Воскрешение Перуна. К реконструкции восточнославянского язычества

The present work introduces a new source for the analysis of old Slavic paganism, the Vainakh (Chechen-Ingush) folklore. In this folklore there is a character named Pir"on or Pirlon, whose name sounds close to the Slavic name Perun. This Vainakh character was interpreted by folklorists as a derivate of a Pharao (genitive: Pharaoni; Pir"on might be a Caucasian distortion of the word «pharaon-»). However, by his functions he does not fit this role: he climbs up the heaven, thunders, and pours rain. In this, he is functionally equivalent to the Thunderer Perun. How could he get into the Vainakh folklore, however? In the last centuries, when Russians came to the Caucasus, they were already Christians and Perun was absent in their mythology.

Yet it appered that in the 8th century the Arabian caliph Mervan II with his troups went from Syria to the North Caucasus, further got deeper into the Khazar caganate, specifically into Slavic territory (he approached «Sacalib river»), caught 20 thousand of Slav prisoners, led them away and settled them down in Kakheti, i. e. in the neighbourhood of Chechenia. It is from these prisoners that the myths of Perun could penetrate the Vainakh tradition, where, having collided with Vainakh own mythology, they lost their sacral character and «sank» into folklore. Thus the stories of Perun (such as his commands to women to pour water from barrels, his connection with bread and mill, his control of old men and children, etc.) find close correspondence in East Slavic ethnography (popular beliefs, superstitions, fairy tales). This new material, never before used in the discussion of Perun, can be successfully used for reconstruction of Slavic myths. In addition, it would be necessary for our reconstruction to bring in the Slavic fairy tales which demonstrate close links with this material.

Rybakov's concept denies the very possibility of borrowing the name Perun from Slavs because in his view the supreme god of Slavs was Rod while Perun was only introduced by Prince Vladimir as a god for his military retinue. Yet the presence of Perun's traces in all Slavic territories refutes such a limitation. In fact, it is obvious that early Slavs did not at all have such a deity as Rod — this was an artificial construct produced by some ancient Russian authors, the construct based on a wrong reading of Greek Christian texts, the horoscopes that were called «genealogies» (literally, 'a study of kin or stock') by the Byzantines. The dependence on fate from the beginning of man's life, from birth, was understood by translators as expressed in a worship of a special figure —Rod ('birth' in Russian, also 'kin', or, more precisely, a 'kingroup'). «Rod» is connected to the verb meaning 4o give birth'. Hence its (and his) connection with Rozhenitsas (literally coinciding with 'women in childbirth') — maids of fate, Slavic Parcas, present at the person's birth and important for determining his/her fate.

Perun was not only the main god of Eastern Slavs but perhaps he was for some short time their only god, at least officially. In Russian chronicles there is, as Lowmianski has observed, some evidence that other gods mentioned in Vladimir's pantheon had been merely a late insert by a Christian editor. It appears that Vladimir's first religious reform was an attempt to establish monotheism on a pagan basis. Archaeological monuments previously interpreted as proof of Vladimir's six-gods pantheon don't stand up to close scrutiny of the material. In general, nearly all the main pagan sanctuaries ascribed to Eastern Slavs (two in Kiev, one in Novgorod and one in Pskov) are doubtful as such. In the present work this is addressed in great detail. Most likely, those «sanctuaries» are partly mundane (not sacral) objects, and partly remains of burials.

In support of his system of gods with Rod as a head, Rybakov also adduced the Zbruch idol, a tetrahedral stele with a number of carved anthropomorphic figures. A detailed analysis of this monument shows that these figures cannot be interpreted as Rod and gods of Vladimir's pantheon, nor can the whole monument be viewed as typically East Slavic. Chronologically it is later than the East Slavic Pagantum, and it is West Slavic in disposition, with some impact of the steppe nomads. Such idols occur in the region of the basin of Dnestr more than once. Both the West and South Slav tribes are historically known to exist there. It can be inferred from the historical context that they had undergone a comparatively late conversion to Christianity.