Воскрешение Перуна. К реконструкции восточнославянского язычества

Only from the time of the Renaissance and consequent study of classical mythology in Europe did the interest in domestic pre-Christian phenomena begin, particularly in the material that could be directly compared to similar classical examples. Addressing the mythology of some linguistically and culturally related peoples, two Polish authors of the 15th—16th centuries, A. D., J. Dlugosch and M. Srtryjkowski, retold (in a somewhat confused and tangled way) some data from the Russian chronicles, as well as cited what they themselves heard in the East. In the 17th century, further evidence on pagan beliefs was collected by the German, English and other European travelers to Russia.

In Russia itself, the studies of domestic paganism began only since the era of Peter the Great, i.e. the 18th century. Initially, the confused notions of Western scholarship of the time were borrowed wholesale. In the early 19th century, Russian scholars still based their approach on purely speculative considerations. They produced long lists of gods culled from enigmatic words in proverbs and songs (cf. A. S. Kaisarov, G. Glinka, a.o.). They strived to present the religion of their ancestors in a positive and idealized manner, not only as pre-eminent among the other pagan religions, but also as near to Christianity (cf. P. Stroev, M. Kastorsky, N. Kostomarov, S. M. Solovyev). The Slavophiles, however, did not support fully this approach; they advanced the idea of the original closeness of Slavic customs to orthodox monogamy and denied the existence of any developed pagan polytheism at any time. In their opinion, the pagan gods of the Chronicles were brought to Russia by the Varangians.

Since the middle of the 19th century when the research of the comparative school began, it had established the close connections between the mythologies of various Indo-European peoples. The Slavic system appeared to be kindred to the Greek, Roman and Indian systems. The entire pantheon began to be thought of as derived from the common matrix of the original Indo- European ethnos (Ur-Volk). In the spirit of the solar-mythological school, the anthropomorphic deities were thought of as derived from the worship of nature, and through poetic allegories (see D. O. Shepping, A. N. Afanasyev). In the spirit of diffusionism, A. S. Famintsyn continued the Slavophile traditon, while N. I. Kareev defended the secondary emergence of monotheism. The adherents of evolutionism, developed in the 70s and 80s of the 19th century, derived the images of gods from the lower demonology — from the belief in spirits (in Russia demonology was studied by N. F. Sumtsov).

The evolutionist and diffusionist approaches were combined in the works of Lubor Niederle and A. N. Veselovsky. Both of them thought that the Slavs did not succeed in developing a higher mythology and had remained on the level of demonology. Other scholars rejected the conclusions of the mythological school for a different reason. They stressed the shortage of available facts and did not believe in the reliability of any of the offered hypotheses (W. Jagic, H. Machal, L. Leger, A. Kirpichnikov).

In the works by scholars of the 20th century (E. V. Anichkov, N. M. Galkovsky, V. J. Mansikka), this scepticism was overcome, and the analysis of sermons by orthodox preachers against survivals of paganism came to the fore. But following the preachers' vilification of the pagan practices, the scholars involuntarily inherited their bias as well. They still viewed paganism as a rough and primitive belief system. Anichkov, for instance, held that Rus abounded in minor gods (or rather demons) while the powerful major gods were borrowed from the Varangians. In this he followed S. Ruzhnetsky's work on Perun as an imitation of Thor.

In the 20th century, the Polish scholars (H. Lowmianski, W. Szafranski, L. Moszynski) picked up the trend emphasizing the primacy of attributes of monotheism in Slavic paganism. One may detect in this the influence of Catholicism. For these scholars, Perun was not simply the main god, but the only god, all others being only his incarnations.

Among Soviet scholars, the official militant atheism had prevented the study of Slavic paganism for a long time. Besides, their obligatory Marxist vitriol was reserved mainly for the major ideological enemies — Christianity and Islam. However not long before the Great Patriotic War (World War II), the interest in Slavic paganism was revived due to the regime's encouragement of patriotism in the country. Four new concepts of Slavic paganism were introduced. In all of them the focus had shifted from using historical records to those provided by ethnography and archaeology.