Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend [Paperback]

Mike Dixon-Kennedy (Author)

Book Description

There are few stories more stirring than those of ancient Russia. Russian and other Slavic beliefs weave a rich tapestry in which real-world elements coexist with those from fantasy, such as dragons, monsters, and shape-changing wolves. Though Russia adopted Christianity as the state religion in A.D. 988, paganism remained popular through the end of the 19th century and survives in isolated pockets even today. In Russian myth and legend, Christian themes are interwoven with pagan ideas: dragons fight priests, saints encounter nymphs, and witches enter the kingdom of heaven.

Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend includes extensive historical, geographical, and biographical background to deepen the reader's understanding of the myth and legend. Numerous illustrations are included in this fascinating volume, which will be of great interest to students, scholars, and everyone who wishes to explore the cultural heritage of ancient Russia.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 9 Up-An accessible overview of the people, places, stories, and events featured in this body of literature. The more than 900 alphabetically arranged entries range in length from a paragraph to several pages. Dixon-Kennedy emphasizes legend and myth over folk and fairy tales. As a result, the witch Baba-Yaga has a sizable entry, but a collector of folklore such as Aleksandr Afanasev is not included. The writing is clear and the author's expertise is obvious. A map of Eastern Europe and Asia appears at the beginning of the book and average-quality black-and-white photographs and reproductions are scattered throughout. A useful "Topic Finder" that groups the articles into broad categories and a good index conclude the volume. Libraries that boast strong folklore collections will find this encyclopedia valuable.
Denise Anton Wright, Alliance Library System, Bloomington, IL
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 375 pages
• Publisher: ABC-Clio Inc (June 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1576071308
• ISBN-13: 978-1576071304
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,622,125 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Has its good points, but ultimately disappointing - oh, what could have been!, December 5, 2011

By 

Anne M. Myers (New York, NY, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Encyclopedia of Russian and Slavic Myth and Legend (Paperback)

As a student of Slavic myth, I had been champing at the bit to get hold of this volume, hard-to-find but one of the few in-depth English resources on the subject. While the tome is certainly weighty enough to make all your academic dreams come true and is nicely laid-out in most respects, I was ultimately disappointed.

The subject matter seems to vary fairly widely in accuracy and scope; while appropriately slavish attention is paid to Russian folktales and folk figures such as Baba Yaga or Vasilisa the Wise, older Slavic myth and its deities seems to fall by the wayside some, leaving most Slavic gods in the dust with only a short, unilluminating paragraph before Dixon-Kennedy moves on. Some places clearly seem to not have even been edited, such as when the god Yarilo is described as a female "goddess" of springtime and eroticism but the rest of the paragraph discussing the deity appears to be referring to a male (for the record, I have never heard Yarilo/Jarilo referred to as female in any other source). The lack of discussion (or even acknowledgment) of controversial subjects also hurts the book's scholarly credibility, as when the entirely reconstructed and hotly debated god Belebog is not only included in his own entry but also discussed as if there were no question whatsoever regarding his existence or functions.

Dixon-Kennedy also includes a goodly amount of information on Finno-Ugric and Baltic mythology, which is often irritating as little of it has more than a vague linguistic connection to Slavic myth. It's great to note the parallels and cultural mixing between cultures, but when we're reading through entry after entry about Lapp deities that have nothing whatsoever to do with Slavic culture or myth, it becomes clear that the book is trying to do too much and would likely prove confusing for beginning students in the subject.

The book's general encyclopedia format is handy enough; the inclusion of a by-subject and by-culture topic index is a great idea, but the fact that it has no page numbers and requires you to flip back through looking for each individual entry prevents it from being as useful as it could have been. All in all, it's a decent beginning point but is too flawed and generalized to be much use to a serious student, and contains too much misleading or unsubstantiated material for me to feel entirely comfortable recommending it to a beginner.