Paganism of Ancient Russia

The book belongs to the pen of an outstanding historian and archaeologist, an expert on the culture of ancient and medieval Russia Acad. B.A. Rybakova, the founder of the domestic school of the medievalists, is a continuation of his fundamental two -volume study on the history of the origin and development of paganism of the ancient Slavic -Russian ethnic group.
In the first part of the book, the author explores the problem of the pagan culture of the Pre -Slavs of the Trojan centuries, which was mentioned by the genius author of the "Word of Igor"s Regiment", those "dark centuries" of the life of the scollets of the Roman era and the East Slavic tribes of the early Middle Ages, during which The mythological and cult system was born with which our largely conflicting ideas about paganism are associated.
In the second part, called the author "Apogee of Paganism", the formation of a pagan cult and the priestly class serving it is traced as the most important socio -cultural components of the early statehood of Ancient Russia. Details, without avoiding discussion of controversial issues, such as the existence of the Supreme God of the Rod and the mornedness or the origin of the pagan pantheon of Prince Vladimir I, the author describes the pre -Christian era of the 10th century, with which, in fact, the centuries -old period of confrontation in the origin of the people"s pagan and planted on top begins as a national Byzantine Christian cultures.
In the third part, the author considers the era of the actual Russian dual faith of the XI-XIII centuries, using both extensive archaeological and ethnographic material, and extremely diverse and still insufficiently studied Slavic folklore.
The book is addressed to students and scientists of humanitarian specialties, as well as the vast circle of readers interested in the origins of the ancient Slavic beliefs and cults