What do you think?
Rate this book
Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend
This volume offers the first comprehensive guide in English to the myth and legend of the Russian Empire and other Slavic countries and peoples.
There are few stories more stirring than those of ancient Russia. Russian and other Slavic beliefs weave a rich tapestry in which real-world elements coexist with those from fantasy, such as dragons, monsters, and shape-changing wolves. Though Russia adopted Christianity as the state religion in A.D. 988, paganism remained popular through the end of the 19th century and survives in isolated pockets even today. In Russian myth and legend, Christian themes are interwoven with pagan dragons fight priests, saints encounter nymphs, and witches enter the kingdom of heaven.
Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend includes extensive historical, geographical, and biographical background to deepen the reader's understanding of the myth and legend. Numerous illustrations are included in this fascinating volume, which will be of great interest to students, scholars, and everyone who wishes to explore the cultural heritage of ancient Russia.
There are few stories more stirring than those of ancient Russia. Russian and other Slavic beliefs weave a rich tapestry in which real-world elements coexist with those from fantasy, such as dragons, monsters, and shape-changing wolves. Though Russia adopted Christianity as the state religion in A.D. 988, paganism remained popular through the end of the 19th century and survives in isolated pockets even today. In Russian myth and legend, Christian themes are interwoven with pagan dragons fight priests, saints encounter nymphs, and witches enter the kingdom of heaven.
Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend includes extensive historical, geographical, and biographical background to deepen the reader's understanding of the myth and legend. Numerous illustrations are included in this fascinating volume, which will be of great interest to students, scholars, and everyone who wishes to explore the cultural heritage of ancient Russia.
392 pages, Library Binding
First published January 1, 1998
3 people are currently reading
200 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 8, 2011
This is not a good encyclopedia. I realize that writing a series on world mythologies would not result in a detailed and factual in every way series. But one could hope for some editing and fact checking. I do not know about beliefs in all the countries mentioned in this book, but I do know mine and almost all the entries from this region had something wrong. The author didn't even bother to get spellings right and in many cases it took me awhile to relize what some entry was supposed to be - and we're talking about latin alphabet here not cirilica.
For instance there is no mention about the fact that the so called Byalobog was most likely invented, reconstructed by anthropologists and there is very little if any evidence anyone worshipped such deity.
Another thing, Poland was not united under a Mieczyslaw but Mieszko. The tribe was not 'Poliane' it was 'Polanie'. Jezda is not a word polish peole use for Baba Yaga, it's Baba Jaga, or Jędza if we want to go with 'hag' meaning.
'Siliniets' in not a god worshiped in old Poland, if you spelled it 'Šilinytis' you'd get a deity mentioned in one old Polish text in a list of supposed Lithuanian deities - historians argue the value of that text as the author had very little knowledge of culture and language of Lithuania. Dixon mentiones also Walgaino, Datan, Lawkapatim and Tawals as Polish, who also come from the same text (Valgina, Datanus, Tavalus, Lawkpatimo). Similar with Medeina. Etc, etc.
Sure, misspellings happen and it wouldn't have bothered me if it was just one thing or two, but there are errors in almost every entry I have some knowledge of. Makes me wonder just how many other entries are done equally badly. Not worth much, this encyclopedia, but as a vaguely introductory text keeping in mind that there are plenty of errors and simplifications.
(I was a little dissapointed that there was nothing about the serbian shaman like figures, zduhać, and similar beliefs across that region.)
The author also relies on very western centric texts. For instance he mentioned Vlad Tepes ('Dracula') as a tyrant ruler. A typical view in western writings. While Romanians themselves consider him a national hero, who restored order and protected the country from the inside and outside enemies. In the lands that fought the Ottomans at that time he was considered a Christan hero.
For instance there is no mention about the fact that the so called Byalobog was most likely invented, reconstructed by anthropologists and there is very little if any evidence anyone worshipped such deity.
Another thing, Poland was not united under a Mieczyslaw but Mieszko. The tribe was not 'Poliane' it was 'Polanie'. Jezda is not a word polish peole use for Baba Yaga, it's Baba Jaga, or Jędza if we want to go with 'hag' meaning.
'Siliniets' in not a god worshiped in old Poland, if you spelled it 'Šilinytis' you'd get a deity mentioned in one old Polish text in a list of supposed Lithuanian deities - historians argue the value of that text as the author had very little knowledge of culture and language of Lithuania. Dixon mentiones also Walgaino, Datan, Lawkapatim and Tawals as Polish, who also come from the same text (Valgina, Datanus, Tavalus, Lawkpatimo). Similar with Medeina. Etc, etc.
Sure, misspellings happen and it wouldn't have bothered me if it was just one thing or two, but there are errors in almost every entry I have some knowledge of. Makes me wonder just how many other entries are done equally badly. Not worth much, this encyclopedia, but as a vaguely introductory text keeping in mind that there are plenty of errors and simplifications.
(I was a little dissapointed that there was nothing about the serbian shaman like figures, zduhać, and similar beliefs across that region.)
The author also relies on very western centric texts. For instance he mentioned Vlad Tepes ('Dracula') as a tyrant ruler. A typical view in western writings. While Romanians themselves consider him a national hero, who restored order and protected the country from the inside and outside enemies. In the lands that fought the Ottomans at that time he was considered a Christan hero.
September 2, 2023
TLDR: I was very sad to discover this publication is pretty much worthless.
Some background: I’m Polish, with avid interest for Slavic folklore, history and paganism. I was lucky to have enough background knowledge on the subject to be able to recognize when the book was trying to sell me nonsense.
The first red flag was the title „Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend”. Seeing how Russians are very much Slavic I was somewhat confused but the intro chapter explained that by „Russian” the author means „of the Russian Empire”. As a result the myths tackled in the book are Slavic, Baltic, Sami, Armenian, as well as belonging to many groups indigenous peoples of European Russia and Siberia. That’s a lot of different cultures and mythologies to tackle, all of them rather overlooked in the academic sources and difficult to research. From the start author set for himself a very difficult task at which he failed spectacularly.
The book is riddled with errors. No wonder W. F. Ryan gave it such a scathing review. Unlike him I am not a scholar so I will not dive into historical details, I’ll just give you an easy example:
„Poland is a large central European nation that borders the Baltic Sea and is bounded to the east by Russia, to the south by the former Czechoslovakia, and to the west by Germany.”
What? This book was published in 1998. I even pulled out a map of Europe in 1998 to check that I’m not crazy and indeed in 1998 Poland bordered Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russian Kaliningrad Oblast, LITHUANIA, BELARUS and UKRAINE. Apparently the visions of Russian Empire have firmly stuck in the author’s mind. I check „Ukraine” and I find out that it is „a constituent republic of the Soviet Union since 1923, the capital of which is Kiev. Ukraine is the second-largest European country in area, exceeded only by Russia, its neighbor to the east. The Ukrainian language is a member of the Slavic branch of the Indo-European family and is closely related to Russian”. The dissolution of Soviet Union happened in 1991. This book was published in 1998. Who agreed to publish it? Did anyone bother to proof read? And how can we trust the author with handling obscure myths and legends when he can’t even handle a contemporary map of Europe? The answer is we can’t.
The book contains a staggering amount of misinformation about Slavic mythology. Firstly and most importantly, it fails to acknowledge how little information about the pre-Christian Slavic religion survived. What we have right now are mostly hypotheses, educated guesses based on the surviving source material, archeological findings, modern folklore and linguistic analysis. In the book author simply selects his favorite hypothesis and presents it as fact. Sometimes he ignores the precious source material completely. He inserts names of random Slavic deities into folk narratives in place of the Christian God. He fails to make disclaimers about unreliable sources even when drawing from sources that by many were deemed a forgery. I can’t overemphasize how misleading the end result is.
I will shortly recount some of the author’s sins just to give you an idea: Marzanna is a goddess of fruit trees, Triglav is merely a three faced variant of Svantovit worshipped in Slovenia (not a peep from Ebo and Herbord, Triglav’s cult among Polabian Slavs wasn’t mentioned at all), almost all multi-headed deities of Western Slavs are presented as „a variant of Svantovit”, Svarozhich is mentioned as solely Russian deity, Volos is a god of war and likely an aspect of Perun who was later turned into a shepherd figure, Veles is a nature deity and patron of cattle and merchants (no connection between Veles and Volos was stated explicitly in the description of either), Kupalo is a quadruple god Kupalo-Yarilo-Kostroma-Lado, Maslenitsa is a spring goddess, overall every effigy Slavs make to celebrate a change of seasons is either a separate deity or two deities (one masculine one feminine).
At the same time the book does a very poor job of tackling Slavic mythology from countries other than Russia. It lacks even the most common and well known Polish legends: Piast the Wheelwright, Popiel, Dragon of Wawel, king Krak and his daughter Wanda. I looked for some popular Czech heroes such as Premysl and Libuše or forefather Čech and Lech, all in vain. I can only imagine how poorly and haphazardly the myths and legends of the indigenous peoples of Russia were handled - I myself do not know enough of them to verify the author’s statements.
Some background: I’m Polish, with avid interest for Slavic folklore, history and paganism. I was lucky to have enough background knowledge on the subject to be able to recognize when the book was trying to sell me nonsense.
The first red flag was the title „Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend”. Seeing how Russians are very much Slavic I was somewhat confused but the intro chapter explained that by „Russian” the author means „of the Russian Empire”. As a result the myths tackled in the book are Slavic, Baltic, Sami, Armenian, as well as belonging to many groups indigenous peoples of European Russia and Siberia. That’s a lot of different cultures and mythologies to tackle, all of them rather overlooked in the academic sources and difficult to research. From the start author set for himself a very difficult task at which he failed spectacularly.
The book is riddled with errors. No wonder W. F. Ryan gave it such a scathing review. Unlike him I am not a scholar so I will not dive into historical details, I’ll just give you an easy example:
„Poland is a large central European nation that borders the Baltic Sea and is bounded to the east by Russia, to the south by the former Czechoslovakia, and to the west by Germany.”
What? This book was published in 1998. I even pulled out a map of Europe in 1998 to check that I’m not crazy and indeed in 1998 Poland bordered Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russian Kaliningrad Oblast, LITHUANIA, BELARUS and UKRAINE. Apparently the visions of Russian Empire have firmly stuck in the author’s mind. I check „Ukraine” and I find out that it is „a constituent republic of the Soviet Union since 1923, the capital of which is Kiev. Ukraine is the second-largest European country in area, exceeded only by Russia, its neighbor to the east. The Ukrainian language is a member of the Slavic branch of the Indo-European family and is closely related to Russian”. The dissolution of Soviet Union happened in 1991. This book was published in 1998. Who agreed to publish it? Did anyone bother to proof read? And how can we trust the author with handling obscure myths and legends when he can’t even handle a contemporary map of Europe? The answer is we can’t.
The book contains a staggering amount of misinformation about Slavic mythology. Firstly and most importantly, it fails to acknowledge how little information about the pre-Christian Slavic religion survived. What we have right now are mostly hypotheses, educated guesses based on the surviving source material, archeological findings, modern folklore and linguistic analysis. In the book author simply selects his favorite hypothesis and presents it as fact. Sometimes he ignores the precious source material completely. He inserts names of random Slavic deities into folk narratives in place of the Christian God. He fails to make disclaimers about unreliable sources even when drawing from sources that by many were deemed a forgery. I can’t overemphasize how misleading the end result is.
I will shortly recount some of the author’s sins just to give you an idea: Marzanna is a goddess of fruit trees, Triglav is merely a three faced variant of Svantovit worshipped in Slovenia (not a peep from Ebo and Herbord, Triglav’s cult among Polabian Slavs wasn’t mentioned at all), almost all multi-headed deities of Western Slavs are presented as „a variant of Svantovit”, Svarozhich is mentioned as solely Russian deity, Volos is a god of war and likely an aspect of Perun who was later turned into a shepherd figure, Veles is a nature deity and patron of cattle and merchants (no connection between Veles and Volos was stated explicitly in the description of either), Kupalo is a quadruple god Kupalo-Yarilo-Kostroma-Lado, Maslenitsa is a spring goddess, overall every effigy Slavs make to celebrate a change of seasons is either a separate deity or two deities (one masculine one feminine).
At the same time the book does a very poor job of tackling Slavic mythology from countries other than Russia. It lacks even the most common and well known Polish legends: Piast the Wheelwright, Popiel, Dragon of Wawel, king Krak and his daughter Wanda. I looked for some popular Czech heroes such as Premysl and Libuše or forefather Čech and Lech, all in vain. I can only imagine how poorly and haphazardly the myths and legends of the indigenous peoples of Russia were handled - I myself do not know enough of them to verify the author’s statements.
December 2, 2023
01.12.23
By mistake, I returned to this book because I found it in my files and forgot how bad it really is. It is very hard to find pieces of information about Slavic folklore that go deeper and not just scratch the surface. I feel personally offended by this book.
Disappointed but not surprised.
The first red flag - is the title. It is such a Western habit to concentrate only on Russia while keeping the other Slavic countries in the corner like we didn't have our own culture and traditions.
The inside is more disappointing.
Factual, geopolitical errors. Misspellings. Almost every entry, about which I gained knowledge from other books, had so many errors, and misleading pieces of information. It's a very Westernized work.
By mistake, I returned to this book because I found it in my files and forgot how bad it really is. It is very hard to find pieces of information about Slavic folklore that go deeper and not just scratch the surface. I feel personally offended by this book.
Disappointed but not surprised.
The first red flag - is the title. It is such a Western habit to concentrate only on Russia while keeping the other Slavic countries in the corner like we didn't have our own culture and traditions.
The inside is more disappointing.
Factual, geopolitical errors. Misspellings. Almost every entry, about which I gained knowledge from other books, had so many errors, and misleading pieces of information. It's a very Westernized work.
December 3, 2017
Someone who doesn't seem to know much about the subject decided to compile an encyclopedia on it!
This is puzzling as the references and further reading section seems quite good. The typical academic and popular confusion between "Russian" and "Ukrainian" is exacerbated here, with, for example, the river "Dneiper" denoted as "Russian". The entry for "Kiev", whose first sentence is "The Capital of Ukraine ..." is also denoted as "Russian". The entry goes on, "... Kiev was founded by three Viking brothers, Kiy, Schek and Khoriv ...". Leaving aside the issue of the three brothers (not to mention their sister "Lybid") being quite possibly apocryphal, they are generally considered local Slavs; their time is well before any Viking influence on ancient Rus. Of course, those are just a few things I know something about, but if they are any indication, the encyclopedia is not worth much. It was, in the end, highly disappointing.
This is puzzling as the references and further reading section seems quite good. The typical academic and popular confusion between "Russian" and "Ukrainian" is exacerbated here, with, for example, the river "Dneiper" denoted as "Russian". The entry for "Kiev", whose first sentence is "The Capital of Ukraine ..." is also denoted as "Russian". The entry goes on, "... Kiev was founded by three Viking brothers, Kiy, Schek and Khoriv ...". Leaving aside the issue of the three brothers (not to mention their sister "Lybid") being quite possibly apocryphal, they are generally considered local Slavs; their time is well before any Viking influence on ancient Rus. Of course, those are just a few things I know something about, but if they are any indication, the encyclopedia is not worth much. It was, in the end, highly disappointing.
June 23, 2021
I didn't like the format of encyclopedia for myths, which causes a lot of repetition and it's difficult to follow if you just want a general read.
March 3, 2022
Outdated but informative. Might want to cross reference factual origins if using this as a current reference guide.
June 20, 2023
Excellent!
May 31, 2016
It's a decent enough encyclopedia-style rundown of some myths and folktales, but several of the entries are inaccurate. What's more, whether through a lack of written documentation, the influence of Christianity on old pagan beliefs, or what have you, Slavic/Russian mythology is rather lacking compared to a lot (most) of other traditions in the world.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews