In this episode:
-> on the cohesion and stability in time of the Slavic language and culture
-> why the stories the moder West tells you are BS
-> why any aspiring Slavic Pagan should reject the BS moder narration
-> what did pre-Christian Pagan Slavs fight for
-> why you should focus on making your family stronger and healthier
Transcript below
Hello.
Hello everyone. Welcome in the 6th episode of the 2nd season of Searching for the Slavic Soul. I am really excited about today’s episode, because today we will be finally getting out of the home and family milieu, and we will start doing what our pre-Christian pagan ancestors did best, which is to go out there, in the world, and see what istina has to offer.
I am not going to lie to you – the ability of pagan Slavs to spread across much of Europe and into Asia while preserving the ethnolinguistic and cultural cohesion is something that I have always found absolutely mind-blowing. Just recently I was reading a textbook of Slavic philology and there was a picture of one page of Freising manuscripts, with transliteration, obviously, because the handwriting of early Medieval monks is only marginally easier to read than my own handwriting. So, to make clear here – for the reading purposes I looked at the transliteration, not at the manuscript itself, because, despite all my interest in early Medieval history, palaeography is not something in which I have much interest, let alone skills.
But never mind, I was talking about Freising manuscripts, where there is written, in Latin alphabet, the oldest surviving text in the Slavic language. The text was written down in the 8th century, but the Freising manuscripts are a 10th-century copy of the original text.
So, the text is written in a Slavic dialect of Carinthia or Pannonia, in an alphabet that did not have enough letters to write down all the Slavic vowels and consonants. Because, just in case you are not aware, early Slavic dialects had 1 more vowel phonemes and 4 more consonants phonemes compared to Latin, which, obviously, was a huge problem when one wanted to write down any Slavic language in Latin. BTW, if you are curious, modern Polish has 3 less vowel phonemes than the early Slavic language had but has 6 more consonant phonemes – a total of 31 – which is why Polish is so difficult to pronounce. Still, Polish is not the most consonant rich of Slavic languages. The record goes to Belarusian, which has a whooping 39 consonant phonemes. Which is absolutely crazy.
But I am not talking linguistics today. I am talking about how mind-blowing cultural... No… actually I was talking about the Freising manuscripts… Give me a moment, let me just retrace my steps…
8th century Slavic dialect copied to the 10th century manuscript. Yeah, so the person who was attempting to write down the Slavic dialect did not have enough letters in Latin alphabet to write down all the sounds of the Slavic dialect. On top of it, the person who wrote down the Slavic phrases, as it is strongly suspected, wasn’t a native Slavic speaker, but was a native speaker of Old High German. And despite all of that, I, in the year of 2025, nearly 1300 years after the Slavic dialect was written down, I can still understand most of it, although not all. What more, my daughter, despite knowing only Polish, also could understand some of it. My friend, who’s Russian and whom I showed the transliteration of the Freising manuscripts, also could understand a lot of it, however, what is interesting, she found the transliteration by a Russian linguist Aleksandr Isaczenko easier, while for me and my daughter it was easier to understand the transliteration by Slovene linguists Fran Ramovš and Milko Kos. But, still, each one of us was able to understand some of the 8th century Slavic dialect. Which just comes to show how astonishing is the cohesion and strength of the Slavic language and how unbreakable are our bonds with our Slavic ancestors – through language and through culture. And this is why I taught my daughter Polish. To give her the gift of a connection with the generations of Slavs, going back – as in this example – 13 centuries, but really, so much further than that.
So, this is what pre-Christian Pagan Slavs had. The culture and the language that allowed them to codify coherence and a reliable, replicable way of exploring the world, making it theirs and building a lasting heritage for the next generations. And this is why I am besotted with Slavic Paganism. I want to have what my ancestors had: the ability to thrive when facing new and unexplored, while remaining – even if only through language or spiritually – connected to the very heart and soul of the place that the first Slavs called home.
And now. In a culture that has no written language – such as the pre-Christian Slavic culture -- the vehicle of the cultural memory, the very thing that codifies and replicates the cultural coherence, are the stories the culture tells. And that is not a statement I just made up and pulled out of the ceiling. That is a well-recognised fact of cultural anthropology. And this is why today we will be talking about the stories the post-modern, Western culture tells you, the stories you believe to be true and how they relate to the stories our pagan ancestors were telling each other.
I must start with the caveat, that the original, postmodern theory, as articulated in, say, “The Postmodern Condition” by Lyotard, rejects all narratives, all stories, claiming that it’s all made up and none of it is true. However, building on that, the post-postmodern… let’s call them writers, since they can’t possibly be called thinkers, as all the stuff they created is just one big, stupid, thoughtless nonsense. But these not-thinking creators of post-postmodern doctrine did create a lot of stories, such as the story of bad colonialism and how evil it is for one culture to impose on another culture and how it is a duty of any good leftist to rescue the poor oppressed minorities that are being exploited by the West.
So, believe it or not, in the year of 1863 a group of Polish leftists and progressives, who were students and young intellectuals, rich and some of them even aristocratic, they also came to conclusion that they must rescue the poor oppressed minorities that were being exploited by the – in this case -- East. For them, the oppressed minorities were Ukrainian serfs and the rescue they wanted to provide to them was freedom, equality of rights and free land that the serfs were supposed to get from the Russian Empire. The difference between the Polish progressive left in the XIX century and the modern progressive left, was that the Polish progressives wanted the Ukrainian serfs to ally with Polish insurrection against the Russian Empire, while the modern, western progressives just want to feel good about themselves, because they are brainwashed and have nothing else in life to feel good about. But other than that, it’s the same story: the Western progressives are coming to rescue the poor serfs, oppressed by the Empire.
But you know what Ukrainian serfs did with the Polish progressives? They killed them. To be precise: they lynched them. On the 9th of May of 1863, 21 Polish progressives arrived in the village of Sołowijówka and started to explain to the Ukrainian serfs that they, hereby are free and equal in rights and they will even get free land, if they only stand up to the oppressive Russian Empire. They even showed them a golden writ, which was called Złota Hramota, and where there was written in golden letters that everything that the – as you would call them now – white saviours – that everything they were saying is true.
And, really, calling the XIX century Polish leftists the white saviours is not entirely inaccurate, as the skin of the Ukrainian serfs was, like the skin of any farmers, likely weathered by sun and wind, while the skin of the progressive Polish urbanites was likely as white as skin of any highly educated member of the white elites, back then and nowadays.
An now, of course, neither the Polish progressive lefties, nor the Ukrainian serfs were officially pagan, but the Ukrainian serfs, like any Slavic serfs, were only superficially Christianised and preserved a lot of pagan traditions, including the pagan approach to a bunch of foreigners with golden writs and promises pulled out of a hat.
So, my lovelies, stop trying to save the world. Firstly – the world does not need to be saved. The Ukrainian serfs, as all of the people who you call oppressed, might not live the life you want them to live, but it is their life and they do not need some overeducated moron to tell them what to do with it. What more, they know something, you, in the depth of your delusion, refuse to see. Noone, nowhere and for no reason wants to help anyone out of the goodness of their heart and with no selfish motives. For the Polish leftist in the XIX century, the motives were to agitate against Russian Empire. For you, the modern lefties of the West, the motive is virtue signalling, so you can score points in the internal fight of the elites, which is beautiful explained by Musa al-Gharbi, a leftists and a progressive who wrote a book We Have Never Been Woke, in which he explained, step by step, how elites use all the woke BS slogans to ensure own advancement within the elites.
BTW, the Ukrainian serfs did see through the lies of Polish lefties, but they failed to see through the lies of the Russian lefties, when the Bolsheviks offered them the same deal that the Polish lefties wanted to persuade them to take. And you know what was the result of this bad judgement of Ukrainian serfs? Hołodomor. A massive famine in Ukraine induced by Stalin on purpose. Noone knows exactly how many people died in Hołodomor, but it was millions. The West knew about it, and it not only remained silent, but it willingly covered it up. There was even an article about it, published in the New York Times, The article was titled “Russians Hungry, But Not Starving.” Of course, they were not Russians, but Ukrainians. And they were not hungry, but literally starving, because Stalin ordered all the food in the Ukraine to be taken away. I will link up to a short video about Hołodomor in the notes for this episode in case you want to know more.
But, as to why you should stop trying to save the world, the second reason is that, if you want to follow the Slavic pagan way, you leave alone the world and take care of your family. And once your family is taken care of, you might consider taking care or just helping out your neighbours. No pagan Slav ever was even remotely interested in helping or freeing or rescuing anyone outside of his or her own family or, at the most – tribe. And if you don’t believe me, let me refer you to the speech of Dobręta, the leader of Slavic tribes in Dacia, who in the 2nd half of the VI century told the emissaries of khagan Bayan, the ruler of Pannonian Avars: “No one has yet been born or appeared under the sun who could tame our power; we are accustomed to ruling over other people’s lands, not to having others rule over ours; and we are certain of this as long as war and swords exist.” After hearing that, the khagan’s emissaries expressed – apparently in no uncertain terms – doubts in the might of Slavic wariors, so Slavic warriors just slaughtered them.
And since we on the topic of the Slavs and the Pannonian Avars, I really should mention that khagan Bayan actually did manage to conquer a few Slavic tribes in Pannonia. And you know what the Slavic tribes from Dacia did about it? Absolutely nothing. And you know why? Because no pagan Slav ever was even remotely interested in helping or freeing or rescuing anyone outside of his or her own family or, at the most – tribe. And the Slavs in Pannonia were different tribes than the Slavs in Dacia, hence there was no helping, no freeing, and no rescuing. Do remember that next time when you’ll be considering standing up for some random people somewhere on the other side of the world. Indiscriminately caring for random strangers is a Christian thing to do. It is not and never has been a Slavic Pagan thing.
And, for the record, the same applies to all this pan-Slavic dimwits, who call for all the Slavs to unite be like brothers, or some other Marxist bullshit. I have spoken about it at length in the 5th episode of the 1st season, to which I will link up in the comments, and here only note that Slavs were never and will never be united, because that’s the nature of the Slavs in general and pagan Slavs in particular.
So, another story you sunshines are telling yourselves, particularly if you are in North America, is that you are some sort of illegitimate inhabitants of the land on which you live and for this reason you owe some apologies or acknowledgement or even reparation to the people who, as you claim, you invaded. And now. Firstly: you have not invaded anyone. I bet you wouldn’t even know where to start invading anyone, or anything, including your own room. Your ancestors knew how to invade places, which is the reason why you are alive. But you got yourself brainwashed, rejected the heritage of your bloodline, and turned into delusional snowflakes who think that good life comes to those, who give up and not to those who fight for it.
And secondly: as you have heard from the Slavic leader Dobręta, invading is what pagan Slavs do. How do you think early Medieval Slavs managed to get from their cradle somewhere between Vistula and Dnieper rivers, to the Elbe and Saale rivers on the West, Baltic sea and the Gulf of Finland on the North, Ural Mountains on the East and Balkan Peninsula and the Black Sea on the South? How do you think such expansion happens? Peacefully? If you think such expansion could be peaceful, there is something seriously wrong with you and you need to address your delusion. Pagan Slavs were warriors as much as they were farmers. They were invaders as much as they were protectors of their family and their land. The only apologies Slavic pagans gave were to their own people for failing them. They never paid any reparations to anyone. If they paid money, it was a tribute to the warriors who conquered them. If they conquered some other people, they were taking the wealth of the people they conquered. Because pagan Slavs knew something that was obvious to the whole world only like 5 minutes ago: that if something is worth having you need to protect it, otherwise, someone else comes and will take it from you. And if you can’t protect what you have, you do not deserve to have it. I spoke about it at length in the 21st episode of the first season of Searching for the Slavic Soul, so go and listen, if you want to know more.
But, contrary to the story of your ancestors, not only pagan and Slavic, but literally, all of them, you reject the story of protecting that, which is worth having. The story you tell yourself is a completely different one: you tell a story of poor, innocent and peaceful indigenous people, who were brutally conquered by your ancestors and hence you owe the descendants of this poor, innocent and peaceful indigenous people some reparation. So, let’s just break it down, shall we?
No indigenous people ever were peaceful or innocent. Before the mid XX century not a single group of peaceful and innocent people ever made it past the 2nd generation. Because humans are not a peaceful and innocent species. The Aztecs, the indigenous people of the land that’s currently called Mexico, were so brutal and so oppressive, that ruled by them tribes willingly allied with Hernán Cortés, to get rid of the oppressive rule of the Aztecs. In the XVII century, in the Great Lakes region, due to intertribal competition for control of trade routes and hunting territories, several tribes were either nearly or completely wiped off the face of the planet. What’s worth mentioning, as you call them, innocent and peaceful indigenous people, allied with the French, English and Dutch to help them decimate other tribes of innocent and peaceful indigenous people.
So, humans are not a peaceful and innocent species. Actually, nothing in nature is peaceful and innocent. If you don’t believe me, compare the lifespan and mortality of animals in the wild and animals in captivity. Before the West got so rich that it was able to ensure lasting peace in Europe or North America, no living being ever could afford to live peacefully, without hurting anyone, invading anyone, without stealing, cheating, murdering and very frequently dying in the process of trying to get ahead in life. And the process of trying to get ahead in life is what every living being does. This is the most basic, most fundamental meaning of life. This is why our pagan Slavic ancestors gave up the fight agains Christianity – because they fought, fought fought and fought for centuries and then they realised that the fight can’t be won. So, they gave up. They watched churches being put where their holy groves and their temples used to be, they allowed themselves to be baptised – to keep on living. To keep on trying to get ahead. And, you know, it took some time, a few generations and centuries, but they did make it – in us, the modern Rodnovers. We are now fighting back. We are finding every bit of our pagan heritage, preserved for us by our ancestors, and we are getting back, what taken from our ancestors, with the sole purpose of giving it to our descendants. So they can get ahead in life.
And then, there’s you. Giving away resources that could sustain you and your descendants. Because you believed in a stupid story of… how do they call it… historical injustice? It’s not injustice. It’s life, sunshine. You lose some, you win some. And you consider yourself blessed if at the end of it you are still standing, and your children are standing next to you. This is the Slavic way.
And then, you have the historical fact that, with exception of Russians, Slavs did not colonise America. There were some Polish and Slovak craftsmen that arrived in Jamestown with the 2nd supply mission in 1608. As you know, by 1610 they were all dead. The main waves of Slavic migration to America took place at the end of the XIX century and pretty much all Slavs stayed in cities and industrial areas and – you guessed it – were trying to get ahead. As to Russians – yes, they did colonise Alaska, starting in 1741 with the Second Kamchatka Expedition led by a Dane Vitus Bering and a Russian Alexei Chirikov. And you know what Russians did to the indigenous people of Alaska? They did to them the same, they did to the indigenous people of Russia: they made them serfs. It is not fair – sure, but was it fair to the people of Russia, Ukraine, or Poland to be serfs? No, it wasn’t. But who cares. Life is not fair. And yet, somehow, you do not want to pay reparation to the descendants of Russian, Ukrainian and Polish serfs, who had everything taken away from them, just so the Russian Tsar can pay for a Dane and a bunch of Russian to go and explore Alaska. Should the Russian Tsar pay them reparation? Well, maybe the Tsar should, but he is dead. And so is his whole family. The Bolsheviks killed them, following the order given by Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, aka Lenin. And then the Bolsheviks took all the Tsar’s wealth, estimated in modern terms at around $55 billion, which included the wealth taken away from generations of indigenous people of Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and Alaska. And you know what Bolsheviks did with this wealth? Did they pay reparation? Did they distribute it among the most needing? Of course they didn’t. They used it to pay off their debts and to support international communist activities. They sold a lot abroad, often at undervalued prices, because they needed money so badly. A lot of it was lost to theft, smuggling, or incomplete inventories. And then Nazi stole some of it. That, of course, after slaughtering more indigenous people of Poland, Ukraine, and Russia, who stood in their way to the treasure. But, according to the stories you tell yourself, it’s all ok, because the indigenous people of Poland, Ukraine, and Russia are white and in your woke bubbles of delusion you do not get points for caring about white people, right? And then, after clearly dividing indigenous people into more and less worthy, basing exclusively on the colour of their skin, you stupid morons claim that you are not racists.
So, those are the stories you tell yourselves. That you are virtuous because you give away the future of your family. That you a good person because you – like any good old racists – consider people less worthy, just because of their skin colour. That you are brave because you reject the most basic, most fundamental meaning of life – which, to make yourself feel better, you call historical injustice. And then, you go on and call yourself a follower of Slavic Native Faith. I mean, how moronic is that?
And now, the stories you tell yourself matter. Especially if you want to follow Slavic Native Faith. Because the whole Slavic Native Faith is based on stories, that were passed through generations, from the last openly Pagan Slavs to us – either by blood or spiritually – the descendants of the last openly Pagan Slavs. Some of the stories were written down by medieval chroniclers for example and typically terribly distorted. But some of the stories were not written down until the XIX or even XX centuries. They were just told, by parents, neighbours, older siblings or by wandering beggars, called in the Slavic tradition dziady. These stories were also enacted. Not on a scene in a theatre, but in life, in the way of living. And if you read the first translation published on Witia’s Substack, you will learn that being able to provide for yourself, not being a burden to you family, was in fact a duty of a family member. It was a duty understood and fulfilled by all family members, including the parents and their children. This is why sons, who for reason of, say, disability, could not contribute to providing for their family, were send off to become dziady – wandering beggars. And no one disputed it. Noone thought it was unfair. On the other hand, in, say, byliny, which are Russian epic poems, which originate from the times of Kievan Ruś, but were only written down in, I think, XVII or XVIII century. So, in byliny, Wołch Wsiesławiewicz, a relative of kniaź Vladimir the Great, when he met, Mikuła Sielaninowicz, he was travelling to the towns that he owned, to collect from this towns yearly tribute. Such a mean capitalist he was, this Wołch Wsiesławiewicz. He oppressed his people. Would you believe that?
Another hero of byliny, Ilja Muromiec, asked 12 other богатыри, which is how the heroes are called in byliny. So, Ilia Muromiec asked 12 heroes of Russia to help him to save Kiev from invasion of tsar Kalin and his Golden Horde of Mongols. And you know what the 12 heroes did? They refused. And you know why they refused? Samson, the godfather of Ilia explained that they refused, because kniaź Vadimir, the ruler of Kiev “has many princes and nobles, and he gives them food and drink and rewards them. Nothing have we from Prince Vladimir.” If you’re from the West and have the western, Christianised and individualised point of view, you might think that the 12 богатыри wanted to get paid. But you would be wrong. Because, as we know from other sources – for example from excerpts of Ibrahim ibn Yaqub’s memoirs and commentaries included in Al-Bakri’s Book of Highways and of Kingdoms, that Mieszko I, the last – initially pagan, then baptised ruler of Poland, treated the member of his drużyna, so his retinue, like a father would treat his sons. He provided the members of his drużyna with clothing, food, drink, horses and also paid the wedding gifts for their children. And in exchange the members of drużyna contributed to providing safety for their family and the family of Mieszko I. So, basically, drużyna operated like a family, with Mieszko I as the father-figure, the head of the family. In byliny it is also clear, that Vladimir the Great treated his retinue, his princes, and nobles as his sons. He provided for them and rewarded them. But he did not do that for the 12 heroes, whom Ilja Muromiec asked for help, so the 12 heroes had no reason to risk his life for Kyiv and the cause of Vladimir the Great.
And… I am going to stop here, because, as usually, I am already talking too much. We will pick up where we left in the next episode, which will be out on the 1st of December. And then we will definitely get to the Slavic Gods and how you should relate to Them as a Slavic Pagan.
Your homework will be to identify any stories in your life that are not related to making your family healthier and stronger. Anything you tell yourself about saving the world or achieving social justice or correcting historical injustice or any other shit – just reject it fully and entirely. It is all BS and has nothing to do with the Slavic pagan way of life. Focus on your family – their roots and their future branches. Are you strong enough to support future generation? If not – build yourself up, so you have resources: spiritual like the strength of character, mental like sound judgement, physical like health and resilience and material resources as well, so you can support your family in the times of need. Disregard any distraction, ignore other causes, other people, all the allegedly just callings. And also disregard your own, so called, wellbeing. If remaining well means abandoning your family, reject remaining well and instead give your family every last nit of strength you have. And you know what will happen when you do that – you will find more strength. It will be the strength of your blood, the strength of your ancestors, it will be the strength of your Slavic soul waking up and fighting for what’s really important.
And for now – thank you for listening and until next time.
Sława
Bibliography:
T. Łabuszewski, K. Krajewski, Powstanie Styczniowe w prasie konspiracyjnej 1939-1944
R.F. Barkowski, Bitwy Słowian
D. Frisby, The Secret History of Gold
M. C. Harrison, Byliny Book: Hero Tales of Russia
Monumenta Poloniae Historica series II, t. I,
Links:
We Have Never Been Woke by Musa al-Gharbi
https://musaalgharbi.com/paperback-edition-we-have-never-been-woke/
Hołodomor
https://youtu.be/33aUCO-KAn4?si=o1hODKjp6Hqnk-Q4
E9S1 (conflicts and disagreements between Slavs)
https://witia.substack.com/p/episode-5-lets-argue-a6e
E21S1 (why you don’t deserve to have stuff you can’t defend)
https://witia.substack.com/p/episode-21-the-wars-of-slavs-949
Translation of a conversation about dziady
https://witia.substack.com/p/dziady-in-the-spring-in-the-fall
