Dazhbog

Dazhbog (Russian: Дажьбо́г, Дажбо́г), alternatively Daždźboh (Belarusian: Даждзьбог), Dazhboh (Ukrainian: Дажбог), Dažbog, Dazhdbog, Dajbog, Daybog, Dabog, Dazibogu, or Dadźbóg, was one of the major gods of Slavic mythology, most likely a solar deity and possibly a cultural hero.

Dazhbog (or Dazhboh) is mentioned in the Primary Chronicle, a history of early Kievan Rus' as one of seven gods whose statues Prince Vladimir the Great erected in front of his palace in Kiev in 980, when he came to the throne.

This word is an old compound, that is particularly interesting because it retains the old meaning of the Proto-Slavic *bogъ "earthly wealth/well-being; fortune", with a semantic shift to "dispenser of wealth/fortune" and finally "god".

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, [all] fought with clubs and stones.

Apparently, the unknown Rus 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.

The same pattern can be observed in the folklore of many Slavic nations, where the Sun is most often identified with mother or a bride, and Moon with father or husband, their children being the stars.

If we assume that indeed Svarog was believed to be Dazhbog's father, the question arises of his relation with Svarozhits, another deity who is mentioned as a god of fire and war in several other medieval documents describing the pagan beliefs of Slavs.

Osip Maximovich Bodjanskij based this theory on the following passage from Primary Chronicle: And Vladimir began his reign in Kiev alone and erected idols on the hill outside his palace with porch: Perun of wood with a head of silver and moustache of gold and Khors Dazhbog and Stribog and Simargl and Mokosh.The names Khors and Dazhbog are the only two not clearly separated by the word "and" in the text.

Serbian scholar Veselin Čajkanović concluded that the chthonic character of Dabog in Serbian folklore fits very nicely with the solar Dazhbog mentioned in Old East Slavic sources, pointing out that in numerous mythologies, solar deities tend to have double aspects, one benevolent, associated with the Sun during the day, and the other malevolent, associated with night, when the Sun is trapped in the underworld.