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Incredible Pagan-Themed Photoshoot By Polish Photographer Reveals Stunning Beauty Of Slavic Culture
When you think of Slavic culture, the first things that come to mind are probably vodka, fur hats, and the Orthodox church. Polish photographer Marcin Nagraba, however, wanted to show the world a more ancient view of Slavic people in his dark pictures - by dialing it all the way back to Pagan times.
Christianity arrived in this world between the 7th and 12th centuries, but before that, the region was a hotbed of Slavic mythology and polytheism. Though little is known to this day about the mysterious Pagan rituals, accounts by early Byzantine explorers describe the ancient Slavs as worshipers of thunder and earth - no doubt referring to Perun, the highest god of the pantheon and the Slavic equivalent of the Greek Zeus.
With the help of costume designer Agnieszka Osipa, the Warsaw-based visionary captures the breathtaking photoshoot idea which reminds us of the wonder and wisdom of ages past. Experience every cool photo for yourself below, and let yourself drift back in time for a moment.
More info: Marcin Nagraba, Agnieszka Osipa (h/t: DYT)
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Very similar (or the same) as "Nusja" - The Bride in Albanian tradition.
I bless the harvest of Dionysus for from my head emerge the twisted daggers of your fate!
Love the headpiece, costume, & palm jewels - everything is beautiful!
Everything is perfect - but the lace eyelashes are a teensy bit disturbing.
South American. Add colour could be Inca or Aztec. Even if there was contact the centuries do not match. I was going to mention Scarab/Dung Beetle but 8 legs - Arachnid - Parasitic Tick. The Wheat? Signifies? A successful harvest or votive offerings for the harvest to come? When did humans begin to cultivate winter wheat? I just find her lined features mesmerising.
If I wear this my dog and every other dog from miles around would love me and follow me everywhere 🤗 💝 🌹 🌈 🐩🐶
When I first looked at this one I thought that the antlers were attached to her boobies ❤ 🤣🤣🤣
I can't imagine how much time these elaborate dressings took to construct. They are incredible.
If you got all the way to 60 you probably recognized some patterns. Constant war since 3000bc sad slave history. I'd like to just cut off that bad intro. Person who writes the article has no knowledge of slav natives in Europe pre Christian times. And for our gods sake! Russians are eastern Slavs and are Wareg Viking descendants which puts their orthodox church and furry hats where they suppose to be. The photography shows a lot of Royal Polabian people culture as well as B.C. slav culture that was unfortunately conquered by Danes, great Roman Empire, Crusades etc. Beautiful take
The photos are really cool, but without a little more in depth explanation I feel like I still know jack s**t about slavic culture.
That is because you are not 'feeling' the pics. Do they make you sad? Happy? There is a tone of death, pain, sadness in every pic, no matter how many pearls you throw in. This is because Poland has been through hell, and yet still is resilient, still here, after being wiped off the face of the globe 3x. I wouldn't expect anyone without at least a small understanding of the history of Poland to 'get' these images.
Load More Replies...I'm Polish and I have no idea what these pictures are supposed to represent.
same here, I can hardly match these photos with deities
Load More Replies...This is cool and all, but different slavic countries are really different. Like Poland doesn't have an orthodox church (perhaps you've heard of some guy called Pope John II?) So was the description written by the artist? Also, would a Polish person say that they have no culture. You kindof can't walk around Poland for a second without running into a museum, statue, or concert hall. In fact, the artist's hometown has an enormous Mordor-esque communist building called the Palace of Culture. The photos are amazing but the headline and text are super confusing!
You're focusing on recent history. What this article is referring to is that the world believes no people existed in Eastern Europe until Christianity came along and converted everyone... who did it convert, what were they like and what did they believe?
Load More Replies...It started a couple of centuries earlier than the 9th century, but thank you for this list. It's interesting and beautiful.
Thank you for pointing this out, Daria! We have updated the text:)
Load More Replies...The introdution is (indirectly) misleading - this are just conceptual photos that use some pagan imaginary, but not that much, and they are NOT illustrations of actual mythological characters. Most of them don't reference any known myths or legends at all and I don't think author ever claimed to do that. Doesn't change the fact that costume designer knows her job :)
Stunning, absolutely stunning photography and the amount of work on the costumes and headpieces is breathtaking!!! I'm a pagan and a third generation Slav and I LOVE this photo shoot!!!
no slavic culture in this. just a random stuff inspired by slavic culture at best.
this is more like slavic pagan gods on drugs... :D even tho I can see some motives that r right... from what I know they were not as dark as represented here... :DDDD but it said it was just inspired from it.. and photos look cool... so good job anyway....
Unrelated whatsoever to any slavic culture... Like... None... Nice photos though...
Kolejne fotografie które nic niestety nie wnoszą do tego wspaniałego obszaru kultury w fotografii
Absolutely stunning costumes and photography - thank you for sharing these.
It's impossible to have a favorite picture, they all have such individual beauty and can lead the viewer to interpret their origin themselves, be inspired and use your imagination to think what history could be woven into the fabric of time ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
In 9th century We've been only baptised, and we had first minister of envirionment(?). "Everyone" now follow our actual minister Szyszko ('he' cuts Bialowieska woods', polish National Park (sg. Yellowstone for US ;))... B.C. Boleslaw Chrobry (Mieszko I son) a real Django of timberjacks! :D He has anihilated oaks almoast in all Europe... so what would you do with all this voting mead... Then we started be christians, then we started to drinking mead, you shouldn't wasting holy drinks ;) :D
yes a bit more info would have been fine but clearly the photos represent an occult impression from the time before the church christianized Eastern Europe. There's no need to put information regarding the different mythologies as separate parts of eastern Europe had different beliefs. So if you are interested in those independently, look them up. It's not like u have to go to the library and spend quality time on that. Wikipedia is 2 seconds away. And I think these photographs represent the essence of mysticism in Eastern Europe as a whole not just Poland.... (Bulgarian here.)
This isn't a good representation of paganism. It was given a bad reputation by the principle players of christianity during the early years of christian development (when they were brutalizing the family tribes and landowners and getting rid of the family kingdoms). This photoshoot is a good representation of the gossip and fear instilled by the developing church to demonize paganism. If you would like to know the real truth of pagansim, ... google: nature, wisdom, living by the laws of nature, animals, and honoring the natural flow of life.
These are stunning, but, like many of the commenters, I don't feel like I know enough about what I am seeing!
Those pictures have very little with pagan, but quite a lot with christianity, so lol :) and most of the head wears are similar to the ones that noble women where wearing and jewelry like from christian ages. sorry for bad english
I really love the vibe of the photos. Reminds me of The Witcher :-)
Orthodox church? Seriously?? Did the author even try to read anything on the subject and/or think abit things at all? Slavic culture was purely pagan. Then Christianity came, slaughtered a lot of Slavic people, who didn't want to convert, then bastardized a lot of Slavic holidays to make them work on Christian terms to convince the leftover Slavic people. Orthodox church is the thing that killed Slavic culture. And vodka?? 😑 Stereotype thinking is how you get racism.
ummm haha you have read too much Wiki. You are also absolutely wrong about everything you just said.
Load More Replies...Those costumes look like nothing we know from history, this is not our heritage. While pre-Christian Poland recognised several major Slavic deities, we never had a big mythology, it was more about small, local spirits. For most of the time our folklore, traditions and holidays combined those beliefs with Christian devotion, it would be hard to draw a line between them, hence the saying "Light a candle to God, but save a stub for a devil (i.e. a mischevious spirit)". It is a really strange situation that a guy and a gal who are, as they say, tired of people saying we have no culture and apparently dislike the stereotypes about (modern) Russia takes photos of fantasy costumes and call it "our culture".
Those costumes look like nothing we know from history, this is not our heritage. Pre-Christian Poland recognised several major Slavic deities, but we didn't have big mythology, it was more about small, local spirits. For most of the time our folklore and holidays combined those beliefs with Christian devotion in a way you couldn't draw a line between them. Hence the saying: "Light a candle to God, but save a stub for the mischevious spirit".
Now I've seen the pics. They are beautiful & haunting, artist has a great eye. Each & every one elicits tones of death, pain, sadness, heartache, ugliness/covered or obstructing beauty - no matter how many pearls you can find. How many of those pics show tears? Poland has always been mostly peaceful, yet wiped off the face of the planet 3x in it's 1000+ year history. Poland is a geographically beautiful country, I've been to almost every part. Polish people are beyond kind, beyond generous, resilient & have gone through hell. Bored Panda, perhaps you wouldn't be so bored if you took some time to learn your history. Seriously, I feel as though I've been slapped in the face. You are attributing Russian things to define Poland - that is a crime. We have many things many wonderful things that are genuinely & uniquely OURS. Learn something!
Here's the thing: I haven't looked at the pics yet, looking forward to that. MAJOR, MAJOR ISSUE with writing under caption. I am Polish, therefore Slavic. Those things listed there are NOT representative of Slavic culture IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM. They are definitely NOT representative of Poland. I am HIGHLY insulted right now! Those 'things' - vodka, fur hats & Orthodox church - are ALL RUSSIAN 'things.' I've been to Poland - no RUSSIAN ORTHODOX (those 2 words go together btw) churches there! I was to Leningrad in '88 when it was still USSR & was taken by my newly found black-marketer friends to a 'working' RO church, 1 of only 4 in the entire city. Also paid off to keep running. Why am I so insulted? Because Russia/USSR is our (Polish) enemy & oppressor! My father spent 8 months in the Lubyanka, 6 months in Siberian labor camp. His hometown is now part of the Ukraine, thanks to USSR. He could NEVER return to visit for fear of arrest. SILENCE = COMPLICITY
Here's the thing: I haven't looked at the pics yet, looking forward to that. MAJOR, MAJOR ISSUE with writing under caption. I am Polish, therefore Slavic. Those things listed there are NOT representative of Slavic culture IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM. They are definitely NOT representative of Poland. I am HIGHLY insulted right now! Those 'things' - vodka, fur hats & Orthodox church - are ALL RUSSIAN 'things.' I've been to Poland - no RUSSIAN ORTHODOX (those 2 words go together btw) churches there! I was to Leningrad in '88 when it was still USSR & was taken by my newly found black-marketer friends to a 'working' RO church, 1 of only 4 in the entire city. Also paid off to keep running. Why am I so insulted? Because Russia/USSR is our (Polish) enemy & oppressor! My father spent 8 months in the Lubyanka, 6 months in Siberian labor camp. His hometown is now part of the Ukraine, thanks to USSR. He could NEVER return to visit his hometown for fear of arrest by Soviets.
Grotesques, so one might assume that this is a criticism of paganism, none of my Polish girlfriends looked as morbid as these creatures
Slavic culture includs not only Polish, but Russian, Belarus, ctr. Does this photoshoot reflects them? No. Slavic people are hospitally and friendly. But this photos makes me feel like in nightmare.
Great costumes ... that have NOTHING to do with our culture or legends .... also the photos are xtremely poor and every moron with a camera can do those frames .... we see no composition or story ... only portait-type photos with amazing costumes and models that dont ware them well .... poor execution.
lol...do you even know what is each means or its differences? Slavic means Nation, Paganism is religion
Load More Replies...I watch a some polish artists and must to say - polish art is best art nowadays, just check Jakub Rozalski, Darek zabrocki or wonderfull Piotr Jablonski :O
The photos are really cool, but without a little more in depth explanation I feel like I still know jack s**t about slavic culture.
That is because you are not 'feeling' the pics. Do they make you sad? Happy? There is a tone of death, pain, sadness in every pic, no matter how many pearls you throw in. This is because Poland has been through hell, and yet still is resilient, still here, after being wiped off the face of the globe 3x. I wouldn't expect anyone without at least a small understanding of the history of Poland to 'get' these images.
Load More Replies...I'm Polish and I have no idea what these pictures are supposed to represent.
same here, I can hardly match these photos with deities
Load More Replies...This is cool and all, but different slavic countries are really different. Like Poland doesn't have an orthodox church (perhaps you've heard of some guy called Pope John II?) So was the description written by the artist? Also, would a Polish person say that they have no culture. You kindof can't walk around Poland for a second without running into a museum, statue, or concert hall. In fact, the artist's hometown has an enormous Mordor-esque communist building called the Palace of Culture. The photos are amazing but the headline and text are super confusing!
You're focusing on recent history. What this article is referring to is that the world believes no people existed in Eastern Europe until Christianity came along and converted everyone... who did it convert, what were they like and what did they believe?
Load More Replies...It started a couple of centuries earlier than the 9th century, but thank you for this list. It's interesting and beautiful.
Thank you for pointing this out, Daria! We have updated the text:)
Load More Replies...The introdution is (indirectly) misleading - this are just conceptual photos that use some pagan imaginary, but not that much, and they are NOT illustrations of actual mythological characters. Most of them don't reference any known myths or legends at all and I don't think author ever claimed to do that. Doesn't change the fact that costume designer knows her job :)
Stunning, absolutely stunning photography and the amount of work on the costumes and headpieces is breathtaking!!! I'm a pagan and a third generation Slav and I LOVE this photo shoot!!!
no slavic culture in this. just a random stuff inspired by slavic culture at best.
this is more like slavic pagan gods on drugs... :D even tho I can see some motives that r right... from what I know they were not as dark as represented here... :DDDD but it said it was just inspired from it.. and photos look cool... so good job anyway....
Unrelated whatsoever to any slavic culture... Like... None... Nice photos though...
Kolejne fotografie które nic niestety nie wnoszą do tego wspaniałego obszaru kultury w fotografii
Absolutely stunning costumes and photography - thank you for sharing these.
It's impossible to have a favorite picture, they all have such individual beauty and can lead the viewer to interpret their origin themselves, be inspired and use your imagination to think what history could be woven into the fabric of time ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤ ❤
In 9th century We've been only baptised, and we had first minister of envirionment(?). "Everyone" now follow our actual minister Szyszko ('he' cuts Bialowieska woods', polish National Park (sg. Yellowstone for US ;))... B.C. Boleslaw Chrobry (Mieszko I son) a real Django of timberjacks! :D He has anihilated oaks almoast in all Europe... so what would you do with all this voting mead... Then we started be christians, then we started to drinking mead, you shouldn't wasting holy drinks ;) :D
yes a bit more info would have been fine but clearly the photos represent an occult impression from the time before the church christianized Eastern Europe. There's no need to put information regarding the different mythologies as separate parts of eastern Europe had different beliefs. So if you are interested in those independently, look them up. It's not like u have to go to the library and spend quality time on that. Wikipedia is 2 seconds away. And I think these photographs represent the essence of mysticism in Eastern Europe as a whole not just Poland.... (Bulgarian here.)
This isn't a good representation of paganism. It was given a bad reputation by the principle players of christianity during the early years of christian development (when they were brutalizing the family tribes and landowners and getting rid of the family kingdoms). This photoshoot is a good representation of the gossip and fear instilled by the developing church to demonize paganism. If you would like to know the real truth of pagansim, ... google: nature, wisdom, living by the laws of nature, animals, and honoring the natural flow of life.
These are stunning, but, like many of the commenters, I don't feel like I know enough about what I am seeing!
Those pictures have very little with pagan, but quite a lot with christianity, so lol :) and most of the head wears are similar to the ones that noble women where wearing and jewelry like from christian ages. sorry for bad english
I really love the vibe of the photos. Reminds me of The Witcher :-)
Orthodox church? Seriously?? Did the author even try to read anything on the subject and/or think abit things at all? Slavic culture was purely pagan. Then Christianity came, slaughtered a lot of Slavic people, who didn't want to convert, then bastardized a lot of Slavic holidays to make them work on Christian terms to convince the leftover Slavic people. Orthodox church is the thing that killed Slavic culture. And vodka?? 😑 Stereotype thinking is how you get racism.
ummm haha you have read too much Wiki. You are also absolutely wrong about everything you just said.
Load More Replies...Those costumes look like nothing we know from history, this is not our heritage. While pre-Christian Poland recognised several major Slavic deities, we never had a big mythology, it was more about small, local spirits. For most of the time our folklore, traditions and holidays combined those beliefs with Christian devotion, it would be hard to draw a line between them, hence the saying "Light a candle to God, but save a stub for a devil (i.e. a mischevious spirit)". It is a really strange situation that a guy and a gal who are, as they say, tired of people saying we have no culture and apparently dislike the stereotypes about (modern) Russia takes photos of fantasy costumes and call it "our culture".
Those costumes look like nothing we know from history, this is not our heritage. Pre-Christian Poland recognised several major Slavic deities, but we didn't have big mythology, it was more about small, local spirits. For most of the time our folklore and holidays combined those beliefs with Christian devotion in a way you couldn't draw a line between them. Hence the saying: "Light a candle to God, but save a stub for the mischevious spirit".
Now I've seen the pics. They are beautiful & haunting, artist has a great eye. Each & every one elicits tones of death, pain, sadness, heartache, ugliness/covered or obstructing beauty - no matter how many pearls you can find. How many of those pics show tears? Poland has always been mostly peaceful, yet wiped off the face of the planet 3x in it's 1000+ year history. Poland is a geographically beautiful country, I've been to almost every part. Polish people are beyond kind, beyond generous, resilient & have gone through hell. Bored Panda, perhaps you wouldn't be so bored if you took some time to learn your history. Seriously, I feel as though I've been slapped in the face. You are attributing Russian things to define Poland - that is a crime. We have many things many wonderful things that are genuinely & uniquely OURS. Learn something!
Here's the thing: I haven't looked at the pics yet, looking forward to that. MAJOR, MAJOR ISSUE with writing under caption. I am Polish, therefore Slavic. Those things listed there are NOT representative of Slavic culture IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM. They are definitely NOT representative of Poland. I am HIGHLY insulted right now! Those 'things' - vodka, fur hats & Orthodox church - are ALL RUSSIAN 'things.' I've been to Poland - no RUSSIAN ORTHODOX (those 2 words go together btw) churches there! I was to Leningrad in '88 when it was still USSR & was taken by my newly found black-marketer friends to a 'working' RO church, 1 of only 4 in the entire city. Also paid off to keep running. Why am I so insulted? Because Russia/USSR is our (Polish) enemy & oppressor! My father spent 8 months in the Lubyanka, 6 months in Siberian labor camp. His hometown is now part of the Ukraine, thanks to USSR. He could NEVER return to visit for fear of arrest. SILENCE = COMPLICITY
Here's the thing: I haven't looked at the pics yet, looking forward to that. MAJOR, MAJOR ISSUE with writing under caption. I am Polish, therefore Slavic. Those things listed there are NOT representative of Slavic culture IN ANY WAY, SHAPE OR FORM. They are definitely NOT representative of Poland. I am HIGHLY insulted right now! Those 'things' - vodka, fur hats & Orthodox church - are ALL RUSSIAN 'things.' I've been to Poland - no RUSSIAN ORTHODOX (those 2 words go together btw) churches there! I was to Leningrad in '88 when it was still USSR & was taken by my newly found black-marketer friends to a 'working' RO church, 1 of only 4 in the entire city. Also paid off to keep running. Why am I so insulted? Because Russia/USSR is our (Polish) enemy & oppressor! My father spent 8 months in the Lubyanka, 6 months in Siberian labor camp. His hometown is now part of the Ukraine, thanks to USSR. He could NEVER return to visit his hometown for fear of arrest by Soviets.
Grotesques, so one might assume that this is a criticism of paganism, none of my Polish girlfriends looked as morbid as these creatures
Slavic culture includs not only Polish, but Russian, Belarus, ctr. Does this photoshoot reflects them? No. Slavic people are hospitally and friendly. But this photos makes me feel like in nightmare.
Great costumes ... that have NOTHING to do with our culture or legends .... also the photos are xtremely poor and every moron with a camera can do those frames .... we see no composition or story ... only portait-type photos with amazing costumes and models that dont ware them well .... poor execution.
lol...do you even know what is each means or its differences? Slavic means Nation, Paganism is religion
Load More Replies...I watch a some polish artists and must to say - polish art is best art nowadays, just check Jakub Rozalski, Darek zabrocki or wonderfull Piotr Jablonski :O