Živa, Zhiva (

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

''Siwa'') is a goddess of the Obodritic tribe of the

Polabian Slavs Polabian Slavs ( dsb, Połobske słowjany, pl, Słowianie połabscy, cz, Polabští slované) is a collective term applied to a number of Lechitic ( West Slavic) tribes who lived scattered along the Elbe river in what is today eastern German ...

. The goddess so appears only in the ''

Chronicle A chronicle ( la, chronica, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and lo ...

'' of Helmold of Bozov. He described the strengthening of the pagan cult during the reign of

Niklot Niklot or Nyklot (1090 – August 1160) was a chief or prince of the Slavic Obotrites and an ancestor of the House of Mecklenburg. He became chief of the Obotrite confederacy, including the Kissini and the Circipani, between the years 1130 and 11 ...

In the original name is spelled as ''Siwa'' (

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

copy), in later manuscripts as ''Siwe'' (

Lübeck Lübeck (; Low German also ), officially the Hanseatic City of Lübeck (german: Hansestadt Lübeck), is a city in Northern Germany. With around 217,000 inhabitants, Lübeck is the second-largest city on the German Baltic coast and in the stat ...

), ''Silue'' (

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

), ''Synna'' (

Szczecin Szczecin (, , german: Stettin ; sv, Stettin ; Latin: ''Sedinum'' or ''Stetinum'') is the capital and largest city of the West Pomeranian Voivodeship in northwestern Poland. Located near the Baltic Sea and the German border, it is a major s ...

). The Copenhagen, Lübeck and Szczecin manuscripts indicate that the name contained the

grapheme In linguistics, a grapheme is the smallest functional unit of a writing system. The word ''grapheme'' is derived and the suffix ''-eme'' by analogy with ''phoneme'' and other names of emic units. The study of graphemes is called ''graphemics' ...

''w'' (''v''); the Szczecin notation (''Synna'') was created as a result of frequent ''u'' → ''n'' replacement and reflected the form ''*Syuua'', while the double ''u'' = ''w'', which indicates the original form ''*Sywa'' (''*Syva''). The Viennese transcript is the most distorted in relation to the original. Scholars agree on the etymology of this theonym. It is read as the Slavic feminine adjective ''*Živa'' "Alive, Live, Living". ''Živa'' is also a personal name attested in several Slavic languages, e.g. the Old Polabian personal name ''*Živa'' (Latin: ''Zive'', 1336), the

Old Polish The Old Polish language ( pl, język staropolski, staropolszczyzna) was a period in the history of the Polish language between the 10th and the 16th centuries. It was followed by the Middle Polish language. The sources for the study of the Old ...

surname ''Żywa'' (Latin: ''Siwa'', ''Sywa'', ''Szywa'', ''Szyva''), the Old Croatian given name ''Živa'', the Bulgarian Жива, ''Zhiva'', and others. Originally, therefore, this theonym was a given name, which then became an epithet of an unknown goddess, whose characteristics would have to be related to the meaning of the name; this theonym can be understood as a wishing name, e.g., "may she be alive and live long", or a characterizing name, e.g., "she who is alive". Vyacheslav Ivanov i

Vladimir Toporov Vladimir Nikolayevich Toporov (russian: Влади́мир Никола́евич Топоро́в; 5 July 1928 in Moscow5 December 2005 in Moscow) was a leading Russian philologist associated with the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school. His wife was ...

considered Živa to be an epithet of the goddess

Mokosh Mokosh ( orv, Мóкошь) is a Slavic goddess mentioned in the Primary Chronicle, protector of women's work and women's destiny. She watches over spinning and weaving, shearing of sheep, and protects women in childbirth. Mokosh is the Mother G ...

(which was preserved in the names of the Polabians after Christianization).

References

Bibliography

* * * {{Authority control Slavic goddesses