Svetovit, also known as Sventovit and Svantovit amongst other variants, is the god of abundance and war, and the chief god of the Slavic tribe of the Rani, and later of all the Polabian Slavs. His organized cult was located on the island of Rügen, at Cape Arkona, where his main temple was also located. According to the descriptions of medieval chroniclers, the statue representing this god had four heads and held a horn and a sword. Dedicated to the deity were a white horse, a saddle, a bit, a flag, and eagles. Once a year, after the harvest, a large festival was held in his honor. With the help of a horn and a horse belonging to the god, the priests carried out divinations, and at night the god himself rode a horse to fight his enemies. His name can be translated as "Strong Lord" or "Holy Lord". In the past it was often mistakenly believed that the cult of Svetovit originated from St. Vitus. Among scholars of Slavic mythology, Svetovit is often regarded as a Polabian hypostasis of Pan-Slavic god Perun. His cult was destroyed in 1168 by the Danes under Bishop Absalon and King Valdemar the Great.
Etymology In Latin records, this theonym is notated as , , , , , , and others, and in Old Icelandic as and .
Scholars agree on the reading of the Latin records; the digraphs ⟨an⟩ and ⟨en⟩ indicate a Slavic nasal vowel. In the first part of the theonym, there is an Old Polabian continuation of the Proto-Slavic adjective *svętъ (with a nasal [e]). At the Old Polabian stage, at least in northern dialects, as a result of the transition of [ę] into [ą] (nasal [a]), *svętъ passed into Old Polabian dialectal *svąt-. On this basis, the Old Polabian dialectal theonym is reconstructed as *Svątevit.
In English publications god's name is being transcribed as Svantovit (from reconstructed Old Polabian *Svątevit), Sventovit or Svetovit (from hypothetical Common Slavic *Svętovitъ).
The prevailing view in the literature is that *svętъ in Proto-Slavic language meant "strong, mighty", and only under the influence of Christianity did it acquire the religious meaning of "holy, sacred". Such a view was held by Aleksander Brückner, Stanisław Rospond and many others.
Nowadays, however, this view is sometimes criticized and it is suggested that the meaning of "holy, sacred" should be considered original, Proto-Slavic. Against the influence of Christianity on the meaning of the word is contradicted primarily by its etymology: the closest cognates are Lithuanian šventas and Old Prussian swints "holy, sacred", which, like PS *svętъ, are derived from the Proto-Balto-Slavic *śwentas. Also closely related is the Avestan "holy, sacred" and Sanskrit . Also further related are the Proto-Germanic *hunsla "offering, sacrifice", and possibly Thracian *θιντ and Proto-Celtic *penta. The Slavic word and words related to it ultimately come from the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱwen- "to celebrate". Rick Derksen reconstructs PS meaning of *svętъ as "holy, sacred", Wiesław Boryś as "being the object of religious reverence, worship".
In academic literature, the theonym is traditionally divided morphologically as Sveto-vit – in the second part there is supposed to be a suffix -vit (hypothetical PS *-vitъ) meaning "lord, ruler, hero". The suffix is supposed to derive from *vitędzь "warrior, hero" of Germanic etymology. Some researchers, however, have rejected the connection of the suffix with *vitędzь precisely because of the Germanic origin of the word; some scholars have linked the suffix to the word *vitati "to invite, to wish health", or the hypothetical verb *viti. Depending on which original meaning of the word *svętъ a given scholar takes, the theonym is translated, for example, as "Strong hero", "Strong ruler and lord", or "Holy victor", "Holy lord". Some scholars also divide the theonym as Svet-ovit, where the suffix -ovit means "one who has much (of something)", "characterized by (something)", and the theonym Svetovit is supposed to mean "The one with much that is holy".
Other propositions Brückner found the interpretation of the name problematic. He eventually suggested a possible connection with the hypothetical Old Polish word świętowity "holy, sacred", but this interpretation was rejected by Stanisław Urbańczyk. The source material, however, confirms the existence of this type of words in Slavic languages, cf. Belarusian dialectal , Russian , Ukrainian "holy, sacred", also probably Old Polish *świętowa "holy, sacred", all from Slavic *svętovy. If this etymology is correct, the theonym consists of the adjective *svętovy, and the suffix *-itъ(jь).
It has also been proposed that the meaning of the first part of the theonym should be translated, for example, as "world", or "light" (PS *světъ), but this interpretation has been rejected by linguists. A completely incorrect reading is Sviatovid / Svietovid (Polish Światowid) "God seeing the four directions of the world" invented by 19th century Polish Romantics, where the suffix is supposed to be -vid "to see" (cf. Polish widzieć "to see").
Sources Svetovit is mentioned by three sources: the main information is given by Helmold's Chronica Slavorum and Saxo Grammaticus’s Gesta Danorum; he is also mentioned by Knýtlinga saga. Saxo writes most extensively about Svetovit, his description of this god is the longest known text on the beliefs of the Slavs. Excerpt from Saxo's description:
Svetovit and Saint Vitus According to some scholars, the theonym Svetovit allegedly derives from Saint Vitus, because in Slavic languages both names sound very similar. Supporters of this theory cite Helmold, who cites the so-called "Corvey legend" in two versions (in the first version, he calls it an , in the second, he calls it a ) according to which the tribe of the Rani living on the island of Rügen was Christianized in the ninth century, and then abandoned Christianity and idolized Saint Vitus:
Such a view was expressed by Evelino Gasparini, or Henryk Łowmiański, but Łowmiański rejected the authenticity of the legend. Instead, he proposed a hypothesis according to which the cult of St Vitus was supposed to have spread from Prague to Brenna – from there came Drahomira, the mother of Wenceslaus I, the founder of St. Vitus' Church in Prague – where it was accepted as a deity by tolerant Slavs, and after the fall of Brenna it was supposed to have reached Rügen.
The view of the Christian origin of Svetovit is rejected by most scholars and historians. It is generally believed that this legend was invented in the 12th century to justify political claims to Rügen, already known since the mid-11th century. First of all, it is impossible that there was a Christianization of Polabia in the ninth century, let alone of Rügen in the ninth century – the first documents attesting the Christianization of Rügen appear only after the fall of the Slavic Arkona in 1168, although chroniclers of the time were eager to describe the Christianization of any pagans – the Christianization of Rügen is not mentioned by Widukind of Corvey (The Deeds of the Saxons), nor by Adam of Bremen (Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum). There is also an argument against such borrowing by given names of similar construction, e.g. Milovit, Radovit, Siemovit, etc. It is also unclear why the Slavs would consider an unpopular saint as a chief deity. The cult of St. Vitus itself was transferred to the Polabian region from Prague, not from Corvey.
The origin of this legend is unclear. Helmold mentions a Christianizing mission to Rügen, but makes no mention of a tribute, and the monastery makes no mention of a mission, but mentions the right to collect a tribute from Rügen. The first to mention the loss of Corvey's right to Rügen was Abbot (d. 1071), but this is probably a later interpolation. The first reliable, albeit indirect, information about the Rügen tribute was given by the Annales Corbeienses, which describe the expedition of Duke Lotar III in 1114 against the Lutici union. The defeated Circipanians tribe admitted that they had once paid tribute in the form of fox skins or coins to St. Vitus in Corvey (where his relics had been located since 836). According to Łowmiański, this confession to paying tribute was a fabrication to appease Lotar's wrath, since there is no evidence whatsoever that the Circipanians paid tribute before that date. According to Roman Zaroff, however, this information is also a forgery; according to Janisław Osięgłowski, the legend originated around 1110-1114 and was started by monks from Corvey who knew the Slavic language and participated in Lotar's war expedition. When they learned about the island and the benefits that could be derived from its possession, the similarity of the words Svetovit and Saint Vitus prompted them to create the legend, claims, however, that the legend may have originated even earlier, but it was not practically applied for the first time until 1114. According to , the information about Svetovit, whose cult prevailed among the Pomeranian Slavs after the fall of Rethra, may have reached Corvey through merchants charged with donations to Svetovit, or returning prisoners of war who were kidnapped by . The person who translated the theonym was able to translate the first part of the theonym as corresponding to Latin sanctus, but was unable to translate the second part (-vit), which, with the medieval tendency toward etymologization, resulted in a legendary identification.
In Serbia Some publications claim that Svetovit was also worshipped in Serbia (and Croatia), as evidenced by the holiday of Vidovdan (literally "St. Vitus Day"). This holiday, which was originally associated with St. Vitus, was forgotten over time and began to regain its popularity in 1818 after the publication of Vuk Karadžić's Srpski rječnik, where Vidovdan is mentioned as the day of the Battle of Kosovo. Since the mid-19th century, with the rise of Serbian romanticism, this holiday among all Serbs began to symbolize the nation's heroism in the fight against the Ottoman Empire. In 1864 the holiday returned to the church calendar, but at that time the holiday was mainly treated as a day to commemorate the battle of Kosovo and the death of Prince Lazar. For this reason, there were even claims in the scholarly literature that Vidovdan is not related to St. Vitus at all.
At the end of the 19th century, in his book Natko Nodilo attributes the cult of Svetovit to all Slavs, whose cult was to be deliberately replaced by a saint with a similar name to facilitate Christianization. Based on this book, Miodrag Popović argues for the pagan origin of the holiday. Popović is later referred to by , according to whom Vidovdan is a festival of the deity Vid, and the Kosovo myth developed alongside the cult of this deity, as well as ethnologists Dušan Bandić and Mila Bosić. Even today, the view of the cult of Svetovit among Serbs and Croats comes up for discussion; his name is often stylized as Svetovid or Vid to make the name similar to toponymy and other proper names (e.g. Vidova Gora), which are supposed to be remnants of his cult. However, the theory of the knowledge of the god Svetovit in the South Slavs cannot be accepted – it is widely believed in the scholarly community that the god Svetovit was known only to the Polabian Slavs and did not have a pan-Slavic range, and the Serbo-Croatian toponymy and proper names refer to St. Vitus ().
Cult