Bałwan

Bałwan (Polish), balvan/балван (Serbian, literally "wood block") or balvan (Kyrgyz) (today, literally indistinguishable from the everyday word for snowman), is an ancient word common to all Slavic languages, describing a statuesque or monolithic depiction or a pillar or a plinth depicting or erected in honor of a deity. This object was worshipped or constituted a tangible representation of a cult image. The Western Slavs transcribed and pronounced the word as bałwan, which is its contemporary and old Polish lexical manifestation, whereas the Southern Slavs and the Eastern Slavs used the just slightly differently-vowelled bołwan (English pronunciation: BOH-van).

The word itself has Sanskrit origins, where it figures as bala (the force) appended witth the suffix -van signifying possession of an attribute, thus etymologically bałwan means strong, powerful, mighty. In the Kyrgyz language of Central Asia, geographically remote from the territories Slavs are today identified with in Europe, balvan is a "strongman" or a hero, whereas in Persian, pahlevān denotes a militant or a veteran, as well as the plinth or boundary marker erected in his or her honor, or even a cairn, and, by extension, a fool. That latter meaning, at first secondary, became primary after Christianity was imposed on the Slavs, making bałwan acquire a distinctly pejorative primary meaning.

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