Dazhbog- Slavic GodDeity"Sun God"

The Sun Forged

In the Hypatian Codex, drawing on a Slavic translation of the Byzantine chronicler John Malalas, Svarog forged the sun as a disk of fire and set it in the sky. Then he gave it to his son. Dazhbog took the disk and drove it across the heavens in a chariot pulled by white horses with golden manes. Where his father had made the sun, Dazhbog carried it. Every morning he carried it again.

Dazh is the imperative of "to give." Bog is "god." He is the god who gives, and what he gives is the sun itself, day after day, without condition.

The Chariot Ride

Each morning the Zorya, goddess of dawn, opens the gates of Dazhbog's celestial palace. He rides out young and bright, climbing toward noon. By evening his light reddens. The Evening Zorya closes the gates behind him, and he descends into the world below.

At night he passes through the domain of Veles, god of the dead and the deep waters. The forces of darkness press against him. Each dawn the gates open again, the white horses stamp, and the chariot rises. In the seasonal arc the pattern repeats: Dazhbog is born anew at the winter solstice, reaches full strength at midsummer, and weakens through autumn until the cycle turns.

Dazhbog's Grandchildren

The Tale of Igor's Campaign, composed in the late twelfth century, calls the Rus' people "Dazhbog's grandchildren." The epithet appears not in a hymn but in a lament. Prince Igor marches against the Cumans, is defeated, and his army is scattered across the steppe. The anonymous poet reaches back past two centuries of Christianity to name what the Rus' have lost: they are the sun god's descendants, and their land lies bleeding.

Vladimir's Hill

In 980 CE, Prince Vladimir I set up wooden idols on a hill outside his palace in Kiev. The Primary Chronicle names the gods: Perun stood at the center with a silver head and golden moustache. Beside him, Dazhbog. For eight years the Kievans brought offerings to this open-air sanctuary. Then Vladimir converted to Christianity, and in 988 the idols were pulled down. Perun's was tied to a horse's tail and dragged to the river. The chronicle does not record what became of Dazhbog's image, but the hill was scraped clean.

Among the South Slavs his name survived as Dabog. In Serbian folk tradition he took on a darker cast, ruling the underworld rather than the sky. His name endured. His nature was inverted.