Both the East Slavs and the West Slavs show evidence of this Bogomil style dualism, in the Russian Primary Chronicle (1071 A.D.) and the Chronicle of the Slavs by Helmold (1164-1168). The latter is especially enlightening – “after the victim is felled the priest drinks of its blood in order to render himself more potent in the receiving of oracles. For it is the opinion of many that demons are very easily conjured with blood…”⁷

With the mingling of Bogomilism, Christianity and other sects, certain elements entered into folklore as they had no place in the official Orthodox Christian view. This means we have now arrived at the very birthplace of the vampire in Slavic history. This is when and where it happened…

Vampir etymology

The epicentre of Bogomilism was in the Bulgarian Empire – in the region now called Yugoslavia. And it’s no accident that this, too, is where the Slavic term vampir originated.

The term vampir is attested in the 15th century in the South Slavic area.⁸ Gird yourself – we’re heading into some serious etymological territory now.

Raymond T. McNally writes, “Linguistic authorities differ over the origin of the word [vampire]. For example, F. Miklosich, an eminent scholar of Slavic languages, claims that ‘vampire’ derives from uber, the Turkish word for witch. But undoubtedly the source of ‘vampire’ is the Hungarian word vampir.”⁹ This is only one of many freely circulated etymologies proffered without adequate detail or even a convincing discussion, which is why it’s worth examining this more carefully.

Jan L. Perkowski offers a much deeper analysis of the origin of this term. It’s clear that vampir originated in what was then the Bulgarian Empire (modern Yugoslavia), but there isn’t a convincing root for the word in Slavic etymological dictionaries. In an exhaustive discussion that spans cognate and similar Slavic forms from many areas, Perkowski draws the reader’s attention to the following terms: vàmpir (Serbo-Croatian), Upirъ (Old Russian – a proper name), upirina (Serbo-Croatian), upirъ (Ukrainian), upir (Belorussian), upír (Czech and Slovak), upiór and upierz (Polish), wùpji (Kashubian) and vampir, vъpir, vepir, vapir (Bulgarian).

One of the most important tasks facing an etymologist is that of putting forth a semantically and phonetically plausible proto-word. Word changes follow well-established phonetic patterns in various languages – thus Max Vasmer postulates that either *opyrъ or *opirъ may be the Common Slavic form.¹⁰ But is this a borrowing into Slavic, or is it a native form? The debate rages hotly – it’s almost certain that the North Turkic form uber (witch) is actually a borrowing from Slavic (not into it), particularly since the form appears only in westernmost Turkic (those dialects which border on Slavic). It’s been postulated that South Slavic vam- forms are derived from vyambara (deva – any of a class of gods in Vedic mythology), but without any phonological or semantic evidence.