DAZHBOG was the pre-Christian sun god of the East and South Slavs. The name Dazhbog (Old Russian, Dazh'bog) is first mentioned in the Kievan pantheon, listed in the Russian Primary Chronicle (c. 1111 CE). His connection with the sun is clearly stated in the Malalas Chronicle of 1114: "Tsar Sun is the son of Svarog, and his name is Dazhbog." (Svarog, the creator of the sun, is identified in Greek translation with the smith Hephaistos. Like his Lithuanian counterpart, the heavenly smith Kalvelis, whose achievement is described in the Volynian Chronicle of 1252, Svarog probably hammered the sun into shape and placed it in the sky. For the chroniclers, he was identical with Helios.) The importance of this god is attested in the thirteenth-century Old Russian epic Slovo o polku Igoreve, where the phrase "grandchildren of Dazhbog" is used to refer to the Russian people.

Dazhbog seems to have been one...