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corresponding to the political primacy of the town’s rulers, sovereigns of Ruthenia ciaiming supremacy over tribal leaders. The Kiev sanctuary was the main cult place not only of the Kiev Polanians, which seems to follow from the Primary Chronicie testimony about Dobrynia’s mission in Nov-gorod, where he erected a statuę of Perun.

Several kilometers to the south from Novgorod, the Capital of the Slovens’ territory, there is an open-air cult place called Perynia, situated at the point where the river Volkhov comes out of Ilmen lakę. It occupies a Iow hill covered with trees, rising above the damp area and changing into an island when the water level is high. The most famous Slavonic cult circles were discovered there. The name of Perynia was probably de-rived not directly from Perun, but rather from the word peregynya (Old--Church-Slavonic pregynya, Polish przeginia), which has numerous Indo--European analogues, and refers to a sacred oak forest growing on a hill (Jakobson, 1985, p. 6).

Apart from exceptionally interesting excavation results, the existence of a sanctuary in Perynia is attested by written sources. It is not incidental, as in the early history of Ruthenia the significance of Novgorod was ex-ceeded only by Kiev. The forms of cult practiced there were by no means indifferent to the supreme ruler of the emerging State. Therefore, as Primary Chronicie (year 980) says, when Vladimir erected new idols in Kiev, he also “settled Dobrynia, his uncle, in Novgorod. And Dobrynia came to Novgorod, and set an idol upon the river Volkhov, and the Novgorod people brought offerings to it as a god” (PSRL, vol. 1, 1926, p. 79). The idol survived only eight years. Yladimir’s baptism replaced the reform of paganism with a religious revolution. In 988 bishop Joachim arrived in Novgorod at the prince’s will and order: “he ploughed the trebishche and destroyed Perun, who had stood in Novgorod on Perynia, and or-dered to drag [him] to the Volkhov; and tied with ropes he was dragged through mud, whipped and pushed; and at that time the devil went out of Perun and started to _Nshout: ’Ah, woe! Ah, I have fallen to these unmerci-ful judges! - and he was thrown to the Volkhov. And flowing under a large bridge, he flung his club on the bridge; this is the one with which senseless [people] fight with each other, in which devils rejoice. And [Joachim] forbade anyone to accept him [Perun] anywhere. And one mom-ing a suburb dweller approached the river, intending to take vessels to the town, and Perun drifted ashore.” The man “pushed him with a stick and said: ’Perun! you ate and drank to satiety, now go away, float from this world to heli and vanish in the impenetrable darkness!” Such was the end of Perynia in the relation of the Third Novgorod Chronicie under the year 988 (PSRL, vol. 3, 1841, p. 207). There is a nearly identical fragment in Sojiyskaya letopis, but under 991 (PSRL, vol. 5, 1851, p. 121).

Another version of the events is found in V.N. Tatishchev’s extracts from the so-called Yoakimovskaya letopis. According to that source, “the people in Novgorod, having leamed that Dobrynia was coming to christen them, gathered at an assembly and all swore not to let [him] enter the town and puli down the idols. And when he arrived, they destroyed the great bridge and armed themselves.” Dobrynia did not manage to convince them. “The highest of Slavonic priests, Bogumił, called Solovey [nightingale] because of his sweet speech, strongly forbade the people to obey [Dobrynia].” A Nov-gorod officer, Ugoniay instigated the crowd to attack Dobrynia’s house and kill his wife and relatives. Dobrynia’s army leader, Putiata, crossed the Volkhov up-stream of the town and entered the stronghold. The inhabitants of Novgorod opposed him and a fight broke out, others destroyed the Preobrazhenskaya church and plundered Christians’ houses. Finally, Dobrynia won and “destroyed the idols: bumt the wooden ones, broke the stone ones and threw them to the river,” which caused great dismay in the town. The record, whose originał version has not survived, was written down as late as in the 17th or early 18th c. It probably relates the common image of the christening of Novgorod rather than the authentic events. It does not mention Perynia at all. The personal names, apart from Dobrynia, seem sheer fantasies. The high priest has the telling name of Bogumił (dear to God), the officer Ugoniay (Rushing) rushes around Novgorod on horse, summoning the people to resistance, while Putiata seems to have been taken over from folk tales and legends, surrounding a real Putiata, a generał of prince Sviatopelk II from the turn of the 12th c (SSS, vol. 4, p. 422-423). Therefore, contrary to B.A. Rybakov’s opinion (1987, p. 273-275), Yoaki-movskaya letopis should not be regarded as a very significant basis for reconstructing the pagan religion of Novgorod.

We shall, however, follow the mentioned historian in pointing out that the tradition of Perynia as a cult place was long-lived. In the 17th c. Adam Olearius (1870, p. 80-81), one of the envoys sent by prince Frederick III of Holstein to Russia and Persia, wrote: “The inhabitants of Novgorod, when still pagans, had an idol called Perun, that is the god of fire, as the Russians cali fire perun. At the place where their idol had stood they erected a mon-astery, which preserved the idol’s name and was called Perunsky. That deity looked like a man with [a piece of] flint in his hand, which resembled a thunderbolt or a ray. To worship the deity they kept a fire buming day and night, feeding it with oak wood. And if those who served at the fire were negligent and let the fire go out, they were punished by death.” The ąuestion arises, whether the last detail was not deduced from the stories about the cult of fire practiced by the Lithuanians, popular at the time. Moreover, 01earius’s mention was not fully originał, as he drew some materiał from a century older relation left by Sigmund Herberstein (1556, p. 74-75), which is quite close to the information from the Third Noygorod Chronicie. Also Mateusz Hozjusz and Gvagnin (Bruckner, 1985, p. 105) wrote about Perynia. The mention about a thunderbolt in the statue’s hand may be associated with the representations of Perun from Kiev in miniatures

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