Historical story

Behind the spouse on the stake. What was the fate of the widows in the world of the ancient Slavs?

The term "to the deathly board" in this case sounds extremely literal. Slavic wives died with their husbands. Descriptions of Arab merchants and medieval historians are full of shocking accounts of women giving their lives when their husband died. This way they confirmed that they really loved him ...

The tribe we mentioned is called S rnin (Sᵉrbin), they burn themselves in fire when their chief dies and burn their mounts. Their behavior is [in this respect] similar to that of the Hindus. (...) The wives of the deceased shuffle their hands and faces with knives, and when one of them claims that she loves him, she hangs a rope and climbs a stool towards him, and then ties it around her neck. They then tear a stool out of her and she remains suspended, twitching until she dies, then is burnt and reunites with her husband - describes the Arab writer Al-Masudi.

The chronicler, who probably quoted the custom of ancient Serbs, not without reason referred to the tradition of the Hindus, who had a similar custom - sati, that is, voluntarily going to the stake of his wife after the death of her husband. The consent to be burned was a sign of the wife's heroism and true love, therefore sati meant both a kind of funeral ceremony and the term "good wife". The spouse who chose the "path of truth" awaited rewards and thousands of years of happiness in the afterlife.

The consent to be burned was a sign of the wife's heroism and true love, therefore sati meant both a kind of funeral rite and the term "good wife".

And the Slavic wife did not enjoy life without her husband. She preferred a further future with him in the other world. A Byzantine chronicler from the 6th century wrote about the Slavs on the Danube:"they live virtually, their women too beyond all human measure, so that many of them consider their husband's death as their end and voluntarily soul themselves, not considering widowhood as life. " An outstanding researcher of Slavic customs, prof. Aleksander Gieysztor, described:

St. Boniface wrote about the Wendy-Western Slavs to the Anglo-Saxon king in the 8th century:“They adhere with such zeal to the spouses' mutual love that the woman, when her husband dies, does not want to live any longer. And they are appreciated for a woman who kills herself with her own hands and burns at the same stake with her husband. " Similarly in the early In the 11th century, Thietmar of Merseburg writes about Polish customs under Mieszko I before his baptism in 966; The wives were to be beheaded and burned at the stake after the husband's death .

Inventory to the other side

The old Slavs believed that the deceased should go to the other side, well equipped - so that he would find himself in a new reality. Therefore, great importance was attached to the equipment. Possible deficiencies in this area, and even improper preparation of the funeral pyre, could result in the fact that he did not find a way and peace in that world and, as a phantom, striga or specter, constantly wandered around it, invading and persecuting the living.

Stanisław Bylina in the work "Slavic world of the dead in the decline of paganism. Spatial imaginations ”he writes:

There were two basic categories of the dead in the eschatological imagination of the Slavs. The first of them included the spirits of ancestors, grandfathers, those who died a natural death, buried in accordance with the adopted ritual ending the full cycle of human life, provided by their relatives with care for a successful posthumous existence.

They were the dead "their own", retaining the bond with family and family, appearing in the world of the living around fixed dates of the ritual year , Slavic "All Souls", and therefore not arousing any particular fear. The living cared for the needs of the world visitors and could expect favor from them.

The old Slavs believed that the deceased should go to the other side, well equipped - so that he would find himself in a new reality.

A different category of dead spirits were beings hostile to humans, clearly fearful and provoking countermeasures. They came, inter alia, from people who died prematurely and violently , punished by the forces of nature, especially when their bodies were annihilated. The vengeful, hateful spirits of the enemies could be of particular concern .

Our pagan ancestors most often burned the corpses of the dead at the stake. They believed that fire cleans the deceased and helps him get to the other world faster. Over time, they also took over the tradition of skeletal burials. Scientists still argue whether this was due to the onslaught of Christianity or the indefinite changes in the religiosity of our ancestors - in any case, the tendency to furnish graves applied to both of these forms of burial.

Angel of Death

The wife, as a "piece of equipment" useful in the other world, could be exchanged for a concubine. Such an eventuality - obviously - concerned only the rich and powerful members of the tribe - the then elite, and not ordinary peasants.

An exceptionally detailed and shocking description of the funeral was left to us by the Arab chronicler and diplomat Ibn-Fadlan, envoy of the Abbasid caliph al-Muktadir to the king of the Bulgarians on the Volga in 922. The envoy of the caliph watched with his own eyes the many days of preparation and funeral of a rich noble, during which the concubine was ritually murdered , ready to go to the other world with her master.

They put him in the grave they covered [with the roof] for ten days until they finished cutting and sewing his clothes. (...) As the man I mentioned before died, [the relatives] said to his slaves:"Who will die with him?" And one said to them, "I."

Then they entrusted her to two girls to guard her and stay with her wherever she went (...) The slave drank and sang every [of those] days, cheerful and [as if] expecting something joyful . (…) And when the day had come on which he and that slave would be burned , I came to the river where his ship was located. He has already been pulled [ashore] (...)

[Then] an old woman called "The Angel of Death" (...) . It is she who manages the sewing [of clothes] for him and [all] his preparations; she also kills slave girls. I saw that she was a robust witch, fat and sullen. (…).

They put her [a slave girl to be killed] onto the ship. (...) She was handed a cup of nausea; she sang over it and drank it. The interpreter said to me, "Thus she said goodbye to her companions." Then the second cup was given to her, she took it and sang for a long time, and the old woman urged her to drink it and went into the hut where her master was (...).

The envoy of the caliph watched with his own eyes the many days of preparation and funeral of a rich noble, during which a concubine was ritually murdered, ready to go to the other world with her master.

Then six men entered the shack, and they all mated with the slave girl. [Then] they laid her at the side of her master, and two grabbed her by the legs and two by the hands, [while] the old woman called the "Angel of Death" put a rope tied in opposite directions around her neck and handed it to [the next] two men to they were pulling. [Then] she approached carrying a wide-bladed knife and began to stick it between her ribs and remove it, and the two men strangled her with a rope until she died.

Then the closest of the people for the deceased came, took a piece of wood, lit it from the fire and walked backwards (...) until he lit the prepared wood that was under the ship. (...) and the fire embraced [first] these wood, then the ship, the shelter, the man and the slave girl and everything that was on it.

Scientists still argue whether this is a description of a Slavic rite, or maybe, for example, of one of the mighty Varangians, i.e. the Vikings, who then conquered Ruthenia. And the warriors from the north (also probably the Balts and the Prussians) sacrificed a woman. During the preparations for the rite, the ruler's spine gained prestige and fame, as well as freedom. Of course, after intoxicating her with alcohol and narcotic plants, she was led to believe in a happy and prosperous life in the world of the dead.

Pile to the stake, widow to the throne

In time, perhaps under the pressure of Christianity, widows no longer needed to prove true love. This duty was limited mainly to concubines. Aleksander Gieysztor wrote:

If the widows of Slavic leaders in the 6th-8th centuries were told that suicide was a duty of allegiance and going to the stake, in the tenth century this custom seems to be limited to slave concubines. Wives, also nobles, already had considerable authority at the end of the pagan era, taking over the management of the house after her husband's death and holding him firmly.

The fact that in Slavic societies a widow could achieve honors and even power distinguishes the custom of going to the stake for her husband from the much more stringent sati custom in India. The widow who did not choose death faced a life of humiliation and loneliness, with almost no public rights.

Historians and ethnographers know many examples of rulers in the Slavic world who ruled after the death of their husbands, although they emphasize that Christianity additionally strengthened the position of women. Aleksander Gieysztor related:

Widow Princess Lyudmila ruled the Czech Republic as regent and protector of underage grandchildren after the death of Prince Vratislav; she was strangled in 921 on the orders of her daughter-in-law Drahomira, who had seized power. The oldest Ruthenian chronicle does not have enough words of admiration for the rule of Princess Olga, who in 945, after her husband's death, took over the rule of the Kiev state, led external expansion, organized the exploitation of the country, traveled to Constantinople and boldly dealt with enemies.

On the threshold of Polish-Hungarian friendship stands the figure of another extraordinary woman. Adelaide, the wife of Gejza of Hungary, and sister of Mieszko I of Poland, who rode a horse, killed a man in anger, drank like a man, was supposed to be fluent in the Holy Scriptures and thanks to her beauty she was called the White Knegini .

We do not know how Sygryda died, but certainly not at the stake and not "behind my husband". After Forkbeard's death, she lived for at least a few more years.

And we cannot fail to add Sygryda Storrada, or Świętosława, the daughter of Mieszko I married to the Danish king Sven Widłbeard, to whom she gave birth to two future kings Harald II and Canute the Great.

Historians still argue whether the famous Sygryda was actually the daughter of Mieszko, or perhaps one of the Slavic Pomeranian rulers. In any case, after the death of the Swedish Erik the Victor, for whom she was originally bribed, not only did she not have to follow him to the grave herself, but with a firm hand she held power , leading to a marriage with the Danish Swen Forkbeard and thus a Swedish-Danish alliance.

She bore Swen five children, including two future Danish kings. However, over time, the spouse got fed up with a temperamental wife (reportedly she burned her uncomfortable suits in the bathhouse). He banished her from Denmark. Then she took refuge with her brother - Bolesław the Brave, from where her sons took her after Swen's death. We do not know how Sygryda died, but certainly not at the stake and not "behind my husband". After Forkbeard's death, she lived for at least a few more years.


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