Concept of Chernebog and Bielbog in Slavic Mythology - Myroslava T. Znayenko.pdf

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On the Concept of Chernebog and Bielbog in Slavic Mythology
Myroslava T. Znayenko
To Bado L. Lencek
The origin of Slavic cosmogonic and cosmological dualism - that is,
dualism as a religio-historical phenomenon - is a controversial issue. On the
basis of cosmogonic motifs in Slavic folklore, some scholars believe that the
concept of a dualistic origin of the world was already present in pre-Christian
Slavic tradition. These beliefs are linked, on the one hand, to postulates
emerging from the study of comparative mythology and linguistics and, on the
other, to the assumption that the Slavs had worshiped two opposing deities of
good and evil: a white god, called Bielbog, and a black god, named Chernebog.
While acknowledging the presence of some fundamental dualistic concepts in
the pre-Christian Slavic tradition, one nevertheless feels uneasy with the
sweeping generalizations that have elevated Bielbog and Chernebog to a
central position in the sphere of Slavic religious beliefs without a clear
statement on the
etat de question
concerning these controversial Slavic
deities.
1
Manifestations of Slavic cosmogonic dualism have been generally
attributed in the past to Bogomil-Manichean influences
2
or, as in the case of
Bielbog-Cherne bog, to an
interpretatio Christiana.
3
That this dualism may
have been present in pre-Christian Slavic beliefs, inherited from a more
remote past, was first categorically denied by V. N. Mochul'skii
4
and later by
all positivist Slavic scholars (including A. Bruckner, L. Niederle, J. Macha!,
E. Wienecke, B. Unbegaun, and more recently, P. Nedo and H. Lowmiailski).5
Other scholars (notably, R. Jakobson, M. Gimbutas, A. Gieysztor, and Z.
Vana)6 assume that the remnants of dualistic myths and concepts in Slavic
folklore reflect either a direct Iranian or a still more ancient Indo-European
heritage. A. M. Zolotarev and Mircea Eliade examined the distribution of the
earth diver myth, concluding that the dualism inherent in this originally non-
dualistic motif shows expansive Euroasian parallels and cannot, therefore, be
explained among the Slavs solely on the basis of Bogomil influences.
7
Zolotarev found, for example, that the binary opposition Perun-Veles and the
polar opposition Bielbog-Chernebog had served as operative principles in the
ancient dual structure of the Slavic religious system.
8
Following the theses of
Zolotarev, Eliade, and Levi-Strauss on the structure of dual organizations
(and of Dumezil's neo-comparative tripartite model of Indo-European
consciousness), V. V. Ivanov and V. N. Toporov have applied a model-forming
semiotic analysis to the reconstruction of Slavic religious concepts. On the
basis of Helmold's reference to Chernebog and to
a good god
in his twelfth
century
Chronica Slavorum
(as well as a possible relationship of Chernebog to
Chernoglav (Tjarnoglofi) in the thirteenth century
Knytlinga saga),
these
scholars have elevated Chernebog and, by analogy, Bielbog, to the primary
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Myroslava T. Znayenko
religious system (I-RS) of Slavic beliefs.9 A. Gieysztor, whose work on Slavic
mythology is the finest example of contemporary syncretic scholarship,
accepts essentially the I vanov-Toporov model but views the two images not as
full personifications but only as ancient hypostases of good and evi1.
10
As a
result of these studies and of her own extensive work in archeology and
comparative religions, M. Gimbutas has recently put forth a challenging new
hypothesis about three divine archetypes of the Indo-European religious
tradition represented in the Slavic pantheon: the god of heavenly light, the
god of death and the underworld, and the thunder god. She believes that "the
god of heavenly light, also known as the white god, and the god of death and
the underworld, also known as the black god, form a fundamental polarity in
the Slavic religious tradition."ll
This brief introduction alerts us to the significance of the Bielbog-
Cherne bog issue, for these two deities continue to perform a major role in the
formulation of postulates, not only about the nature of Slavic dualism but
about the entire system of Slavic early beliefs.
Our investigation represents a modest historiographic attempt to review,
clarify, and add to the sources instrumental in both the acceptance and denial
of Chernebog and Bielbog as legitimate Slavic deities. We hope to show that a
reassessment of source material is never a closed issue but rather a valid
exercise that can help scholars formulate new hypotheses.
The only reliable source on the worship of Cherne bog and of an opposing
nameless
"good god" among the Slavs remains Helmold's
Chronica Slavorum.
Since Helmold wrote between
1164-1168,
and the last bastion of West Slavic
paganism at Arkona was destroyed in
1168,
his knowledge about Slavic
pagans and their worship may be considered reasonably reliable. Helmold's
famous statement that gave rise to the entire concept of Slavic dualism reads
as follows:
There exists among the Slavs a strange delusion. At their feasts and
carousals they pass around a drinking bowl over which they utter words,
not of consecration but of execration, in the name of the gods - of the good
one, as well as of the bad one - professing that all propitious fortune is
arranged by the good god, ad verse, by the bad god. This is why in their
language they call the bad god Diabol or Zcerneboch, which means the
black god.
(Est autem Slavorum mirabilis error; nam in conviis et
compotacionibus suis pateram circumferunt, in quam conferunt, non
dicam consecracionis, sed execracionis verba sub nomina deorum, boni
scilicet atque mali, omnem prosperam fortunam a bono deo, adversam a
malo dirigi profitentes. Unde etiam malum deum lingua sua Diabol sive
Zcerneboch
/
other Ms.
Zcerneboth
/
id est nigrum deum, appelant.)12
Admittedly, Helmold's identification of the evil god as
Diabol
or
Zcerneboch
in contrast to a nameless good god carries certain Christian
178
On the Concept of Chernebog and Bielbog in Slavic Mythology
overtones, as does his other assertion that the Slavs after their initial
conversion, lapsed into an error "worse" than paganism, for they began to
worship St. Vitus as Svantevit, a "god of godS."13 Considering these
assertions, we could assume that just as Svantevit may be for Helmold only a
personification of St. Vitus, Chernebog may personify for him only the
Christian devil while the unnamed good god represents the Christian god.
However, this would not explain why Helmold appears to be genuinely
perplexed rather than shocked (as he had been in the case of St. Vitus-
Svantevit) by the Slavs' "strange delusion" of invoking with words of
execration
both
a good and an evil god (believed to be the same as the devil).
Since Helmold offers no explanation of this paradox, we would be justified by
saying that he views the worship of these two deities as a phenomenon beyond
his comprehension.
It
is true that prior to the intensified revival of Slavic paganism under
Pribislav and Niclot, Christian concepts had already spread among the Slavs
and a church dedicated to St. Vitus had been built in ninth century Rugia.
The building of churches on the sites of pagan sanctuaries, often dedicated to a
saint similar in name or in function to that of a pagan god, was one of the most
effective practices employed by the Church in eradicating traces of pagan
worship.14 Thus in regard to Svantevit even most of the positivist scholars
have ceased to apply an
interpretatio Christiana,
accepting his existence as an
ancient Slavic deity. We believe that the time has come to grant the same
privilege to Cherne bog, especially since the rite surrounding his worship is
clearly pagan and we see no reason why Helmold should have invented the
name. The polar semantic opposition in the internal structure of the god's
name, on the basis of which some scholars have argued against his existence,
can also favor the hypothesis for his ancient origin. For, if the Slavs did
participate in the Iranian evolution into a clear-cut dualism, as Jakobson
firmly believes,15 they may have relegated a once good deity to the position of
a dark and evil one (along the lines of the Slavo-Iranian evolution of Deiwos-
Daewa-Div). The word could also be a taboo name for an ancient khtonic
deity, in which case the god's color need not have had a moral connotation,
signifying simply a god of the underworld or a daemonic being. 16 Finally, the
name's second component, "bog," which according to Ivanov and Toporov on
the Proto-Slavic and Indo·-Iranian level meant not only a deity but also a
distributor of fates (dolia-nedolia) and good or bad fortune (schast'e-
neschast'e), does point to the direct dual nature of Slavic religious concepts. 17
The term Bielbog represents a more complex issue, for it is not attested by
any primary source. Yet since the Renaissance, first the German chroniclers
and then Slavic mythographers, beginning with Tatishchev and Chulkov,18
included both Bielbog and Chernebog in all expositions on Slavic mythology.
Only toward the end of the nineteenth century did scholars begin to question
Bielbog's existence, simultaneously doubting the credibility of Helmold's data
onChernebog. 19 In 1903, W. Nehring published a concise scholarly article on
the name of Bielbog in Slavic mythology, tracing its origin to the
Historia
179
Myrosla va T. Znayenko
Camenensis,
a work dating from the first half of the seventeenth century.
Having investigated
Historia's
sources and finding no references to Bielbog in
these works, Nehring concluded that the compiler of the
Historia
had
invented the name on the basis of Helmold's "good god."20
Nehring's categorical claim that the earliest historians of Pomerania had
known nothing about Bielbog led all of the later positivist scholars, but
especially Wienecke and Nedo,21 to view not only Bielbog but the entire
question of pre-Christian Slavic dualism as a closed issue.
Today Nehring's strongest argument against Bielbog, the fact that his
name was unknown to early Pomeranian historians, is no longer valid. For
we are able to show that at least two early Pomeranian works, S. Munster's
Cosmographiae
and T. Kantzow's
Chronic von Pommern,
are familiar with
Bielbog, while in his
Grosse Pommerische Kirchen Chronicon
D. Cramer
(1568-1637), discussing the founding of the Belbig Monastery near Treptow,
uses a mythological reference which may be implying Belbug's existence. 22
Sebastian Munster's
Cosmographiae
(Ms. 1550), was first published in
1554. As his source on Rugia, Munster cites Petrus Artopoaeus Pomeranos
(Peter Becker, 1491-1564), the learned protestant pastor of Stettin who had
compiled for him the map of Pomerania. 23 We find in a concise passage of the
Cosmographiae
a description of the annual harvest rite associated with the
worship of Svantevit (based, in our opinion, on Saxo Grammaticus'
Gesta
Danorum,
published in 1514), followed by this statement:
In general they
Ii.
e. the Rugian Slavs/ worshipped two gods, namely
Belbuck and Zernebuck, as if a white and black god, a good and evil genius,
god and satan, as the source of good and evil, according to the error of the
Manicheans.
(Vulgo autem duos deos coluerunt, nempe Belbuck
&
Zernebuck, quasi
album
&
nigrum deum, bonum
&
malum genium, deum
&
satanam, quasi
boni
&
mali authores, iuxta Manichaerum errorem.)24
In relation to the immediately preceeding description of Svantevit's rite,
this passage seems to imply that while the Slavs at harvest time honored
especially Svantevit, "in general" they worshipped primarily the two deities
of good and evil. There is something appealing about this measured and
unemotional narration. In contrast to Helmold (and, as we shall show below,
to Kantzow), the author does not view the two deities as distributors of good
and ill fortune. His interpretation of the two gods in both Christian and
Classical terms is obviously that of a learned scholar, a careful man interested
in presenting Slavic paganism in the most objective terms. Why is Petrus
Artopoaeus, who must be responsible for this passage, thinking of the
Manichean error? Is it because he knows Helmold and believes that Helmold
had intended the Manichean parallel; is it because to a man soon to be accused
of Ossiandreism and forced to explain his own "error" to a Council the idea of
Slavic "pagan Manicheans" is particularly appealing; or is it, finally, because
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