image113

Perun was worshiped, in Kiev together with idols called Khors, Dazbog, Stribog, Simargl and Mokoś and the statuę of Veles in a separate shrine. The Rugian gods, Pizamar and Tjamoglofi, Triglav from Brenna (Brandenburg) and Gerovit from Haveiberg were adored in shrines of unspecified type. Many flgures of the Slavonic pantheon may have been just incama-tions of pan-Slavonic deities, whose proper names were hidden by a taboo: Perun (Sventovit and Rugevit) and Veles (Triglav). The case of Svaroźic, nicknamed Radogost, confirms that this way of thinking is correct. Gods were represented by anthropomorphic statues, often multi-headed or multi--faced, which was especially characteristic for Western Slavs.

Gods were worshiped by rites, offerings and feasts. Of the rituals cel-ebrated in temples we know the harvest festival organized in Wolin at the end of summer, and the summer festival in Arcona (possibly analogical to Sobótką Midsummer). It is evident that in Arcona and Szczecin the rituals were connected with feasts and merrymaking, and in Wolin also with some kind of stage performances, which may have been similar to the Polish folk custom of mascarading or the rite of drowning the effigy of Marzanna, the symbol of winter. During rituals human sacrifices were madę, mainly or exclusively of Christians; in Radogość the offerings were first of all heads. Sacrificial animals included cattle and sheep, excavations allow to supple-ment the list with horses, although written sources do not mention them in such a role. In one of the celebrations in Arcona a ritual cake was placed in front of the tempie and winę or mead from Sventovit’s hora was sac-rificed. Written sources did not record the place of blood-sheding offerings. Helmold (I, 84) says that the Slavs respect cult places so highly that “they do not allow to desacrate the tempie area even with an enemy’s blood.” This may explain why excavations revealed traces of human sacrifices near the tempie in Ralswiek but not in its closest surroundings.

Old Slavs prayed to their gods. The word modlitwa (= prayer), the Old Polish modlą, included the meaning of religious invocation and appeal (Gieysztor, 1982, p. 159). Slavonic prayers, eliminated by Christianity and forgotten, are practically unknown. We know, however, that the priest from Arcona asked Sventovit “in solemn words” for the well-being of himself, the country and the citizens. The prayer was said during the harvest festival. According to Ibn Rosteh’s (11, 205-209) description of a similar harvest ritual, the Slavs “at the time of harvesting take millet to a scoop and raise it towards the sky, saying: O, Lord, who give food, give it to us now in the fuli measure.” Helmold (I, 52) mentions the words of sacrifice uttered over a cup in the name of the god of good and evil. As in most religions, raising hands was a gesture of prayer. In such a pose a man standing in front of an idol is shown on a vessel from Schultzendorf (Gustavus, 1979). Thus, prayers were present in Slavonic cult, along with offerings, oracles and feasts.

The presence of priests is attested in the temples in Arcona, Radogość, Wolin, Szczecin, Garz, Giitzkow and Wolgast, as well as in the Abodrite cult of Radogost. We have some Information about the priest from the grove of Prove. As for Ruthenia, Primary Chronicie before Christianization mentions priests only in connection with Kiev, but during the pagan reac-tion in the llthc. they appear also in Novgorod. According to Kosmas (III, 1), at the end of the same century prince Bretislav banished “diviners and fortune-tellers” from Bohemia. Archaeology cannot prove or disprove the existence of priests, but should not neglect the seciuded huts discovered near the sanctuaries in Khodosoviche and upon the Khnyloplat, which might have been houses of people responsible for the cult practices. The words żrec-żyżec (the person who makes an offering), volkhv, kudesnik and czarodziej (wizard) constitute linguistic proofs of the existence of priests (Urbańczyk, 1948; Gieysztor, 1982, p. 40; A. Bruckner, 1985, p. 51-52; Łow-miański, 1979, p. 159-161; Rybakov, 1987, p. 296-304; Rajewski, 1975, p. 503-508; Jakobson, 1985, p. 45). In the Lutizian Union and in Rugen priests actually took over the rule from princes. As the events in Szczecin prove, in Pomerania the priests were very powerful, although not omnip-otent, as in the critical situation the decision lay with the nobles and the assembly. The power of the pagan clergy in Polabia and Pomerania is astonishing. W. Lammers (1979) claims that among pagan Scandinavians and Saxonians priests did not enjoy equal authority. One of the sources of this State of affairs was undoubtedly the violent confrontation between paganism and Christianity, often identified with the Slavs’ struggle against the Germans, in which the royal rule sometimes let down the tribe, which then tumed to the priests entrusting them with leadership. In Ruthenia, in spite of some traces of a considerable influence of priests, the prince handled the matters of cult: Vladimir decided to erect new idols in Kiev and Nov-gorod, and he ordered to puli them down after Christianization. Nonę of the decisions was opposed. The fact that Christianization was not openly re-sisted in Poland, Bohemia and Moravia seems to indicate that in those countries the position of priests was closer to situation in Ruthenia than in Polabia. Everywhere except of Polabia and Pomerania pagan reactions oc-curred rather late and did not manage to alter the course of history.

The principal sanctuaries marked the centre of the universe for the Slavs. The Redars, who controlled RadogoSć, considered themselves the most powerful people occupying the centre of the world. The plan of Perynia and some other objects testify to the special role of the four directions, which may be also detected in the symbolism of the so-called Sviatovid from the Zbruch and the statuę of Sventovit form Arcona, and in the plans of temples, called kąciny because of the four, probably orientated, corners (kuj) It is intriguing that the Lutizian Union, centred around Radogość, comprised only four tribes, which exactly corresponds to the number of temples in Szczecin. The ideał organization of space is the division of the world in four ąuarters, orientated towards the four directions from the central axis. According to Duklanin’s chronicie (ch. 9), Sventopelk-Budimir

237