SLAVI. — Collective name for a large Indo-European family. The prehistoric homeland of the S. was probably situated between the Baltic and the Carpathians.
The Slavic peoples moved from their primitive homelands in various directions, forming three major groups: the eastern S. (Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians); the western S. (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Sorbs, also called Lusatian Serbs or Wends); and the southern S. (Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Bulgarians, and Macedonians). In the early Middle Ages, the western S. occupied a vast part of the modern German lowlands, advancing to within a short distance of Hamburg and beyond the Saale River; the reconquest of these territories by the Germanic population (which predated the S. but was numerically very small) is largely identified with the Christianization of those regions, begun in the ninth century. The territory occupied by the S. in central Europe was very extensive in the early Middle Ages; in the territory of present-day Austria, there was an ethnic continuity between Czechs and Slovenes.
I. RELIGION OF THE S
The principal sources for knowledge of Russian paganism are: the Chronicle of Nestor (12th century), the so-called Ipatiev Chronicle (14th century), named after the monk Hypatios of the monastery of Kostroma, an expansion of Nestor’s work; and the Chronography of the Byzantine John Malalas (6th century) in its Russian version.Perun is the god most widely venerated among the Russians. He presides over the treaties between Byzantium and the pagan Russians as guarantor for his followers, while the Christian Russians appeal to St. Elijah, who has taken his place in Christian Russia. Perun is in fact, like the classical Zeus, the god
of lightning and thunder, who strikes with the lightning bolt and sends rain and clear weather; just as St. Elijah, who commands the elements of water and fire and ascended to heaven on a chariot of flames, is among all Christian S. the patron of atmospheric phenomena. Alongside him, Volos must be mentioned, god of the herds and guarantor of the oath together with Perun. Among the Balto-S. Lithuania (v.) he is called Perkunas with the same meaning.
The S. of the Baltic group may be subdivided according to their settlements into: S. settled between the Elbe and the Oder; S. settled in Pomerania; and S. of the island of Rügen. Thietmar of Merseburg, author of a Chronicon (early 11th century); Adam of Bremen, author of the Gesta Hammoburgensis Ecclesiae (late 11th century); and Helmold of Lübeck, author of a Chronica Slovorum (mid-12th century), are the most important sources for the Baltic group settled between the Elbe and the Oder, a group that was the most resistant to the penetration of Christianity.
The most notable divinity of this group is Zuarasic, venerated in the city of Riedegost (Rethra), whose temple, described in detail by Thietmar, was entirely of wood, supported at its base by animal horns, carved on the outside with images of the gods, and containing idols within. Triglav, represented with three faces and venerated at Stettin (Pomerania), was worshipped in one of the city’s four temples. His temple was adorned with sculptures of men and animals and served as a repository for tithes and booty. As a means of divination, a black horse was used; it gave a favorable prediction if it passed three times back and forth without striking nine lances placed a short distance apart on the ground. Information concerning the S. of Pomerania is owed to the biographers of Otto, missionary bishop of Bamberg. Svantovit, venerated at Arkona on the island of Rügen, the last bastion of Slavic paganism, was represented by an idol larger than life, with four heads and a horn in its right hand that was filled with mead and served as an omen of abundance or famine for the entire following year; he held a bow in his left hand and was clothed down to the legs. The priest had to hold his breath while in the temple, which only he was permitted to enter. The annual festival was held after the harvest: the supply of mead in the horn was renewed after omens had been drawn from what remained of the old supply, which was poured at the idol’s feet. Everything concluded with a pantagruelian feast. Attached to the temple was a sacred white horse, used for divination: it was a good omen if the horse moved its right foot first as it prepared to jump over a triple row of lances placed before the temple; the ritual is described by Saxo Grammaticus in the Gesta Danorum. The characteristic polycephaly of this and other Baltic divinities is intended to signify the god’s omnivision, whether of a heavenly or solar nature.
The temples of the Baltic S. were at once places of sacrifice and assembly, and the larger ones also represented an ethnic center. The Russians preferred open-air sites as centers of worship, especially elevations, woods, and mountains. All the S. had persons devoted to the cult. The priests of the Baltic S. were well organized and offered vigorous resistance to Christianity. They were above all ministers of sacrifice, whereas among the Russians they were especially practitioners of divination and magic. The central rite of Slavic paganism was the sacrifice (treby) of oxen, rams, first fruits, and even human beings, especially Christians, which was highly pleasing to the gods. Mountains, woods, and springs were special places of sacrifice.
The S. believed in an otherworldly life and had the root nav to designate the realm of the dead and raf to designate a happy region for departed souls. Textual confirmation is entirely lacking; folklore nevertheless makes up for II. The dead were buried near trees, in forests, or in fields, and had a festival of their own. Forty days after death, a ceremony was held in honor of the ancestors, inviting them to sit around a set table, where the family was already gathered. The head of the household drank, allowing a little of the liquid to fall for the ancestors, and the others did the same. The sounds of the wind, leaves, and animals, in the silence of the night and by the ritual light of a candle, were a sure sign of the ancestors’ presence
at the family meal. At the end, they were invited to return to their dwelling.
Literature: A. Bruckner, Mitologia slava, Bologna 1923, translated from Polish; K. Meyer, Die slavische Religion, in K. Clemen, Die Religionen der Erde, Munich 1927; R. Pettazzoni, Il paganesimo degli antichi popoli europei, Rome 1946; B. O. Unbegsau, Les religions des anciens Slaves, Paris 1948; V. Pisani, La religione dei Balto-S., in Tacchi Venturi, Storia delle religioni, II, 3rd ed., Turin 1949.
II. EVANGELIZATION
Christianity was already widespread among the S. around the 10th century, and their conversion is owed to Rome and Byzantium. The Western S. came under the influence of the Church of Rome, whereas the Eastern and some of the Southern S. came under that of the Byzantine Church. Thus the S., in addition to being politically divided, also found themselves divided religiously, and this centuries-old division had profound repercussions on their religious, political-social, and cultural life and on their mutual relations, since the Western S. entered the sphere of European civilization and became fully integrated into it, while the S. faithful to Byzantium became part of the Eastern civilization, in which the Church was linked to and subject to the State. The propagation of Christianity among the Western Slavs began under Charlemagne and continued under his successors, especially Otto I. The German emperors regarded missionary activity as a state responsibility, and consequently their colonizing and conquering policy proceeded hand in hand with the propagation of the faith, creating confusion between the tasks of the conqueror and those of the missionary. Generally, Christianity took hold more quickly where a state organization already existed (Moravia, Croatia). In the 8th century, Salzburg and Passau were centers of propagation among the Wends, the Croats of Carantania, and the Slovenes of Carniola and Carinthia. Among the Croats south of the Drava and in Dalmatia, Christianity had already spread between 640 and 680 through the work of missionaries sent by the Pope. Under Charlemagne’s successors, the evangelization of Moravia began; at that time it also included Slovakia, part of Bohemia, and northwestern Hungary. But the Moravian grand duke Rastislav, in order to escape the strong German influence, turned to Byzantium (862), whence Cyril and Methodius were sent to him; after the dissolution of the Moravian State (end of the 9th century), the influence of Rome definitively prevailed. At the same time, penetration into Bohemia also began, and the first converted Czech duke was Borivoj, together with his wife, St. Ludmilla, while the diocese of Prague was founded in 973. From Bohemia Christianity penetrated into Poland, whose first duke, Mieszko (960–92), was a great propagator of II. However, most of the S. were converted by the Greek Church, whose two greatest missionaries were Constantine-Cyril and his brother Methodius (v. CIRILLO (COSTANTINO) E METODIO, SANTI). Their supreme merit and the reason for their great success was that they translated the Holy Scriptures into Slavonic and adopted that language for the liturgy. It is still used by the Eastern Slavic Churches, whereas in the Roman liturgy it has been preserved only in the Croatian dioceses of Istria, Quarnaro, and Dalmatia (v. GLAGOLITICO), a privilege confirmed by Innocent IV (1248 and 1252). The Serbs accepted Christianity under the emperor Heraclius I, but definitively only when Basil I defeated and subjugated them (867–86).
(phot. Enc. Catt.)
SLAVI - Gospel Book in Glagolitic characters of the most ancient type (so-called Bulgarian) - Vatican Library, cod. vat. slavo III (10th century).
(866) sent other missionaries, who converted the whole people to the faith of Rome. Byzantium, however, intrigued until it brought Boris and the Bulgarians back under the obedience of the Greek Church (870). The Russians received the faith from Constantinople: the total conversion of the people took place only under Duke Vladimiro (d. 1015). At the beginning of the 11th century there were already 8 dioceses, Kiev (v.).
BIBL., V. le singole voci: BULGARIA; CROAZIA; DALMAZIA, etc. Filippo Lukas
III. SLAVIC VERSIONS OF THE BIBLE
Nestore’s Chronicle, of 898, relates: “Methodius and Constantine (Cyril) translated the Gospel, the Acts of the Apostles, the Psalter. Methodius chose two learned priests, shorthand writers, and dictated to them the translation of all the books of Holy Scripture from Greek into Slavonic.” The translation of the Gospel, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Psalter is attributed to Cyril, that of the other books to Methodius. The oldest manuscripts date from the 11th century, some from the 10th. These first translation works were written in Glagolitic characters, derived from the Greek cursive script of the period, and were only later transcribed into Cyrillic characters, almost identical with Greek capital letters. The translation was made according to the recension of Lucian or, as others think, according to the Alexandrian recension.The complete collection of biblical books in Slavonic was made by Archbishop Gennadius of Novgorod in the 15th century. Some books still lacking in Old Slavonic were translated from the Latin Vulgate, such as the Paralipomeni, Eidra, Tobia, and Giuditta. The fact that in Gennadius’s time not all the sacred books were available in the Slavonic language leads to the inference that part of the translations made by Cyril and Methodius had been lost, or that the holy apostles of the Slavs had translated only pericopes for divine worship.
A new critical work was carried out in the Bible of
Prince Constantine of Ostrog (1581), reprinted in Moscow (1663) with few changes. Definitive corrections were made under Empress Elisabeth II (1751-56). This work still remains today the standard edition for the biblical texts of worship, in use among the Russians, Albo-Rutenians, Serbs, and Bulgarians. The grammar of the ecclesiastical Slavonic language in its newer form, used in sacred books (biblical and liturgical) from the 18th century to the present day, is likewise based on Elisabeth’s Bible.
The period mentioned above was preceded by that of Old Slavonic, with its northern and southern recensions (local and national), extending from the 12th to the 18th century, whereas the language of Cyril and Methodius flourished from the 9th to the 12th century.
The versions of Holy Scripture in the spoken Slavic languages appear in different forms. In recent centuries the number of Slavic nations has doubled. The condition of the nations of the Byzantine rite differs from that of the peoples of the Latin rite. Eastern faithful (Russians, Ukrainians, Albo-Rutenians, Serbs, Bulgarians) learn and know ecclesiastical Slavonic sufficiently to be able to follow the reading of the Paremie (pericopes from the Old Testament), the Epistles, and the Gospel. For this reason the Bible was translated into the spoken languages only in recent centuries. The first versions in the spoken languages are almost always parts of Holy Scripture, pericopes for worship, and were made by the Catholic Church. Today all Slavic nations (Albo-Rutenians, Bulgarians, Czechs, Croats, Poles, Russians, Serbs, Slovaks, Slovenes, Ukrainians, Wends) have the Bible in their own language, in a complete edition, though not always produced by Catholics.
The ancient versions deserve special mention. In Czech there is the so-called Leskovska Bible (between 1395 and 1410). In Albo-Rutenian, that of Fr. Skorina (1517-19). In Polish, that of J. Wujek (1593). In Croatian, those of Stefano Konzul Istranin (1521-80) and Giorgio Dalmatino (1550-89), Protestants; the editions of Giorgio Danačić and Vuk Karadžić are well known. In Wendish, the Catholic version of Svetlik (1650).