Mokosh

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Mokosh мокошь
Member of Vladimir's pantheon
The twenty-fifth page of Laurentian Codex, with mention of the pantheon of Kyiv, 1377. Mokosh's name is marked in red.
Texts	Primary Chronicle and other dependent texts
Gender	Female

Mokosh^[a] (/ˈmɒkɒʃ/ ^ⓘ) is a Slavic goddess. No narratives about this deity have survived and scholars must rely on academic disciplines like philology to discern details about her.

According to etymological reconstruction, Mokosh was the goddess of earth, waters and fertility. Later, according to most researchers, she was reflected in bylinas and zagovory as Mat Zemlya. Another reconstruction was made on the basis of ethnography; at the end of the 19th century, the names kikimora as Mokusha or Mokosha were recorded in the Russian North. The coincidence is explained by kikimora being a demonized version of the goddess and, by approximating between the two, researchers have portrayed Mokosh as the goddess of love and birth, with a connection to night, the moon, spinning, sheep farming and women's economy. Spinning was the occupation of several European goddesses of fate, which led to the characterization of Mokosh as a deity who controls fate. This reconstruction disagrees with data on her etymology, which shows spinning could not have been the deity's main role.

In 980, prince Vladimir the Great established a wooden statue of Mokosh, along with other deities, on a hill in Kyiv, Ukraine. Some historians have described this event as a manifestation of Vladimir's pagan reformation but other scholars deny such a reformation was carried out, and the question of its existence is debatable in modern scholarship. In 998, during the Christianization of Kievan Rus', statues of deities were destroyed. Mokosh was mentioned in various Words and Teachings against Paganism along with the vilas, but is not described by them.

In academia, the opinion the cult of Mokosh was passed to the folk-Christian Paraskeva Friday, which was associated with water and spinning, spread. Because of this identification, Friday began to be considered a day dedicated to the goddess, and a conclusion about the popularity of Mokosh among women in Christian times was drawn. In later studies, the idea of an approximation with Paraskeva was criticized because Paraskeva's association with spinning, water, and Friday has Christian rather than pagan roots.

The Slavic version of the basic myth theory, based on ethnographic and linguistic data, depicts Mokosh as Perun's wife. It is believed Mokosh cheated on Perun with Veles, causing Perun to kill Mokosh's children. The theory has not been recognized in academia. The supposition Mokosh is depicted on the Zbruch Idol and on North Russian 19th-century embroideries has also been rejected. Archaeologist Boris Rybakov's theory the goddess' original name was Makosh is not supported by other researchers.
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