“A Russian man is dying amazingly!
His condition before his death cannot be called
neither indifference nor stupidity;
he dies like a ritual
commits; cold and simple."
I. S. Turgenev "Notes of a Hunter"
The attitude of the ancient Slavs to death to modern man may seem paradoxical. Our ancestors did not just mourn the fact of the death of a member of their clan - they ritually glorified. The dying man prepared in advance, dressed in clean clothes and lay down on the avalanche to wait for the last breath, not even with humility - with boredom.
Why were the ancient Russians not afraid to die? We are talking about this with Vladimir Baskakov, a thanatotherapist who studies questions of death.
Promotional video:
Vladimir, tell me, what caused such an attitude towards death among the ancient Slavs?
“You have to start with the word death itself. What it means, listen attentively: "with measure", and I think it comes from the ancient Slavic legends about the northern mountain, which was called Mera and had the magical property of dividing everything, including the life of a person, into two parts. Death for the Slavs was not the end, but a borderline: being was divided into "before" and "after". Why be afraid of the border? This is, firstly. Secondly: the ancients had a concept of the cyclical nature of life and death. They, unlike us, took this cyclicality as something absolutely natural, in much the same way as we perceive inhalation and exhalation. Are you afraid to breathe out? But exhalation is a small death.
In fact, there was simply no death in the minds of the ancient Slavs - there was a cycle that was present in everything: summer dies, followed by autumn. After exhalation - always inhalation, after night - dawn, and then darkness again. All traditions for easy care were built on a completely different worldview - each ritual had a special meaning. It was not even a ritual, but a kind of training. For us, the meaning of the rituals of easy death is lost. They had as their goal only one thing: to make it easier for loved ones to experience loss, and for a dying person - the very departure from life.
Dmitry Pokrovsky, a collector of ancient traditions, discovered that the Slavs had an erotic action-ritual "Umrun", as a result of which a person, just imagine, was resurrected. Like pure occult and mysticism? But the echoes of "Umrun" have survived to this day in the lost villages. Our ancestors trained to die - they introduced themselves into a state similar to clinical death (later Christian elders, hermits and ascetics began to repeat this), therefore, the assumption that the Slavs could step over the death line and in the opposite direction has good reason.
How long did the tradition of easy dying last?
- No matter how emasculated all the ancient skills, the ability of people to know exactly when they will die, persisted until the end of the twentieth century. Moreover, to a greater extent - in women. Which, in principle, is understandable: it is women who have always been the keepers of traditions. I have many testimonies of people whose grandmothers knew their "X-hour" - they asked me to prepare a mortal robe for it. "Progressive" grandchildren twisted their fingers at their temples, and the old woman went to bed and died just in time. Or vice versa: the elderly could postpone their death (previously it was called "sticky"). "Sticking" to some important event in the future (for example, to the marriage of a granddaughter) - and lived up to that moment!
How to explain the ability of the Slavs to know their hour of death?
- Our ancestors, accepting the cyclical nature of life, foresaw their cycles. Only they realized this model of life not like you and me - by logic, but by expanding consciousness. The analogies that existed among the Slavs serve as evidence of such a deep understanding of cyclicality: a diaper for a newborn - the shroud of the deceased, a coffin, which was called "domina" - just like … a womb. Before the imposition of the traditions of Christianity, people were buried sitting in the fetal position - also for a reason. This was an attempt to close the life cycle.
How could people at the primitive level of civilization develop such knowledge?
- They felt better. More subtle. The ancient Slavs had a measure of time measurement "sig" - almost one millionth of a second (1 sec = 302 096 358 whitefish - Ed.). Imagine! On the one hand, the intellect extended our years of life, on the other, it reduced our sensitivity.
Our ancestors died easily, because it was part of their life, and we no longer feel that way. We don't count. Do you know what the scheme of easy death of the ancient Rus looks like?
No, how?
- It's a rectangle. Horizontal - life expectancy. Vertical - health level. Only the strongest survived at that time - and remained healthy all their lives and died in good health. When I say this to doctors, they are perplexed: how is it - to die healthy?
One diagonal in a rectangle is the effort that must be made to maintain well-being. The ancestors invested in their own health the more, the closer they got to death. There is also an opposite diagonal - interest in life: as we can see, it gradually decreases and eventually disappears altogether (although a person who has practically nothing to keep on the ground continues to take care of his health!). That is why people psychologically easily perceived their departure, and did not suffer from physical ailments.
This is not how we live. Even if a modern person is born with good health, over the years it gets worse. And about the middle of the line, which corresponds to life expectancy, medicine is connected. The doctors are pulling us out a little, but this is usually not enough to get us back to normal. Therefore, our lifeline is depicted as a curve. And on the diagram we see that we live less. And we make less correct efforts to prolong our life. What kind of easy death is there? We cling to life, we are afraid to die - but the trouble is that we do not know how to prolong our life.
Is it realistic to revive the tradition of easy dying?
- As a thanatotherapist, I strive for this. He developed various concepts, for example, within the framework of a project commissioned to me by the now deceased Academy of Sciences of the USSR "Psychosomatic relationships and human health." I will never be a doctor and health minister, but I firmly believe that medicine should be switched on much earlier - even before health begins to falter. Not like now - when obvious symptoms are treated. In Soviet times, this idea was implemented in its own way - take, for example, mandatory medical examinations.
Thanatotherapy is an attempt to restore the ideal circuit. Change your worldview, develop sensitivity and add variability. Comes closer to the state of limb and relaxation that awaits us all….
Interviewed by Valentina Rogozhina