Summary
Krešimir Butković: Porga and the gods of Nava
Slavic, and within it also Croatian, mythology has always intrigued writers of epic fantasy novels. Perun is in this region what Thor is in Norse mythology, which is part of Germanic mythology, and Zeus is in Greek mythology. Perun, but also other mythological beings respected by the old Croats and other Slavic tribes, were the reason for the writing and creation of a new, fantastic novel by the writer Krešimir Butković. The action takes place in pre-Christian times, when the Croats were just arriving in the areas of today's coastal Croatia. Since this is an obscure period of Croatian history, many mythological creatures, gods and stories were shaped according to the geographical features of the places where the so-called Dalmatian Slavs, i.e. Croats, as the West called them at the time, lived. For some, Perun was on a hill in Istria, for some on Velebit, for some in the mountains of Dalmatia or, at that time, in the south of Croatia. Basically, Butković decides to use the record of Emperor Constantine VII. Porphyrogenet about the first Christianized Croats from the beginning of the seventh century, led by the warlord Porga, whom he turns into the main character of his novel Porga and the gods of Nava.
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