Slavic Native Faith in Russia

Slavic Native Faith or Slavic Neopaganism in Russia (variously called Rodnovery, Orthodoxy, Slavianism and Vedism in the country) is widespread, according to some estimates from research organisations which put the number of Russian Rodnovers in the millions. The Rodnover population generally has a high education and many of its exponents are intellectuals, many of whom are politically engaged both in the right and the left wings of the political spectrum. Particular movements that have arisen within Russian Rodnovery include various doctrinal frameworks such as Anastasianism, Authentism, Bazhovism, Ivanovism, Kandybaism, Levashovism, Peterburgian Vedism, Slavic-Hill Rodnovery, Vseyasvetnaya Gramota, the Way of Great Perfection, the Way of Troyan, and Ynglism, as well as various attempts to construct specific ethnic Rodnoveries, such as Krivich Rodnovery, Meryan Rodnovery, Viatich Rodnovery. Rodnovery in Russia is also influenced by, and in turn influences, movements that have their roots in Russian cosmism and identify themselves as belonging to the same Vedic culture, such as Roerichism and Blagovery (Russian Zoroastrianism).

Demographics

Social composition of Russian Rodnovery

The scholar Kaarina Aitamurto observed that a "substantial number" of Russian Rodnovers, and in particular the earliest adherents, belonged to the "technical intelligentsia". Similarly, the scholar Victor Shnirelman noted that the founders of Russian Rodnovery were "well-educated urbanized intellectuals" who had become frustrated with "cosmopolitan urban culture". Physicists were particularly well represented; in this Aitamurto drew comparisons to the high number of computer professionals who were present in the Pagan communities of Western countries. The movement also involved a significant number of people who had a background in the Soviet or Russian Army, or in policing and security. A questionnaire distributed at the Kupala festival in Maloyaroslavets suggested that Native Faith practitioners typically had above-average levels of education, with a substantial portion working as business owners or managers. A high proportion were also involved in specialist professions such as engineering, the academia, or information technology, and the majority lived in cities. The "vast majority" of Russian Rodnovers were young and there were a greater proportion of men than women.

The historian Marlène 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, moralistic" and "out of tune with the modern world", and "is not appealing o these peoplebecause it expects its faithful to comply with normative beliefs without room for interpretation". Rodnovery is attractive because of its "paradoxical conjunction" of tradition and modernity, recovery of the past through innovative syntheses and millenarian projections, and because of its values calling for a rediscovery of the true relationship between mankind, nature and the ancestors. Rodnovery has taken strong roots in the North Caucasus region of Russia, especially among communities of Cossacks and in the Stavropol Krai, where in some areas it is reported to have become the dominant religion. It has also been reported that even former priests of the Russian Orthodox Church have joined the Rodnover movement.

Studying the specific Rodnover movement of Anastasianism, organised in networks of "ancestral villages" and "homesteads", the scholar Artemy A. Pozanenko observed that the inhabitants of the Anastasian settlements which he studied were for three fourths members of the "urban intelligentsia with higher education", with 75% of them having graduated from university, a majority in technical and natural sciences, and others in humanities. Single people were extremely rare, as they are often refused admission since they risk not continuing the kinship line, not taking root and not becoming attached to the place, contravening the central values of Anastasianism. On the other hand, large families are encouraged, and Pozanenko noted that the birth rate in Anastasian villages was "definitely higher than in the whole country".

Rodnover ideas are disseminated through a variety of newspapers and journals. The movement has contributed to the diffusion of "historical themes"—particularly regarding an ancient Aryan race—to the population at large, even beyond the boundaries of Rodnovery itself among Orthodox or non-religious people. A number of subcultures have been credited with favouring the approach of the youth to Rodnovery, including heavy metal music, historical reenactment, and the admirers of J. R. R. Tolkien. Many Rodnovers are martial artists, and there is a specific movement of Rodnover martial arts known as '' Slavyano-goritskaya bor'ba''. Rodnovery has also been publicly embraced by some celebrities, including the singer Maria Arkhipova, the professional boxer Aleksandr Povetkin, and the comedian Mikhail Nikolayevich Zadornov (1948–2017).

Political composition of Russian Rodnovery

Shnirelman observed that Rodnovery in Russia has been embraced by many politically engaged philosophers, both of the right and the left wing of politics. The former group is represented by Vladimir Andeyev, Anatoly Ivanov, Pavel Tulaev (members of the Moscow Slavic Community and founders of the New Right journal ''Ateney''), Aleksei Trekhlebov from Krasnodar, Valery Demin from Omsk, and the Saint Petersburg journalists Oleg Gusev and Roman Perin, among others. The scholar Adrian Ivakhiv reported that these intellectuals have a "surprisingly extensive" influence. The well-known Rodnover ''volkhv'' Velimir (Nikolay Speransky), who was the founder of the politically neutral federation Circle of Pagan Tradition, classified Valery Yemelyanov, ''volkhv'' Dobroslav (Alexey Dobrovolsky), Vladimir Istarkhov, Igor Sinyavin, and in general the Union of Slavic Rodnover Communities founded by Vadim Kazakov and the Church of Nav (Це́рковь На́ви, ''Tsérkov' Návi'') as representatives of right-wing Rodnovery, while the left-wing of the spectrum would be represented by Anton Platov, Aleksandr Asov and Aleksandr Khinevich (founder of Ynglism), though they kept most of their religious activities outside of politics.

Since the 1990s, Traditionalist School thinkers—chiefly René Guénon and the Italian Pagan philosopher Julius Evola—were translated and introduced in the very mainstream of Russian thought by the philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, who has an influential position in contemporary Russian academic and political life. In the 1980s Dugin became a member of the Yuzhinsky Circle, an occult proto-Rodnover group influenced by Guido von List and Aryan mysticism, founded by the poet Yevgeny Golovin, the novelist Yury Mamleyev and the philosopher Vladimir Stepanov in the 1960s. According to the scholar Robert A. Saunders, some strains of Rodnovery have become close supporters and components of Eurasianism, the dominant ideology of the Russian central government whose most prominent contemporary proponent is Dugin himself.

Estimates of the number of Russian Rodnovers

Writing in 2000, Shnirelman noted that Rodnovery was growing rapidly within the Russian Federation. As of 2003, the Russian Ministry of Justice had registered forty Rodnover organisations, while there were "probably several hundred of them in existence". The scholar Vladimir Yashin reported that in 2001 the specific denomination of Ynglism had 3,000 adherents in the city of Omsk alone, while in 2009 it was reported at the Omsk District Court that Ynglists in the city had reached the number of 13,000. In 2006, scholars reported that there were around 40,000 practitioners in the Slavic-Hill movement of Rodnover martial arts. In the same year, the scholar B. K. Knorre estimated 10,000 practitioners of Ivanovism. In 2016, Aitamurto noted that there was no reliable information on the number of Rodnovers in Russia, but that it was plausible that there were several tens of thousands of practitioners active in the country. This was partly because there were several Rodnover groups active on the social network VK which had over 10,000 members. In 2019, the scholar Svetlana Tambovtseva estimated 7,000 to 10,000 adepts of Vseyasvetnaya Gramota (Vseyasvetniks).

The 2012 Sreda ''Arena Atlas'' complement to the 2010 census of Russia, found 1.7 million people (1.2% of the total population of the country) identifying themselves as "Pagans" or followers of "traditional religions, worship of gods and ancestors". See also the results' '
main interactive mapping
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All-Russia Population Census 2010 (Всероссийской переписи населения 2010)
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Russian Ministry of Justice (Минюста РФ)
the Public Opinion Foundation (Фонда Общественного Мнения) and presented among others by the Analytical Department of the Synodal Information Department of the Russian Orthodox Church. See: Of these 1.7 million people, 44% or 750,000 were ethnic Russians following the religions of their ancestors, while the remaining 950,000 were other types of Pagans (including Ossetians following Assianism, Siberian peoples following Tengrism, and other religions). Besides Slavic Rodnovery, among ethnic Russians there are also followers of Heathenry (Germanic religion), Druidry (Celtic religion), Hellenism (Greek religion), as well as Wicca and other traditions.

A polemical article entitled ''Adversus paganos'', published in 2015 by the journal of the Ascension Cathedral of Astrakhan, cited sociological data saying that Rodnovery was already formally embraced by "more than 2 million Russians", while the number of people affected by Rodnover ideas was several times larger. This was based on data provided in 2012 by Igor Zadorin, the director of the research institute "Tsirkon", who said that in Russia the proportions of atheists, Orthodox Christians and "pagans" were of comparable sizes and their populations overlapped: Orthodox Christians were 30% of the total population; people who had some sort of "pagan", non-Christian spirituality, were 40% of the population, while the remaining population was composed of a 20% who were atheists, and a 10% who were believers of other religions (4–7% ethnic minorities professing Islam).

The movement of the Anastasians keeps official registers of the number of Anastasian villages and their dwellers. The scholar Anna Ozhiganova reported that in 2015, in Russia, more than ten years after the establishment of the first Anastasian settlements, there were 2,264 people in 981 families who were landowners of an ancestral homestead, and other 8,725 people in 4,725 families who were at different stages of construction of their own ancestral homestead. The scholar Artemy A. Pozanenko reported a similar number of Anastasian villagers, 12,000, in 2016, noting that the number had more than doubled between 2013 and 2015, and yet it was "unwittingly underestimated", given that although the statistics were based on the official registers of the movement, they were not promptly updated and many settlements and settlers did not register on purpose, so that a participant in inter-Anastasian events estimated the number to be closer to 50,000. Pozanenko also reported that there were on average 5-6 ancestral settlements in each region of European Russia and western Siberia, with some regions having a number in the double digits (such as 30 in Krasnodar Krai); the largest settlements were found in Moscow Oblast, in Krasnodar Krai, in the southern and middle Ural region, and in Novosibirsk Oblast.

In 2019, the scholars Anna A. Konopleva and Igor O. Kakhuta stated that "the popularity of Neopaganism in Russia is obvious". According to the scholar Andrey Beskov, the number of Rodnovers and generally modern Pagans in Russia might be larger than what surveys attest, as many of those people who identify themselves as "Orthodox" might actually be Rodnovers, as the views of the two religious groups border each other, or "flow smoothly into one another, combining in the worldview of a modern Russian". Some scholars have determined that many self-identifying "Orthodox" are clearly Pagans, and that it is common in the Russian mindset to identify "Russian Orthodoxy" as Rodnovery, and as different and even opposite to Christianity. Many Rodnovers call themselves "Orthodox" because the Russian term for "Orthodoxy", ''Pravoslaviye'' (Православие), means "to praise the Right" (славить Правь, ''slavit' Prav), a concept which also belongs to Rodnover theology and cosmology, and which identifies the celestial plane of the gods of light and the order of the universe. According to Beskov, in modern Russia "interest in East Slavic Paganism is very large and remains unabated since the beginning of the 1990s", and there is "a tectonic shift in public thinking which is characterised by the return to the Russian culture of Pagan heritage and the public recognition of the significant contribution of East Slavic Paganism in the formation of national culture". The beliefs of such community are, however, very variegated and may be described as an ietsism (an unspecified belief in an undetermined transcendent force) characterised by a Slavic coloration, or as Slavic "spirituality" or "spiritualism".

Russian Rodnovers and the War in Donbass

Rodnovery has had a significant role in the War in Donbass, with many Rodnovers forming or joining armed forces. Some of them—for example those of the Svarog Battalion—fought in favour of Russia; other Rodnovers—such as those of the Azov Battalion—took the side of Ukraine. The war stirred different reactions among Rodnovers in Ukraine; those belonging to the Native Ukrainian National Faith viewed Russia as the aggressor, while adherents of other Rodnover organisations like the Ancestral Fire of the Native Orthodox Faith more commonly saw Russians and Ukrainians as brothers and believed that the conflict was caused by the machinations of the United States.

Russian Rodnover military formations in Donbass included the Svarog, Varyag and Rusich formations, and Rodnovers within the Russian Orthodox Army. Observers have highlighted that Russian Rodnovers had been proselytising in the region, with the endorsement of Russia, under the name "Orthodoxy" and preaching the concept of a new "Russian World", and that their beliefs even permeated the Orthodox Christian church.

Since the outbreak of the war, though not necessarily in connection with it, Rodnover and Orthodox Christian military groups also sprung up in the Russian capital Moscow, reportedly dividing the capital into respective zones of influence, "cities within the city" with their own armed forces, with support from local security officials. Rodnover soldiers often help the local population in its opposition to the Orthodox Christian hierarchy's plans to build new churches around the city.

Russian Rodnover fine arts

The rise of Rodnovery, and its rapid growth as a multidimensional phenomenon, has brought to the establishment of an artistic scene as part of such multidimensionality. Many professional artists, many of whom are outspokenly Rodnover themselves—some even priests, have emerged with works discussing themes of history, mythology and everyday life. Their works are highly appreciated and celebrated within the Rodnover community. Studies on Rodnover art have found that Svyatoslav I of Kiev is one of the preferred subjects among other historical themes, epic heroes and other human prototypes (even including the appropriation of saints of the Russian Orthodox Church).

Russian artists of Rodnover themes include Aleksandr Borisovich Uglanov, Andrey Alekseyevich Shishkin, Andrey Guselnikov, Andrey Klimenko, Boris Olshansky, Igor Ozhiganov, Leo Khao, Maksim Kuleshov, Maksim Sukharev, Maximilian Presnyakov, Nella Genkina, Nikolay Speransky, Valery Semochkin, Viktor Korolkov, Vladimir Pingachov, Vsevolod Ivanov. Another artist, whose works are widely appreciated within the Rodnover community, was Konstantin Vasilyev (1942–1976).

File:Zhiva by Andrey Shishkin.jpg, ''Zhiva'', by Andrey Shishkin
File:Put ratnika by Andrey Shishkin.jpg, ''The Path of the Warrior'', by Andrey Shishkin.
File:Day and Night (Belobog and Chernobog) -- Maxim Sukharev.jpg, ''Belobog and Chernobog'', by Maxim Sukharev.
File:Mother of Altai's Hero.jpg, ''Mother of Altai's Hero'', by Lola Lonli.
File:Thunder Horse.jpg, ''Thunder Horse'', by Lola Lonli.
File:Фестиваль Родовых усадеб 2014 113.JPG, Anastasian painting at a festival in Belgorod.

See also

* Slavic Native Faith in Poland
* Slavic Native Faith in Ukraine
* Proto-Indo-European religion
** Proto-Indo-Iranian religion
*** Historical Vedic religion
*** Ancient Iranian religion

References

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{{Neopaganism

Russia
Modern paganism in Russia