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South Slavs - Christian instead of pagan?

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Well the coastal towns and coastal lands near the cities would have been Christian in Dalmatia, The Dalmatians most of whom had fled to the coast were after all Christians aligned with Rome, even producing a pope, john the forth who opened relations with the Croats and sent missionaries to them and apparently the Croats in Dalmatia converted more quickly compared to the other Croats especially the noncoastal Croats who seemed to have taken the longest to convert.
 
l0rdg4m3r said:
Anyway this took me 15 mins of free time to do, I wonder what a paying employee can do in his job time :D
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The thing is, you used the native Wiki, which (logically) has a lot more about the Christianisation of Croatia.
In that same vein, if you go to the "Pokrštavanje Slovena/Покрштавање Словена" (Christianisation of the Slavs) page on the Serbian Wiki, you'll find Cyril and Methodius' missions in Serbia, Bulgaria and Moravia (I have the book from which the "Mission to Serbia" part is sourced, by the way, and according to it, the Serbs should only just start converting to Christianity in 867), but if you click English on the language bar at the side, you'll get to "Early Slavs#Religion" on the English Wiki.
 
SBolshevik said:
The thing is, you used the native Wiki, which (logically) has a lot more about the Christianisation of Croatia.
In that same vein, if you go to the "Pokrštavanje Slovena/Покрштавање Словена" (Christianisation of the Slavs) page on the Serbian Wiki, you'll find Cyril and Methodius' missions in Serbia, Bulgaria and Moravia (I have the book from which the "Mission to Serbia" part is sourced, by the way, and according to it, the Serbs should only just start converting to Christianity in 867), but if you click English on the language bar at the side, you'll get to "Early Slavs#Religion" on the English Wiki.
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I would be happy to translate it word by word, if it meant someone would use the translation, but i have doubts anyone would use it :p
 
EldarPanic said:
And the rulers of the Balkans how should they be?
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The Serbian duke, be it Vojislav or perhaps better his fictious father (we don't know his name), should very much be pagan. The first signs of christianization in the family come with the adoption of Christian names in the late 9th century (coinciding with the Cyril-Methodus mission) - Vlastimir's son Stephen and Bran's son Paul the latter of which reigned Serbia in the 920s).
 
LACKADAISICAL said:
So should most of the Balkans be Tengri, or were the Serbians and Croats closer to Slavic pagans?
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Slavic pagan only. Hell i don't even think Bulgarians were Tengri, but that i'm not sure of.
 
LACKADAISICAL said:
So should most of the Balkans be Tengri, or were the Serbians and Croats closer to Slavic pagans?
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Okay, I have to be honest, you don't know much about South Slavs. :p
Serbs and Croats are "pure" Slavs, so to speak, and their faith should be Slavic pagan, except, as mentioned, on the coast of Dalmatia.
The Bulgarians came into being as a mix between the Bulgars and the Slavs who lived in the area of Bulgaria, so the aristocracy should be Bulgar/Tengri, and the provinces should be Bulgarian/Slavic. It isn't ideal, with the name Bulgarian being anachronistic as hell for 769, but it's the best option we have if PDS don't change the cultures there.
 
Yeah I know almost nothing about south slavs, lol. Only slightly better than my older relatives who still think Yugoslavia is a country

It seems weird to me that slavic paganism is this huge thing sprawling across the map though, when even the introduction of the Saxons made people suggest a new branch of norse paganism. Was there actually much similarity between the beliefs of pagans in the Balkans and pagans up north?
 
LACKADAISICAL said:
Yeah I know almost nothing about south slavs, lol. Only slightly better than my older relatives who still think Yugoslavia is a country

It seems weird to me that slavic paganism is this huge thing sprawling across the map though, when even the introduction of the Saxons made people suggest a new branch of norse paganism. Was there actually much similarity between the beliefs of pagans in the Balkans and pagans up north?
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Well, considering that the beliefs in some gods were really strangely spread (Svantevit being my example - Serbia in the Balkans and Rujan in Pomerania), so dividing them like that would require a crapload of new mechanics.
And if you divide them by East/West/south then it's ahistorical as hell and requires a new Slavic religion group.
 
LACKADAISICAL said:
Yeah I know almost nothing about south slavs, lol. Only slightly better than my older relatives who still think Yugoslavia is a country

It seems weird to me that slavic paganism is this huge thing sprawling across the map though, when even the introduction of the Saxons made people suggest a new branch of norse paganism. Was there actually much similarity between the beliefs of pagans in the Balkans and pagans up north?
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The problem is there is so little information on Slavic paganism we don't know how much or little it varied geographically.
 
I remember reading that some aspects of Slavic paganism were just made up after the fact by historians, too. Specifically, writers concluding that since Belobog (white god) exists Czernobog (black god) must exist too, even though there's no evidence that such a god existed (or maybe it was the other way around...)

I wonder why so little was recorded about Slavic paganism. Were the Slavs much quicker to condemn their pagan past, as opposed to the Norse who preserved pagan sagas centuries after christianization had begun?
 
Not really, I mean, to this day the cult of Svetovid remains in a Christian form in Serbia, with Saint Vitus' Day being an important holiday, despite Saint Vitus not being canonised in the SOC.
 
SBolshevik said:
Okay, I have to be honest, you don't know much about South Slavs. :p
Serbs and Croats are "pure" Slavs, so to speak, and their faith should be Slavic pagan, except, as mentioned, on the coast of Dalmatia.
The Bulgarians came into being as a mix between the Bulgars and the Slavs who lived in the area of Bulgaria, so the aristocracy should be Bulgar/Tengri, and the provinces should be Bulgarian/Slavic. It isn't ideal, with the name Bulgarian being anachronistic as hell for 769, but it's the best option we have if PDS don't change the cultures there.
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Some of the provinces should be Tengri, Bulgars were not so few, the new genetic research shows that.
 
Speaking of Dalmatia, weren't only the cities fully christian by that time? If we trust "De Administrando Imperio," there were 4 tribal states on the coast: Dioclea, Travunia, Hum, Pagania. If they were 'tribal' we should assume that most of the illyrian population retreated to the walled cities as the slavs advanced. I'd make those cities Byzantine or Venetian vassals while the provinces should be pagan.

Also, as far as organized lands go, the sources only mention the 2 Croatias,and a narrow Rashka (Serbia) bordering the 4 coastial principalities. Most of modern Bosnia, Serbia, and Macedonia lacked any organized rule.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/Map_of_the_Western_Balkans_around_814_AD.png
 
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Making new tribal titles would be best.
But we all know that PDS won't do that.
Especially not with the map being that crap.
 
LACKADAISICAL said:
I remember reading that some aspects of Slavic paganism were just made up after the fact by historians, too. Specifically, writers concluding that since Belobog (white god) exists Czernobog (black god) must exist too, even though there's no evidence that such a god existed (or maybe it was the other way around...)
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The slavs feared names so they gave numerous nicknames to deities. That's why it hard to figure out if the white and black gods were distinct or just different names of other gods. In Serbia and Polabia, nightly rituals were recorded: Amidst bonfires and torches, women would dance holding snakes, and afterwards, all would feast raising goblets to the god(s) of good and evil; to both bless oneself and curse the enemy.
Saxon scholars called it the cult of Czernobog since it was the only name uttered during the toast. He could be just an extension of Perun since his only known role is to collect souls.

Of Belobog, nothing is known for certain. He is mentioned as Byelun in some stories which could just be a corruption of Perun. If you look at toponyms in western slavic lands like Czech Republic, you can find 2 opposite hills named Belobog & Czernobog separated by a river. It is thought that they represent this world and the afterlife since rivers are seen the path to the underworld by slavs.

I've also heard that those gods represent Dualism, though it seems unlikely.
 
I'm curious, do we know how much of the pre-slavic populations remained in the area (on either side of the Jireček Line)? Did those populations convert to paganism, or remain Christian? To consider the example named previously, what was the faith of the (pre-?)Vlachs?
 
Guys, one of the Mods said that Pdox is looking into the Balkan Slavic situation.

Rejoice, your concerns have been heard.
 
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