A Book That Has Two Bodies and Paganism That Is Everywhere
The article is a critical analysis of L. A. Chernaya’s monograph “Everyday Life of Pagan Rus” (Moscow: Molodaya Gvardiya, 2021). The book attempts to restore the authentic answers of Slavic pagans to arbitrary philosophical questions that, quite likely, did not bother the ancient people at all. The researcher tries to fit the studied material into the concept of the “Body period” invented by her in the past, declaring almost every attempt to comprehend the problems of corporeality and materiality as remnants of Slavic paganism, even if they are undertaken within the framework of Christian and ancient philosophical schemes. In addition to methodological problems, there are many factual errors and distortions in the work. L. A. Chernaya rarely distinguishes between her own reconstructions, factual material and the point of view of other researchers. The work is difficult to follow: in order to understand the author, periodically one has to resort to reconstruction using L. A. Chernaya sources and her previous works.