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rituals, which is the subject of a separate branch of knowledge (Zoll--Adamokowa, 1975-1979, 1988), the image of afterlife (Bylina, 1992, p. 7-31) and the places of private home cult will remain outside the scope of this work.

We will present here the timing and the way of celebrating the rituals, sacrifices and oracles held in Slavonic sacred places. We will discuss the symbolism and the functions of sanctuaries as places of public meetings, adjudication, feasts and trade. Finally, we will try to answer the question whether the cult was organized by priests and what role they may have performed. Here, the political significance of the sanctuaries deserves special attention. It is also interesting to find out whether any hierarchy of sanctuaries existed, and to try to establish the ares of religious influence of the most important ones. The attempts at reconstructing their physical shape cannot be omitted.

Studies over the pagan religion of the Slavs are deep rooted in tradition. As early as in the 15th century Jan Długosz (Annales, I, vol. I, 1964, p. 106-108) devoted several pages of his work to the description of the pagan beliefs of ancient Poles. He was followed by Maciej Miechowita (Chronica Polonorum, II, 2, 1521, p. 24), Marcin Bielski (1551, p. 166), Marcin Kromer (1589, p. 30-33) and Joachim Bielski (1597, p. 51). Modern critical research was initiated by nineteen-century historians. Their critical approach to the sources, although undoubtedly necessary at the time, resulted in positivistic hypercriticism, evident in the works of Aleksander Bruckner (1985) and Erwin Wienecke (1940). Lubor Niederle (1916, p. 182-263) presents less extreme views. The overcritical researchers did not believe in developed polytheism among the Slavs, with the exception of Northern Polabians. They consistently denied that the Slavs (except of Polabians) might have erected temples or used statues for cult purposes. They presumed that the Slavonic religion had not reached the level of developed polytheism with sophisticated rituals held in temples, anthropo-morphic pantheons represented in sculpture, a powerful class of priests and rich mythology. Moreover, they ąuestioned the existence of uniform Slavonic religion, whose basie features would be common to all Slavs. They did not believe that all Slavonic tribes had worshiped common gods. Such opinionfe were also expressed by Henryk Łowmiański (1979; 1984) and Stanisław Urbańczyk (1991). B.A. Rybakov (1981; 1987) is some-times carried away by fantasy in his works, therefore the basie study of E.V. Anichkov (1914) and the work of N.M. Galkovsky (1913-1916) remain indispensable to studying the history of paganism in Ruthenia. J. Herrmann did not present a monograph of Slavonic religion, but he published a number of well-documented, although confined by the Marxist view of society and religion, articles (the most comprehensive: 1981, p. 41-68) on the subject. Rybakoy and Herrmann do not take any position in the dispute between structuralists and neopositivists, which is basie for the reconstruction of Slavonic religion. W. Szafrański (1987, p. 352-434) generally supports the noepositivistic view, at the same time adopting a controversial thesis about uninterrupted development of religion on the Polish territory sińce time immemorial. The Literaturę conceming the problem of Slavonic mythology was recently compiled, unfortunately with serious omissions, by M.-Kulikowski (1989).

The hypercritical views were ąuestioned by Aleksander Gieysztor (1982; 1984), Jacek Banaszkiewicz (1986) and Russian semioticians (Ivanov, Toporov 1974; Uspiensky 1985). Thanks to the methods of structuralism they proved the richness of Slavonic religion and mythology, in which - following the studies of G. Dumezil - they traced the basie religious beliefs shared by all Indo-Europeans.

Among Indo-European peoples the ideał model of a community was defined by three fundamental social functions: the execution of power in its legał, magie and religious aspects, offensive and defensive flghting, and ensuring food and affluence. It was reflected in the three-function social system of free people (consisting of princes and priests, warriors and farmers) and in the views concerning the world of sacrum. According to A. Gieysztor (1982, p. 44-158) sovereign supreme Slavic gods were Perun and Weles. The former was connected with the sphere of law and war, the latter with magie. Other gods, like Mokoś, Rod with Rozanice, many lower spirits, and possibly the twin gods whose statuę was discovered in Fischerin-sel, were responsible for the feeding and well-being of the community. No model can explain all data. The power of Perun far exceeded the function of the supreme authority, we have mentioned above that he was also a war god, analogicałly to Polabian gods Sventovit, Rugevit and Jarovit, which were probably local variants of Perun. The spheres of the gods of the first and second function embraced also harvest and prosperity.

The division of gods according to three functions was not the only model of pantheon. There were gods of heaven and thunder, like Perun, and those who ruled the underworld, like Veles. Khors was the god of the Moon and Stribog of wind. Important role was attributed to gods of the sun and fire: Svarog, called also Radogost, and Dadżbog, the lord of fire, perhaps ident-ical to Svarog. Such idols sometimes attained the status of supreme gods, as for instance Svaroźic, who was worshiped in Radogość. Tryglav, which was probably the Polabian and Pomeranian name of Veles, in the mythology of the Szczecinians ruled over heaven, the earth and the underworld.

For a long time sanctuaries of Slavonic gods could be studied only from written sources. They constituted the basis of Thede Palm’s monograph of Slavonic pagan cult places from 1937. Nowadays it is worth restarting the research, as archaeology has supplemented the written sources with the results of excavations in sites interpreted as sanctuaries, including several temples. The ąuestion is whether the remains really used to be temples. For a long time archaeology lacked reflection on reliable methods of identifying a cult place. An interesting attempt at specifying the criteria of identifying

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