Noah Charney and Svetlana Slapšak, The Slavic Myths (Thames & Hudson, 2023), 240pp., illus.

In recent years Thames & Hudson have published a series of books about world mythology – Greek, Norse, Egyptian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Aztec and Celtic. Curiously, Noah Charney and Svetlana Slapšak’s volume on Slavic mythology deviates from the standard design of the other volumes – although I presume that, in some sense, it belongs to the series – and it is illustrated by a series of striking woodcuts by Joe McLaren. It is a visually striking and beautifully designed book. It does not claim to be a systematic or thorough survey of Slavic mythology; rather, the authors select a number of emblematic themes (such as vampires, werewolves, goddesses, the thunder god Perun, water spirits, and magic) and for each of them re-tell a representative story before providing a more expository commentary on this aspect of Slavic myth. Both authors live in Slovenia, and the book has a somewhat Balkan slant – which, in and of itself, reveals a particular problem with the notion of ‘Slavic mythology’. For the Slavs are surely more fragmented than any of the other cultures covered by Thames & Hudson’s series – with the possible exception of the Celts. Slavic languages are spoken almost the whole length of Eurasia, including by many people who are not Slavs, and the Slavic world is not only linguistically and culturally diverse but also politically polarised.

An elephant in the room in any discussion of Slavic culture today is Russia’s traditional dominance of perceptions of Slavic culture (and, indeed, accounts of Slavic folklore), and the widespread actual or de facto cultural boycott of Russia and all things Russian since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. A volume by two Slovenia-based authors breaks free from the stereotype of a Russocentric narrative of Slavdom, but the uncomfortable reality remains that the very concept of Slavdom and of a Slavic world itself remains entangled with the spectre of Panslavism, which was co-opted and exploited by the 19th-century Russian Empire and subsequently by the USSR in order to justify its ‘sphere of influence’ in East-Central Europe. Any account of Slavdom thus finds itself caught between the toxicity of Russocentrism and the particularism of the individual nationalisms of non-Russian Slavic nations – all of which makes it very difficult to construct a balanced and unified narrative of Slavic identity. Yet there does exist, as the authors point out, an older Slavism pre-dating the toxically politicised Panslavism of the second half of the 19th century.

Personally, I am not altogether convinced that a single Slavic identity can be held together in the 21st century. For Ukrainians, I would imagine that appeals to Slavic brotherhood are apt to sound like hollow Russian propaganda when Russia’s regime denies their country should even exist. For Poles and Czechs, whose nations have storied histories unconnected with any relationship with Russia, linguistic affinities with the East Slavs are usually of nugatory cultural significance. When identities are this fractured, we might ask what purpose the imposition of a common identity on the basis of a shared linguistic ancestry and homeland serves. But this is not so much a criticism of this individual book; it is, rather, to highlight an uncomfortable question that all Slavicists increasingly have to grapple with – how is a post-nationalist Slavicism possible without somehow falling into the clutches of Vladimir Putin’s twisted narrative of Русский мир? It is not a question to which I have an answer.

Be that as it may, the contention of the authors of The Slavic Myths is one very close to my heart – that all cultures, not just those famous for their ‘mythology’ like Greece and Scandinavia, deserve to be recognised for their distinctive contributions to the rich store of human story. The particular challenge faced by the scholar of Slavic mythology is its scattered nature – there is no ancient literature, there is not even much medieval literature, and most Slavic mythology emerged into the light through the collecting activity of 19th-century folklorists. But the focus of this volume is on story and its power, not on historical questions about the genuine antiquity of narrative traditions recorded at a late date; and the authors’ decision to begin with vampires and werewolves is indicative of their desire to connect with readers through what they know, rather than to introduce Slavic mythology in any idealised way. Everyone knows vampires come from Eastern Europe, even if the western idea of the vampire departs significantly from the Slavic, and vampires are really only significant in the Balkans – but the authors are undeniably right that the vampire is Slavdom’s most recognised contribution to global folklore. They use this opportunity to gleefully restore the vampire to its original gory Balkan horror, a far cry from the romantic vampire inaugurated by Bram Stoker. Here the folklorist of marginalised and relatively unknown cultures is in a bind; people are unlikely to care about what you think is important in your culture’s folklore, but they might pay attention if you correct their misconceptions about your culture. On the whole, people want vampires to be more culturally authentic and more earthily horrible; tell them that vampires are a fairly marginal feature of Slavic mythology as a whole, however, and they will soon lose interest.

There is still so little available to read on Slavic mythology in English (and for adults), and The Slavic Myths is to be welcomed as a wonderful introduction to the matrix of story (so far as we can recover it) in the cultures of Eastern Europe – even if I am not wholly convinced that Slavdom meaningfully exists, or that its mythology can be meaningfully recovered. But the authors are acutely aware of the provisionality and unsatisfactoriness of any treatment of Slavic myth. It is buried under the weight of Christianisation, imperial domination, illiteracy, and the suppression of national identities; and the mythology we do have was often re-fashioned to suit the needs and agendas of the folklorists who excavated it. And yet through all of this, it is undeniable that something of a vivid, vibrant and genuine life of story breaks through. We might not have all the answers, but if we let the stories and the storytellers speak, perhaps the myths and the identities they embody have their own validity.