Deities of Slavic religion, arranged in cosmological and functional groups, are inherited through mythology and folklore. Both in the earliest Slavic religion and in modern Slavic Native Faith's theology and cosmology, gods are arranged as a hierarchy of powers begotten by the supreme God of the universe, Rod, known as Deivos in the earliest Slavic religion. According to Helmold's Chronica Slavorum (compiled 1168-1169), "obeying the duties assigned to them, [the deities] have sprung from his [the supreme God's] blood and enjoy distinction in proportion to their nearness to the god of the gods". The general Slavic term for "god" or "deity" is ??? bog, whose original meaning is both "wealth" and its "giver". The term is related to Sanskrit bhaga and Avestan baga. Some Slavic gods are worshipped to this day in folk religion, especially in countrysides, despite longtime Christianisation of Slavic lands, apart from the relatively recent phenomenon of organised Slavic Native Faith (Rodnovery).
Slavic folk belief holds that the world organises itself according to an oppositional and yet complementary cosmic duality through which the supreme God expresses itself, represented by Belobog ("White God") and Chernobog ("Black God"), collectively representing heavenly-masculine and earthly-feminine deities, or waxing light and waning light gods, respectively. The two are also incarnated by Svarog-Perun and Veles, whom have been compared to the Indo-Iranian Mitra and Varuna, respectively. All bright male gods, especially those whose name has the attributive suffix -vit, "lord", are epithets, denoting aspects or phases in the year of the masculine radiating force, personified by Perun (the "Thunder" and "Oak"). Veles, as the etymology of his name highlights, is instead the god of poetic inspiration and sight. The underpinning Mokosh ("Moist"), the great goddess of the earth related to the Indo-Iranian Anahita, has always been the focus of a strong popular devotion, and is still worshipped by many Slavs, chiefly Russians.
Video Deities of Slavic religion
God of Heaven / absolute Rod
Maps Deities of Slavic religion
Highest cosmological concepts
Basic information from Mathieu-Colas 2017. Further information is appropriately referenced.
Supreme polarity
Threefold-fourfold divinity and fire-god
Sun-god and moon-god
Both the sun god and the moon god, Dazhbog and Jutrobog, are often qualified as "Xors" (), a title which finds many equivalents in Indo-Iranian (cf. Persian xursid, xorshid) and means "radiant", referring to the radiance of solar and lunar light. Its etymology probably goes back to the Indo-European root *ghers, and Indo-Aryan *hrs, *ar, *r, comprising the semantic field of "to move rightly", "upwardly", and "to praise". Male solar deities are generally assumed to be descended from the Zoroastrian Hvare-khshaeta on the basis of etymology, though this has been contested. Conversely, the sun is usually depicted as female in Slavic folklore (cf. Baltic Saul?).
Goddesses
Basic information from Mathieu-Colas 2017. Further information is appropriately referenced.
Great goddesses
Other goddesses
Other gods and goddesses
Basic information from Mathieu-Colas 2017. Further information is appropriately referenced.
Other important male gods
Other twosomes and threesomes
Tutelary deities of specific places, things and crafts
In Slavic religion, everything has a spirit or soul (), including houses, lakes, mountains, forests, animals and men. These spirits are generally called by various terms, including for instance zduh or zduhacz ("spirit") by the Serbs, or sjen or sjenovik ("shadow") by the Montenegrins. These spirits are considered able to leave the body during the sleep, wandering about the world, the skies and the underworld.
Deities of waters, woods and fields
Basic information from Mathieu-Colas 2017. Further information is appropriately referenced.
Deities of settings and crafts
Deities of animals and plants
Germanic deities and others
The Wends, including those who dwelt in modern-day northern and eastern Germany and were later Germanised, or other never-Germanised West Slavs, also worshipped deities adopted from Germanic religion, as documented by Bernhard Severin Ingemann. However, Germanic gods never rose to prominence over Slavic ones in Wendish religion.
Gallery
See also
- Hindu deities
- Rigvedic deities
- Slavic paganism
- Slavic Native Faith
Notes
References
Citations
Sources
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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