indicate the level to which a name has been verified.
Gender Feminine
Usage Russian, Slavic Mythology, Baltic Mythology
Other Forms FormsMarzanna (Polish); Morena (Czech, Slovak); Morė (Lithuanian); Mora, Mara, Maržena, Morana, Moréna, Marmora
Meaning & History
Baltic and Slavic goddess associated with seasonal agrarian rites based on the idea of death and rebirth of nature, Marzana is often referred to as a goddess of death.In medieval (Christian) written sources, she is mentioned as early as the 9th century, although her exact function seems to be somewhat disputed. The medieval encyclopedical dictionary Mater Verborum (also called Glosa Salomonis), written around 1240, compares her to the Greek goddess Hecate, associating her with sorcery, while 15th-century Polish chronicler Jan Długosz likened her to Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture.
Either way, to this day in some regions of Poland, there is a festival held where an effigy of Marzanna is made in the month of March, and is burned to symbolize the triumph of springtime over winter. This is known as The Burning and Drowning Ritual of Marzanna.The origin and meaning of her name is also a source of dispute.
Some scholars derive her name from the same Indo-European root word that gave us Latin mors "death" and Russian mor "pestilence", emphasizing the death aspect of the goddess.
Others argue that her name might be related to a Slavic root word meaning "to freeze" or "frozen", in accordance with her function as a goddess of winter, while some scholars point out that mara is a Russian dialect word meaning "phantom; vision; hallucination", linking her to mare, an evil spirit in Germanic and Slavic folklore, associated with nightmares and sleep paralysis.
Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov, however, supposed that her name was derived from the same root as the name of the Roman god of war Mars, who was originally an agricultural deity (a theory that some academics like to back up by the fact that the Polish word for "(the month of) March" is marzec).
Either way, to this day in some regions of Poland, there is a festival held where an effigy of Marzanna is made in the month of March, and is burned to symbolize the triumph of springtime over winter. This is known as The Burning and Drowning Ritual of Marzanna.The origin and meaning of her name is also a source of dispute.
Some scholars derive her name from the same Indo-European root word that gave us Latin mors "death" and Russian mor "pestilence", emphasizing the death aspect of the goddess.
Others argue that her name might be related to a Slavic root word meaning "to freeze" or "frozen", in accordance with her function as a goddess of winter, while some scholars point out that mara is a Russian dialect word meaning "phantom; vision; hallucination", linking her to mare, an evil spirit in Germanic and Slavic folklore, associated with nightmares and sleep paralysis.
Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov, however, supposed that her name was derived from the same root as the name of the Roman god of war Mars, who was originally an agricultural deity (a theory that some academics like to back up by the fact that the Polish word for "(the month of) March" is marzec).