Slavic Folklore and Northern Connections (with Dr. Vicki Grove)
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- čas přidán 7. 07. 2024
- Dr. Vicki Grove (University of Colorado Boulder) answers questions about Slavic folklore, its connections with Scandinavia, and the distinctions between folklore, fairy tales, and epic literature, from Patreon supporters of Dr. Jackson Crawford, in a Patreon-exclusive Crowdcast conversation recorded August 15, 2020.
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I’ve taken classes with both of you, very cool to see this collaboration
Lucky
I would really enjoy more Slavic content although I know it's not the focus of this channel
I would totally join Patreon for access to Dr. Crawford's vampire novel. It sounds hilarious
Thanks for the interview. As a Russian-speaking philologist, I still find it extremely interesting. Dr. Viki Grove knows her stuff.
A note for people in the comments:
If you're intersted in Slavic mythology and look for more information about it, please be careful and always check sources. A lot of pseudo-scientific books on this topic were released recently in Russia and Poland. The authors just make up stories, gods, and so on, and present them as results of their scientific research. But when you look for sources of their claims, either you will find nothing or links to blogs and webpages with more pseudoscience.
You see this more and more for all mythology 😞
Isn't that the same with sources from US and UK before the 2010s? Might just be a Christianity thing more than a Russian or Polish thing. I find that Russian sources in the soviet era were really good and unbiased.
German sources are good too but do have a narrative.
@@robroux5059 There's no such thing as unbiased Soviet sources :p
And no, Christianity has nothing to do with it. It's just pseudohistory, nationalism, and conspiracy theories.
I would suggest that people need to not only check and verify alternative sources, but they also need to use their brain and apply critical thinking when they learn from official sources, because official sources are not automatically true and accurate. Just because you go to official sources doesn’t mean you’re receiving the truth. It is so easy to forge the written word, and it has been tampered with many times over. Winners write our history, and they write this history in a way that it’s convenient and beneficial for them. Just because you were programmed from birth to believe that any information that comes from official sources has been stamped with a stamp of approval, and is based on scientific study, and has already been verified by all kinds of experts and specialists, doesn’t make it so. You have to use discernment no matter what source you are using. Just because it’s official, doesn’t mean you have to automatically take it for a pure coin!
@@makingthematrix Christianity has nothing to do with it? Are you kidding?
I always love seeing an update from you, Dr Crawford! I'm also loving your special guest, her blue hair and dead stare are wonderfully terrifying... oh, and I appreciate Dr Grove too, of course!
If one do not compare only the more moder image of "Nisse" (aka "tomte" aka "gardvard" aka "haugbondi) and overlap belives from the whole region of scandinavia then it is very similar to the Domovoi, down to specific details. The name "haugbondi" actually means "bound to the burial mound" and was considred to be the spirit after the first settler.
Thank you, that was a fun and interesting conversation. I enjoy collaborations like that.
Dr. Grove: There isn't that much similarity between Norse and Slavic belief.
Dr. Crawford: (Causually points out several similarities)
Dr. Grove: Oh...
Also, is "built on an old bathhouse" the Russian equivalent to "built on an ancient indian burial ground"?
Yes, very similar)) Reverence for the bathhouse originated with finnish (tribes in Russia) sauna. Of course, it was finn groups throughout volga region.
54:10
There is an incorrect etymology of medved. The word originates from proto-slavic *medu-ēdis which means honey-eater. Later with the phonetic changes 'u' changed into labial [w] and then to the fricative [v] and the word was re-etymologized into 'this, who knows about honey', because of the verb vedati - to know
Yeah, that is hilarious. As a native speaker of a Slavic language I never bothered to check the origin of "medved" until I saw it in some book listed as an example for a folk etymology.
It just sounded so transparent and logical. The one who knows about honey.
I think most Croatians (including myself) still have a labiodental sonorant v. It's also possible that the change *u > *w was even pre-Proto-Slavic, but who knows.
@@davidmandic3417 And so do most East Slavic languages (Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian), although in Russian /v/ seems to be in kind of free variation between fricative [v] and approximant [ʋ], with the latter beingore common.
As for Proto-Slavic, there is no full consensus whether it was [w] or [ʋ].
There's a book in Poland called the Slavic Bestiary. It's a little pop culturey but has a lot of actual monsters from folklore, and there are a LOT of creatures like the house guest monster in it. I always enjoyed imagining it as a metaphor for one's step parents or other guests - gotta treat em nice otherwise you'll be stuck with them torturing you forever :p
Glad to see talk about Slavic folklore and the conections germanic, norse and slavic cultures had. I would just like to point out this was focused strictly on Russian slavic folklore. Slavic folklore has so much variation in Russia alone, not to mention then Polish, Czech, Slovenija, Serbian, Slovakian... And I believe the Norse and Germanic believes varied some aswell. Would love to see more discussions on it.
Unfortunately, the title of this video is misleading. It is exclusively about Russian folklore (not even widened to Eastern Slavic) and with a person who either have a lot of gaps in her knowledge about it or can't articulate it properly. Also, her constant laughing are irriteting.
I am about half way through and was wondering about this. As one gets closer to the Germanic lands in the Slavic, I would think that much like the language the stories would become more similar. Water in English is Wasser in German, Woda in Polish and Voda in Russian. I'm willing to bet some variation of Woden with a V was running around in the Slavic lands at some point in time.
@@MrRabiddogg water and woda are just Indo-European cognates, not borrowed one direction or the other. The West Slavs borrowed some Germanic words and even some Germanic gods into their pantheon, so West Slavs could have had more convergence with Germanic traditions and customs than East or South Slavs. There are also a few Germanic loanwords common to all Slavic languages, entering from Gothic before the Slavic migrations, such as the common word for bread, from Gothic "hlaf". Curiously enough, even though the Varangians were the rulling class over the East Slavs, very few pagan influences or loanwords carried over to the local population. The word translated to English as prince, "knyaz" comes from Old Norse "konugr", cognate to English "king", but not much more than that to my knowledge.
@@elimalinsky7069 Kind of a common theme with Norse rulers, adopting to the culture and religion of the people under them rather than imposing their Norse culture/religion upon them. Norse-Gaels, Normans in France and Sicily (less so in England where they enforced more French stuff), etc.
@@MrRabiddogg "Vodan is the Slavic God of Rivers, Lakes, The Sea, and Wisdom", from the word "voda" for water. But personally, I find the word "vođa/vodja" (leader) to be the more similar word, although not a deity per se, but a general word, it might represent "the leader of the gods" in a way also, or as the myth tells us, a real life figurethat lived around the area of today's Ukraine, where he might have been called a leader in the local tongue, being deified afterwards and ascribed many stories as the myth spread.
About the name "Yaroslav", I have always taken that as coming from "Yarkiy" - "bright/clear" - and/or "Yaryy" - "fierce". Since the name also exists in West-Slavic languages, an Iranian origin would seem unlikely.
Ярослав - Яр is a place, geographical location of something. Слав- is slavic. It got same root with with verb to glorify
@@helgirald3986 you are referring to ‘jar’ meaning a ravine. This is still a common albeit somewhat archaic word in Polish.
However the given name Jaroslav (Jarosław) more likely originates from the protoslavic meaning of ‘strong’
@depipro mentioned the meaning ‘fierce’ which is from old church slavonic and seems related to strong.
@@michachemowski8518 "Jaroslav" is still used here in Slovakia. "Jar" too, meaning spring.
Western Slavs (Poles) did make a lot of claims about relation to Iranian speaking peoples (Scythians and Sarmatians) for a rather long time, and did things like adopt dress based on what they though Scythians dressed like, so I wouldn't dismiss something just because of geographic distance.
@@Lowlandlord Fair enough, in and of itself, but then there is the fact that Yar- and -slav are actually Slavic word stems.
Bring her back on! I want more with her!
I came for mythology and also I'm learning more about my favorite author. This should be a good one.
Hi Jackson, sent you a message on IG. Looking fwd to your response. Keep up the great videos, you look well :)
I wrote my BA capstone on the martial connections between the Rus and Scandinavia.
A couple of notes from a Slav: another suggested etymology for "medved" (Polish niedźwiedź) is that it comes from "medo(j)ed" which means "honey-eater". Baba Yaga is pronounced yAga, with the stress on the first syllable, in Polish, so it's not incorrect
Медведь - мед is honey видать - to have a knowledge of something or to forsee
@@helgirald3986 Unlikely. All etymological dictionaries I've seen give Pr.-Slav. medvedъ as "honey-eater". "Honey-wise" may sound cool but makes less sense. A bear doesn't *know* honey.
@@helgirald3986 That's likely a fork-etymology. The proto-slavic word is *medvedъ, Neimand Keiner already mentioned that here. And the first part of this word, *medъ is a cognate with Ancient greek methu, Lithuanian medus, Latin medus, Old English medu and etc. All these cognates preserve the final -u, which due to phonetic changes becomes a /w/ and then a /v/ in that compound, resulting in *medvedъ. It's unlikely that -vedъ is related in any way to *vě̀děti. And as Neimand Keiner mentioned also, it's makes less sense than "honey-eater"
@@niemandkeiner8057 вед from ведать. In sense to be keeper supervisor. There is no direct English verb for ведать.
This was an awesome episode!
i like how everything i know of the croatian branch of slavic folklore is almost in direct contradiction to the first 20 min of the vid, and yet that somehow makes perfect sense...
She's very intelligent. Very much like someone I know. She drives me crazy; all the while, captivating!
I concur with the good doctor. You absolutely should watch the first two Blade movies. They are awesome and well made. Plus I have to imagine you are a big Kris Kristofferson fan.
That's a nice surprise!
I love Norse Mythology and Slavic Folklore.
There is detailed classification of all Indo-European folklore tales. I have seen it many years ago. Probably in wikipedia.
Que señora más hermosa
Can't wait to watch! Slavic and Baltic mythology are very under-studied I feel, and I think there is a lot of connection to the nearby Germanic myth. I would love to see more content discussing their relationship.
I would also really like to know more about Ilya Muromets' son! Anyone have any sources on that? Anything I can read on the matter? Google isn't giving me much.
52:44 - Yaroslav comes from "ярость" which essentially means rage.
Jarosław - ( etym. jary) - żywotny, silny, energetyczny, krzepki, młody, dziarski.
Transl. energetic, alive, young, strong, perky, vital.
Read Barbers Vampire book after med school, made weird sense😊
I had a few specific other questions about some of the etymologies she mentioned - I thought that the "honey knower" was a folk etymology for bear?
No, the medved' is a altered medoed. Eating honey.
Like finnish as well. All names for bears are euphemisms))
Actually, the true etymology is probably "honey-eater". In Proto-Slavic and earlier, the word 'med' (honey) used to end in 'u', which was reduced to 'w' and then to 'v' before the following vowel.
Very interesting, as with everything you share, but was hoping for South Slav information, especially the Creation Story.
I would look at Finnic (Finnish/Karelian/Estonian etc.) folklore and traditions in bridging between Norse/Scandinavian and Russian/Slavic folklore and traditions...
That makes geographic sense, but less when they were still pagan and the Norse had settlements in Russia and the locations of the Finnic peoples were different from modern times. Probably less of a bridge and more of a threeway sharing of cultures.
Слов'яни тут?
так,слухаем.
На месте
Ага
@@Eyes_On_America I was asking are there any slavs here
да
Omega Man
Do you know гора самоцветов ?
Just starting to watch this but am very suprised to hear that D.r Vicki doesn’t think there are alot of commonalities between pagan slavic and norse religion. I thought there was quite alot of hints that suggest a partial shared origin and also later borrowings/influence during the iron age.
There are not that much that we know about the slavic paganism as there just aren't sources. The common features had already been in decline by the time writing appeared.
you gotta read the islamic traveler accounts from over a 1000 years ago to get a broad idea on that. I'd quote some of them, but the english translations are recent enough to be under copyright
Hanging the bear paw over the door = hanging Grendel's hand and arm above the long house?
It was probably called liminal space because it was an act of purification between being pure and impure. Something like that I’m guessing.
Dr. Grove mentions that there are thunder gods, similar to Thor, yet their name is of Iranian stock. This, however, is blatantly false: Perun has Baltic parallels in Lithuanian Perkūnas and Latvian Pērkons (so definitely inherited from Balto-Slavic); not only that, but there's also ON Fjǫrgyn, Thor's mother, and Fjǫrgynn, Frigg's father. The name is either shared between Balto-Slavic and Germanic (not impossible, there are some common linguistic innovations) or even Proto-Indo-European; it is not, however, Iranian.
EDIT: Concerning the reverence of bears - the Proto-Slavic (and hence generally Slavic) word for bear, *medvědь, means 'honey-eater', and only according to folk etymology it's 'honey-knower', but evidence from Greek proves otherwise, as there you have μέθυ (méthu) 'wine'.
The video's title is a misnomer - there's nothing 'Slavic' about this discussion, it's exclusively Russian; there is almost no other Slavic ethnicity mentioned, nor are any non-Russian sources ever mentioned; there are important foreign ones, say, Helmold or Saxo Grammaticus for the Polabian Slavs; or, if you want other Slavic folklore, Serbian epic poetry is very, very archaic and contains many elements that can be connected to Norse mythology, especially the parallel between the Heavenly Kingdom in the Kosovo Cycle and Valhalla, both being a warrior heaven.
All in all, Dr. Grove's knowledge of non-Russian topics in this video seems lacking. Her knowledge of Russian folklore and history, on the other hand, is evidently very extensive - but then the title should have had 'Russian' in it, not 'Slavic'.
Yeah. She messed this up. However there are a lot of slavic gods and mythical figures (Хорс, семаргл, гамаюн) with Iranian names. As for Perun/fjorgyn connection it is blatantly false too. Or at least very doubtful. Check the etymology
I am afraid that all cultures with Indo-European languages have some version of Indra (masters thunder and lightning, loud, usually rides a chariot, respected by warrior cast). Their names have became different, but function is usually similar. We know about Perkūnas more mainly because it has survived for much longer, and there are written descriptions of his worshipers and holy places.
@@andremorr It is indeed, at least according to Kroonen. Thanks!
@@aleksakrivosija8248 Yeah, i guess it was me who had to check etymology after all. Haha. Yet this idea still seems very doubtful, at least to me. And probably to Kroonen himself. Which is understandable in this situation
@@andremorr The etymological connection between the Norse and Balto-Slavic words isn't so problematic on the surface, but the problem is that the meanings don't quite add up: Fjǫrgyn is also called Jǫrð, so there's an evident association to the earth and nature. Perun, on the other hand, is thought to come from the same root as Proto-Slavic *pьrati meaning "to beat" (and from there "to wash" in most languages - associated with the washing and rubbing of clothes, I assume), so Perun and his Baltic cognates are actually called "the Striker" or something of the sort.
I've heard Yaroslav comes from the god Yarilo, therefore meaning glory of Yarilo.
It comes from PSl. *jarъ or *ěrъ ‘furious, strong’ (cf. modern Polish ‘jary’ in eg. ‘stary ale jary’ for ‘old but gold; old but (still) strong and active’) thus something along the lines of ‘one of furious fame’ or ‘a strong one’ (or from possibly related *jaro, *ěro ‘spring’, thus ‘one praising spring’ - but Derksen gives different PIE. forms, *ieh₃r- vs *Hieh₁r- for the two);
The god name Jarilo seems to come from the root *jar- of either strength, fury, or spring and vegetation, but I wouldn’t say the names Jaroslav, Jaromir, etc. are derived from the god.
We do not have evidence of the existence of God Yarilo among the Slavs.
@@radziwill7193 how do we know about him then? Yarilo god represents the midday sun
@@ailin-a-dale5652 Look. The fact that the pagan gods represent something is a fake created by Christians. The gods do not represent anything. And as you correctly noted, Yarilo is perhaps the simple name for the state of the Sun in the sky.
About Slavic-Iranian connection - in Russian, word for a dog is собака (sobaka). And, as Herodotus (425/413 BCE) tells as (Κυνὼ κατὰ τὴν Ἑλλήνων γλῶσσαν, κατὰ δὲ τὴν Μηδικὴν Σπακώ) a Scythian (Median) word for dog was 'spako'. See similarities?
Yeah the Slavic word for a dog in Russian is пёс
@Mr Jesus you're right, of course, it's just that I often have seen the claim, that Scythian word was the same, and I wanted to find the source - and come up with that passage from Historiai (1.110). Honestly, I was surprised to find it - I was sure, it was just one of the pseudo-nationalistic quotes (yeah, Scythians and Russians, of course...)
@@vladislav526 Even english has scythian word - cannabis)) Through sound change, it also became same word as hemp. Canabiz, chanabiz, hanapiz, hanap, hanp, hemp.
@@varangjar1544 in Russian the plant is called "конопля" (konoplya), the connection is also clear, but I never thougth of this...
@@vladislav526 The plant is also called konoplja (=konoplya) in Croatian, and konop/konopac means 'rope' (they used to be made of hemp fibres).
I am bit late but here western slavic perspective on "JAROSLAV" - slav could be translated in meanign as "famous" and "Ja" (já) or "Jaro" coudl be translated in two ways - A.) I/Me B.) Spring.
So person coudl'Ve been named (well ppl are still called that) "Famous-spring" or more likely "I-the-famous" which is kinda funny.
Vladimir or Vladimír . Vlad would be from word "vládnout" or "vladař" aka Ruler and "mír" well "peace" so "Peaceful-ruler"
Older meaning of mir was world. Like Tolstoy "War and peace" was actually "War and the world"))
Jaro- probably doesn't have anything to do with "ja" (I, me), but with the noun meaning "spring", "summer", "heat", "fury/anger", depending on the language. But a lot of Slavic traditional names don't really mean anything sensible, although the two elements they're composed of have a meaning.
@@varangjar1544 Both meanings could be old, they existed in Old Slavic, and "peace" or "tranquility" might even be older. However, the element -mir has another variant that occurs in some languages, e.g. Polish -mierz (with ie instead of i). Perhaps, this has something to do with a Germanic name element, cf. German Waldemar, Otmar, Old English Eadmer... but I'm not quite sure what that means.
@@davidmandic3417 Thanks man. Your version seems more plausible. It's a pitty that we don't have meanings in our names.
@@debilita9999 Well, something like Branislav can be understood as 'defender of glory' and Vsevolod as 'ruler of everything', but what about Milivoj (dear+army/soldier/battle), Zvonimir (sound/resound+peace/world), Tugomil (sorrow+dear)... It's often about what each of the two elements mean separately, rather than them forming a phrase. The same goes for Germanic names, such as Old English Eadmer (property+glory??), Aethelfrith (noble+peace)...
Isn't Japanese interest in baseball a result of the American military intermixing with Japan? Obviously not a huge influence but an interesting one.
There was a question about why is it a punishment to be a bear. I cannot speak to a Slavic or Norse perspective on this, but the Indian tribes of the southeastern US viewed bears with a certain disdain. They believed bears were originally foolish people who had resolved to live in the forest and eat only wild foods instead of farming, and they had thus been transformed into bears. Furthermore, when the animals met to decide what they could do in response to men hunting them, the bears had been impatient and left early. As a result whereas hunters needed to treat other animals in certain ways once they were dead, bears could be killed with impunity.
Ah, and so, that explains a few things, such as why bears that have mauled and tasted human flesh get released along the borders of reservations....in hopes the generally well-armed inhabitants will continue their traditional belief, which they do.
Not the case with Norse and Slavic perspectives on bears, which tend to respect them. Lot of Norse names have bear (Bjorn) in them somewheres, or a kenning for bear. Also interesting because bears are pretty generally respected animals by Native Americans in the rest of the US and Canada. I'd be curious as to what tribes had this perspective, I assume Cherokee?
This was really interesting. And is it coincidence that there's an interest in Russian and Slavic tales going on right now? I just saw Jonathan Pageau talk about the symbolism of Prince Ivan And The Wolf as told to him by a guy he says is doing a podcast about Russian tales, Nicholas Kotar, "In A Certain Kingdom." I think, they come at it from an Orthodox church perspective, but it's all good stuff for those of us who need our stories, myths, and meanings.
And knowing about vampires isn't such a bad idea now days, haha. I don't know all the physiology about vampires, however, I once read that it may have been pellagra, niacin deficiency that caused the pale skin, aversion to sunlight, and desire for blood. This may explain a reason why tobacco is said to repulse them, since, tobacco is is a fast-release source of niacin aka nicotinic acid, which is an instant dose of sanity and sobriety. Most people don't realize that tobacco wasn't known to cause cancer until the last century when additives were included, and was a source of niacin if the meat in the diet wasn't adequate. Millions of poor in The U.S. in the early 1900's suffered illness and what many thought was contagious virus and deadly, until they figured out it was a niacin deficiency, pellagra, and began adding it to grains and improving the diet. Pellagra and less serious niacin deficiency is common and causes paranoid, apocalyptic ideation, deep wrinkles, pain and rash in the sun, metabolic disorders, loss of joy or color in life....dullness and feels like a vampire sucked the life right out. Drinking a lot of alcohol can deplete niacin stores.....so, I wonder if vampires drink a lot? Stress and even a lot of heavy thinking can too....thus, maybe, why wizards have pipes....on the go, it's faster than a steak....or a stake?
Agreed!
Dr Grove claims after an hour that the word Bistrot (a small French pub, with little choice in food & drinks, but good products) comes from the Russian "быстро" meaning quick. This is wrong. The Russians arrived and immigrated and were stationed after the word and bistrots were invented. It rather more likely comes from "Bistraud" (French), which you can find in all sorts of forms, "Bistroque" (oc), "Bistrå" (picard).
it's actually believed the word came to French not from Russian, but from Ukrainian from the cossacks
@@razoleg Well thats the story we hear and the one you can read Place du Tertre, but the word's first attestation comes 50 years after the napoleonic wars. If you go to the Centre National de Recherche Linguistique, you'll see they deem the claim unsubstianciable
@@razoleg The point is, at the time the russians and prussians arrived in 1814. the word had already existed in french language
@@alexlarsen6413 France has had connections with Russia since well before that though too, so it doesn't really prove anything strongly.
BISTRO MEANS CLEAR IN SERBIEN
Интересная тема)
Dragon is Ламја in Macedonian what means mess or chaos - лом. In Christianity we celebrate st.Georgi who kills dragon whit his spear. Bears Lions Eagles and Dragons are common on coat of arms...
What kind of demon possessed pinata is behind that poor woman?
Winter, I guess. Haha. It's maslenitsa burning doll or so it seems
It should have been burnt, but since it was not, it has returned to haunt those who watches it.
Mokosh
Jarosław
Jary = strong
Slaw = fame
Fame because of his strength or strong with fame.
Also Jarilo = sun
@@minilev2648 in which language?
@@siwypawe361 in Serbia we used “JARKO “SUNCE ,.JARILO GOD OF THE SUN
She is looking around a lot, I'm not accusing her of making things up but it's kind of weird watching her talk like that. Also, in Polish we say Baba 'yAga', and in Ukrainian you would say Baba 'yAha' (They have 'swapped' g sounds for h sounds in the simplest way to explain)
Reason for use of name Vladimir for ruler character in epic stories is usually explained as Vladimir means Ruler. So it is more a "Ruler Ruler" or "Prince Prince" character what does just means stereotypical ruler. Historical connection to real life Vladimir is very loose.
Doesn't 'mir' mean peace in Russian? If vlad is the word for rule that would make it something like - ruler of peace, peaceful rules, prince of peace...etc. No?
@@alexlarsen6413 That's one popular folk terminology in Russian, but actually, an earliest attested form of the name was Volodimer - and that suffix -mer is supposed to be of Gothic origin. Vlad- is purely Slavic, though.
@@alexlarsen6413 I am not very sure about when Peace meaning appeared, but for that name it is more "world" (todays meaning) or community of people (village, settlement).
@@vladislav526 Makes sense. We have Valdemar as a name in Denmark, so could be some Scandinavian connection and vice versa. Wouldn't be unusual or unheard of at all.
@@alexlarsen6413 the part -měrъ simply wasn't recognisable, as the word itself does not exist today and it's impossible to connect it to anything but the stem mer- in words like мера and мерить, but they mean measure and to measure. Doesn't make a lot of sense. Not sure if the original root of the given name still exists in dialects though.
Why does Dr. Grove focus so much on Russian folklore? How is she not familiar with the popular folktale of Poland about the Wawel Dragon, in reference to Dr. Crawford's question about dragons? She seems to heavily focus on Russia and in part narrows everything down i.e. what wasn't present in Russia, would not have been present in folklore traditions of other slavic communities/nations. Perhaps non-Russian folktales are not a part of her speciality, but then this video ought to have been called 'Russian Folklore and Northern Connections'.
I can't speak for Dr. Grove herself, but unfortunately here in the United States, the vast majority of "Slavic Studies" is really "Russian Studies". Courses in any other Slavic language, literature, history, etc. are less invested in and treated as secondary. Therefore, most people interested in Eastern European studies inevitably end up with Russia as a focus.
@@apscis_3417 To be fair to that, Russian is the most spoken of all of the Slavic Languages, in fact there's a 150 million Russian Speakers, roughly 21 million South Slavic speakers, and under 60 million West Slavic Speakers, which means it is more widely spoken than the other linguistic branches combined, even with the other Eastern Slavic Speakers thrown in Russian accounts for like half of all Slavic speakers (although probably more than a few of those people speak several of those languages). So it's not like it's a totally unfair bias.
There are several comments about how people wished this or that aspect of the subject was covered more. In the past Dr. Crawford has accepted questions for these from Patreon members.
Dr. Crawford, I've only recently come across your channel, and I must say that I am quite impressed with its content. It is refreshing to see the history of an ancient culture portrayed with the realism it deserves. At the end of the day, there truly is nothing new under the sun, while circumstances and methodologies may vary I suspect we'd be surprised to discover how similar our lives would be to those of an earlier time.
I loved this but I wish someone could have brought up Western Slavic mythology and folklore seeing that a lot of Western Slavs were the last to accept Christianity.
There are good source for Western Slavic paganism from Pomeranian and Polabian Slavs. Great source are biographies/hagiographies of St Otto, Apostle of Pomerania, Thietmar's Chronicle, Helmold's Chronica Slavorum and many other.
Main god of Pomerania was Triglav (three-headed), psychopompos, chtonic, war god, god of magic, ruler of the three world's, with his mighty black horse and spear - probably close related or even just an form of evolution from Veles, god of magic, cattle, poetry, beer, trickster, god of death and vegetation - this make Triglav somewhat similar to Odin. What is worth notice, name Veles got this "Vel-" part, probably related to Greek Elysium (originally something like *Velysion) and maybe also Val- in Valhall.
Val/Vel means large/great in Slavic (Croatian). Velika/Vela Hala literally means "A great hall" in our language. Please stop forcing Greek into everything. It's a fairly new language and has nothing to do with anything original in the Slavic cultures, only Latin ones.
Great topic, lots of expectations but the guest's knowledge of the topic evidently below par. Quite disappointing.
I dont like how you reduce slavs to just russians. Its as if I reduced scandinavians to just icelanders.
I mean, that would make sense if Icelanders were the largest group of Scandinavians, probably more accurate to compare Swedes? Russians are the largest Slavic group on the planet, about half of all Slavic speakers are Russian (Ukrianian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Croatian, Serb, Bosnian, and Belarussian speakers combined come to about 150 million, same as the number of Russian Speakers. Granted, probably a lot of those people sit on both sides).
@@Lowlandlord It would not make sense if you are looking for historical connections. If you want to learn about Portuguese culture, you would go to Portugal itself, not to Brazil.
Number of people in Russia is irrelevant. Also, a great number of them are not Slavic in any way!
Go to Poland/Slovakia at least and then for comparison at least one South Slavic culture and you might get some clue about things. This approach is misleading at least.
Babya Yaga is not a witch. She is a queen and connects the real world with the world of the dead. She has one bone (dead) leg. And so the heroes asked the hut to teleport them to the world of the dead so that they could communicate with her.
wow
6 seconds ago
guessing im first lmao
"kee-yev" 😬 Yikes
She is not a linguistic
@@Lowlandlord SADLY ETIMOLOGY IS THE 🗝
I have watched it again a bit more. I couldn't make it all first time because it was really annoying that she was laughing at those tales. So I came back again with a thought. Ok let's give her a chance. Maybe she has something to say about slavic and norse mythology. And we'll i wonder why she didn't mention that Veles the biggest oponent of Perun is chained at the roots of a tree of life underground. Those tales are recorded in Lubelskie which is is today's polish border with Ukraine. I was wondering if the nice lady knows something from Ukrainian legends and folklore which is close to Kijev and Volga river. But I must say I still don't know what she knows. And BTW does it make sense to look for linguistic similarities between Perun's and Thor's name. (Per-Thor)
Fist of all, I have to apologize for my English. With all due respect, Dr. Vicki Grove would have benefited from increasing her oratory because laughing between every sentence is very tiresome to listen. Also, there are a lot of things concerning slavic folklore and culture she is surprisingly not aware of.
1. First of all Russia is a name a for modern day country which is predominantly populated by Russians. It had been put in use by Peter I in 17 century (influenced by Feofan Prokopovic) to usurp an ancient heritage. The word for the country of old (in which Moscow was a borderline outpost) is Rus 'or Rous' better know as Ruthenia in the Latin world. The term Kievan Rus' is technical. Used to separate time periods (Kiev was a major and almost sacred city back then). So the people of Rus 'called just as such - rus' or rusyns (ruthenians in Latin). Antil 18 century this terms were used exclusively for the people of modern day Ukraine and Belarus.
2. Yaroslav is for "Yaro" (prominent, bright) + "slav" (glory)
3. Perun is similar to lit. Perkūnas, latv. Pērkons, sascr. Parjánya, hett. Pirwa - an ansient Indo-European god of thunder
4. Dažboh is of 100% slavic origin. "Daž" is for "give"/"rain" (rain was vital for agriculture so it was a gift from the sky) + "boh" is for "god"/"blessing" (like in bohatstvo - "wealth" - blessing of abundance). There are gods with possible sarmatian (iranian) origins - Hors and Semargl. Hors is a god of the sun (like Helios). Semargl is a god of uncertain origins and the only god without anthropomorphic features. He was depicted as something like a winged wolf or a dragon.
5. I have a speculative idea that there was a name for an Indo-European god Dyēus - the main and most ancient god. But local Christianity tabooed this name by connecting it with the "deiavol" (devil). It's my speculation based on the fact that Balts, the closest branch of PIE to slavs, kept him in the folklore.
6. Slavs had a lot of local gods because of the vast spread across Europe and lack of unity between tribes and principalities. Vladimir's attempt to unify the pantheon was a big compromise. He tried to merge some gods declaring that they are one and the same. Unfortunately it was to late, abrahamic religions were already marching across Europe and Asia mercilessly destroying all ancient faiths so he took a hard but necessary decision to adopt Christianity.
When you realize Ghengis Khan was better than Charlemagne.
In what way?