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Baltic Deities
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The gods of the pre-Christian Balts, Lithuanians, Latvians and Old Prussians, reconstructed from folk songs, chronicles written by Christian observers, and place and personal names. The record is late and much debated. These gods are also venerated today by modern Baltic revival movements, notably Romuva, which draw on the surviving folklore and song.
Facts
Overview
What Defines This GroupingThe gods of the pre-Christian Lithuanians, Latvians and Old Prussians - three distinct peoples, not one religion. There is no Baltic religious text: the named gods come from Latin treaty and chronicle records made by the Christianising powers, and the bulk of the material is folkloric, collected from the sixteenth century and systematically in the nineteenth. 2 Peoples and Traditions CoveredLatvians, whose gods are carried above all in the collected folk songs, the dainas 2 Peoples and Traditions CoveredLithuanians, whose state was the last in Europe to accept Christianity officially, in 1387 2 Peoples and Traditions CoveredOld Prussians, a Baltic-speaking people whose language died out in the early eighteenth century 2 Attestation
Era of AttestationFirst named in the Latin documents of the Teutonic Order and in eastern chronicle interpolations from 1249. The great folklore collections that carry most of the material were made in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 2 Veneration TodayThe pre-Christian cult was suppressed through the late medieval and early modern period. 2 Veneration TodayVenerated in the modern Baltic reconstructionist religions Romuva in Lithuania and Dievturiba in Latvia. 3 Status
Standing as a Comparative CategoryMuch of the standard Baltic pantheon rests on late folklore and on early modern lists whose gods later scholarship has reclassified as local guardian spirits or as literary inventions. 2 Learn More
The Gods of the Baltic Peoples
This group holds the deities of the pre-Christian Baltic peoples, Lithuanians, Latvians and Old Prussians, whose paganism survived in the far north-east of Europe later than most, into the late medieval period. Much is reconstructed from folklore, songs (dainas) and the records of Christian missionaries.
The browser will find the sky-god Dievas, the thunderer Perkunas, the sun-goddess Saule and the moon Menulis, and the fate and hearth figures of Latvian tradition such as Laima and Mara. The atlas notes the heavy reliance on later folklore and the role these figures play in the modern Baltic revival movements Romuva and Dievturiba.
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