Slavs (in antiquity, Slovene) — this is the largest ethnolinguistic group of related peoples in Europe (from Greek ethnos, "tribe, people") in eastern and southwestern Europe, united by a common origin. Depending on linguistic and cultural closeness, Slavs are divided into three large groups: southern (Bulgarians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Bosnians), eastern (Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians), and western (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Sorbs).
According to the 2002 census, the total number of Slavic peoples exceeds 300 million people, of which: Russians — 145.2 million, Ukrainians — about 50 million, Belarusians — up to 10 million; Poles — about 45 million, Czechs — about 10 million, Slovaks — 5.5 million, Sorbs — 0.1 million; Bulgarians — 9–10 million, Serbs — up to 10 million, Croats — 5.5 million, Slovenes — up to 2.5 million, Montenegrins — 0.6 million, Macedonians — 2 million.
Origin of the name
The question of the origin of the Slavs, like their history, is so complex and confused that it is hardly possible to present a true picture of the distant past, owing to the absence of written sources from that time. One reason for this is the lack of any substantial written sources about the Slavs before the mid-6th century AD.
There are several versions of the origin of the ethnonym "Slavs."
The most scientifically grounded are the following four:
- from the concept of "slovo" (word) (people speaking "in our own way," as opposed to the Germans — "the mute ones," i.e., "not speaking our language," "foreign");
- from the Indo-European root *kleu- 'rumor, fame' (cf. slava, "glory");
- from a toponym, apparently the name of a river (cf. the epithet of the Dnieper, Slavutich, the rivers Sluya, Slava, Slavnitsa in various Slavic lands);
- from the root *s-lau-os 'people' (with the Indo-European "mobile s"), cf. ancient Greek λᾱός.
This ethnonym became fixed as a tribal name in the course of the ethnogenesis of the Slovaks (with a somewhat different suffix), the Slovenes, and the Slovincians. The ethnonym "Slovene," besides these peoples, was also borne as the main name by the Ilmen Slovenes — inhabitants of the Novgorod land.
Among the people it is believed that the name "Slavs" comes from the concept of "slavnye" (glorious), that is, people who are talked about, about whom rumor spreads, telling of the high qualities and success of such people.
Geography of settlement
Slavs occupy a vast territory of Eastern Europe, as well as the northern and central parts of Asia. It is immediately noticeable that Slavic states are not gathered together but are scattered and disjointed. In the second half of the 19th century there were no independent Slavic states. Slavic peoples were part of three empires: the Russian, the Austro-Hungarian, and the Ottoman. The exceptions were only the Montenegrins, who lived in the small independent state of Montenegro, and the Sorbs, who were located on the territory of Germany. By the end of the 20th century all Slavic peoples had achieved state independence, except for the Russians and the Sorbs.
History of the ethnos
It is paradoxical that for this multimillion-strong people, which settled across the vast expanses of Europe and Asia — from the azure Adriatic to the shores of the Pacific Ocean, and from the sultry steppes and deserts of Kazakhstan and Central Asia to the gloomy waters of the Baltic and the Arctic Ocean — it has not been possible to determine the place from which it originated.
These questions have occupied many researchers of Slavdom: historians, linguists, ethnographers, archaeologists... But even now, far from all the mysteries of history have found an answer. The problem of the origin and earliest history of the Slavs is one of the most complex problems of modern Slavic studies. The efforts of archaeologists, linguists, anthropologists, ethnographers, and historians are directed at solving it. Their joint research may yet lead to a solution of this problem.
"The Slavic question"
The origins of Slavdom. Where should we look for them? When did the Slavs first arise as a distinct ethnos? The question of the origin of the Slavs is considered one of the central ones in the history of Eastern and Southeastern Europe… The Slavic people are considered relatively young in history: under their own name they are first mentioned in written sources only from the 6th century. The ethnonym "Slavs" first appears among Byzantine authors of the 6th century, who called them "Sklavenoi."
Religion
The history of Rus preserves many secrets about its Slavic people, because Byzantinism destroyed in Rus the best part of humanity — white eldership (starchestvo) — after the forced baptism. The attempts of ill-wishers to erase the memory of this godly people from the pages of history proved futile. Heartfelt memory is not subject to genocide, the Inquisition, or totalitarian regimes.
The Slavic people inwardly recognize their roots, and will restore what was connected with the earliest history of Rus, the Slavic-theogamic archetype... The religion of the good God will be restored. As the God, so the people...
Kindness must return to our Slavic land! In the archetype of the Slavs there is hospitality, kindness. For hundreds of years the land of Rus was kind. There was no theft, no evil, no hatred, no wars, no repressions, no executions, no lawgivers, no inquisitors, no absolution prayers for money. Thousands of white hermitages, God-cities, Kitezhes and Radonezhs made up the GOOD PAST. Children were raised pure (their tutors were virgin men and women) and adored their parents, and the parents took example from the child-loving Father. Peace in the heart, unshaken by anything, meant that people lived for several hundred years. All of this was destroyed...
There must occur a HYPERBOREANIZATION — A RETURN TO GOOD HISTORY. TO GOOD SLAVDOM.
The Russian people have been slandered as supposedly naive, lazy, and infantile. And their consciousness supposedly primitive, utopian, fond of fairy tales about Ivan Tsarevich and about Emelya with his "pike's command"… But our people believed in the living christs, and in Peter III as a good tsar. He is not infantile, but pure of heart. And he loves fairy tales, because they capture a good life, in which good people always prevail.
The secret of the God-lovers, the Molokans… in other words, of good people, is that they did not merely reject the teaching or religious cult of Byzantinism, but fought against it. Good people knew another Divinity, a good one. That is why they relied not on the force of weapons, but on the force of kindness. According to the Hyperborean mentality, a person is a newcomer from Pravь. He has the right to demand the ultimate truth, which lies in kindness and purity. The tsar, the anointed of Pravь, is obliged to serve good people with truth. That is why our folk Christ-believers, white shipbuilders, lovers of goodness, and Bogomils held: if a ruler is evil, then he came from Krivda, a deceiver.
On the theme of "podobreniye" (becoming kinder), L. N. Tolstoy was written to by Pyotr Verigin — a figure in some ways equal to Leo Nikolayevich... Tolstoy, whom Verigin considered his friend and teacher, was under the spell of the teaching of the good people, and himself in time grew kinder, finally finding peace. Leo Tolstoy reached the depth of our archetype of the good people with his teaching that evil should not be resisted with answering evil ("a tooth for a tooth," as the wrathful genius of the Old Testament taught), but with intensified goodness.
The simple thought that dawned on our literary classic: to find peace, one must seek podobreniye (a turn toward goodness).
Spiritual reality rests on universal archetypal pillars, yet is at the same time in ceaseless motion. And the archetype is bound up with ceaseless motion. The statutes of the universe of life are unchanging, but in their manifestation they are always revealed as moving streams of being.
Being is truly a mysterious cipher-message, which one must not so much decipher as enter into, hear the music of those ciphers and sound it out, that is, render it properly. And the mystery of being in its atlantean key is this: a person seeking truth must listen to being, in order to read the cipher-messages of what is happening.
Ancient Slavic system of religious worldview
Already in ancient (pre-Christian) times, many thousands of years ago, our Slavic ancestors had a very coherent and integral system of religious worldview, revealing and explaining the principles by which the World is arranged — a living World, in constant motion of self-development and self-perfection. Humanity, as the main part of it, is likewise not something finished, frozen, but also strives for renewal, that is, for the evolution of its consciousness and being. At the base of such a system lay the notion of the existence of three spheres — worlds, in which the entire heavenly and earthly life of every person unfolds. These are the Worlds of Pravь, Navь, and Yavь. The most widespread interpretation of these religious-philosophical concepts under study became the notion of "Yavь," "Pravь," and "Navь" as three worlds of Slavic mythological understanding of the world.
- The World of Pravь. The World of Light, goodness, truth, Divine love, and beauty. In it dwell the bright Gods, ruled over by Svarog, the eldest son of the Creator of all that exists.
- The World of Navь. A subtle-material World — this is the sphere of the presence of the Creator's Consciousness, to which human souls depart after their sojourn on Earth, where they abide between preceding and subsequent incarnations.
- The World of Yavь. Our earthly manifested world — the world of form, or the manifest world, where each of the born goes through the school of being, learning in concrete life situations to distinguish bad from good, light from darkness, good from evil. Following the path through the dungeon — into the bright chamber.
"Dear people"
Even the Apostle Andrew the First-Called planted upon Rus the apostleship of "dear people" (mily lyudi). And today Russia is called upon to return to the archetype of dear people.
In Western Catharism this phenomenon received the name "bonhommie" — a special type of good people with an imprinted principle of holy kindness, stemming from primordial purity. One not implicated in "sin" bore in Rus an analogous name, "mil chelovek" (dear person). A person became dear through Slavic kindness.
'Mil chelovek' (dear person), 'mila sestra' (dear sister), 'mila devitsa' (dear maiden), 'mil khrabrets' (dear brave one)... The little word 'mil' (dear) was added in address: 'mil brat' (dear brother), 'milaya matushka' (dear little mother), 'mil svet Georgy' (dear light Georgy). "Dear people" took root in Rus as a sunlit, timeless archetype, many millennia before the birth of Christ. In ancient Rus, along the Volga and the Don, families such as Miloslavny, Dobroslavy, and Dobrynya were renowned. The little word "mil" or "dobr" (dear or good) was attached to virtually every name. Without it, it was considered disrespectful to address one's neighbor.
This came from the Slavic theogamites — the first Christians, disciples and followers of Andrew the First-Called. The Christianity of Andrew the First-Called (of the early Agapes) had nothing in common, up until the 10th century, with the Byzantine version. It carried the beginning of Wisdom and the living presence of Christ. His disciples strove for perfect purity and holiness, for virginity. It is little known that the Mother of God herself sent Andrew the First-Called to Rus with the Holy Chalice of the Grail. The Most Pure Mother handed the precious Chalice to her beloved disciple Andrew. And she charged him to go to her beloved Rus, so that the Slavs would receive the joyful news of Christ, who came from the Solar God the Father of pure love and had achieved victory over the most evil Elohim, prince of this world. And Andrew the First-Called successfully carried out the will of the Most Pure One in Rus, converting the Slavic people to the faith of the Solar God and His Son Christ.