THE WHITE GOD - The God of Daylight and Everything Good

Belobog is a deity whose historical existence was, and still is, a subject of numerous debates. Belobog, which, translated into English, means White god, is imagined as a counterpart to Crnobog, or Černobog (Black god) and as such represents the light deity of good essentially opposed to the deity of evil.

According to the theory of Peter Kotka, the Slavs accepted Belobog in the period when they lived in the Persian neighborhood (8th – 2nd c. BC). As we know, the Persian religion was dualist in its nature, thus two opposed forces – Ormuzd and Ahriman ruled the Persian universe. The Slavic Belobog would thus correspond Ormuzd, though he was never on such a high place with the Slavs. Furthermore, Kotka presented a Slavic myth in which two opposed forces, just like those mentioned above, were responsible for the creation of the Slavic world, and the forces, of course, were Belobog and Crnobog. Both of these forces were necessary for the creation of the universe, which is, indeed, a principle that could have been taken from the Persians. However, this myth should not be taken for granted since there is a quite different myth about the creation of the universe, and the myth is about a god Rod who created the cosmos from a huge egg.

             However you look at it, the impression that Belobog is more of an abstract principle than a typical anthropomorphic deity stays, which can be seen in the way it was represented by the Slavs. Well, how was this deity represented? The Slavs imagined Belobog as an old man with a long white beard, dressed exclusively in white. As such, he would appear only during the daylight, doing good deeds as he went and bringing people success and happiness. Belobog helped many peasants to finish hard work in the field and he showed many strayed travelers the way out of a thick forest. The general impression of whiteness, light and positively made him an abstract deity, completely different from other gods. This is why he is more likely the very principle of light and goodness wrapped in the form of an anthropomorphic deity, than a god pagans would otherwise bow to.

Whether it is an abstract principle, or a manifestation of the supreme god (Ormuzd or Christian Yahweh), the appearance of Belobog in the Slavic mythology should by no means be ignored. Certain data about the notion of him with the Slavs can be found through the analysis of the name of this deity. Belobog's name reminds us a lot of the names of gods of other pantheons: Baldur, Belunos, Baal etc. All these deities are also of a light and solar nature since their names contain the same root (bal means something light and bright). The very occurrence of Baldur in the Nordic mythology is parallel to the occurrence of Belobog in the Slavic – both seem a bit of a foreign body in their systems, by being different in every possible way from other gods and by making their appearance seem extremely mysterious.  The same rules were applied both to Baldur and Belobog, Baldur was considered to be a Christian creation, wherefore he was even named Hvit Christ, i.e. White Christ. As far as the Serbs are concerned, Belobog's name has, up to now, remained with the people who use it to denote a deity, which can be seen in an old saying “he ate the white god”, used to show that somebody ate very much, i.e. that he ate everything there was to be eaten.

The DARK GOD - The God of Night, Chaos and Evil

Crnobog, as his very name shows, is Slavic black god – god of night, chaos and evil. Slavs believed that all evil originated from this god, so Crnobog, above all other gods, was the least favorably disposed towards men. Most information about Crnobog we gather from Helmold. In one of his records he claims: “There is one curious custom among the Slavs. At their feasts they all drink from the same cup, and while doing that they utter certain words which, I daresay, do not have the purpose of a prayer, but rather a curse in the name of their gods - gods of good and evil. They believe that all good comes from the good god, and all evil from the evil one. And so they call that god Crnobog in their own language.” As we can see, our forefathers thought that the role of one of their gods was to bring misfortune, and from the example above it is clear that they themselves used that god to help them bring about bad luck (the cursing ritual). Misfortune could befall the Slavs in many different ways – through extreme cold, famine, poverty, illness, or simply through a combination of circumstances, and Crnobog was responsible for everything. Building around the fact that cold and darkness made their lives disagreeable, the Slavs postulated an entity that was related to these natural phenomena. Crnobog, Cernobog, or Cert thus became a winter deity and a god of darkness, a terrifying creature that shrouded the world in black. However, we should bear in mind that the Slavs considered Crnobog’s impact was necessary and that consequently Cernobog was respected as all the other gods. None of the sources relevant to Slavic mythology classifies Cert as a lower-rank deity and, regardless of being attributed the source of all misfortune, he was considered equal to other gods of the pantheon. All this means that our forefathers thought accidents were also caused by their gods, or that even extreme cold, famine, death and disease were of divine origin (coming from either Cert or Morana). And what was sent by the gods certainly had to be respected. This illustrates how pagan perception of the world is different to Christian, because Christianity puts earthly life in the so-called vale of tears, while to pagans life, happy and unhappy alike, is a divine bestowal.

            Although old Slavic religion had no dualism characteristics, researchers of Slavic mythology put in opposition to Crnobog a deity of contrasting properties – Belobog. Belobog, as a principle of light and goodness, should have been a contrast to Crnobog, or the power that counterbalances his negative impact. To prove their theory that there was dualism in Slavic mythology the researches claimed that names of some places can be related to Belobog. Some of these places are Belbuch in Pomerania, Belobozice in Bohemia, as well as Bialoboze and Bialoboznica in Poland. However, as Louis Léger claims, the name Belobog cannot be found in any authentic written document concerning Slavic culture. Some Slavic myths, such as the myth of creation, feature Belobog, but we cannot be certain that this myth has its origins in the pre-Christian period. This myth tells that the world was created by Crnobog and Belobog who, through joint effort, brought their creation to perfection. Although during the process of world creation the gods came into conflict, precisely those actions they performed against each other caused the universe to look as it does. There was another dualistic concept that proclaimed Cernobog god of the dark half of the year, opposed by Belobog – the ruler of the sunny half. The rule of Belobog, according to this belief, started with the winter solstice, while Cert’s rule over nature started with the summer solstice. The winter solstice itself was the battle day of these two opposed powers, and on that day Belobog won a victory. This belief could have its roots in authentic Slavic faith since all the other pagan tribes understood that day in a similar way.

            We have already mentioned that records on old Slavic religion give no information whatsoever on family relations between gods. However, Vladimir Aleksejevic Istarhov, the author of The Strike of the Russian Gods, says that Crnobog had a life companion, a she-goat Sedunja, with whom he had a son named Vij. Although Istarhov did not record the myth about this relation, we can conclude that this legend too dates from the period after conversion to Christianity, because Christianity associated horned animals, especially goats, with evil forces.

            However we choose to understand Cernobog, we should remember that no pagan system, including the Slavic one, involves dualism. Polytheism, as a fundamental characteristic of pagan religions, could never contain teachings about one unique primordial cause, or two of them. Due to this fact, the Wicce system for example is a typical product of the new age, because this religion operates on two basic principles – male and female, that is God and Goddess. Slavic neo-paganism also postulates only one god (sometimes it is Rod, sometimes Dazbog) that represents the primeval principle of the universe. Such an idea of the universe did not exist in the authentic Slavic creed, neither did the division between a good and a bad deity. This split could only come through the influence of Christianity, which is based on dualism of good and evil embodied, on the highest level, in God and Satan, and in angels and demons on lower levels.