Mat Zemlya (Matka Ziemia or Matushka Zeml'ja) is an East Slavic personification of earth acting as a deity. She is also called Mati Syra Zemlya meaning Mother Damp Earth or Mother Moist Earth.
Mythology
Old Slavic beliefs seem to attest some awareness of an ambivalent nature of the Earth: it was considered men's cradle and nurturer during one's lifetime, and, when the time of death came, it would open up to receive their bones, as if it were a "return to the womb".
The imagery of the "moist earth" also appears in funeral lamentations either as a geographical feature (as in Lithuanian and Ukrainian lamentations) or invoked as "Mother Moist Earth".
The Slavic epic bogatyr Mikula Selyaninovich, or Mikula the Villager, has his power from Mat Zemlya.
See also
- Māra in Latvian folklore
- Mother Russia
- Mother Earth
- Zam
Footnotes
Notes
Further reading
- Pushkina, V.. "ОБРАЗ МАТЕРИ - СЫРОЙ ЗЕМЛИ КАК ЭКСПЛИКАЦИЯ АКСИОЛОГИЧЕСКИХ ДОМИНАНТ ВОСТОЧНЫХ СЛАВЯН" [THE IMAGE OF THE MOTHER - RAW EARTH AS THE EXPLICATION OF AXIOLOGICAL DOMINANTS EASTERN SLAVS]. In: Аксиологический диапазон художественной литературы : сборник научных статей. - Витебск: ВГУ имени П. М. Машерова, 2017. pp. 290–293.