Южнославянският Перун в интерпретацията на Йордан Иванов
The South Slavic Perun in the Interpretation of Yordan Ivanov

Summary/Abstract: This paper represents a critical review of the article of Yordan Ivanov „The Cult of Perun Among the South Slavs" and once more provokes the question about this cult. The most convincing and up-to-date is that part of the work of Y. Ivanov, in which he presents the proofs for the existence of traces of South Slavic cult of Perun on toponimic and onomastic data. Nevertheless those are only indirect proofs. The passage cited and analysed by Y. Ivanov from the „History" of Spiridon (1792), where the name of Perun is mentioned, cannot be taken as a historical evidence for the existence of the cult of the Thunderer among Bulgarians. The citation is separated from its context while its wholesome analysis shows that the monk historian Spiridon has made a mythological etymology of the Bulgarian rain ritual „Peperuda", probably under the influence of medieval Russian chronicles. The folk notions about this saint are based on biblical sources of the biography of the Prophet Eliah to a much larger extent than it is presumed in scholarly works. Despite the fact we have at our disposal much more factological data, than Y. Ivanov had at his time, part of them support the scepticism about the characters in the South Slavic higher pantheon, but others comprise arguments „in favour" of this pantheon.

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