Abstract: For the first time in Russian science, the subject of this research became the history of the late pagan communities of Ancient Rus (the end of the X-XII centuries), their socioeconomic structure and lifestyle. The author presented several dominant in the modern historiography antagonist theories associated with the problems of Christianization of Ancient Rus during the pre-Mongolian era. Based on the analysis of the written sources and data, the archeologist were able to trace the main directions of the escape of the population from the forced Christianization (the end of the X-beginning of the XI centuries), as well as demonstrate the types of the late pagan communities, and presence of pagans in multiple Russian cities of the early Christian epoch. On the example of the pagan community of the Zbruch cult center, the author carries outs a historical analysis of the socioeconomic structure of late pagans, and partially follows their lifestyle. The conclusion is made that a certain part of Eastern Slavic people did not accept Christianity, and under the leadership of the priests of the pagan cult migrated to the sparsely populated wooded regions of the Western, Northern, and Northeastern Rus. They were able to preserve a part of their pagan sanctuaries in many of the large cities and villages of Rus, as well as establish a major pagan complex in the territory of Galicia Province, which became a shelter for the highest representatives of the pagan cult headed by the ruling priest.

Abstract: The subject of the article’s historical analysis is the anti-Christian movement of the Slavic population in the Dniester region at the end of the 10th–second half of the 12th centuries. The study points to the fact that the Carpatho-Dniester region had played the role of the sacred centre of pre-Christian Russia. The author undertook a historical reconstruction of the events related to the confrontation between the Eastern Slavonic tribal unions and the central Kiev government during the religious reforms of the princes Vladimir the Great and Yaroslav the Wise. The article presents an analysis of the anti-Christian movement among the population of Western Russia during the second half of the 11th—12th centuries. In order to address the research questions, the author applied the chronological and analytical methodological approaches, as well as the methods of analogy, interpretative synthesis and generalisation. The research specifies for the first time in Russian historical studies the link between the anti-Christian movement in Rus during the 10th—11th centuries and the city-sanctuaries of the Zbruch cult centre, determines the time frame of the most large-scale anti-Christians manifestations that had swept through the Transnistrian region at the end of the 10th—11th centuries, and analyses in detail the punitive campaigns of the Kievan princes against their recalcitrant subjects – the Transdnestrovites. The author comes to the conclusion that the Dniester-Carpathian region was a sacred pagan centre in Kievan Rus during the pre-Christian and early Christian eras. At the end of the 10th century and the second decade of the 11th century Dniester became the epicentre of two powerful waves of anti-Christian movements in Ancient Russia and Poland. The pagan communities in Western Russia had survived and continued their fight against Christianisation up to the end of the 12th century.