[podcast's transcript] Other Slavic pagan celebrations
Sława everyone! Sława Bogom and welcome in yet another episode of Searching for the Slavic Soul, in which we'll be continuing the Rodnovery 101 series and we'll be talking about the celebrations in modern Native Faith. Last time we talked about the basic four celebrations based on the... Which were based on the solar cycle. It was really nice to hear that I did not bore you with it and that some of you actually found it useful. These messages, the feedback from you is super, super important for us and for me, and it really makes it all worth it, so, keep them coming. If you want of course. If you don't, you don't have to, obviously. Because you know it's a free country and hopefully it will stay this way.
Today I want to talk about yearly celebrations that are not related that much to the solar cycle, but are still a part of the calendar of holidays in Slavic Native Faith. The celebrations I will be talking about are not all the holidays celebrated by the modern Rodnovers, but they are, I think, the most established ones. I mean my choice is a bit arbitrary here and whether I like it or not, I do... I am a little bit biased by my strong bonds to Western Slavic paganism. But, well, I am going to do my best to include elements from other Slavic traditions to make it as useful to all our listeners as possible.
So, yeah, if any of these sounds Interesting, keep listening.
So, apart of the four main celebrations, the celebrations of two solstices and two equinoxes, Slavic Native Faith has many other regular yearly celebrations that follow the natural cycle of the seasons and the changes in nature. These holidays are not consistent throughout all the Slavic traditions, not as consistent as the main four ones, are but there's still enough consistency to be able to talk about it in the context of Slavic tradition, without having to split the hair into four or in this case into three so in the West, East and South Slavic tradition.
Stado and Rusalia
The celebration I want to start with today is a celebration that is particularly close to my heart, because it is one that's been literally brought back to life by a group of Polish Rodnovers, who did an absolutely amazing, really mind-blowing job reconstructing this celebration. The celebration is called Stado which in modern Polish means a herd like a herd of cattle or horses. We don't actually know whether the original celebration of Stado was called that, or if it was called something else and there is an ongoing debate with regards to that. Some historians think that Jan Długosz, the chronicler who recorded the name of this celebration in the year 1450 something, that he borrowed the name of the celebration from German language. And some think that Długosz, the chronicler, that he recorded the name accurately, so with no borrowings. I have to admit I'm not good enough in these sort of topics to be able to have an opinion about it, so I'm just going to say: the reconstructed celebration is called Stado because this is how its name was written by the 15th century chronicler. We don't exactly know what was the original meaning of this name but given similarity to the modern Polish word Stado, it could mean the gathering of people. Because this is what a herd, so in Polish “stado” is. It's a gathering of living beings like, you know, oxen, horses or people.
The way the Stado celebration was reconstructed is pretty awesome. The people who were involved in the reconstruction, they took proper multi-disciplinary approach. They looked into chronicles which mentioned an important pagan celebration that took place in the spring. The chronicles also mentioned that during this celebration dancing with swords took place and that the names of, we think, deities, depending on the chronicles the names were Lado, Jassa, Ylelli, Nija or Tya, and all these names were mentioned. And then the people who were reconstructing this celebration they looked into Slavic folklore, and they found a lot of these three elements, so the spring celebration, dancing with the swords and you know calling out the names mentioned by the chronicles. The reconstructors they found a lot of these elements present and in Slavic folklore and including the most famous tradition which is actually currently written on the UNESCO list of intangible cultural heritage, which is the spring procession of Ljelje/Kraljice which takes place every year in a village of Gorjani in Croatia. And after that the reconstructors they looked at even more historical data, both modern and medieval as well as anthropological data and actually connected without a doubt people in Croatia with people who live in Małopolska region in Poland. So, they proved recent cultural connection between people in Poland and people in Croatia, in order to be able to say: listen there is a lot of similarities between folklore in Poland and folklore in Croatia. It could have developed independently but we can prove that it has not. We can prove that these traditions have the same roots.
And this is just so amazing. I don't even have words to describe it. This is, really, how a reconstruction of Slavic Native Faith should look. It should be based on historical facts, on solid evidence, on multidisciplinary research and just, bloody, science. Which, by the way, all this research, data on which the reconstruction was done, it's all published on the internet all the sources and documents, they are there for everyone to see. So it can even be peer-reviewed if anyone wants to, kind of, you know, look into it in a critical way. So there's nothing mysterious here. Nothing is, you know, because I think so, or because, I don't know, I took shrooms, had a vision and this is what I saw. The people who reconstructed the Stado celebration, they have enough scientific approach to actually say: listen, we don't know what's the meaning of this celebration. We can tell you how it looked, we can tell you when it took place, we can tell you the names of deities or Gods that were called out, but as far as the meaning goes, we can only guess. And I just love this discipline of thinking, you know, the separating from what you know, and from what you think or suspect. This is really how it should be done, people.
Anyway, the Stado celebration is one of the celebrations that's outside of the solar cycle, but happens every year in the western and southern Slavic tradition. The Eastern Slavic tradition has a celebration that is called Rusalia and which has some elements of the Stado celebration but not all elements. And it also seems to have more to do with rusałki, which are Slavic demons that develop after the death of young unmarried girl. Obviously, after this girl doesn't receive a proper burial.
In both Stado and Rusalia there is focus on mostly unmarried girls but sometimes they are married woman too. But what's super, super important here that men, like males, biological males they can only take a supportive part in this celebration. So, they can play music or hold something or help to prepare for the celebrations, but the actual ritual elements like dancing and singing, it's done by girls and women, so biological females. Even if there is a character that it's male in the story, then a female will play this character.
In Rusalia, in the Eastern Slavic tradition the girls and women dance and sing to lead rusałki around the fields, which is believed to bring good luck and fertility. In Stado, in the western and southern tradition the girls dance with swords they sing and lead the actual Gods around the household to bring good luck and fertility.
Stado celebration is a spring celebration. It takes place between spring equinox and summer solstice. In modern tradition it takes place in the time that is called by Christian the green week, which is the last week before Pentecost. But it's really not possible to say when exactly did it take place originally, because, as I explained in detail in the last episode, the Christianisation of the Slavs really messed up the preservation of the Slavic Pagan tradition. Like, of the timing of the events in Slavic Pagan tradition. Still, if you want to celebrate it you want to celebrate it roughly 50 days after the first full moon after or on the Spring Equinox. So, basically, look up when the spring equinox is then look up when the first full moon is on or directly after the spring equinox and then add 50 days. If you don't feel like counting days look at Christian calendar and celebrate Stado or Rusalia around the Trinity Sunday.
As far as how to run the celebration the one thing that you really need is to have a few unmarried girls to dance and sing. I will link up a gallery with pictures and videos from celebration of Stado in Poland, so you can see how it looks. If you are a solitary practitioner and don't know any females, biological females, who are willing to learn to dance with swords and sing traditional songs, I'd say forget about celebrating Stado or Rusalia. Maybe if you are a biological female and you are determined enough, you, as a solitary practitioner, you can find a meadow near a river and you can leave some bread or other yummy food for rusałki, but if you are a biological male just forget about it. In the best case scenario you will make an idiot out of yourself and in the worst-case scenario you will actually manage to piss off rusałki and that will not be good for you.
The day of Perun
And another solar cycle-related recurring celebration in Slavic Native Faith is the day of Perun which is known in Poland as Perunica or Perunowe. As far as historical accuracy of this celebration I really cannot tell you much. It’s definitely not something reconstructed in as solid and fact or source-based way as the Stado celebration. Mostly, because the day of Perun was... I'm actually not sure if reconstructed is a good word here. Maybe: suggested or proposed? The day of Perun was proposed as a pagan celebration by Boris Rybakov, who was the head of archaeology in Soviet Russia. Rybakov's research has two problems. One is that it's really outdated research because it was done well before any of the modern techniques of analysis of ancient DNA or RNA or even more advanced carbon dating techniques were developed, so interpretation of the artifacts found during archaeological excavation was kind of a guesswork and it wasn't based on actual science. And that led to many overinterpretations. And the other problem with Rybakov's work is that it was done in Soviet Union. And I do appreciate that for some listeners of this podcast, particularly for young people from English speaking West, for them Soviet Union might be the ideal country, but believe me, it was not. There were many things wrong with and within the Soviet Union, I don't think a month would be enough to talk about it in detail. Still, bottom line is that in the Soviet Union everything had to be in line with the leading communistic ideology. Everything including archaeological findings, which means that there really wasn't a lot of freedom in research or in the interpretation of research. Which is, by the way, why there was so many dissidents among Soviet scientists. Because scientists wanted to do the science, not ideology and they could not be doing it in the Soviet Union. So, they kept escaping to the West. But, clearly, Rybakov had no problem with doing ideology and that is one of the issues with his research.
Still, the day of Perun has been introduced to the modern Slavic paganism well before I was born. So, regardless of whether it has any historical basis or not, it has become a part of the tradition. Of the modern tradition. And it’s celebrated, as far as I know, by all Rodnovers. The importance of this celebration however varies. For some, mostly the crazy warrior-type Rodnovers, it's like the most important celebration of the year. For some… Actually, for the majority of not crazy Rodnovers, it's just a celebration like any other.
Perunowe takes place on or around the 20th of July, which as far as I understand, is the is the day of a Christian prophet Elijah who, again, as far as I understand, has something to do with storms and hence it was decided that… I honestly don't know by who, that Elijah simply has to be the Christianised version of Perun. From which another assumption was made, namely that the celebration of the day of the prophet Elijah has to be related to the original Pagan celebration of the day of Perun. Even though, which, for some reason no one seemed to mind, we don't even know if the original Pagan Slavs celebrated a day of Perun, when they celebrated it, how and for what reason.
To be perfectly honest it's not even certain that Perun was actually a Slavic God, because He could easily be Slavicized version of the Norse God Thor. But that's beside the point because, what we know pretty much for sure, is that Perun was not a pan-Slavic God. Because His existence was only confirmed in Kievan Ruś. Yet modern Rodnovers all over the place celebrate the day of Perun and some, truth to be told, mostly fakelore worshiping pagans, not actual Rodnovers, they claim that Perun is the supreme God of the Slavs.
Anyway, the day of Perun is celebrated on or around the 20th of July. It is seen as a male, biological male focused celebration. The elements that are typical for the celebration of Perunica so the day of Perun are all sorts of games, like sport related games. So, we have wrestling, archery, throwing axes or javelins, we have running and stuff like that. Generally speaking it’s about showing masculine strength and skills.
Important part of Perunowe is praying to Perun to stop any storms, because, as you might or might not know, around the end of July, in the climate of Northern and Central Europe, where our ancestors lived, the end of July is when the harvest starts. And you really don't want to have any storms in this time, because it can seriously damage the harvest.
If you are a solitary female practitioner… Rodnovery practitioner, my advice would be not to celebrate the day of Perun as, as with Stado and male practitioners of Slavic Native Faith, best case scenario you will make an idiot out of yourself, worst case scenario you'll seriously piss off Perun and that is not good for anyone. If you are a solitary male practitioner, I'd say go in the field, do some presentation of male strength, like throwing stuff or hitting stuff or something. With regards to decorating the altar or preparing for the ritual, it is worth incorporating oak, like branches or leaves or acorns, because it's all traditionally related to the Slavic storm-ruling God.
The day of Mokosh
In, I think, majority of modern Rodnovery groups, a month after Perunowe, so after the day of Perun, the day of Mokosh is celebrated. In Poland it’s called Mokoszowe and it's celebrated on or around the 15th of August. On the very same day where day when Christians celebrate the Assumption of Holy Mary. The date of this holiday is absolutely not a coincidence. It's pretty much agreed among the scholars studying Slavic Paganism, that the cult related to Holy Mary was originally related to the cult of mother nature Goddess, so the Goddess that gives life, is life, is the Earth and kind of gives birth to harvest like a woman would give birth to her child. Obviously Mokosh is considered to be such Goddess.
If you look into the content of the internet, which is mostly fakelore, you would think that Mokosh is a pan-Slavic Goddess, but, well, She is not. She's relatively well documented in the East Slavic tradition, at a push you can find some indication that She could have been known to Western Slavs, but among the Southern Slavs, as far as I know, She's just not there. There is some indication that the mother- nature-type Goddess among Southern Slavs was Perperuna, but I don't know the topic well enough to give you more information about it. And, if you've been listening to this podcast, you most probably already know that I'm generally not very much into calling Slavic Gods by name or worshiping them too much.
I personally think that the obsession with Gods it's a very Judeo-Christian thing and from what I am seeing quite a lot of self-identifying pagans, not only Slavic pagans but all pagans, modern pagans they basically, don't really change religion they just change the names of worshiped Gods. So, in Christianity you will have the Holy Trinity and holy Mary and some other important saints on top of it or like on the side, and all of them are worshiped with piety a lot of submission and guilt. Like pretty much everything in life of a Christian is restricted or limited or is just a straightforward sin, and a lot of modern pagans they come from these guilt-tripping submissive Judaeo-Christian background. They just exchange the Holy Trinity and the Virgin Mary with some names of some pagan Gods taken from the internet and voila they become pagans. And that's not really the point, is it?
In my opinion, and also in my practice focusing on worship of Gods takes away from the core of the Slavic tradition which is the Slavic way of thinking reasoning and interacting with the world. I do not prioritize worship of Gods. Actually, if I only can, I do not worship Gods. I do not pray to Gods and the only time I have anything to do with Slavic Gods is during the rituals, where the żerca is the one doing the praying and I am only there to shout “Sława!”. In the few rituals I performed myself I've never really called out the names of the Gods. I referred to the Slavic Gods in a descriptive way, so the Gods of my ancestors, or the Slavic Gods or the Gods of the sky etc. In my practice I focus on acting in a way my ancestors acted, on trying to reconstruct their ways. So, for example I am hospitable, I focus on my family and my community. I aim to contribute to building a good, abundant, wealthy and meaningful life for myself, for my family and my community. If something bad happens in my life I don't blame it on God's will, the government, I don’t know, Putin’s politics or you know, this bad and mean them. I look at the bad things that happened to me as a demon attack or demon infestation or evidence of my Dola being displeased, and I just try to deal with it, as well as prevent it from happening in the future.
With regards to Slavic Gods I just really don't think that enough has been preserved to have any meaningful and valid opinion. I mean, if you've been listening to the podcast you must have noticed that pretty much every time I talk about the names of Gods or domain of Gods, every time I get into the details, it's all, you know, it's believed or it's been reconstructed or is being deducted, suspected, supposed and it's all a one big question mark really. But what it is not a question mark is the veneration of the ancestors. That is super important in Slavic paganism.
Dziady and Radonitsa
The most important celebration related to the veneration of the ancestors in modern days most commonly is called Dziady but it's really a Western Slavic term. In Eastern Slavic tradition the name Radonitsa is used. But it is, as far as I know, specific to the spring celebration of ancestral veneration. Because, and we know it pretty much for sure, the original Slavic pagans the pre-Christian Slavic pagans they celebrated their ancestors at least two times a year and very likely even more often. Nowadays in most Rodnovery communities the ancestors are formally, like you know, in communal ritual, they celebrated twice a year with the biggest celebration in Western tradition being Dziady in November, and the biggest celebration in the Eastern tradition being Radonitsa celebrated in the spring, just after Christian Easter.
As far as timing it's a bit loose. Radonitsa is celebrated following the Christian calendar but in other traditions most commonly I've seen the spring Dziady held at the beginning of May. The autumn Dziady are most often celebrated at the beginning of November, so when you would in the West be celebrating Halloween. But I have come across this celebration being held on the night after the first November new moon. So have you pick.
The veneration of the ancestors is all about remembering them and feeding them and if you're feeling brave trying to guide any spirits lost in the world of the living, trying to lead them to Nawia, so to the world of the dead. Because we are feeding our ancestors, we have to have a feast and during this feast we have to have lots of fun. But we also have to share the food, the drinks and the fun with the ancestors. This sort of approach is very well preserved in the traditions of Ukraine where the feast for the ancestors is literally taking place in cemeteries, on the graves. It's a very joyful event so there is singing, dancing, eating, drinking, like really a proper party going on. Drinks are poured on the graves; food is put aside for the ancestors too. The food tends to be of special kind. It's made from honey, from something that in Polish is called kasza, which is made of edible seeds that are stripped of the external shell. I think kasza is called groat in English but that's a new English word for me, so I don't know how accurate it is. Apart of honey and kasza the food for the dead is also made from nuts, dry fruits, eggs. And as far as alcohol goes it's, obviously, vodka or mead so which is an alcoholic drink made from honey. If you want to go super traditional for Your Dziady celebration, you can look up a recipe for something that is called kutia and it's like the very thing that is still made in the context of veneration of the ancestors or the dead in general.
Karaboszka (Dziady masks), Gontyna UK, 2022
Another thing that you might want to incorporate in your Dziady celebration are masks. Which we know for sure where a part of the Pagan Slavic veneration of the ancestors, but we do not know what they were used for. The group I am a member of tends to use the mask, which by the way are called karaboszki or karaboszki. So my group uses these masks as a representation of the ancestors. So, like you know, like you would put a picture of your grandma. This is what we use the masks for. So, these masks they are not worn, but they are placed near the altar or the table where the feast is taking place to act as a reminder that the ancestors are among us. I did talk quite a lot about karaboszka masks in the episode I think number 20, mostly in the context of how misinterpreted these masks are, so if you're interested in that, you're most welcome to scroll down and listen to this episode.
Oh, and I forgot to mention that whatever you do during the Dziady celebration, you do not want to have any knives or other sharp objects around, because they can cause hurt to the ancestors who arrive at the feast. So, any kind of cutting or slicing, it should really be done well before the feast. And if you just absolutely have no choice and you have to use something sharp during the feast you kind of want to warn the ancestors. Perhaps you could respectfully swipe your hand around the blade and the surface on which you'll be doing the cutting, so you don't hurt the ancestors.
Also, another thing if during Dziady you want to show the spirits the way to Nawia, you've got to do it by… Well, first you have to start the holy fire, because this is how the the spirits are going to get to Nawia. Then you want to lay out the food and perhaps even start the feast, so the spirits can get some food before departing to Nawia. And after that you want to take candles… They’re kind of more lanterns. In Polish they called znicze. In English I think they called memorial grave candles or something like that. They're more like lanterns. You want to take these lights to a crossroad and you just start calling the spirits on these crossroads. You kind of, you know, call to them so they follow you. And you kind of tell them that there is food and you're going to help them find their way to Nawia. When you’re calling out to the spirits you want to be respectful. You don't want to scream at them or order them around. If you are determined to wear your karaboszka mask that might be the time, you know, leading the spirits to Nawia, especially on the crossroads, that might be the time to put the mask on. But it's just a guess. It's just my opinion if you will.
The day of Veles
The last celebration I want to talk about today is the day of Veles and in Polish it's called Welesowe. This is holiday celebrated in February and the date is directly related to the day of Saint Blaise, a Christian Saint who is seen as the patron of cattle and (because why not?) the diseases of the throat. Because of the cattle attribute of Saint Blaise, not because of the throat but because of the cattle of course, Saint Blaise was interpreted as a Christian version of Veles. And because this interpretation happened a while ago, I think, like at the end of the 20th century, nowadays it just became a part of Rodnovery tradition.
There's no way to say whether Veles was actually celebrated among the whole Slavdom, because He is known as the part of the Vladimir’s pantheon, so you know Kievan Ruś, so that's the East Slavic tradition. The evidence of Veles in other parts of Slavdom they are weak at best. But, again, if you want to celebrate Velesowe it's not a mistake per se, mostly because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. So that's one. And two: by now it's became a solid part of modern Rodnovery tradition and it really would be hard to argue with that. I mean you know, I could argue with that, but what's the point?
I mean, I do argue a lot, but I argue mostly about things that completely make no sense like Kupała being the celebration for virgins or żercas so Slavic Pagan priests expecting the Rodnovers to abandon their material possessions and become piss poor. I argue a lot with ancient Slavic gymnastic, because these things are just completely stupid and there is no place for them in modern Rodnovery movement. But there isn’t really that much stupid things in the celebration of Welesowe. And hence, I said I would not… I said that it would be hard to argue with it. Argue using factual arguments not arguments of like, “oh I don't like it”-sort.
Anyway, as far as the elements of the ritual of Welesowe, it's pretty much taken straight out of the rituals of Saint Blaise day which for me it's quite funny, because the Saint Blaise day in folklore it's all about the cattle. So you have modern Rodnovers, who let's say it as it is, mostly live in the cities and have zero to do with cattle husbandry, but hey ho! If praying for the well-being of cattle makes a city dweller happy, who am I to take it away from them. Is the same story like with praying for fertility of the land and then going home to eat organic strawberries from Spain. To me it's a bit bigoted but it's only my opinion which I expressed in detail in the first three episodes of Searching for the Slavic Souls, so you're most welcome to listen to my rants there.
Still, Welesowe is about praying for the health of cattle. The sacrifice typically is milk and/or butter which at this stage will get no comments from me because I'll be repeating myself for the nth time. There is obviously a feast during which the no cattle meat is eaten. And also quite often there are some wrestling competitions.
If you… if you look at Slavic folklore which is obviously heavily Christianised, February is also a month where something that is called Gromnica is celebrated. The most important part of Gromnica are like big ass candles which are called gromnice. Obviously, such candles were not known to our early medieval ancestors. If they used any candles, they were much smaller because wax from which the candles are made it was super hard to get by and much more useful in other aspects of our ancestors’ lives, like for example in making fabric water resistant. Still, it is possible that they used some sort of fire, like torches for example to do some sort of religious ritual around the time Gromnice are celebrated currently. In folklore you can find Gromnice related traditions and some of them are a little bit more Pagan. So, you will find that gromnicas, so the big ass candles, they are used throughout the year to protect households against being hit by a lightning or that children's hair are burned using these candles and that's supposed to protect the children from being scared of lightning or also sometimes from being scared of wolves. Because hair have a lot to do with Veles…
For those of you who don't know, the name Velez or Wołos, it's more likely derived from the proto Slavic root *wołs which means hair. So, that's kind of the connection between Veles and hair. And because of the closeness of Gromnice, which are celebrated on the 2nd of February and the day of Saint Blaise which, depending on the tradition is celebrated on either the 11th or the 21st of February, some modern Rodnovers will clump these two celebrations together and you will burn candles during the celebration of the day of Veles. I have to admit I'm quite doubtful about it because the whole thing doesn't really stand on solid research but more on very loose associations. On the other hand however, I don't really have solid arguments to disprove it. Maybe, you know, we can argue with the candles, but not with other kind of aspect of this fusion. So, I don't know, it's possible that I don't have these arguments yet, so if I ever have any more thoughts on it, I will definitely let you know.
And that's pretty much all I wanted to talk about today. I’m quite pleased that I managed to stick to the topic and keep a reasonable length of this episode. As always do let us know if you have any thoughts, comments, questions or anything at all to say. You can contact us pretty much through all the mainstream social media like Facebook, Instagram and recently Twitter. Which I really have to start updating but I just keep forgetting, mostly due to the annoying limitation on the characters. Because, as you most probably have noticed, I do like to talk a lot. Witia also has her own website and email address so you can contact us through these two. And I will link all the contact details in the notes. And for now, take care, do try to put some thoughts into your practice to make it meaningful as well as historically accurate, and…
Sława!
Bibliography:
T. Rogaliński, „Wiosenne święto Stado. Przywracanie pamięci i żywej duchowości Polaków”, Gniazdo. Rodzima wiara i kultura
A. Szyjewski: Religia Słowian
Sources of Slavic Pre-Christian Religion, edited by J. A. Álvarez-Pedrosa
K. Aitamurto, “Paganism, Traditionalism, Nationalism”