Once upon a time, far, far, seven
seas and seven hills away, somewhere at the end of the world, a gaze away from
the sky and a step away from the mother earth, there was a people.
They were special. They lived in
peace and harmony. They lived in harmony with nature, their gods, and their
beliefs. They defended themselves from others, with a wise head and a brave
heart. They were simple, their soul was unsullied, their desires were clear,
they cared for their families and their roots. Finally, they were a magical
people, with strong faith they derived from the energy of nature. That’s why
everyone saw them as different and unbeatable.
Unfortunately, life likes to
remind us that no one is unbeatable. And so this people dispersed, fell apart,
got estranged. From its origins, its beliefs, its gods. It has let time lay the
dust of oblivion on everything that tied it to the place of its origin, making it
drift away from its true blood, and by accepting a new religion, new alphabet,
new history, this people got embedded into some new structures. Its people have
turned their back on their primeval origins, and have been building walls to
separate them from their fellow countrymen, walls that grow higher and higher
every year.
This people still exists. The Slavic
people, as it is called. Divided into four sides of the world, four religions.
It lives embedded into some new countries, some new stories in textbooks.
Rarely reminiscing its origins, most often in disputes, where each side uses
its own scraps of past to prove they are the true ones, the greater ones, the
original ones.
Once upon a time there was a
people, the Slavic people, living in harmony, almost unbeatable. And this people
still exists today, dispersed and estranged. The people who don’t recognize
their fellow countrymen when they meet them, because they have different gods,
different borders, different currency.
Sometimes, the four groups of
Slavs resemble four beautiful girls who used to be friends when they were
little, and have met again after many years. They will smile at one another,
because that’s polite; after all, they used to be close. They’ll say hello,
perhaps nod at one another, but still, they will check one another out, from
head to toe, looking for flaws, telling themselves they are nothing alike, that
they are better, more successful, more beautiful than the others. And yet, it
takes so little for them to see themselves in others. They just need to look
past the differences. They need to look past their clothes, that is, their
economic status and politics, then makeup, that is, the faith that beautifies
them. In the end, they should cast it all away and bare themselves in front of
one another, showing their scars, creases, and imperfections, everything that
represents their life, what they’ve gone through, hard and wonderful times,
their history.
And if not even then, after they
have casted away all the superficial differences and have bared themselves to
the core, if they still don’t realize they are the same, they need to do only
one more thing – they need to speak.
Only one word is enough for them to
instantly realize everything, to recognize themselves in others. Maybe they
live in opposite sides of the world, maybe they belong to different religions,
have different social status, politics, alphabet, but when they talk, combine
phonemes into syllables, syllables into words, they understand. Maybe there are
no Old Slavic scripts, not enough temples, idols, preserved tradition, maybe
there will soon be no Slavs in history textbooks, but the Slavic language is still
there. Alive and beautiful. A bit altered, but clear. Because, if you listen
for just a while, you will understand a Slav, it will not matter if he’s from
the south or the Baltic, a Protestant or an orthodox Christian. The language
will tell you that this person, whether you like them or not, belongs to that
special people who once lived united, far, seven seas and seven hills away, a
gaze away from the sky, a step away from the mother earth, from the homeland,
the one and only Slavic homeland.
images retrieved from www.voenpro.ru
