Guest Author - Marianne Gibson

When we take a look at the pre-Christian Russian gods, we are really looking at Slavic or Eastern Slavic gods, as they existed before there was ever such a thing as Russia. So how much have these figures survived?

Knowledge can come from pre-Christian written records, from later histories as well. Some of the (scant) historical information comes down to us from descriptions of ancient Rus, whose power-base was centred on Kiev, now capital of Ukraine. These sources of course show us the trappings of an official pagan religion, meaning that we are seeing belief as a political tool, just as much as later religious affiliations by heads of state.

The other information comes down to us more directly from the people, through recorded examples of customs and beliefs from the early Christian era to the present day. While this kind of source has a hard time proving a link between the practices recorded and pagan times, it gives a colour and life to the subject that you just don’t get from more ‘concrete’ sources.

Though Kievan Rus became Christian around a thousand years ago, language, culture and customs reveal the modern legacy of the old Gods surprisingly often in the modern Russia. For example:

Rod – the god of existence itself, creator of the universe both single and omnipresent. Forefather of all the gods, creator of the world. Rod seems to fulfill the same role as Perun in late pagan Kiev, and Sviatovit in Western Slavic paganism.

The importance that would be given to this deity becomes crystal clear when you consider the name. In modern Russian, Rod can mean: family, kin, clan, origin, stock, nature or genus. Derived from this is the verb rodit’, or give birth, and the noun rodina, meaning homeland both in the sense of nationhood and locally. Narod is the people; even the word for the natural world is derived from this – priroda.

It’s no surprise then that the Russian people didn’t want to give him up so easily when Christianity became the state religion!