On 2008-10-31 16:54, Max Dashu wrote:
> However she is mentioned as a major deity in the Primary Chronicle.
She's mentioned there -- full stop/period. The Chronicle doesn't say in
so many words that Mokosh was "a major deity". It mentions her name but
offers no explanation or description. Inferences from such obscure
material are extremely risky. How do we know that Volodimer the Great
wasn't actively constructing a pantheon in an attempt to introduce
well-organised "reformed paganism" as a formal state religion, and used
an obscure female divinity to fill a vacancy in it -- a Slavic
counterpart of Frigg or the like? The single mention in the Primary
Chronicle is after all the _only_ authentic attestation of Mokosh -- and
remember that we are talking about a Christian source which postdates
the reported facts by more than a century.
Piotr