russian history 44 (2017) 209-242 brill.com/ruhi What Do We Know about *Čьrnobogъ and *Bělъ Bogъ? Yaroslav Gorbachov Assistant Professor of Linguistics, Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago
[email protected] Abstract As attested, the Slavic pantheon is rather well-populated. However, many of its nu- merous members are known only by their names mentioned in passing in one or two medieval documents. Among those barely attested Slavic deities, there are a few whose very existence may be doubted. This does not deter some scholars from articulating rather elaborate theories about Slavic mythology and cosmology. The article discusses two obscure Slavic deities, “Black God” and “White God,” and, in particular, reexamines the extant primary sources on them. It is argued that “Black God” worship was limited to the Slavic North-West, and “White God” never existed. Keywords Chernobog – Belbog – Belbuck – Tjarnaglófi – Vij – Slavic dualism Introduction A discussion of Slavic mythology and pantheons is always a difficult, risky, and thankless business. There is no dearth of gods to talk about. In the literature they are discussed with confidence and, at times, some bold conclusions about Slavic cosmology are made, based on the sheer fact of the existence of a par- ticular deity. In reality, however, many of the “known” Slavic gods are not much more than a bare theonym mentioned once or twice in what often is a late, un- reliable, or poorly interpretable document. The available evidence is undeni- ably scanty and the dots to be connected are spaced far apart. Naturally, many © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2017 | doi 10.1163/18763316-04402011Downloaded from Brill.com09/23/2021 09:14:00PM via free access <UN> 210 Gorbachov Slavic mythologists have succumbed to an understandable urge to supply the missing fragments by “reconstructing” them.