Fakelore and istina in Slavic tradition
One of the goals of Witia project is to propagate the Slavic culture. Which is why, with great joy I look at ever growing popularity of Slavic traditions and beliefs, also among non-Slavic speaking people. Unfortunately, as it always happens, every stick has two ends, and in the case of ever growing popularity of everything Slavic, the other end is ever growing number of misunderstandings, myths and plain hogwash, which more and more often are being packed up and sold as Slavic. Over the last few years, with increasing amazement, I’ve been watching how these misunderstanding, myths and hogwash spread among budding Rodnovers, who seem to believe it like it was a divine revelation. I’ve tried to correct and explain it, one at a time, but to be perfectly honest, I am fed up with typing individual comments under individual posts. Therefore I decided to deal with the spread of fakelore (do not confuse with folklore), and put today’s post against the false Slavic “wisdom” pushed (mainly) in posts on social media.
Some of the many modern Slavic symbols, from Symbolikon
Slavic symbols
Slavic social media are full of allegedly ancient Slavic symbols, like swastika, kolovrat, the symbol of Veles or “the hands of God”. These symbols are drawn, carved, burned out and tattooed on various items or body parts, photographed and shared, often with an accompanying information on their mystical meaning. However, despite huge popularity of such Slavic symbolism, not many of the inspired Slavic propagators seem to be aware, that only very few of these graphical representations can be called ancient and not a single one is exclusively Slavic.
Lets take, for example, “the hands of God”. This symbol was found on so called ashtray from Biała, a vessel definitely ancient (dated to the II-III century CE, so to Antiquity), but was drawn by people of Przeworsk culture, so not by Slavs, but most likely Germanic people. Moreover, nothing indicates that “the hands of God” actually symbolise hands of God. Considering other drawings on the ashtray (a 3D reconstruction of the ashtray you can see here), it might as well be hands of hunters or other community’s members. After all, all the characters on the vessels are shown to have rake-like hands. The modern interpretation and name of this symbol has been invented by a Polish actor, director, translator and paranormal/parapsychology writer Lech Emfazy Stefański, who was trying to back up his own reconstruction of the religion of pre-Christian Slavs, which he saw as henoteistic, so having many deities, but only one superior God. In order to back up his claims Stefański needed some sort of “evidence”, so he used the symbol from the ashtray, interpreting it as “the hands of God” (the superior one), holding the whole world.
The story of swastika is a little bit different. Majority of modern people see swastika as related to Nazism, however from a historical point of view, the few decades of swastika being a logo of Hitler’s ideology, is really just a short spell, comparing to at least a dozen of thousands of years of the history of this symbol. The firsts swastikas known to archaeologists were found on objects dated to Palaeolithic (Stone Age) period, when mammoths still walked the Earth. Back in those days Slavs, Slavic languages, Slavic religion or symbols were a good 10 thousands years away. As the migration of humans progressed, swastikas as symbols of Sun and good fortune spread all over the world. Of course Slavs ended up using this symbol too, but it’s impossible to call it typically Slavic, because it was commonly used by many different cultures in Europe, Asia, Africa and even North America.
As opposed to “hands of God” and swastika (or kolovrat, its “multi-pointed” version), the commonly used nowadays symbol of Veles is neither ancient not medieval or Slavic. Unfortunately I do not known who designed this symbol, but I am 100% sure it did not exist before the XXI century. Personally the first time I encountered this logo was around 2010. From what I know it came somewhere form Russia, perhaps from the circles of the sect of Ynglists. I’ve heard an opinion, that this logo is an adaptation of an early-medieval pendant, found near Hluk (Czech republic), but I am not able to confirm the validity of this opinion.
From the above it follows that none of the modern symbols of Slavic Native Faith is any sort of ancient, Slavic, traditional symbol and none originates in Slavic tradition. At best we can say that some of the symbols can be traced back to Indo-European tradition. Of course it does not mean that these symbols are false or that they should not be used. Every social, political or religious movement needs a symbol and the symbols that are currently used in Rodnovery are as good as any other symbol would be. However, what is false and should be seen as fakelore, is calling these symbols ancient or traditional (instead of calling them what they are, so symbols of modern Rodnovery), insisting (like in the case of swastika) on using them as Slavic and traditional, without mentioning their palaeolithic origins, and ignoring their negative connotations among the non-Rodnovery majority of the society.
Slavic runes
Albeit the perception of modern Slavic symbols can be seen as a misunderstanding (confusing ancient and modern or Slavic with palaeolithic), the more and more popular nowadays Slavic runes should be qualified more as a myth. Similarly to other mythical creatures (like unicorns or dragons) Slavic runes are present in the imagination, fantasy novels (including the Witia book series 😉) and on social media, although nobody has ever seen Slavic runes with their own eyes, and we “know” of their existence from medieval manuscripts.
There are only circumstantial premises, suggesting that the pre-Christian Slavs used a system of writing – runic or any other type. The chronicle of Thietmar of Merseburg mentions that in the temple in Rethra the statues of Slavic Gods had inscriptions with the names of these Gods. Unfortunately we don’t know the content of these inscriptions, nor do we know in what way and using what type of writing these inscriptions were made. It is possible that the Polabian Slavs used runes – the writing system borrowed from their Germanic neighbours – but it could as well have been a different, not alphabetic system of writing: pictograms, ideograms or other graphic symbols, like for example, the symbols traditionally used to decorate pysankas or Ukrainian rushnyks.
Not that long ago the whole world of Slavophiles became electrified by the report of discovering within a VI-VII century Slavic settlements a piece of bone with carved six out of the last eight letters ((ᛏ, ᛒ, ᛖ, ᛗ, ᛞ i ᛟ) of elder futhark, the oldest known runic alphabet. The alphabetic order of the runes, as well as the microscopically confirmed hesitation marks on the surface of the bone suggested that the person who carved the runes was an inexperienced writer and that the bone itself was a type of workbook. The discovery made in archaeological site Břeclav-Lány leaves no doubts that among pre-Christian Slavs there lived once at least one person knowing the runic alphabet and at least one who was learning it. However it is not possible to say for sure if any of these persons was Slavic, because they might as well have been Germanic.
The lack of evidence for Slavic runes does not stop all sorts of “researchers” or propagators of ancient Slavic wisdom. In the recent years books, posts or YouTube videos on Slavic runes have been published in large numbers, most commonly in the context of magic, rituals or divination. It’s not such a big deal if the creators (or rather fabricators) of such materials make their content available for free. But many of them use the mythical Slavic runes in order to make money, so I would like to encourage anyone who is interested in purchasing such publications, to immediately abandon this interest. Unless, of course, you wish to put your money down the drain.
The family tree of Slavic Gods
After the misunderstanding and the myths, it’s time to move to the hogwash, like the super-popular nowadays feuds and complex family connections of the Slavic Gods. From Brandon Noble, through Patricia Woodroof to Survive the Jive, the level of complexity of these connections and feuds is inversely proportional to the level of knowledge on Slavic culture, tradition or any of the many Slavic languages. In the name of self-advertising, collecting likes and (of course) increasing the sales, the fabricators of such Slavic hogwash describe with details the “eternal” feud between Perun an Veles, the convoluted twists in the history of monogamic marriages of Slavic Gods and the stories of children born within these marriages. It seems that the leaders among the hogwash’s propagators are English-speaking Slavophiles, most commonly inspired by Nordic mythology, but, unfortunately, I have also came across Slavic-speaking fabricators of such BS.
The problem with the Slavic Gods lies in the fact that we know very, very little about Them. As I’ve mentioned many times on the pages of Witia’s blog, the sources on the religion of our ancestors are scarce, there is no direct sources, and on the topic of Slavic theology we know even less than on Slavic religion. The chronicles give us names of some Gods (for example Perun, Veles, Mokosh, Dazhbog, Svarozhits, Siwa/Zhiva, Triglav, Stribog), some of these names can be confirmed linguistically or through folklore analysis. About some Slavic Gods we know only that they existed, because the chronicles (like for example the Procopius of Caesarea’s History of the Wars) mention Them namelessly. Other chronicles, like for example Chronica Boemorum, describes Slavic Gods using interpretatio romana, so identifying Slavic Gods with Their (as it’s assumed) Roman equivalents. This is why we know that the Polabian Slavs made sacrifices to Gods similar to Roman Jupiter, Mars, Bellona and Ceres. In Roman mythology these Gods are related, but it is impossible to say if it was the same with Their Slavic “versions”.
With regards to marriages of the Slavic gods, the folklore of the Southern Slavs suggest that (one of?) Perun’s wife(s) could be Perperuna or Dodola, but this theory is supported only by some scholars, while others completely reject it. The family ties look a little bit “better”. The Primary Chronicle mentions kinship between Dazhbog (son) and Svarog (father), and linguistic analysis (patronymic suffix -zhits) suggests the same relation between Svarozhits (son) and Svarog (father). And that is pretty much all of the “better” kinship stuff.
The historical sources don’t mention anything about Slavic Gods’ marriages being monogamic. Which is not a big surprise, because, given polygamy being acceptable among the early medieval Slavs, monogamy of their Gods would be an extremely unlikely occurrence. We know that having many wives was considered a symbol of status among our pre-Christian ancestors, it is therefore very hard to believe, that the Gods of the Slavs, by definition living in wealth and abundance, for some unknown reason would decide to have only one wife, if, being Gods, they could easily afford to have more.
Historical sources and Slavic folklore don’t confirm or indicate any sort of more or less eternal feuds or wars between Slavic Gods, of which the fakelorists like to write so much. Quite the opposite, wherever we look, be it Slavic creations myths, or medieval chronicles, Slavic Gods seem to be rather cooperating than fighting. Pretty much in every Slavic creation myth, there are two characters (Devil and God, or, for example, two doves) working together to create the world, or rather – the land. It has to be pointed out, that during the, described in folklore, creation of the land, a few basic elements of the world already are existing: there is water (from which the land emerges), sand (from which the land is created) or stones (which are used to create the sky). So we not only have cooperating Gods, but also elements (water, sand, stones), which seem to be at least as old as Gods and don’t seem to be created by Them. What more, how can we suspect any sort of feud between for example, Perun and Veles, if, as we can read in the Primary Chronicle, the peace treaty between Byzantium and Rus’ was sworn (on the Rus’ side) simultaneously on Perun and Veles. If these Gods were in any sort of eternal feud, our ancestors wouldn’t have called upon Them to witness the same oath!
The Book of Veles, Slavo-Aryan Vedas
The Book of Veles is by far the biggest hogwash in the whole fakelore universe of the modern Slavs. This book was allegedly written down on wooden tablets and supposedly “discovered” in 1919 in near Velykyi Burluk (Ukraine). The “original” of the Book of Veles did not survive the 2nd World War, this is why the only copy available to scholars was pre-war photographs of wooden tablets. However the content of these tablets was enough hogwash-y to allow linguists and historians to undoubtfully identify the Book of Veles as a forgery.
Unfortunately, as it often goes nowadays, the experts say one thing, and people know better anyway. The same anti-science wave that caused a terrifying comeback of nearly eradicated diseases such as measles, whooping cough or polio, allowed the Book of Veles to infect the Slavic culture too. A few neopagan Slavic sects (RUNVira, Ynglism) took the book as their holy scripture. Apart of the Book of Veles the Ynglists also consider Slavo-Aryan Vedas as their holy writings. Ynglists claim that Slavo-Aryan Vedas were written down in ancient times and passed down to modern times by generation of Siberian folk. The Vedas are written in Slavo-Aryan runes (the mythical ones I wrote about before). To make it even more ridiculous, Ynglists also believe that Slavo-Aryan Vedas were the original source for Norse Eddas. But what it terrifying with regards to these writings, is that they are used to teach that a woman cannot possibly live (literally – she will die) without the protection of “manly” strength, that giving birth to children makes women live longer, that sex without conception is a sin, and any relationships with not-Slavic partners contaminate the soul of a Slav.
The concept characteristic for the Book of Veles are Yav (the world of the supernatural) and Prav (the world of the mortals). The concepts characteristic for Slavo-Aryan vedas are: racial purity, sexual temperance/abstinence and, recently gaining popularity in Poland, Slavic gymnastics, based on developed by Ynglists “Slavic” yoga. For those interested in the bizarre, I am going to only quickly mention that the Slavic gymnastics is promoted as traditional Slavic form of physical exercise, which in its version for women, is supposed to “influence in a certain way the hormonal system” and cause “the body to become womanly in a way the nature intended”. It’s beside the point that “traditional” Slavs did not have neither time nor need for physical exercise, because they regularly exerted themselves while working on their farms, but I would only like to point out the typical Slavo-Aryan concepts of women, who, in order to be natural, have to do something about their bodies, otherwise they won’t be able to be natural.
But leaving the bizarre on the side – it is strongly recommended to, if encounter Yav, Prav, racial purity or Slavic yoga, be aware that all of this, however pretty it’s presented, originates in commercial Slavic fakelore, therefore it would be wise to stay away.
To summarise the topic of fakelore I’d like to mention a beautiful Slavic word istina, which is present in its original form in many modern Slavic languages, like Russian, Serbian (истина) or Ukrainian (істина)[i]. Istina is often translated into English as “truth”, but it means more than truth. It means the reality it it’s most real and truthful form. It describes the irrefutable and unquestionable facts about the reality. The istina of modern Slavic native Faith is the lack of sources, the lack of information and lack of reliable knowledge on the topic of, for example, the Gods of our ancestors. As Rodnovers, out of respect for the tradition of our ancestors, we should accept the istina, accept that things are, like they are. Making up the missing elements by inventing some BS, that is inconsistent with the istina, is not a reconstruction. It is falsifying the wisdom, that our ancestors passed over to us through generations of Slavs. If the tradition cultivated by our ancestors did not have place for monogamy, feuds or racial purity, we must not make place for it in our modern Rodnovery practice.
The strength of Slavic tradition lies in its longevity, its ability to survive and be carried through hundreds of years of Christianisation and rooting out. The longevity and strength of our tradition indicate that it must have been helpful for generations of Slavs – otherwise they would not have practiced it. Slavic tradition helped our ancestors to survive, to understand the world, build lasting relationships and interact with the world (including the supernatural) in a more fruitful way, bringing growth and abundance. Our ancestors preserved for us the istina – that, which is most important. We must not let it die. We must not let it be forgotten. We must appreciate it and value it higher than the misunderstanding, myths and hogwash of the modern fakelore.
Slava!
Bibliography
W. Brożyna „Ręce Swaroga. Germańska symbolika w służbie słowiańskiego rodzimowierstwa”
J.A. Alvares-Pedrosa „Sources of Slavic pre-Christian Religion”
J. Macháček, R. Nedoma, P. Dreslera, I. Schulz, E. Lagonik, S. Johnson, L. Kaňáková, A. Slámová, B. Llamas, D. Wegmann, Z. Hofmanová “Runes from Lány (Czech Republic) – The oldest inscription among Slavs. A new standard for multidisciplinary analysis of runic bones”
A. Szyjewski „Religia Słowian”
K. Aitamurto “Paganism, Traditionalism, Nationalism: Narratives of Russian Rodnoverie”
[i] Although in Polish this word survived only in the form of “istota” (meaning “essence” or “being”), it was known in Old Polish as istność
