| Stribog | |
|---|---|
| Member ofVladimir's pantheon |
Stribog[a] is a god in Slavic mythology found in three East Slavic sources, whose cult may also have existed in Poland. The sources do not inform about the functions of the god, but nowadays he is most often interpreted as a wind deity who distributes wealth.[1][2]
Stribog appears for the first time in the 12th-centuryPrimary Chronicle together with other gods for whomVladimir the Great erected statues:
And Vladimir began to reign alone in Kiev, and he set up idols on the hill outside the castle: one ofPerun, made of wood with a head of silver and a moustache of gold, and others ofKhors,Dazhbog, Stribog,Simargl,Mokosh. The people sacrificed to them, calling them gods. They brought their sons and daughters and sacrificed [them] to demons. They desecrated the earth with their offerings. And the land of Rus and the hill were defiled with blood. But the gracious God desires not the death of sinners. Upon that hill now stands the church of Saint Basil, as we shall later narrate.[3]
Old East Slavic textИ нача княжити Володимеръ въ Киевѣ единъ, и постави кумиры на холму внѣ двора теремнаго: Перуна дрезяна, а главу его сребрену, а усъ златъ, и Хърса, Дажьбога, и Стрибога и Симарьгла, и Мокошь. И жряху имъ, наричюще я богы, и привожаху сыны своя и дъщери, и жряху бѣсомъ, и оскверняху землю требами своими. И осквернися кровьми земля Руска и холмо-тъ. Ио преблагий богъ не хотя смерти грѣшникомъ, на томъ холмѣ нынѣ церкви стоить, святаго Василья есть, якоже послѣди скажемъ.[4]
— Primary Chronicle
InThe Tale of Igor's Campaign, the winds are calledStribog's grandsons:
Now the winds, sons of Stribog, blow from the sea like arrows on the valiant campaign of Igor.[5]
Old East Slavic textСе вѣтри, Стрибожи ⟨/Стьри-?⟩ вънуци, вѣють съ моря стрѣлами на храбрыѣ ⟨хоробрыѣ⟩ пълкы Игоревы.[5]
— The Tale of Igor's Campaign
Theword of John Chrysostom also mentions Stribog:
Oh, perfidious devil’s deceit, not even pagans would do it! And others believe in Stribog,Dazhbog andPereplut, for whom they drink from horns while cavorting, having forgotten God who created heaven and earth, the seas and rivers. And this way they rejoice in their idols.[6]
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After Christianization, the name was preserved in toponymy: Стрибожь,Stribozh' inNovgorod Governorate, Стрибоже,Strybozhe leak, Стрибожская,Strybozhskaya river inKiev Voivodeship, Стрибож,Strybozh village inZhytomyr Oblast, in PolandStrzyboga village and theStriboc (=Stribog) stream nearTczew, attested in the 1282,[7][8][2] and possiblyLatin name for river from modern-dayGermanyStriboz (1122).[7]
According toRoman Jakobson,Stribog contains the stemstri-, derived from theProto-Slavic verb*sterti "to extend, spread, widen, scatter" attested only with suffixes,[9] e.g. Polishrozpostrzeć, Russian простереть,prosteret',[10] orOld Czech(nepokoj) strieti.[9] The verb comes from the Proto-Indo-European root*ster-, which in Latin occurs in the verbsterno and in the Greek verb στόρνυμι,stórnymi "to spread".[9] The theonym would thus consist of the stemstri- and the wordbog "god". On this basis, he considers Stribog to be "disperser, apportioner of riches", a complementary god toDazhbog, "giver of riches". Proof of Stribog's association with wind is to be found in his Hindu counterpart, the wind godVayu, who says in theAvesta "I am called he who spreads".[2][9] He links the pair of Dazhbog and Stribog with the Vedic pair ofBhaga andAmsha, or the Greek pair ofAisa andPoros.[9] This etymology is one of the most popular.[11][1]
According to Michał Łuczyński, Jakobson's etymology is linguistically correct,[11] however, according to him, the division of the theonym intostri- and-bog is unlikely, since hydronyms and personal names indicate that the consonant ⟨b⟩ belonged to the root, not the suffix, e.g., the Ukrainian hydronym Стриб,Stryb, or Polish names beginning withStrzyb-:*Strzybala,Strzybalska,Strzybna,Strzybny.[7]
Stanisław Urbańczyk, followingLubor Niederle andAlexander Afanasyev, linked the theonym with the Czech dialectal (Moravian)stři "strong wind, air", and explained the theonym as "god of creaking, swishing".[12]
Jakobson's etymology was supported byAleksander Gieysztor. In his search for manifestations of the cult of wind in the Slavs, he pointed to the Bulgarian wind тъмичарин,tŭmicharin, which brings darkness and blinds, and in Serbia the southern wind is called "one-eyed" (чоравац,čoravac), which may be an echo of some ancient mythological motif, to which perhaps is related the one-eyed Odin,[2] who, like Stribog, is placed in the first group of Dumézil's tripartite,[13] and who is sometimes interpreted as the god of wind, breath.[14]
Omelyan Ohonóvsʹkyy[15] andAleksander Brückner[16] rejected the wind etymology as unwarranted. Instead, they related the theonym to the Ukrainian verb стриба́ти,strybaty "to jump" and explained it as "god-jumper, god who jumps". Brückner divided the word in terms of its structure into the segmentstrib-, and the suffix-og, in the likeness ofSvarog (svar- +-og). He pointed to a whole family of words with thestrib- segment connected with jumping: стриб,stryb "jump", стриба́ти,strybaty "to jump", стрибо́к,strybok "jump", стрибну́ти,strybnuty "to jump", etc. He further indicated that he could not say anything more about the theonym.[16]
Michał Łuczyński returns to such an etymology. He points out that the Ukrainian word about such a meaning is also found in some south-western dialects of Russian. In addition, he points out that while researching the etymology of this theonym, certain words were overlooked: Russian стрыбый,strybyy "rapid, swift ("fast-dripping")", Russian dial. стрива́ть,stribat' "to flash (of lightning)", and Ukrainian стрибати,strybaty in the meaning "to escape, fly", "to jump high and far". He reconstructs the Proto-Slavic form of these words as*strybati from the Proto-Slavic stem*strū-. According to him, "to jump", "to leap" as the meaning of this word family in Ukrainian and some Russian dialects developed late, and the original meaning of these words would be "to move at high speed", and "to flow". He points to theBaltic equivalent of the meaning of Russianstrybyy "rapid, swift",Lithuaniansraujùs "rapid", Latvianstràujš "fast, quick, rapid", which may indicate the probable existence of Russianstryb- "current (water)", cf. Lithuaniansraujà, Latvianstrauja "current (water)". Additionally, Russian dial.stribat' "to flash (of lightning)" bears a close semantic resemblance toSerbo-Croatianstrujiti "to flow (of electricity)", and quotes other linguists, according to whom Serbo-Croatianstrujiti can refer to water as well as air, and figuratively also to electricity.[17]
He reconstructs the Proto-Slavic form of the theonym as*Strybogъ, which would consist of the segment*strybъ (a verb noun from*strybati "to move quickly" from "to flow, run"), and the suffix-ogъ, which had no function. The segment itself would continue the Proto-Slavic stem*stry- "to flow, run", from theProto-Balto-Slavic*srū-, from theProto-Indo-European*srew- "to flow". This etymology is supported by the fact that after Christianization this theonym was preserved mainly in hydronyms, which proves that the meaning of the theonym was known to the Slavs.[18]
The Old East Slavic notation of the theonym (Стрибогъ,Stribogǔ) with the vowel ⟨i⟩ instead of the expected ⟨y⟩ is explained as a mixing of these vowels, which is attested in the texts of southern East Slavic since the end of the 11th century, which is connected with the influence of the grammar of theOld Church Slavonic/Bulgarian language on the Old East Slavic language. The mixing of these vowels also occurs in hydronyms (*Stir-/*Styr) and in Ukrainian, cf. Стрый/Стрий,Stryj/Strij, Стрына/Стрина,Stryna/Strina.[19]
According to Mark Vey, Stribog could in fact be originally an epithet meaning literally "father god", which was used in the religions ofIndo-Europeans to describe the god of the bright sky. The reconstructedProto-Indo-European term for "god father" is*Dyḗus ph₂tḗr (cp.RomanJupiter (Iūpiter,Diespiter),GreekZeus (Zeus Pater) andVedicDyaus (Dyáuṣ-pitṛ́); sometimes in reverse order) and its local variety*ph₂tḗr bhagos. After the so-called Iranian inversion,Slavic peoples abandoned the word*dyḗus and replaced it with the wordbog, which is borrowed fromIranian languages (from the PIE.*bhagos) and which appears as a second part of the name. Proto-Indo-European*ph₂tḗr ("father") is generally also considered to be absent in theSlavic languages (replaced by the synonym*átta →otec) or even in theBalto-Slavic languages,[b] but according to Vey,*ph₂tḗr turned into the Slavic word*stryjь, which now means "uncle, father's brother" as follows:*ph₂tḗr →*ptri- →stri- and is the first part of the name. Stribog could therefore be the Slavic god of sky.[20] This etymology has been advocated by a number of scholars,[21] includingVyacheslav Ivanov andVladimir Toporov[22] who placed Stribog in the first group of the so-called thetrifunctional hypothesis ofDumézil, which groups the main deities who look after the community and watch over the distribution of goods.[13]
Such etymology is criticized by mostlinguists.[23] The word*stryjь is derived from PIE*stru-io- and is cognate to Lithuanianstrùjus "uncle, old man",Old Irishsruith "old, venerable" andOld Welshstrutiu "old man", and the process described by Vey did not occur in Slavic language.[24]Brückner in hisDictionary noted that the wordstryj was sometimes referred to as "good wind" and connected it to the corestru- "to flow" (cf.Stryj inUkraine).[25]
There are also other interpretations of the name:Zelenin connected thestri- root with the word стрити,stryty (Proto-Slavic*sъtьri) "to annihilate, destroy," and considered Stribog to be "annihilating, destroying god," the god of war. This view was supported byOrlov andBorovsky,[8] this may also be indicated by the fact thatVayu is also worshipped as the god of war, of the dead, of the harvest, but also of the good and bad fate, as he connects sky and earth.[26] The name was also associated with the nickname ofAhura MazdaŚribaya/Stribaya ("god of beauty", "god worthy of honor", cf.Sanskrit श्री,śri "beauty"), which is supposed to be an Iranian influence and ultimately come from*ph₂tḗr bhagos,[8][27] but this etymology is problematic.[7]Pisani reconstructed the name as*strigo-bogъ, in which*strigo- would correspond to the Latinfrigus ("frost, cold") and in that case Stribog would be the god of cold.[26]
In the 12th century poemThe Tale of Igor's Campaign the winds are called "Stribogs grandsons"[28]
Stribog is a mentioned inMercedes Lackey World Divided Book 2 (2012) of the Secret World Chronicles where slavic folklore entities are reimagined asmeta humans.
Strzybog ; depicted as a deity of wind appears as a supporting character inDevil's Deal (2024) by Layla Fae.
The Wind Child (2002) by Gabriela Houston features as a protagonist a granddaughter of the deity Stribog.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)