Are the Slavic Gods Forgotten?

Posted by Kerry Kubilius Apr 22, 2007

In many respects, the ancient pagan ways of Eastern Europe live on in Slavic cultures. Decorated eggs, witchcraft, and festivals clearly hearken back to the pre-Christian era. These traditions have survived the centuries, but knowledge about the Slavic gods have not. However, pagan rites that have their origins in Slavic god worship can still be detected today, and modern interpretations of members of the Slavic pantheon can offer some insight into the deities that were thought to have command over good and evil, nature and death, and other important aspects of Slavic pre-Christian life.

Festivals, such as those around Christmastime (the tradition of koleda), and the springtime rites of Maslenitsa and Martenitsa are steeped in pagan tradition that once surrounded Slavic deity worship. Maslenitsa and other springtime festivals (called by various names throughout Eastern Europe) may have their roots in the celebration of Jarilo and Morana, two major gods of the Slavic pantheon.

Mucha's Slav Epic paid homage to the pre-Christian Celebration of Svantovit, a god of fertility and abundance with four faces.

In Neil Gaimon's fictional tale American God's - about the development and human need for myth - Czernobog, or the Slavic god of darkness, is depicted as a gruff and stubborn old Eastern European immigrant who lives on his memories of cattle slaughter (likened to animal sacrifice). There is little evidence to support the worship of Belobog, Czernobog's opposite, but the trend of dualism in Slavic mythology has encouraged some scholars to take the worship of Belobog for granted.

The gods of the Slavic pantheon will remain a mystery, but the legacy their followers left to Eastern Europeans today is indicative of their past importance.