Dějiny pohanské Evropy – Pennick Nigel (2023)

The book 'The History of Pagan Europe' is an exceptionally readable overview of pagan religions from all parts of Europe, characterized by a scientific and historical approach and treatment. The authors do not limit paganism to the classical religions of antiquity, nor to anti-Christian or humanistic views of the human world. They primarily define it as polytheism, which sees theophany in nature, the manifestation of divinity, whose fundamental component is also the Goddess, the feminine principle. This explains the growing popularity of paganism, which now draws impulses from environmental interests and from feminism's efforts to emancipate women even in the spiritual realm, which has largely remained in the domain of men. The authors base their exploration on the earliest written accounts of Minoan culture in Crete and Mycenaean culture in Greece. Through classical Greece, the mysterious culture of the Etruscans, and Rome, whose religions are relatively well-known, they continue by describing lesser-known deities and rituals of the Celts and Germans, and significant space is also given to the previously little-known or completely overlooked and barely documented tribal systems of the Picts, Finns, and other tribes on the northern edges of the continent, as well as the Slavs, including the Russians. Thus, the book becomes a comprehensive and balanced description...