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Eastern Slavs in antiquity

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, kindred tribes stand out, close in language, economic activity, and culture. The Slavs became one of such tribal associations. The area of ​​their settlement in the 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 (Sudet, Tatras, Carpathians) in the south.

In the VI-VII centuries. The Slavs were at the last stage of the development of the communal-tribal system. The basis of social organization is the patriarchal family community. There is no state yet, society is governed on 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 issues are decided by the popular assembly of free community members, priests and military leaders belonging to the emerging tribal nobility, which is increasingly distinguished from the bulk of community members by their property status.
Cities arose either as defensive centers, or as places of trade and craft centers.
The oldest large, well-fortified Russian cities were:
Ladoga on the Volkhov, Novgorod, Pskov, Kyiv, 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 and others. 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. n. e. Iron and non-ferrous metallurgy and pottery developed especially actively. Only from steel and iron, Slavic craftsmen produced over 150 types of various products.

Crafts (hunting, fishing, beekeeping - collecting honey from wild bees, etc.), domestic cattle breeding also occupied a prominent place in the economy of the Eastern Slavs.

Trade between the Slavic tribes and with neighboring countries, primarily with the east, was highly active. Numerous finds of treasures of Arab, Roman, Byzantine coins and jewelry testify to this.

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

The life of the Slavs was 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.

The beliefs of the Slavs testify to their enormous dependence on conditions environment. The Slavs identified themselves with nature and worshiped the forces that personified it: fire, thunder, lakes, rivers, etc. and did not know historical time. Deification of the mighty forces of nature
- sun, rain, thunderstorms - reflected in the cults of the god of sky and fire Svarog, the god of thunderstorms Perun, rituals of sacrifice.

Little is known about the culture of the Slavic tribes. The 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 ancient Russian culture is the religious and mystical coloring of almost all of its manifestations. The custom of burning the dead, the erection of barrows over the funeral pyres, where things, weapons, food were put, is widespread. Birth, marriage, death were accompanied by special rites.

Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Federal Agency for Education GOU VPO

All-Russian Correspondence Institute of Finance and Economics

Test

on the history of the fatherland on the topic:

« Ancient Russia»

Lecturer: Usova Nina Vladimirovna

Student: Natalia

Specialty: BUA and A

Course: TNF

Group: No. 1

personal file number:

Questions:

Ancient Russia.

1 . Genesis of the Eastern Slavs.

2. Kievan Rus.

Question 1: Genesis of the Eastern Slavs.

The history of the Slavs has its roots in deep antiquity, in that very long period in the development of human society, which is called the primitive communal system.

The problem of the entogeny of the Slavs ("entogeny" - translated from ancient Greek: "ethnos" - the people; "genesis" - the origin and development) is one of the most difficult in science. Various hypotheses of scientists have developed and continue to be refined on the basis of a variety of archaeological and linguistic sources. There are several versions of the ancestral home of the Slavs and their entogeny, which are offered by different scientists, but they all take as a basis the oldest Russian written monument - the chronicle "The Tale of Bygone Years", the authorship of which is attributed to the monk Nestor(beginning of the twelfth century).

Nestor puts forward mythological version the origin of the Slavs: as if their family goes back to the youngest son of Noah - Japheth, who, after the division of the lands with his brothers, received the Northern and Western countries as inheritance. Gradually appear in the story historical facts. Nestor settles the Slavs in the Roman province of Norik, located between the upper reaches of the Danube and the Drava. From there, the Slavs moved to new places - to the Vistula and the Dnieper.

Historian S.M. Solovyov also adhered to "Danubian" version of the origin of the Slavs, and his student, the historian V.O. Klyuchevsky, made his own clarifications to this version: before the Eastern Slavs from the Danube got to the Dnieper, they stayed in the foothills of the Carpathians for about 500 years. According to Klyuchevsky, only from the 7th century, the Eastern Slavs gradually settled on the modern Russian Plain.

Some scholars are inclined towards "Danubian" the origin of the Slavs, but the majority adhered to the version that the ancestral home of the Slavs was much further north. At the same time, they disagreed about the entogeny of the Slavs, and about where the Slavs formed into a single ethnic community - in the Middle Dnieper and along the Pripyat or in the interfluve of the Vistula and Oder. The archaeologist and historian B.A. Rybakov, on the basis of the latest archaeological data, tried to combine both of these versions of the possible ancestral home of the Slavs and their entogeny. In his opinion, the Slavs occupied a wide strip of Central and Eastern Europe: from north to south, about 400 km wide, and from west to east, about 1.5 thousand km long. Its western half from the south was limited by European mountains - the Sudetes, Tatras, Carpathians, and in the north the lands of the Proto-Slavs reached almost to the Baltic Sea. The eastern half of the Proto-Slavic land was limited from the north by the Pripyat River, and from the south by the upper reaches of the Dniester and Southern Bug rivers and the basin of the Rossi River, which flows into the Dnieper.

To all these observations, linguists add an analysis of vocabulary denoting geographical objects, animals, and plants. In general, linguistics localizes the original habitat of the Slavs somewhere

in the Vistula river basin. Among linguists there are also supporters of another concept. They consider the region of the middle Danube to be the center of Slavic migration, being sure that it was from there that the Slavs moved to other places, including to the north, to the Vistula region.

Hordes of nomads came running from the expanses of Central Asia, which, as they advanced, drew with them the peoples who inhabited Eastern Europe. The Huns were replaced by the Avars, the Avars were replaced by the Khazars and Bulgarians. At this time, written sources acquire special significance for the restoration of the entogeny of the Slavs. Very important information is contained in the work gothic historianVIcentury AD - Jordan. He divides the Slavs into three major groups - Wends, Antes and sklavens. Archaeologists have established that this information can be trusted. They singled out three main areas of distribution of Slavic archaeological cultures.

----- First- Central and Southern Poland (on the territory of our country - Pripyat Polissya) - apparently, this territory sklaven.

----- Second- the interfluve of the Dniester and the Dnieper - according to written sources, lived here antes.

----- Third- in the west, on the territory of the Polish Pomerania and the lower reaches of the Vistula - they have long lived here Wends.

All the named areas of settlement of the Slavs are Proto-Slavic groups. According to researchers, the modern branches of Slavism arise as a result of the collapse of these groups in the 7th - 8th centuries. It is also believed that it was from this time that the Slavs were clearly distinguishable in history. Those Slavs who settled on the territory of the Russian Plain, historians call "Russian Slavs" in modern history name fixed "East Slavs".

In the process of settling the Eastern Slavs along the East European Plain, they experienced a decomposition of the primitive communal system. The most ancient Russian chronicle can tell a lot about the settlement of eastern tribes. "The Tale of Bygone Years". It speaks of tribal principalities, which historians call tribal unions.

In the area included in Kievan Rus, twelve Slavic unions of tribal principalities are known:

1. Glade (middle Dnieper, from the lower reaches of the Pripyat and Desna rivers).

2. Drevlyans (south of Pripyat).

3. Volynians (to the west to the Western Bug).

4. Croats (in the upper reaches of the Dniester).

5. Tivertsy (down the Dniester).

6. Ulichi (in the Dnieper region south of the meadows).

7. North (Dnieper Left Bank in the basins of the Desna and Seim rivers).

8. Radimichi (in the Sozh river basin).

9. Vityachi (on the upper Oka).

10. Dregovichi (between Pripyat and Dvina, north of the Drevlyans).

11. Krivichi (in the upper reaches of the Dvina, Dnieper and Volga).

12. Slovenia (in the area of ​​Lake Ilmen and the Volkhov River, up to the Gulf of Finland).

Such unions included 100 - 200 tribes united around the most powerful tribe, by whose name the whole union was named. Each tribe consisted of many clans and was ruled by its leader - elder. There was also council of elders and the general meeting of the tribe - veche.

For a long time, historians did not trust this annalistic geographical scheme, but archeology at the beginning of the 20th century confirmed it. Women's jewelry helped here, it turned out that one of the most common types of women's jewelry among the Eastern Slavs - temporal rings - differs throughout the Russian Plain. It turned out that certain varieties of these decorations coincide with the settlement of one or another East Slavic tribe. Later, these observations were confirmed by the study of other elements of the material culture of the Eastern Slavs.

1. Show on the map (p. 27) the places of settlement of the Slavs and their neighbors - the Finno-Ugric and Baltic tribes. What states are located in these territories in our time?

The Slavs lived on the territory of modern Poland, the Czech Republic, Belarus, Ukraine, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Greece, parts of Germany and Russia. The Baltic tribes lived on the territory of modern Lithuania, Latvia, part of Russia (for example, the Kaliningrad region), as well as Germany (in Prussia). Finno-Ugric tribes occupied the territories of modern Estonia, Finland and parts of Russia (to the north and east of the Slavs).

2. Tell us about the main agricultural work of the ancient Slavs. What difficulties did farmers have to overcome?

The main difficulties were that the Slavs, like the inhabitants of Western Europe, almost did not know fertilizers, and the short warm period of the year when it was possible to engage in agriculture was also difficult. In the forest zone, the forest itself was also a problem, which had to be cut down before farming could begin. Therefore, slash-and-burn agriculture was widespread in the forest zone. Under him, a section of the forest was cut down, branches and most trees were burned. The ashes made the land fertile for several years. When these few years passed, the site was abandoned and a new one was cut down. In the steppe zone, shifting (mortgage) agriculture was widespread. Under him, ashes were also the main fertilizer, only grass was burned for this. In addition, the soil in the steppe was, in principle, more fertile than in the forest. Therefore, with shifting agriculture, the site could be used for several decades, and then move on to a new one.

3. What beliefs are called pagan? Make a diagram "Pagan gods of the Eastern Slavs." What natural phenomena and occupations of people were reflected in the beliefs of the Slavs?

Paganism is the belief in many gods. In pagan religions, various relationships were usually established between the gods, often their own hierarchy.

4. What was the veneration of the gods among the ancient Slavs?

The gods were served by priests (magicians), who made sacrifices to their idols (wooden or stone images) on temples (special places of worship, usually consisting of a hill with an idol surrounded by a moat) and sometimes spoke on behalf of the gods of prophecy. Ordinary believers also made sacrifices to the gods, and also arranged big holidays in honor of the gods with their own rituals.

5*. Prepare a collective message on the topic "How the land and labor fed people." Assign roles and present statements on behalf of those who cultivated the land, raised and fed livestock and poultry, were engaged in fishing and hunting, etc. Draw the tools of their labor.

In fact, the same people cultivated the land, raised and fed livestock and poultry, caught animals and fish.

Farmers plowed the land, sowed it, cared for the crop, and then harvested it. Their main tools were a plow (in those ancient times it was not yet a plow), a sickle, a flail, a pitchfork, a rake, etc.

When people raised cattle and poultry, they mainly used their hands, ropes, yokes, as well as various buildings. They also used scythes to collect food.

When hunting, snares and traps were used much more often than bows, spears, and horns. Because the snares can be placed and checked in a day, without spending more time on it - the beast will come into the trap itself. For active hunting, it takes time to track down the beast and strength to kill it. For the same reason, the main tool of the fisherman was not a fishing rod, but a net.

We should also not forget about beekeeping, which gradually became beekeeping. For beekeeping, smoke and some protection from bee stings were needed (usually people were tied with bundles of straw). In beekeeping, man himself gave the bees a place to live, so they did not have to be hunted down in the forest. At first, such places were not specially made beehives, but decks - pieces of trees in which hollows were hollowed out.

6*. Compare the beliefs and the circle of the main gods of the ancient Slavs and the ancient Germans. What was common?

The god of thunder was common. Among the Slavs it was Perun, among the Germans it was Thor. For both peoples, these same gods were the patrons of warriors. But among the Slavs, apparently, Perun headed the pantheon, and the Germans revered Odin as the main god. Also in the mythology of both peoples there is a motif of the world tree and other common features.

The economic activity of the Eastern Slavs was presented

1. Farming

2. Gathering (honey from wild bees (beekeeping) and berries, wax).

3. Hunting for animals.

4. Cattle breeding (cows, pigs, sheep, goats, horses).

5. Fishing.

6. Craft and trade.

Agriculture is worth mentioning separately.

The Eastern Slavs, mastering the vast forest areas of Eastern Europe, carried with them an agricultural culture.

The basis of the economy of the Eastern Slavs was arable farming.

In the northern part, the weather conditions were not favorable for land work (short summer, heavy and prolonged rains, an abundance of forests and swamps), because the Slavs used the slash-and-burn farming system

Slash-and-burn agriculture is one of the primitive ancient farming systems of the forest zone, based on burning the forest and planting the necessary plants in this place.

Technology

In the forest, trees were cut down or cut down, the bark was cut so that they would dry out. A year later, the forest was burned and sown directly into the ashes. Such a field gave a good harvest the first year without tillage; then it was necessary to loosen the site with hand tools; after two or three years, the field was depleted and it was left for fallow until the forest grew. In the zone of secondary forests, bushes and even swamps and turf were burned. This form of agriculture requires changing the place of settlement from time to time.

In the southern part the climate was milder. Deciduous forests grew here - oak forests, groves. Fertile lands began on the border with the steppe. In this part of the East Slavic lands, an arable farming system was used.

Plow farming (arable farming, plow farming) is farming based on the use of the draft power of domestic animals in cultivating the land with various arable implements (ralo, plow, plow, etc.).

Among grain crops prevailed: rye (zhito), millet, wheat, barley and buckwheat. Garden crops were also known to them: turnips, cabbage, carrots, beets, radishes.

Cattle breeding, hunting, fishing, and beekeeping also played a certain role in the economy.
Cattle breeding begins to separate from agriculture. The Slavs bred pigs, cows, sheep, goats, horses, oxen.
Crafts developed, including professional basis- blacksmithing, but it was mainly associated with agriculture. From swamp and lake ores, iron began to be produced in primitive clay furnaces (pits).

Of particular importance for the fate of the Eastern Slavs will be foreign trade, which developed both on the Baltic-Volga route, along which Arab silver entered Europe, and on the route “from the Varangians to the Greeks”, connecting the Byzantine world through the Dnieper with the Baltic region.

The economic life of the population was directed by such a mighty stream as the Dnieper, which cuts through it from north to south. With the then importance of rivers as the most convenient means of communication, the Dnieper was the main economic artery, a pillar trade road for the western strip of the plain: with its upper reaches it comes close to the Western Dvina and the Ilmen-Lake basin, that is, to the two most important roads to the Baltic Sea, and by its mouth it connects the central Alaun Upland with the northern coast of the Black Sea. The tributaries of the Dnieper, going from afar to the right and left, like the access roads of the main road, bring the Dnieper region closer. on the one hand, to the Carpathian basins of the Dniester and Vistula, on the other hand, to the basins of the Volga and Don, that is, to the Caspian and Azov seas. Thus, the region of the Dnieper covers the entire western and partly the eastern half of the Russian plain. Thanks to this, from time immemorial there was a lively trade movement along the Dnieper, the impetus to which was given by the Greeks.

Blacksmiths were the first ancient Russian professional artisans. The blacksmith in epics, legends and fairy tales is the personification of strength and courage, goodness and invincibility. Iron was then smelted from swamp ores. Ore was mined in autumn and spring. It was dried, fired and taken to metal-smelting workshops, where metal was obtained in special furnaces. During excavations of ancient Russian settlements, slags are often found - waste products of the metal-smelting process - and pieces of ferruginous bloom, which, after vigorous forging, became iron masses. The remains of blacksmith workshops were also found, where parts of forges were found. The burials of ancient blacksmiths are known, in which their tools of production - anvils, hammers, tongs, chisels - were placed in their graves.

Old Russian blacksmiths supplied plowmen with coulters, sickles, scythes, and warriors with swords, spears, arrows, battle axes. Everything that was necessary for the economy - knives, needles, chisels, awls, staples, fish hooks, locks, keys and many other tools and household items - were made by talented craftsmen.

Old Russian blacksmiths achieved special art in the production of weapons. Items found in the burials of Chernaya Mohyla in Chernigov, necropolises in Kyiv and other cities are unique examples of ancient Russian crafts of the 10th century.

jewelry

A necessary part of the costume and attire of an ancient Russian person, both women and men, were various jewelry and amulets made by jewelers from silver and bronze. That is why clay crucibles, in which silver, copper, and tin were melted, are often found in ancient Russian buildings. Then the molten metal was poured into limestone, clay or stone molds, where the relief of the future decoration was carved. After that, an ornament in the form of dots, cloves, circles was applied to the finished product. Various pendants, belt plaques, bracelets, chains, temporal rings, rings, neck torcs - these are the main types of products of ancient Russian jewelers. For jewelry, jewelers used various techniques - niello, granulation, filigree filigree, embossing, enamel.

The blackening technique was rather complicated. First, a “black” mass was prepared from a mixture of silver, lead, copper, sulfur and other minerals. Then this composition was applied to bracelets, crosses, rings and other jewelry. Most often depicted griffins, lions, birds with human heads, various fantastic animals.

Graining required completely different methods of work: small silver grains, each of which was 5-6 times smaller than a pinhead, were soldered to the smooth surface of the product. What labor and patience, for example, was worth soldering 5,000 such grains to each of the kolts that were found during excavations in Kyiv! Most often, granulation is found on typical Russian jewelry - lunnitsa, which were pendants in the form of a crescent.

If instead of grains of silver, patterns of the finest silver, gold wires or strips were soldered onto the product, then a filigree was obtained. From such threads-wires, sometimes an incredibly intricate pattern was created. The technique of embossing on thin gold or silver sheets was also used. They were strongly pressed against a bronze matrix with the desired image, and it was transferred to a metal sheet. Embossing performed images of animals on kolts. Usually it is a lion or a leopard with a raised paw and a flower in its mouth. Cloisonne enamel became the pinnacle of ancient Russian jewelry craftsmanship.

The enamel mass was glass with lead and other additives. Enamels were of different colors, but red, blue and green were especially loved in Russia. Enamel jewelry went through a difficult path before becoming the property of a medieval fashionista or a noble person. First, the entire pattern was applied to the future decoration. Then a thin sheet of gold was applied to it. Partitions were cut from gold, which were soldered to the base along the contours of the pattern, and the spaces between them were filled with molten enamel. The result was an amazing set of colors that played and shone under the sun's rays in different colors and shades. The centers for the production of jewelry from cloisonné enamel were Kyiv, Ryazan, Vladimir...

And in Staraya Ladoga, in the layer of the 8th century, an entire industrial complex was discovered during excavations! The ancient Ladoga residents built a pavement of stones - iron slags, blanks, production wastes, fragments of foundry molds were found on it. Scientists believe that a metal-smelting furnace once stood here. The richest treasure trove of handicraft tools, found right there, is apparently associated with this workshop. The hoard contains twenty-six items. These are seven small and large pliers - they were used in jewelry and iron processing. A miniature anvil was used to make jewelry. An ancient locksmith actively used chisels - three of them were found here. Sheets of metal were cut with jewelry scissors. Drills made holes in the tree. Iron objects with holes were used to draw wire in the production of nails and rook rivets. Jewelry hammers, anvils for chasing and embossing ornaments on silver and bronze jewelry were also found. Finished products of an ancient craftsman were also found here - a bronze ring with images of a human head and birds, rook rivets, nails, an arrow, knife blades.

If for the VIII century we know so far only single workshops, and in general the craft was of a domestic nature, then in the next, IX century, their number increases significantly. Masters now produce products not only for themselves, their families, but for the entire community. Long-distance trade relations are gradually strengthening, various products are sold on the market in exchange for silver, furs, products Agriculture and other goods.

Pottery

If we start leafing through thick volumes of inventories of finds from archaeological excavations of cities, towns and burial grounds Ancient Russia, we will see that the bulk of the materials are fragments of clay vessels. They stored food supplies, water, cooked food. Unpretentious clay pots accompanied the dead, they were smashed at feasts. Pottery in Russia has passed a long and difficult path of development. In the 9th-10th centuries, our ancestors used hand-made ceramics. At first, only women were engaged in its production. Sand, small shells, pieces of granite, quartz were mixed with clay, sometimes fragments of broken ceramics and plants were used as additives. Impurities made clay dough strong and viscous, which made it possible to make vessels of various shapes.

But already in the 9th century, an important technical improvement appeared in the South of Russia - the potter's wheel. Its spread led to the isolation of a new craft specialty from other work. Pottery is passed from the hands of women to male artisans. The simplest potter's wheel was fixed on a rough wooden bench with a hole. An axle was inserted into the hole, holding a large wooden circle. A piece of clay was placed on it, having previously sprinkled ash or sand on the circle so that the clay could easily be separated from the tree.

The potter sat on a bench, rotated the circle with his left hand, and formed the clay with his right. Such was the hand-made potter's wheel, and later another appeared, which was rotated with the help of the feet. This freed up a second hand to work with clay, which significantly improved the quality of the manufactured dishes and increased labor productivity.

In different regions of Russia, dishes of different shapes were prepared, and they also changed over time.
This allows archaeologists to accurately determine in which Slavic tribe this or that pot was made, to find out the time of its manufacture. On the bottoms of the pots were often stamped - crosses, triangles, squares, circles, etc. geometric figures. Sometimes there are images of flowers, keys. The finished dishes were fired in special kilns. They consisted of two tiers - firewood was placed in the lower one, and ready-made vessels were laid in the upper one. Between the tiers, a clay partition was arranged with holes through which hot air flowed upward. The temperature inside the forge exceeded 1200 degrees.
Vessels made by ancient Russian potters are diverse - these are huge pots for storing grain and other supplies, thick pots for cooking food on fire, frying pans, bowls, krinks, mugs, miniature ritual utensils and even toys for children. Vessels were decorated with ornaments. The most common was a linear-wavy pattern; decorations in the form of circles, dimples, and denticles are known.

For centuries, the art and skill of ancient Russian potters has been developed, and therefore it has reached high perfection. Metalworking and pottery were perhaps the most important of the crafts. In addition to them, weaving, leather and tailoring, processing of wood, bone, stone, building production, glassmaking, well known to us from archaeological and historical data, flourished widely.

Weaving

A very stable tradition depicts "exemplary", that is, thrifty, hardworking women and girls of Ancient Russia (as well as other contemporary European countries), most often busy at the spinning wheel. This also applies to the "good wives" of our chronicles, and fairy-tale heroines. Indeed, in an era when literally all everyday necessities were made by hand, the first duty of a woman, in addition to cooking, was to sheathe all family members. Spinning threads, making fabrics and dyeing them - all this was done independently, at home.

Work of this kind was started in the fall, after the end of the harvest, and they tried to complete it by the spring, by the beginning of a new agricultural cycle.

They began to teach girls to do housework from the age of five or seven, the girl spun her first thread. “Non-spun”, “netkaha” - these were extremely offensive nicknames for teenage girls. And one should not think that among the ancient Slavs, hard female labor was the lot of only the wives and daughters of the common people, and girls from noble families grew up as loafers and white-handed women, like “negative” fairy-tale heroines. Not at all. In those days, princes and boyars, according to a thousand-year tradition, were elders, leaders of the people, to some extent mediators between people and Gods. This gave them certain privileges, but there were no less duties, and the well-being of the tribe directly depended on how successfully they coped with them. The wife and daughters of a boyar or a prince were not only "obliged" to be the most beautiful of all, they had to be "out of competition" behind the spinning wheel.

The spinning wheel was an inseparable companion of a woman. A little later we will see that Slavic women even managed to spin ... on the go, for example, on the road or looking after cattle. And when young people gathered for gatherings on autumn and winter evenings, games and dances usually began only after the “lessons” brought from home (that is, work, needlework) had dried up, most often a tow, which should have been spun. At gatherings, boys and girls looked at each other, made acquaintances. "Nepryakha" had nothing to hope for here, even if she were the first beauty. Starting the fun without completing the "lesson" was considered unthinkable

They used mainly flax, hemp, nettle, bast, matting, wool, and crown.

tribal system

The economic unit (VIII-IX centuries) was mainly a small family. The organization that united the households of small families was the neighboring (territorial) community - verv.
The transition from a consanguineous community to a neighboring one occurred among the Eastern Slavs in the 6th - 8th centuries. Vervi members jointly owned hay and forest land, and arable land was, as a rule, divided among separate peasant farms.
The community (world, rope) played a big role in the life of the Russian village. This was due to the complexity and volume of agricultural work (which could only be performed by a large team); the need to monitor the correct distribution and use of land, a short period of agricultural work (it lasted from 4-4.5 months near Novgorod and Pskov to 5.5-6 months in the Kyiv region).
There were changes in the community: the collective of relatives who owned all the land together was replaced by an agricultural community. It also consisted of large patriarchal families, united by a common territory, traditions, beliefs, but small families ran an independent economy here and independently disposed of the products of their labor.
As V.O. Klyuchevsky noted, in the structure of a private civil hostel, an old Russian courtyard, a complex family of a householder with a wife, children and unseparated relatives, brothers, nephews, served as a transitional step from ancient family to the newest simple family and corresponded to the ancient Roman family.
This destruction of the tribal union, its disintegration into households or complex families left some traces in itself in popular beliefs and customs.

The worldview of the Eastern Slavs was based on paganism - the deification of the forces of nature, the perception of the natural and human world as a whole.
The origin of pagan cults occurred in ancient times - in the era of the Upper Paleolithic, about 30 thousand years BC.
With the transition to new types of management, pagan cults were transformed, reflecting the evolution of human social life. At the same time, it is noteworthy that the most ancient layers of beliefs were not replaced by new ones, but were layered on top of each other, so restoring information about Slavic paganism is extremely difficult. It is also difficult because to this day there are practically no written sources.
The most revered of the pagan gods were Rod, Perun and Volos (Beles); at the same time, each of the communities had its own, local gods.
Perun was the god of lightning and thunder, Rod - fertility, Stribog - the wind, Veles - cattle breeding and wealth, Dazhbog and Hora - the deities of the sun, Mokosh - the goddess of weaving.
In ancient times, the Slavs had a widespread cult of the Family and women in childbirth, closely associated with the worship of ancestors. The clan - the divine image of the tribal community contained the entire Universe: heaven, earth and the underground dwelling of the ancestors.
Each East Slavic tribe had its own patron god and its own pantheons of gods, different tribes were similar in type, but different in name.
In the future, the cult of the great Svarog - the god of heaven - and his sons - Dazhbog (Yarilo, Khore) and Stribog - the gods of the sun and wind, acquires special significance.
Over time, Perun, the god of thunder and rain, the “creator of lightning”, who was especially revered as the god of war and weapons in the princely retinue, began to play an increasingly important role. Perun was not the head of the pantheon of gods, only later, during the formation of statehood and the strengthening of the importance of the prince and his squad, the cult of Perun began to strengthen.
Perun is the central image of Indo-European mythology - a thunderer (ancient Ind. Parjfnya, Hittite Piruna, Slavic Perunъ, Lithuanian Perkunas, etc.), located “above” (hence the connection of his name with the name of the mountain, rock) and entering into combat with the enemy , representing "down" - it is usually "under" a tree, mountain, etc. Most often, the opponent of the Thunderer appears in the form of a snake-like creature, correlated with the lower world, chaotic and hostile to man.

The pagan pantheon also included Volos (Veles) - the patron of cattle breeding and the guardian of the underworld of the ancestors; Makosh (Mokosh) - the goddess of fertility, weaving, and others.
Initially, totemic ideas were also preserved, associated with the belief in the mystical connection of the genus with any animal, plant, or even object.
Wooden and stone statues of the gods were erected on pagan sanctuaries (temples), where sacrifices were made, including human ones.
Pagan holidays were closely connected with the agricultural calendar.
In the organization of the cult, a significant role was played by pagan priests - the Magi.
The head of the pagan cult was the leader, and then the prince. During cult rituals that took place in special places - temples, sacrifices were made to the gods.

Caring for a child began long before he was born. From time immemorial, the Slavs tried to protect expectant mothers from all sorts of dangers, including supernatural ones.

But now the time has come for the child to be born. The ancient Slavs believed that birth, like death, breaks the invisible boundary between the worlds of the dead and the living. It is clear that such a dangerous business had no reason to take place near a human dwelling. Among many peoples, a woman in labor retired to the forest or to the tundra so as not to harm anyone. Yes, and the Slavs usually gave birth not in the house, but in another room, most often in a well-heated bathhouse. And in order for the mother's body to open more easily and release the child, the woman's hair was untwisted, in the hut the doors and chests were opened, the knots were untied, and the locks were opened. Our ancestors also had a custom similar to the so-called kuvada of the peoples of Oceania: the husband often screamed and moaned instead of his wife. What for? The meaning of the kuvada is extensive, but, among other things, the researchers write: in this way, the husband aroused the possible attention of evil forces, distracting them from the woman in labor!

Ancient people considered the name an important part of the human personality and preferred to keep it secret so that the evil sorcerer could not "take" the name and use it to induce damage. Therefore, in ancient times, the real name of a person was usually known only to parents and a few closest people. All the rest called him by the name of the family or by a nickname, usually of a protective nature: Nekras, Nezhdan, Nezhelan.

The pagan under no circumstances should have said: “I am such and such”, because he could not be completely sure that his new acquaintance deserved full trust, that he was a person in general, and an evil spirit to me. At first, he answered evasively: “They call me ...” And even better, even if it was not said by him, but by someone else.

GROWING UP

Children's clothing in Ancient Russia, both for boys and girls, consisted of one shirt. Moreover, not sewn from a new canvas, but always from the old clothes of the parents. And it's not about poverty or stinginess. It was simply believed that the child was not yet strong both in body and soul - let the parental clothes protect him, protect him from damage, the evil eye, evil witchcraft ... boys and girls received the right to adult clothes, not just reaching a certain age, but only when could prove their “maturity” by deed.

When a boy began to become a young man, and a girl - a girl, it was time for them to move into the next "quality", from the category of "children" to the category of "youth" - future brides and grooms, ready for family responsibility and procreation. But bodily, physical maturation still meant little in itself. I had to pass the test. It was a kind of maturity test, physical and spiritual. The young man had to endure severe pain, taking a tattoo or even a brand with the signs of his family and tribe, of which he became a full member from now on. For the girls, too, there were trials, although not so painful. Their goal is to confirm maturity, the ability to freely express will. And most importantly, both were subjected to the ritual of "temporary death" and "resurrection".

So, the old children "died", and instead of them, new adults were "born". AT ancient times they also received new “adult” names, which, again, outsiders should not have known. They also handed out new adult clothes: for boys - men's pants, for girls - poneva, a kind of checkered skirts that were worn over a shirt on a belt.

This is how adulthood began.

In all fairness, researchers call an old Russian wedding a very complex and very beautiful performance that lasted several days. Each of us saw the wedding, at least in the movies. But how many people know why at a wedding the main character, the center of everyone's attention, is the bride, and not the groom? Why is she wearing a white dress? Why is she wearing a photo?

The girl had to "die" in her former family and "be born again" in another, already married, "manly" woman. These are the complex transformations that took place with the bride. Hence the increased attention to her, which we now see at weddings, and the custom of taking the husband's surname, because the surname is a sign of the family.

What about the white dress? Sometimes you have to hear that it, they say, symbolizes the purity and modesty of the bride, but this is wrong. In fact, white is the color of mourning. Yes exactly. Black in this capacity appeared relatively recently. White, according to historians and psychologists, has been for mankind the color of the Past, the color of Memory and Oblivion since ancient times. From time immemorial, such importance was attached to it in Russia. And another "mourning-wedding" color was ... red, "black", as it was also called. It has long been included in the attire of brides.

Now about the veil. More recently, this word simply meant "handkerchief." Not the current transparent muslin, but a real thick scarf, which tightly covered the bride's face. Indeed, from the moment of consent to marriage, she was considered “dead”, the inhabitants of the World of the Dead, as a rule, are invisible to the living. No one could see the bride, and the violation of the ban led to all sorts of misfortunes and even to untimely death, because in this case the border was violated and the Dead World “broke through” into ours, threatening with unpredictable consequences ... For the same reason, the young took each other by the hand exclusively through handkerchief, and also did not eat or drink throughout the wedding: after all, at that moment they “were in different worlds”, and only people belonging to the same world, moreover, to the same group, only “their own” can touch each other, and even more so, eat together ...

Many songs sounded at the Russian wedding, moreover for the most part sad. The heavy veil of the bride gradually swelled from sincere tears, even if the girl was walking for her beloved. And the point here is not in the difficulties of living married in the old days, or rather, not only in them. The bride left her family and moved to another. Therefore, she left the spiritual patrons of the former kind and handed herself over to new ones. But there is no need to offend and annoy the former, to look ungrateful. So the girl cried, listening to plaintive songs and trying her best to show her devotion to her parental home, her former relatives and her supernatural patrons - deceased ancestors, and in even more distant times - totem, a mythical progenitor animal ...

THE FUNERAL

Traditional Russian funerals contain great amount rituals designed to pay the last tribute to the deceased and at the same time win, drive away the hated Death. And to the departed promise resurrection, new life. And all these rituals, partly preserved to this day, are of pagan origin.

Feeling the approach of death, the old man asked his sons to take him out into the field and bowed on all four sides: “Mother damp Earth, forgive and accept! And you, free light, father, forgive me if you offended me ... ”then he lay down on a bench in the holy corner, and his sons dismantled the earthen roof of the hut over him, so that the soul would fly out more easily, so that the body would not torment. And also - so that she doesn’t take it into her head to stay in the house, disturb the living ...

When a noble man, widowed or who had not had time to marry, died, a girl often went to the grave with him - the “posthumous wife”.

In the legends of many peoples close to the Slavs, there is a bridge to the pagan paradise, a wonderful bridge, through which only the souls of the kind, courageous and just are able to pass. According to scientists, the Slavs also had such a bridge. We see it in the sky on clear nights. Now we call it the Milky Way. The most righteous people without interference fall through it directly into the bright iriy. Deceivers, vile rapists and murderers fall from the star bridge down into the darkness and cold of the Lower World. And for others, who managed to do good and bad things in earthly life, a faithful friend, a shaggy black Dog, helps to cross the bridge...

Now they consider it worthy to talk about the deceased necessarily with sadness, this is what serves as a sign of eternal memory and love. Meanwhile, this was not always the case. Already in the Christian era, a legend was recorded about inconsolable parents who dreamed of their dead daughter. She could hardly keep up with the other righteous people, as she had to carry two full buckets with her all the time. What was in those buckets? Tears of parents...

You can also remember. That the commemoration - an event that would seem to be especially sad - even now very often ends in a cheerful and noisy feast, where something mischievous is remembered about the deceased. Think about what laughter is. Laughter is the best weapon against fear, and humanity has long understood this. The ridiculed Death is not terrible, laughter drives it away, as Light drives Darkness away, makes it give way to Life. Cases are described by ethnographers. When a mother started dancing at the bedside of a seriously ill child. It's simple: Death will appear, see the fun and decide that "the wrong address." Laughter is a victory over Death, laughter is a new life...