Who is the Slavic god of fire and blacksmithing?

Svarog is the Slavic god associated with fire and blacksmithing. Medieval material compares him with Hephaestus, the Greek divine smith, and also identifies him as the father of the solar deity Dazhbog.

Svarog is known from a small and difficult body of evidence rather than a large surviving mythology. The most important reference appears in a Slavic translation of John Malalas’s chronicle, preserved in manuscripts connected with the Primary Chronicle. In that account, the Greek smith and fire god Hephaestus is rendered as Svarog, while his son Helios is rendered as Dazhbog.

Because the passage may reflect translation choices and later interpretation, scholars disagree about Svarog’s exact role. Some older theories treated him as a sky or creator god, but that interpretation is not securely supported. The strongest recurring association is with heat, fire, forging, and the divine smith. Svarozhits, sometimes interpreted as “little Svarog” or a related fire deity, is a frequent source of confusion.