1.
Deities of Slavic religion
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Since Ukrainian independence in 1991, she has undergone a fakeloric metamorphosis, and today is identified as a combination of the hearth-mother and the rusalka. This metamorphosis has its roots in the late 1980s, as several Ukrainian writers sought to personify their vision of an ideal Ukrainian woman, consequently, Berehynia today also has a place in Ukrainian nationalism, feminism, and neopaganism. In 2001, a column with a monument to Berehynia on top, as a protector of Kiev, was erected at Maidan Nezalezhnosti in the center of the city, kievs historic protector Archangel Michael older monument is located just across at the same square. Goddess of the Orange Revolution by Marian J. Rubchak, compares Berehynia with Yulia Tymoshenko, oksana Kis Who is protected by Berehynia, or Matriarchy as a mens invention, Zerkalo Nedeli, April 26 - May 6,2005
2.
Native Ukrainian National Faith
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Slavic neopaganism or the Slavic native faith is the contemporary continuation of the ethnic religion of the Slavic peoples. It is characterised by a pantheist and polytheist theology, a focus on Slavic culture and folklore, in English sources the religion is often called Ridnoviry and its followers Ridnovirs. The term Rodnovery, from Russian, is also in use, some Slavic native faith groups also incorporate elements of Hinduism and Vedism. Rodnovery comes from Slavic compounds adapted to English, made up of родная or родной, meaning native, plus вера, Rodnovers generally dont refuse to be categorised as pagans, but virtually none accept the prefix neo-. Rodnovery can also be anglicised as Rodism or Rodianism, which drops the vera suffix, thus meaning simply religion of the Rod, religion of the Root, according to this view Rodnovery is a word that embodies the central concept of the Slavic native faith. Other names that are in use in Russia for the religion, although popular, are славянство or Slavianstvo, which in English is Slavism or Slavianism. The first name has been used by a community in Moscow maintaining that the term Slav originally means pious, the basic structure of a temple of the Slavic native faith is constituted by a sacred precinct at the centre of which are placed the images of the gods enshrined. There are many temples throughout Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. A large, formal one is projected to be built in Khabarovsk, the Slavic Kremlin, a centre of the Yarga Rodnover religious network in the Podolsky District of Moscow Oblast, hosts a typical wooden temple among its buildings. In 2015 the Temple of the Fire of Svarozich, in the form of a building, was opened by the Union of Slavic Rodnover Communities in Krasotynka. Unlike earlier authors, Dołęga-Chodakowski identified Christianity as an influence on national character. It was also rife with literary hoaxes and fakes, such as the Kraledvorsky Manuscript, the Prillwitz idols, as in other European countries, many Slavic nations developed their own Slavic faith movements in the first half of the 20th century. The German and Polish groups were already referred to as neopagan in press articles before World War II. Alarmed by the growth of Rodnovery in Slavic countries, exponents of the Orthodox Church gathered on 19 September 2015 launching a smartphone application of apologetics against the movement. Ecology and respect for nature is а prevalent theme, piotr Wiench has claimed that nationalism is less important than ecology to most groups, describing a movement inspired by nature-based spirituality. Many groups use extensive symbolism drawn from the world and many hold their religious ceremonies outdoors in sparsely populated areas. Wiench mentions one group that dances to drums in the forest near Poznań, aitamurto describes a number of common themes, such as nationalism, concern for the environment, warrior themes and indigenous values. Her analysis focuses primarily on Russian groups, which she describes as heterogenous and ranging from pacifism to xenophobia, Rodnovery in Belarus has ties in politics, particularly within the pro-Russian political scene
3.
Polish language
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Polish is a West Slavic language spoken primarily in Poland and is the native language of the Poles. It belongs to the Lechitic subgroup of the West Slavic languages, Polish is the official language of Poland, but it is also used throughout the world by Polish minorities in other countries. It is one of the languages of the European Union. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet, which has 9 additions to the letters of the basic Latin script, Polish is closely related to Kashubian, Silesian, Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian, Czech and Slovak. It is also the second most widely spoken Slavic language, after Russian, in history, Polish is known to be an important language, both diplomatically and academically in Central and Eastern Europe. Today, Polish is spoken by over 38.5 million people as their first language in Poland. It is also spoken as a language in western parts of Belarus and Ukraine, west and central Lithuania, as well as the northern parts of the Czech Republic. There are 55 million Polish language speakers around the world, Polish began to emerge as a distinct language around the 10th century, the process largely triggered by the establishment and development of the Polish state. With Christianity, Poland also adopted the Latin alphabet, which made it possible to write down Polish, the precursor to modern Polish is the Old Polish language. Ultimately, Polish is thought to descend from the unattested Proto-Slavic language, Poland is the most linguistically homogeneous European country, nearly 97% of Polands citizens declare Polish as their first language. Elsewhere, Poles constitute large minorities in Lithuania, Belarus, Polish is the most widely used minority language in Lithuanias Vilnius County and is found elsewhere in southeastern Lithuania. There are significant numbers of Polish speakers among Polish emigrants and their descendants in many other countries, in the United States, Polish Americans number more than 11 million but most of them cannot speak Polish fluently. The largest concentrations of Polish speakers reported in the census were found in three states, Illinois, New York, and New Jersey. Enough people in these areas speak Polish that PNC Financial Services offer services available in Polish at all of their machines in addition to English and Spanish. According to the 2011 census there are now over 500,000 people in England, in Canada, there is a significant Polish Canadian population, There are 242,885 speakers of Polish according to the 2006 census, with a particular concentration in Toronto and Montreal. The geographical distribution of the Polish language was affected by the territorial changes of Poland immediately after World War II. Poles settled in the Recovered Territories in the west and north and this tendency toward a homogeneity also stems from the vertically integrated nature of the authoritarian Polish Peoples Republic. The inhabitants of different regions of Poland still speak standard Polish somewhat differently, first-language speakers of Polish have no trouble understanding each other, and non-native speakers may have difficulty distinguishing regional variations
4.
Slovenian language
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Slovene or Slovenian belongs to the group of South Slavic languages. It is spoken by approximately 2.5 million speakers worldwide and it is the first language of about 2.1 million Slovenian people and is one of the 24 official and working languages of the European Union. Standard Slovene is the standard language that was formed in the 18th century, mostly based on Upper and Lower Carniolan dialect groups. For example, the Resian and Torre dialects in the Italian Province of Udine differ most from other Slovene dialects, the distinctive characteristics of Slovene are dual grammatical number, two accentual norms, and abundant inflection. Although Slovene is basically an SVO language, word order is very flexible, Slovene has a T-V distinction, second-person plural forms are used for individuals as a sign of respect. Slovene and Slovak are the two modern Slavic languages whose names for themselves literally mean Slavic. Slovene is an Indo-European language belonging to the Western subgroup of the South Slavic branch of the Slavic languages, furthermore, Slovene shares certain linguistic characteristics with all South Slavic languages, including those of the Eastern subgroup, such as Bulgarian. The Slovene language also has commonalities with the West Slavic languages. Like all Slavic languages, Slovene traces its roots to the same group of languages that produced Old Church Slavonic. The earliest known examples of a distinct, written Slovene dialect are from the Freising Manuscripts, the consensus estimate of their date of origin is between 972 and 1093. These religious writings are among the oldest surviving manuscripts in any Slavic language and this linguistic border remained almost unchanged until the late 19th century, when a second process of Germanization took place, mostly in Carinthia. Between the 9th and 12th century, proto-Slovene spread into northern Istria, during most of the Middle Ages, Slovene was a vernacular language of the peasantry, although it was also spoken in most of the towns on Slovene territory, together with German or Italian. Although during this time, German emerged as the language of the nobility, Slovene had some role in the courtly life of the Carinthian, Carniolan and Styrian nobility. This is proved by the survival of certain ritual formulas in Slovene, the words Buge waz primi, gralva Venus. The first printed Slovene words, stara pravda, appeared in 1515 in Vienna in a poem of the German mercenaries who suppressed the Slovene peasant revolt. Standard Slovene emerged in the half of the 16th century, thanks to the works of Slovene Lutheran authors. During this period, German had a influence on Slovene. Many Slovene scientists before the 1920s also wrote in languages, mostly German
5.
Croatian language
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It is the official and literary standard of Croatia and one of the official languages of the European Union. Croatian is also one of the languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina, a recognized minority language in Serbia. Croatian is written in Gajs Latin alphabet, besides the Shtokavian dialect, on which Standard Croatian is based, there are two other main dialects, Chakavian and Kajkavian. It is still used now in parts of Istria, which became a crossroads of various mixtures of Chakavian with Ekavian/Ijekavian/Ikavian dialects, the cultural apex of this 17th century idiom is represented by the editions of Adrianskoga mora sirena by Petar Zrinski and Putni tovaruš by Katarina Zrinska. However, this first linguistic renaissance in Croatia was halted by the execution of Petar Zrinski. Subsequently the Croatian elite in the 18th century gradually abandoned this combined Croatian standard, specifically, three major groups of dialects were spoken on Croatian territory, and there had been several literary languages over four centuries. The leader of the Illyrian movement Ljudevit Gaj standardized the Latin alphabet in 1830–1850, the uniform Neo-Shtokavian then became common in the Croatian elite. In the 1860s, the Zagreb Philological School dominated the Croatian cultural life, drawing upon linguistic, while it was dominant over the rival Rijeka Philological School and Zadar Philological Schools, its influence waned with the rise of the Croatian Vukovians. Croatian is commonly characterized by the Ijekavian pronunciation, the use of the Latin alphabet. Some differences are absolute, while some appear mainly in the frequency of use, Croatian, although technically a form of Serbo-Croatian, is sometimes considered a distinct language by itself. Differences between various forms of Serbo-Croatian are often exaggerated for political reasons. Most Croatian linguists regard Croatian as a language that is considered key to national identity. The issue is sensitive in Croatia as the notion of a language being the most important characteristic of a nation is widely accepted. The terms Serbo-Croatian or Serbo-Croat are still used as a term for all these forms by foreign scholars. Within ex-Yugoslavia, the term has largely replaced by the ethnic terms Serbian, Croatian. In 2013, the EU started publishing a Croatian language version of its official gazette, Standard Croatian is the official language of the Republic of Croatia and, along with Standard Bosnian and Standard Serbian, one of three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is also official in the regions of Burgenland, Molise, additionally, it has co-official status alongside Romanian in the communes of Carașova and Lupac, Romania. Croatian is officially used and taught at all the universities in Croatia, there is no regulatory body that determines the proper usage of Croatian
6.
Belarusian language
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Belarusian is an official language of Belarus, along with Russian, and is spoken abroad, chiefly in Russia, Ukraine, and small parts in far-eastern Poland. Following independence, it became known as Belarusian. Belarusian is one of the East Slavic languages and shares many grammatical and lexical features with other members of the group, to some extent, Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian are mutually intelligible. Its predecessor stage is known as Ruthenian, in turn descended from Old East Slavic, at the 1999 Belarus Census, the Belarusian language was declared as a language spoken at home by about 3,686,000 Belarusian citizens. About 6,984,000 of Belarusians declared it their mother tongue, other sources put the population of the language as 6,715,000 in Belarus and 9,081,102 in all countries. According to a study done by the Belarusian government in 2009, 72% of Belarusians speak Russian at home,29. 4% of Belarusians can write, speak, and read Belarusian, while 52. 5% can only read and speak it. Although closely related to other East Slavic languages, especially Ukrainian, Belarusian phonology is distinct in a number of ways, the phoneme inventory of the modern Belarusian language consists of 45 to 54 phonemes,6 vowels and 39 to 48 consonants, depending on how they are counted. When the nine geminate consonants are excluded as mere variations, there are 39 consonants, the number 48 includes all consonant sounds, including variations and rare sounds, which may be semantically distinct in the modern Belarusian language. The Belarusian alphabet is a variant of the Cyrillic script, which was first used as an alphabet for the Old Church Slavonic language, the modern Belarusian form was defined in 1918, and consists of thirty-two letters. Before that, Belarusian had also written in the Belarusian Latin alphabet, the Belarusian Arabic alphabet. The Glagolitic script had been used, sporadically, until the 11th or 12th century, there are several systems of romanizing written Belarusian text in existence, see Romanization of Belarusian. Standardized Belarusian grammar in its form was adopted in 1959. It was developed from the form set down by Branislaw Tarashkyevich. Historically, there had existed several other alternative standardized forms of Belarusian grammar and it is mainly based on the Belarusian folk dialects of Minsk-Vilnius region. Belarusian grammar is mostly synthetic and partly analytic, and overall is similar to Russian grammar. The most significant instance of this is in the representation of vowel reduction, and in particular akannye, the merger of unstressed /a/ and /o/, Belarusian always spells this merged sound as ⟨a⟩, whereas Russian uses either ⟨a⟩ or ⟨o⟩, according to what the underlying phoneme is. This can significantly complicate the task of foreign speakers in learning these paradigms, besides the literary norm, there exist two main dialects of the Belarusian language, the North-Eastern and the South-Western. In addition, there exist the transitional Middle Belarusian dialect group, the North-Eastern dialect is chiefly characterized by the soft sounding R and strong akanye, and the South-Western dialect is chiefly characterized by the hard sounding R and moderate akanye
7.
Bulgarian language
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Bulgarian /bʌlˈɡɛəriən/, /bʊlˈ-/ is an Indo-European language, a member of the Southern branch of the Slavic language family. Various evidential verb forms exist to express unwitnessed, retold, with the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Bulgarian became one of the official languages of the European Union. Development of the Bulgarian language may be divided into several periods, prehistoric period – occurred between the Slavonic migration to eastern Balkans and the mission of Saints Cyril and Methodius to Great Moravia in the 860s. Old Bulgarian – a literary norm of the southern dialect of the Common Slavic language from which Bulgarian evolved. It was used by Saints Cyril and Methodius and their disciples to translate the Bible, Middle Bulgarian – a literary norm that evolved from the earlier Old Bulgarian, after major innovations were accepted. It was a language of literary activity and the official administration language of the Second Bulgarian Empire. Modern Bulgarian – dates from the 16th century onwards, undergoing general grammar, present-day written Bulgarian language was standardized on the basis of the 19th-century Bulgarian vernacular. Bulgarian was the first Slavic language attested in writing, as Slavic linguistic unity lasted into late antiquity, in the oldest manuscripts this language was initially referred to as языкъ словяньскъ, the Slavic language. In the Middle Bulgarian period this name was replaced by the name языкъ блъгарьскъ. In some cases, the name языкъ блъгарьскъ was used not only with regard to the contemporary Middle Bulgarian language of the copyist but also to the period of Old Bulgarian. During the Middle Bulgarian period, the language underwent dramatic changes, losing the Slavonic case system, today one difference between Bulgarian dialects in the country and literary spoken Bulgarian is the significant presence of Old Bulgarian words and even word forms in the latter. Russian loans are distinguished from Old Bulgarian ones on the basis of the presence of specifically Russian phonetic changes, as in оборот, непонятен, ядро and others. As usual in cases, many other loans from French, English. Modern Bulgarian was based essentially on the Eastern dialects of the language, between 1835–1878 more than 25 proposals were put forward and linguistic chaos ensued. Eventually the eastern dialects prevailed, and in 1899 the Ministry of Education officially codified a standard Bulgarian language based on the Drinov-Ivanchev orthography, the language is mainly split into two broad dialect areas, based on the different reflexes of the Common Slavic yat vowel. This split, which occurred at some point during the Middle Ages, led to the development of Bulgarias, E. g. млеко – milk, хлеб – bread. This rule obtains in most Eastern dialects, although some have ya, or an open e sound. The literary language norm, which is based on the Eastern dialects
8.
Russian language
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Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi
9.
Serbian language
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Serbian is the standardized variety of the Serbo-Croatian language mainly used by Serbs. It is the language of Serbia and one of the three official languages of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In addition, it is a minority language in Montenegro, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia. Standard Serbian is based on the most widespread dialect of Serbo-Croatian, Shtokavian, which is also the basis of Standard Croatian, Bosnian, the other dialect spoken by Serbs is Torlakian in southeastern Serbia, which is transitional to Macedonian and Bulgarian. Serbian is practically the only European standard language with complete synchronic digraphia, the Serbian Cyrillic alphabet was devised in 1814 by Serbian linguist Vuk Karadžić, who created the alphabet on phonemic principles. The Latin alphabet was designed by Croatian linguist Ljudevit Gaj in 1830, Serbian is a standardized variety of Serbo-Croatian, a Slavic language, of the South Slavic subgroup. Other standardized forms of Serbo-Croatian are Bosnian, Croatian, and Montenegrin and it has lower intelligibility with the Eastern South Slavic languages Bulgarian and Macedonian, than with Slovene. The 2011 census show that 42. 88% still declare Serbian to be their native language, Standard Serbian language uses both Cyrillic and Latin script. Even in official government documents this constitutional requirement is rarely enforced, Serbian is a rare example of synchronic digraphia, a situation where all literate members of a society have two interchangeable writing systems available to them. Media and publishers typically select one alphabet or another, for example, the public broadcaster, Radio Television of Serbia, predominantly uses the Cyrillic script whereas the privately run broadcasters, like RTV Pink, predominantly use the Latin script. A survey from 2014 showed that 47% of the Serbian population favors the Latin alphabet whereas 36% favors the Cyrillic one and these are the tenses of the indicative mood. Apart from the mood, there is also the imperative mood. The conditional mood has two more tenses, the first conditional and the second conditional, Serbian has active and passive voice. As for the verb forms, Serbian has one infinitive. Most Serbian words are of native Slavic lexical stock, tracing back to the Proto-Slavic language, there are many loanwords from different languages, reflecting cultural interaction throughout history. Notable loanwords were borrowed from Greek, Latin, Italian, Turkish, Hungarian, Russian, Serbian literature emerged in the Middle Ages, and included such works as Miroslavljevo jevanđelje in 1192 and Dušanov zakonik in 1349. In the mid-15th century, Serbia was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, however, some of the greatest literary works in Serbian come from this time, in the form of oral literature, the most notable form being Serbian epic poetry. The epic poems were written down in the 19th century, and preserved in oral tradition up to the 1950s
10.
Cyrillic script
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The Cyrillic script /sᵻˈrɪlɪk/ is a writing system used for various alphabets across eastern Europe and north and central Asia. It is based on the Early Cyrillic, which was developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 9th century AD at the Preslav Literary School. As of 2011, around 252 million people in Eurasia use it as the alphabet for their national languages. With the accession of Bulgaria to the European Union on 1 January 2007, Cyrillic became the official script of the European Union, following the Latin script. Cyrillic is derived from the Greek uncial script, augmented by letters from the older Glagolitic alphabet and these additional letters were used for Old Church Slavonic sounds not found in Greek. The script is named in honor of the two Byzantine brothers, Saints Cyril and Methodius, who created the Glagolitic alphabet earlier on, modern scholars believe that Cyrillic was developed and formalized by early disciples of Cyril and Methodius. In the early 18th century the Cyrillic script used in Russia was heavily reformed by Peter the Great, the new form of letters became closer to the Latin alphabet, several archaic letters were removed and several letters were personally designed by Peter the Great. West European typography culture was also adopted, Cyrillic script spread throughout the East and South Slavic territories, being adopted for writing local languages, such as Old East Slavic. Its adaptation to local languages produced a number of Cyrillic alphabets, capital and lowercase letters were not distinguished in old manuscripts. Yeri was originally a ligature of Yer and I, iotation was indicated by ligatures formed with the letter І, Ꙗ, Ѥ, Ю, Ѩ, Ѭ. Sometimes different letters were used interchangeably, for example И = І = Ї, there were also commonly used ligatures like ѠТ = Ѿ. The letters also had values, based not on Cyrillic alphabetical order. The early Cyrillic alphabet is difficult to represent on computers, many of the letterforms differed from modern Cyrillic, varied a great deal in manuscripts, and changed over time. Few fonts include adequate glyphs to reproduce the alphabet, the Unicode 5.1 standard, released on 4 April 2008, greatly improves computer support for the early Cyrillic and the modern Church Slavonic language. In Microsoft Windows, Segoe UI is notable for having complete support for the archaic Cyrillic letters since Windows 8, the development of Cyrillic typography passed directly from the medieval stage to the late Baroque, without a Renaissance phase as in Western Europe. Late Medieval Cyrillic letters show a tendency to be very tall and narrow. Peter the Great, Czar of Russia, mandated the use of westernized letter forms in the early 18th century, over time, these were largely adopted in the other languages that use the script. The development of some Cyrillic computer typefaces from Latin ones has also contributed to the visual Latinization of Cyrillic type, Cyrillic uppercase and lowercase letter forms are not as differentiated as in Latin typography
11.
Ukrainian language
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Ukrainian /juːˈkreɪniən/ is an East Slavic language. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic script, historical linguists trace the origin of the Ukrainian language to the Old East Slavic of the early medieval state of Kievan Rus. After the fall of the Kievan Rus as well as the Kingdom of Galicia–Volhynia, the Modern Ukrainian language has been in common use since the late 17th century, associated with the establishment of the Cossack Hetmanate. From 1804 until the Russian Revolution, the Ukrainian language was banned from schools in the Russian Empire and it has always maintained a sufficient base in Western Ukraine, where the language was never banned, in its folklore songs, itinerant musicians, and prominent authors. The Ukrainian language retains a degree of intelligibility with Belarusian and Russian. The first theory of the origin of Ukrainian language was suggested in Imperial Russia in the middle of the 18th century by Mikhail Lomonosov and this theory posits the existence of a common language spoken by all East Slavic people in the time of the Rus. Another point of view developed during the 19th and 20th centuries by linguists of Imperial Russia, like Lomonosov, they assumed the existence of a common language spoken by East Slavs in the past. This general point of view is the most accepted amongst academics worldwide, the supporters of this theory disagree, however, about the time when the different languages were formed. Soviet scholars set the divergence between Ukrainian and Russian only at time periods. During the time of the incorporation of Ruthenia into the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and this point of view is, however, at variance with some historical data. In fact, several East Slavic tribes, such as Polans, Drevlyans, Severians, Dulebes, White Croats, Tiverians, notably, some Ukrainian features were recognizable in the southern dialects of Old East Slavic as far back as the language can be documented. In contrast, Ahatanhel Krymsky and Alexei Shakhmatov assumed the existence of the spoken language of Eastern Slavs only in prehistoric times. According to their point of view, the diversification of the Old East Slavic language took place in the 8th or early 9th century, Ukrainian linguist Stepan Smal-Stotsky went even further, denying the existence of a common Old East Slavic language at any time in the past. Similar points of view were shared by Yevhen Tymchenko, Vsevolod Hantsov, Olena Kurylo, Ivan Ohienko, according to this theory, the dialects of East Slavic tribes evolved gradually from the common Proto-Slavic language without any intermediate stages during the 6th through 9th centuries. The Ukrainian language was formed by convergence of tribal dialects, mostly due to a migration of the population within the territory of todays Ukraine in later historical periods. This point of view was supported by George Shevelovs phonological studies. During the 13th century, when German settlers were invited to Ukraine by the princes of Galicia-Vollhynia and their influence would continue under Poland not only through German colonists but also through the Yiddish-speaking Jews. Often such words involve trade or handicrafts, examples of words of German or Yiddish origin spoken in Ukraine include dakh, rura, rynok, kushnir, and majster
12.
God
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In monotheism, God is conceived of as the Supreme Being and principal object of faith. The concept of God as described by most theologians includes the attributes of omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, divine simplicity, many theologians also describe God as being omnibenevolent and all loving. Furthermore, some religions attribute only a purely grammatical gender to God, incorporeity and corporeity of God are related to conceptions of transcendence and immanence of God, with positions of synthesis such as the immanent transcendence of Chinese theology. God has been conceived as personal or impersonal. In theism, God is the creator and sustainer of the universe, while in deism, God is the creator, in pantheism, God is the universe itself. In atheism, God is not believed to exist, while God is deemed unknown or unknowable within the context of agnosticism, God has also been conceived as the source of all moral obligation, and the greatest conceivable existent. Many notable philosophers have developed arguments for and against the existence of God, there are many names for God, and different names are attached to different cultural ideas about Gods identity and attributes. In the ancient Egyptian era of Atenism, possibly the earliest recorded monotheistic religion, this deity was called Aten, premised on being the one true Supreme Being and creator of the universe. In the Hebrew Bible and Judaism, He Who Is, I Am that I Am, in the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, God, consubstantial in three persons, is called the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In Judaism, it is common to refer to God by the titular names Elohim or Adonai, in Islam, the name Allah is used, while Muslims also have a multitude of titular names for God. In Hinduism, Brahman is often considered a concept of God. In Chinese religion, God is conceived as the progenitor of the universe, intrinsic to it, other religions have names for God, for instance, Baha in the Baháí Faith, Waheguru in Sikhism, and Ahura Mazda in Zoroastrianism. The earliest written form of the Germanic word God comes from the 6th-century Christian Codex Argenteus, the English word itself is derived from the Proto-Germanic * ǥuđan. The reconstructed Proto-Indo-European form * ǵhu-tó-m was likely based on the root * ǵhau-, in the English language, the capitalized form of God continues to represent a distinction between monotheistic God and gods in polytheism. The same holds for Hebrew El, but in Judaism, God is also given a proper name, in many translations of the Bible, when the word LORD is in all capitals, it signifies that the word represents the tetragrammaton. Allāh is the Arabic term with no plural used by Muslims and Arabic speaking Christians and Jews meaning The God, Ahura Mazda is the name for God used in Zoroastrianism. Mazda, or rather the Avestan stem-form Mazdā-, nominative Mazdå and it is generally taken to be the proper name of the spirit, and like its Sanskrit cognate medhā, means intelligence or wisdom. Both the Avestan and Sanskrit words reflect Proto-Indo-Iranian *mazdhā-, from Proto-Indo-European mn̩sdʰeh1, literally meaning placing ones mind, Waheguru is a term most often used in Sikhism to refer to God
13.
Slavic Native Faith
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Slavic neopaganism or the Slavic native faith is the contemporary continuation of the ethnic religion of the Slavic peoples. It is characterised by a pantheist and polytheist theology, a focus on Slavic culture and folklore, in English sources the religion is often called Ridnoviry and its followers Ridnovirs. The term Rodnovery, from Russian, is also in use, some Slavic native faith groups also incorporate elements of Hinduism and Vedism. Rodnovery comes from Slavic compounds adapted to English, made up of родная or родной, meaning native, plus вера, Rodnovers generally dont refuse to be categorised as pagans, but virtually none accept the prefix neo-. Rodnovery can also be anglicised as Rodism or Rodianism, which drops the vera suffix, thus meaning simply religion of the Rod, religion of the Root, according to this view Rodnovery is a word that embodies the central concept of the Slavic native faith. Other names that are in use in Russia for the religion, although popular, are славянство or Slavianstvo, which in English is Slavism or Slavianism. The first name has been used by a community in Moscow maintaining that the term Slav originally means pious, the basic structure of a temple of the Slavic native faith is constituted by a sacred precinct at the centre of which are placed the images of the gods enshrined. There are many temples throughout Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. A large, formal one is projected to be built in Khabarovsk, the Slavic Kremlin, a centre of the Yarga Rodnover religious network in the Podolsky District of Moscow Oblast, hosts a typical wooden temple among its buildings. In 2015 the Temple of the Fire of Svarozich, in the form of a building, was opened by the Union of Slavic Rodnover Communities in Krasotynka. Unlike earlier authors, Dołęga-Chodakowski identified Christianity as an influence on national character. It was also rife with literary hoaxes and fakes, such as the Kraledvorsky Manuscript, the Prillwitz idols, as in other European countries, many Slavic nations developed their own Slavic faith movements in the first half of the 20th century. The German and Polish groups were already referred to as neopagan in press articles before World War II. Alarmed by the growth of Rodnovery in Slavic countries, exponents of the Orthodox Church gathered on 19 September 2015 launching a smartphone application of apologetics against the movement. Ecology and respect for nature is а prevalent theme, piotr Wiench has claimed that nationalism is less important than ecology to most groups, describing a movement inspired by nature-based spirituality. Many groups use extensive symbolism drawn from the world and many hold their religious ceremonies outdoors in sparsely populated areas. Wiench mentions one group that dances to drums in the forest near Poznań, aitamurto describes a number of common themes, such as nationalism, concern for the environment, warrior themes and indigenous values. Her analysis focuses primarily on Russian groups, which she describes as heterogenous and ranging from pacifism to xenophobia, Rodnovery in Belarus has ties in politics, particularly within the pro-Russian political scene
14.
South Slavs
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The South Slavs are a subgroup of Slavic peoples who speak the South Slavic languages. The South Slavs include the Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and they are the main population of the Southeastern European countries of Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. In the 20th century, the country of Yugoslavia united the regions inhabited by South Slavic nations – with the key exception of Bulgaria – into a single state. The concept of Yugoslavia, a state for all South Slavic peoples, emerged in the late 17th century. Little is known about the Slavs before the 5th century and their history prior to this can only be tentatively hypothesized via archeological and linguistic studies. Much of what we know about their history after the 6th century is from the works of Byzantine historians, in his work De Bellis, Procopius portrays the Sclavini as unusually tall and strong, with a tan complexion and reddish-blonde hair, living a rugged and primitive life. They lived in huts, often distant from one another and often changed their place of abode and they were not ruled by a single leader, but for a long time lived in a democracy. John of Ephesus, in his Ecclesiastical History portrays the Slavs as extremely violent people and they probably believed in many Gods, but Procopius suggests they believed in one, perhaps supreme god. He has often been identified as Perun, the creator of lightning, the Slavs went into battle on foot, charging straight at their enemy, armed with spears and small shields, but they did not wear armour. The lack of understanding may be attributed to matrilineal succession practiced among Southern Slavs and they made their homes in forests, by rivers and wetlands. Jordanes states that the Slavs have their homelands on the Danube, scholars have traditionally placed the Slavic Urheimat in the Pripet marshes of Ukraine, or alternatively between the Bug and the Dniepr. In the 5th century Slavs are mentioned as living north of the Danube in the sources from that era. From the 5th century, they supposedly spread outward in all directions, the Balkans was one of the regions which lay in the path of the expanding Slavs. Regarding the Slavs mentioned by 6th-century Byzantine chroniclers, Florin Curta states that their homeland was north of the Danube and he clarifies that their itinerant form of agriculture may have encouraged mobility on a micro regional scale. Material culture from the Danube suggests that there was an evolution of Slavic society between the early 7th century and the 8th century, as the Byzantines re-asserted the Danubian defences in the mid 6th century, the Slavs yield of pillaged goods dropped. As a reaction to this isolation, and external threats, political. As community elites rose to prominence, they came to embody a collective interest, if that group identity can be called ethnicity, and if that ethnicity can be called Slavic, then it certainly formed in the shadow of Justinians forts, not in the Pripet marshes. The Byzantines broadly grouped the numerous Slav tribes into two groups, the Sclaveni and Antes and they are both first encountered in the lower Danube region
15.
Helmold
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Helmold of Bosau was a Saxon historian of the 12th century and a priest at Bosau near Plön. He was a friend of the two bishops of Oldenburg in Holstein, Vicelinus and Gerold, who did much to Christianize the Polabian Slavs and he grew up in Holstein, and received his instruction in Brunswick from Gerold, the future bishop of Oldenburg. Later he came under the direction of Vicelinus, the Apostle of the Wends, first in the Augustinian monastery of Faldera and he became a deacon about 1150, and finally became a parish priest in 1156 at Bosau on Großer Plöner See. At Bishop Gerolds instigation Helmold wrote his Chronica Slavorum, a history of the conquest, the purpose of this chronicle was to demonstrate how Christianity and the German nationality gradually succeeded in gaining a footing among the Wends, especially in the eastern portion of Holstein. The work is divided into two parts, the first covers a period closing with the year 1168, while the second continues to the year 1171 and this second part, however, was written subsequently to 1172. Helmold was a historian, calling Henry the Lion out for money. He said that among the troops of Henry the Lion during the Wendish Crusade, there was talk of money, never about Christianity. He is, however, the most important source of information for the history of his own period, his account of which rests on the information of Vicelinus. His fund of information becomes noticeably meager after the death in 1163. The chronicle was first published in 1556 at Frankfurt, and later in Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptores, XXI, 11-99, Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony, was Helmolds patron. The chronicle was continued down to 1209 by Abbot Arnold of Lübeck, the Chronica were first edited by Siegmund Schorkel. The best edition is by J. M. Lappenberg in Monumenta Germaniae hist. scriptores, for critical works on the Chronica see August Potthast, Bibliotheca hist. medaevius. This article incorporates text from the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia article Helmold by Patricius Schlager, encyclopædia Britannica 2006 Ultimate Reference Suite DVD. Helmold von Bosau Attribution This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh
16.
Slavs
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Slavs are the largest Indo-European ethno-linguistic group in Europe. They are native to Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, Northeastern Europe, North Asia, Slavs speak Slavic languages of the Balto-Slavic language group. From the early 6th century they spread to inhabit most of Central, states with Slavic languages comprise over 50% of the territory of Europe, therefore it is the largest ethno-linguistic group in Europe by land area. Present-day Slavic people are classified into West Slavs, East Slavs, there are an estimated 360 million Slavs worldwide. The Slavic autonym is reconstructed in Proto-Slavic as *Slověninъ, plural *Slověne, the oldest documents written in Old Church Slavonic and dating from the 9th century attest the autonym as Slověne. The word slovo and the related slava and slukh originate from the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱlew-, cognate with Ancient Greek κλῆς, whence comes the name Pericles, Latin clueo, some other theories have limited support. The English term slave eventually derives from the ethnonym Slav, Slavs were captured and enslaved by the Muslims of Spain during the ninth century AD. The Slavs under name of the Antes and the Sclaveni make their first appearance in Byzantine records in the early 6th century. Procopius wrote in 545 that the Sclaveni and the Antae actually had a name in the remote past. He described them as barbarians, who lived under democracy, and that believe in one god. They lived in scattered housing, and constantly changed settlement, regarding warfare, they were mainly foot soldiers with small shields and battleaxes, lightly clothed, some entering battle naked with only their genitals covered. And they live a life, giving no heed to bodily comforts. Jordanes described the Sclaveni having swamps and forests for their cities, another 6th-century source refers to them living among nearly impenetrable forests, rivers, lakes, and marshes. Menander Protector mentions a Daurentius that slew an Avar envoy of Khagan Bayan I. The Avars asked the Slavs to accept the suzerainty of the Avars, he declined and is reported as saying, Others do not conquer our land. The relationship between the Slavs and a called the Veneti east of the River Vistula in the Roman period is uncertain. The name may refer both to Balts and Slavs, perhaps some Slavs migrated with the movement of the Vandals to Iberia and north Africa. Around the 6th century, Slavs appeared on Byzantine borders in great numbers, the Byzantine records note that grass would not regrow in places where the Slavs had marched through, so great were their numbers
17.
Latinisation of names
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Latinisation is the practice of rendering a non-Latin name in a Latin style. It is commonly found with personal names, with toponyms. It goes further than romanisation, which is the transliteration of a word to the Latin alphabet from another script and this was often done in the classical era for much the same reason as English-speaking cultures produce English versions of some foreign names. In the case of names in the post-Roman era this may be done to emulate Latin authors. In a scientific context, the purpose of Latinisation may be to produce a name which is internationally consistent. Humanist names, assumed by Renaissance humanists, were very largely Latinised names, Latinisation in humanist names may consist of translation from vernacular European languages, sometimes involving a playful element of punning. Such names could be a cover for social origins. Latinisation is a practice for scientific names. For example, Livistona, the name of a genus of trees, is a Latinisation of Livingstone. In English, place names appear in Latinised form. This is a result of many text books mentioning the places being written in Latin. Because of this, the English language often uses Latinised forms of place names instead of anglicised forms or the original names. Examples of Latinised names for countries or regions are, Estonia Ingria Livonia During the age of the Roman Empire, additionally, Latinised versions of Greek substantives, particularly proper nouns, could easily be declined by Latin speakers with minimal modification of the original word. During the medieval period, following the collapse of the Empire in Western Europe, in the early medieval period, most European scholars were priests and most educated people spoke Latin, and as a result, Latin became firmly established as the scholarly language for the West. Though during modern times Europe has largely abandoned Latin as a scholarly language, by tradition, it is still common in some fields to name new discoveries in Latin. Romanization, conversion of a text in Latin letters Nicolson, Dan H, orthography of Names and Epithets, Latinization of Personal Names
18.
Saxons
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The Saxons were a group of Germanic tribes first mentioned as living near the North Sea coast of what is now Germany, in the late Roman empire. They were soon mentioned as raiding and settling in many North Sea areas, as well as pushing south inland towards the Franks. Significant numbers settled in parts of Great Britain in the early Middle Ages. Many Saxons however remained in Germania, where they resisted the expanding Frankish Empire through the leadership of the semi-legendary Saxon hero, the Saxons earliest area of settlement is believed to have been Northern Albingia, an area approximately that of modern Holstein. This general area also included the probable homeland of the Angles, Saxons, along with the Angles and other continental Germanic tribes, participated in the Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain during and after the 5th century. The British-Celtic inhabitants of the isles tended to refer to all of these collectively as Saxons. It is unknown how many Saxons migrated from the Continent to Britain, the Saxons may have derived their name from seax, a kind of knife for which they were known. The seax has a symbolic impact in the English counties of Essex and Middlesex. Their names, along with those of Sussex and Wessex, contain a remnant of the word Saxon. The Elizabethan era play Edmund Ironside suggests the Saxon name derives from the Latin saxa, Their names discover what their natures are, More hard than stones, in the Celtic languages, the words designating English nationality derive from the Latin word Saxones. The most prominent example, a loanword in English, is the Scottish Gaelic Sassenach and it derives from the Scottish Gaelic Sasunnach meaning, originally, Saxon, from the Latin Saxones. Scots- or Scottish English-speakers in the 21st century usually use it as a term for an English person. The Oxford English Dictionary gives 1771 as the date of the earliest written use of the word in English. Sasanach, the Irish word for an Englishman, has the same derivation, as do the words used in Welsh to describe the English people, Cornish terms the English Sawsnek, from the same derivation. In the 16th century Cornish-speakers used the phrase Meea navidna cowza sawzneck to feign ignorance of the English language, England in Scottish Gaelic is Sasainn. Other examples include the Welsh Saesneg, Irish Sasana, Breton saoz, and Cornish Sowson, Sowsnek, the label Saxons was also applied to German settlers who migrated during the 13th century to southeastern Transylvania. From Transylvania, some Saxons migrated to neighbouring Moldavia, as the name of the town, Sas-cut, sascut is located in the part of Moldavia that is today part of Romania. The Finns and Estonians have changed their usage of the term Saxony over the centuries to denote now the country of Germany
19.
Germany
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Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a federal parliamentary republic in central-western Europe. It includes 16 constituent states, covers an area of 357,021 square kilometres, with about 82 million inhabitants, Germany is the most populous member state of the European Union. After the United States, it is the second most popular destination in the world. Germanys capital and largest metropolis is Berlin, while its largest conurbation is the Ruhr, other major cities include Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, Düsseldorf and Leipzig. Various Germanic tribes have inhabited the northern parts of modern Germany since classical antiquity, a region named Germania was documented before 100 AD. During the Migration Period the Germanic tribes expanded southward, beginning in the 10th century, German territories formed a central part of the Holy Roman Empire. During the 16th century, northern German regions became the centre of the Protestant Reformation, in 1871, Germany became a nation state when most of the German states unified into the Prussian-dominated German Empire. After World War I and the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the Empire was replaced by the parliamentary Weimar Republic, the establishment of the national socialist dictatorship in 1933 led to World War II and the Holocaust. After a period of Allied occupation, two German states were founded, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, in 1990, the country was reunified. In the 21st century, Germany is a power and has the worlds fourth-largest economy by nominal GDP. As a global leader in industrial and technological sectors, it is both the worlds third-largest exporter and importer of goods. Germany is a country with a very high standard of living sustained by a skilled. It upholds a social security and universal health system, environmental protection. Germany was a member of the European Economic Community in 1957. It is part of the Schengen Area, and became a co-founder of the Eurozone in 1999, Germany is a member of the United Nations, NATO, the G8, the G20, and the OECD. The national military expenditure is the 9th highest in the world, the English word Germany derives from the Latin Germania, which came into use after Julius Caesar adopted it for the peoples east of the Rhine. This in turn descends from Proto-Germanic *þiudiskaz popular, derived from *þeudō, descended from Proto-Indo-European *tewtéh₂- people, the discovery of the Mauer 1 mandible shows that ancient humans were present in Germany at least 600,000 years ago. The oldest complete hunting weapons found anywhere in the world were discovered in a mine in Schöningen where three 380, 000-year-old wooden javelins were unearthed
20.
West Slavs
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The West Slavs are a subgroup of Slavic peoples who speak the West Slavic languages. They separated from the common Slavic group in c. the 7th century, the West Slavic languages diversify into their historically attested forms during c. the 10th to 14th centuries. West Slavic speaking nations today include the Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Kashubians, Silesians, the West Slavic group can be divided into three subgroups, Lechitic, including Polish, Kashubian and extinct Polabian and Pomeranian languages, Lusatian and Czecho-Slovak. Culturally, West Slavs developed along the lines of other Western European nations due to affiliation with the Roman Empire, in the Middle Ages the name Wends was applied to Western Slavic peoples. Mieszko I, the first historical ruler of Poland, also appeared as Dagome, the early Slavic expansion began in the 5th century, and by the 6th century, the groups that would become the West, East and South Slavic groups had probably become geographically separated. The first independent West Slavic states originate beginning in the 7th century, with the Empire of Samo, the Principality of Moravia, the Polabian language survived until the beginning of the 19th century in what is now the German state of Lower Saxony. At this time only 60,000 Sorbs have survived, living predominantly in Lusatia, the central Polish tribe of the Polans created their own state in the 10th century under the Polish duke Mieszko I. For many centuries Poland has had ties with its western neighbors. Kingdom of Bohemia stayed part of that Empire between 1002–1419 and 1526–1918, predecessors of Slovaks came under Hungarian domination after 907 – together with other Slavic groups as Croats, Slovenians, Dalmatians and Rusyns. Both the Czechs and the Slovaks were under rule of the Habsburg monarchy from 1526 to 1804, then in the Austrian Empire and between 1867–1918 part of Austria-Hungary
21.
Old Church Slavonic
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Old Church Slavonic, also known as Old Church Slavic, was the first Slavic literary language. It is thought to have been based primarily on the dialect of the 9th century Byzantine Slavs living in the Province of Thessalonica, as the oldest attested Slavic language, OCS provides important evidence for the features of Proto-Slavic, the reconstructed common ancestor of all Slavic languages. The language was standardized for the mission of the two apostles to Great Moravia in 863, the language and the alphabet were taught at the Great Moravian Academy and were used for government and religious documents and books between 863 and 885. The texts written during this phase contain characteristics of the Slavic vernaculars in Great Moravia, in 885, the use of Old Church Slavonic in Great Moravia was prohibited by Pope Stephen V in favour of Latin. Students of the two apostles, who were expelled from Great Moravia in 886, brought the Glagolitic alphabet to the First Bulgarian Empire, there it was taught at two literary schools, the Preslav Literary School and the Ohrid Literary School. The Glagolitic alphabet was used at both schools, though the Cyrillic script was developed early on at the Preslav Literary School where it superseded Glagolitic. The texts written during this era exhibit certain linguistic features of the vernaculars of the First Bulgarian Empire and these local varieties are collectively known as the Church Slavonic language. In Bosnia was preserved the local Bosnian Cyrillic alphabet, while in Croatia a variant of the Glagolitic alphabet was preserved, see Early Cyrillic alphabet for a detailed description of the script and information about the sounds it originally expressed. For Old Church Slavonic, the segments are reconstructible. The sounds are given in Slavic transliterated form rather than in IPA, as the realisation is uncertain. The letter щ denoted different sounds in different dialects and is not shown in the table, in Bulgaria, it represented the sequence /ʃt/, and it is normally transliterated as št for that reason. Farther west and north, it was probably /c/ or /tɕ/ like in modern Macedonian, Torlakian and Serbian/Croatian, /dz/ appears mostly in early texts, becoming /z/ later on. The distinction between l, n and r, on one hand, and palatal l, n and r, when it is, it is shown by a kamora diacritic over the letter. Accent is not indicated in writing and must be inferred from later languages, the pronunciation of yat ě differed by area. In Bulgaria it was an open vowel, commonly reconstructed as /æ/. The yer vowels ĭ and ŭ are often called ultrashort and were lower, more centralised and shorter than their counterparts i and they disappeared in most positions in the word, already sporadically in the earliest texts but more frequently later on. They also tended to merge with other vowels, particularly ĭ with e and ŭ with o, the exact articulation of the nasal vowels is unclear because different areas tend to merge them with different vowels. ę is occasionally seen to merge with e or ě in South Slavic, ǫ generally merges with u or o, but in Bulgaria, ǫ was apparently unrounded and eventually merged with ŭ
22.
Old East Slavic
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Old East Slavic, Old Ruthenian, Old Rusian was a language used in the 10th–15th centuries by East Slavs in Kievan Rus and states which evolved after the collapse of Kievan Rus. Dialects of it were spoken, though not exclusively, in the area occupied by Belarus, central and northern Ukraine. Linguists from each of the three East Slavic countries tend to treat Old East Slavic as the predecessor of their own language. The Russian drevnerusskij jazyk means Old Rus’ian as well, Rusian is similarly used by some western scholars such as Horace Lunt. The language was a descendant of the Proto-Slavic language and faithfully retained many of its features, a striking innovation in the evolution of this language was the development of so-called pleophony, which came to differentiate the newly evolving East Slavic from other Slavic dialects. For instance, Common Slavic *gordъ settlement, town was reflected as OESl. gorodъ, Common Slavic *melko milk > OESl. moloko, other Slavic dialects are differed by resolving the closed-syllable clusters *eRC and *aRC as liquid metathesis, or by no change at all. Since extant written records of the language are sparse, it is difficult to assess the level of its unity, in consideration of the number of tribes and clans that constituted Kievan Rus, it is probable that there were many dialects of Old East Slavonic. Nonetheless, by 1150 it had more unity than any other branch of Slavic, with time, it evolved into several more diversified forms, which were the predecessors of the modern Belarusian, Russian, Rusyn and Ukrainian languages. The Ukrainian branch split away first, between 1200 and 1500, whereas Russian later separated from Belarusian by 1700, each of these languages preserves much of the Old East Slavic grammar and vocabulary. The Old Church Slavonic language was introduced, documentation of the language of this period is scanty, making it difficult at best fully to determine the relationship between the literary language and its spoken dialects. There are references in Arab and Byzantine sources to pre-Christian Slavs in European Russia using some form of writing, although the Glagolitic alphabet was briefly introduced, as witnessed by church inscriptions in Novgorod, it was soon entirely superseded by the Cyrillic. The following excerpts illustrate two of the most famous literary monuments, the spelling of the original excerpt has been partly modernized. The translations are best attempts at being literal, not literary,1110, from the Laurentian Codex,1377, Early language, fall of the yers in progress or arguably complete. South Slavic features include времѧньнъıх bygone, modern R прошлых, modern Ukr минулих, correct use of perfect and aorist, єсть пошла is/has come, нача began Note the style of punctuation. 1200, from the Pskov manuscript, fifteenth cent, illustrates the sung epics, with typical use of metaphor and simile. The Old East Slavic language developed a certain literature of its own, though much of it was influenced as regards style, the earliest dated specimen of Old East Slavic must be considered the written Slovo o zakone i blagodati, by Hilarion, metropolitan of Kiev. In this work there is a panegyric on Prince Vladimir of Kiev and this subtle and graceful oration admirably conforms to the precepts of the Byzantine eloquence. It is rivalled by another panegyric on Vladimir, written a decade later by Yakov the Monk, from the writings of Theodosius we see that many pagan habits were still in vogue among the people
23.
Proto-Indo-European religion
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The hypothesized reconstructions below are based on linguistic evidence using the comparative method. Archaeological evidence is difficult to match to any specific culture in the period of early Indo-European culture in the Chalcolithic, other approaches to Indo-European mythology are possible, such as the trifunctional hypothesis of Georges Dumézil. Linguists are able to reconstruct the names of deities in the Proto-Indo-European language from many types of sources. Some of the proposed deity names are more accepted among scholars than others. The term for a god was *deiwos, reflected in Hittite, sius, Latin, deus, divus, Sanskrit, deva, Avestan, daeva, Welsh, duw, Irish, dia, Old Norse, tívurr, Lithuanian, Dievas, Latvian, Dievs. The supreme ruler of the Proto-Indo-European pantheon was the god *Dyḗus Pḥɑtḗr and he is believed to have been worshipped as the god of the daylit skies. He is, by far, the most well-attested of all the Proto-Indo-European deities, the Greek god Zeus, the Roman god Jupiter, and the Illyrian god Dei-Pátrous all appear as the head gods of their respective pantheons. The Norse god Týr, however, seems to have been demoted to the role of a minor war-deity, *Dyḗus Pḥɑtḗr is also attested in the Rigveda as Dyáus Pitā, a minor ancestor figure mentioned in only a few hymns. The names of the Latvian god Dievs and the Hittite god Attas Isanus do not preserve the exact translation of the name *Dyḗus Pḥɑtḗr. *Hɑéusōs has been reconstructed as the Proto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn, derivatives of her found throughout various Indo-European mythologies include the Greek goddess Eos, the Roman goddess Aurōra, the Vedic goddess Uṣás, and the Lithuanian goddess Auštrine. The form Arap Ushas appears in Albanian folklore, but as a name for the Moon, an extension of the name may have been *H2eustro, but see also the form *as-t-r, with intrusive -t- in northern dialects. *Seh2ul and *Meh1not are reconstructed as the Proto-Indo-European goddess of the Sun, *Meh1not is reconstructed based off the Norse god Máni, the Hittite god Myesyats, and the Lithuanian god *Meno, or Mėnuo. They are often seen as the children of various deities. The usual scheme is one of these celestial deities is male. The original Indo-European lunar deity appears to have masculine, with feminine lunar deities like Selene, Minerva. Even in these traditions, remnants of male deities, like Menelaus. The word *prihxeha-, meaning wife has been reconstructed based off the Sanskrit word priyā, meaning wife, the Old Norse word frī, meaning beloved, and the Old English word frēo, meaning woman. The name of the Norse goddess Frigg is derived from this root, Analysis of different Indo-European tales indicate the Proto-Indo-Europeans believed there were two progenitors of mankind, *Manu- and *Yemo-, his twin brother
24.
Dyeus
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Dyēus is believed to have been the chief deity in the religious traditions of the prehistoric Proto-Indo-European societies. Part of a pantheon, he was the god of the daylit sky. In his aspect as a god, his consort would have been Pltwih2 Méh2ter. This deity is not directly attested, rather, scholars have reconstructed this deity from the languages and cultures of later Indo-European peoples such as the Greeks, Latins, and Indo-Aryans. As the pantheons of the individual mythologies related to the Proto-Indo-European religion evolved, the Latin word is also continued in English divine, deity, and the original Germanic word remains visible in Tuesday and Old Norse tívar, which may be continued in the toponym Tiveden. The following names derive from the related *deiwos, Germanic Tīwaz Latin Deus Indo-Aryan deva, Vedic/Puranic deva, Buddhist deva Iranic daeva, daiva, diw, etc. Even in Roman tradition, Jupiter often is associated with diurnal lightning at most. Dyēuss name also means the daytime sky, In Sanskrit as div-, its singular means the sky. Its accusative form *dyēm became Latin diem day, which gave rise to a new nominative diēs. The original nominative survives as diūs in a few fixed expressions, Finnish taivas, Estonian taevas, Livonian tōvaz etc. meaning heaven or sky, are likely rooted in the Indo-European word. The neighboring Baltic Dievas or Germanic Tiwaz are possible sources, similar origin has been proposed for the word family represented by Finnish toivoa to hope. Proto-Indo-European religion Tengri Tian Pokorny, Julius, Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Indo-European *Deiwos and Related Words by Grace Sturtevant Hopkins, Language Dissertations number XII, December 1932
25.
Sanskrit
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Sanskrit is the primary liturgical language of Hinduism, a philosophical language of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, and a literary language and lingua franca of ancient and medieval South Asia. As a result of transmission of Hindu and Buddhist culture to Southeast Asia and parts of Central Asia, as one of the oldest Indo-European languages for which substantial written documentation exists, Sanskrit holds a prominent position in Indo-European studies. The body of Sanskrit literature encompasses a rich tradition of poetry and drama as well as scientific, technical, philosophical, the compositions of Sanskrit were orally transmitted for much of its early history by methods of memorization of exceptional complexity, rigor, and fidelity. Thereafter, variants and derivatives of the Brahmi script came to be used, Sanskrit is today one of the 22 languages listed in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India, which mandates the Indian government to develop the language. It continues to be used as a ceremonial language in Hindu religious rituals and Buddhist practice in the form of hymns. The Sanskrit verbal adjective sáṃskṛta- may be translated as refined, elaborated, as a term for refined or elaborated speech, the adjective appears only in Epic and Classical Sanskrit in the Manusmṛti and the Mahabharata. The pre-Classical form of Sanskrit is known as Vedic Sanskrit, with the language of the Rigveda being the oldest and most archaic stage preserved, Classical Sanskrit is the standard register as laid out in the grammar of Pāṇini, around the fourth century BCE. Sanskrit, as defined by Pāṇini, evolved out of the earlier Vedic form, the present form of Vedic Sanskrit can be traced back to as early as the second millennium BCE. Scholars often distinguish Vedic Sanskrit and Classical or Pāṇinian Sanskrit as separate dialects, although they are quite similar, they differ in a number of essential points of phonology, vocabulary, grammar and syntax. Vedic Sanskrit is the language of the Vedas, a collection of hymns, incantations and theological and religio-philosophical discussions in the Brahmanas. Modern linguists consider the metrical hymns of the Rigveda Samhita to be the earliest, for nearly 2000 years, Sanskrit was the language of a cultural order that exerted influence across South Asia, Inner Asia, Southeast Asia, and to a certain extent East Asia. A significant form of post-Vedic Sanskrit is found in the Sanskrit of Indian epic poetry—the Ramayana, the deviations from Pāṇini in the epics are generally considered to be on account of interference from Prakrits, or innovations, and not because they are pre-Paninian. Traditional Sanskrit scholars call such deviations ārṣa, meaning of the ṛṣis, in some contexts, there are also more prakritisms than in Classical Sanskrit proper. There were four principal dialects of classical Sanskrit, paścimottarī, madhyadeśī, pūrvi, the predecessors of the first three dialects are attested in Vedic Brāhmaṇas, of which the first one was regarded as the purest. In the 2001 Census of India,14,035 Indians reported Sanskrit to be their first language, in India, Sanskrit is among the 14 original languages of the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution. The state of Uttarakhand in India has ruled Sanskrit as its official language. In October 2012 social activist Hemant Goswami filed a petition in the Punjab. More than 3,000 Sanskrit works have been composed since Indias independence in 1947, much of this work has been judged of high quality, in comparison to both classical Sanskrit literature and modern literature in other Indian languages
26.
Deva (Hinduism)
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Deva means heavenly, divine, anything of excellence, and is also one of the terms for a deity in Hinduism. Deva is masculine, and the feminine equivalent is devi. In the earliest Vedic literature, all beings are called Asuras. The concepts and legends evolve in ancient Indian literature, and by the late Vedic period, in post-Vedic texts, such as the Puranas and the Itihasas of Hinduism, the Devas represent the good, and the Asuras the bad. In some medieval Indian literature, Devas are also referred to as Suras and contrasted with their powerful but malevolent half-brothers. Devas along with Asuras, Yakshas and Rakshasas are part of Indian mythology, Deva is a Sanskrit word found in Vedic literature of 2nd millennium BCE. Monier Williams translates it as heavenly, divine, terrestrial things of excellence, exalted. The concept also is used to refer to deity or god, the feminine form of *deiwos is *deiwih2, which descends into Indic languages as devi, in that context meaning female deity. The bode of the Devas is Dyuloka, according to Douglas Harper, the etymological roots of Deva mean a shining one, from *div- to shine, and it is a cognate with Greek dios divine and Zeus, and Latin deus god. Deva is masculine, and the feminine equivalent is devi. Etymologically, the cognates of Devi are Latin dea and Greek thea, when capitalized, Devi or Mata refers to goddess as divine mother in Hinduism. Deva is also referred to as Devatā, while Devi as Devika, the word Deva is also a proper name or part of name in Indian culture, where it refers to one who wishes to excel, overcome or the seeker of, master of or a best among-. Savitr, Vishnu, Rudra, and Prajapati are gods and hence Devas, saraswati and Ushas are some Devis or goddesses. Many of the deities taken together are worshiped as the Vishvedevas, max Muller states that the Vedic hymns are remarkable in calling every single of different devas as the only one, the supreme, the greatest.163.3, Trita art thou by interior operation. All powerful beings, good or evil, are called Asuras in the oldest layer of Vedic texts, a much studied hymn of the Rigveda states Devav asura, and contrasts it with Asura adevah. They are born from the father, Prajapati, the primordial progenitor, the elder sons are envisioned as the Asuras. The oldest Upanishads mention Devas, and their struggle with the Asuras, the Kaushitaki Upanishad, for example, in Book 4 states that Indra was weaker than the Asuras when he did not know his own Atman. Chandogya Upanishad, in chapter 1.2, describes the battle between Devas and Asuras on various sensory powers, finally, the Deva-Asura battle targets the soul, where Asuras fail and Devas succeed, because soul-force is serene and inherently good, asserts Chandogya Upanishad
27.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
28.
Deus
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Deus is Latin for god or deity. Latin deus and dīvus divine, are descended from Proto-Indo-European *deiwos, celestial or shining, from the root as *Dyēus. In Classical Latin, deus was a noun referring to a deity, while in technical usage a divus or diva was a figure who had become divine. In Late Latin, Deus came to be used mostly for the Christian God and it was inherited by the Romance languages in French Dieu, Spanish Dios, Portuguese and Galician Deus, Italian Dio, etc. and by the Celtic languages in Welsh Duw and Irish Dia. Latin deus consistently translates Greek θεός theos in both the Vetus Latina and Jeromes Vulgate, in the Septuagint, Greek theos in turn renders Hebrew Elohim. Arthur C. Clarke picks up this usage in his novel 3001, william Blake said of the Deists that they worship the Deus of the Heathen, The God of This World, & the Goddess Nature, Mystery, Babylon the Great, The Druid Dragon & hidden Harlot. In Cartesian philosophy, the deus deceptor is sometimes used to discuss the possibility of an evil God that seeks to deceive us. This character is related to an argument as to how much we can really know if an evil demon were attempting to thwart our knowledge. Another is the deus otiosus, a concept used to describe the belief in a creator god who largely retires from the world and is no longer involved in its daily operation. A similar concept is that of the deus absconditus of Thomas Aquinas, both refer to a deity whose existence is not readily knowable by humans through either contemplation or examination of divine actions. Nobiscum deus was a cry of the late Roman Empire. The name Amadeus translates to for love of God, the genitive/dative dei occurs in such phrases as Roman Catholic organization Opus Dei, Agnus Dei and Dei Gratia
29.
Old High German
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Old High German is the earliest stage of the German language, conventionally covering the period from around 700 to 1050. Coherent written texts do not appear until the half of the 8th century. There are, however, a number of Elder Futhark inscriptions dating to the 6th century, as well as single words, during the migration period, the Elbe Germanic tribes settled in what became Alamannia, the Duchy of Bavaria and the Kingdom of Lombardy. Old High German comprises the dialects of these groups which underwent the Second Sound Shift during the 6th Century, namely all of Elbe Germanic, in the south, the Langobards, who had settled in Northern Italy, maintained their dialect until their conquest by Charlemagne in 774. This area did not become German-speaking again until the German eastward expansion of the early 12th century, though there was some attempt at conquest, Old High German literacy is a product of the monasteries, notably at St. Gallen, Reichenau and Fulda. Its origins lie in the establishment of the German church by Boniface in the mid 8th century, einhard tells how Charlemagne himself ordered that the epic lays should be collected for posterity. It was the neglect or religious zeal of later generations that led to the loss of these records, thus, it was Charlemagnes weak successor, Louis the Pious, who destroyed his fathers collection of epic poetry on account of its pagan content. Hrabanus Maurus, a student of Alcuins and abbot at Fulda from 822, was an important advocate of the cultivation of German literacy, among his students were Walafrid Strabo and Otfrid of Weissenburg. Notker Labeo towards the end of the Old High German period was among the greatest stylists in the language, the main difference between Old High German and the West Germanic dialects from which it developed is that it underwent the High German consonant shift. This is generally dated approximately to the late 5th and early 6th centuries—hence dating its start to around 500, the result of this sound change is that the consonantal system of German remains different from all other West Germanic languages, including English and Low German. Grammatically, however, Old High German remained very similar to Old English, Old Dutch, by the mid 11th century the many different vowels found in unstressed syllables had all been reduced to /ə/. Since these vowels were part of the endings in the nouns and verbs. For these reasons,1050 is seen as the start of the Middle High German period, for this reason the dialects may be termed monastery dialects. It declined after the conquest of the Lombard Kingdom by the Franks in 774 and it is classified as Upper German on the basis of evidence of the Second Sound Shift. The continued existence of a West Frankish dialect in the Western, claims that this might have been the language of the Carolingian court or that it is attested in the Ludwigslied, whose presence in a French manuscript suggests bilingualism, are controversial. The charts show the vowel and consonant systems of the East Franconian dialect in the 9th century and this is the dialect of the monastery of Fulda, and specifically of the Old High German Tatian. Old High German had five long vowels and six phonemic short vowels. Both occurred in stressed and unstressed syllables, notes, All back vowels likely had front-vowel allophones as a result of Umlaut
30.
Lithuanian language
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Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.9 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania, Lithuanian is a Baltic language, related to Latvian. It is written in a Latin alphabet, Lithuanian is often said to be the most conservative living Indo-European language, retaining many features of Proto-Indo-European now lost in other Indo-European languages. Anyone wishing to hear how Indo-Europeans spoke should come and listen to a Lithuanian peasant, among Indo-European languages, Lithuanian is extraordinarily conservative, retaining many archaic features otherwise found only in ancient languages such as Sanskrit or Ancient Greek. For this reason, it is one of the most important sources in the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language despite its late attestation, the Proto-Balto-Slavic languages branched off directly from Proto-Indo-European, then branched into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic. Proto-Baltic branched off into Proto-West Baltic and Proto-East Baltic, according to some glottochronological speculations, the Eastern Baltic languages split from the Western Baltic ones between AD400 and AD600. The Greek geographer Ptolemy had already written of two Baltic tribe/nations by name, the Galindai and Sudinoi in the 2nd century AD, the differentiation between Lithuanian and Latvian started after AD800, for a long period, they could be considered dialects of a single language. At a minimum, transitional dialects existed until the 14th or 15th century, also, the 13th- and 14th-century occupation of the western part of the Daugava basin by the German Sword Brethren had a significant influence on the languages independent development. The earliest surviving written Lithuanian text is a translation dating from about 1503–1525 of the Lords Prayer, the Hail Mary, printed books existed after 1547, but the level of literacy among Lithuanians was low through the 18th century, and books were not commonly available. Brought into the country by book smugglers despite the threat of prison sentences. Jonas Jablonskis made significant contributions to the formation of the standard Lithuanian language and his proposal for Standard Lithuanian was based on his native Western Aukštaitijan dialect with some features of the eastern Prussian Lithuanians dialect spoken in Lithuania Minor. These dialects had preserved archaic phonetics mostly intact due to the influence of the neighbouring Old Prussian language, Lithuanian has been the official language of Lithuania since 1918. During the Soviet era, it was used in official discourse along with Russian, Lithuanian is one of two living Baltic languages, along with Latvian. An earlier Baltic language, Old Prussian, was extinct by the 18th century, such an opinion was first represented by the likes of August Schleicher, and to a certain extent, Antoine Meillet. Endzelīns thought that the similarity between Baltic and Slavic was explicable through language contact while Schleicher, Meillet and others argued for a kinship between the two families. An attempt to reconcile the opposing stances was made by Jan Michał Rozwadowski and he proposed that the two language groups were indeed a unity after the division of Indo-European, but also suggested that after the two had divided into separate entities, they had posterior contact. The genetic kinship view is augmented by the fact that Proto-Balto-Slavic is easily reconstructible with important proofs in historic prosody, vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov believed in the unity of Balto-Slavic, but not in the unity of Baltic. In the 1960s, they proposed a new division, that into East-Baltic, West-Baltic, the Ivanov–Toporov theory is gaining ground among students of comparative-historic grammar of Indo-European language, and seems to be replacing the previous two stances in most PIE textbooks
31.
Avestan
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The Yaz culture of Bactria-Margiana has been regarded as a likely archaeological reflection of the early Eastern Iranian culture described in the Avesta. Avestans status as a language has ensured its continuing use for new compositions long after the language had ceased to be a living language. It is closely related to Vedic Sanskrit, the oldest preserved Indo-Aryan language, Avestan, which is associated with northeastern Iran, and Old Persian, which belongs to the southwest, together constitute what is called Old Iranian. The Old Iranian language group is a branch of the Indo-Iranian language group, Iranian languages are traditionally classified as eastern or western, and within this framework Avestan is classified as eastern. But this distinction is of limited meaning for Avestan, as the developments that later distinguish Eastern from Western Iranian had not yet occurred. Avestan does not display some typical Western Iranian innovations already visible in Old Persian, Old Avestan is closely related to Old Persian and also in some extent close in nature to Vedic Sanskrit. It is believed that it might be close to a dialect of Pashto as well. The Avestan language is attested in two forms, known as Old Avestan and Younger Avestan. Younger Avestan did not evolve from Old Avestan, the two not only in time, but are also different dialects. Every Avestan text, regardless of whether originally composed in Old or Younger Avestan, Karl Hoffmann traced the following stages for Avestan as found in the extant texts. In roughly chronological order, The natural language of the composers of the Gathas, the Yasna Haptanghaiti, the script used for writing Avestan developed during the 3rd or 4th century AD. By then the language had been extinct for centuries. As is still the case today, the liturgies were memorized by the priesthood, the script devised to render Avestan was natively known as Din dabireh religion writing. It has 53 distinct characters and is written right-to-left and these symbols, like those of all the Pahlavi scripts, are in turn based on Aramaic script symbols. Avestan also incorporates several letters from other writing systems, most notably the vowels, a few letters were free inventions, as were also the symbols used for punctuation. Also, the Avestan alphabet has one letter that has no corresponding sound in the Avestan language, Avestan script is alphabetic, and the large number of letters suggests that its design was due to the need to render the orally recited texts with high phonetic precision. The correct enunciation of the liturgies was considered necessary for the prayers to be effective, the Zoroastrians of India, who represent one of the largest surviving Zoroastrian communities worldwide, also transcribe Avestan in Brahmi-based scripts. Today, Avestan is most commonly typeset in Gujarati script, some Avestan letters with no corresponding symbol are synthesized with additional diacritical marks, for example, the /z/ in zaraϑuštra is written with j with a dot below
32.
Daeva
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Daeva is an Avestan language term for a particular sort of supernatural entity with disagreeable characteristics. In the Gathas, the oldest texts of the Zoroastrian canon and this meaning is – subject to interpretation – perhaps also evident in the Old Persian daiva inscription of the 5th century BCE. In the Younger Avesta, the daevas are noxious creatures that promote chaos, in later tradition and folklore, the dēws are personifications of every imaginable evil. Equivalents for Avestan daeva in Iranian languages include Pashto, Balochi, Kurdish dêw, Persian dīv/deev, all of which apply to demons, monsters, the Iranian word was borrowed into Old Armenian as dew, Georgian as devi, with the same negative associations in those languages. In English, the word appears as daeva, div, deev, Old Avestan daēuua or daēva derives from Old Iranian *daiva, which in turn derives from Indo-Iranian *daivá- god, reflecting Proto-Indo-European *deiu̯ó with the same meaning. For derivatives in a European context, see Tyr, the Vedic Sanskrit cognate of Avestan daēuua is devá-, continuing in later Indo-Aryan languages as dev. The same is true of the inscription, where the daiva are the gods of rebels. The issue is related to the question of how Zoroasters own contribution to Iranian religion might be defined, while the progressive hypothesis gives Zoroaster credit for giving Iranian religion a moral and ethical dimension, it does not give Zoroaster credit for the development of the daevas into demons. It assumes that the development was gradual, and that a general distrust of the daevas already existed by the time the Gathas were composed, although with some points of comparison such as shared etymology, Indic devá- is thematically different from Avestan daēva. In the Rigveda, the devas are the angels of natural elements, in conflict with the asuras, although, asuras cant be compared to western world demons. There is no such division evident in the Zoroastrian texts, the use of asura in the Rigveda is unsystematic and inconsistent and it can hardly be said to confirm the existence of a category of gods opposed to the devas. Indeed, RigVedic deva is variously applied to most gods, including many of the asuras, likewise, at the oldest layer, Zoroastrianisms daevas are originally also gods, and it is only in the younger texts that the word evolved to refer to evil creatures. And the Zoroastrian ahuras are also only vaguely defined, and only three in number, the Gathas speak of the daevas as a group, and do not mention individual daevas by name. In these ancient texts, the term daevas occurs 19 times, wherein daevas are a category of quite genuine gods. In Yasna 32.3 and 46.1, the daevas are still worshipped by the Iranian peoples, Yasna 32.8 notes that some of the followers of Zoroaster had previously been followers of the daevas, though, the daevas are clearly identified with evil. In the Gathas, daevas are censured as being incapable of discerning truth from falsehood and they are consequently in error, but are never identified as drəguuaṇt- people of the lie. In Yasna 32.4, the daevas are revered by the Usij, described as a class of priests, devoid of goodness of mind and heart. Like the daevas that they follow, the Usij are known throughout the region of the earth as the offspring of aka mainyu, druj
33.
Bad Harzburg
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Bad Harzburg is a town in central Germany, in the Goslar district of Lower Saxony. It lies on the edge of the Harz mountains and is a recognised saltwater spa. Bad Harzburg is situated at the foot of the Harz mountain range on the edge of the Harz National Park. To the east of the borough is the boundary between the states of Lower Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt, the former Inner German Border, the small Radau river, a tributary to the Oker, has its source in the Harz mountains and flows through the town. Nearby are the towns of Goslar to the west, Vienenburg to the north, Braunlage to the south and Ilsenburg and Osterwieck in the east. According to legend, about 780 AD the Emperor Charlemagne, after the conquest of the area in the course of the Saxon Wars, had a built on the Burgberg a hill overlooking the town. It may have stood on the site of a sacred grove dedicated to a Saxon god named Krodo, whose statue Charlemagne had overthrown. King Conrad I of Germany is believed to have established a college of canons here in 916, king Henry III had it transferred to his Kaiserpfalz in Goslar in 1039. Henry managed to escape from the castle, which after the Peace of Gerstungen was badly damaged by its attackers, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa had it rebuilt after he had defeated his rival, the Saxon duke Henry the Lion in 1180. Henrys son Otto IV, crowned Holy Roman Emperor in 1209, archaeological findings of a first, later abandoned, settlement beneath the castle called Schulenrode date back to the 10th century. Another locality nearby named Hartesborch was first mentioned in a 1314 deed by the Benedictine abbey of Ilsenburg, the present-day town itself, then called Neustadt, was first documented in 1338. About 1569, Duke Julius of Brunswick promoted the development of a water well to extract salt. The well was called Juliushall and since 1852 the brine has been used for saline baths as well as other medical purposes, in 1892 the townspeople changed the towns name from Neustadt to Harzburg. It was given the title Bad, received privileges in 1894 and has since become an important spa town. The election results for the Nazi Party in the Bad Harzburg district had been below-average so far, during World War II, military hospitals were established in several hotels. The town surrendered without a fight to the 83rd US Infantry Division on 11 April 1945, after the war, Bad Harzburg with the lands of Brunswick belonged to the British zone of Allied-occupied Germany and from 1949 was part of West Germany. Before reunification, its station was the eastern terminus of a major railway route just west of the Inner German border. The Harzburg castle was slighted in 1650 by order of Duke Augustus the Younger
34.
Lower Saxony
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Lower Saxony is a German state situated in northwestern Germany and is second in area, with 47,624 square kilometres, and fourth in population among the sixteen Länder of Germany. In rural areas Northern Low Saxon, a dialect of Low German, and Saterland Frisian, a variety of Frisian, are still spoken, but the number of speakers is declining. Lower Saxony borders on the North Sea, the states of Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia, and the Netherlands. Furthermore, the state of Bremen forms two enclaves within Lower Saxony, one being the city of Bremen, the other, its city of Bremerhaven. In fact, Lower Saxony borders more neighbours than any other single Bundesland, the states principal cities include the state capital Hanover, Braunschweig, Lüneburg, Osnabrück, Oldenburg, Hildesheim, Wolfenbüttel, Wolfsburg and Göttingen. The northwestern area of Lower Saxony, which lies on the coast of the North Sea, is called East Frisia, in the extreme west of Lower Saxony is the Emsland, a traditionally poor and sparsely populated area, once dominated by inaccessible swamps. The northern half of Lower Saxony, also known as the North German Plains, is almost invariably flat except for the hills around the Bremen geestland. Towards the south and southwest lie the northern parts of the German Central Uplands, the Weser Uplands, between these two lie the Lower Saxon Hills, a range of low ridges. Thus, Lower Saxony is the only Bundesland that encompasses both maritime and mountainous areas, Lower Saxonys major cities and economic centres are mainly situated in its central and southern parts, namely Hanover, Braunschweig, Osnabrück, Wolfsburg, Salzgitter, Hildesheim and Göttingen. Oldenburg, near the coastline, is another economic centre. To the north, the Elbe river separates Lower Saxony from Hamburg, Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, the banks just south of the Elbe are known as Altes Land. Due to its local climate and fertile soil, it is the states largest area of fruit farming. Most of the territory was part of the historic Kingdom of Hanover. It was created by the merger of the State of Hanover with several states in 1946. Lower Saxony has a boundary in the north in the North Sea. The state and city of Bremen is an enclave surrounded by Lower Saxony. The Bremen/Oldenburg Metropolitan Region is a body for the enclave area. To the southeast the state border runs through the Harz, low mountains that are part of the German Central Uplands, in northeast Lower Saxony is Lüneburg Heath
35.
Aniconism
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Aniconism is the absence of material representations of the natural and supernatural world in various cultures, particularly in the monotheistic Abrahamic religions. It may extend from only God and deities to saint characters, all living beings, the phenomenon is generally codified by the religious traditions and as such becomes a taboo. When enforced by the destruction of images, aniconism becomes iconoclasm. The word itself derives from Greek εικων image with the negative prefix an-, monotheist religions – Aniconism was shaped in monotheist religions by theological considerations and historical contexts. Idolatry was seen as a threat to uniqueness, and one way that prophets, the same solution worked against the pretension of humans to have the same power of creation as God. Buddhist art used to be aniconic, the Buddha was represented only through his symbols, although there is still some debate, the first anthropomorphic representations of the Buddha himself are often considered a result of the Greco-Buddhist interaction. In the late 20th century, the theory of aniconism in Buddhist art had been criticized by one art historian. And the question has been the subject of continuing debate, although aniconism is better known in connection to Abrahamic religions, basic patterns are shared between various religious beliefs including Hinduism, which also has aniconistic beliefs. There were two periods of iconoclasm, or icon-destruction, in the Byzantine Empire, in the mid eighth, the political aspects of the conflicts are complex, dealing with the relationship between the Byzantine Emperors, the Orthodox Church councils, and the Pope. Theologically, the debate, as with most in Orthodox theology at the time, iconoclasts believed that icons could not represent both the divine and the human natures of the Messiah at the same time, but separately. Reference was also made to the prohibitions on the worship of images in the Mosaic Law. The Reformed churches and certain sects began to prohibit the display of religious images, a famous example of this comes from Oliver Cromwell, who expelled King Charles I, and who once destroyed a golden relic placed in his church. The Amish continue to avoid photographs or any depictions of people, the Quran, the Islamic holy book, does not explicitly prohibit the depiction of human figures, it merely condemns idolatry. Interdictions of figurative representation are present in the Hadith, among a dozen of the hadith recorded during the part of the period when they were being written down. Because these hadith are tied to events in the life of the Prophet Muhammad. Sunni exegetes, from the 9th century onward, increasingly saw in them categorical prohibitions against producing and using any representation of living beings, there are variations between religious schools and marked differences between different branches of Islam. Aniconism is common among fundamentalist Sunni sects such as Salafis and Wahhabis, Shia and mystical orders also have less stringent views on aniconism. On the individual level, whether or not specific Muslims believe in aniconism may depend on how much credence is given to hadith, Aniconism in Islam not only deals with the material image, but touches upon mental representations as well
36.
Absolute (philosophy)
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In philosophy, metaphysics, religion, spirituality, and other contexts, the Absolute is a term for the most real being. The Absolute is conceived as being itself or perhaps the being that transcends and comprehends all other beings, while there is agreement that there must be some fundamental reality, there is disagreement as to what exactly that might be. For example, some theist philosophers argue that the most real being is a personal God, some pantheist philosophers argue that the most real being is an impersonal existence, such as reality or awareness. Others argue that various similar terms and concepts designate to the same Absolute entity, atheist, agnostic, and scientific pantheist philosophers might argue that some natural law such as gravity or simply nature itself is the most real being. The basic concept of the Absolute is that it is the truest reality, however, there are three general ways of conceiving it. The Absolute might be the first and greatest being, not a being at all but the ground of being, in conception the Absolute is the most true and intelligible reality. It can be spoken of and known, for example, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegels Absolute Spirit is the most true reality. It is thinkable, speakable, and exists in objective world by comprehending everything, including people, states, in the Absolute might be conceived of as utterly outside of all other reality and hence unintelligible. It cannot be known or spoken about, platos Socrates says that The Form of the Good is beyond being, implying that it is even beyond thought, language, and normal categories of existence. In the Absolute might be conceived of as transcending duality and distinction and this concept of a fundamental reality that transcends or includes all other reality is usually associated with divinity. While this conception initially seems contradictory, it has been highly influential, One way to understand this third conception is to consider the Tao te Ching. The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao, the name that can be named is not the eternal name. These opening lines distinguish between two Taos, One is the eternal Tao and the other Tao seems to exist in space and time. The eternal Tao is beyond existence and cannot be named or fully understood, while the other Tao exists, the eternal Tao is infinite, the other is finite. The eternal Tao is formless, the other is formed, the eternal Tao is transcendent, the other is immanent. The other Tao is an attempt to describe the eternal Tao in human terms, in these lines, he further discusses the difference between the two Taos. The eternal Tao is nameless and is the origin of Heaven and Earth, later, he points out that both the named and the nameless emerge together from the same eternal Tao. This seemingly self-contradictory unity, of course, is said to be the mystery to be understood, One or more of these three conceptions of the Absolute can be found in various other religions or philosophies. H
37.
Boris Rybakov
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Boris Alexandrovich Rybakov was a Soviet and Russian historian who personified the anti-Normanist vision of Russian history. Rybakov held a chair in Russian history at the Moscow University since 1939, was a deputy dean of the university in 1952-54 and his first groundbreaking monograph was the Handicrafts of Ancient Rus, which sought to demonstrate the economic superiority of Kievan Rus to contemporary Western Europe. In the latter book he viewed the Scythians described by Herodotus as ancestors of modern Slavic nations, Ancient Slavic Paganism and Ancient Paganism of Rus are probably the best known of Rybakovs writings outside the former Soviet Union. Russian Indologist Rostislav Rybakov is his son, Рибакова або історія одного листа, написаного до самого себе
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Leo Klejn
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Lev Samuilovich Klejn, better known as Leo Klejn, is a Russian archaeologist, anthropologist and philologist. Klejn was born on 1 July 1927 in Vitebsk, Belarus, both of Klejns grandparents were wealthy, one a factory owner, the other a highly ranked merchant. Stanislav Semenovich served as a officer in the anti-Bolshevik Volunteer Army during the Russian Civil War. By the end of the war he had joined the Red Army, there Klejn worked on a collective farm before leaving school at the age of 16 and being attached to the 3rd Belorussian Front as a civilian. After the war the family settled in Grodno and Klejn studied for a year at a Railway Technical School, while still in high school Klejn created an underground liberal organisation called Prometheus. This drew the attention of the KGB, but owing to the age of those there were no serious consequences. Upon graduating high school Klejn entered the Grodno Pedagogical Institute in the Faculty of Language, in 1947, after a year there, he spoke against the First Secretary of Grodnos Party Committee at a conference and was forced to leave. He transferred to Leningrad State University, first as a corresponding student, at Leningrad he studied both archaeology under Mikhail Artamonov and Russian philology under Vladimir Propp. While there he continued to act contrary to Party dogma by reading a paper criticising the work of Nicholas Marr, Klejn escaped expulsion for this, however, as shortly thereafter Marrs theories were denounced by Stalin himself. Graduating with honours from the Faculty of History in 1951, Klejn worked as a librarian and he began working in the Department of Archaeology in 1960 and became an Assistant Professor there in 1962. He was awarded a Candidate of Sciences degree in 1968, defending a thesis on the origins of the Donets Catacomb culture, in 1976 he was made Docent. Klejns first printed work was published in 1955, his first monograph in 1978 and he participated in a series of archaeological fieldwork expeditions in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine, the last 5 seasons as head of the expedition. These included excavations of early Rus towns and Bronze Age and Scytho-Sarmatian barrows, Klejn continued to chafe against the Party-backed academic establishment as a teacher. In the 1960s, he organised a series of seminars on the Varangian theory of the origins of the Kievan Rus where he contradicted the anti-Normanist position and his frequent publication in foreign journals also caused alarm. His friendship with the disgraced Belarusian writer Vasil Bykov also played a part in this, then in 1981 Klejn himself was arrested for homosexuality on the orders of the KGB. During a search pornography was planted on him, but too crudely, nevertheless, Klejn was convicted and imprisoned. The scholarly community, however, interpreted this as an attempt to get rid of a rather than a genuine accusation. Klejn neither affirmed nor denied the charge, even after homosexuality was decriminalised, but in his account he relates a parallel investigation conducted by his fellow inmates which concluded he was not a homosexual
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Svarog
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Svarog is a Slavic deity known primarily from the Hypatian Codex, a Slavic translation of the Chronicle of John Malalas. Svarog is there identified with Hephaestus, the god of the blacksmith in ancient Greek religion, and as the father of Dažbog, on the basis of this text, some researchers conclude that Svarog is the Slavic god of celestial fire and of blacksmithing. The only mention of Svarog comes from the Hypatian Codex, a 15th-century compilation of several much older documents from the Ipatiev Monastery in Russia and it contains a Slavic translation of an original Greek manuscript of John Malalas from the 6th century. In the Greek text, the names of gods are Hephaestus, apparently, the unknown Russian translator tried to re-tell the entire story by replacing the names of classical deities with those that were better known to his readers. It is uncertain to what extent the Greeks gods were thought to resemble their Slavic counterparts, furthermore, this passage has raised quite a few theories about family relations between Slavic gods. Franjo Ledić, on the hand, simply assumed that Svarog and Dažbog are one. Eastern Slavic sources also mention Svarožič as a deity, there associated with fire, according to Thietmar of Merseburg, Svarožič was worshipped by a tribe of Ratars in the city of Ridegost. The word Svarog is cognate with the Indo-Aryan Sanskrit word Svarga which literally means Heaven or Sky, in Neopagan religions, Svarog is often the supreme god-creator and the central part of the trinity Triglav. He completed the creation of the world by giving it Prav, Slavic neopaganism Kolovrat, Sun wheel which is a symbol of Svarog. Hod kroz godinu, mitska pozadina hrvatskih narodnih vjerovanja i običaja, the Bathhouse at Midnight, An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia. New York, N. Y. Peter Lang Publishing, the gods of the ancient Slavs, Tatishchev and the beginnings of Slavic mythology
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Perun
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In Slavic mythology, Perun is the highest god of the pantheon and the god of thunder and lightning. His other attributes were fire, mountains, wind, the oak, iris, eagle, firmament, horses and carts, weapons and he was first associated with weapons made of stone and later with those of metal. Of all historic records describing Slavic gods, those mentioning Perun are the most numerous, as early as the 6th century, he was mentioned in De Bello Gothico, a historical source written by the Eastern Roman historian Procopius. While the name of the god is not mentioned explicitly, 20th century research has established beyond doubt that the god of thunder. To this day the word perun in a number of Slavic languages means thunder and we find the same form of confirmation of a peace treaty by prince Igor in 945. In 980, when prince Vladimir the Great came to the throne of Kiev, Perun was chief among these, represented with a silver head and a golden moustache. Vladimirs uncle Dobrinja also had a shrine of Perun established in his city of Novgorod, after the Christianization of Kievan Rus, this place became a monastery, which, quite remarkably, continued to bear the name of Perun. This could be a reference to Perun, but since he is not named, nor any of his attributes mentioned. Moreover, the name of Perun is also found in Southern Slavic toponymy. The Bulgarian and Macedonian people believe that the name of the Bulgarian mountain Pirin, there are also places called, Perun, Perunac, Perunovac, Perunika, Perunička Glava, Peruni Vrh, Perunja Ves, Peruna Dubrava, Perunuša, Perušice, Perudina and Perutovac. It must be noted that the word Pero means feather and the names of mountains and these names today mostly represent mountain tops, but in medieval times, large oaks, sacred groves and even entire villages or citadels were named Perun. Also, as mentioned already, in Ukrainian perun and in Polish piorun means thunderbolt, among South Slavs, a mountain plant Iris germanica is known in folklore as perunika and sometimes also as bogisha, and was believed to grow from ground that had been struck by lightning. Also the Serbian surname Peruničić and the Macedonian Перуновски are derived from Perun, the root *perkwu originally probably meant oak, but in Proto-Slavic this evolved into per- meaning to strike, to slay. The Lithuanian word Perkūnas has two meanings, thunder and the name of the god of thunder and lightning, artifacts, traditions and toponyms show the presence of the cult of Perun among all Slavic, Baltic and Ugro-Finnic peoples. The cult of Perun in this territory, populated since the 5th century by Slavs, Perun pursued Veles around the earth, attacking him with his lightning bolts from the sky. In the end, Perun managed to kill Veles, or to him back down into his watery underworld. The supreme god thus reestablished order in the world, which had been disrupted by his chaotic enemy and he then returned to the top of the World tree and proudly informed his opponent down in the roots Well, there is your place, remain there. This line came from a Belarusian folk tale, the earliest supreme god was probably Rod, it is unclear precisely how and why his worship as the head of the pantheon evolved into the worship of Perun
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Svetovid
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Svetovid, Svantovit or Sventovit is a Slavic deity of war, fertility and abundance primarily venerated on the island of Rügen into the 12th century. He is often considered a local Rugian variant of the pan-Slavic god Perun, sometimes referred to as Beli Vid, Svetovid is often depicted with a sword or bow in one hand and a drinking horn in the other. Other important symbols included the horse, which were kept in his temple. Svetovid is associated with war and divination and depicted as a god with two heads looking forward and two back. Each face had a specific colour, the northern face of this totem was white, the western, red, the southern, black and the eastern, green. Boris Rybakov argued for identification of the faces with the gods Perun, Svarog, Lada, joined together, they see all four sides of the world. This gave rise to an etymology of the name of the god as world-seer. However, the forms Sventevith and Zvantewith show that the name derives from the word svętъ, meaning saint, the second stem is sometimes reconstructed as vit=lord, ruler, winner. The name recorded in chronicles of contemporary Christian monks is Svantevit, dawning One, implying either a connection with the Morning Star or with the Sun itself. The original name of the island Rügen or Danish Rygen at the Baltic Sea was Rujan, the autochthonous inhabitants of the island were the Slavic tribe, the Rujani, whose name was cognate with the islands, thus translating as people from Rujan. After the destruction and/or assimilation of the Rujani by the Danes, in 1168, according to various chronicles, the temple at Jaromarsburg contained a giant wooden statue of Svantevit depicting him with four heads and a horn of abundance. Each year the horn was filled with fresh mead, the temple was also the seat of an oracle in which the chief priest predicted the future of his tribe by observing the behaviour of a white horse identified with Svantevit and casting dice. The temple also contained the treasury of the tribe and was defended by a group of 300 mounted warriors which formed the core of the armed forces. Some interpretations claim that Svetovit was another name for Radegast, while states that he was a fake god. According to an interpretation, Svantevit was a Rugian counterpart of the pan-Slavic Perun. In Croatia, on the island of Brač, the highest peak is called Vids Mountain, in the Dinaric Alps there is a peak called Suvid and a Church of St. Vid. Among the Serbs, the cult of Svetovid is partially preserved through the Feast of St. Vitus, Vidovdan, a devotee of this god, in the story, is called Boleslav Arkonsky – a name evidently derived from the above-mentioned temple at Arkona. Demiurge The Slav Epic Vidovdan Svetovit from Zbrucz Archeological Museum in Kraków - Poland actual Svetovit monument - galleries from polish cities Svetovit figure discovered in Wolin - Poland
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Domovoi
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A domovoi or domovoy is a protective house spirit in Slavic folklore. The plural form in Russian can be transliterated domoviye or domovye, in some accounts, the domovoi is described as having a wife who lives in the cellar or henhouse. The Slavs and Balts of former times kept idols of the domovoi, domovye are masculine, typically small, bearded, and sometimes covered in hair all over. According to some traditions, domovye take on the appearance of current or former owners of the house and have a grey beard and this belief is commonly held to be a remnant of the pre-Christian cult of ancestors which is also reflected in some of the titles of the domovoi. There are tales of neighbors seeing the master of the house out in the yard while in fact the master was asleep in bed. It has also said that domovye can take on the appearance of cats or dogs. The domovoi is more often heard than seen and his voice is said to be hollow, traditionally, every house is said to have its own domovoi who lives either in the stove, under the threshold, in the cattle shed, or in the stables. The center of the house is said to be their domain. The domovoi is seen as the guardian, and if he is kept happy he maintains peace and order and rewards the household by helping with household chores. To stay in his good graces, his family leaves him gifts such as milk, porridge, tobacco, bread, if angered by the familys slovenliness, disrespect, or abuse, the domovoi acts in a way resembling a poltergeist but is rarely harmful. The Russian word barabashka is a term sometimes used to describe domovye in connection with this poltergeist-like activity. If he becomes irretrievably offended he abandons the family, in times past, this flight was viewed as a great catastrophe as his benevolence was essential to the livelihood and well-being of the household. In Latvian folklore, the spirit would occasionally pinch the family in their sleep. If the resulting bruises didnt hurt, no meaning was to be derived from action, however if the bruises were painful. The domovoi is also an oracle, as his behavior foretells or forewarns about the future, the touch of the domovoi is also a harbinger. If his furry hand feels warm, good fortune is indicated, however, if his touch is icy cold, the Rusalka trilogy of novels by C. J. Cherryh feature domovye. In the TV show Lost Girl a Domovoi is presented as a guard for Baba Yagas treasure. In the Artemis Fowl books by Eoin Colfer, Butlers first name is revealed to be Domovoi, domovoye appeared as the antagonists in an episode of the cartoon the Real Ghostbusters Domovoi is the title of a graphic novel by Peter Bergting, published by Dark Horse Comics in 2013
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Saturn (mythology)
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Saturn is a god in ancient Roman religion, and a character in myth. Saturn is a complex figure because of his associations and long history. In later developments he came to be also a god of time and his reign was depicted as a Golden Age of plenty and peace. The Temple of Saturn in the Roman Forum housed the state treasury, in December, he was celebrated at what is perhaps the most famous of the Roman festivals, the Saturnalia, a time of feasting, role reversals, free speech, gift-giving and revelry. Saturn the planet and Saturday are both named after the god, the Roman soil preserved the remembrance of a very remote time during which Saturn and Janus reigned on the site of the city before its foundation, the Capitol was named mons Saturnius. The Romans identified Saturn with the Greek Cronus, whose myths were adapted for Latin literature, in particular, Cronuss role in the genealogy of the Greek gods was transferred to Saturn. As early as Livius Andronicus, Jupiter was called the son of Saturn, Saturn had two consorts who represented different aspects of the god. The name of his wife Ops, the Roman equivalent of Greek Rhea, means wealth, abundance, the association with Ops though is considered a later development, as this goddess was originally paired with Consus. Earlier was Saturns association with Lua, a goddess who received the weapons of enemies destroyed in war. Under Saturns rule, humans enjoyed the spontaneous bounty of the earth without labour in the Golden Age described by Hesiod, according to Varro, Saturns name was derived from satu, meaning sowing. Even though this etymology looks implausible on linguistic grounds nevertheless it does reflect a feature of the god. A more probable etymology connects the name with Etruscan god Satre and placenames such as Satria, an ancient town of Latium, and Saturae palus and this root may be related to Latin phytonym satureia. Another epithet, variably Sterculius, Stercutus, and Sterces, referred to his agricultural functions, agriculture was important to Roman identity, and Saturn was a part of archaic Roman religion and ethnic identity. His name appears in the ancient hymn of the Salian priests, the temple was consecrated in 497 BC but the area Saturni was built by king Tullus Hostilius as confirmed by archaeological studies conducted by E. Gjerstad. It housed the state treasury throughout Roman history, the position of Saturns festival in the Roman calendar led to his association with concepts of time, especially the temporal transition of the New Year. In the Greek tradition, Cronus was sometimes conflated with Chronus, Time, in late antiquity, Saturn is syncretized with a number of deities, and begins to be depicted as winged, as is Kairos, Timing, Right Time. The figure of Saturn is one of the most complex in Roman religion, G. Dumézil refrained from discussing Saturn in his work on Roman religion on the grounds of our insufficient knowledge. Brelich and G. Piccaluga as his basis, the main difficulty scholars find in studying Saturn is in assessing what is original of his figure and what is due to later hellenising influences
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Toutatis
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Toutatis or Teutates was a Celtic god worshipped in ancient Gaul and Britain. On the basis of his names etymology, he has been interpreted to be a tribal protector. Today, he is best known under the name Toutatis through the Gaulish oath/catchphrase By Toutatis, invented for the Asterix comics by Goscinny and Uderzo. The spelling Toutatis, however, is authentic and attested by about ten ancient inscriptions, under the spelling Teutates, the god is also known from a passage in Lucan. The name Teutates is derived from the stem teutā-, meaning people or tribe, Teutates was one of three Celtic gods mentioned by the Roman poet Lucan in the 1st century AD, the other two being Esus and Taranis. According to later commentators, victims sacrificed to Teutates were killed by being plunged headfirst into a vat filled with an unspecified liquid, present-day scholars frequently speak of the toutates as plural, referring respectively to the patrons of the several tribes. Of two later commentators on Lucans text, one identifies Teutates with Mercury, the other with Mars, Toutatis was worshipped especially in Gaul and in Roman Britain. Inscriptions to him have been recovered in the United Kingdom, for example that at Cumberland Quarries, dedicated to Jupiter Optimus Maximus, two dedications have also been found in Noricum and Rome. As noted above, among a pair of later scholiasts on Lucans work, one identifies Teutates with Mercury, at times the Gaulish “Mercury may have the characteristic of a warrior, while the Gaulish “Mars may act as a god of protection or healing. The distribution of these rings closely matches the territory of the Corieltauvi tribe, in 2005 a silver ring inscribed DEO TOTA and FELIX was discovered at Hockliffe, Bedfordshire. This inscription confirmed that the inscription TOT did indeed refer to the god Toutatis, in 2012 a silver ring inscribed TOT was found in the area where the Hallaton Treasure had been discovered twelve years earlier. Adam Daubney, an expert on this type of ring, suggests that Hallaton may have been a site of worship of the god Toutatis, interpretatio Romana Germanic Mercury 4179 Toutatis The dictionary definition of Toutatis at Wiktionary
) and the "thunder mark" (gromovoi znak), as representing Rod and its various forms (whether Svarog, Perun, Svetovid, or other gods). Such symbols were still carved in folk traditions of north Russia up to the nineteenth century.[16] According to Soviet-era Russian folklorist E. G. Kagarov, the Domovoi (the "Household God" associated with ancestor worship) is a conceptualisation of the supreme Rod itself as the specific family lineage and its possessions.[17]
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