FOLLOWING THE SECOND CHAPTER OF THE BOOK, THE FIRST HAS BEEN PUBLISHED 8/20/26
1.2 – A religion of Nature.
Baltic pagan mythology, practiced by populations such as the Prussians, Livonians, and Lithuanians, is rich in deities, myths, and traditions, reflecting the interconnectedness of their lives with nature and daily family practices.
The main deities are:
- Dievas, God of the sky and justice, like Zeus or Jupiter; note the Indo-European similarity to Deus.
- Perkūnas, God of thunder, like the Viking Thor, often associated with war and protection.
- Laima, Goddess of destiny and luck, like the Greek fate she governs the lives of human beings.
Then the spirits of nature are worshipped. The ancient Baltic pagans worshipped various nature spirits, such as the spirits of the forests, rivers, and seasons. These were considered guardians and bringers of blessings. Some woods and lakes were considered sacred and inviolable.
Important as in the Latins the cult of ancestors. The veneration of ancestors was fundamental. Rituals and ceremonies were often dedicated to honoring the dead and asking for their protection. In the swamps it was thought that the dead lived and walked there at night.
Many celebration and passage rites. Various celebrations mark important moments in life, such as births, marriages, and deaths, and often included offerings and animal sacrifices.
Seasons and cycles. The mythology was strongly linked to the cycles of nature, with festivals such as the summer and winter solstices, which celebrated the natural rhythm of the year.
Amulets. A copious production of amber and silver amulets characterizes the pre-Christian era, but is also alive today. Animals such as the boar and the wolf were represented and it was thought they ensured the life of the wearer, even from mortal dangers.
Legacy and survival in modern times. Despite Christianization, many pagan elements have survived and are still visible in popular traditions and Baltic holidays today, such as the large bonfires on the beach and lakes in the summer solstices, and the celebration with songs and dances by young people with oak leaf crowns in the festival of Ligo. Obviously, all oral traditions because they did not know writing and books were for them dangerous magical objects, because they managed to transmit thought at a distance.
Great the complexity and beauty in Baltic pagan mythology, a belief system based on a profound harmony with Nature and a strong sense of community, which survives in 30% of the more traditional population even in our times, indeed it has been relaunched in the Baltic nations, after the prohibitions of the Soviet era. Populations of hunters and fishermen, who trade up to Rome the amber gathered on the great Baltic beaches, the skins and furs of forest animals, amulets and silver or metal jewelry, salted and sun-dried fish, smoked game meats, honey and wax. The Vikings already from the eighth century traded these goods as far as Constantinople and Rome. Rudimentary agriculture, they feed on meat and fish and the rich drink milk and the poor mead, since apples are widespread and spontaneous all along the coast.
The social organization is based on the village, cared for by a chief chosen by the community for strength, wisdom and experience. The Livonians, first inhabitants with very light skin, hence the name Balts, whites, together with the Finno-Ugric, before the Indo-European migrations, have now integrated with the new arrivals and the differences between Latvians and Estonians are forming, the latter with language and customs more Asian like the Finns.
The villages tend to cooperate with each other in the event of natural emergencies or famines, but there is not yet a Feudal State with an aristocracy, even if some chiefs aspire to it. Caupo of Turaida will emerge over time as a de facto king of the Livonians, but we are already in 1200, he will convert and with him the Christianization of central Latvia and Latgale will be complete. He will also visit the pope in Rome as his consecration, even if the Livonian lands are by now owned by the Knights and the clergy.
The peoples neighboring this area are primarily the Poles, who are still far from unification between the different regions led by local nobles and subject to demographic pressures of the Germanic Empire from the West, from Western Pomerania (Pomesania), from Brandenburg, from Saxony. Then the great navigators’ heirs of the Vikings, the Swedes and the Danes, in particular the latter with a structured Feudal State that already dominated almost all of Scandinavia, both peoples converted to Christianity, not very numerous but skilled at organizing sea raids, who will try to occupy Estonia. Finally the Russians, not yet organized in a central and state way, but early Christians and with relations with the Eastern Roman Empire, oppressed from the East by Mongol (Tartar or Tatar) incursions and intent on finding new outlets to the sea towards the Baltic to develop their trade in skins and furs, highly appreciated in the German Holy Roman Empire, penetrating Estonia and Latgale, through alliances and merchants. Among the Balts only the Lithuanians will manage to assert their autonomy and will build an independent grand duchy from the Baltic to the Black Sea, joining then the Confederation Polish-Lithuanian, entering in great history of Europe.
