Slavic pagan symbols

This is a large collection of vectorized ancient Slavic pagan symbols, i.e., symbols of ancient Slavic pagan gods and goddesses, mythological creatures, natural phenomena ...

The term ‘Ancient Slavs’ refers to the peoples and tribes of the Slavs before adopting Christianity, or at the beginning of Christianization. Slavs belong to the group of Indo-European peoples, also called Aryan peoples (do not confuse this term with the term ‘Aryan race’). This group of peoples got its name because it is believed that their original habitat was the territory of today's India, the area of Arya (hence ‘Aryan peoples’). There are many theories about the migration of Slavs, from those that claim the Slavs moved from India, via Persia, to Europe, through those that claim their ancestral homeland was between the Baltic and Black Seas, to those that claim the Ancient Slavs actually arose by mixing Illyrian tribes from the Balkans and tribes that lived on the territory of Eastern Europe. Most of the first writings that mention Slavs come from Byzantine students and missionaries, because many of the territories inhabited by Slavs either belonged or were close to the Byzantine Empire. Other old written sources about the Slavs and their pagan religion date back to the time when the Slavs had already established their first states. These writings were quite subjective, because their authors (mostly priests) looked at everything only through their teachings and dogmas, and thus had no deeper understanding of Slavic culture.

Pattern category

Medieval ornaments

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Available file formats

2D CAD (.dwg) and vector (.eps and .svg)

Pattern license

Creative Commons Public Domain CC0 license

Ancient Slavic religion has the same roots as all the religions of Indo-European peoples, such as the Indians, Celts, Germans, Persians, Greeks ... Old Slavic paganism was a polytheistic religion and various natural phenomena were personified through various gods/goddesses and creatures/beings. Despite their great respect for their gods, the Slavs treated them as equals. As is the case in polytheistic religions, they offered (non-human) sacrifices to please them. Many memories of Slavic gods and way of life have been preserved through customs. However, these customs were clothed in Christianity, although they were not originally associated with Christianity. Many Christian saints received the characteristics of Old Slavic gods, and the days dedicated to a god turned into days dedicated to a saint. This indicates that the faith of the Ancient Slavs was strong and/or that Christianity was quite flexible at that time.

There are a large number of Old Slavic gods and some of them are as follows:
- Perun (highest god of the pantheon and the god of sky, thunder, lightning, storms, rain, law, war, fertility and oak trees.)
- Svarog (god of fire and blacksmithing )
- Veles (god of earth, waters, livestock, and the underworld )
- Vesna (mythological female character associated with youth and springtime )
- Stribog, Lada, Morana, Stribog, Triglav, Radegast...

Ancient Slavs visually reproduced their beliefs through symbols, so that all their gods, mythological creatures, natural phenomena, etc. had their own symbols. Such symbols or signs were put on clothes, weapons, houses… Studying the history of Old Slavs, we came across some interesting books which contained several such symbols and signs. We have taken an interest in collecting them ever since. When it felt right, we started drawing them, and that is how this collection of ancient Slavic symbols came into being. In it, you can find 92 symbols including those of many Old Slavic gods, mythological creatures and phenomena such as: Perun, Triglav, Veles, Zhiva, Rarog, Svarog, Lada, Belobog, Rodovik, Stribog, Simargl, Yarovik, Dodola, Ladinec, Grozovik, Mokosh, Radegast, Svyatogor, Svetovit, Viy, Vesna, Tara, Kolovrat, Yarovrat...

Speaking of which, Slavs are the largest ethno-linguistic group in Europe. They inhabit Central, Eastern & Southeastern Europe and Central & Northern Asia. Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Poland, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Belarus... are just some of the Slavic countries.

There are a large number of world-famous Slavs and some of them are Nikola Tesla, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Leo Tolstoy, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Dmitri Mendeleev, Yuri Gagarin, Frédéric Chopin, Marie Curie, Bedřich Smetana, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Igor Sikorsky, Mikhail Kalashnikov, Alphonse Mucha, Anna Pavlova, Ivo Andric, Sergey Korolev, Novak Djokovic, ...

Throughout history, a lot of members of the Slavic peoples have been responsible for many of the greatest global achievements:

Yuri Gagarin - a pilot and cosmonaut who became the first human to journey into outer space
Dmitri Mendeleev - periodic table of elements
Soviet Union (was mostly Slavic country) - first successful launch of an orbiting satellite
Nikola Tesla - induction motor…
Rajko Tomović - first artificial hand with five fingers
Igor Sikorsky - first helicopter
Nikola Tesla - first radio
Vladimir K. Zworykin – First television
Sergey Lebedev - first commercially viable and mass-produced type of synthetic rubber
Mihailo Pupin - long-distance telephone communication
Valentina Tereshkova - first and youngest woman in space
...

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