skycultures/belarusian/description.md
Belarus is a country in Eastern Europe bordered by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Belarus is landlocked and contains large tracts of marshy land and thousands of lakes. Forests cover about 40% of the country. Belarus is exceptional in that people in the villages have preserved their traditional knowledge about the stars and related beliefs, right through to the present time. The illustrations are by no means exhaustive. In fact, many asterisms have multiple recorded meanings, ranging from ancient to Christianized.
Shown here are some interesting folk astronomy constellations.
The burning cart that is ridden by Elias, the Christianized version of a constellation previously seen as simply a large cart.
a Peter’s cross
The thorn wreath that was put on Christ’s head.
These two stars served as a symbol of two states: the Great Lithuanian Princedom and the Polish Kingdom.
These three stars stand one after another in the manner of people mowing the fields.
The north star is seen as a nail around which the skies revolve.
St. Yuri killed this serpent and hung it near the star that always stands in the same place
It was said that “God used to sift grains of zhito through it“.
Ursa Minor resembles the large cart of Ursa Major.
Lord Jesus’s chair.
The creation of this sky culture for Stellarium was suggested by Alexander Wolf to Johan Meuris, based on the article Astronyms in Belarussian Folk Beliefs by Tsimafei Avilin, published in the peer-reviewed journal Archaeologia Baltica.
Illustrations by Johan Meuris.
Text and data: CC BY-SA 4.0
Illustrations: Free Art License