The authors comprehensively analyze all the available information regarding the ritual practices of Slavic pre-Christian religion that can be found in written medieval texts. After investigating every kind of reference to such practices, they offer a reconstruction of Slavic pre-Christian religion on the basis of these medieval testimonies. In doing so, they overcome the challenges presented by the fact that all of these sources are indirect, since the Slavs did not acquire literacy until they became Christians. Thus the writers of these texts mostly professed a monotheistic religion, being Christians and in some cases Muslims. The picture that they offer is biased and determined by their own faith. The present analysis innovatively combines testimonies from every Slavic area (Eastern, Western, and Southern), showing their mutual correspondences and emphasizing the relationship between the Slavic pre-Christian religion and its Indo-European roots.
- Front cover
- Half-title
- Series information
- Title page
- Copyright information
- Table of contents
- Introduction
- Chapter 1. Methodological Problems
in Reconstructing Pre-Christian
Slavic Religion
- Chapter 2. Fertility Rites
- Fertility Rites and Calendrical Rituals
- Fertility Rites Prior to Christianization
- The Description of a Harvest Ritual in the Sanctuary of Arkona
- The Sacred Lake of Glomuzi and the Auguries of Fertility
- A Festival at the Beginning of the Summer at Wolin
- Calendrical Rituals after Christianization
- Spring Festivals: Rusalia
- Other Spring Festivals in the Western Slavic Realm
- Rituals Related to Fertility Deities
- Rod and Rozhanitsy
- Svarozhich
- Hennil/Bendil
- Pereplut
- Wedding Rituals
- Chapter 3. Rites of Everyday Life
- Ritual and Daily Life
- Oaths and Pledges
- Divination
- Travelling and Trading
- Healing
- Chapter 4. Military Rituals
- Rituals before Combat
- Rituals during Combat
- Rituals after Combat
- Military Rituals during Peacetimes
- Chapter 5. Funerary Rites
- Conclusions
- Bibliography
- Index
- Was the Concept of the Afterlife Unknown to the
Pre-Christian Slavs?
- Funerary Rites among the Pre-Christian Slavs
- Cremation
- Funerary Banquet
- Ritual Sacrifice of the Widows
- Votive Victims
- The Baths of the Dead
- Festivals to Honour the Dead
- Self-immolation of the Warriors
- The Ritual Described by Ibn Faḍlān
- The Oath of Self-execration of the Warriors
- The Change of the Funerary Ritual and the Appearance of the Restless Dead in the Slavic Cultural Realm
- Slavic Vampires
- The Living Dead among the East Slavs
- Living Dead among the West Slavs
- The Aggressiveness of the Living Dead
- The Change of the Funerary Rite and the Origin of the Living Dead
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