Encyclopaedia Britannica
Slav People
Slav, member of the most numerous ethnic and linguistic body of peoples in Europe, residing chiefly in eastern and southeastern Europe but extending also across northern Asia to the Pacific Ocean. Slavicof, relating to, or denoting the branch of the Indo-European language family that includes Russian, Ukrainian, and Belorussian ( East Slavic ), Polish, Czech, Slovak, and Sorbian ( West Slavic ), and Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Macedonian, and Slovene ( South Slavic ). languages belong to the Indo-European family. Customarily, Slavs are subdivided into East Slavs (chiefly Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians), West Slavs (chiefly Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Wends, or Sorbs), and South Slavs (chiefly Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Montenegrins). Bulgarians, though of mixed origin like the Hungarians, speak a Slavic languagea system of symbols that allow people to communicate with each other, also the MOST symbolic way that culture is passed down and are often designated as South Slavs. (See Bulgar.)
In religionbelief in and reverence for a supernatural power or powers regarded as creator and governor of the universe; a personal or institutionalized system grounded in such belief and worship; a set of beliefs, values, and practices based on the teachings of a spiritual leader, the Slavs traditionally divided into two main groups: those associated with the Eastern Orthodox Church (Russians, most Ukrainians, most Belarusians, most Bulgarians, Serbs, and Macedonians) and those associated with the Roman Catholic Church (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Croats, Slovenes, some Ukrainians, and some Belarusians). The division is further marked by the use of the Cyrillic alphabet by the former (but including all Ukrainians and Belarusians) and the Latin alphabet by the latter. There are also many minority religious groups, such as Muslims, Protestants, and Jews, and in recent times, communist governments’ official encouragement of atheism, together with a general trend toward secularismthe principle of separation of state from religious institutions, no discrimination against anybody because of religious beliefs More, has eroded membership in the traditional faiths.
The original habitat of the Slavs is still a matter of controversy, but scholars believe they populated parts of eastern Europe. They entered the historical record about the 6th century BCE, when they expanded westward into the country between the Oder and the Elbe-Saale line, southward into Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary, and the Balkans, and northward along the upper Dnieper River. When the migratory movements had ended, there appeared among the Slavs the first rudiments of statea state is an independent political entity with a centralized government and set geographical boundaries where control is exercised by police or military; a state claims the right to defend itself from both internal and external threats by use of force; a state may have many villages and cities and/or millions or billions of people as in China and India organizations, each headed by a prince with a treasury and defense force, and the beginning of class differentiation.
In the centuries that followed, there developed scarcely any unity among the various Slavic peoples. The cultural and political life of the West Slavs, as well as that of the Slovenes and coastal Croatians, was integrated into the general European pattern. They were influenced largely by philosophical, political, and economic changes in the West, such as feudalism, humanism, the Renaissance, the Reformation, the French Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution. As their lands were invaded by Mongols and Turks, however, the Russians and Balkan Slavs remained for centuries without any close contact with the European community; they evolved a system of bureaucratic autocracy and militarism that tended to retard the development of urban middle classes and to prolong the conditions of serfdom. The state’s supremacy over the individual tended to become more firmly rooted.
A faint kind of Slavic unity sometimes appeared. In the 19th century, Pan-Slavism developed as a movement among scholars and poets, but it rarely influenced practical politics. The various Slavic nationalities conducted their policies by what they regarded as their national interests, and those policies were as often bitterly hostile toward other Slavic peoples as they were friendly toward non-Slavs. Even political unions of the 20th century, such as that of Yugoslavia, were not always matched by feelings of ethnic or cultural accord, nor did the sharing of communism after WWII (1939-1945) necessarily provide a higher level of political and economic alliance.
Slavic religion, beliefs and practices of the ancient Slavic peoples of eastern Europe. Slavs are usually subdivided into East Slavs (Russians, Ukrainians, and Belorussians), West Slavs (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, and Lusatians [Sorbs]), and South Slavs (Bosnians, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, and Bulgars).
In antiquity, the Slavs were perhaps the largest branch of the Indo-European familya family is group of people consisting of parents and children living together in a household; family members can also live away from parents or in a different household of peoples. The very late date at which they came into the light of recorded history (even their name does not appear before the 6th century CE) and the scarcity of relics of their culture make serious study of the Slavs a difficult task. Sources of information about their religious beliefs are all late and by Christian hands.
Slavic worldviewpeople are enculturated in different ways, depending upon their everyday life experiences, to picture a certain reality of how the world works; a worldview is based on shared assumptions and principles defining, categorizing and explaining physical objects and living things More
Socially, the Slavs were organized as exogamous clans, or, more properly, as sibs (groups of lineages with common ancestry) since marriage did not cancel membership in the clana group of close-knit and interrelated families associated with families in the Scottish Highlands, but also among foragers and Indigenous groups More of one’s birth—a type of organization unique among Indo-European peoples. The elected chief did not have executive powers. The world had been created, in the Slavic view, once and for all, and no new law ought to modify the way of life transmitted by their ancestors. Since the social group was not homogeneous, validity and executive power were attributed only to decisions taken unanimously in an assembly, and the deliberations in each instance concerned only the question of conformity to traditionA tradition is a cultural event, which has been passed down from generation to generation.  It may be based on myth, legend, truth, or supernatural beliefs.. Ancient Slavic civilizationa highly developed and advanced human society, associated with population density, writing and record-keeping, education, art, science, and complex political and social institutions was one of the most conservative known on earth.
According to a primitive Slavic belief, a forest spirit, leshy, regulates and assigns prey to hunters. Its food-distributing function may be related to an archaicdivinity. Though in early times the leshy was the protector of wild animals, in later ages it became the protector of flocks and herds. In early 20th-century Russia, if a cow or a herdsman did not come back from pasture, the spirit was offered bran and eggs to obtain a safe return.