024-657-834 (CC0), Pixabay. He is likely to have been the highest ranking god in the Slavic tradition, similar to Zeus in Ancient Greek mythology. [271] The use of the term "Vedism" to refer to Slavic religion goes back to Yury Mirolyubov, the writer or discoverer of the Book of Veles. Most Slavic people worshipped in natural circles and groves; and it plays a large part in all kinds of magic. [8] The historian Marlne Laruelle has described Rodnovery as "more inclusive than just adherence to a pantheon of pre-Christian gods". [315] Another Polish Rodnover group under the leadership of Lech Emfazy Stefaski registered by the state in 1995 is the Native Polish Church (Rodzimy Koci Polski), which represents a tradition that goes back to Wadysaw Koodziej's Holy Circle of the Worshippers of Svetovid. Slavic Native Faith underwent dramatic growth in Ukraine during the early and mid 1990s. [222], Rodnovery generally emphasises a healthy lifestyle of the individual, to be extended as a healthy lifestyle of the nation; restriction of food intake, avoidance of certain foods, and sport activities, timed to significant events or holidays, have acquired a ritual character for many Rodnover groups. As the personification of wind, Stribog was often symbolically invited inside the home, or to meals, due to wind being associated with the distribution of wealth or riches. As of 2013, Rodnover groups in Bulgaria were described as having few members and little influence. [399] He borrows from various Eastern traditions, including Hinduism (Tantrism), Buddhism and Taoism,[400] but also Western Neoplatonism, Hermeticism and alchemy, as well as the medieval German mysticism of the Friends of God (Meister Eckhart and Johannes Tauler). [61] From Ukraine, the term began to spread throughout other Slavic countries. [81], Prior to their Christianisation, the Slavic peoples were polytheists, worshipping multiple deities who were regarded as the emanations of a supreme God. The statue remained in place for some time until being removed by the authorities in 2007 when a decision was made to construct a church nearby. [49], According to the studies of Boris Rybakov, whirl and wheel symbols, which also include patterns like the hexafoil, "six-petalled rose inside a circle" (e.g. ) Also, Saint Leontius of Rostov is appropriated as a native god. It is believed that Slavic mythology can trace its roots back to the Proto-Indo European period, and perhaps as far back as the Neolithic era.The early Proto-Slav tribes split into groups, consisting of the East, West Slavs, and South Slavs.Each group created its own distinct set of localized mythologies, deities, and rituals based upon the beliefs and legends of the original Proto . [131] Rodnovers therefore reinforce traditional values in Slavic countries rather than being countercultural, presenting themselves as a stabilising and responsible social force. [276] He did not develop his ideas into a religion, and those who shared his views remained "a very loose and diverse intellectual clique". [363] Sylenko was originally a disciple of Volodymyr Shaian, but by the 1970s the two had taken different paths, as Sylenko had begun to elaborate his own reformed systematic doctrine, codified in the holy book titled Maha Vira ("Great Faith"). ecology). [335][336], Donbas has been documented as being a stronghold of Russian Rodnover groups that are reorganising local villages and society according to traditional Indo-European trifunctionalism (according to which males are born to play one out of three roles in society, whether priests, warriors or farmers). The movement promotes traditional Russian healing methods, psychoanalysis and martial arts. Stribog translates to mean wealth spreader, and he was said to connect the earth to the heavens. This is a concept that was especially popular among nineteenth-century ethnographers who were influenced by Romanticism and retains widespread popularity across Eastern Europe, but has come under criticism in more recent times. Radegast is the Slavic god of strength, honor and hospitality. [51], The Anglicised term "Rodnovery", and its adjective "Rodnover(s)", have gained widespread usage in English and have been given an entry in the second edition (2019) of the academic Historical Dictionary of the Russian Federation. [40], The concept of double belief is especially significant in Russia and for the identity of the Russian Orthodox Church[41] and the folk Orthodoxy of the Old Believers;[42] in that country, it is an oft-cited dictum that "although Russia was baptised, it was never Christianised". [321] Conflicts emerged around the interpretation of ancient Slavic religion: The Kin of Yarovit focused on Indo-European religion and its social trifunctionalism, the Kin of Mokosh focused on Neolithic Europe's mother goddess worship, while groups which emerged later, such as the "Kin of Veles", had no focus. [248] In Rodnovery, the priestly staff represents the axis mundi, the world tree, the invisible "pillar of strength", of the spiritual power of creation, and it is considered the vessel of one of the two parts of the soul of the volkhv or the representation of their own self. [331] From the mid-2000s, Rodnovers made increasing use of social media to communicate with other members of their community. [111] Based on this description, Ivakhiv argued that Sylenkoite theology might better be regarded as pantheistic or panentheistic rather than monotheistic. [208] The vast majority of Russian Rodnovers were young and there were a greater proportion of men than women. Morok, which translates literally as darkness in modern Russian, is the Slavic god of ignorance, error, deceit and lies. [263] Therefore, he became a precursor of the return to Slavic religion in Poland and all Slavic countries. Yakutovsky's form of Rodnovery has been defined as tolerant, pluralistic and pacifistic, and his teachings are popular among Rodnovers who identify as communists. In Slavic mythology, Dazhbog is the sun god. Dabog was a major deity in Slavic mythology, most likely associated with the sun. The scholar of religion Scott Simpson has stated that Slavic Native Faith is "fundamentally concerned with questions of community and ethnic identity",[141] while the folklorist Nemanja Radulovic has described adherents of the movement as placing "great emphasis on their national or regional identity". Meanwhile, literary writings of important figures of village prose (derevenshchiki) promoted Paganism, including Petr Proskurin (19282001) and Yury Kuznetsov (19412003). These accoutrements represent four elements: water, earth, sun and air. He is the guardian and protector of the Isle of Rgen in the Baltic Sea. Only the new people, the sun-worshippers, will be able to survive. [9], According to Schnirelmann, it was the Soviet Union's official scientific atheism, which severely weakened the infrastructure of universalist religions, combined with anti-Westernism and the research of intellectuals into an ancient "Vedic" religion of Russia, that paved the way for the rise of Rodnovery and other modern Paganisms in Eastern Europe. In 1999, the communities of Moscow and Obninsk left it as they refuted nationalism, and established another umbrella organisation, the Circle of Veles led by Ilya Cherkasov (volkhv Veleslav), which is one of the largest and administers communities also located in the territory of Ukraine. Her symbol, or star, serves as protection against negative energy or dark forces. [143] Some Rodnovers espouse ideas similar to those of Jewish Kabbalah, namely the discipline of Vseyasvetnaya Gramota ("Universal Script"), which holds that there is a connection between language, script and the cosmos (corroborated by the etymological connection between the word yazychnik, "pagan", and yazyk, "language", which share the same root): the Cyrillic and Glagolitic scripts, and their alleged ancestor, are considered to have magical usefulness to cooperate with the universe and communicate with God, and to see past events and foresee future ones. [206], Christianity is denounced as an anthropocentric theology which distorts the role of mankind in the cosmos by claiming that God could have been incarnated as a single historical entity (Jesus), at the same time creating hierarchical and centralised powers that throughout history defended the rich, legitimised slave mentality,[207] and promoted humile behaviour, antithetical to the Rodnover ethical emphasis on courage and fighting spirit,[208] and to the theological emphasis on the ontological freedom of living beings. [412] Rodnovery has also contributed to the diffusion of "historical themes"particularly regarding an ancient Aryan raceto the general population, including many who were Orthodox or non-religious.[413]. [118] According to Rodnovers, justice and truth have to be realised in this life, so that "turning the other cheek", waiving agency and intervention in the things of this world, is considered immoral and equivalent to welcoming wrongness. [121] In other words, fleeing from the commitment towards the forces at play in the present context is the same as a denial of the gods; it disrupts morality, impairing the individual, society and the world itself. Boris Rybakov emphasised the continuity and complexification of Slavic religion through the centuries. [18], Schnirelmann has stated that Rodnovery does not actually constitute the "restoration of any pre-Christian religion as such". [111] A number of senior followers broke with Sylenko during the 1980s, rejecting the idea that he should be the ultimate authority in the religion; they formed the Association of Sons and Daughters of the Native Ukrainian National Faith (OSID RUNVira) and secured legal control of the temple in Spring Glen. [387] Despite this, Ynglism continues to operate as an unregistered religious phenomenon represented by a multiplicity of communities. [422] Alternately, the Ukrainian organisation Ancestral Fire of the Native Orthodox Faith has expanded in both Moldova and Germany. Rodnover theology and cosmology may be described as pantheism and polytheismworship of the supreme God of the universe and worship of the multiple gods, the ancestors and the spirits of nature who are identified in Slavic culture. [175] The Anastasians too organise their communities according to their interpretations of the veche, regarded as the best form of "self-government", where everyone expresses his opinion which is taken into account for the elaboration of a final unanimous decision; this process of unanimity arising from multiple opinions is seen as manifesting the divine law itself, theologically represented as the manifoldness of reality which is expression of the singularity of God. In general, the strengthening of the "Aryan" ideas among the Russians remains little studied and little realized. Vladimir Avdeyev (later the creator of the doctrine of "racology" which espoused the superiority of the "Nordic race" over others; a member of Alexander Belov's "Moscow Slavic Pagan Community") wrote in the book "Overcoming Christianity" (1994) about the inferiority of the era of Pisces, associated with the domination of monotheistic religions, and future blessed cosmic age of Aquarius, designed to return humanity to the original primordial prosperity. In this article he divides scholars between those who say that Russian Orthodoxy adapted to entrenched indigenous faith, continuing the Soviet idea of an "undefeated paganism", and those who say that Russian Orthodoxy is an out-and-out syncretic religion. [10] In 2005, Ivakhiv noted that there were likely between 5000 and 10,000 practitioners in Ukraine. Ruevit is a local, warrior god. Semargl represents good fortune, drinking, and abundance. Semargl is a chimerical creature in the Slavic mythology, often depicted as a lion or large dog with wings. [415] A number of popular celebrities, including the singer Maria Arkhipova, the professional boxer Aleksandr Povetkin,[215] and the comedian Mikhail Nikolayevich Zadornov (19482017),[416] have publicly embraced Rodnovery. The letter criticised Christianity as a product of Judaism serving the interests of Zionism. [290] Vedism was also explicitly espoused within more official Soviet circles; Apollon Kuzmin (19282004), leader of the neo-Slavophile historiography, did so in his 1988 book "The Fall of Perun" (Padenie Peruna), in which he supported indigenous Slavic religion while criticising Christianity as the cause of the Mongol yoke (which led to the incorporation of Kievan Rus' in the Golden Horde from 1237 to 1480). Black magic spells were also used for revenge, protection, and power. [237] In another instance, Lesiv observed a Ukrainian Rodnover who legitimised the practice of yoga by claiming that this spiritual tradition had originally been developed by the ancestors of modern-day Ukrainians. [138] In doing so, they branched out into three sub-linguistic families: the Eastern Slavs (Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians), the Western Slavs (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks) and the Southern Slavs (Slovenes, Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Macedonians and Bulgarians). The name "Ringing Cedars" derives from the beliefs held by Anastasians about the spiritual qualities of the Siberian cedar. [381], Ynglism (Russian: ), institutionally known as the Ancient Russian Ynglist Church of the Orthodox Old BelieversYnglings, was established in the early 1990s by the charismatic leader Aleksandr Khinevich from Omsk, in Siberia. [133] Aitamurto and Gaidukov noted that "hardly any women" in Russian Rodnovery would call themselves feminists, partly due to Rodnover beliefs on gender and partly due to the negative associations that the word "feminism" has in Russian culture. Slavs are the largest ethnic group in Europe that share a linguistic and cultural history. and is used in modern neo-paganism (see " In modern countries "). According to Helmold's Chronica Slavorum (compiled 11681169), "obeying the duties assigned to them, [the deities] have sprung from his [the supreme God's] blood and enjoy distinction in proportion to their nearness to the god of the gods". Classified as a new religious movement, its practitioners hearken back to the historical belief systems of the Slavic peoples of Central and Eastern Europe, though the movement is inclusive of external influences and hosts a variety of currents. [48] As such, it represents wholeness, the ultimate source of renewal, the cosmic order and the four directions. The contemporary organised Rodnovery movement arose from a multiplicity of sources and charismatic leaders just on the brink of the collapse of the Soviet Union and it spread rapidly during the mid-1990s and 2000s. Antecedents of Rodnovery existed in late 18th- and 19th-century Slavic Romanticism, which glorified the pre-Christian beliefs of Slavic societies. Chernobog translates literally to black god. Slavic religion dealt often in duality, meaning that the black god would oppose, or perhaps compliment, the white god (Belobog). [73], In Slavic languages the closest equivalent of "paganism" is poganstvo (taking for instance Russian; it itself deriving from Latin paganus), although Rodnovers widely reject this term due to its derogatory connotations. TScottFitzgerald 1 yr. ago. [16] In the Russian intellectual milieu, Rodnovery usually presents itself as the ideology of "nativism" (narodnichestvo),[17] which in Rodnovers' own historical analysis is destined to supplant the mono-ideologies whose final bankruptcy the world is now witnessing. [269] He turned to recorded Ukrainian folklore to find what he regarded as the survivals of the ancient Slavic religion. [287], During era of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union (1920s1950s), research into prehistoric societies was encouraged, with some scholars arguing that pre-Christian society reflected a form of communitarianism that was damaged by Christianity's promotion of entrenched class divisions. [393] The original federation of Belov splintered many times over the years giving rise to other distinct groups of military Rodnovery; Belov, however, continued to remain a central figure for the movement as a whole. [245], Rodnovery is headed by a priestly class distinguishable into the orders of volkhv (translatable as "wiseman", "wizard", i.e. [302] The first Rodnover website on the Russian Internet (so-called Runet)was created by a Moscow-based believer in 1996. [392] The locution "Slavic hill" refers to the kurgan, warrior mound burials of the PonticCaspian steppe. [411], Marlne Laruelle similarly noted that Rodnovery in Russia has spread mostly among the young people and the cultivated middle classes, that portion of Russian society interested in the post-Soviet revival of faith but turned off by Orthodox Christianity, "which is very institutionalized" and "out of tune with the modern world", and "is not appealing [to these people] because it expects its faithful to comply with normative beliefs without room for interpretation". They hold that the Saga ob Ynglingakh, their Russian version of the Germanic Ynglinga saga (itself composed by Snorri Sturluson on the basis of an older Ynglingatal), proves their ideas about the origins of the Ynglings in Omsk, and that the Germanic Eddas are ultimately a more recent, western European and Latinised version of their own sacred books, the Slavo-Aryan Vedas. [1] The portmanteau Ridnovir began to be used by Ukrainians to refer to the broader movement (not restricted to Sylenkoism) by at least 1995,[60] popularised by Volodymyr Shaian. Slavic Pagan symbols - Slav myth - home decor - Occult wallart - download png print Wojdart. [28] Some Rodnovers believe that the Aryans originated at the North Pole but moved southwards when the climate there became uninhabitable, settling in Russia's southern steppes and from there spreading throughout Eurasia. [334], The early 2010s saw a strengthening of relations between Rodnover groups. [367] Ladovery is a doctrine articulated by Oleksander Shokalo and other personalities in the magazine Ukrans'kyi Svit ("Ukrainian World"). Her name translates as She who lives. Zhiva represents fertility, love and marriage. [256] The calendar of some Sylenkoite organisations includes holidays that have been de-Christianised, such as a "Christmas of Dazhboh's Light" and an "Easter of the Eternal Resurrection". The physical symbols that represented this deity were dolls made of natural materials such as wood (or straws) as well as water in the form of ice and snow. In Belarus and the neighbouring regions of Russia there are groups taking inspiration from the Kriviches, of one of the tribal unions of the early East Slavs, mixing Slavic and Baltic traditions. [223] Slavic Native Faith has been described as following "the cycles of nature",[85] of the seasons of the year. [138] Over the course of several centuries, Slavic populations migrated in northern, eastern and south-western directions. For instance, the end of winter is marked by burning straw images of Marzanna, the goddess of winter, while celebrating the victory of Yarilo, the god of the full swing of natural forces; the end of summer, instead, is marked by the burial of an image of Yarilo. [84] Similarly to the ancient Slavic religion, a common theological stance among Rodnovers is that of monism, by which the many different gods (polytheism) are seen as manifestations of the single, universal impersonal Godgenerally identified by the concept of Rod,[86] also known as Sud ("Judge") and Prabog ("Pre-God", "First God") among South Slavs. [82] Belief in these deities varied according to location and through time, and it was common for the Slavs to adopt deities from neighbouring cultures. [252], Usually, the organisation of festivals involves three layers of society: there is a patronising "core" of practitioners, who are often professionally affirmed people, usually belonging to the intellectual class; then there is the population of committed adherents; and then there is a loose "periphery" constituted by sympathisers, generally relatives and friends of the committed followers. Today, the swastika is officially used by Baltic neo-pagan organizations such as Romuva and Dievturiba. [64] Many Rodnovers have adopted terms that are already used to refer to other religions, namely "Vedism", referring to the historical Vedic religion and the ancient Iranian religion, and "Orthodoxy", commonly associated to Orthodox Christianity. [183] However, Aitamurto and Gaidukov later noted that the most imaginative narratives were typical of the 1980s, and that more realistic narratives were gaining ground in the twenty-first century. [293] In Moscow, the occult Yuzhinsky Circle had been established by the poet Yevgeny Golovin, the novelist Yury Mamleyev and the philosopher Vladimir Stepanov in the 1960s, while a young Alexander Dugin would have joined the circle in the 1980s;[294] although not explicitly Pagan, they were influenced by occult Pagan thinkers like Guido von List and sought a return to a pre-Christian Aryan world. The cultural center "Vyatichi" in the "Russian Pagan Manifesto" of 1997 (Nikolai Speransky - Velimir and others) on the threshold of the third millennium announced the end of the "night of Svarog" and "the morning of the new great day of the gods. The Pagan ritual of Dodola is still practiced in parts of Northern Europe and the Baltic States, in which a young boy or girl sings and dances through the village, collecting money that will be spent on a feast in honor of Perun (the god of thunder), for whom Dodola is a wife. [22] Textual evidence for historical Slavic religion is scant, has been produced by Christian writers hostile to the systems being described and is usually open to multiple interpretations. The four points of the star represent faith, freedom, righteousness and honor, while the circle represents the Sun. [87] Rod is the all-pervading, omnipresent spiritual "life force", which also gives life to any community of related entities; its negative form, urod, means anything that is wrenched, deformed, degenerated, monstrous, anything that is "outside" the spiritual community of Rod and bereft of its virtues. [256] The same Kupala Night is a reappropriation, being the day of the year when Christian churches set the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist. [1] Within the movement, it has also been used to define the community of Native Faith practitioners themselves as an elective group. [329] The Internet helped the spread of Rodnovery and a uniformisation of ritual practices across the various groups. [97], When emphasising this monism, Rodnovers may define themselves as rodnianin, "believers in God" (or "in nativity", "in genuinity"). Over time, however, tribes were consolidated and, not long after, most converted to Christianity. [327] These groups have strong political motivations, being extremely nationalistic, anti-Western, and anti-Semitic. Another term for a community, though not frequently used, is artel. [19] In this way, Slavic Native Faith has been understoodat least in partas an invented tradition,[20] or a form of Folklorismus. [398], The Way of Great Perfection (Russian: ) is an esoteric doctrine of Rodnovery elaborated by Ilya Cherkasov (volkhv Veleslav), offering a perspective which according to him never existed in Slavic religion, a Slavic left-hand path. [198], Like many other supporters of pseudoscientific ideas, Rodnovers often consider their teachings to be "true science" (or "Russian science"), in contrast to "Jewish" "academic" science ("Judeo-materialistic science"), which is allegedly written with the aim of hiding from the Slavs the "truth" about their great past and superiority over other peoples. His unit had a shrine to the god Svetovid in their secret forest base and held group rites in which they toasted a wooden image of the deity with mead. [437] In Poland, the Slavic Native Faith outnumbers other Pagan religions, although both are represented in the Pagan Federation International's Polish branch. [323] The group is associated with the movement of Praskozorje. [317] Two groups were founded in those years, the National Front of the Castists (Nrodn Front Castist, where "Castists" was created as a neologism from Latin castus, meaning "pure"[318]) and the Radho group, founded by the Naples-born anthropologist and professor of Slavic languages Giuseppe Maiello (whose Slavic name is Dervan) among the students of the Faculty of Philosophy of Charles University in Prague. [132], Ideas and practices perceived as coming from Western liberal societywhich Rodnovers perceive as degenerateare denounced as threats to Slavic culture; for instance, alcohol and drug consumption, various sexual behaviours and miscegenation are commonly rejected by Rodnovers, while they emphasise healthy family life in harmonious environments. [284] Sylenkoism was influenced by deism and Theosophy. [118] Rodnover ethics have been defined as a "safety technique"[118] and as "ecoethics", at the same time environmentalist and humanistic, stemming from the awareness that all existence belongs to the same universal, cosmic God. Also, you could find special charms for love, fertility, and wellbeing. [385] The Church is known for its intensive proselytism,[386] carried out through a "massive selling" of books, journals and other media. [345] Marlne Laruelle found that there are Rodnover movements which draw inspiration from Indo-Iranian sources, historical Vedism, Hinduism, Buddhism and Zoroastrianism; Rodnover movements inspired to the Theosophy of Helena Blavatsky, the Fourth Way of George Gurdjieff and Peter Uspensky, and Roerichism (Nicholas Roerich); Rodnover movements inspired to East Asian religions with their practices of energetic healing and martial arts; Rodnover movements (often the most political ones) inspired to German Ariosophy and the Traditionalist School (studying thinkers such as Ren Gunon and Julius Evola);[346] Rodnover movements centred on the Russian folk cult of the Mother Earth;[221] and Rodnover movements drawing examples from Siberian shamanism. [269] The Ukrainian literary magazine Dazhboh, published in 19311935, was imbued with Neopagan ideas (Bohdan Ihor Antonych and others). The word Koliada is derived from the Slavic word for wheel or cycle. [270][271] One of the most influential Ukrainian Rodnover ideologues was Volodymyr Shaian (19081974), a linguist and philologist who worked at Lviv University. [78] It was adopted among Rodnovers in the 1990swhen it appeared in such forms as the Russian Neoyazychestvo and the Polish Neopogastwobut had been eclipsed by "Slavic Native Faith" in the 2000s. They are used to surround evil or protect oneself from it. "[199] An example is Yuri Sergeev's adventure novel "Stanovoi Ridge" (1987), whose protagonist in the 1920s in the Yakut taiga discovers elderly "Old Believers" who store knowledge of "the wonderful beauty of religion, which they defiled and killed", and a secret library with texts, citing the Book of Veles. . [447] In Lithuania there are also homesteads of the Anastasian movement. [116] Rodnovers generally believe that death is not a cessation of life, and believe in reincarnation only in mankind and in the possibility of deification in paradise, Iriy or Vyriy, which is the same as Prav. [333] This attitude generated some mutual hostility between academics and practitioners of Rodnovery, rendering subsequent scholarly fieldwork more difficult. Aitamurto summarised Rodnover ethics in the concepts of patriarchy, solidarity and homogeneity, with the latter two seen as intrinsically related. [300] The collapse of the Soviet Union and its official policy of state atheism resulted in a resurgence of open religious adherence across the region. [139] Rodnovers started to establish numerous organised groups by the mid of the decade; in 1994 the Moscow Slavic Community was the first Rodnover group to be registered by the government. [38] In his view, the Ukrainians were the superior manifestation of the European peoples,[99] and Kiev the oldest city of the white race.
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