One of the most common myths once invented about the Slavic faith is the myth of its extreme cruelty and bloodthirstiness.
It is believed that human sacrifices were commonplace for our ancestors, and they were performed in front of the entire motley public who visited the temple on the holiday: women, children, crazy people, and people with weakened psyches watched the murder of a person.
For the Christian Church, which competed very harshly with the native faith of the Slavs, the creation of such myths had quite practical significance.
Does a religion have the right to life, where the Magi are professional killers, and believers are their unwitting accomplices? Of course not!
All that remains is to portray the Slavic faith as such and make the people believe it.
One of the most reliable, according to the church and official science, sources allegedly confirming that ritual murders of people were common among the Slavs are ancient Russian chronicles.
But is their evidence really that serious?
Our chronicles mention human sacrifices twice.
“The Tale of Bygone Years” says that in 980 Prince Vladimir “placed idols on the hill behind the tower courtyard... And they made sacrifices to them, and brought their sons and daughters, and the Russian land and that hill were defiled with blood,” and three years later , according to the same chronicle, the Kievans decided at all costs to “slaughter a young Varangian youth as a sacrifice to the gods: when his father refused to give his son to the “demons,” the Kievans “called out and cut the canopy under them, and so they were killed "
In the first case, the chronicler says that the Russian land was desecrated with blood: if ritual murders were committed frequently and consistently, then, according to the logic of the chronicle, there would be nothing to be desecrated on the Russian land.
As S. Lesnoy rightly noted in his book “Where are you from, Rus'?”, “if human sacrifices had existed before Vladimir, then the chronicler had nothing to write about and be indignant about: it would have been a common thing; in fact, it is emphasized that it was from Vladimir that the Russian land was defiled with the blood of people sacrificed.”
However, it is not known whether the chronicler spoke at all about human sacrifices themselves - if our ancestors brought their sons and daughters to the temple (as Buddhists bring their children to temples, Muslims to mosques, etc.), then this does not mean at all that they were certainly killed there, and regarding the fact that, as the chronicle says, “the good God did not want the death of sinners” - here we are obviously talking about spiritual death: Christian “enlighteners”, as is known, were for some reason sure that they alone possess a certain “divine truth”, and all the rest, supposedly rejected by God, are stupid, blind and morally corrupt.
As for the murder of the Varangians, can a crime committed by a violent crowd be called a religious sacrifice?
The chronicler does not mention the presence of either the Magi or the priests at this atrocity; it was not committed, thank the Gods, at a temple, and it would be hard to call what happened a religious ritual.
It is interesting that the people of Kiev wanted to kill the Varangian youth not at any time, but precisely after Prince Vladimir “defeated the Yatvingians and conquered their land.”
Apparently, patriotic feelings rose up in the residents of Kyiv and their hands itched, and relations with the Varangians, and especially Christians, were then extremely tense.
It turns out that the Varangians simply fell under the hot hand, and the Varangian father, it seems, did everything possible to prevent the crowd from calming down, rampaging as long as possible and with the maximum possible number of victims and destruction: he mocked the Slavic Gods as best he could.
Old Russian chronicles say nothing about the tradition of human sacrifice in Rus', on the contrary: the ritual murder of a person (if such was committed) was a “super-untraditional” event, an event on a national scale.
In general, if you look closely at all the sources recognized by official science, which claim that sacrificing people to the Gods was a fairly common phenomenon among the Slavs, you will notice one common detail: their authors treated our ancestors and their religion with enormous prejudice and tried to outdo each other in the quantity and quality of slander against the Slavic faith.
A striking example of such “ideological chronicling” is given by B.A. Rybakov in the book “Paganism of Ancient Rus'”:
“...Where Gregory the Theologian speaks about human sacrifices among the Crimean Taurians, he uses the word enoktonia, i.e. ritual murder of foreigners, and the Russian author replaced it with “child cutting,” i.e. sacrificing infants."
Alas, it is difficult to disagree with the phrase from the decision of the Synod of 1734: “The chronicles are full of lies and disgrace the Russian people.”
Even those peoples who, to put it mildly, have no idea about this matter, tried to slander the Slavs.
No one, for example, doubts that among the Greeks human sacrifices were in use and took the form of a completely established custom, but this does not prevent modern Western civilization from considering itself the heir of ancient culture, and, moreover, being proud of it.
In the case of the Slavs, the situation is completely opposite: the traditional nature of sacrificing people has not been proven at all, but the slightest mention of the fact that our ancestors probably still sacrificed people causes a whole storm of emotions among the “zealots of national honor” who have already They have long been proposing to forget the Slavic faith and, in general, the ancient “wild” history of the Russian people, like a bad dream.
Although, if you show a little positive attention to the Slavic faith, you will notice that the devil is not as terrible as he is painted.
While the Greeks, on the festival of Apollo, held in early June, chose two people (a boy and a girl), hung garlands of figs on their necks, forced them to run around the city to the sound of flutes, and then burned them exhausted at the stake and threw the ashes into sea, - the Slavs sewed two dolls for Kupala, male and female, and symbolically threw them into the Kupala fire, without disturbing the festive mood and leaving people with bright, good impressions of the past celebration.
And how, in fact, could it be different with the Slavic attitude towards human life?
You can find out what this very attitude towards a person was, for example, by reading the Vleskniga (VK) - the only truly independent source telling about sacrifices in the Slavic faith (in fairness, it should be noted that the debate about the authenticity of the VK in Russia has almost died down, and in other countries they stopped long ago).
Vleskniga says, reproducing Svarog’s message to Arius, the ancient leader of the Slavs: “I will create you from my fingers. And it will be said that [you] are the sons of Istbareg. And you will become the sons of Istvareg and you will be like My children, and Your Father will also be yours.”
Did our ancestors really think that people are the descendants of the Gods and, at the same time, that the ritual murder of a person, Dazhbozh’s grandson, could have a beneficial effect on relations with the divine world? Hard to believe.
In addition, it is not for nothing that it is said that the Slavs were created from the fingers of Svarog, the Creator: man in the Slavic faith is not a temporary guest in the revealed world and not God’s servant, but an indispensable accomplice in the endless creation of the Universe, a comrade-in-arms of the Gods and their helper: again, sacrificing a person is extremely unwise.
“We have true faith,” says the VK, “which does not require human sacrifice. And this is done by the Vorags, who, truly, who always performed it, called Perun Parkun, and made a sacrifice to him. We should give a field sacrifice...
So, in any case, the Greeks will begin to say about us that we sacrifice people - otherwise this is false speech, and there is no such thing in reality, and we have different customs. And the one who wants to harm others speaks unkindly.”
Of course, the Slavs have always had and will have enemies who say unkind things: that’s not what’s offensive, what’s offensive is that our people gradually got used to this and began to agree with the slander pouring in on them from all sides.
1. Sergei Lesnoy, “Where are you from, Rus'?”: Rostov-on-Don, Don Word, 1995
2. B.A. Rybakov, “Paganism of Ancient Rus'”. - M., 1987.
3. Vleskniga III. Source texts, literal translation. Per. from Old Russian, preparation of the ancient text: N.V. Slatin. - Omsk, 2005. - P. 123.
4. Ibid. - P. 39.
The practice of sacrifice has existed at all times and among almost all peoples of the world. This was also practiced in Rus'.
Bloodless victims - a myth?
There is an opinion that sacrifices to ancient Slavic deities were bloodless. Allegedly, they were “offered” only grain, fruits and other food. However, there is also a lot of completely different evidence.
At the beginning of the 10th century, the Arab traveler Ahmad Ibn Fadlan described the funeral of a noble Rus, at which poultry and cattle, as well as one of his wives or concubines, were sacrificed along with the deceased.
Captives could also be sacrificed. The Byzantine historian Leo the Deacon testifies: “After the battle, the warriors of Prince Svyatoslav gathered their dead and burned them, slaughtering, according to the custom of their ancestors, many prisoners, men and women. Having made this bloody sacrifice, they strangled several babies and roosters, drowning them in the waters of the Ister.".
The German chronicler Thietmar of Merseburg claims that the Slavs “the terrible wrath of the gods is appeased by the blood of people and animals”. Helmold from Bossau in the “Slavic Chronicle” reports that the Slavs “they bring sacrifices to their gods of oxen and sheep, and many also of Christian people, whose blood, as they assure, gives special pleasure to their gods”.
The Tale of Bygone Years claims that in 983, during the reign of Prince Vladimir, even before Russia adopted Christianity, a sacrifice was to be made to Perun in Kyiv. The lot fell on the son of one Christian Varangian. The father refused to give his child to slaughter, and both were torn to pieces by the pagans. Theodore and John are considered the first Christian martyrs in Rus'.
Death to the Snow Maiden!
In some regions, the tradition of human sacrifice existed until the 17th century! The unfortunate people were torn into pieces alive and their meat was scattered across the fields - it was believed that then the grain would be harvested, but the general well-being depended on this.
The celebration of Maslenitsa in Rus' was originally associated with the glorification of the Sun God Yarila. Hence the term that has survived to this day - “Bloody Maslenitsa”. Spilled blood guaranteed protection from adversity, such as droughts and floods.
Even the traditional image of the Snow Maiden, according to folklorists, can be associated with the custom of sacrificing a living girl to the God of winter: she was drunken and tied in the forest, where she stood until spring, covered with snow and ice. According to one version, the predecessor of the Snow Maiden was the so-called Kostroma, which, according to ritual songs, dies under strange circumstances during the holiday. Subsequently, a tradition arose of burning an effigy of Kostroma on Maslenitsa. Here is what academician B.A. writes about this. Rybakov in the book “Paganism of Ancient Rus'”: “In the temporary transformations of the ritual, the doll of Kostroma or Kupala replaced not the deity Kostroma or Kupala (researchers are right in denying the existence of ideas about such goddesses), but a sacrifice, a human sacrifice made in gratitude to these natural forces and their symbols.”.
Also, according to the researcher, in Rus', according to popular belief, it was not girls who drowned themselves of their own free will who turned into mermaids, but those who were drowned by force and sacrificed to a river deity.
There was also a tradition in the Slavic period of taking frail old people, who became a burden to their family, into a deep forest and leaving them there under a tree. Some were eaten by wild animals, others died from hunger and cold... Or they were beaten to death with a blow to the head, drowned, or buried alive in the ground. This also looks like a sacrifice. People could be “bought off” from wild animals. For example, if a bear began to terrorize a village and killed livestock, a “bear wedding” was held, tying a girl chosen by lot in a bride’s outfit to a tree in the forest near the bear’s den. This ritual is described in the book by Yu.V. Krivosheev "Religion of the Eastern Slavs on the eve of the Baptism of Rus'."
The theory that the Slavs of Ancient Rus' sacrificed people is also confirmed by archaeological finds. In particular, in the Zvenigorod region, a ritual burial ground was discovered, in which there was a crumpled skeleton of a teenager, surrounded by the remains of cows cut into pieces. An arrowhead was stuck into the earthen floor, which is typical for the sacrificial rituals of the Slavs. Other similarly buried corpses were found, mostly children and infants.
Sacrifice in the Christian era
In the Russian Empire, if livestock died somewhere, local peasant women performed the so-called plowing ritual. At the same time, an animal was sacrificed. However, if any man came across the path of the procession, then he was considered the personification of illness or death, against which the ritual was directed. Such a poor fellow was beaten with whatever was necessary until he was beaten to death, therefore, seeing the procession, all the males tried to run away or hide.
In 1861, one of the residents of the Turukhansk region, in order to save himself from an epidemic of a fatal disease, voluntarily sacrificed his young relative, burying her alive in the ground.
Nowadays, sacrifices are practiced only by members of satanic sects. And then for the most part these are ritual killings of animals - for example, cats and rats. Although anything can happen. Yes, ritual murders are rare, but on the other hand, they are not that uncommon...
When America and the Soviet Union successively tested nuclear bombs in the 1940s, both superpowers decided that the atom was the future. Various large-scale projects using the power of the half-lives of uranium isotopes and other elements with similar properties have been developed by almost dozens.
One of these ideas was to create “atomic bullets” whose power would be as destructive as that of a nuclear bomb. But there is negligibly little information about these developments, and this whole story is overgrown with so many fables that today it is a semi-myth, the veracity of which few believe.
Atomic bullets appear in a number of science fiction stories. But at some point, Soviet military engineers seriously thought about the possibility of creating ammunition that would contain a radioactive element. To be fair, it should be pointed out that in some way these dreams were realized and are actively used today. We are talking about armor-piercing sub-caliber shells, which actually contain uranium. It’s just that in these munitions it is depleted and is not used at all as a “small nuclear bomb.”
As for the “atomic bullets” project itself, according to a number of sources that began to appear in the media already in the 1990s, Soviet scientists managed to create 14.3 mm and 12.7 mm ammunition for heavy machine guns. In addition, there is information about a 7.62 mm bullet. The weapons used in this case vary: some sources indicate that bullets of this caliber were made for a Kalashnikov assault rifle, while others indicate that they were made for his heavy machine gun.
According to the developers’ plans, such unusual ammunition was supposed to have enormous power: one bullet would “bake” an armored tank, and several would wipe out an entire building. According to published documents, not only prototypes were manufactured, but also successful tests were carried out. However, what stood in the way of these statements was, first of all, physics.
At first it was the concept of critical mass, which did not allow the use of uranium 235 or plutonium 239, traditional in the manufacture of nuclear bombs, for atomic bullets.
Then Soviet scientists decided to use the newly discovered transuranium element californium in these munitions. Its critical mass is only 1.8 grams. It would seem that it is enough to “compress” the required amount of californium into a bullet, and you will get a miniature nuclear explosion.
But here a new problem arises - excessive heat generation during the decay of the element. And a bullet with californium could emit about 5 watts of heat. This would make it dangerous both for the weapon and for the shooter - the ammunition could get stuck in the chamber or barrel, or could spontaneously explode during a shot. They tried to find a solution to this problem by creating special refrigerators for bullets, but their design and operating features were quickly considered impractical.
The main problem with using californium in atomic bullets was its depletion as a resource: the element was quickly running out, especially after the introduction of a moratorium on nuclear weapons testing. In addition, by the end of the 1970s, it became obvious that both enemy armored vehicles and structures could be successfully destroyed using more traditional methods. Therefore, according to sources, the project was finally abandoned in the early 1980s.
Despite a number of publications about the “atomic bullet” project, there are many skeptics who resolutely reject the information that such ammunition ever existed. Literally everything is subject to criticism: from the choice of californium for making bullets to their caliber and the use of Kalashnikov weapons.
Today, the history of these developments has turned into something between a scientific myth and a sensation, about which there is too little information to draw clear conclusions. But one thing can be said with confidence: no matter how much truth there is in published sources, such an ambitious idea in itself undoubtedly existed among not only Soviet but also American scientists.
The complex topic of human sacrifice is rarely raised in Rodnoverie. There are 2 points to consider here.
Firstly, Some of the Rodnovers deny the possibility of any bloody demands at all.
Secondly , those who understand that there were blood demands simply do not speak about it out loud. But this complex issue will have to be illuminated. This has already been done by many authors before us. Therefore, we do not set ourselves the task of giving a chronology or stating a problem.
There was a need to talk on the typology of sacrifices.
There are 2 types of sacrifices, conditionally we will divide them into human sacrifices and sacrifices of animals, plants, food, etc. Non-human sacrifices (requirements) were ubiquitous among the pagans. They appeased the gods during trade, holidays, requests, etc.
If we talk about human sacrifices, we can highlight 3 types of sacrifices.
Voluntary, Christian sacrifice, forced sacrifice of pagans during crisis situations. Human sacrifice is the most powerful and therefore less common.
Human sacrifices can also be divided by type. Only pagans were awarded burning (cremation); Christians could be stabbed or cut into pieces. This is due to the ideas of our ancestors about the afterlife. Captives and Christians, as Gentiles, could not be worthy of this type of sacrifice.
I would also like to ask a question. Is the voluntary killing of the wife of a deceased Slav a sacrifice? As we progress, we will try to understand these issues.
Human sacrifice is known to many people. The Slavs are no exception in this matter. There are a lot of sources that describe human sacrifice among the Slavs.
As noted by Sedov V.V. " Ancient authors (Mauritius, John of Ephesus) repeatedly mention numerous herds that were in the possession of the Slavs. Small clay figurines of animals were found at Slavic settlements, obviously associated with the ritual of sacrifice, emphasizing the importance of domestic animals in the life and everyday life of the Slavs».
The economic basis of life for the Slavs - agriculture - left a significant imprint on pagan beliefs. According to the pagan calendar, most ritual festivals reflected a certain cycle of agricultural work. Agricultural products were the main pagan sacrifices.
But, from the 6th to the 10th century there is much evidence of human sacrifice. The truth is indicated only about the voluntary killing of women after the death of their husband. He wrote about this back in the 6th century. Mauritius. The same custom was mentioned by St. Boniface in the 8th century, it was described in detail by Arab writers of the 9th-10th centuries. Masudi explains such voluntary killing of Slavic women in “Golden Meadows” by the fact that “the wives ardently desire to be burned along with their husbands in order to follow them into heaven.” If Fadlan and Masudi describe this ritual action as a ritual burning, then in Ibn-Rusteh’s work “Dear Values” he describes this ritual as follows: “ If the deceased had three wives and one of them claims that she especially loved him, then she brings two pillars to his corpse, they are driven upright into the ground, then they put the third pillar across, tie a rope in the middle of this crossbar, she stands on the bench and ties the end [of the rope] around his neck" Fadlan also notes about special love: “ When the above-mentioned man died, they said to his girls: who will die with him? and one of them answered: me!" Also, there are no noticeable coercive connotations. Ibn Miskaweih also points to voluntariness when describing the Rus' campaign against the Muslims. If one of the Rus died, then “his servant, if he loved him, according to their custom (was buried together).”
In our opinion, the attribution of these funeral rites to sacrifices is extremely arbitrary. In the worldview of the pagan Slavs, the afterlife is much better than the obvious one. That’s why the Slavs died in battle without retreating and followed their husbands to the fire. It was ingrained in the mentality. Yes, if you look at this from today’s worldview position, then this action certainly has a sacrificial connotation. But, ancestors viewed this as caring for a spouse to a better life, and it was not seen as a sacrifice. It would be more appropriate to attribute this to the funeral tradition, and, in fact, take it out of the brackets in this problem. To confirm our words, we quote from the work of Pseudo-Mauritius: “ Their wives are chaste beyond all human nature, so that many of them consider the death of their husbands to be their own death and voluntarily strangle themselves, not considering life in widowhood».
German chroniclers, and in particular Thietmar of Merseburg, say that among the Slavs “the terrible wrath of the gods is appeased by the blood of people and animals.” If Fadlan describes the custom of sacrificing sheep and other livestock to the gods to improve trade, then Thietmar says that the wrath of the gods is “appeased by the blood of people.” It just remains unclear that blood was also used as a requirement. It is not clear from the source whether the ritual included killing or simply described a blood oath.
The first real mentions of human sacrifices, which cannot be refuted, are found in Helmold’s “Slavic Chronicle”.
According to Helmold, the Slavs " They bring sacrifices to their gods of oxen and sheep, and many also of Christian people, whose blood, as they assure, gives special pleasure to their gods" Svyantovite is annually sacrificed “a Christian man, whom the lot will indicate”...
According to many scientists (Afanasyev, Toporov), echoes of the ancient custom of human sacrifice among the Eastern and Southern Slavs persisted almost until modern times. They can be traced in a degraded and transformed form, when instead of a person, a stuffed animal or doll was sent to the next world, and such a sacrifice was staged during a holiday (funerals of Kostroma, Yarila, Morena, farewell to Maslenitsa).
Archeology confirms human sacrifice. There are especially many ritual pits, wells, etc. found in temples near Zvenigorod.
Thus, in building 3, located on the road leading to the sacred mountain, lay the crumpled skeleton of a teenager and around it in one layer were laid the carcasses of cows cut into pieces, their most meaty and edible parts (vertebrae with ribs, femurs) and four cow jaws . Among the bones, an arrowhead was stuck into the earthen floor. This structure belongs to the type of sacrificial pits, widely known in Slavic lands. There are no signs of residential or household premises, which indicates a sacrifice, and not a funeral rite.
The second crumpled skeleton at the site of Zvenigorod was found in a well located on the terrace in the southern part of the sanctuary. The skeleton belonged to a man 30-35 years old, whose skull on the crown of the head was pierced with a sharp weapon. Next to the skeleton lay an axe, the frame of a wooden shovel and fragments of 12th-century pottery. It is possible that the tools with which the sacrifice was made were placed near the murdered person.
But there are opinions that bones and some corpses cannot be differentiated as sacrifices due to weak contextual links. So bones and body parts could be brought to the temple from campaigns. And the sorcerer sent to another world what was left of the warrior. Bodies can also be buried at the temple in honor of respect. There were several funeral customs: burial in the fetal position, cremation, and cremation with burial in the ground and disposition of the corpse. Several species could overlap in one era, so what is considered a violent death may also be a funeral rite. But all this does not give us the right to exclude sacrifices among the Slavs. It existed, but already from the 6th century it was not universal, and by the 10th century it was already closer to fanaticism; it was rudimentally entrenched until the 19th century.
In Zvenigorod, corpses of children and infants, individual body parts and much more were found, which allows us to unequivocally state that human sacrifices took place among the Slavs. Also many bones were found near the Temple of Arkon. Crosses were often found in places of human sacrifice, and even a censer was found in Zvenigorod. This will allow us to say that, most likely, Christians were still sacrificed.
Questions regarding sacrifices among the Slavs have not all been studied. And there are many interpretations of them. But not all types and types of sacrifices were violent. Sacrifice rituals still existed among the Western, Southern and Eastern Slavs. But this does not at all indicate their excessive cruelty or the novelty of the rituals. Sacrifice is known among almost all Indo-Europeans.
