From the Past to Our Days

Pre-Christian beliefs of the Ukrainian people are important part of Ukrainian cultural heritage.

This work participates in "Ukrainian brands in global trends" contest.The gods were at the top of Slavs’ spiritual hierarchy. They were responsible for the most important spheres of life of ancient society: economic, military, ritual, sovereign and many others. In difficult situations, pagan Slavs asked the gods for help.Idol-shaped pillars in archaic cultures indicate the presence of an absolute center in the mythical space. The center of the world or the world axis served as a starting point in the value system. Due to this people felt blood connection with family, clan, gods, achieved a sense of identity with the collective whole. Far from these pillars, the society fell under the influence of hostile forces, lost proper self-identification, touching the unpredictability of chaos. This testified to the inviolability of the mythological space, the presence of sacred and cursed places in it.The ideology of pagan beliefs is mentioned in the book of the Byzantine historian of the second half of the VI century Procopius of Caesarea: “The Sclavins and Antas are not ruled by one man, but by society. The god who sends lightning is considered to be the only lord, people sacrifice cattle to him. They worship rivers, nymphs and some other deities, sacrifice to them all of those sacrifices to divination. They live in miserable shacks, scattered far from each other”. Pagan temples-altars were places of particular importance among the Chernyakhiv antiquities. In 1963 a sacred place for ancient services (sanctuary) was explored on the territory of Podillya in the village of Stavchany, Novoushitsky district, Khmelnytsky Oblast. The stele was found in the backyard of one of the villagers. While yard-working he came across a stone stele, which lay face down at a depth of 0.5-0.6 m. It is a one-faced idol, a figure of a bearded man with a conical headdress holding a horn. The silhouette of a horse was embossed on the back of the statue.Remains of ancient fireplaces, in the position of which a certain system can be traced, were found around the idol and the stone conical stele. Accumulations of burnt stones, ashes and the remains of a burnt tree remained there. Animal bones and pottery fragments of the Chernyakhiv culture were also found. Apparently, the victims were brought here - people gave to gods and spirits the meat of slaughtered animals and birds to appease them. Such altars stood in sacred groves, where the eternal fire always burned before the statues.As we can see, for our ancestors the temple was all nature. They came to such sacred groves on Easter and brought Easter eggs and flowers. In the sacred groves stood the idols of the gods, before whose altar was always burning eternal fire. In the sacred groves, young men were ordained as warriors, and heroes glorified in battle were endowed with weapons. In such groves, fateful cases were decided for the people. Prince Volodymyr also built such pantheon on the high hill of Kyiv, where, according to the chronicler, people came and offered sacrifices to the gods.Such pantheons or chapels stood in a form of round wooden cult sanctuaries with the statue of idols. The oldest one was discovered on Starokyivska Rock. It’s believed to be a huge pagan temple, where princes Oleg, Igor, and Svyatoslav swore and made sacrifices. The temple is considered to be dedicated to the Slavic god Svitovid, but was destroyed, most likely in 988. Often the rite took severe forms, with people is the role of sacrifice, even sons or captivesThe ancient Slavs saw the sun as a source of light and warmth, and their whole life depended on the sun. The sacralization of the Sun was significantly influenced by the development of agriculture. The cult of the Sun is especially noticeable in the rites associated with the four important phenomena of the year - the autumn and spring equinoxes, the winter and summer solstices.It is extremely difficult to cover the pre-Christian beliefs of the Ukrainian people, because there is not enough relevant valuable material and in many cases we have to use a material that testifies to the beliefs of the Slavs in general, and not the Ukrainian people particularly.It is still difficult to divide pre-Christian beliefs into certain epochs. Christianity was officially introduced in our country quite late - in 988 (or in 990 according to some researches),and all the time before that we call it pre-Christian. The year 988 was not a solid wall that immediately replaced all those beliefs - they were firmly held for a long time, and in some rites to this day. Therefore, the study of ancient monuments is very important to shed light on the pre-Christian beliefs of proto-Ukrainians.A monumental work of the ancient Eastern Slavic pagans - the rock relief in Bush - could be used in Christian medieval times. After all, the materials of archaeological research of this rock complex give grounds for such an interpretation.The Black Grave gives us information about the remains of a rather complex ritual: building a coffin, offering sacrifices, filling the mound to half height, transferring to the top of the half-filled mound armor and weapons of the dead for the rite of sobriety, final filling the mound to a height of 11 m.Research proves that there was no gap between paganism and Christianity. Pagan rites and cults, largely used, were transformed by the medieval Christian religion.Thus, archaeological materials obtained from excavations of cemeteries are of great importance for the study of economic and social development, spiritual culture of the population of ancient Rus’. Archaeological memory has formed the culture of independence of Ukraine.