Obraz słowiańskich wierzeń i demonów w wybranych utworach z antologii opowiadań grozy wydawnictwa Horror Masakra

The way of showing Slavic beliefs and demons in selected works from the anthology of horror stories published by Horror Masakra Pre-Christian Slavic beliefs are becoming an increasingly popular topic in Poland, especially when we look at the number of publications, series, films and computer games that have been created in recent years and refer to this topic.While other belief systems of ancient European peoples have been well described by researchers due to rich sources, the stories and legends that can today be called „Slavic mythology” consist primarily of hypotheses based on reconstructions – The Slavs did not write down their beliefs because they did not have their own writing system, and oral transmission of stories played an important role. Promising trends in Poland currently trying to recreate the shape of old beliefs as close as possible to the actual ones are comparative religious studies and comparative linguistics.In Polish fantasy after 1989, there is a growing trend of writers’ interest in old Slavic beliefs or their artistic reinterpretation. Elżbieta Żukowska, in her doctoral thesis Religia dawnych Słowian we współczesnej polskiej prozie fantasy, covering this topic until 2011-2012, indicates numerous book editions and many stories published in magazines, and in the last decade the number of such works has only increased significantly.Due to such an enigmatic and unexploited area of inspiration as the beliefs of the ancient Slavs, contemporary fantasy authors have a widerange of possibilities. Old literature was dominated primarily by the stereotype of a passive and good-natured Slavic peasant who was incapable of creating any higher culture, however, the authors collected in the anthologies Krew zapomnianych bogów, Słowiańskie koszmary, Licho nie śpi and Słowiański horror show a completely different image of Slavic mythology, often full of brutality, eroticism, madness and anxiety, but also mystery and humor, but above all – extremely rich. Moreover, the texts remain very diverse: there are short stories set in ancient and modern times, as well as alternative versions of history, deities, various demons and numerous magical and ritual ceremonies. Drawing on the wealth of native Slavic beliefs, contemporary creators show that not only basing on other European mythologies allows for building an interesting plot for the recipient.