Viy or Nyja is a god from Slavic folklore, specifically, from Poland. They held domain over the underworld, and people are pretty much certain on their authenticity as a Slavic deity.
Name[]
Tiya ad Diya are the other names that they are called by. Those names are thought to be the other name of Niya, rather than being a warp of their name. They themselves have their own Etymology and meaning.
The name Niya has connections to the Polish root ny-. An example of the root can be found in the Old Polish word nyć, which means "to fade" or "to disappear". This, Niya being very similar to a proto-Slavic word meaning "corpse" or "deceased", along with other connections to more words and different languages, such as Ruthenian and Bulgarian, is very telling in what kind of deity they are- holding domain over the dead and underworld.
Culture, Studies & Tales[]
The image of Viy was used by the Russian writer Nikolai Gogol in the horror story of the same name. The plot tells about the seminarian Homa Brutus from Kiev, who has to bury a witch, and every night an evil spirit comes to her grave under the command of Viy. Based on her motives, a horror film of the same name was shot in the USSR in 1967, which became the first representative of this genre in Soviet cinema.