In Defense of P(io/e)run?

I have never been a fan of “Perun” as an “all-Suavic” God. The reason is simple. Outside of the Eastern Suavs of Kiev and the Balts (Perkunas), references to Perun are nonexistent. In Poland, you have Yassa who may be viewed the same as the titular Svantovit of Arkona. In some Western Suavic lands you have Svarozic. That much is attested. Of course, the Perun word comes form a Suavic (likely all the way back to PIE) word. Thus Piorun > Perun > Perkunas (Perku-nas?). But this is merely a word for an obviously unnerving atmospheric phenomenon. That the Suavs, like many other people, should associate thunder and lightning with a divinity is not surprising and perhaps even quite expected but there is a long way from that to having a “specialized” thunder God whose primary (and perhaps only) aspect is that thunder. That such a dedicated God of Thunder may have arisen among the Eastern Suavs even independent of any Scandinavian influence is naturally possible but, if so, there is no evidence of this God being worshipped among the other – western – Suavs (a better candidate there is Tyr/Taranus whose name seems to have survived in, for example, the Polish taran and perhaps also tija known from the statuta breviter).  I have also questioned whether the God found in the famous passage by Procopius was in fact Piorun/Perun or Someone Else (the maker of lightning – not thunder!) – specifically, “Jassa” that is Iasion. I have not, however, questioned the underlying truth of the passage, that is that the God mentioned by Procopius was a genuine Suavic God.

Let’s give that passage again (History of Wars, Book 7, 14):

“For they believe that one god, the maker of the lightning, is alone lord of all things, and they sacrifice to him cattle and all other victims.”

Now, however, here come Florin Curta and Bartłomiej Szymon Szmoniewski who in their “The Velestino Hoard” book make the following surprising statement:

“It is now generally accepted that, far from being a genuine description of Slavic religion, Procopius’ account is in fact an attempt to present Slavic paganism as comparable if not similar to Greek pagan mythology. The reference to the god of thunder is therefore to Zeus, not to Perun, who was unknown to both Procopius and the sixth-century Sclavenes he described in his Wars. See Aleksander Loma, ‘Procopius about the supreme god of the Slavs (Bella VII 14, 23): Two critical remarks…’ To Jerzy Strzelczyk… Perun was unknown to the Slavs before the tenth century, when Thor of the Norse mythology was introduced by Varangians to Rus. For a critique of attempts to ‘read’ into Procopius much later sources pertaining to the religion of the Slavs, see Judith Kalik and Alexander Uchitel, Slavic Gods and Heroes…” 

The prolific Curta – an archeologist and not a historian – has made his career out of asserting that the Byzantines “created” the Suavs. I’ve critiqued this bizarre suggestion on linguistic, historical and genetic grounds before (see here). Its worst sin, as discussed, is that it is merely a retread of the same deconstructionist theories circulated earlier about the Germans (that the Romans “created” the Germans in the same sense). All these theories make as much sense as claiming that humans created the “elephant identity” by calling these big eared creatures with their funny trunks by the name “elephants”.

What is interesting about the above passage, however, are the (once again given Curta’s involvement) exaggerated claims it makes.

If Curta and Szmoniewski were writing a Wikipedia entry, the Wikipedia editors would no doubt have met the assertion of “It is now generally accepted that…” with the notorious “[by whom?]”.

Presumably, the “general acceptance” of the fact that Procopius’ God was Zeus (!) is derived solely from Loma. The main problem and, shall we say, the quintessential one,  is that Loma says nothing of the sort. Here is the referenced article:

As you can see Loma makes no connection between the God mentioned by Procopius and Zeus.

Now Curta and Szmoniewski do not claim that they pulled this “the Christian Bishop Procopius is talking about Zeus” thing out of their asses. They could have done that but that’s not what they say.

No, no. They say that this proposition is a “generally accepted” proposition.

They then give one source (Loma who is a Serbian philologist) who, as it happens, does not support their “generally accepted” proposition but, in fact, says something else (his article is primarily concerned with the correct reading of the passage rather than its subsequent interpretation) and leave quite open the possibility that the reference is to Perun.

Although the authors cite the Polish historian Strzelczyk for an entirely different proposition (that Perun was Varangian in origin), I did not check whether he somehow could be used to salvage their initial claim.  Feel free to try that on your own.

As for Uchitel and Kalik, two Israeli academics of unrelated matters, the main value of their heavily negativistic booklet (much of it a retread of Brueckner’s own deconstructionist ideas) is the very timid criticism of Curta’s theories…

(Specifically, they say, ‘well, maybe Byzantines may have constructed the Slavic identity but surely someone spoke the Slavic language before that ‘construction’ happened so… where did those people live?’ Which seems a more than reasonable question to ask, even if ever so timidly.)

I am willing to assume this is not bad faith but merely extreme laziness in proofreading propelled by a heavy dose of wishful thinking on the part of the authors. On the other hand, given Curta’s other theories, one might say, enough is enough. Whatever the root cause, how does this crap get published? Don’t these guys have editors who would check their foonotes and challenge their assertions? Or do they just run this through a spell check and off to the printers we go.

Finally, to leave you with something more interesting to think about regarding “Zeus” and Piorun – check this out.

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