Abstract
The current system of Russian personal names contains Christian names of Greek and Latin origin, common to the European Christian culture. Under official atheistic ideology, the basic onomasticon did not undergo major changes. Russian personal names have not been represented in this set. The religious pluralism of modernity facilitates the emergence of neo-pagan groups opposite to the religion of the majority, Orthodoxy and Christianity. Participants and ideologists of such religious groups choose pseudonyms, which are primordial and pre-Christian. Thus, Christian multiculturalism is opposed to neo-pagan nationalism. This chapter discusses ‘theoretical onomastic’ views of neo-pagan figures and the name-giving practice in neo-pagan circles.
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Notes
- 1.
This state in Russian onomastics and, more broadly, in Russian language culture is obvious, so we limit ourselves to a brief statement without detailed references.
- 2.
In this paragraph we briefly rephrase Alabugina (1989: 22–29).
- 3.
The modern researcher F. Uspenskij (2017) states that the dual name could also be Christian.
- 4.
https://www.rodnovery.ru/novosti?layout=blog (accessed March 15, 2019).
- 5.
Except an author’s language in fiction books, of course.
- 6.
However, we note a curious direction in neo-paganism, largely based on a particular language: the well-known writer Pavel Bazhov (1878–1950) wrote his works in a language close to the language of folk poetics. Most of his works, in terms of genre, consists of the so-called skaz—imitation of the form of oral folklore and, more broadly, spoken language in general. These works became the basis of the neo-pagan Bazhov movement, “based on the skaz by P. P. Bazhov, read as religious texts” (Pyotr Mangilev 2002).
- 7.
The Thunderer of the Slavic Pantheon.
- 8.
The abbreviation of the Russian name of the organisation ‘Union of Slavic communities of Slavonic native faith’.
- 9.
https://www.rodnovery.ru/novosti/349-vstrecha-v-kolomenskom (accessed April 1, 2019), but the list it is also provided on some other neo-pagan websites.
- 10.
For comparison: one of the sections on the website, talking about the publication of a book on neo-paganism, provides data with the following format: “Responsible editors—Baykova Eugenia (Osoka), Shestopalova Julia (Milada)” (https://www.rodnovery.ru/novosti/231-novaya-kniga-slavyanskie-predaniya-skazki-i-bylichki, accessed April 1, 2019). The official names are given as primary ones, and the pagan names are given in parentheses. Thus, four of the pagan anthroponyms of our material are sure to be pseudonyms.
- 11.
- 12.
Here and further on the translations of names are given to show the main semantic orientation, although other interpretations similar in subject matter are possible.
- 13.
Prefixes pere-, meaning ‘very’, and svet ‘light’ (Petrovskij 1980: 178).
- 14.
Miroslav and Mirolub, as rare names, are noted in Petrovskij (1980: 159).
- 15.
See, for example, the advertisement about the courses of the Institute of Theology of the Academy of Russian North Traditions of the Slavic World (http://www.traditciya.ru/content/1880/, accessed April 1, 2019). This doctrine cannot be confirmed by means of historical data.
- 16.
Through Persian, from χudāi ‘God’ and yār ‘friend, beloved’ (Vasmer 1996: 400).
- 17.
Strictly speaking, a non-calendar name can be both pre-Christian and a name which was already established in the Christian era, for example from nicknames.
- 18.
See, for example, the etymological indication “in Old-Russian Lada which means ‘favourite’, ‘darling’. Lada is a pagan goddess of marriage and love” (Petrovskij 1980: 138, orig. Russian).
- 19.
It should be noted that, in terms of gender, feminine names make up only about 18% of our corpus.
- 20.
Milad is recorded especially in Gafurov (1987: 166).
- 21.
As the bearer of this pseudonym writes in his blog, “the last Iggel’d, but rather Iggeld that was known before me, is a chronicler Rus from the Treaty of Prince Igor with the Romans. And the first one that became known after me is the character of the work by Yuri Alexandrovich Nikitin, who used my name for his character” (https://yggeld.livejournal.com/218637.html, accessed April 14, 2019, orig. Russian).
- 22.
Note that the radical movements of neo-paganism suggest a special rite of debaptism and renunciation of the baptismal name. Nevertheless, in this chapter we are only talking about the onomastic aspects without considering the theological ones.
- 23.
The importance of choosing the Slavic name Svyatoslav for a representative of the Scandinavian family is noted in Litvina and Uspenskij (2006: 41).
- 24.
As mentioned in a private conversation. The authors thank Prof Maria Rut for this and other important valuable comments for this chapter.
- 25.
However, given that the South Slavic peoples adopted Christianity more than a century earlier than the East Slavic peoples, such names have long been inscribed in the Christian cultural context.
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Goryaev, S., Olshvang, O. (2021). Multicultural and National Anthroponymicon: Orthodox Name Versus Neo-pagan Pseudonym. In: Felecan, O., Bugheșiu, A. (eds) Names and Naming. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-73186-1_7
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