My great-great-grandfather was born in 1845 and he spent his entire life through the turmoil of the second half of the 19th century. Little is known about his life; after all, life in rural Serbian villages in past times wasn't really documented well, and literacy among the majority of people wasn't something our ancestors could be proud of. However, what was a major disadvantage for most people turned out to be a great opportunity for my great-great-grandfather. Beside being literate and educated, he was gifted with a human property only a few others possess. He owned a strong and melodic voice that would probably guarantee him at least a radio host job if he was born a century later. Anyhow, one of his tasks was to read newspapers, various dispatches, and communiques while standing in the center of the village square, surrounded by neighbors and people from nearby settlements. Soon enough, he earned valuable prominence in his family, and his children decided to devote our family name to him. Ever since then and after, more or less, 100 years, our last name is carrying my great-great-grandfather's. Zhiva.
But his name goes even further in the past. Millennium or two before my great-great-grandfather, this name belonged first to someone else entirely. Zhiva (Živa) was the name of the old Slavic goddess of life, fertility, and marriage, one of numerous terrestrial goddesses. It literally means "living, being, existing", and compared to other religions of the past, Zhiva was the goddess similar to Hera, Demeter, and Aphrodite of the ancient Olympians and very much alike goddess Sif from the old Norse mythology. Thanks to modern pop culture, especially comics and in recent years movie blockbusters, we are pretty familiar with old beliefs of our ancestors in Greece, Rome, and Scandinavia, but tremendous and equally colorful stories are hiding in old Slavic mythology as well. Like with our family name, in one way or another, old stories of ancient mythology survived all these years. And not just stories—the customs, celebrations, and rituals are very much alive even today, despite all the efforts from the new Christian religion that tried or are still trying to eliminate old paganism from people's minds.
Contrary to the old Greeks, Romans, or Scandinavians, who more or less occupied smaller territories, Slavs spread to vast areas of nowadays Asia and Eastern Europe. Numerous cultures and nations emerged from several migrations and gave birth to slightly different mythology of the same deities, and in different Slavic languages and histories, Zhiva is known with different names, and the most prominent ones were Zhibog (life god), Živa, Жива, Siwa, Šiwa, etc. Along with the variety of names comes the variety of descriptions, and searching for definite and most accurate ancient text is the mission impossible or one of those Sisyphean tasks if we want to stay in the realm of old legends and stories. However, I did find one mutual description of her that pretty much covers all sources, and it explains the goddess as: "Zhiva is the main female goddess in the world of the Slavs. Like the god Svarog, she covers the whole world with his light and closely follows the basic laws of the Kind. Goddess Zhiva gives tenderness, care, kindness, heart, and care to all pregnant women and lactating mothers." Zhiva existed as a supreme goddess, and she was the offspring of the main Slavic deities (Rod as a main supreme god, creator of everything, Svarog, god of heaven, and three great goddesses), a sister goddess to other female deities (Vesna, Morana, and Lada, terrestrial goddesses related to Earth seasons), the sister of the god of thunder and lightning Perun, and the wife of Dabog (Dazhbog), the god of sun, justice, and well-being.
I can imagine that it is very hard to enumerate all Slavic gods, their relations, and all their pantheons due to the vast diversity of Slavic people, but if we consider only South Slavs who migrated to the Balkans at some point in the 6th century, one thing is for sure. They immediately collided with upcoming and already established Christianity that took heavy roots in Roman and Byzantine empires. Almost immediately, missionaries are sent to start conversion and kill old beliefs for good. It turned out it was another wave of Sisyphean tasks that required centuries to process. Serbs accepted the new religion only later in the 9th century, but not entirely. While god in plural ended with its existence almost fully with the start of the second millennium, many customs remained until today. For example, Serbian people still celebrate a family religious day called slava, which was dedicated to the god the family had chosen to be their protector in the old days. Christianity never succeeded in eliminating this custom and only managed to convert it into worshiping Christian saints instead. What was once a day dedicated to Perun, god of thunder, is now replaced with Saint Elijah (Sveti Ilija), which is also connected with thunders and lightnings in Christian tales. Old Serbs believed that gods could take the form of ordinary people who were visiting family homes at random times, and one of the related customs was warm hospitality toward strangers who knocked on their doors. The oak was the holy tree, and all the temples are built out of it instead of using heavy and everlasting stones. In the aftermath, no Slavic holy sights and temples persisted today. In temples dedicated to goddess Zhiva, high priests wore ritual hats or helmets with horns, which were symbols of fertility among Slavic people and other religious folklore throughout Europe in the old times.
Aside from Slavic deities, Serbs believed in other godly creatures who had influence over nature, like ghosts, fairies, demons, dragons, forest mothers, and also human-like creatures that originated from people like vampires, witches, werewolves, etc. The list is endless. To better live with all those beasts and scary underworld monsters, many rituals are invented and practiced all over. One in particular is still alive in Eastern Serbia in the event called Rusalje, where women fall into trans after ritually caroling and dancing and virtually connect to the ghosts and afterlife world in order to predict future events and understand upcoming dangers. Interesting facts are that many women refused to exert 'the healing procedure' in local monasteries performed by Christian priests and willingly performed the ritual every year. Of course, these were the extreme, but there were other more benevolent rituals that were practiced in the past, and I would not be surprised if they are still alive today. For example, if we are talking about Zhiva, human worshipers were ceremonially providing bouquets of flowers, fruits, and wheat on numerous occasions, but also there was a ritual of sacrificing a rooster before the time when wheat is sown and/or after the harvest is over.
If we are considering the Eastern Europe Slavic history, perhaps the strongest sites where Zhiva was worshiped were throughout the lands of nowadays Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and eastern Germany, but perhaps the most interesting site where the temple of Zhiva once existed was the famous lake Bled in Slovenia. More precisely, the foundation of the temple that provided the support for a square wooden house in the 8th century was excavated under the Christian church on the Isle of Bled. Attached to the foundation was a square building with an apse from the 9th century that clearly indicates the transition from a pagan temple to an early Christian church. Christian missionaries dedicated to shutting down old Slavic sites and temples at the time almost always transferred the sites of worshiping Slavic goddesses into the worship of Mother of God to ease the transition, and the nowadays church on the Lake Bled is consecrated to the Ascension of Mary. The temple of Zhiva on the Isle of Bled and the waterfall on the nearby Savica river were commemorated and celebrated in the epic poem 'Baptism on Savica' by the 19th Slovenian poet France Prešeren.
Well, temples dedicated to Zhiva definitely no longer exist, but it is documented that many places, at least in Serbia, with names that survived the last millennium and have words 'deva' or 'baba' in their roots (which means goddess mother) suggest sites of worshiping the female deity, most likely locations of Zhiva's temples. A couple of those places and nearby mountains have such words near the village where my great-great-grandfather lived and where our summer house still stands. Also, lots of people's names and surnames have the word 'Živa' in the root, and they all originate in old Slavic beliefs. Years ago, during my education within high school and faculty, Živa was my nickname, and I always turned around if I heard somebody call it.
Image refs:
https://www.rbth.com/multimedia/pictures/2017/08/10/reanimating-slavic-gods-the-man-who-breathes-life-into-deities_820264
https://www.locationscout.net/locations/6017-lake-bled
http://www.1zoom.me/de/wallpaper/156998/z349.2/
Refs:
http://www.starisloveni.com/Bogovi.html
https://www.etsy.com/dk-en/listing/550443944/goddess-zhiva-wood-birch-statue-slavic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deities_of_Slavic_religion
https://www.rasen.rs/2017/01/rusalje-ili-zene-padalice/#.W26_Kegza00
https://www.srbijadanas.com/vesti/info/misterija-istocne-srbije-ko-su-zene-koje-padaju-u-trans-i-predvidaju-buducnost-2017-05-20
https://vesna.atlantidaforum.com/?p=3916
http://lifestyle.enaa.com/horoskop/Kdo-je-bila-Ziva.html
http://vladimir-uno.blogspot.com/2015/09/ziva-goddess-of-living-water-life-love.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_Pre%C5%A1eren
Artistic presentation of Goddess Zhiva
But his name goes even further in the past. Millennium or two before my great-great-grandfather, this name belonged first to someone else entirely. Zhiva (Živa) was the name of the old Slavic goddess of life, fertility, and marriage, one of numerous terrestrial goddesses. It literally means "living, being, existing", and compared to other religions of the past, Zhiva was the goddess similar to Hera, Demeter, and Aphrodite of the ancient Olympians and very much alike goddess Sif from the old Norse mythology. Thanks to modern pop culture, especially comics and in recent years movie blockbusters, we are pretty familiar with old beliefs of our ancestors in Greece, Rome, and Scandinavia, but tremendous and equally colorful stories are hiding in old Slavic mythology as well. Like with our family name, in one way or another, old stories of ancient mythology survived all these years. And not just stories—the customs, celebrations, and rituals are very much alive even today, despite all the efforts from the new Christian religion that tried or are still trying to eliminate old paganism from people's minds.
Contrary to the old Greeks, Romans, or Scandinavians, who more or less occupied smaller territories, Slavs spread to vast areas of nowadays Asia and Eastern Europe. Numerous cultures and nations emerged from several migrations and gave birth to slightly different mythology of the same deities, and in different Slavic languages and histories, Zhiva is known with different names, and the most prominent ones were Zhibog (life god), Živa, Жива, Siwa, Šiwa, etc. Along with the variety of names comes the variety of descriptions, and searching for definite and most accurate ancient text is the mission impossible or one of those Sisyphean tasks if we want to stay in the realm of old legends and stories. However, I did find one mutual description of her that pretty much covers all sources, and it explains the goddess as: "Zhiva is the main female goddess in the world of the Slavs. Like the god Svarog, she covers the whole world with his light and closely follows the basic laws of the Kind. Goddess Zhiva gives tenderness, care, kindness, heart, and care to all pregnant women and lactating mothers." Zhiva existed as a supreme goddess, and she was the offspring of the main Slavic deities (Rod as a main supreme god, creator of everything, Svarog, god of heaven, and three great goddesses), a sister goddess to other female deities (Vesna, Morana, and Lada, terrestrial goddesses related to Earth seasons), the sister of the god of thunder and lightning Perun, and the wife of Dabog (Dazhbog), the god of sun, justice, and well-being.
Artistic presentation of Slavic temple
I can imagine that it is very hard to enumerate all Slavic gods, their relations, and all their pantheons due to the vast diversity of Slavic people, but if we consider only South Slavs who migrated to the Balkans at some point in the 6th century, one thing is for sure. They immediately collided with upcoming and already established Christianity that took heavy roots in Roman and Byzantine empires. Almost immediately, missionaries are sent to start conversion and kill old beliefs for good. It turned out it was another wave of Sisyphean tasks that required centuries to process. Serbs accepted the new religion only later in the 9th century, but not entirely. While god in plural ended with its existence almost fully with the start of the second millennium, many customs remained until today. For example, Serbian people still celebrate a family religious day called slava, which was dedicated to the god the family had chosen to be their protector in the old days. Christianity never succeeded in eliminating this custom and only managed to convert it into worshiping Christian saints instead. What was once a day dedicated to Perun, god of thunder, is now replaced with Saint Elijah (Sveti Ilija), which is also connected with thunders and lightnings in Christian tales. Old Serbs believed that gods could take the form of ordinary people who were visiting family homes at random times, and one of the related customs was warm hospitality toward strangers who knocked on their doors. The oak was the holy tree, and all the temples are built out of it instead of using heavy and everlasting stones. In the aftermath, no Slavic holy sights and temples persisted today. In temples dedicated to goddess Zhiva, high priests wore ritual hats or helmets with horns, which were symbols of fertility among Slavic people and other religious folklore throughout Europe in the old times.
Aside from Slavic deities, Serbs believed in other godly creatures who had influence over nature, like ghosts, fairies, demons, dragons, forest mothers, and also human-like creatures that originated from people like vampires, witches, werewolves, etc. The list is endless. To better live with all those beasts and scary underworld monsters, many rituals are invented and practiced all over. One in particular is still alive in Eastern Serbia in the event called Rusalje, where women fall into trans after ritually caroling and dancing and virtually connect to the ghosts and afterlife world in order to predict future events and understand upcoming dangers. Interesting facts are that many women refused to exert 'the healing procedure' in local monasteries performed by Christian priests and willingly performed the ritual every year. Of course, these were the extreme, but there were other more benevolent rituals that were practiced in the past, and I would not be surprised if they are still alive today. For example, if we are talking about Zhiva, human worshipers were ceremonially providing bouquets of flowers, fruits, and wheat on numerous occasions, but also there was a ritual of sacrificing a rooster before the time when wheat is sown and/or after the harvest is over.
Christian church on the Isle of Bled
If we are considering the Eastern Europe Slavic history, perhaps the strongest sites where Zhiva was worshiped were throughout the lands of nowadays Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, and eastern Germany, but perhaps the most interesting site where the temple of Zhiva once existed was the famous lake Bled in Slovenia. More precisely, the foundation of the temple that provided the support for a square wooden house in the 8th century was excavated under the Christian church on the Isle of Bled. Attached to the foundation was a square building with an apse from the 9th century that clearly indicates the transition from a pagan temple to an early Christian church. Christian missionaries dedicated to shutting down old Slavic sites and temples at the time almost always transferred the sites of worshiping Slavic goddesses into the worship of Mother of God to ease the transition, and the nowadays church on the Lake Bled is consecrated to the Ascension of Mary. The temple of Zhiva on the Isle of Bled and the waterfall on the nearby Savica river were commemorated and celebrated in the epic poem 'Baptism on Savica' by the 19th Slovenian poet France Prešeren.
Well, temples dedicated to Zhiva definitely no longer exist, but it is documented that many places, at least in Serbia, with names that survived the last millennium and have words 'deva' or 'baba' in their roots (which means goddess mother) suggest sites of worshiping the female deity, most likely locations of Zhiva's temples. A couple of those places and nearby mountains have such words near the village where my great-great-grandfather lived and where our summer house still stands. Also, lots of people's names and surnames have the word 'Živa' in the root, and they all originate in old Slavic beliefs. Years ago, during my education within high school and faculty, Živa was my nickname, and I always turned around if I heard somebody call it.
Image refs:
https://www.rbth.com/multimedia/pictures/2017/08/10/reanimating-slavic-gods-the-man-who-breathes-life-into-deities_820264
https://www.locationscout.net/locations/6017-lake-bled
http://www.1zoom.me/de/wallpaper/156998/z349.2/
Refs:
http://www.starisloveni.com/Bogovi.html
https://www.etsy.com/dk-en/listing/550443944/goddess-zhiva-wood-birch-statue-slavic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deities_of_Slavic_religion
https://www.rasen.rs/2017/01/rusalje-ili-zene-padalice/#.W26_Kegza00
https://www.srbijadanas.com/vesti/info/misterija-istocne-srbije-ko-su-zene-koje-padaju-u-trans-i-predvidaju-buducnost-2017-05-20
https://vesna.atlantidaforum.com/?p=3916
http://lifestyle.enaa.com/horoskop/Kdo-je-bila-Ziva.html
http://vladimir-uno.blogspot.com/2015/09/ziva-goddess-of-living-water-life-love.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France_Pre%C5%A1eren