When Slavic Folk Custom, the Goddess Morana, and Current Events Collide
Morana is a Slavic Goddess. found within the region of cultural impact from the Slavic pagans. Their territory was found in areas roughly found between the Adriatic, Baltic and Black Seas. But the old folk traditions and stories have seemed to survive the best in the territories once belonging to the Eastern areas of Europe, such as: Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, etc.
Map of Europe showing the Slavic Territory in the 7th – 9th Centuries
There were different regional names for her, and the corpus of surviving folklore can vary by region as well. Morana, is known usually as Marzanna in Poland. She is a goddess tied to the cycle of life and death, and how even in death there can be renewal. She is associated with the end of Winter. Long standing folk tradition in Poland has at the time of the Spring Equinox (typically observed March 21) that there are processionals where straw effigies of the Goddess are taken to water (usually lakes, rivers, or creeks) where the doll is symbolically drowned in remembrance of the Goddess’ story, and to hopefully drive away death and pestilence and hasten spring’s arrival. Her death, allows for life to be renewed and spring to come, along with the Goddess of Spring. This was one aspect of the pagan Rite of Spring known as Jare Święto in Poland. The Catholic church has of course tried to outright ban the practice, or made attempts to re-brand it using Judas instead. But the traditional custom of the the effigy remained.
Morana by Saina Vecerek, available on
Etsy While Slavic paganism has been having a resurgence, the custom in many places is now simply a secular activity. In much the way that in America we may have Easter egg hunts, without having a religious ritual to the Goddess Ostara/Eostre. Recently Visegrád 24, an English language news aggregate funnel for stories coming out of the Visegrád Group (an alliance of countries comprised of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia) shared a story of at least one of this year’s observances of Marzanna dolls being changed out with Putin. In this case the Polish locals were joined by Ukrainian refugees as they drowned the straw doll.
photos by Piotr Polak/PAP posted by
Visegrad24
While I can certainly understand the appeal of drowning effigies of Russia’s Vladimir Putin, it is a pity that this custom that has survived attempts to interfere with it by the Church, has in this case replaced the Goddess in the symbolism of the doll with Putin. Hopefully this will be a brief deviation, and the normal folk custom will return to Morana (Marzanna) in future years. Folk custom has long been the carrier of pagan and polytheistic tradition into the modern era, and I’d hate to see it lost through the aberrations of current events caused by the response to the machinations of a dictator.
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