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).
History Russian Diaspora and the USSR
In the middle of the 20th century, authors appeared among the white émigrés, writing of neo-paganism. Among them were Alexander Kurenkov (pseudonym Al. Kur, 1891–1971) and writer Yuri Mirolyubov (1892–1970), who first published in 1953–1957 in the Firebird magazine (San Francisco). Mirolyubov also owns a number of pseudo-historical works, including the book "Rig Veda and Paganism", Kurenkov - the book "From the True History of Our Ancestors". Close to them was also the biologist Sergei Lesnoy (real name S. Ya. Paramonov, 1894–1967), author of the books The History of the Russians in an Unperverted Form (1953–1960) and The Book of Vlesova, a Pagan Chronicle of Pre-Olegov Rus': The history of the find, text and commentary (1966). There is no information about the existence of any neo-pagan movement around them.
One of the translators of the Book of Veles into Russian was Boris Rebinder, an engineer from the city of Royat in France, born in Russia, also fascinated by the "prehistory of the Slavs". Rebinder sent Mirolyubov's works to Viktor Bezverkhy, one of the first ideologues of Russian neo-paganism, and to other Russian supporters of neo-paganism. Rebinder sent materials on the Book of Veles to the Department of Old Russian Literature of the Institute of Russian Literature of the USSR Academy of Sciences. In 1993, his book was published in Ukrainian, containing the apologetics of the Book of Veles.
In the USSR, the "Book of Veles" became widely known thanks to the program article "Vityazi" (1971) by member of the "Russian Party" poet Igor Kobzev, who was fond of Russian paganism and contrasted it with "forcibly implanted" Christianity, which allegedly caused irreparable harm to the original Russian culture. The article was directed against the distortions of the Russian language and Russian history by some ill-wishers, while in fact, according to Kobzev, "the Russian people, like the Russian language, have infinitely deep roots that go back to the foggiest distances of millennia." the author also called for the fight against Zionism. Kobzev demanded the publication of the texts of the Book of Veles (1977) and published poetic translations of some of its passages (1982).
The beginning of the controversy in the USSR around the Book of Veles was started by an article by neo-pagan authors Valery Skurlatov and N. Nikolaev (1976), published in the popular weekly newspaper Nedelya. These authors argued that the work is a "mysterious chronicle" that allows one to take a fresh look at the time of the emergence of Slavic writing, reconsider scientific ideas about ethnogenesis, the level of social development, and the mythology of the Slavs. Also in 1976, the Nedelya newspaper published a selection of rave reviews about the Book of Veles, including accusations against persons who allegedly seek to "dismiss" readers and writers from an outstanding work by silence. (Глава 7 книги: Козлов В. П. Обманутая, но торжествующая Клио: Подлоги письменных источников по российской истории в XX веке. — М., 2001. — С. 87–105, 215–217). «Велесова книга» — глава из книги «Обманутая, но торжествующая Клио».
Modern Russian neo-paganism took shape in the second half of the 1970s and is associated with the activities of antisemitic supporters of the Moscow Arabist Valery Yemelyanov (neopagan name - Velemir) and the former dissident and neo-Nazi activist Alexey Dobrovolsky (neopagan name - Dobroslav).
In 1957, under the influence of the revolution in Hungary (1956), Dobrovolsky created the Russian National Socialist Party and was later imprisoned. Since 1964, he collaborated with the National Alliance of Russian Solidarists. On December 5, 1965, he organized a demonstration on Pushkin Square. In 1968, he was involved in the Trial of the Four. In 1969, Dobrovolsky bought a library and immersed himself in history, esotericism, and parapsychology.
In 1989, together with Valery Yemelyanov, Dobrovolsky took part in the creation of the "Moscow Slavic Pagan Community", which was headed by Alexander Belov (Selidor), and approved the eight-ray "Kolovrat" as a symbol of "resurgent paganism." The community was founded at Slavic-Goritsa Wrestling Club. In 1990, Belov expelled Yemelyanov, Dobrovolsky, and their supporters from the community for political radicalism.
Since 1990, Dobrovolsky collaborated with the neo-pagan Russian Party of Korchagin. Dobrovolsky conducted the first mass rite of naming, a rite that became widespread in the Rodnovery. Then he retired to the abandoned village of Vesenyovo in Kirov Oblast, where he lived as a hermit and spent the summer holidays of Kupala. He led the "Russian Liberation Movement" (ROD).
Features In Russian neo-paganism, the idea of the Jewish-Khazar origin of Prince Vladimir the Great is popular, explaining why he introduced Christianity, allegedly an instrument for the enslavement of the "Aryans" by Jews. Roman Shizhensky singles out the neo-pagan myth about Vladimir and characterizes it as one of the most "odious" neo-pagan historical myths and one of the main Russian neo-pagan myths in terms of worldview significance. The author of this myth is Valery Yemelyanov, one of the founders of Russian neo-paganism, who expounded it in his book "Dezionization" (1970s).
Vladimir was the son of Prince Svyatoslav from Malusha, the housekeeper of his mother, Princess Olga. Yemelyanov said that the name Malusha is derived from the Jewish name Malka. He claimed that Malusha's father was a "rabbi"—a rabbi who also bore the Hebrew name Malk. The "Nesterov censorship" of the Christian period, carried out in relation to the pre-Christian chronicles that existed, according to Yemelyanov, distorted the "rabbinich" in relation to Vladimir into "robichich" (the son of a slave - Malusha). Yemelyanov wrote that Vladimir was guilty of the murder of his brother Yaropolk and the usurpation of power.
At the same time, according to Yemelyanov, he went through the "school of the usurper" when he was on a two-year internship in Western European countries. In the reign of Vladimir in Rus', idols first appear and human sacrifices are practiced (contrary to the "Aryan" faith); ten years of idolatry and the resulting discontent of the people paved the way for baptism.
From Yemelyanov, the myth of Vladimir was borrowed by another founder of Russian neo-paganism, Alexey Dobrovolsky (Dobroslav). Dobrovolsky, in accordance with his views, singled out the anti-heroes of Russian history. The central place in this black list was assigned to Prince Vladimir the Great. Dobroslav repeated the first part of this myth without changes and supplemented the second part of the myth about the deeds of Vladimir with new details. Vladimir Istarkhov, in addition to the myth about Vladimir, claims that the prince destroyed the "Slavic chronicle", "the detailed Chronicle of the Russian Empire" and introduced a ban on Russian history before baptism. The process of the baptism of Rus' is represented by the Christian genocide.
The neo-pagan myth about Vladimir was reproduced with various changes by other neo-pagan authors. V. M. Dyomin repeated the ideas about the huge human sacrifices with which the Christianization of Rus' was carried out, and about the destruction by Christians of the wealth of monuments of pre-Christian writing. One of the neo-pagan authors, Lev Prozorov, repeating the myth about Vladimir, accused the prince of betraying the faith of his ancestors. The myth about Vladimir has become widespread among the authors of various Russian neo-pagan articles and writings.
S. Maltsev writes: "Malusha is the daughter of the last Khazar king, having married Rogneda, Vladimir committed the gravest racial crime" (entered into an interracial marriage). In fiction, the myth of Vladimir is reflected, in particular, in the novel of the neo-pagan writer Sergey Alekseyev "I know God!" (1999). According to the work, the mother of Vladimir Malush was a rootless slave of the Khazars, who was recaptured from the latter by Prince Igor. This introduction of the Khazar element into the environment of the Russian princes was planned in advance and carried out by the Khazar-Jewish elite of the Khazar Khaganate. Alekseyev portrayed Vladimir as a greedy egoist, usurer, dreaming of world Jewish domination.
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 Schnirelmann 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 [to these people] because 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.