Andriej Rostoszyńskij
Slavonic Culture, Vol. XIII, 2017, pp. 41 - 52
https://doi.org/10.4467/25439561KSR.17.003.7873This article takes a comparativistic approach to the manifestation of a common Indo-European heritage in the Slavic geo-culture, and the influences of this on the social structure of Slavic society and the religious dualism, or syncretism, characteristic to this community. In this social structure, the estate of the clergy is of special interest, and its use of the sacral liturgical Church-Slavonic language, commonly identified in popular literature with the Old Slavonic language as a pagan Old Bulgarian profane dialect. The article discusses the influence of Indo-European archetypes on the Slavic collective subconscious, and on the manifestation of these archetypes in public relations. Special attention is paid to different etymological aspects of the term “Slav”. The comparative-historical method allows for the recognition of the philosophical, linguistic and sociological aspects of the term, an especially, the idea of the term as a “socionym”, not only an ethnonym. In this context, the term “Slav” is regarded as a category of spiritual unity, more ethical than ethnic, based on the idea of the “second birth”.