The Story of Russia | Page 5

that time several large and warlike tribes of Central Asia moved westward compelling other tribes on their route to join them or to move ahead. Thus they gathered strength until it looked as if Asia was bent upon the conquest of Europe. They poured in through the gap between the Ural mountains and the Caspian Sea, and the civilized people of southeastern Europe were unable to cope with the savage hordes. In the vanguard were the Goths, who made an effort to settle, in Scythia, but they were forced to move on when Attila, who is known as the Scourge of God, swooped down upon them with his Huns. He was followed by a host of Finns, Bulgarians, Magyars, and Slavs who, however, left his wake, scattered and settled down. Soon after the Slavs became known to Greek authors and were described by them. They were divided into a number of tribes, among them the Russian Slavs who settled about the sources of the Volga and the Oka, and were the founders of Novgorod, Pskof, and Izborsk.
They must have been a numerous people. We hear of another tribe settling on the banks of the Vistula, and laying the foundation of (p.?026) the future kingdom of Poland. They settled on the upper Elbe, and in the north of Germany. It is believed that the Slavs are ancestors of the people in Bohemia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Servia, and Dalmatia, and in Prussia of those living in Pomerania and Brandenburg.
All these Slavs, although widely dispersed, practiced the same heathen rites, spoke the same language, and nursed the same traditions, until they fell under different influences. They were, however, not the sole occupants of northeastern Europe. Other races had followed in Attila's wake, and among them the Finns were the most numerous and most warlike. They settled in the basin of the Dwina and the Kama and named their new home Biarmaland, while the Russians called it Great Permia. They also occupied what is now known as Finland, but which was then known as Land of the Suomi. The Finns, more than any other tribe, bore evidence of their Asiatic origin.
Thus the present European Russia was divided among a host of tribes, belonging either to the Slav or Finn families, and each kept to a great extent the superstitions and traditions of his race. Even in our time the traces of these superstitions are plainly discernible in many parts of Russia. When Christianity was introduced among these people, the missionaries found many of the barbaric rites so strongly implanted among the people that, instead of making vain efforts to uproot them, they preferred to admit them under a Christian name.
The religion of the Slavs bore a great resemblance to that of the Norsemen and of the Germanic races; that is, they worshiped nature (p.?027) and its phenomena. Dagh Bog was the sungod; Perun, the Thor of northern mythology, was the god of thunder; Stri Bog, the god of the winds; Voloss, the protector of flocks. They had neither temples nor regular priests, but worshiped the oak as the symbol of Perun, and before it the leaders offered sacrifices. These ancient deities are preserved under the names of St. John, who displaced Perun; Voloss who became St. Vlaise, etc. When a chief died, the wife often refused to survive her husband. The men-servants were summoned and asked which of them would be buried with his master. When one of them came forward, he was immediately strangled. Then the same question was put to the women servants, and if one of them consented, she was feasted until the day when the funeral pyre awaited the corpse. She was then killed and her body burned with that of her master. There were, however, some tribes that buried their dead.
The father was absolute master of his family, but his authority did not descend to the eldest son, but to the oldest of the family, his brothers, if any were living, according to their age. The Slavs kept several wives, and were given to consume large quantities of a strong drink called kvass. They were a people devoted to agriculture; the land under cultivation was not owned by one person or a family, but by all the members of a community, or mir. The heads of the families composing the mir assembled in a council or vetché, which had authority over the mir. Only the house and the dvor or inclosure, and his share in the harvest, were the property of each householder. In the course of time, several of these rural communities united (p.?028) in a canton or county, called a volost, which was then governed by a council composed of the elders of several communes. It happened sometimes that one of these elders, who was considered unusually wise