Discovering Slavic Mythology between East and West

Folklore Research and the Pagan Past in the Service of Nation-Building

Bibliographic Data

ID8934770
AuthorsPavel Horák (0000-0003-3789-977X, Twitter (United States), corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume133
Issue4
Pages463-486
Publication date2022-10-02
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueFolklore (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0015-587X • E-ISSN: 1469-8315
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/0015587x.2022.2077562
OpenAlexW4312845921
LanguageEN
References cited32

This article analyses how pagan Slavic religion and mythology were assembled in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, using the example of folklore research in the Czech lands. It demonstrates how imaginings of the original nature of Slavic religion and mythology, and speculations about the Indo-European past, contributed to Czech nation-building. Reviewing the shift from amateur folklore research to the establishment of institutionalized disciplines, the article argues that Christian theological assumptions enabled the ‘discovery’ of Slavic religion and gave it a peculiar shape through secularization of the original theological ideas. Notes1 All translations from the Czech or German to English are the author’s own, if not quoting a translated edition.2 Czech/Central European names for different fields might seem confusing in the British context. The Czech term národopis literally means a description of one’s own nation (‘nationography’) and was translated into English in the nineteenth century as ‘ethnography’. Hence the name Ethnographical Society (Národopisná společnost). The most closely related German research field would be Volkskunde. Zíbrt propagated the idea of ‘cultural history’ (in German Kulturgeschichte), but it is not the same as ethnography/národopis, although it shares the national focus. In opposition to the narrowly defined ethnography was ethnology, which was subdivided into European ethnology (Europäische Ethnologie, Kulturwissenschaft) and foreign ethnology (akin to the German Völkerkunde), and which focused on non-European ethnic groups.3 The Czechs ‘lack a belief in “the leader of the Wild Hunt” and remarks about dwarfs’, writes Josef Virgil Grohmann in 1864 in his massive work Superstitions and Customs in Bohemia and Moravia, and continues: ‘Instead, we find belief in Weird Sisters with such a noticeability and plasticity, which we would hardly find in the very pagan legends’ (Grohmann Citation2010, 8).4 Niederle praised Tylor’s work very much; he corresponded with him, and even visited him in London (Robek Citation1976, 121).5 Along with Semitic and Aryan, Turanian was an imagined language family and a ‘race’ of people inhabiting Asia, a concept popularized by the Indologist Friedrich Max Müller.6 Due to space limitations, I summarize only the parts of the theory connected to this research. The whole theory is far more complex with wider implications; see Jakob De Roover (2015, 65–84) and S. N. Balagangadhara (Citation2005, 218–70) for details.Additional informationNotes on contributorsPavel HorákPavel Horák is a junior researcher at the Department of Critical Heritage Studies, Institute of Ethnology, Czech Academy of Sciences, Prague, Czech Republic. After his PhD in the study of religions (University of Pardubice, Czech Republic), he was a visiting researcher at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, and Ghent University, Belgium. His expertise focuses on modern Paganism, new religious movements, esotericism, and magic. He has published on these issues in several journals, including The Pomegranate, Nova Religio, and Religions. Currently, he is working on a book manuscript, From False Religion to Contemporary Paganism

Archaeology · Art · Czech · Ethnography · Ethnology · Folklore · German · Linguistics · Literature · Mythology · Slavic languages · Sociology · Anthropology · Classics · Folklore, Mythology, and Literature Studies · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics · History · Philosophy · Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices

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