Svarog

The only mention of Svarog comes from the Hypatian Codex, a 15th-century compilation of several much older documents from the Ipatiev Monastery in Russia. It contains a Slavic translation of an original Greek manuscript of John Malalas from the 6th century. The complete passage, reconstructed from several manuscripts, translates as follows:

(Then) began his reign Feosta (Hephaestus), whom the Egyptians called Svarog… during his rule, from the heavens fell the smith’s prongs and weapons were forged for the first time; before that, (people) fought with clubs and stones. Feosta also commanded the women that they should have only a single husband… and that is why Egyptians called him Svarog… After him ruled his son, his name was the Sun, and they called him Dažbog… Sun tzar, son of Svarog, this is Dažbog.

In the Greek text, the names of gods are Hephaestus and Helios. Apparently, the unknown Russian translator tried to re-tell the entire story (set in Egypt) by replacing the names of classical deities with those that were better known to his readers.[3] It is uncertain to what extent the Greek gods were thought to resemble their Slavic counterparts.

Furthermore, this passage has raised quite a few theories about family relations between Slavic gods. If one assumes that Svarog was believed to be Dažbog's father, the question arises of his relation with Svarožič, another deity who is mentioned as a god of fire and war in several other medieval documents describing the beliefs of pagan Slavs. Vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov proposed a reconstruction of this mythical genealogy, claiming that Svarog, a deity of fire and the forge similar to the Greek Hephaestus, had two sons: Dažbog, who represented the fire in sky (i.e., the Sun), and Svarožič, who symbolised the flame on earth, in the forge.[3] Henryk Łowmiański, however, theorised that Svarog was a Slavic sky god and personification of daylight sky itself, possibly a continuation of Proto-Indo-European *Dyēus Ph₂ter, while Svarožič and solar Dažbog were one and the same deity, although he concluded that two other aspects of Svarožič also existed: fiery Svarožič, as in the Sun (mentioned in Russian medieval manuscripts), and lunar Svarožič, associated with the Moon.[4] Franjo Ledić, on the other hand, simply assumed that Svarog and Dažbog are one and the same god.[5]

Eastern Slavic sources also mention Svarožič as a deity, there associated with fire. According to Thietmar of Merseburg, Svarožič (transcribed by him in a Latin text as Zuarasici into Old High German phonology) was worshipped by a tribe of Ratars in the city of Ridegost (Rethra).[6]

The word Svarog is cognate with the Sanskrit words Swaraj and Svarga.

• Belaj, Vitomir (1998). Hod kroz godinu, mitska pozadina hrvatskih narodnih vjerovanja i običaja. Zagreb.
• Ledić, Franjo (1970). Mitologija Slavena. I. Zagreb.
• Lovmjanjski, Henrik (1996). Religija Slovena. Beograd.
• Thietmar of Merseburg. Kronika Słowian., pp. 336–337 (Latin and Polish)
• Jakobson, Roman (1985). "Linguistic Evidence in Comparative Mythology". In Stephen Rudy (ed.). Roman Jakobson: Selected Writings. VII: Contributions to Comparative Mythology: Studies in Linguistics and Philology, 1972-1982. Walter de Gruyter. ISBN 9783110855463.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

• Graves (intro.), Robert (1987) [1959]. New Larousse Encyclopedia Of Mythology (Hardcover ed.). Crescent Books.
• Ryan, W. F. (September 1998). The Bathhouse at Midnight: An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia. Magic in History Series (Paperback ed.). Pennsylvania State University Press.
• Yoffe, Mark; Krafczik, Joseph (April 2003). Perun: The God of Thunder. Studies in the Humanities. 43 (Hardcover ed.). New York, N.Y.: Peter Lang Publishing.
• Znayenko, Myroslava T. (1980). The gods of the ancient Slavs: Tatishchev and the beginnings of Slavic mythology (Paperback ed.). Slavica.

• Svarog, Svarožič // Mythological dictionary (Russian)