| Voloska | |
|---|---|
| Goddess of the home and the hearth | |
| Other names | Vlasta |
| Genealogy | |
| Spouse | Veles |
Voloska, sometimes dubbed Vlasta, is a Croatian and Slavic hearth pseudo-deity that has not been attested in historical sources on Slavic paganism. The first known published source that attests to Voloska is the 1943 book Hrvatska narodna mitologija ("Croatian National Mythology") by psychiatrist Nikola Sučić, which has been criticized by Croatian ethnologists as "incorrectly assessing" pagan myths and as unreliable due to a lack of sources.
According to Sučić, Voloska was the spouse of Veles and the protector of agricultural workers, symbolized by a cow and a swallow. He claims that all Slavic homes featured an alcove ("mirište") where a small flame would be lit in Voloska's honor. This alcove would allegedly also include statuettes of Voloska made from wood, wax or amber.
In popular culture
After the publishing of Sučić's book, Voloska was mentioned in the poems of Vladimir Nazor ("Miti i legende", 1948) and Boro Pavlović ("Slavenska lipa", 1960).
Commonly cited publicist and movie director Franjo Ledić, whose interpretation of Slavic mythology was cited as "romanticized" by ethnologist Tea Škokić and "uncritical" by Lidija Bajuk, wrote a chapter on Voloska based on the work of Sučić and the previously mentioned poems.
References
- Ledić 1969, p. 180.
- Gayatri Horvat, Irena (2014). "U potrazi za ženskim arhetipom: Slavenske i indijske boginje" [In Search of a Female Archetype: Slavic and Indian goddesses] (PDF). Zagreb Ethnographic Museum (in Croatian). p. 17. Retrieved 14 January 2024.
- ^ Ledić 1969, p. 183.
- Zorić, Damir. "Hrvatsko bajoslovlje | Kolo 2, 2018". Matica hrvatska (in Croatian). Retrieved 2024-07-03.
- Pletenac, Tomislav (2013). "Pogovor" [Afterword]. Hrvatska narodna mitologija: Biserje priča čarobnog carstva drevnih vremena [Croatian National Mythology] (in Croatian). Edicije Božičević. ISBN 9789536751983. Retrieved 4 August 2024.
- ^ Bajuk 2018, p. 2.
- Škokić, Tea (2010). "Elipsa ljubavnog mita u tradicijskoj praksi" [Ellipsis of the love mythos in traditional praxis]. In Marjanić, Suzana; Prica, Ines (eds.). Mitski zbornik [Mythological Almanac] (in Croatian). Zagreb: Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies, Croatian Ethnological Society. p. 319. ISBN 978-953-7387-18-1.
- Ledić 1969, p. 179–183.
Bibliography
- Ledić, Franjo (1969). Mitologija Slavena: tragom kultova i vjerovanja starih Slavena. Vol. 1. Zagreb.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - Bajuk, Lidija (2018). "Odjeci slavenskoga mita u nematerijalnoj kulturi Međimurja" [Echoes of Slavic mythology in the immaterial culture of Međimurje] (PDF). Retrieved 4 August 2024.