Forced marriage is practiced among most peoples in the world. In some cultures, this tradition still exists today. Russians also had it, but due to certain circumstances our people had to abandon it.
Bride Kidnapping in Pagan Times
Alas, we know very little about the traditional beliefs of the Eastern Slavs. This is because this ancient culture did not have access to a written language, and therefore we have no original documents and memoirs that would have been written by the bearers of the living Old Russian pagan tradition. We know very little about antiquity and the customs of the people of that time, we know it from the few notes of Orthodox chroniclers. These texts were written centuries after the overthrow of Slavic icons, and their authors not only never personally participated in the ancient customs and rituals they described, but also vigorously repudiated and condemned them. In fact, ancient chroniclers did not have as their goal a fair and most accurate reflection of historical events, and moreover, they often did not elaborate in detail on what they described. Of course, especially in the details of pagan rituals that disappeared centuries ago. The words of Orthodox medieval scribes must be treated with great caution. However, they confirmed that the ancient Slavs did steal brides with enviable regularity. In particular, in the chronicles of the past, the following lines of condemnation appear.
"There were also Drevians... who kidnapped girls near the water's edge. And Radimichi, Vyatichi and Northerners... arranged games among the villages and gathered at these games, dances and various demonic songs On, here they conspired with them to kidnap their wives... Krivichi and other pagans who did not know the law kept the rules of God, but made the law for themselves."
According to the records of medieval monks, This custom is common in the warm seasons: they steal more often near the water, as well as on certain holidays from the goddess Radha to Ivan Kupala.
There is no doubt that such a tradition did exist, and from an ethnographic perspective it was a fairly common and typical phenomenon, but the details specified by the monks raise some questions. First, modern scientists have every reason to seriously doubt the existence of pagan female deities like Radha. Most likely, it occurs as a result of a communication error. Far from peasant traditions, priests heard the ancient refrain "Ladi-Ladi-Luli-Luli" at folk festivals and mistakenly believed that it contained some secret pagan message (although by the way, it was just a twisted Christian exclamation "Hallelujah"). The second questionable point concerns precisely the custom of stealing from bodies of water. Here, however, it is not the chronicler himself who is at fault but his interpreters. Apparently, he meant the word "withdrawal," but since the Old Russian text was written in the charter, i.e. because there were no spaces between the words, early scholars misread it as "by the water."
In general, the custom of bride-stealing is covered in a rather interesting topic, and at the same time, there is very little research on the role of women in pagan communities. Contrary to the fact that it is quite difficult to directly state anything about the pre-Christian antiquity of ancient Russia, it can be assumed that the fate of Russian women was not easy. It is known that the ancient Slavs practiced polygamy. And it is possible (not without some apprehensions) to draw analogies between the paganism of the Slavs and their closest relatives in the Indo-European family - the Polo Islands. The Baltic peoples were irreconcilable pagans (by the way, most of these peoples perished in the Middle Ages), and their pagan traditions, which had been forgotten by the end of the Middle Ages, were well known. So, for example, the ancient Prussians, who lived on the territory of the modern Kaliningrad region, treated women with contempt. Archaeologists are aware of the discovery of the cemetery of aristocratic Prussians, where the remains of all their wives were found, strangled and buried with their husbands.
It is also difficult to judge how pagan early medieval societies treated kidnapped brides.Probably tolerable, but not much encouragement. It is known that Prince Vladimir, also apostle, when he was still a pagan, forcibly married the Polotsk princess Rogneda Rogvoldovna, who had previously popularized her native stubbornness city of.
Bride Kidnapping in Christian Era
The oldest tradition of bride kidnapping survived long into pagan times. Along the way, however, she lost her underlying ritual content and became something universally condemned. This was due to the direct ban on Orthodox Christianity. However, this happens from time to time. Sometimes this is done by mutual agreement: the bride's parents are opposed to her chosen party, so the young person has to take such extreme steps, risking dishonoring their name and breaking their parents' hearts.
is not the most popular phenomenon in Russia, bride kidnapping is quite common in other areas where Slavs live. Czechs , Poles , Ukrainians therefore committed a crime. But this happened especially often among the Slavs of the southern Balkans. In addition, among Bulgarian people, the theft of the bride is also seen as symbolic. It is believed that such behavior contributes to a good harvest.
In the age of ethnographic modernity, ancient pagan practices have completely lost their status and are now considered a criminally punishable practice. The only evidence of a once widespread practice is the comical ritual of kidnapping the bride at her wedding in Russia.
