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The origin of life and beliefs of the Eastern Slavs in antiquity. Eastern Slavs: life, culture, beliefs and rituals

Ancient Slavs: manners, customs, beliefs

Introduction

4. Doubtfulness

Conclusion

Bibliography

Introduction

The culture of a people is a part of its history. Its formation, subsequent development is closely related to the same historical factors that affect the formation and development of the country's economy, its statehood, political and spiritual life of society. The concept of culture includes, naturally, everything that is created by the mind, talent, handicraft of the people, everything that expresses its spiritual essence, a view of the world, nature, human existence, and human relations.

Old Russian culture is a special phenomenon in the history of world culture. Having formed under many influences and trends, it was in a short time (XI - XII) centuries. put the Ancient Russian state among the most developed powers in both Europe and the world. Suffice it to recall that Russia of this period is constantly referred to in foreign sources as "the country of cities".

In this work, an attempt is made to study such an aspect of the life of the ancient Slavs as their manners, customs and beliefs. This topic is inexhaustible, therefore, in this work it is proposed to consider it in a historical aspect. First of all, it was decided to turn to such a question as life, everyday life, customs and beliefs of the Eastern Slavs before the adoption of Christianity. And then consider the changes in the culture of the Slavs that occurred with the adoption of Christianity, as well as analyze the role of baptism and Christianity in the formation of ancient Russian culture.

1. Life, way of life, customs and beliefs of the Eastern Slavs in the early Middle Ages

The main occupation of the Eastern Slavs was agriculture. This is confirmed by archaeological excavations, during which seeds of cereals (rye, barley, millet) and garden crops (turnip, cabbage, carrot, beet, radish) were discovered. Industrial crops (flax, hemp) were also grown. The southern lands of the Slavs overtook the northern ones in their development, which was explained by the differences "in natural and climatic conditions, soil fertility. The South Slavic tribes had more ancient agricultural traditions, and also had long-standing ties with the slave states of the Northern Black Sea region.

The Slavic tribes had two main farming systems. In the north, in the area of ​​dense taiga forests, the dominant farming system was slash and burn.

It should be said that the border of the taiga at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. was much farther south of the present day. The famous Belovezhskaya Pushcha is a remnant of the ancient taiga. In the first year, with the slash-and-burn system, trees were cut down on the developed area, and they dried out. The next year, the felled trees and stumps were burned, and grain was sown in the ashes. A plot fertilized with ash gave a fairly high yield for two or three years, then the land was depleted, and a new plot had to be developed. The main implements of labor in the forest belt were an ax, a hoe, a spade and a knotted harrow. They harvested with sickles and grinded the grain with stone graters and millstones.

In the southern regions, fallow was the leading farming system. In the presence of a large amount of fertile land, the plots were sown for several years, and after the depletion of the soil, they were transferred ("shifted") to new plots. The main implements were a ral, and later a wooden plow with an iron ploughshare. Plow farming was more efficient and yielded higher and more stable yields.

Cattle breeding was closely connected with agriculture. The Slavs bred pigs, cows, sheep, goats. Oxen were used as draft animals in the southern regions, and horses were used in the forest belt. Hunting, fishing and beekeeping (collecting honey from wild bees) played an important role in the economy of the Eastern Slavs. Honey, wax, furs were the main items of foreign trade.

The set of agricultural crops differed from the later one: rye still occupied a small place in it, wheat predominated. There were no oats at all, but there were millet, buckwheat, barley.

Forestry and river crafts were also common among the Slavs. Hunting provided more furs than food. Honey was obtained with the help of beekeeping. It was not just a simple collection of honey from wild bees, but also the care of the hollows ("sides") and even their creation. The development of fishing was facilitated by the fact that Slavic settlements were usually located along the banks of rivers.

War booty played an important role in the economy of the Eastern Slavs, as in all societies at the stage of decomposition of the tribal system: tribal leaders raided Byzantium, obtaining slaves and luxury goods there. The princes distributed part of the booty among their fellow tribesmen, which naturally increased their prestige not only as leaders of campaigns, but also as generous benefactors.

At the same time, squads are formed around the princes - groups of constant combat comrades-in-arms, friends (the word "squad" comes from the word "friend") of the prince, a kind of professional warriors and advisers to the prince. The appearance of the squad did not mean at first the elimination of the general arming of the people, the militia, but created the preconditions for this process. The separation of the squad is an essential stage in the creation of a class society and in the transformation of the prince's power from tribal to state power.

The growth in the number of hoards of Roman coins and silver found in the lands of the Eastern Slavs testifies to the development of their trade. The export was grain. About the Slavic export of bread in the II-IV centuries. says the borrowing of the Roman grain measure by the Slavic tribes - the quadrantal, which was called the chetverik (26, 26l) and which existed in the Russian system of measures and weights until 1924. The scale of grain production among the Slavs is evidenced by the traces of storage pits found by archaeologists that could hold up to 5 tons of grain.

According to archaeological data, we can judge to some extent about the life of the ancient Slavs. Their settlements located along the river banks were grouped into a kind of nests of 3-4 villages. If the distance between these villages did not exceed 5 km, then between the "nests" it reached at least 30, or even 100 km. Several families lived in each village; sometimes they numbered in the tens. The houses were small, like semi-dugouts: the floor was a meter and a half below ground level, wooden walls, an adobe or stone stove heated in black, a roof smeared with clay and sometimes reaching the ends of the roof to the ground. The area of ​​such a semi-dugout was usually small: 10-20 m 2.

Several villages, probably, constituted the Old Slavic community - verv. The strength of communal institutions was so great that even an increase in labor productivity and the general standard of living did not immediately lead to property, and even more so social differentiation within the Vervi. So, in the settlement of the X century. (i.e. when the Old Russian state already existed) - the settlement of Novotroitskoye - no traces of more or less rich farms were found. Even the livestock was apparently still in communal ownership: the houses were very crowded, sometimes touching the roofs, and there was no room left for individual cattle sheds or cattle corrals. The strength of the community at first hindered, despite the relatively high level of development of productive forces, the stratification of the community and the separation of richer families from it.

Approximately in the 7th - 8th centuries. the craft is finally separated from agriculture. Specialists-blacksmiths, foundry workers, goldsmiths and silversmiths, and later potters stand out. Craftsmen usually concentrated in tribal centers - grads or on fortified settlements - graveyards, which are gradually turning from military fortifications into centers of handicrafts and trade - cities. At the same time, cities become defensive centers and residences of the bearers of power.

Cities, as a rule, arose at the confluence of two rivers, since this arrangement provided more reliable protection. The central part of the city, surrounded by a rampart and a fortress wall, was called the Kremlin or Detinets. As a rule, the Kremlin was surrounded by water on all sides, since the rivers, at the confluence of which the city was built, were connected by a moat filled with water. Adjacent to the Kremlin were settlements - settlements of artisans. This part of the city was called posad.

The ancient Slavs were pagans who deified the forces of nature. The main god was, apparently, Rod, the god of heaven and earth. He performed surrounded by female fertility deities - Rozhanits. An important role was also played by deities associated with those forces of nature that are especially important for agriculture: Yarilo - the sun god (among some Slavic tribes he was called Yarilo, Horos) and Perun - the god of thunder and lightning. Perun was also the god of war and weapons, and therefore his cult was subsequently especially significant among the retinue. In Russia, before the introduction of the Christian faith, the first degree between idols was occupied by Perun, the god of lightning, whom the Slavs worshiped in the 6th century, adoring in him the Supreme Ruler. His idol stood in Kiev on a hill, outside the courtyard of Vladimirov, and in Novgorod over the Volkhov River was wooden, with a silver head and a golden mustache. Also known are the "cattle god" Volos, or Belee, Dazhdbog, Stribog, Samargla, Svarog (god of fire) Mokosha (goddess of earth and fertility) and others. They sacrificed to the gods, sometimes even human sacrifices. The pagan cult went to specially arranged temples where the idol was placed. The princes acted in the role of high priests, but there were also special priests - magicians and magicians. Paganism persisted in the early days of the Old Russian state, and its vestiges continued for several centuries.

In the treaty between Oleg and the Greeks, Volos is also mentioned, to whom the Russians swore allegiance by the name and Perunov, having special respect for him, since he was considered the patron saint of cattle, their main wealth. - These. The God of joy, love, harmony and all prosperity was called Lado in Russia; he was donated by those entering into a marriage union. The Slavs willingly multiplied the number of their idols and accepted foreign ones. Russian pagans traveled to Courland and Samogitia to worship idols; consequently, they had the same gods with the Latvians. Kupala, the god of earthly fruits, was sacrificed before the gathering of bread, on June 23, on the day of St. Agrippina, who is popularly nicknamed the Bather. Young people were decorated with wreaths, laid out the fire in the evening, danced around it and sang Kupala. The memory of this idolatry has been preserved in some countries of Russia, where the night games of the villagers and dances around the fire with innocent intentions are performed in honor of the pagan idol.

December, the Russian pagans glorified Kolyada, the god of triumphs and peace. On the eve of the Nativity of Christ, the children of farmers were going to carol under the windows of rich peasants, dignified the owner in songs, repeated the name of Kolyada and asked for money. The holy games and fortune-telling seem to be the remnants of this pagan Feast.

Wanting to express the power and formidability of the gods, the Slavs represented them as giants, with terrible faces, with many heads. The Greeks wanted to love their idols (depicting examples of human harmony in them), and the Slavs only to be afraid; the first adored beauty and pleasantness, and the second one strength and, not yet content with their own disgusting appearance of idols, surrounded them with vile images of poisonous animals: snakes, toads, lizards, and so on.

The priests made sacrifices in the name of the people and predicted the future. In ancient times, the Slavs sacrificed some oxen and other animals in honor of the invisible God; but afterwards, darkened by the superstition of idolatry, they stained their claims with the blood of Christians, chosen by lot from among the captives or bought from robbers of the sea. The priests thought that the idol was enjoying the Christian blood, and to complete their horror they drank it, imagining that it communicated the spirit of prophecy. People were also sacrificed in Russia, at least during the time of Vladimirov. The Baltic Slavs gave the idols the heads of the deadly deadly enemies.

The Slavs had an annual cycle of agricultural holidays in honor of the sun and the changing seasons. Pagan rituals were supposed to ensure a high harvest, health of people and livestock.

The most important events in human life - birth, wedding, death - were accompanied by special ceremonies. The burial of the dead was also a sacred act between the pagan Slavs. The elders in the villages announced the death of one of them to the inhabitants by means of a black rod carried from courtyard to courtyard. They all saw off the corpse with a terrible howl, and some women, in white clothes, shed tears into small vessels called deplorable. They made a fire in the cemetery and burned the dead with his wife, horse, weapon; they collected ashes in urns, earthen, copper or glass, and buried them together with deplorable vessels.

Sometimes monuments were erected: graves were lined with wild stones or fenced off with pillars. The sad rites were concluded with a cheerful celebration, which was called a strava and was, even in the 6th century, the cause of great disaster for the Slavs: for the Greeks took advantage of the time of this feast in honor of the dead and utterly beat their army.

Russian Slavs - Krivichi, Northerners, Vyatichi, Radimichi - performed a feast on the dead: they showed their strength in various military games, burned a corpse on a large fire and, enclosing the ashes in an urn, put it on a pillar in the vicinity of the roads.

Little is known about the culture of the Slavic tribes. This is due to the extremely scanty data sources. Changing over time, folk tales, songs, riddles have retained a significant layer of ancient beliefs. Oral folk art reflects the diverse ideas of the Eastern Slavs about the nature and life of people.

Very few examples of the art of the ancient Slavs have survived to this day. In the Ros river basin, an interesting treasure was found from things of the 6th-7th centuries, among which stand out silver figurines of horses with golden manes and hooves and silver images of men in typical Slavic clothes with patterned embroidery on a shirt. For Slavic silver items from the southern Russian regions, complex compositions of human figures, animals, birds and snakes are characteristic. Many subjects in contemporary folk art have a very ancient origin and have changed little over time.

Loving military activity and exposing their lives to incessant dangers, our ancestors had little time in architecture, which required time, leisure, patience, and did not want to build strong houses for themselves: not only in the sixth century, but much later they lived in huts that barely sheltered them from bad weather and rain.


2. Baptism of Rus and its consequences

Precisely established facts of the spread of Christianity in Russia date back to the 9th-10th centuries, when representatives of the Kiev nobility and warriors began to receive baptism, and already existed in the capital in the middle of the 10th century. church of st. Ilya. Apparently, we can talk about the existence of various communities and directions of this teaching: words such as "cross", "altar", "church", "shepherd" are of Western origin. Moreover, the Byzantine Church did not use bells and did not know the concept of tithe. The expansion of the international relations of Russia also contributed to the spread of the new religion. The religious reform carried out by Vladimir Svyatoslavich in this era was a logical step: in the 9th century. Christianity was adopted by Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, in the X century. Poland, Denmark and Hungary, in the XI century, - Norway and Sweden, which in general completed the process of the formation of European civilization. The final choice by Russia of the eastern version of Christianity - Orthodoxy, was determined both by its long-standing ties with Constantinople and by the traditions of the Eastern Church: its close dependence on secular power and the admission of worship in its native language. Skillful use of the internal crisis in Byzantium allowed Russian diplomacy to avoid vassal dependence on the empire when adopting Christianity and to assert the international authority of Russia. In 987, the emperor of Byzantium Vasily II was forced to turn to Vladimir for help in the fight against the rebellious commander Barda Phocas. The prince undertook to send troops to help and be baptized in exchange for Basil II's consent to marry his sister Anna to him. After the defeat of the rebel Foka (with the help of a 6-thousandth Russian army), Vasily II was in no hurry to fulfill his obligation; then Vladimir with an army invaded the Byzantine possessions in the Crimea and captured Chersonesos. This forced Constantinople to rush to the wedding and restore peaceful relations.

Scientists still argue about the date and circumstances of this event, which is due to the difficulty of analyzing multilingual sources with a different chronology system. But whenever the baptism of Vladimir and his subjects took place (between 988-990) , this step meant, first of all, the implementation of a major state reform: a new public institution appeared in Russia - the Orthodox Church. Having appeared in a patriarchal society, the church, as a more mature structure, helped the formation of the Old Russian state and took over part of its functions. In her hands was the court for family, marriage and inheritance cases, along with the "Russian Pravda", the code of church law translated from the Greek - Nomokanocyli - The Nomokanocyli Book was in effect. The church was in charge of certain categories of the population: doctors, kliroshans, pilgrims. Decrees were read out there, documents, standards of measures and weights were kept. The clergy, as the bearer of knowledge and literacy, acted as school teachers. In turn, the princely power provided the church financially: in the X-XI centuries. - at the expense of tithes (deductions from princely income - fines, duties, etc.), and later transferred villages with peasants to bishops and monasteries.

Caring for the poor and the disadvantaged has become an important function of the church. In this area, the church authorities encouraged alms, arranged almshouses; an unmarried woman with a child could find refuge in a "church house"; pilgrims, "lame and blind" were under special protection.

By attacking traditional communal rights and customs, the church strengthened control over the behavior of people in the most conservative and hard-to-reach sphere of family life for government intervention. Diplomas to the newly appointed pastors instructed them to unswervingly carry out their daily duties in the midst of worldly life. The priests persuaded the gentlemen to "have mercy on their servants" and patiently taught their parishioners to fulfill the Christian commandments, who "without shame and shame" had several wives and concubines, played weddings without weddings with violent dances, "buzzing and splashing", did not recognize fasts, arranged pagan "games", and "made violence" right in the temple.

An equally difficult task for the clergy was to force yesterday's pagans to "tell their sins" to a spiritual father - a white or black priest who was called to control the daily life of his parishioners. It was necessary to achieve shame and repentance (and the habit of realizing one's sins), without frightening off with the severity of punishment, so that the sinner "does not fall into despair." According to the sins and "power" of each after confession, a penance was prescribed, and when any everyday "fall" was made public, the perpetrators appeared before a closed episcopal court, "the laity did not admit it."

The church actively participated in the spread of Christianity: with the expansion of the boundaries of the princely possessions, new churches were built, and episcopal sees were established in cities. In turn, the princes sought to secure themselves support from influential church corporations and fought for the right to patronize national shrines, such as, for example, the relics of princes Boris and Gleb. During the period of fragmentation, the bishops intervened in the political struggle on the side of "their" princes. Thus, the Vladimir clergy helped Andrey Bogolyubsky in establishing the patronage cult of the Mother of God by transferring from Kiev to the north the revered icon of the Mother of God - the future Vladimir icon - and by introducing the Intercession Day, not sanctioned by Constantinople and the Kiev Metropolitan. There were (at the same Andrey and other princes) and conflicts with church hierarchs and monasteries, but still 200 years after the baptism of Russia, the Orthodox Church became an important and influential institution in the feudal social structure: already at the end of the 11th century. Kiev-Pechersk Monastery took "volosts" from Prince Yaropolk Izyaslavich and acquired "slaves", and in the XII century. the bishops also receive land holdings.

With the help of a developed doctrine and a harmonious organization, the Russian Orthodox Church strove to sanctify and strengthen the social order. But if it was only a matter of imposing a system of values ​​from above for the sake of a narrow ruling stratum, alien to the overwhelming majority of the population, then it would be doomed to failure: no idea can be introduced by force. The establishment of a new religion also meant a revolution in the worldview of people to whom Christianity offered a system of values ​​different from paganism.

3. Christian worldview as the basis of ancient Russian culture

The prince and his retinue were quite satisfied with the principle of God-established power and all order existing on earth, approved by the new faith. The adoption of Christianity was also due to the expansion of international relations of Russia. But the baptism of Rus' not only corresponded to the interests of the elite of society.

The new religion brought with it the idea of ​​equality of people, unknown to paganism: first, it excluded tribal and ethnic differences; secondly, everyone - from a prince to a farmer - had to answer for their earthly affairs at the Last Judgment: neither high position, nor wealth saved the sinner and villain from fiery hell, which was clearly depicted by artists on the western wall of a Christian church; Paradise awaited the righteous for patience and good deeds. In the new system of values, the origin and social status of a person did not matter: at the Last Judgment, the smerd could well turn out to be more worthy than a boyar or a prince. At the same time, the new faith did not encroach on the earthly order ("Kiyzhdo's slave praises his master," wrote the famous preacher of the 12th century Kirill Turovsky), although it condemned the sharp gap between the evangelical norms and the reality of the sinful world. But the very recognition of equality - if only before God - and confidence in the coming resolution of all earthly contradictions to a certain extent restrained passions and softened the severity of social conflicts.

Christianity elevated the personality of a person created in the image and likeness of God (i.e., a creator person, a creator who chooses his own path with his mind and is responsible for his actions), in contrast to the pagan traditions of the subordination of an individual person to race and fate-fate. But Christianity not only made people equal before God, it pulled them out of the cycle of blind cosmological dependence: personal responsibility is impossible without freedom of personal choice and spiritual independence of each person, who could henceforth, to the best of his ability, join divine grace ("non-commodity energy"). And towards him, God was revealed in the human Face of Jesus Christ, who really united the deity with the whole nature of man. The personal perception of the world as a gift from God gave the Christian hope: even on the threshold of his death hour, a repentant sinner could receive forgiveness and ease his lot.

The new Christian type of consciousness raised a person to a height inconceivable for a pagan outlook.

A new interpretation of the world and the role of man in it revealed to people the wisdom of a "wonderfully" and "wonderfully" arranged Universe, which was expressed by the famous commander and statesman, the Grand Duke of Kiev Vladimir Monomakh: praiseworthy is your name throughout the ages throughout the earth. Whoever does not praise or glorify your strength and your great miracles and goodness arranged in this world: what is the sky like, what kind of sun, what kind of moon, what kind of stars, and darkness and light , and the earth on the waters is laid, O Lord, by your providence! The beast of different characters, both the bird and the fish are adorned with your providence, O Lord! And at this place we marvel at how we have created a man from dust, how we can represent different people in human faces - if the whole world is to mate, not all in one image, but kyi by their own image, according to God's wisdom. "

True, along with an optimistic vision in the Christian Russian culture, there was also a different, much darker perception of sinful reality, contempt for the world and for the flesh (in the Kiev-Pechersk Patericon), but it was never defining. Anthropocentrism, the orientation towards freedom of the human personality, created in the image and likeness of God the Creator, became a characteristic feature of European culture, determined its openness and tolerance towards other types of culture - and at the same time fundamentally distinguished it from the fatalistic world of Islam and Eastern cultures , for whom man is only a particular manifestation of the universal flow of life.

But within the framework of European cultural unity, there were also differences caused by different ways of development of its regions, their natural and climatic characteristics and economic structure, ethnic structure, inherited from the past traditions. Russia did not know and did not assimilate the ancient "heritage", which directly constituted the most important source of Western European culture, with its urban cultural centers, Roman law, Latin education and the classical school. Until the 17th century. Russia was not familiar with scholasticism - Christian philosophizing, which tried to rationally interpret and substantiate church dogmas.

4. Doubtfulness

The act of adopting Christianity as a state religion did not, of course, mean its rapid and widespread establishment in society; it was a long and complicated process. It was most noticeable in cities where the population was less bound by patriarchal traditions and where there was active temple construction; so, if in the second half of the XI century. only 18 churches were built, then in the second half of the XII century. - already 112. However, at this time, both in the south and in northeastern Suzdal, right behind the city rampart, mounds were still poured and the dead set off on their last journey with a cross and with the usual pagan burial implements.

Both in the city and in the countryside, Christianization led to a dual faith - a mixture of pagan and Christian beliefs and rituals, which was, to a certain extent, typical for other European countries, where the primitive perception of the main provisions of the doctrine and cult was accompanied by its folklorization and "paganization" - " ". Bilingualism corresponded to the combination of church culture and everyday life: Church Slavonic (ancient non-Bulgarian) language was spoken in the church, and colloquial Old Russian was spoken in the world. At birth, a medieval man received two names - pagan and baptismal, and in addition to them - a nickname ("Sviblo" (lisping), "Tolstoy" or "Boiled legs"), which accompanied him all his life; the concept of a surname will appear in the feudal circle in the 15th century, and among the peasants - only by the end of the 19th century, and then only according to official documents.

The sacred space of the temple and the "red corner" of the peasant hut with icons and lamps were opposed by "unclean" places: road crossings, a barn and a bathhouse - "domestic" dark forces lived in it, it was supposed to remove the cross and perform fortune-telling. Together with prayers for many centuries, conspiracies for all occasions remained in use, like the nameless Novgorod letter of the XIV century: "As my heart and my soul flared up before you, and before your sight, and before your body, so the color will flare up and your soul is up to me, and to my sight, and to my body. " In everyday life, for help in delicate situations, they turned not only to the priest, but also to the local sorcerers-magi for a "potion" for "bewitchment", medicinal herbs or simply for advice. Moreover, before the XVI century. parish churches were not always close to the house, and many pagan sanctuaries continued to operate until the 13th century.

ancient slavic christian dual faith

Conclusion

Russia took shape and developed as the center of a huge people for that time, at first consisting of various tribes; as a state whose life developed over a vast territory. And all the original cultural experience of the Eastern Slavs became the property of a single Russian culture. It took shape as the culture of all Eastern Slavs, while retaining its regional features - some for the Dnieper region, others for North-Eastern Russia, etc. At the time of its state formation, Russia was strongly influenced by neighboring Byzantium, which for its time was one of the most cultured states in the world. Thus, the culture of the Slavs evolved from the very beginning as synthetic, i.e. influenced by various cultural trends, styles, traditions.

For many years, the culture of the ancient Slavs developed under the influence of pagan religion, pagan worldview. With the adoption of Christianity by Russia, the situation changed dramatically. The new religion claimed to change the worldview of people, their perception of all life.

However, Christianity, having had a strong impact on Russian culture, especially in the field of literature, architecture, art, literacy development, school affairs, libraries - on those areas that were closely connected with the life of the church, with religion, and could not overcome the folk origins Russian culture. For long years in Russia, dual beliefs persisted: the official religion, which prevailed in the cities, and paganism, which went into the shadows, but still existed in remote parts of Russia, especially in the northeast, retained its positions in the countryside, the development of Russian culture reflected this duality in the spiritual life of society, in the life of the people. Pagan spiritual traditions, folk at their core, had a profound impact on the entire development of Russian culture in the early Middle Ages.

Bibliography

1.Alekseev V.P. The origin of the peoples of Eastern Europe, M., 1969.

2.Zuev M.N., Chernobaev A.A. Russian history. M., 2000.

.The history of Russia from ancient times to the beginning of the XX century. Under. ed. AND I. Froyanov. M., 1999.

.Russian history. From ancient times to the end of the 17th century. Ed. Sakharova A.N., Novoseltseva A.P., M., 1996.

.History of the Middle Ages. Ed. Karpova S.P. Vol.1.M., 1997.

.Klyuchevsky V.O. Russian history. Vol.1.M., 1994.

.Muravyov A.V., Sakharov A.M. Essays on the history of Russian culture in the 9th-17th centuries M., 1984.

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.Orlov A.S., Georgiev V.A., Georgieva N.G., Sivokhina T.A., History of Russia. Textbook. M., 1999.

.Rybakov B.A. From the history of culture of Ancient Russia. M., 1984.

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Introduction

The culture of a people is a part of its history. Its formation, subsequent development is closely related to the same historical factors that affect the formation and development of the country's economy, its statehood, political and spiritual life of society. The concept of culture includes, naturally, everything that is created by the mind, talent, handicraft of the people, everything that expresses its spiritual essence, a view of the world, nature, human existence, and human relations.

Old Russian culture is a special phenomenon in the history of world culture. Having formed under many influences and trends, it was in a short time (XI - XII) centuries. put the Ancient Russian state among the most developed powers in both Europe and the world. Suffice it to recall that Russia of this period is constantly referred to in foreign sources as "the country of cities".

In this work, an attempt is made to study such an aspect of the life of the ancient Slavs as their manners, customs and beliefs. This topic is inexhaustible, therefore, in this work it is proposed to consider it in a historical aspect. First of all, it was decided to turn to such a question as life, everyday life, customs and beliefs of the Eastern Slavs before the adoption of Christianity. And then consider the changes in the culture of the Slavs that occurred with the adoption of Christianity, as well as analyze the role of baptism and Christianity in the formation of ancient Russian culture.

Life, way of life, customs and beliefs of the Eastern Slavs in the early Middle Ages

The main occupation of the Eastern Slavs was agriculture. This is confirmed by archaeological excavations, during which seeds of cereals (rye, barley, millet) and garden crops (turnip, cabbage, carrot, beet, radish) were discovered. Industrial crops (flax, hemp) were also grown. The southern lands of the Slavs overtook the northern ones in their development, which was explained by the differences "in natural and climatic conditions, soil fertility. The South Slavic tribes had more ancient agricultural traditions, and also had long-standing ties with the slave states of the Northern Black Sea region.

The Slavic tribes had two main farming systems. In the north, in the area of ​​dense taiga forests, the dominant farming system was slash and burn.

It should be said that the border of the taiga at the beginning of the 1st millennium AD. was much farther south of the present day. The famous Belovezhskaya Pushcha is a remnant of the ancient taiga. In the first year, with the slash-and-burn system, trees were cut down on the developed area, and they dried out. The next year, the felled trees and stumps were burned, and grain was sown in the ashes. A plot fertilized with ash gave a fairly high yield for two or three years, then the land was depleted, and a new plot had to be developed. The main implements of labor in the forest belt were an ax, a hoe, a spade and a knotted harrow. They harvested with sickles and grinded the grain with stone graters and millstones.

In the southern regions, fallow was the leading farming system. In the presence of a large amount of fertile land, the plots were sown for several years, and after the depletion of the soil, they were transferred ("shifted") to new plots. The main implements were a ral, and later a wooden plow with an iron ploughshare. Plow farming was more efficient and yielded higher and more stable yields.

Cattle breeding was closely connected with agriculture. The Slavs bred pigs, cows, sheep, goats. Oxen were used as draft animals in the southern regions, and horses were used in the forest belt. Hunting, fishing and beekeeping (collecting honey from wild bees) played an important role in the economy of the Eastern Slavs. Honey, wax, furs were the main items of foreign trade.

The set of agricultural crops differed from the later one: rye still occupied a small place in it, wheat predominated. There were no oats at all, but there were millet, buckwheat, barley.

The Slavs bred cattle and pigs, as well as horses. The important role of cattle breeding is evident from the fact that in the Old Russian language the word "cattle" also meant money.

Forestry and river crafts were also common among the Slavs. Hunting provided more furs than food. Honey was obtained with the help of beekeeping. It was not just a simple collection of honey from wild bees, but also the care of the hollows ("sides") and even their creation. The development of fishing was facilitated by the fact that Slavic settlements were usually located along the banks of rivers.

War booty played an important role in the economy of the Eastern Slavs, as in all societies at the stage of decomposition of the tribal system: tribal leaders raided Byzantium, obtaining slaves and luxury goods there. The princes distributed part of the booty among their fellow tribesmen, which naturally increased their prestige not only as leaders of campaigns, but also as generous benefactors.

At the same time, squads are formed around the princes - groups of constant combat comrades-in-arms, friends (the word "squad" comes from the word "friend") of the prince, a kind of professional warriors and advisers to the prince. The appearance of the squad did not mean at first the elimination of the general arming of the people, the militia, but created the preconditions for this process. The separation of the squad is an essential stage in the creation of a class society and in the transformation of the prince's power from tribal to state power.

The growth in the number of hoards of Roman coins and silver found in the lands of the Eastern Slavs testifies to the development of their trade. The export was grain. About the Slavic export of bread in the II-IV centuries. says the borrowing of the Roman grain measure by the Slavic tribes - the quadrantal, which was called the chetverik (26, 26l) and which existed in the Russian system of measures and weights until 1924. The scale of grain production among the Slavs is evidenced by the traces of storage pits found by archaeologists that could hold up to 5 tons of grain.

According to archaeological data, we can judge to some extent about the life of the ancient Slavs. Their settlements located along the river banks were grouped into a kind of nests of 3-4 villages. If the distance between these villages did not exceed 5 km, then between the "nests" it reached at least 30, or even 100 km. Several families lived in each village; sometimes they numbered in the tens. The houses were small, like semi-dugouts: the floor was a meter and a half below ground level, wooden walls, an adobe or stone stove heated in black, a roof smeared with clay and sometimes reaching the ends of the roof to the ground. The area of ​​such a semi-dugout was usually small: 10-20 m 2.

Several villages, probably, constituted the Old Slavic community - verv. The strength of communal institutions was so great that even an increase in labor productivity and the general standard of living did not immediately lead to property, and even more so social differentiation within the Vervi. So, in the settlement of the X century. (i.e. when the Old Russian state already existed) - the settlement of Novotroitskoye - no traces of more or less rich farms were found. Even the livestock was apparently still in communal ownership: the houses were very crowded, sometimes touching the roofs, and there was no room left for individual cattle sheds or cattle corrals. The strength of the community at first hindered, despite the relatively high level of development of productive forces, the stratification of the community and the separation of richer families from it.

Approximately in the 7th - 8th centuries. the craft is finally separated from agriculture. Specialists-blacksmiths, foundry workers, goldsmiths and silversmiths, and later potters stand out. Craftsmen usually concentrated in tribal centers - grads or on fortified settlements - graveyards, which are gradually turning from military fortifications into centers of handicrafts and trade - cities. At the same time, cities become defensive centers and residences of the bearers of power.

Cities, as a rule, arose at the confluence of two rivers, since this arrangement provided more reliable protection. The central part of the city, surrounded by a rampart and a fortress wall, was called the Kremlin or Detinets. As a rule, the Kremlin was surrounded by water on all sides, since the rivers, at the confluence of which the city was built, were connected by a moat filled with water. Adjacent to the Kremlin were settlements - settlements of artisans. This part of the city was called posad.

The ancient Slavs were pagans who deified the forces of nature. The main god was, apparently, Rod, the god of heaven and earth. He performed surrounded by female fertility deities - Rozhanits. An important role was also played by deities associated with those forces of nature that are especially important for agriculture: Yarilo - the sun god (among some Slavic tribes he was called Yarilo, Horos) and Perun - the god of thunder and lightning. Perun was also the god of war and weapons, and therefore his cult was subsequently especially significant among the retinue. In Russia, before the introduction of the Christian faith, the first degree between idols was occupied by Perun, the god of lightning, whom the Slavs worshiped in the 6th century, adoring in him the Supreme Ruler. His idol stood in Kiev on a hill, outside the courtyard of Vladimirov, and in Novgorod over the Volkhov River was wooden, with a silver head and a golden mustache. Also known are the "cattle god" Volos, or Belee, Dazhdbog, Stribog, Samargla, Svarog (god of fire) Mokosha (goddess of earth and fertility) and others. They sacrificed to the gods, sometimes even human sacrifices. The pagan cult went to specially arranged temples where the idol was placed. The princes acted in the role of high priests, but there were also special priests - magicians and magicians. Paganism persisted in the early days of the Old Russian state, and its vestiges continued for several centuries.

In the treaty between Oleg and the Greeks, Volos is also mentioned, to whom the Russians swore allegiance by the name and Perunov, having special respect for him, since he was considered the patron saint of cattle, their main wealth. - These. The God of joy, love, harmony and all prosperity was called Lado in Russia; he was donated by those entering into a marriage union. The Slavs willingly multiplied the number of their idols and accepted foreign ones. Russian pagans traveled to Courland and Samogitia to worship idols; consequently, they had the same gods with the Latvians. Kupala, the god of earthly fruits, was sacrificed before the gathering of bread, on June 23, on the day of St. Agrippina, who is popularly nicknamed the Bather. Young people were decorated with wreaths, laid out the fire in the evening, danced around it and sang Kupala. The memory of this idolatry has been preserved in some countries of Russia, where the night games of the villagers and dances around the fire with innocent intentions are performed in honor of the pagan idol.

On December 24, Russian pagans praised Kolyada, the god of triumphs and peace. On the eve of the Nativity of Christ, the children of farmers were going to carol under the windows of rich peasants, dignified the owner in songs, repeated the name of Kolyada and asked for money. The holy games and fortune-telling seem to be the remnants of this pagan Feast.

Wanting to express the power and formidability of the gods, the Slavs represented them as giants, with terrible faces, with many heads. The Greeks wanted to love their idols (depicting examples of human harmony in them), and the Slavs only to be afraid; the first adored beauty and pleasantness, and the second one strength and, not yet content with their own disgusting appearance of idols, surrounded them with vile images of poisonous animals: snakes, toads, lizards, and so on.

The priests made sacrifices in the name of the people and predicted the future. In ancient times, the Slavs sacrificed some oxen and other animals in honor of the invisible God; but afterwards, darkened by the superstition of idolatry, they stained their claims with the blood of Christians, chosen by lot from among the captives or bought from robbers of the sea. The priests thought that the idol was enjoying the Christian blood, and to complete their horror they drank it, imagining that it communicated the spirit of prophecy. People were also sacrificed in Russia, at least during the time of Vladimirov. The Baltic Slavs gave the idols the heads of the deadly deadly enemies.

The Slavs had an annual cycle of agricultural holidays in honor of the sun and the changing seasons. Pagan rituals were supposed to ensure a high harvest, health of people and livestock.

The most important events in human life - birth, wedding, death - were accompanied by special ceremonies. The burial of the dead was also a sacred act between the pagan Slavs. The elders in the villages announced the death of one of them to the inhabitants by means of a black rod carried from courtyard to courtyard. They all saw off the corpse with a terrible howl, and some women, in white clothes, shed tears into small vessels called deplorable. They made a fire in the cemetery and burned the dead with his wife, horse, weapon; they collected ashes in urns, earthen, copper or glass, and buried them together with deplorable vessels.

Sometimes monuments were erected: graves were lined with wild stones or fenced off with pillars. The sad rites were concluded with a cheerful celebration, which was called a strava and was, even in the 6th century, the cause of great disaster for the Slavs: for the Greeks took advantage of the time of this feast in honor of the dead and utterly beat their army.

Russian Slavs - Krivichi, Northerners, Vyatichi, Radimichi - performed a feast on the dead: they showed their strength in various military games, burned a corpse on a large fire and, enclosing the ashes in an urn, put it on a pillar in the vicinity of the roads.

Little is known about the culture of the Slavic tribes. This is due to the extremely scanty data sources. Changing over time, folk tales, songs, riddles have retained a significant layer of ancient beliefs. Oral folk art reflects the diverse ideas of the Eastern Slavs about the nature and life of people.

Very few examples of the art of the ancient Slavs have survived to this day. In the Ros river basin, an interesting treasure was found from things of the 6th-7th centuries, among which stand out silver figurines of horses with golden manes and hooves and silver images of men in typical Slavic clothes with patterned embroidery on a shirt. For Slavic silver items from the southern Russian regions, complex compositions of human figures, animals, birds and snakes are characteristic. Many subjects in contemporary folk art have a very ancient origin and have changed little over time.

Loving military activity and exposing their lives to incessant dangers, our ancestors had little time in architecture, which required time, leisure, patience, and did not want to build strong houses for themselves: not only in the sixth century, but much later they lived in huts that barely sheltered them from bad weather and rain.

The Slavs did not have any alphabet until 863, when the philosopher Constantine, named Cyril in monasticism, and Methodius, his brother, the inhabitants of Thessaloniki, were sent by the Greek emperor Michael to Moravia to the local Christian princes Rostislav, Svyatopolk and Kotsel, to translate church books from Greek language, invented a special Slavic alphabet formed in Greek, with the addition of new letters: B.Zh.Ts.Sh. Sch. B. NS. Kommersant Yu. Ya.Zh. This alphabet, called Cyril, or Cyrillic, is still used, with some changes, in Russia.

The history of the Eastern Slavs, the process of the appearance of the Eastern Slavs in antiquity, their way of life and beliefs. The origin of the Eastern Slavs, the first written evidence. Description of the ancient Slavs. Life and belief: the economy of the Slavs and their community, dwelling and belief.

Introduction

History has always attracted great public interest. This interest is explained by the natural need of a person to know the history of his homeland, his roots. A people without historical memory is doomed to degradation. He cannot give up his past, because then he will have no future. Chronicles are the most important sources of Russian history. In our time, Eastern Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians) make up about 85% of the population of Russia, 96% of Ukraine and 98% of Belarus. However, this situation has developed quite recently. Getting acquainted with the oldest descriptions of our country, until the first centuries of our era, we will not even find a mention of the name of the Slavs. The history of the Eastern Slavs, like most other peoples, has its roots in antiquity. Without knowledge of the features of the historical, spiritual development of the ancient Eastern Slavs, it is impossible to fully disclose the essence and nature of the relations of modern Slavic peoples between themselves and with other peoples.

The first who tried to answer the questions: where, how and when did the Slavs appear in the historical territory was the ancient chronicler Nestor - the author of the Tale of Bygone Years. He defined the territory of the Slavs, including the lands along the lower Danube and Pannonia. It was from the Danube that the process of settling the Slavs began, that is, the Slavs were not the original inhabitants of their land, we are talking about their migration. Consequently, the Kiev chronicler was the ancestor of the so-called migratory territory of origin of the Slavs, known as "Danube" or "Balkan".

The history of the Eastern Slavs, like most other peoples, has its roots in antiquity. Without knowledge of the features of the historical, spiritual development of the ancient Eastern Slavs, it is impossible to fully disclose the essence and nature of the relations of modern Slavic peoples between themselves and with other peoples.

1. The origin of the Eastern Slavs

The Slavs, according to most historians, separated from the Indo-European community in the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. NS. The ancestral home of the early Slavs (Proto-Slavs), according to archaeological data, was the territory to the east of the Germans - from the Oder River in the west to the Carpathian Mountains in the east. A number of researchers believe that the Proto-Slavic language began to take shape later, in the middle of the 1st millennium BC. NS.

The first written evidence of the Slavs dates back to the beginning of the 1st millennium BC. NS. The Slavs are reported by Greek, Roman, Arab, Byzantine sources. Ancient authors mention the Slavs under the name of the Wends. The Veneds at that time occupied approximately the territory of what is now South-Eastern Poland, South-Western Belarus and North-Western Ukraine.

In the era of the Great Migration of Peoples, the Slavs mastered the territory of Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe. They lived in the forest and forest-steppe zone. The peculiarities of the agricultural economy forced the Slavs to colonize vast territories. The Slavs advanced and settled along the large rivers, which served as transport arteries at that time. The local population (Iranian, Baltic, Finno-Ugric) was easily assimilated by the Slavs, usually by peaceful means. The relations of the Slavs with nomadic peoples were special. On this steppe ocean, stretching from the Black Sea to Central Asia, wave after wave of nomadic tribes invaded Eastern Europe. At the end of the IV century. the Gothic tribal union was defeated by the Turkic-speaking tribes of the Huns who came from Central Asia. In 375, the hordes of the Huns occupied the territory between the Volga and the Danube with their nomads, and then advanced further into Europe to the borders of France. In their advance to the west, the Huns carried away part of the Slavs. After the death of the leader of the Huns Attila (453), the Hunnic empire disintegrated, and they were thrown back to the east.

In the VI century. The Turkic-speaking Avars (the Russian chronicle called them images) created their state in the southern Russian steppes, uniting the tribes that roamed there. The Avar Kaganate was defeated by Byzantium in 625 by the "proud minds" and the body of the great Avars-obrs disappeared without a trace. "They died like a cliff" - these words, with the light hand of the Russian chronicler, became an aphorism.

Eastern Slavs in the VI-IX centuries. In the VI century. the Slavs repeatedly made military campaigns against the largest state of that time - Byzantium. From this time, a number of works by Byzantine authors have come down to us, containing a kind of military instruction in the fight against the Slavs. So, for example, the Byzantine Procopius from Caesarea wrote in the book "War with the Goths": "These tribes, the Slavs and the Antes, are not ruled by one person, but since ancient times they live in the rule of the people (democracy), and therefore they consider happiness and unhappiness in life common ... They believe that only God, the creator of lightning, is the ruler over all, and bulls are sacrificed to him and other sacred rites are performed ... Slavs and Antes were one and the same. "

The formation of large tribal associations of the Slavs is indicated by the legend contained in the Russian chronicle, which tells about the reign of Kyi with the brothers Shchek, Khoryv and sister Lybed in the Middle Dnieper region. Kiev, founded by the brothers, was allegedly named after the elder brother Kiy. The chronicler noted that other tribes had the same reigns. Historians believe that these events took place at the end of the 5th - 6th centuries. n. NS.

2. Description of the ancient Slavs

“Justice was imprinted in their minds, not laws,” wrote one Greek historian, noting that the Slavs did not yet have written legislation, “theft was rare and was considered more important than any crime. They despised gold and silver as much as other mortals desired it. And here is the testimony of another author: “The tribes of the Slavs lead the same way of life, have the same morals, love freedom and cannot stand slavery. They are especially brave and courageous in their country and are capable of all kinds of labor and hardship. They easily tolerate heat and cold, and nudity of the body, and all kinds of inconveniences and disadvantages. They are very affectionate towards strangers, whose safety they care most of all: they escort them from place to place and instruct themselves with the sacred law that a neighbor must take revenge on a neighbor and go to war against him, if, by his carelessness, instead of being guarded, he allows any case where a stranger is will suffer misfortune. " The Greeks noticed the peculiarities of the communal patriarchal order of life of the Slavs: “The captives of the Slavs are not like those of other peoples, they do not always remain in slavery; they determine a certain time for them, after which, having paid a ransom, they are free to either return to their fatherland, or remain friends and free with them. " Often engaging in battles with the Slavs, the Greeks very carefully studied the character of the Slavs and their military habits: “They are excellent warriors, because military science is becoming a harsh science for them in every detail. The highest happiness in their eyes is to die in battle. To die of old age or from any incident is a shame, more humiliating than which there can be nothing. They are generally handsome and tall; their hair is cast in light brown color. Their eyes are more warlike than fierce. " "They often make raids, surprise attacks and various tricks day and night and, so to speak, play war." “Their greatest skill is that they know how to hide in rivers under water. Often, caught by the enemy, they lie for a very long time at the bottom and breathe with the help of long reed tubes, the end of which is taken into the mouth, and the other is pushed out to the surface of the water and thus sheltered in the depths. " Surprisingly, this observation: "The Slavs do not tolerate any power and hatred for each other."

3. Life and belief

Economy of the Slavs. The main occupation of the Eastern Slavs was agriculture. This is confirmed by archaeological excavations that have discovered seeds of cereals (rye, wheat, barley, millet) and garden crops (turnips, cabbage, beets, carrots, radishes, garlic, etc.). Man in those days identified life with arable land and bread, hence the name of grain crops "zhito", which has survived to this day. The agricultural traditions of this region are evidenced by the borrowing by the Slavs of the Roman grain norm of the quadrantal (26.26 l), which was called the four-sided in Russia and existed in our system of measures and weights until 1924.

The main farming systems of the Eastern Slavs are closely related to natural and climatic conditions. In the north, in the area of ​​taiga forests (the remnant of which is Belovezhskaya Pushcha), the dominant farming system was slash and burn. In the first year, the trees were cut down. In the second year, the dried trees were burned and, using the ash as fertilizer, grain was sown. For two or three years, the plot gave a high yield for that time, then the land was depleted, and they had to move to a new plot. The main implements of labor were an ax, a hoe, a plow, a knotted harrow and a spade, with which they loosened the soil. Harvested with sickles. They thrashed with flails. The grain was ground with stone graters and hand millstones.

In the southern regions, fallow was the leading farming system. There was a lot of fertile land, and plots of land were sown for two to three years or more. With the depletion of the soil, they moved (shifted) to new plots. As the main tools of labor, they used a plow, a ral, a wooden plow with an iron ploughshare, i.e. implements adapted for horizontal plowing.

Cattle breeding was closely connected with agricultural occupation. The Slavs bred pigs, cows, and small ruminants. In the south, oxen were used as draft animals, in the forest belt of horses. Other activities of the Slavs include fishing, hunting, bee-keeping (collecting honey from wild bees), which had a large share in the northern regions. Industrial crops (flax, hemp) were also grown.

Community. The life of the Eastern Slavs among the dense forests and swamps cannot be called easy. Before cutting down the house, it was necessary to find a dry and relatively open place, and most importantly, to clear it. It was impossible to be engaged in agriculture alone. Labor-intensive tasks could only be performed by a large team. His task was also to monitor the correct distribution of land. Therefore, a large role in the life of the Russian village was acquired by the community - peace, rope (from the word “rope”, which was used to measure the land during the division).

With the improvement of the tools of labor, the clan was replaced by the neighboring, or territorial community, within which private property arises and strengthens.

All property of the community was divided into public and personal. The house, household land, livestock, inventory were the personal property of each community member. In common use were land, meadows, forests, reservoirs, fishing grounds, etc. Arable land and mows were to be divided between families.

The unity of the neighboring community was supported not by blood, but by economic ties. A monogamous family, consisting of a husband, wife, children, becomes an integral part of the social cell of society - the neighboring community.

Dwelling. As a rule, the settlement is not large - from one to five yards. Villages with several dozen houses, apparently, were very rare. The Byzantine author wrote that the Slavs live in poor, scattered huts. Excavations allow us to imagine the appearance of an ancient Slavic dwelling. This is a small semi-dugout with a floor a meter and a half below ground level, wooden walls, a clay-covered roof, almost touching the slopes of the ground. Inside there is an earthen or stone stove that is heated in black (i.e. without a chimney). The housing area ranged from 10 to 20 square meters. The settlements were surrounded by earthen ramparts, traces of which are often found by archaeologists. Palisades were placed on the ramparts to protect against enemies and wild animals. The villages were usually located along the banks of the rivers. Apparently, several villages constituted one community. This statement is supported by the grouping of ancient settlements by "nests" separated by a distance of several tens of kilometers. Within the nest, the settlements were located much closer to each other.

Belief. The religion of the Eastern Slavs was complex, varied, with detailed customs; like other ancient peoples, the Slavs were pagans. They populated the world with a variety of gods and goddesses. Among them were major and minor, omnipotent and weak, playful, evil and kind. The most important gods of the Slavs were Perun - the god of thunder, lightning, war; Svarog is the god of fire; Veles is the patron saint of cattle breeding; Mokosh - the goddess who protected the female part of the economy; Simargl is the god of the underworld. The sun god was especially revered, which was called differently among different tribes: Dazhdbog, Yarilo, Khoros, which indicates the absence of a stable Slavic intertribal unity.

Conclusion

The considered historical period is of great importance in Russian history. The Eastern Slavs were the ancestors of not only the Russian people, but also the Ukrainians, Belarusians, Latvians and others. During this period, the development of the East European Plain took place, the establishment of intertribal contacts, the process of mixing peoples. Subsequently, tribal unions began to form - one of the main steps towards the emergence of statehood.

The constantly improving economy of the Eastern Slavs, in the end, led to the fact that a separate family, a separate house ceased to need the help of the clan, relatives. This is how the right of private ownership, private property was born.

Under these conditions, the power and economic capabilities of tribal leaders, elders, tribal nobility, and warriors who surrounded the leaders sharply increased. This is how property inequality arose in the Slavic environment, and especially clearly in the regions of the Middle Dnieper region.

In many ways, these processes were helped by the development of not only agriculture and cattle breeding, but also crafts, the growth of cities, trade ties, because conditions were also created here for additional accumulation of social wealth, which more often fell into the hands of the haves, deepening the property difference between the rich and the poor.

The religion of the Eastern Slavs was complex, varied with detailed customs. Its origins go back to ancient Indo-European beliefs and even further back to the Paleolithic era. It was there, in the depths of antiquity, that man's ideas about the supernatural forces that govern his fate, about his relationship to nature and its relationship to man, about his place in the world around him, were born. The religion that existed among different peoples before their adoption of Christianity or Islam is called paganism.

Thus, from VI to IX centuries. the eastern Slavs and their neighbors were at a socially primitive level of development, which in the same period began to gradually transform into a feudal one. Territorial communities, tribal unions, headed by "the best men", appeared. These rudiments of power relations contributed to the fact that in the 9th century, on the territory of the settlement of the Eastern Slavs, the Old Russian state was formed and a new stage began in Russian history.

Bibliography

A.A. Danilov, L.G. Kosulin. Russian history. M .: Education, 2000 .-- 336 p.

V.P. Kobychev. In search of the ancestral home of the Slavs. M. - 1989 - 256 p.

History of Russia: textbook. / A. S. Orlov, V. A. Georgiev, N. G. Georgieva, T. A. Sivokhina. - 3rd ed., Rev. and add. - M .: TK Welby, Prospect Publishing House, 2006 .-- 528 p.

L.N. Gumilev. Ancient Russia and the Great Steppe. M. - 1999 - 300 p.

Domestic history: A textbook for students of non-historical faculties. - Voronezh: Voronezh State University Publishing House, 2002 .-- 576 p.

S.A. Kislitsin. History of Russia in questions and answers. Tutorial. - Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix Publishing House, 2007.

One of the main customs of the ancient Slavs was that all generations of the family lived under one roof, and there was also a family cemetery somewhere not far from the house, so that long-dead ancestors also invisibly took part in the life of the family.

Many more children were born in those days than in our time, i.e. by the number of children in the family of the ancient Slavs and modern families are very different, in addition to this, among the pagans, it was not considered shameful for a man to bring as many wives to his house as he could feed. Those. in such a house lived, approximately, four or five brothers with wives, children, parents, grandmothers, grandfathers, uncles, aunts, cousins, second cousins.

Each person who lived in such a family considered himself primarily a member of the clan, and not an individual. And also any Slav could name his ancestors several centuries ago and tell in detail about each of them. Numerous holidays were associated with the ancestors, many of which have survived to this day (Radunitsa, parental day).

Getting acquainted, the ancient Slavs must have mentioned whose son, grandson and great-grandson he was, without this people would have thought that a person who did not name his father and grandfather was hiding something. Each genus had a specific reputation. In one, people were famous for their honesty and nobility, in the other there were fraudsters, therefore, having met a representative of this kind, one should keep an eye out. The man knew that at the first meeting he would be assessed as his family deserves. On the other hand, he himself felt responsible for the whole large family.

In those days, everyday clothes of every Slav represented his full "passport". The clothes of each contained a huge number of details that spoke about its owner: what tribe he was from, what kind, etc. Looking at the clothes, it was immediately possible to determine who it was and where it was from, and therefore how to behave with it.

In such a family, there have never been any forgotten children, or abandoned old people, i.e. human society took care of each of its members, worrying about the survival of the clan and society as a whole.

The house, which has always been a protection, a refuge, in beliefs was opposed to everything else, a stranger. He was the first concern of any man who decided to stand out from the previous family. The place for the building was chosen very carefully, it depended on whether there would be luck, happiness and prosperity in the house. The place where the bathhouse used to stand was considered bad, the suicide was buried, where the house burned, etc. At the place they liked, they put water in a vessel for the night under the open sky. If by the morning it retained its purity and transparency, then this was considered a good sign.

Starting work, they prayed for sunrise and drank the "hand-held" set by the owner. Three things were placed in the front, "holy" corner: money (coin) - "for wealth", incense - "for holiness," sheep wool - "for warmth." Above, under the roof, there was a carved comb with carved figures, for example, a rooster. As a prophetic bird, he was very revered by the ancient Slavs. It was believed that the rooster awakens the sun to life, returns light and warmth to the earth. In the guise of a rooster, the Slavs personified heavenly fire. He protected the house from fire and lightning. Moving to a new house was made at night, in the full moon. It was accompanied by various rituals. The owners usually carried with them a rooster, a cat, an icon and bread and salt; often - a pot of porridge, coals from an old stove, rubbish from an old house, etc.

Garbage in the beliefs and magic of the ancient Slavs is an attribute of the house, a receptacle for the souls of ancestors. He was transferred during the relocation, hoping that together with him the spirit would pass into the new house - the guardian of the house, good luck, wealth and prosperity. They used garbage in fortune telling and for various magical purposes, for example, fumigated with the smoke of burning garbage from the evil eye.

One of the sacred centers of the house was the oven. Food was cooked in the oven, people slept on it, in some places they used it as a bath; mainly traditional medicine was associated with it. The stove symbolized a woman giving birth to a female womb. She was the main guardian of the family inside the house. Oaths were taken at the stove, an agreement was made at the stove pillar; milk teeth of children and umbilical cords of newborns were hidden in the stove; the patron saint of the house, the brownie, lived in the sub-furnace.

The table was also a subject of special reverence. When a house is sold, the table must be handed over to the new owner. He was usually moved only when performing some rituals, for example, a wedding or a funeral. Then they carried out a ritual round of the table, or carried a newborn around it. The table was both the starting and ending point of any path. They kissed him before a long journey and upon returning home.

The part of the house endowed with many symbolic functions is the window. It was often used as an “unconventional way out of the house” to deceive unclean spirits, illness, etc. For example, if children were dying in the house, then the newborn was passed through the window so that he remained to live. Windows were often perceived as a path for something holy, pure. It was not allowed to spit through the windows, pour out slops, throw out rubbish, since under them, according to legend, stands the Angel of the Lord.

If the house was a protection, a refuge, then the gate was a symbol of the border between one's own, mastered space and a foreign, external world. They were considered a dangerous place where all evil spirits dwell. They hung icons on the gates, and in the morning, leaving the house, they prayed first to the church, then to the sun, and then to the gates and on all four sides. A wedding candle was often attached to them, the teeth of a harrow were stuck in them or a scythe was hung to protect against unclean spirits, thorny plants were stuffed into the cracks of the gate as a talisman against witches. Since ancient times, various magical actions have been performed at the gate. In them, traditionally, in early spring, fires were kindled, which cleared the space of the gate, and with it the entire space of the courtyard.

Initiation, funeral and wedding as the main rites

Initiation

To become a member of the tribe, a child had to undergo an initiation ceremony. It took place in three steps.

The first - immediately at birth, when the midwife cut the umbilical cord with the tip of a combat arrow in the case of a boy, or with scissors in the case of a girl, and swaddled the child in a diaper with signs of gender.

When the boy reached three years old, he underwent a pull-up - that is, they put him on a horse, girded him with a sword and drove him around the yard three times. After that, they began to teach him the actual male duties. At the age of three, the girl was given a spindle and a spinning wheel for the first time. The action is also sacred, and with the first thread spun by her daughter, the mother girded her on her wedding day to protect her from damage. For all peoples, spinning was associated with fate, and from the age of three, girls were taught to spin fate for themselves and their home.

At the age of twelve - thirteen, upon reaching marriageable age, boys and girls were brought to the male and female homes, where they received a full set of sacred knowledge that they needed in life. After that, the girl jumped into a poneva (a kind of skirt worn over a shirt and spoke of maturity). After initiation, the young man received the right to carry military weapons and to marry.

Wedding

Marriage customs were different for different Slavic peoples. The most common ceremony was as follows.

The wedding consisted of worshiping Lada, Triglav and Rod, after which the sorcerer invoked a blessing on them, and the newlyweds walked three times around the sacred tree, as usual around the birch), calling to witness the gods and bearers of the place where the ceremony took place.

Without fail, the wedding was preceded by the abduction of the bride or a conspiracy. In general, the bride had to go to a new family (clan) by force, so as not to offend the guardian spirits of her clan (“I’m not giving away, they are being led by force”). Therefore, long sad, mournful songs of the bride and her sobs are associated with this.

At the feast, the newlyweds did not drink, they were forbidden, it was believed that they would be drunk from love. The first night was spent on thirty sheaves, covered with furs (wish for wealth and many children).

Funeral

The Slavs had several funeral rites. The first, during the heyday of paganism, was the rite of burning, followed by the filling of the mound.

The second method was used to bury the so-called "mortgaged" dead - those who died a suspicious, unclean death. The funeral of such deceased was expressed in throwing the body away into a swamp or ravine, after which this body was heaped from above with branches. The rite was performed in such a form so as not to desecrate the land and water with an "unclean" deceased.

Burial in the ground, customary in our time, became widespread only after the adoption of Christianity.

Conclusion: Many traditions, customs and rituals that existed among the ancient Slavs have survived to our times.

The ancestors of the Slavs, the so-called Proto-Slavs, belonged to the ancient Indo-European unity that inhabited the vast territory of the Eurasian continent. Gradually, among the Indo-Europeans, there are related tribes that are close in language, economic activity, and culture. One of these tribal associations was the Slavs. The area of ​​their settlement in Central and Eastern Europe - from the Oder in the west to the Dnieper in the east, from the Baltic in the north to the European mountains (Sudetes, Tatras, Carpathians) in the south.

In the VI-VII centuries. the Slavs were at the last stage of the development of the communal-clan system. The basis of social organization is the patriarchal family community. There is no state yet, society is governed by the principles of military democracy: it meant the power of elected military leaders (princes) while maintaining the power of the elders and the remnants of primitive collectivism and democracy. All questions are decided by a popular assembly of free communes, priests and military leaders belonging to the nascent tribal nobility, which is more and more distinguished from the bulk of the communes by its property status.

Cities arose either as defensive centers, or as places of bargaining and centers of crafts. The oldest large, well-fortified Russian cities were: Ladoga on the Volkhov, Novgorod, Pskov, Kiev, Polotsk, etc. The economic activity of the Eastern Slavs was based on agriculture, cattle breeding, hunting, and fishing. Later, the craft began to develop. Agriculture was the main branch of the economy. The main agricultural crops were wheat, rye, oats, barley, millet, peas, beans, buckwheat, flax, hemp, etc. In the second half of the first millennium AD, plow farming with iron plowshares gradually replaced slash farming. The active use of iron made it possible to produce surplus agricultural products for exchange with other peoples. Cultivated: rye, barley, oats, flax, etc.

The craft separated from agriculture in the 6th - 8th centuries. AD Iron and non-ferrous metallurgy and pottery developed especially actively. From steel and iron alone, Slavic craftsmen produced over 150 types of various products. Trades (hunting, fishing, bee-keeping - collecting honey from wild bees, etc.), livestock raising also occupied a prominent place in the economy of the Eastern Slavs. Trade between the Slavic tribes and with neighboring countries, primarily with the eastern ones, was highly active. This is evidenced by numerous finds of treasures of Arab, Roman, Byzantine coins and jewelry.

The main trade routes passed along the rivers Volkhov-Lovati-Dnepr (route "From the Varangians to the Greeks"), Volga, Don, Oka. The goods of the Slavic tribes were furs, weapons, wax, bread, slaves, etc. Expensive fabrics, jewelry, spices were imported.

Life of the Slavs determined by the nature of their activities. They lived sedentary, choosing hard-to-reach places for settlements or erecting defensive structures around them. The dwelling was a semi-dugout with a two- or three-pitched roof.

Beliefs Slavs testifies to their enormous dependence on environmental conditions. The Slavs identified themselves with nature and worshiped the powers that embody it: fire, thunder, lakes, rivers, etc. and did not know the historical time. The deification of the powerful forces of nature - the sun, rain, thunderstorms - was reflected in the cults of the god of sky and fire Svarog, the thunder god Perun, and rituals of sacrifice.

O culture of Slavic few tribes are known. Samples of applied art that have survived to our time testify to the development of jewelry. In the VI-VII centuries. writing emerges. An essential feature of Old Russian culture is the religious and mystical coloration of almost all of its manifestations. The custom of burning the dead is widespread, the erection of burial mounds over the funeral pyres, where things, weapons, food were put. Birth, wedding, death were accompanied by special ceremonies.