SLAVIC RELIGION

beliefs and practices of the ancient Slavic peoples of eastern Europe. Slavs are usually subdivided into East Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians), West Slavs (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Lusatians ), and South Slavs (Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Bulgars). In antiquity the Slavs were perhaps the largest branch of the Indo-European family of peoples. The very late date at which they came into the light of recorded history (even their name does not appear before the 6th century AD) and the scarcity of relics of their culture make serious study of the Slavs a difficult task. Sources of information about their religious beliefs are all late and by Christian hands. Additional reading Slavic mythology is outlined by Jan Mchal, Slavic, in Louis Herbert Gray, George Foot Moore, and J.A. MacCulloch (eds.), The Mythology of All Races, vol. 3 (1918, reissued 1964); and Myroslava T. Znayenko, The Gods of the Ancient Slavs: Tatishchev and the Beginnings of Slavic Mythology (1980). Aleksander Brckner, Mitologia slovinska i polska, 2nd ed. (1985), represents an attempt to furnish an Indo-European interpretation of Slavic paganism; for the critical side of the problem this work remains indispensable. For the archaeological aspects, see Karl Schuchhardt, Arkona, Rethra, Vineta: Ortsuntersuchungen und Ausgrabungen, 2nd rev. and enlarged ed. (1926). A descriptive exposition can be found in B.-O. Unbegaun, Les Religions des Celtes, des Germains et des Slaves (1948). An attempt to find in the folklore traces of a more ancient mythology was made by W.R.S. Ralston, The Songs of the Russian People, as Illustrative of Slavonic Mythology and Russian Social Life, 2nd ed. (1872, reprinted 1970). A collection of materials and provocative suggestions in the same field is found in V.J. Mansikka, Die Religion der Ostslaven (1922, reissued 1967). For ethnography, see Dmitrij Zelenin, Russische (ostslavische) Volkskunde (1927); Edmund Schneeweis, Grundriss des Volksglaubens und Volksbrauchs der Serbokroaten (1935); and Pierre Bogatyrev, Actes magiques, rites et croyances en Russie subcarpathique (1929). Evel Gasparini The Editors of the Encyclopdia Britannica