make these videos since this information isn’t too easy to come by. Thanks!
I'm from Portugal and i love Paganism and i do hope to one day create a new Portugal 2.0 where Paganism and Robotics and Technological progress could become our national heritage... For too long my Portugal have been dominated by the corrupt Catholic Church and i do hope to one day free Portugal from the chains of catholicism and return its Pagan roots
We don't have surviving examples of Slavic writing systems, but there is some circumstantial evidence that it existed. Not much, but I could dig it up if anybody is interested.
There is currently no evidence. There's just some nationalistic Slavic people trying to present random markings as a "writing system". At best Slavs used markings for personal marks ("names"), at best.
@simoncejka9121 Tomorrow I will look up English sources... If there are any ^^". But I can give you right off the bat a short list: - There is archeological evidence that some sort of knot system was used. I mean that on a piece of rope, you had knots in a sequential manner. Used for counting most probably. - Certain chronicle mention that old Slavic Idols had written names of the gods in the base. Sadly those idols were destroyed and never recovered. - This may be pseudo-science, but there are pieces of armor with a new, untranslated runic system. Slavs could have adopted them from the Norse although Polish supremacists claim it the other way around. - There is also a hypothesis that the Glagolict script was the original Slavic script that was claimed to be invented to protect it. Not much, but there is something. With the chronicle one being the strongest.
Slavs definitely appropriated Latin, Greek, and Runic letters, there's attested evidence for that. What I am saying is that there is no "Slavic writing system". Counting/numbers is a whole other story.
@MLaserHistory Fair enough. You just used a very definitive statement: "Early Slavs didn't have a writing system.". I personally find it unlikely for two reasons. First is as you mention an almost complete lack of surviving material evidence of that period. Making any definitive statement unwarranted. Second, it would be weird if Slavs didn't adopt a writing system being surrounded by cultures that possess it. That being said I can completely agree that we don't have any evidence that Slavs had an original writing script. They could, but we have no proof of that.
18:00 Rusalii have not "died out". In Ukrainian villages and some small towns there still are so called "Zeleni sviata" (or Green fests) which "Rusalnyi tyzhden`" (or Rusal week, or Rusalii) is a part of. There still are old people who perform the "leading of a Bush / a Poplar /a Rusalka" -- ritual of leading dead out of village via impersonating them in a girl who is dressed in "zelen" (which means "green" or "plants"). After whole village walks out into wildenress they took "zelen" off a girl and leave it there. This is the end of Rusalii -- "provody rusalok". There still is a song which literally spells "provedu ia rusalochky" ("i will lead rusalky out"), which is sang in those villages during this rite. And young people of today are beginning to take example of their grandmothers celebrating this too. Although it is still rare among younger and current generation, being mostly a thing to do by the oldest of people and their friends and relatives.
That's interesting to know that the Rusalia festival might be still alive in some parts of the world. Something an anthropologist or a cultural historian at some university could do research into. In the current academic material the Rusalia festival has been classified as extinct, hence why I said it in the video, but new research can always be added to the corpus.
@@MLaserHistory, I guess a big problem is a language and connection barrier left after russification and centuries of propaganda that anything western is false and evil. There are whole books made by anthropologists in Ukraine, that have documented what people think of rusalkas as by 2010-s, how they imagine them, how Rusalii are celebrated and so on. See works of Volodymyr Halaichuk, for example. Problem is they are in Ukrainian and are received limited publishing in Ukraine only (best scenario) or in russian and were published in both countries only to be lost for good after russian government made in clear they don't want them to exist (worst scenario). As a Master in Religious Studies I am staring right in this vortex of misunderstanding, when looking for sources out of our local scientific bubble. For I am writing a thesis about animism as an integral part of local onthology, so I try to study influences made by larger context and surrounding cultures only to get amused how little world knows of us. We were long overshadowed by russian self-marketing and world's interest to this marketed culture. Same goes for a lot of local ethnicities in russia's lands, for Belorus, Crimean Tatars and many more. Hope this will change soon. There is so much to be shared.
Well, "Zeleni sviata" is still a common thing, even in big cities (have you seen Lviv those days?), but in its simpliest form. Mostly by just decorating houses (and sometimes other things, like buses lol) with Acorus calamus or tree branches. So it's not surpricing that more complex tradition could survive in remote places.
I can definitely see the overlap with Germanic polytheism, albeit since I have noticed many place names which were historically Germanic especially before the migration period but partially after it too there's a risk for spatial bias in the information we have. I could imagine it's likely both the case that indo-europeans started out with vaguely the same belief structure, spatially diversified, but were also in constant exchange with the modifier of speed (ie in places where you have a lot of trade, ideas spread faster).
From the sourses i read in both Serbian and Russian, my conclusion is that Svarog was the original creator God, the one that crafted the universe and everything in it and then left it for his children to rule, which fits with the theme of a God of crafting. Dazbog is supposedly the eldest son, and ive seen him associated with both fire and the sun (and war, specifically the heat of war, this is important as a lot of slavic Gods are war Gods, but usually represent different aspects of war, similar to how Greek Gods do). I've seen Perun also listed as one of Svarogs sons, and different groups of slavs venerated different sons/Gods as the head gods, Dazbog being worshiped by the polabians and other groups, Perun by most, and ever far eastern slavs worshiping Veles as the head God, as they did more hunting and cattle breeding compared to other groups. Frankly, I believe Svarozic appears so much not because its one God, but a general term for one of Svarogs sons, sorta like an epitaph.
Also, would like to add that Veles was defenitely worshiped at least within the south slavs aswell, not just eastern ones, Macedonia even has a city called Veles, granted, first mentions of the place are in ancient greek but the name is the same, even in ancient greek, and from what ive asked around, it seems to be borrowed and not actually greek, so it might even be evidence of early slavic migrations into the Balkans! Also, there are two more Gods that were spread out throughout slavs, Morana and Vesna. Morana being related to the proto indo-european mora/mara that is the root of the mare part of nightmare in most European languages. Morana was the goddess of winter, and natural death, and effigies of her are still burned by certain slavs, especially eastern slavs during the Maslenitsa festival, marking the end of winter and the start of spring (its worth noting that this is the leading theory but some also believe that the effigy might be Kostroma, a local fertility goddes, personally, i think both might be correct, where it was originally a depiction of Morana but in certain groups that aspect got lost and replaced with a different newer God, which isnt that far fetched as most eastern slavs these days call the effigy Lady Maslenitsa and dont associate it with either of them). The second godess thats more pervasive is the goddess Vesna, the goddess of spring and fertility (Fertility and war are common traits associated with slavic Gods), and while with the southern slavs, its just the name of the Godess and only is sometimes used as a pseudonym for spring in old poetry, in eastern slavic languages, it is their actual word for spring! (something that greatly infuriated me when i was there since noone seems to know this lore tid bit but me)
@@dimitrijearsenijevic5597A village near Ohrid is called Velestovo. In the south, if you want to go to Volos , you take the exit VELESNICA, a five km.before reaching Volos (Veles). There is Serbian VELESNICA as well.There is Velestovo in Crna Gora. Maby the name originates from Venetian-Pelasgian -protoslavic time.
thank you so much for this video, trying to study old paganism as a south slav is so frustrating since 99% of sources just use russian/eastern slavic pagan gods and legends as a representation of what ALL slavs believed 😭
Well....i think that the maškare and paljenje Pusta on the Adriatic is about chasing the winter out? Ok, it's not really for solstice, but i remember that, when i was a child, we used to jump over the bonefire from Pust for good luck. And as to zvončari, Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria and many others have them too.
I haven’t finished the video (about 10 minutes in) but I couldn’t help but notice a common thread between the multi-named Dažbog(?) and many Hindu Gods. I myself am a Hindu. I would personally theorize it’s a case similar to Shiva. Rudra, Pashupati and Shiva are all names for a similar deity from VERY different times. Pashupati is pre-Vedic Marrappan religion, meaning “Lord of the Animals,” Rudra is Sanskrit and from Vedic religion, meaning “The Roaring One” OR “The God who Makes You Cry.” Shiva is a name that may have come around briefly after the Vedic period, and what few times the name Shiva is mentioned in the Vedas, it is often used as an epithet for Rudra. It only so happens that as time passed, the name Shiva stuck; that’s not to say the other names are gone. In mantras, sometimes we say “om namo bhagavate rudraya.” Three very different names with three very different cultural backgrounds, but ultimately, believed to be the same entity. That’s my theory, anyway.
This is a nice channel, but I always forget I'm subscribed to it. And then I see a new video, and think "oh, a new video from LazerPig! But what a weird title... " 😎 Verry interesting subject, now I'll watch the video. I just thought someone would find this confusion amusing.
I find these topics really interesting... I'd love to find reliable material of other kinds of paganism like Lithuanian, Hungarian (even less sources yey)
Ou yeah, sources about that are just, uff, very little. Any videos on those topics would have even more 'ifs' and 'buts' than this video has. Turns out it's hard to try to figure out pagan practices based from only external and or christian sources.
Yes - (as I understand it) in the Hungarian case at least the few sources are not only from a Christian perspective but focus on mythological history instead of the religion itself and are written a few centuries after the conversion. Apart from that everything is just fragments in folklore :( This makes me wonder how many beliefs of entire groups of people are completely lost to time. Had the same thought a few days ago reading about ancient sites (like Göbekli Tepe, Lepenski Vir in Serbia with the fish statues, etc.) It's a curiosity that will never be fulfilled.
Well essentially they are the same it's more about regional intersection then Linguistic differences. Through millennia it got so diluted that similarities are common. Like I see here that slavs created mithos of werewolves although in last video Kraut said it was of Baltic origin. Instead of getting at each others throughouts, as is tradition, I just say it's regional myth. And the region essentially is the European plains divided by dinpro
@@komnenosdoukas7201oh no, now there's two of them! (The other one is that military-procurement-powerpoints channel with similarly strong work ethics that is literally called Perun)
Anything is possible with those 3 gods. There's just not enough information to really know. Plus, as I said, their veneration probably differed across a geographical and temporal space, so to some Slavic tribe somewhere they all could have just been one god.
I'm disappointed you didn't have any further information about Czernobog. When I google I get mostly Disney character references (frustrating). I don't even know why I'm so curious about him, but I am. My ancestors came from Eastern Prussia and Germany and I'm drawn to the Slavic mythology and folk tales. However, this was an excellent video full of very good information and I appreciate your research and presentation.
As far I as I know Czernobog has only been mentioned in one written source where he was associated with the devil, but every Slavic pagan deity was associated with the devil by the christians so that doesn't tell us much.
@@MLaserHistory Thank you for the reply! Yes, all pagan deities were associated with their Devil, except for the ones incorporated into the pantheon of saints in the Catholic religion. Funny how that works out. Maybe it's the mystery surrounding Czernobog that draws me to him. I do love a good mystery. You have a great channel!
There was also a slavic goddess by the name of Morena. She was the goddess of winter and death and even now (at least in Slovakia) some folk esenbels engage in the tradition of making a female doll similar to scarecrow representing Morena, lighting it up and tossing it to a river to symbolize the ending of winter.
The last thing I expected to hear about was Slavic Satii, but it's fascinating to see the similarities across pagan cultures as far away as eastern Europe and India.
In Ukraine we still celebrate a holiday that comes from pagan times. The name is "Kupayla". It is celebrated during summer solstice. People would go to the forest in the night to find a fern flower, which doesn't exist, but is was believed, that it would flourish on that night. Than they would dance around the fire, make wreaths and jump over the fire place! Personally i love this holiday!!
I needed something to play while I cooked and didn't expect to be jumpscared by my hometown, not to mention that the museum is in the same building as my high school, so double jump scare. I'm happy they are getting some clout tho
Modern Slavic neo-pagans (at least in Poland, where I am from) would heavily disagree with this video and the sources included. Just to be clear, I am NOT one, but I used to know one, who, insisted heavily, that either there was no human sacrifice conducted or when it was this was a great honour of some kind. His main source for these claims were what he called "przekazy" which I guess means just oral tradition with no source that one could track down. Obviously, we need to take into account that there is pretty much no continuity between the ancient Slavic religion and the modern system of beliefs that claim to be the successors of the former, whereas the latter seems to be formed within our modern, liberal social framework.
I think your homie mixed up germanic and slavic. The germanics had honour from a glourious death, so a brave sacrifice to the gods would stick to the theme. But slavs didnt have valhalla waiting for them.
@@mariahanczewska8109 kad sam proučavao povijest naših poganskih predaka našao sam da su ipak imali ljudske žrtve. ali ipak su bili ratni zarobljenici ili robovi. tako da nije bilo nikakve časti u tome
@@skin4700 we actually don't know if slavic pagans had anything similar or anything at all waiting for them. Probably they had something since all had some version of afterlife.
This is perfect timing considering I just finished an archaeological field school in Giecz! Cheers from an American archeologist-now-tourist in Poznań!
there's a settlement near dubrovnik in croatia named mokoš-ica (after the goddess) so it's not just eastern europe she was known in, though i understand this wouldn't be easy information to come by
Yes the Slavs lived in a large are; but they probably lived close to each other as late as 400 AD. Linguistically their languages had not changed so much at the end of the pagan time so the religion could have been quite uniform.
this video reminds me of an interaction i had with my friend Morena (pronounced like Marina), where when i found out the spelling of her name, i mentioned how shes named after a slavic goddess, and she got so confused just thinking its one of those quirky spelling cases ahahaha
10:37 They are different Gods though simultaneously can be said to same yet different because the roles are melded together because they are connected to Fire/Light aspect.
Those people were forced to intentionally forget, and they forced to adopt Christianity. They were given the ultimatum of live as free Christians or die. Those religious documents are evidence of ignorance, gaslighting, and narrsassistic abuse.
I mean how else would you convert the barbarians? Ever heard of the czech missionary sent to prussia that was killed and had his body bought out by the polish king? People back then were idiotic and didnt realize how many benefits christianity brought with itself allowing nations to actually prosper. Alot of pagans actually converted because christianity promised them heaven and a more ethical way of life, dont act like these pagans would spare any christian in case of a victorious civil war because I can already see the stakes
20:22 Thank you for this mention along with the source. 21:17 So there is death by drowning mentioned. This is definitely Indo-European ancient ritual because India or rather Vedic religion has had mentions of Sati. Can this be categorized as human sacrifice because it involves killing humans?
They sponsored an American to conducted research at a Polish university into the online history communication in Poland and to facilitate an increase in Polish museum based communication of history online. Therefore, I was brought on by that person as a history communication "expert" to work with a Polish museum on a collaboration and this video is the result of that. I received no money for this work (other than the monetization on this video obviously) but since I am also working on a public history PhD at Cambridge I was more than happy to help.
I know, for Svarozic I also used a different picture than was labeled by the artist. For some of the gods there simply aren't good pictures of them so I had to improvise. It's all explained in the pinned comment. With that said, there is a theory that Ziva is just a Western Slavic equivalent of Mokosh so they might be the same goddess just with two different names.
As always, amazing video, you are one of the last in-depth well-edited varied-topic history TH-camrs without any major sourcing controversy (Historia Civilis comes to mind)
Kupala on summer solstice in Balkans, aren't linked to St. John the Baptist as with Western Slavs, the bonfires remained (called "Ivanjske baklje" in Croatia and Bosnia) but the term "kupala" only exists in refernce to old pagan mythology mostly dissasociated with Christianity, suggesting that Kupala (suggesting some sort of "spiritual" bathing in fire) was the common name for the summer solstice festival, and likewise Koleda (which is still used for Christmas caroling) for the winter solstice one.
Veles is not only an eastern Slavic God, he was worshipped by South Slavs as well. North Macedonia literally has a city named after him just under a mountain top named Perun, and it's Vele(S) not Vele(Š).
Mokosh also in Croatia. Part of city Dubrovnik is still named Mokoshica/Mokoš-ica , the place of Mokoš. And the name Dubrovnik is derived from oak (dub = oak), the place of oak wood
Around the end of winter in 2000s we still had this tradition of Burning or Drowning a doll called "Marzanna". Which was supposed to end the winter time. xDD I don't know if children still do this.
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Extra Information & Clarifications
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The names of people or manuscripts in the bottom right corner throughout the video are not things I am referencing but they are names of artists and codices I am using as visuals to show on the screen. The footnotes in the bottom left represent the sources and historians I am quoting and referencing and to find out more about that go download my script with the bibliography for free on my Patreon.
0:20 At least that we know of.
0:30 I am aware that Beowulf has many Christian characteristics in it and was definetly written in a Christian context but it also tells us about pagan practices like pagan funerals or references to other pagan stories like the hero Sigurd killing the dragon Fafnir. That is why I am using it here as an example of a story that was heavily influenced by Christianity but still showing some pagan elements which is something that we don’t have from the christinized Slavs as stated in the video.
2:45 Here I mean that some modern folk traditions, like the fact that a Rusalia type festival, celebrating the dead, was practiced in the Balkans until the 19th century, can help substantiate the claims made by the medieval sources. However, I would never use modern oral and folk traditions as evidence of any kind of pre-Christian pagan practices if not substantiated by medieval sources.
3:22 I am aware that for some of you this merch may be expensive, and if you can’t afford it please do not buy it. I made this merch for me and hopefully some of you to enjoy, not to make bank off of. Trust me the profit margins on this are not big when you’re operating at the scale of a small TH-cam channel which is also trying to use higher quality materials with embroideries rather than cheap prints. I simply do not have the sales volume and company scale were I could lower the prices to more resonable levels. I need to pay for payment processors, website hosts, materials, embroidery, all on my own for each individual purchase, and that is why the merch is expensive. I hope you like the merch because it’s very good quality but that good quality combined with the small scale of my operation means the prices have to be high.
6:23 Procopius doesn’t actually mention Perun by name but almost every historian agrees that the way Procopius described the Slavic 'lightning' god means there is pretty much no other god he could have been referring to other than Perun.
9:24 The picture I am using to represent Svarožić was drawn by the artists as a picture of a different attested Slavic god, Simargl, but I needed a visual placeholder for Svarožić so I instead used this picture to represent Svarožić.
9:58 Svarog, Svarožić, and Dažbog could possible be a ‘triad’ (so could Triglav), which is a common grouping of 3 gods that are worshipped together that is found across multiple pagan religions, but, we don’t have enough information to deduce whether these 3 gods were actually 3 different gods that could represent a triad as the sources about them are sparse and disconnected.
12:10 A lunar god isn’t attested in written records as already stated but the worship of the moon is attested in all Slavic areas and lunalae are also found across the entire Slavic world so I grouped a likely existent lunar deity as one that can be attested in all Slavic areas but I might be wrong. Arguments can also be made for other gods being ‘attested’ across all the Slavic area. For example, cattle worship is attested across all Slavic areas but Veles or Volos, the god of cattle, is only mentioned in eastern Slavic sources. Therefore, you could argue that due to cattle worship you have Veles attested everywhere but I decided this wasn’t enough of a connection. The lunar deity was already a stretch.
13:01 Some historians believe the attested western Slavic goddess of Živa was the same as Mokosh in eastern Slavic lands, however, we know very little about both goddesses so it’s hard to tell if we are again dealing with a Svarog, Svaorzic, and Dazbog kind of situation or not. With that said, I am using a picture labeled as 'Živa' by Andrey Shishkin to represent Mokosh because I couldn't find a good picture of Mokosh.
13:36 It is debated whether Sventovit was a Slavic god or was a paganised version of St Vitus. It wasn’t uncommon for pagans to take Christian saints or even Jesus himself and appropriate them into their pagan pantheon.
13:36 Creative Commons picture credits to Marek Hapon and Andrey Shishkin.
16:26 Obviously the map is just a representation of the idea and isn’t supposed to be 100% accurate. We know from sources that in the early middle ages there was a Vulgar-Latin speaking population in the Balkans, Dacia, and Pannonia but the extent of this population and its geographical locations are very hard to pinpoint which, in any case, is far beyond the scope of this video.
16:41 The Roman Rosalia festival was also about venerating the dead. As I stated at the end of the video it is unknown whether Slavs had a similar type of festival as the Romans because of a common Indo-European heritage or because they borrowed it from the Romans. However, one thing is for certain, the name for the festival was definitely borrowed from the Romans.
17:42 It doesn’t have to be though. Increasingly, Vily and Rusalky have been melding together in modern folklore, and are both becoming more benevolent fairy type creatures which can often be interchangeable in all but name.
20:04 Sometimes buried in a mound, sometimes buried on a sort of wooden altar, and sometimes simply buried in the ground.
20:10 Simple things like small beads, jewelry, arrow heads or the blade of a dagger that survived the fire are found. More things are also found ones some pagans started practicing inhumation which they copied from the Christian world, but from the very early medieval period, when pagan Slavs practiced cremation, lavishly furnished graves don’t really exist.
22:08 Unless you take into account Ibn Fadlan's writing about a Rus' ship burial but that is most likely of a Varangian not a Slav. However, it could be argued that at that point Slavic and Norse paganism had melded together in Eastern Europe in which case it could give us an idea of why they practiced cremation. However, the reasoning given by Fadlan's account is the same as is given by Slavic folk tradition so in the end it doesn't even change the theorized reasoning I give in my video.
22:27 According to this theory, this is why a lot of Slavic folk traditions, like zvoncari (in Croatia) or kukeri (in Bulgarian) or other such dress up customs in other Slavic areas are supposed to ‘scare away evil spirits’. These spirits being the ‘restless dead’ .
23:48 Striga could mean undead being, witch, warlock, and even upyr and volkodlak. This Latin word was often used in the middle ages as a catch all for any kind of undead nefarious magical creature that was human or humanoid.
24:01 This interchangeability of the words can be seen, for instance, in the fact that in 19th century Russian, the words for vampire and werewolf were switched. That is, in 19th-century Russian vurdulak meant a vampire and upyr meant a werewolf or an undead witch.
27:03 This change in burial customs wasn't an overnight change nor was Christianization. This change took centuries in some parts as there was a gradual embracing of cultural ideas. In some areas Christianized Slavs still practiced cremation burials while in others pagan Slavs started to practice inhumation before embracing Christianity. This is where we get most of our “pagan” burial artifacts from, but to what extent these artefacts can actually point to pagan practices is hard to say as inhumation burials already go against pagan practices. Inhumation was without a doubt brought to the Slavs from the Christian world and often the switch in burial costumes did correlate with the switch in religious believes.
I really enjoy your content but I think putting your bibliography in your patron is pretty stupid, nobody's going to check unless they want to join your patreon
@@totallynotatree8718 How else am I supposed to share it? The bibliography is often too long to put in a pinned comment or description (they both have word limits). Plus, if I want to keep Chicago style or Oxford style footnote citations, which I do since that is the academic standard, I have to use a word processor, so it's going to be a text file that needs to be uploaded somewhere and TH-cam doesn't support that. Plus, it's not like I require people to subscribe to get it, it's free and I even give you a direct link! Whether I upload it on a different website than Patreon or not doesn't matter because it will always require the same amount of clicks.
@MLaserHistory isn't there a way to put a pastebin link in the description or has YT removed that?
@@totallynotatree8718 I have no idea what pastebin is and through a quick google search this seems out of my realm of technical understanding. I still think the two clicks (yes two clicks) you need to do to download a script from my Patreon is not a huge barrier to anyone who wants to get the bibliography.
The Slavic mythology looks very connected with the Greek Mythology. Hephaestus was both the god of fire AND forging. Maybe an indication that Svarog and Svarožić are the same god (or at least by certain Slavs in certain periods) that maybe later split, or vise-versa.
we did it Slavs, we successfully gatekept our religion by not writing stuff down
Write that down, write that down!
I mean, they did, but they didn't expect Christians to destroy all of their books & stuff.
@@StefanTodorovic-l9f actually Christian’s preserved pagan writing like many Greek philosophers and history what you just said is a common myth
*cries in Slavic descendant*
@kinglevviking339 Really? That's unexpected. If that's true, then how come we have so little knowledge about the religion?
Perun was actually the God of military economics videos and power points
Legends tell of the defense economics contractor from Emutopia, who spins fables of the follies of fellows in financing their fights. He conveys this to his audience of acolytes assisted by the ancient art of "PowerPoint". He also occasionally obliges his obedient order to opt for "Private Internet Access". The ritual regaling mentioned recently reoccurs every Sunday.
I have no clue what I was writing. I just wanted to jump in.
@@andrewzebic6201 Certainly, the Australian Perun is far superior to the slavic one. Only one of them has ever taught me about how corruption, politics and lies destroy armies.
Source - trust me bro, 2024
@@multivitamin425 I shall explain the joke, Perun is the name of an Australian millitary analyst, here on TH-cam.
@@multivitamin425source- I have no media literacy bro, 2024
the Gniezno museum is really doing the work lately, their debunk exhibition on turboslavs is one of the better attempts at fighting anti-intelectuallism imho
Yeah, I saw that one that was good.
What exhibition are you referring to?
@@DerPlusquamperfekt th-cam.com/video/CNEiXIM_G6Y/w-d-xo.html
Wait, people actually believe this? I thought it was a joke, like the Flying Spaghetti Monster or the non-existence of Finland.
@@grzegorzha.They do and they make a lot of money writing books about it
You can see the remains of Mokoš and Veles being worshipped in the Balkans through toponyms. In my hometown in Bosnia there is a creek called Mokoš, and the neighborhood surrounding it was named Mokošnice. Mokošica is also a neighborhood near Dubrovnik and Velež is a mountain surrounding Mostar in Herzegovina.
Additionally, Velež is also a football club in Mostar 😁
The highest point of Yugoslavia was Triglav in Slovenia - there is also an insurance company called Triglav Osiguranje.
Also there is a Mt. Perun near Zenica.
@@someguy2744also there is a cake I remember eating as a kid that was names Triglav, as well. So delicious!
Volosko near Opatija, they found traces of pagan worship in a cave on mount Učka
@@jasmina1m
I know of Trileća, but I have not heard of Triglav as a cake.
Speaking of fire worship, i come from western Serbia and we have a tradition that for every night on St Peter's day children are given literal torches, you light them and you run around in the dark for the glory of St Peter (or whichever god he replaced once Christianity was adopted). Come to think of if, awful lot of fire worship was preserved in the folk customs, only now with a Christian veneer.
In Bosnian Posavina we have the same tradition. Night before St. Elijah (sv. Ilija) children run around with torches and bonefires are burned trough whole village. Rom. Catholic speaking.
Also, we burn the oak tree for our orthodox Christmas in Serbia witch is much more common
Amazing video on an incredibly interesting topic.
Edit: It turns out the sources are not locked behind a paywall on the Patreon. Thank you for making it available
Even the little of what we know about Slavic mythology is so spooky and cool. I mean, we gave the world both vampires (btw. that's the only serbian word used worldwide) and werewolves. Shame our ancestors didn't write.
They were too busy fighting vampires and werewolves.
They did write rode. Just burned everything when the ones that converted won.
@@skin4700It reminds me a lot on the history from the fantasy books series ASOIAF, where the new faith, symbolic of christianity, claims that paganism-like culture before it did not have a written memory - but then it turns out it is history rewritten by the victors
@@hypatiakovalevskayasklodow9195 if you look at the russian cronicles. The last pagan king was at the same time the first christian king. He made a lot of huge idols of his gods. But when the truth was revealed he destroyed all of it
@@skin4700 not truth but political benefit
In addition to Rusalia, the roman festival for the first day of the month Kalendae might have inspired the festival of Koleda which now means Christmas in Bulgarian and Christmas Eve in Macedonian.
It is possible.
Interesting in Polish kolenda means chriatmass carol(as in the song) and also a custom of walking from house to house in costumes and singing(a bit like halloween)
@Alaryk111 In Serbian it also means carol.
@Alaryk111 And also the Halloween style singing from door to door for treats happens in Macedonia but without costumes for Chrismas Eve in the morning and is called koledarenje.
Who has tannenbaums
It is interesting how in Romania we have two different interchangeable names describing a wolf monster, pricolici and vârcolac, the latter clearly from slavic origins, thanks for the great video 👍
I’ve studied more about Celtic polytheism and history. It’s really interesting seeing the similarities between the ancient Slavs and Celts. Revenant comes from Celtic Irish mythology and folklore and was the first thing I thought of when you spoke about the restless dead. Same with the idea of fairies replacing people and veneration of aquatic related spirits. The ancient Irish also cremated their dead as part of their rituals.
Most Indo-European pagans cremated their dead. In fact, when you research into it there are a lot of similarities in various ancient Indo-European pagan practices which shouldn't be surprising I guess.
@@MLaserHistory
Yeah I was thinking that too. Hindu Indians, the pre-Christian Romans, Celts, and Scandinavians immediately come to mind. I took a class in college about Early Irish history and archaeology about Ireland from the copper age to the Flight of the Earls in 1602. I got to visit a few of the already dug up grave sites for the class which was awesome.
indo European religion
@@MCKevin289 mentioning all of them and NOT the Greek and Egyptian pantheons is certainly a choice, especially as the Roman pantheon borrowed so heavily from the Greek pantheon.
@@oppionatedindividual8256 Greek and egyptian religion are european too
12th of july in sumadija region of Serbia there is a tradition of Lilanje. Bark is tied to sticks and burned. This is spinned and visible from all around the hills. I was fortunate to experience this many years ago. It was magical.
Good video,
In case of Polish pagan tradidtions you should take look at Catholic Church holidays, for example Day of All Saints was put to replace Slavic Dziady/Zaduszki ceremonies.
In short Church in Poland take some pagan traditions and incorporated them with Christian motivs.
Another example is a cult of Licho( God of mischief/bad luck) and on place of his cult there is Church in village called Licheń Stary( stary means old)
In case of Silesia, the mountain Ślęża had a cult from local natives with sacrifives.
There is also a pagan tradition of sunking image of woman in lakes/rivers during early springs, when snow melts, it is called topienie Marzanny( my own class with teacher in early 2000s had done that when were kids- ironically it happened 200m from nearby Church :) )
From my perspective as a person who live in contryside in South-Eastern Mazovia( region where Warsaw is) there is still strong believ about caring of family members who passed away,
There is still also some talks about being visited by ghosts or lesser beings.
There are also other examples of Polish pagan traditions but this post is too long for that.
Just a small thing that could be added although highly inconsequential, Veles was prominent enough in South Slavic Paganism to have a city in North Macedonia named after him, so he was certainly at least a part of that pantheon (or I could be regurgitating a folk ethymology but I'm fairly certain I'm right)
Would be cool if that were the case but I'm pretty sure it's just a linguistic coincidence as Veles was already called Velissos in Ancient Greek
Pretty sure we also have a town named after him in Slovenia
@@WPopeVelenje possibly
Also old Czechs called the devil by the name veles (the term being derogatory thanks to christianisation). A.Szyjewski proposes him as panslavic deity.
@@danijeljovic4971The Slavs and Veles settlement were most probably already there when ancient Greeks named it Velissos.
10:43 We actually still do this in Croatia, google: "svitnjak", just not at that time, at least not anymore.
However, in my town the tradition is that the children gather the wood and pile it on, adults fire it up and later use the hot charcoal from it to prepare the meat for the feast that is held right after. This was done multiple times a year a long, long time ago, even though the church disaproved such practices for like, a millennium, so for the last 100 years it is only done for the st John's eve (or midsummer, summer solstice or what ever you call it). Or, at least, that is how old people tell the story.
I would guess that, what you mentioned, was done on the winter solstice and I would imagine that such a great fire would bring great joy on the shortest (and probably among the coldest) day of the year.
Edit: Yes, it was also done around Easter, as mentioned
This one is new to me, thank you. I know about 'vuzmica' that is held on Easter in the villages around Križevci to this day, every year.
@@norna8 Oh, well, thank you too! I had no idea about vuzmica. It's sad that we don't know about it here in the south. Do you maybe know any other ones in Croatia, perhaps that are done on the winter solstice? That would really complete the set!
@@Galic44 Well, the only thing that comes to my mind is the Pust bonefire (maškare), although it's not really for the solstice, but it was rather to celebrate the end of winter, but it includes fire :). We used to jump over the fire as kids, for good health.
we have a similar thing in southern serbia too, it's called karaveštice. a bunch of smaller bonfires get lit and people (mostly children) jump over them theres also something about putting ashes on people's faces but I don't remember how exactly that that works haha
The sacrifice of the wife when the husband dies reminds me of the story of Meda of Odessos, a Thracian Princess who became the fifth wife of Philip the second, father of Alexander the Great. When Philip died Meda jumped into the pyre with him. This act, widely unknown as a custom amongst the Macedonian people caused great shock but also endearment towards Meda and the devotion she showed to her husband. For this reason Alexander commanded that she was burried in the same regal tomb as his father in Vergina. Her artifacts, namely the golden wreath of Vergina were later discovered in the tomb's chambers by Manolis Andronikos dusting the last century.
That is one cool museum to collaborate with youtubers! Props to them. If I'm ever in the area, I'll hopefully remember to visit this museum :)
The Rusalia festival survived until 10 years ago. But it was in honor of a saint I forget his name. Either John or Duym. Most slavic traditions are still alive but the people dont know how ancient those rituals are and are not used for the same purpuse like they have been before. Great video and pozdrav iz Hrvatske!!!
Dažd is 🌧️ rain so Daždbog is raingod. Greetings from 🇷🇸
Yes, but in Eastern slavic rain is Dožd, abd he sound more like “give-god”.
"Daždь" is imperativ od the verb "dati" in old slavic language
Maybe "rain-giver", "giving-god"?
Rain gives you good harvest, makes sense
@@glif1360
Yes, but Oleg = Alek (O->A).
In the same way Dožd = Dažd (O->A).
Some of my thoughts:
1. "Fire worshippers" may not mean much if we take into account that Muslims called pagans by this name in general.
2. Are you sure that Weles was mainly a cattle deity? from what I remember, his main role was to be the ruler of the underworld and magic, and the theory about the guardian of cattle is abandoned.
3. It's a pity you didn't spend more time on these other local deities because it is an interesting and important topic even if it is based on speculation. E.g.: Chernobog is most likely not a separate deity but a version of the pan-Slavic ruler of the underworld (Veles?). Jarowit was supposed to be a deity of war associated with fire. Maybe it's just a local version of Perun or maybe some mix of deities or, most interestingly, it's a more authentic image of the Slavic god of war (similar to Ares and Mars) before the influence of the Scandinavian Thor.
4. It is also a pity that there is no Chors, which is most likely a deity borrowed from Iranian nomads.
I know there's a lot of complaining, but overall the material is very good :)
Veles / pl. Wołos has cattle in his name. The name has the same root like Polish words for ox - pl. wół, beef - pl. wołowina, hair - pl. włosy, wool - pl. wełna and ancient Slavic diviner - pl. wołchw,
Jarowit sounds kinda similar to Jarilo who is a south slavic fertility god
@@jorzemjo642 Veles gets his name from the words for Ox and forest. It's thought that he was originally a nature spirit but because of hunters and farmers praying for protection he morphed into a God throughout time. Chernobog was not the God of the underworld, and is never associated with it. He is the Slavic God of evil, these two aren't connected. He is essentially the avatar of the abstract idea of Evil, in a similar way to how Morana represents the abstract idea of Death, yet isn't seen as an evil goddess. The reason why Veles is the God of the underworld is because the slavs envisioned the underworld as a massive forest, so having the God of Nature and forests be in charge of it makes sense.
@@dimitrijearsenijevic5597 Chernobog does not exist. He is a Christian distortion of Veles and his relationship with Perun (Bialobog) by imposing the Christian conflict of God with the devil on the incomprehensible belief of the Slav
Odlično zapažanje, Dimitrije! Ima smisla! @@dimitrijearsenijevic5597
Im latvian and i really loved Imperator:Rome and its mod "Imperator Invictus". Unfortunatrly, few years ago they decided to change the baltic/aestii religions and ethnicities into entirely ficticious balto-slavic ones. Not only did it erase the nuancies of the two seperate ethnic groups, but it equated both of them to some weird amalgamation of polish and czech interperations, entirely wiping out the baltic pantheon, even renaming the religion to "We' ra", a term that does not exist in Baltic languages, not even the letters (w).
Worst part - the devs did not budge on the decision and dismissed any and all criticism.
Polish "W" is "V". As far as I understand Latvian has "v". So it's "ve'ra"
@@kubixus yea, that name or term doesnt exist in neither lithuanian or latvian, which is my point. Doubly so bcuz they used non-existant characters.
@@konstancemakjaveli but the faith is supposed to be balto-slavic, not baltic as far as I understand.
@@kubixus bro, balto-slavic culture didnt exist,neither a religion. Its an artificial construct in linguistics only.
@@konstancemakjaveli Of course it did exist. We were once one nation, speaking the same language (proto-balto-slavic).
Fun fact, in Croatian town Žrnovnica, there is a board that represents Perun's victory over Veleš it was dated to 7th century.
15:30 vodni mož in slovenia,
Triglav was almost certanly worshiped in the slovenian alps, we still have a moutain named after him. It may be a left over of the west slavic migration to the region (in slovenia we had bouth south and west slavic migration). Tri galv is a very important simbol in slovenia and survives to today (as of justice).
There is no mention of Triglav in Blakan medieval sources, and the name of that mountain has been known under multiple names throughout history. Not the most convincing evidence.
There are tons of toponyms named after pagan deities in Balkans. Troglav is the highest peak of Dinara mountain, Velež is also a mountain in BiH, near Dubrovnik there is a place called Mokošica and so on
@@MLaserHistory there was a historian/linguist/theologist in Serbia who wrote books about old religions/customs from the area although I don't know how much of his work is translated but I do know some of his work was published in German and Latin so maybe that would help. His name was Veselin Čajkanović. Unfortunately due to communist regime many of his works were not published after ww2 but they did have older ones reprinted at least.
This is genuenly something i've wished to study, but was way to broad topic to start.
So thank you so much.
But yeah, from what i have researched, sounds about right. There is an etymological theory that Vampire, stems from upyr, as you have written, literaly meaning those not burned
Slavic gods and heroes, rourtledge
Rituals in Slavic Pre-Christian Religion, de gruyter
Sources of Slavic Pre-Christian Religions, (just a compilation of primary sources but very interesting I think)
These are three good books to start off with.
@@MLaserHistory thank you so much
Slavic Gods and Heroes seems to be good on going through a certain range of sources, but it's main thesis doesn't seem too popular... at least I've seen enough remarks in paper introductions and a review by Dynda to think so. But I've also seen similar views elsewhere and who knows given the scarcity of sources. Scholars seem either too dismissive on lack of sources or too optimistic theory extrapolators.
@@jankrizkovsky9446 I think it's an ok book, just a bit too subjectivist for some. As you said it all comes down to how you want to treat the sources and I think it's an important book to read in order to get a more subjectivist view of the material than most other books give. It's all part of the academic discourse.
@@MLaserHistory It's good in that it goes pretty thoroughly in going over and reproducing the sources in it's chosen time range in English, that is a good starting point. Which are hard to come by in English... and it is true that that perspective if not taken alone could be a good regulator to the other ones.
Anyway. Good video. It is rare to find a thorough enough (in broadness of the overall picture) treatment of this topic that seems to carefully and truthfully reflect the literature with its caveats and is not some neopagan fabulation or poorly sourced romantic amalgamation.
The key to understanding “Slavic Paganism” is by understanding that it evolved from “Aryan Paganism” just like Greek, Roman, Germanic and Celtic Paganism just as did all the Balkan and Iranian Paganism along with Hinduism. Essentially, you can make educated guesses based upon its brother Pagan religions.
A more accurate term than Aryan would be Proto-Indo-European
PIE makes sense when talking about language. In archeology, they are the Kurgan Culture. In genetics, they are Yamnaya. But in a religious and ethnic sense, Aryan is a fine name. Academic objections to it are mostly pedantic. It is attested and the modern use doesn't need to reflect every exception at every time and place.
Lmao, no. Slavic and other European pagan religions did not come from Indian/Iranian religions😂
@@angela_merkeI They didn't come from Indian and Iranian religions but they all have the same ancestor religion.
@@angela_merkeIiranian and hindu religions came from the protoindoeuropeans.
There are some things to add. In south Slavic lands there are toponims conected to Mokoš and Veles, and Dažbog (Dajbog) is also present.
One of the best videos about slavic paganism on TH-cam. Keep it going! If there is more you can tell about it then please do it!
In Macedonia we still light big fires every Christmas Eve night, which seems like a pagan custom we inherited.
There is also a carnival in the city of Vevchani that happens every year, where people wear pagan-like animal masks with skulls and horns, but it has also evolved into people wearing masks that parody politicians/people of current times.
Of course many religious customs are pagan . Easter eggs , Easter bunnies , Christmas elves , all those oak leaves etc are culture not God
Cutting trees, waiting, then burning, then transferring ashes to a different house hearth are weather manipulation rituals for agriculture. The Kelvins brought these practices.
@@TanyaRadic To make a distinction between god and culture seems a challenging task (looking from the outside)
@@arndbrack2339 you got it
Real religion is you and God. That "culture religion " is about traditions, events, customs, rules , judgements."
in NW india we do it in mid January
I have learned a lot
about the Slavic peoples by watching your videos
As I know, the western slavic name for Volvh was Žrec.
As far as I have come into contact with that word it seems to mean more "match maker" rather than a priest. This is not to say that the matchmaker didn't have priestly qualities but there is nothing in the sources explicitly stating that Žrec had any other function other than a matchmaker, where as, when it comes to Volkhv they are explicitly mentioned in the Eastern Slavic sources as priests. So Žrec could be a name for a priest, there's just no explicit evidence for it.
@@MLaserHistory From my understanding a Zhrets was more involved in sacrifices compared to a volkhv (related word: Proto-Slavic "žьrtva" meaning "sacrifice")
Well we have two different word for match-maker: 'dziewosłęb' and 'swat'. Very much indicator that 'żerc' is a priest is that in orthodox churches they call sacrifice 'żertwa' and table for sacrifice 'Żertwiennik'. I think that is enough to state that żerc is a Slavic word for 'the one who makes sacrifices'.
@@PolskiModziarz he said žrec not zerc.
@@neymarmessironaldo5881 and I said żerc not zerc - žrec and żerc it's the same word, different orthography
en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Slavic/%C5%BE%D1%8Cr%D1%8Cc%D1%8C
Interesting point about Svarog/Svarozic: There is a common mythological pattern attached to Indo-European Sun Gods fathering an incarnation of themselves as their own sons that's preserved in a few ways, an especially striking parallel being Surya/Karna as attested in the Mahabharata and Srimad-Devi Bhagavatam and Elatha/Bres in the Cath Maige Tuired. Not entirely sure that's really what's going on here, but it could be a plausible explanation.
This as well as a lot of other mythologemes related to the Divine War of the great IE epics seem to have been preserved a lot more conservatively than one may expect and therefore offer a great point of comparison for puzzling details in fragmentary traditions if one takes the time to familiarise himself with (admittedly very complicated) net of available sources. The book 'Taliesin's Map' by J. Dolan gives a great overview and some interesting insights into how the Mahabharata and Iliad stand in relation to the wider IE tradition at large and to the Irish/Welsh epic corpus specifically in that sense, and I can't recommend it enough! The author does some great work here on TH-cam as well
Awesome video. I really appreciate your research, for I didn't know much about slavic history and also it is not so easy for a normal history enthusiast to get hold and work through those sources, so thank you for your work. I really really loved the paintings you put in your video they are so beautiful, also the artists are people I have never heard of before so now I am googling them and their paintings.
I can’t wait to check out this video when I have some free time.
Got this recommended between a Charli XCX AMV and sausage making tutorial. Read the title and thought "yeah why not"
When a friend of mine sent this video to me, I thought "Oh, no, yet another crappy video about Slavic paganism!" Boy, was I wrong! This is a surprisingly well made video. I just have to mention that the most similar to Beowulf would pobably be "Slovo o polku Igoreve", but that is the closest one. Warmest regards from Montenegro!
I want nothing in the world so much as a strong union of Slavic countries
To be honest, it would mean "all Slavic countries dependend of Russia", because Russian panslavist were very kenn on strong union of Slavic countries... only under their rule.
@@mariahanczewska8109 not the worst option with proper planning
We did have that movement but then the Western Europeans destroyed it
Found the russian!!
@@mara3842 problems?𓆏
@25:35 - this background and the way the text appear on the screen looks like visual novel. When can we expect kawaii slavic, pagan waifu visual novel ?
If people will buy it I'll write it :D
It is fascinating the degree to which we may not be able to trust what we already do know. I remember it being brought up by the one Islamic traveler who met Scandanavians in Eastern Europe & wrote extensively of his stay with them that they had a whole thing about requesting women to die alongside a chief & have to imagine there could have been some cultural contamination going on, for all we know.
The big questions come in the point where these similar traditions & beliefs occured- before Christianity or after it.
The passage about a funeral you are referring to is by Ahmad ibn Fadlan and it is debated by historians whether that passage refers to Varangians or Slavs. You could also argue that at that point the pagan practices of the Slavs and the Norse settlers melded together in Eastern Europe but we simply don't know. Fadlan isn't very specific in his passage about what kind of Eastern European pagans he is actually describing when talking about the burning ship burial but to me it does seem more like a Norse burial than a Slavic one.
A video on Perun’s Axe amulets might be cool? Great video and thank you for posting. I just found out I’m 56% Slav and I’m trying to learn as much as I can!
You must be american...
@@shrekas2966 and you must be… a gatekeeper??
@@mezla_ yeah, why do you think theres hardly any sources on our religion?
I'm amazed how some of these names are still used in different regions of Poland one way or another. great video!
Sława!!
😒 Przybylska?
In my area we still do some pagan rituals like making a big bonfire and a "feast" and some parts of my country people still dress up in costumes to "scare off" the evil spirits, there are also "Rusali" which are men dressed up in traditional clothes and they do dances with swords or smth, there is also a city named Veles and we call fairies "Justvili" (самовили) interesting how paganism has left a mark on culture
Thank you for this. Not sure it's the right niche but if anyone's very (very) much into early Slavic history and warfare I strongly recommend Schwerpunkt's videos series. I'd love to see a coop. Keep up with the great work
1 min in already demonstrates deep understanding of the subject, im gonna stick around here
If comments could remind me to buy merch to boost algorithm while also reminding me i would appreciate that.
This is a reminder to buy the merch, if you want to. If not, it's ok you don't.
16:16 as a Slav myself I find this connection with the Roman festival quite interesting. So far I thought Rusalia comes from the word for mermaid in Slavic languages (rusalka). But maybe it’s the other way around
12:53 Mokoš reminds me of a polish word Kokosz which, as I thought, meant a hen. Because we have a saying "Grosz do grosza a będzie kokosza" which means "A penny to a penny and there will be a hen" meaning that when you save money you will have prosperity but now I think: what if it was "Grosz do grosza a będzie Mokosza?" Because when you save money you have prosperity?
We also have Rusalii in Romania, you should make something about pre slavic balkanic rituals also, some also got assimilated by slavs.
Also we have strigoi(the undead)
A popular song about strigoi is from Powerwolf "Armata Strigoi"
Many European languages actually have the word striga, it's just taken from Latin. As for Romania, that is a very complicated one because we have even less information about Dacian and later Valach folk practices let alone "paganism". Rosalia could have easily been a Romanian thing since it's a latin word that was appropriated by the Slavs but we only have early medieval references of Slavs celebrating such festivals not latin speaking people who at that point were mostly christian. So whether Slavs took the entire festival, than just the name, from Latin speaking people or Balkan/Easter European Latin speaking people took it from the Slavs, which is why you have Rusalii in Romania, is impossible to know for sure and since there's only early medieval Slavic written references about it historians attribute it to the Slavs.
@@MLaserHistory there is Mărțişor which is derived from Mars as an example of pagan greco-roman tradition throughout the balkans, and I think there are much more, dacians weren't documented so much, but their south relatives the thracians and illyrians had some influence on south slavs/and other balkanic people. Also Orpheus, (Dyonisus most likely) is a thracian influence on hellenism.
@@MLaserHistoryanother example which I have in mind is "Dragobete", some pre slavic balkanic Valentine's Day.
My Polish side of my family came in the USA in the 1890s. I often wonder about the beliefs of my ancestors and I really appreciate that you make these videos since this information isn’t too easy to come by. Thanks!
I do happen to live in Poznań might have to visit that museum
I'm from Portugal and i love Paganism and i do hope to one day create a new Portugal 2.0 where Paganism and Robotics and Technological progress could become our national heritage... For too long my Portugal have been dominated by the corrupt Catholic Church and i do hope to one day free Portugal from the chains of catholicism and return its Pagan roots
We don't have surviving examples of Slavic writing systems, but there is some circumstantial evidence that it existed. Not much, but I could dig it up if anybody is interested.
Please do!
I only heard about the cow rib with germanic runes that was found alongside Prague type pottery.
There is currently no evidence. There's just some nationalistic Slavic people trying to present random markings as a "writing system". At best Slavs used markings for personal marks ("names"), at best.
@simoncejka9121 Tomorrow I will look up English sources... If there are any ^^". But I can give you right off the bat a short list:
- There is archeological evidence that some sort of knot system was used. I mean that on a piece of rope, you had knots in a sequential manner. Used for counting most probably.
- Certain chronicle mention that old Slavic Idols had written names of the gods in the base. Sadly those idols were destroyed and never recovered.
- This may be pseudo-science, but there are pieces of armor with a new, untranslated runic system. Slavs could have adopted them from the Norse although Polish supremacists claim it the other way around.
- There is also a hypothesis that the Glagolict script was the original Slavic script that was claimed to be invented to protect it.
Not much, but there is something. With the chronicle one being the strongest.
Slavs definitely appropriated Latin, Greek, and Runic letters, there's attested evidence for that. What I am saying is that there is no "Slavic writing system". Counting/numbers is a whole other story.
@MLaserHistory Fair enough. You just used a very definitive statement: "Early Slavs didn't have a writing system.". I personally find it unlikely for two reasons. First is as you mention an almost complete lack of surviving material evidence of that period. Making any definitive statement unwarranted. Second, it would be weird if Slavs didn't adopt a writing system being surrounded by cultures that possess it.
That being said I can completely agree that we don't have any evidence that Slavs had an original writing script. They could, but we have no proof of that.
Really well made video!!! When i clicked on it i wasnt expect to watch an entire 30 minutes of it but i was dissapointed when it ended haha
18:00 Rusalii have not "died out". In Ukrainian villages and some small towns there still are so called "Zeleni sviata" (or Green fests) which "Rusalnyi tyzhden`" (or Rusal week, or Rusalii) is a part of.
There still are old people who perform the "leading of a Bush / a Poplar /a Rusalka" -- ritual of leading dead out of village via impersonating them in a girl who is dressed in "zelen" (which means "green" or "plants"). After whole village walks out into wildenress they took "zelen" off a girl and leave it there. This is the end of Rusalii -- "provody rusalok".
There still is a song which literally spells "provedu ia rusalochky" ("i will lead rusalky out"), which is sang in those villages during this rite. And young people of today are beginning to take example of their grandmothers celebrating this too. Although it is still rare among younger and current generation, being mostly a thing to do by the oldest of people and their friends and relatives.
Who said died? Rusalii are also celebrated in Romania(he said actually)
That's interesting to know that the Rusalia festival might be still alive in some parts of the world. Something an anthropologist or a cultural historian at some university could do research into. In the current academic material the Rusalia festival has been classified as extinct, hence why I said it in the video, but new research can always be added to the corpus.
@@MLaserHistory, I guess a big problem is a language and connection barrier left after russification and centuries of propaganda that anything western is false and evil. There are whole books made by anthropologists in Ukraine, that have documented what people think of rusalkas as by 2010-s, how they imagine them, how Rusalii are celebrated and so on. See works of Volodymyr Halaichuk, for example.
Problem is they are in Ukrainian and are received limited publishing in Ukraine only (best scenario) or in russian and were published in both countries only to be lost for good after russian government made in clear they don't want them to exist (worst scenario).
As a Master in Religious Studies I am staring right in this vortex of misunderstanding, when looking for sources out of our local scientific bubble. For I am writing a thesis about animism as an integral part of local onthology, so I try to study influences made by larger context and surrounding cultures only to get amused how little world knows of us.
We were long overshadowed by russian self-marketing and world's interest to this marketed culture. Same goes for a lot of local ethnicities in russia's lands, for Belorus, Crimean Tatars and many more.
Hope this will change soon. There is so much to be shared.
Well, "Zeleni sviata" is still a common thing, even in big cities (have you seen Lviv those days?), but in its simpliest form. Mostly by just decorating houses (and sometimes other things, like buses lol) with Acorus calamus or tree branches. So it's not surpricing that more complex tradition could survive in remote places.
yes exactly 💚 in Ukraine we are trying to celebrate these days and to keep the tradition alive.
I can definitely see the overlap with Germanic polytheism, albeit since I have noticed many place names which were historically Germanic especially before the migration period but partially after it too there's a risk for spatial bias in the information we have. I could imagine it's likely both the case that indo-europeans started out with vaguely the same belief structure, spatially diversified, but were also in constant exchange with the modifier of speed (ie in places where you have a lot of trade, ideas spread faster).
From the sourses i read in both Serbian and Russian, my conclusion is that Svarog was the original creator God, the one that crafted the universe and everything in it and then left it for his children to rule, which fits with the theme of a God of crafting. Dazbog is supposedly the eldest son, and ive seen him associated with both fire and the sun (and war, specifically the heat of war, this is important as a lot of slavic Gods are war Gods, but usually represent different aspects of war, similar to how Greek Gods do). I've seen Perun also listed as one of Svarogs sons, and different groups of slavs venerated different sons/Gods as the head gods, Dazbog being worshiped by the polabians and other groups, Perun by most, and ever far eastern slavs worshiping Veles as the head God, as they did more hunting and cattle breeding compared to other groups. Frankly, I believe Svarozic appears so much not because its one God, but a general term for one of Svarogs sons, sorta like an epitaph.
Also, would like to add that Veles was defenitely worshiped at least within the south slavs aswell, not just eastern ones, Macedonia even has a city called Veles, granted, first mentions of the place are in ancient greek but the name is the same, even in ancient greek, and from what ive asked around, it seems to be borrowed and not actually greek, so it might even be evidence of early slavic migrations into the Balkans! Also, there are two more Gods that were spread out throughout slavs, Morana and Vesna. Morana being related to the proto indo-european mora/mara that is the root of the mare part of nightmare in most European languages. Morana was the goddess of winter, and natural death, and effigies of her are still burned by certain slavs, especially eastern slavs during the Maslenitsa festival, marking the end of winter and the start of spring (its worth noting that this is the leading theory but some also believe that the effigy might be Kostroma, a local fertility goddes, personally, i think both might be correct, where it was originally a depiction of Morana but in certain groups that aspect got lost and replaced with a different newer God, which isnt that far fetched as most eastern slavs these days call the effigy Lady Maslenitsa and dont associate it with either of them). The second godess thats more pervasive is the goddess Vesna, the goddess of spring and fertility (Fertility and war are common traits associated with slavic Gods), and while with the southern slavs, its just the name of the Godess and only is sometimes used as a pseudonym for spring in old poetry, in eastern slavic languages, it is their actual word for spring! (something that greatly infuriated me when i was there since noone seems to know this lore tid bit but me)
@@dimitrijearsenijevic5597A village near Ohrid is called Velestovo. In the south, if you want to go to Volos , you take the exit VELESNICA, a five km.before reaching Volos (Veles). There is Serbian VELESNICA as well.There is Velestovo in Crna Gora.
Maby the name originates from Venetian-Pelasgian -protoslavic time.
Wonderful work! I’ve always been sad that our ancestors folklore is mostly gone.
thank you so much for this video, trying to study old paganism as a south slav is so frustrating since 99% of sources just use russian/eastern slavic pagan gods and legends as a representation of what ALL slavs believed 😭
Well....i think that the maškare and paljenje Pusta on the Adriatic is about chasing the winter out? Ok, it's not really for solstice, but i remember that, when i was a child, we used to jump over the bonefire from Pust for good luck.
And as to zvončari, Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria and many others have them too.
I haven’t finished the video (about 10 minutes in) but I couldn’t help but notice a common thread between the multi-named Dažbog(?) and many Hindu Gods. I myself am a Hindu.
I would personally theorize it’s a case similar to Shiva. Rudra, Pashupati and Shiva are all names for a similar deity from VERY different times. Pashupati is pre-Vedic Marrappan religion, meaning “Lord of the Animals,” Rudra is Sanskrit and from Vedic religion, meaning “The Roaring One” OR “The God who Makes You Cry.” Shiva is a name that may have come around briefly after the Vedic period, and what few times the name Shiva is mentioned in the Vedas, it is often used as an epithet for Rudra.
It only so happens that as time passed, the name Shiva stuck; that’s not to say the other names are gone. In mantras, sometimes we say “om namo bhagavate rudraya.”
Three very different names with three very different cultural backgrounds, but ultimately, believed to be the same entity.
That’s my theory, anyway.
Have always been curious of this. Very excited to watch this video
This is a nice channel, but I always forget I'm subscribed to it. And then I see a new video, and think "oh, a new video from LazerPig! But what a weird title... " 😎
Verry interesting subject, now I'll watch the video. I just thought someone would find this confusion amusing.
Good video!
I find these topics really interesting... I'd love to find reliable material of other kinds of paganism like Lithuanian, Hungarian (even less sources yey)
Ou yeah, sources about that are just, uff, very little. Any videos on those topics would have even more 'ifs' and 'buts' than this video has. Turns out it's hard to try to figure out pagan practices based from only external and or christian sources.
Yes - (as I understand it) in the Hungarian case at least the few sources are not only from a Christian perspective but focus on mythological history instead of the religion itself and are written a few centuries after the conversion. Apart from that everything is just fragments in folklore :(
This makes me wonder how many beliefs of entire groups of people are completely lost to time. Had the same thought a few days ago reading about ancient sites (like Göbekli Tepe, Lepenski Vir in Serbia with the fish statues, etc.) It's a curiosity that will never be fulfilled.
Well essentially they are the same it's more about regional intersection then Linguistic differences. Through millennia it got so diluted that similarities are common. Like I see here that slavs created mithos of werewolves although in last video Kraut said it was of Baltic origin. Instead of getting at each others throughouts, as is tradition, I just say it's regional myth. And the region essentially is the European plains divided by dinpro
Long time no see
Turns out doing a PhD is a lot of work 😅 and there's not much time left for TH-cam
"He returned when we needed him the most"
@@MLaserHistory my man IS doing a PhD and TH-cam essays, you are the true Perun
@@komnenosdoukas7201oh no, now there's two of them!
(The other one is that military-procurement-powerpoints channel with similarly strong work ethics that is literally called Perun)
@@MLaserHistory What is your PhD. Thesis?
Really enjoyed this one, close to home, long ago, different lives. ❤
09:00 It is also possible that Svarozhych is a Dazhboh. Who is Svarog's son.
Anything is possible with those 3 gods. There's just not enough information to really know. Plus, as I said, their veneration probably differed across a geographical and temporal space, so to some Slavic tribe somewhere they all could have just been one god.
@@MLaserHistory, true.
Svarog - Father
Svarozic - Son
Dazbog - Holy Spirit..?
I'm disappointed you didn't have any further information about Czernobog. When I google I get mostly Disney character references (frustrating). I don't even know why I'm so curious about him, but I am. My ancestors came from Eastern Prussia and Germany and I'm drawn to the Slavic mythology and folk tales. However, this was an excellent video full of very good information and I appreciate your research and presentation.
As far I as I know Czernobog has only been mentioned in one written source where he was associated with the devil, but every Slavic pagan deity was associated with the devil by the christians so that doesn't tell us much.
@@MLaserHistory Thank you for the reply! Yes, all pagan deities were associated with their Devil, except for the ones incorporated into the pantheon of saints in the Catholic religion. Funny how that works out. Maybe it's the mystery surrounding Czernobog that draws me to him. I do love a good mystery. You have a great channel!
There was also a slavic goddess by the name of Morena. She was the goddess of winter and death and even now (at least in Slovakia) some folk esenbels engage in the tradition of making a female doll similar to scarecrow representing Morena, lighting it up and tossing it to a river to symbolize the ending of winter.
Mara, Marena in russian
The last thing I expected to hear about was Slavic Satii, but it's fascinating to see the similarities across pagan cultures as far away as eastern Europe and India.
"Sacrificing foreigners" I guess our (Slavic) love towards foreigners persists to this day :D
HAHAHH omg I wasnt expecting that :'D
In Ukraine we still celebrate a holiday that comes from pagan times. The name is "Kupayla". It is celebrated during summer solstice. People would go to the forest in the night to find a fern flower, which doesn't exist, but is was believed, that it would flourish on that night. Than they would dance around the fire, make wreaths and jump over the fire place! Personally i love this holiday!!
I needed something to play while I cooked and didn't expect to be jumpscared by my hometown, not to mention that the museum is in the same building as my high school, so double jump scare. I'm happy they are getting some clout tho
Modern Slavic neo-pagans (at least in Poland, where I am from) would heavily disagree with this video and the sources included.
Just to be clear, I am NOT one, but I used to know one, who, insisted heavily, that either there was no human sacrifice conducted or when it was this was a great honour of some kind. His main source for these claims were what he called "przekazy" which I guess means just oral tradition with no source that one could track down.
Obviously, we need to take into account that there is pretty much no continuity between the ancient Slavic religion and the modern system of beliefs that claim to be the successors of the former, whereas the latter seems to be formed within our modern, liberal social framework.
I think your homie mixed up germanic and slavic. The germanics had honour from a glourious death, so a brave sacrifice to the gods would stick to the theme. But slavs didnt have valhalla waiting for them.
@@skin4700 Całkiem prawdopodobne, polscy neopoganie to całkiem ciekawa gromadka.
@@mariahanczewska8109 kad sam proučavao povijest naših poganskih predaka našao sam da su ipak imali ljudske žrtve. ali ipak su bili ratni zarobljenici ili robovi. tako da nije bilo nikakve časti u tome
@@skin4700 we actually don't know if slavic pagans had anything similar or anything at all waiting for them. Probably they had something since all had some version of afterlife.
@@TheLocochico thats wrong the afterlife was a medow
This is perfect timing considering I just finished an archaeological field school in Giecz!
Cheers from an American archeologist-now-tourist in Poznań!
"Dont praise the field work until the harvest is secured"
"Dont praise the wife until she is burned on the funeral pyre"
Odin. Havamal.
well tbh he was right although I would add man not just wife.
5:47 Oh, the guy with the PowerPoint presentations!
there's a settlement near dubrovnik in croatia named mokoš-ica (after the goddess) so it's not just eastern europe she was known in, though i understand this wouldn't be easy information to come by
Yes the Slavs lived in a large are; but they probably lived close to each other as late as 400 AD. Linguistically their languages had not changed so much at the end of the pagan time so the religion could have been quite uniform.
Ok so it says it all - which is nothing we didn’t expect - in the first minute.
this video reminds me of an interaction i had with my friend Morena (pronounced like Marina), where when i found out the spelling of her name, i mentioned how shes named after a slavic goddess, and she got so confused just thinking its one of those quirky spelling cases ahahaha
Awesome video. Another example, the figure of Baba Yaga is also prominent in all Slavic cultures
I'm from Croatia and I remember hearing the word mokoš in a nurrsery rhyme that's bassicly simulates a witches magical invocation
Man I forgot about that one, thank you for reminding me. I remember someone singing that to me when I was a kid
10:37 They are different Gods though simultaneously can be said to same yet different because the roles are melded together because they are connected to Fire/Light aspect.
Very excited to watch this Witcher lore video
Very good video. Thank you for your hard work and research!
Those people were forced to intentionally forget, and they forced to adopt Christianity. They were given the ultimatum of live as free Christians or die. Those religious documents are evidence of ignorance, gaslighting, and narrsassistic abuse.
Who was going to kill them if they refused to convert? A couple of Greek missionaries? 😂
@@vaska1999 you're adorable. Go pick up a history book ;)
Yeah thats how half of all conversion in history happend.
I mean how else would you convert the barbarians? Ever heard of the czech missionary sent to prussia that was killed and had his body bought out by the polish king? People back then were idiotic and didnt realize how many benefits christianity brought with itself allowing nations to actually prosper. Alot of pagans actually converted because christianity promised them heaven and a more ethical way of life, dont act like these pagans would spare any christian in case of a victorious civil war because I can already see the stakes
what a goofy comment
20:22 Thank you for this mention along with the source. 21:17 So there is death by drowning mentioned. This is definitely Indo-European ancient ritual because India or rather Vedic religion has had mentions of Sati.
Can this be categorized as human sacrifice because it involves killing humans?
Hey, I work with Fulbright. Would you mind telling me more about the nature of your partnership? I’m super curious to hear more!
They sponsored an American to conducted research at a Polish university into the online history communication in Poland and to facilitate an increase in Polish museum based communication of history online. Therefore, I was brought on by that person as a history communication "expert" to work with a Polish museum on a collaboration and this video is the result of that. I received no money for this work (other than the monetization on this video obviously) but since I am also working on a public history PhD at Cambridge I was more than happy to help.
Hello,
great video
at 13:11 the painting you label as Mokosh
is actually Zhiva of Andrey Shishkin
I know, for Svarozic I also used a different picture than was labeled by the artist. For some of the gods there simply aren't good pictures of them so I had to improvise. It's all explained in the pinned comment. With that said, there is a theory that Ziva is just a Western Slavic equivalent of Mokosh so they might be the same goddess just with two different names.
have you heard about utopiec, poroniec, and many others? all related to people without propper burial. I also reccomend to check out dziady
As always, amazing video, you are one of the last in-depth well-edited varied-topic history TH-camrs without any major sourcing controversy (Historia Civilis comes to mind)
@@julioblanco8400 bro used a canadian communist from 1920s to prove that clocks caused capitalism 🤣🤣🤣
Did Historia Civilis have a controversy, haven't checked them in years.
Very good video! May I just ask what is the Bohemian Chronicle that you are referring to in relation to the vampire/werewolf section?
Compendium of the Roman and Bohemian Chronicle by Jan Neplach c. 1360.
@@MLaserHistory Thank you
Kupala on summer solstice in Balkans, aren't linked to St. John the Baptist as with Western Slavs, the bonfires remained (called "Ivanjske baklje" in Croatia and Bosnia) but the term "kupala" only exists in refernce to old pagan mythology mostly dissasociated with Christianity, suggesting that Kupala (suggesting some sort of "spiritual" bathing in fire) was the common name for the summer solstice festival, and likewise Koleda (which is still used for Christmas caroling) for the winter solstice one.
In serbia we still burn fire on crossroads and jump over it on Saturday week before orthodox easter and people say it is to protect you from witches
Also in Russia, Kupala night
Veles is not only an eastern Slavic God, he was worshipped by South Slavs as well. North Macedonia literally has a city named after him just under a mountain top named Perun, and it's Vele(S) not Vele(Š).
Mokosh also in Croatia. Part of city Dubrovnik is still named Mokoshica/Mokoš-ica , the place of Mokoš. And the name Dubrovnik is derived from oak (dub = oak), the place of oak wood
Very informative presentation. Thanks
Very interesting
Around the end of winter in 2000s we still had this tradition of Burning or Drowning a doll called "Marzanna". Which was supposed to end the winter time. xDD
I don't know if children still do this.