Andrzej Sapkowski is a Polish fantasy writer. He is best known for his series of books The Witcher, which revolves around the eponymous monster-hunter, Geralt of Rivia. The saga has been popularized through television, stage, comic books, video games and translated into 37 languages making him the second most-translated Polish science fiction and fantasy writer after Stanisław Lem.
"Hey, Slavs" is a patriotic song dedicated to the Slavs and widely considered to be the Pan-Slavic anthem. It was adapted and adopted as the national anthem of various Slavic-speaking nations, movements and organizations during the late 19th and 20th century.
Polish people, or Poles, are a West Slavic ethnic group and nation who share a common history, culture, the Polish language and are identified with the country of Poland in Central Europe. The preamble to the Constitution of the Republic of Poland defines the Polish nation as comprising all the citizens of Poland, regardless of heritage or ethnicity. The majority of Poles adhere to Roman Catholicism.
Veles, also known as Volos, is a major god of earth, waters, livestock, and the underworld in Slavic paganism. His mythology and powers are similar, though not identical, to those of Odin, Loki, and Hermes.
Devana, Zevana, less often Zievonia is the goddess of wild nature, forests, hunting and the moon worshiped by the Western Slavs. In the sources, she was first mentioned in the 15th century by Jan Długosz, who compared her to the Roman goddess Diana. Dziewanna is also a Polish name for Verbascum, and the etymology of the word is unclear. After strong criticism from Aleksander Brückner, researchers rejected her authenticity, but nowadays it is accepted by an increasing number of researchers. Sometimes, in folk rituals, she performs together with Morana.
Lada and Lado are alleged Slavic deities. Lada was first mentioned around 1405–1412 in the sermons of Lucas of Wielki Koźmin, which warned against worshipping Lada and other gods during spring ceremonies and folk performances.
Morana, Morena, Mora, Mara, Morė, Marena, or Marzanna is a pagan Slavic goddess associated with seasonal rites based on the idea of death and rebirth of nature. She is an ancient goddess associated with winter's death, rebirth and dreams. In ancient Slavic rites, the death of the Goddess Morana at the end of winter becomes the rebirth of Spring of the Goddess Kostroma (Russian), Lada or Vesna representing the coming of Spring.
Zorya is a figure in Slavic folklore, a feminine personification of dawn, possibly goddess. Depending on tradition, she may appear as a singular entity, or two or three sisters at once. Although Zorya is etymologically unrelated to the Proto-Indo-European goddess of the dawn *H₂éwsōs, she shares most of her characteristics. She is often depicted as the sister of the Sun, the Moon, and Danica, the Morning Star with which she is sometimes identified. She lives in the Palace of the Sun, opens the gate for him in the morning so that he can set off on a journey through the sky, guards his white horses, she is also described as a virgin. In the Eastern Slavic tradition of zagovory she represents the supreme power that a practitioner appeals to.
Dodola and Perperuna are rainmaking pagan customs widespread among different peoples in Southeast Europe until the 20th century, found in Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia. It is still practiced in remote Albanian ethnographic regions, but only in rare events, when the summer is dry and without atmospheric precipitation.
Kupala Night is one of the major folk holidays in some of the Slavic countries that coincides with the Christian feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist and the East Slavic feast of Saint John's Eve. In folk tradition, it was revered as the day of the summer solstice and was originally celebrated on the shortest night of the year, which is on 21-22 or 23-24 of June in the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia, Bulgaria, and modern Ukraine ,. Following the Julian calendar, it is celebrated on the night between 6 and 7 July in Belarus, Russia, and parts of Ukraine. The name of the holiday is ultimately derived from the East Slavic word kǫpati "to bathe".
In Slavic folklore, the rusalka is a female entity, often malicious toward mankind and frequently associated with water. It has counterparts in other parts of Europe, such as the French Melusine and the Germanic Nixie. Folklorists have proposed a variety of origins for the entity, including that they may originally stem from Slavic paganism, where they may have been seen as benevolent spirits. Rusalki appear in a variety of media in modern popular culture, particularly in Slavic language-speaking countries, where they frequently resemble the concept of the mermaid.
The bladder fiddle was a folk instrument used throughout Europe and in the Americas. The instrument was originally a simple large stringed fiddle made with a long stick, one or more thick gut strings, and a pig's-bladder resonator. It was bowed with either a notched stick or a horsehair bow.
Beltaine is a Polish folk band.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a 2015 action role-playing game developed and published by the Polish studio CD Projekt. It is the sequel to the 2011 game The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings and the third game in The Witcher video game series, played in an open world with a third-person perspective. The games follow the Witcher series of fantasy novels written by Andrzej Sapkowski.
Poland participated in the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 with the song "My Słowianie – We Are Slavic" written and performed by Donatan and Cleo. In December 2013, the Polish broadcaster Telewizja Polska (TVP) announced that it would be returning the Eurovision Song Contest after a two-year absence, and that the Polish entry for the 2014 contest in Copenhagen, Denmark would be selected through an internal selection. "My Słowianie – We Are Slavic" performed by Donatan and Cleo was announced as the Polish entry on 25 February 2014 during the TVP1 programme Świat się kręci, while the song was presented to the public on 18 March 2014.
Witold Marek Czamara, better known by his stage name Donatan, is a Polish musician, music producer and sound engineer. Donatan along with Teka co-created RafPak.
Rozhanitsy, narecnitsy, and sudzhenitsy are invisible spirits or deities of fate in the pre-Christian religion of the Slavs. They are related to pregnancy, motherhood, marriage and female ancestors, and are often referenced together with Rod. They are usually mentioned as three together, but sometimes up to 9 together, of whom one was a "queen" or singular. They are related to Dola, but it is not known on what terms. In Poland they were worshipped as zorze (auroras).
The Slavic creation myth is a cosmogonic myth in Slavic mythology that explains how the world was created, who created it, and what principles guide it. This myth, in its Christianized form, survived until the nineteenth and twentieth century in various parts of the Slavdom in chronicles or folklore. In the Slavic mythology there are three versions of this myth: the first version is the so-called earth-diver myth, which intertwines two main motifs: the dualistic motif – the cooperation of God and the Devil is required to create the world, and the oceanic motif – the pre-existence water, where the seed of the Earth comes from; the second version speaks about the origin of the universe and the world from the Cosmic Egg and the World Tree; the third one about creation from a dismemberment of a primordial being.
Dzidzilela, Dzidzileyla, Dzidzilelya is an alleged Polish goddess. First mentioned by Jan Długosz as the Polish equivalent of the Roman goddess Venus, goddess of marriage. Nowadays, the authenticity of the goddess is rejected by most researchers, and it is believed that the theonym was created by recognizing a fragment of folk songs as a proper name.
