Paganism in Russia. Modern paganism How paganism manifests itself in modern life
MOSCOW, March 25 - RIA Novosti, Anton Skripunov."The faith of our great ancestors is right!" say modern pagans. How many there are in Russia is hard to say, because the Rodnovers, as they call themselves, conduct their rituals away from human eyes. The correspondent of RIA Novosti managed to visit one of these rituals and find out why some Russians worship idols.
"Goy thou!"
On weekdays, Vadim Kazakov is the chief engineer of one of the large companies. And during pagan holidays - the priest of the Union of Slavic communities of the Slavic native faith.
Vadim leads fellow believers to the place of the ceremony, which is called "glorification of the gods and spirits of nature." In the center of a small clearing on the outskirts of the forest, logs are neatly stacked. Now the Rodnovers have Maslenitsa, or, as they call it, Komoyeditsa. In the pre-Christian period, they saw off the winter on the day of the vernal equinox - pancakes were brought to the gods, and the first pancake, as you know, was lumpy.
Modern pagans, mostly living in large cities, celebrate Komoyeditsa on the weekend following the spring equinox. “There are a lot of people in our ranks – top managers of well-known companies, special forces, FSB officers. True, not all of them like to advertise their religion,” says Kazakov.
Glorification takes place in complete silence, even photographing is not allowed. And you can’t leave the temple and walk around it against the movement of the sun. Members of the community are vigilantly watching this, if something goes wrong - a strict remark. Silence is broken only by the exclamations of priests and believers. Three times "Chur!" are carried over the clearing. and "Goy!". Each ritual action ends with a friendly exclamation.
- Thank the gods! - the priest turns on the crowd.
- Glory! - the assembled people answer him, throwing their right hands forward and up.
Then two more glorifications are shouted out - to the ancestors and victory. They can still glorify the family, the Russian people and the Slavs. Moreover, the latter is understood as something more than just an ethnic group. “If a person drinks and smokes, then what a Slav he is then! He has no right to be called that,” Ladomir argues.
He became a pagan five years ago. Prior to this, he was not particularly interested in religion, "except that he read the Bible, but he did not find anything for himself there." A friend introduced him to Rodnovery. “He told me a lot about it, and then he advised me to get on the Internet and read everything myself,” he recalls.
Truths from the Internet
Religious scholars call modern native faith organizations neo-pagan: they were created mainly in the 90s and have no historical connection with the beliefs of pre-Christian Russia. But it is their recreation that distinguishes Rodnovers from other areas of neo-paganism.
“I came to Rodnovery as a child. I read about Perun, Svarog, I liked it all. And in 1993 our community appeared. Then it consisted of only three people. We generally thought at that moment that we were the only ones in Russia, — they say, the end of the 20th century, what pagans! But it turned out that there are dozens, if not hundreds of thousands of us," priest Vadim Kazakov assures.
The fascination of Russians with paganism led to the creation in 1998 of the Union of Slavic Communities of the Slavic Native Faith, the first such organization in the country. True, Kazakov complains that many consider them sectarians.
“In the same Church, not everyone loves us. Probably, the whole point is competition. But the Russian Church adopted a lot from paganism,” he is sure.
Modern pagans in conversations constantly appeal either to "native traditions" or to information on the Internet. Vadim Kazakov, for example, convincing me that there are more and more Rodnovers every year, refers to the number of subscribers to pagan groups in social networks. True, it is immediately stipulated that "of course, those who are simply interested can also be there."
Religion game
Muscovite Arina Ponomareva is one of the elders of the Vyatichi Island community. Here, as in many native faith organizations, they constantly emphasize their uniqueness and the "correctness" of the rituals performed.
"A lot of ritual actions were born from practice," says Ponomareva. They also conduct their rituals in the forests - mainly in Moscow and Vladimir regions. The temple must be arranged according to special rules, so the place for it is chosen very carefully.
© Photo: from the personal archive of Arina Ponomareva
© Photo: from the personal archive of Arina Ponomareva
"We have glades where statues are installed - sacred idols. Nearby there is a playground for games and communication. On summer trips, there is always a river, if it is Kupala, the day of Perun or Rusalia. It is right to perform a ceremony in honor of Perun or Svarog on an elevated place, an idol Veles, on the contrary, is set in a lowland near a stream, while Makosh or Lada are usually honored in a bright birch grove, "explains the Rodnoverka.
For her personally, Rodnovery is more of a tradition than a religion in the full sense of the word. It is still difficult for her to explain why she leaned into paganism.
“About ten years ago, in the Urals and in the Moscow region, groups of enthusiasts performed rituals, lit bonfires, pronounced solemn glory. It was very beautiful and significant. and rituals," she shares.
Scandalous feast
However, not everything is smooth for the pagans. Either one will sue the other "for insulting religious feelings," or someone will commit some shocking trick. In early March, social networks began to actively discuss the act of the pagan Rodostav Dobrovolsky, who buried his fellow believer, as he put it, according to the old Russian custom: he burned the body at the stake. Many have a reasonable question: is it legal?
Some lawyers considered that this was a violation of the federal law "On Burial and Funeral Business", according to which the burning of the body can only be carried out in a crematorium. Others note that this type of funeral generally "does not fit into any framework of the law."
Dobrovolsky claims that the deceased himself bequeathed to burn his body. And now Rodostav calls on all co-religionists to make such wills so that the community does not have problems later.
How many?
There are many native faith organizations in Russia, so counting the number of their followers is actually unrealistic. In addition, among the pagans there are many disagreements about how whom to call, the religious scholar Alexei Gaidukov notes.
“Native faith just refers to the ethnic forms of neo-paganism. There are also modern witchcraft traditions - Wicca, for example. There are systems associated with neo-druidism, neo-Celtic, neo-Scandinavian tradition,” the specialist notes.
“One can single out national patriots, a natural-ecological direction, and reenactors with role players, who are most often enthusiastic historians. Now nationalists, if they allow themselves to say something, their freedom is limited by law,” he adds.
Some neo-pagan organizations appear on the list of banned in Russia. From time to time, books on this subject also fall under the ban.
Perhaps because of this, almost every pagan in a conversation will surely mention that even among them there are sectarians who "imitate the faith of their ancestors." And no one really knows which of them really follows the customs that existed before the Baptism of Russia.
At the same time, it is necessary to point out a number of phenomena that prevent a genuine revival of the pagan spirit in modern Russia. In addition to external reasons (socio-political), there are a number of internal reasons (spiritual and psychological) for the slow and sometimes very contradictory in form revival of Traditional Russian spirituality.
It is sad to observe that many of our contemporaries, who formally classify themselves as pagans (rodnobevers, rodnovery, traditionalists), actually pay very little attention to the actual religious aspects of paganism. Sometimes political, economic, environmental and other goals are put forward by them to the fore, obscuring the knowledge of SELF and GOD, and excessive enthusiasm for external attribute becomes an obstacle to obtaining and deepening the internal - spiritual experience.
Paganism (Love of Kindred, Traditionalism), being a system of worldview that considers human life in its entirety, points to the importance of a non-separating view of reality. According to Rododily, a modern pagan should not shy away from solving political, economic, environmental and other problems that reality puts before him, but consider overcoming them as a kind of religious act, as a method of knowing the world and Nature, as a means for SELF- and GOD -knowledge. Overcoming any duality within yourself. The pagan must develop a holistic view of reality, seeing the divine in everything, and everything as a manifestation of the divine. At the same time, any action performed by a pagan must be based on his spiritual experience and not conflict with World Harmony.
Paganism, being a universal and comprehensive philosophy, remains at the same time a deeply national phenomenon. This is a Tradition that manifests itself through the totality of the traditions of each specific people, set forth in an understandable and characteristic language for it, taking into account all the specifics of the national worldview. In connection with the foregoing, it is necessary to point out the danger of absolutizing the national principle, which can turn healthy patriotism (that is, natural love for a person’s native people) into anti-Natural Nazism, characterized not so much by love for one’s people as by hatred for all other peoples ( Judaism with its dogmatically prescribed hostility to other peoples, as well as the quasi-religion of fascism, which in the recent past led the German people to war and defeat).
Love for one's own people should in no case be measured by the degree of hatred for people of other nationalities (especially since negative emotions - including hatred - are simply not constructive; first of all, for those who experience them). The thoughtless Nazism of some modern pagans contradicts the principles of Paganism (Love of the Family) and is a regrettable fact of our modern reality. Any pagan who shows hatred for all foreigners himself becomes a conductor of anti-pagan ideas and anti-pagan philosophy, thereby violating the Laws of the Rule of Heaven and insulting the Native Gods.
One of characteristic features modern Russia is the presence of well-known differences between urban and rural lifestyles. These differences are somehow manifested in the peculiarities of the worldview of urban and rural pagans. This is especially noticeable when comparing the program principles professed by pagan movements and communities based in large cities and adopted by rural pagan associations.
Modern urban Pagans, as a rule, pay more attention to concepts, philosophical and historical developments, literary and scientific activities, etc., while rural Pagans prefer mainly the practical side of things (ritualism, arrangement of temples, related craft activities, etc. .P.). Both approaches have their advantages, but none of them can claim to be a complete religious practice.
Most modern people have lost the sense of their integrity, developing any one side of their nature at the expense of all the others. This condition of theirs is exacerbated by the activities of numerous modern religious movements, anti-pagan in essence. Rigid specialization of people prevents them from perceiving the world in its entirety, from seeing the divine in all its diversity of forms. To help them restore the lost harmony of integrity can only join the Tradition, which has a comprehensive Knowledge and has a holistic view of the world.
A person who perceives reality primarily as a set of ideas comprehended by the mind, as well as one who is used to trusting only his feelings and instincts in everything, are equally far from a holistic perception of the world. A person for whom religion is just a set of dogmas, as well as one who is carried away by only external rituals, are equally far from receiving a holistic religious experience.
Only paganism, devoid of any rigid systems of dogmas and prescriptions that are mandatory for all people without regard to their personal characteristics, is able to return a holistic view of the world to modern man, stimulating his personal spiritual search and not fitting him into narrow dogmatic frameworks. Only paganism is capable, without dividing a single Knowledge into fragments (as all upa-dharmas do), use it in its entirety for the benefit of a person, without exalting any one part of it by belittling the significance of all the others.
Before us, modern Russian pagans (general lovers, Rodnovers, traditionalists), now more than ever, the problem of reviving the spirit of our people, crippled by centuries of dominance of foreignness, is acute. Each of us must begin this truly sacred work with rebirth and purification. own soul, from overcoming the internal duality and restoring the original harmony lost by the modern "civilized man", from the destruction of that internal barrier with which we fence ourselves off from the rays of light of the non-mortal spirit - the Nature of the Genus, which constitutes our true Essence. Truly, our future and the future of Russia are in our hands.
With collapse Soviet Union the term "paganism" has become more and more popular with us. The biggest jump in popularity has been the last 5-8 years - the years of the rapid development of Internet technologies and Internet resources. Many people appeared who began to call themselves pagans. Modern paganism became a subculture, and being a pagan became kind of fashionable.
A huge number of communities dedicated to paganism have appeared on various social networks, and groups of related topics (for example, esoteric groups) have begun to pay more and more attention to this. People's interest has grown and continues to grow. To a greater extent, paganism attracts people with patriotic feelings, those who love their land, country, homeland. However, why are these people not interested in Orthodoxy traditional for our region? Not all patriots are fascinated by paganism, but many are.
After the removal of the ban on religiosity, people got the opportunity to believe in anything or not to believe at all. Someone discovered Orthodoxy, someone - other religious confessions and cults, but many decided to start looking for pre-Christian beliefs. All because they have no respect for Orthodoxy, and the latter has lost all authority in their eyes. Therefore, anti-clerical sentiments are so strong among the people, and they treat Orthodoxy as some kind of Jewish project, specially created to enslave the Slavs and other peoples. This is the official position of modern paganism.
When I was at school, at some point I began to be interested in something metaphysical, well, it’s understandable: sooner or later a person asks himself such questions. On the bookshelf at home, I found a book on astrology, various signs zodiac, their descriptions and more. The inclination of my mind and predisposition to "humanities" aroused my great interest in this entertaining reading. I began to study descriptions of various signs of the zodiac, memorizing them in order to be able to obtain information about a particular person, to know what could be expected from him and what kind of character he had, to select friends according to this principle or vice versa, to avoid someone.
I seriously believed in astrology and believed that these descriptions actually correspond to reality, and with their help I can learn something about a person only by the date of his birth. My head was filled with this nonsense for a long time, but after a lot of experience studying people according to this principle empirically, I came to the conclusion that these descriptions are incorrect and that each of them can be true for any of the 12 signs of the zodiac. So I lost faith in astrology, and not because someone told me, but because I myself understood this pseudoscientific teaching.
I was also terribly superstitious and seriously believed that signs work: if you do this and that, then you will be successful in this and that - and it seemed to me that it worked! He believed that if I performed a certain ritual (for example, do not say hello through the threshold, look in the mirror before leaving, sit down "on the path", etc.), then I would definitely expect success or at least there would be no disappointments today and unpleasant situations. For unpleasant situations could greatly disappoint me and cause stress, which I really did not want, like most normal people. And therefore, due to my mental weakness, I resorted to such dubious methods of dealing with them. I believed in pagan astrology and had pagan forms of belief - superstition. I was a real pagan!
“What did the old men or old women come up with from the beginning? They decided that a child up to six weeks old should not be carried out, nor shown to a stranger, otherwise they would immediately jinx it. This means, in other words: give the newborn peace, do not unfold, do not open, do not disturb and do not drag him around the rooms, but cover him a little completely, and with his head. Here is another similar case: do not praise the child - jinx it. V. I. Dal. "About the beliefs, superstitions and prejudices of the Russian people".
Growing up, being interested in various natural sciences, and also studying religions, I realized that that model of belief and an attempt to explain certain things (predict them, influence them) is primitive, childish, underdeveloped. This is the simplest attempt to explain something metaphysical, beyond.
I was a pagan, but I was not an adherent of the modern pagan subculture "Rodnoverie", which is now so popular. I wasn’t there for one simple reason: I didn’t know anything about it and I couldn’t get such information from where, although Rodnoverie already existed. If I grew up in the modern age, with all these gadgets, social networks and such a saturated Internet, then I might have become interested in this phenomenon. However, my views evolved earlier, long before my acquaintance with Rodnoverie and modern paganism.
Those. being at that stage of development of my views, I was greedy for various unknown, esoteric things. I was attracted by this mysterious and unknown. But what if I can learn something from smart books and learn to do something that I didn’t know how to do? A perfectly reasonable and healthy desire. Paganism is very attractive because it offers easy ways to solve problems, but these ways in practice turn out to be wrong and dead ends. At a young age, a person wants everything, immediately and quickly, which is why pagan elements are so attractive to young people fascinated by them.
Why do many people become addicted to paganism in adulthood? It is obvious that they are at an early stage in the development of their views and have only just arrived at this point. I was lucky and became interested in this at school, but many are not so lucky, and they come to this at a later, often mature age. A huge part of them also eventually evolve and cease to be superstitious, cease to believe in astrology, horoscopes, healers and sorcerers, in damage and the evil eye, in love spells and lapel, in various voodoo cults, black cats, tarot cards and other heromancy. However, many continue to adhere to their beliefs, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the objective criticism of neo-paganism.
Rodnoverie or Slavic paganism?
Rodnoverie- this is a cultivated form of pagan views, an attempt to build a certain subculture on a pagan foundation, an attempt to unite people into a society within the framework of pagan views. Rodnovery is the modern paganism of the Slavs, or rather, people from the post-Soviet space of Slavic appearance. Analogues of Rodnoverie exist in different parts Sveta. In Scandinavia it is Asatru, in Great Britain it is Druidism, in Latin America the descendants of indigenous peoples are trying to revive their beliefs (Maya, Aztecs, Incas, etc.). India is officially a pagan country.
Rodnoverie (Native Faith, Rodoverie, Rodolubie, Rodobozhie) is a new religious movement-reconstruction of a neo-pagan persuasion, proclaiming as its goal the revival of Slavic pre-Christian rites and beliefs. Rodnovers perform "cleansing" and "naming" rites, as a result of which they receive a new name. Wikipedia.
Rodnovery is neo-paganism, namely "neo", i.e. new. However, the Rodnovers claim that their specific beliefs are similar to the beliefs of the Slavic tribes before the adoption of Christianity in Russia. And what do they keep and revive old faith. However, this is not true: the faith of the pre-Christian Slavs and the faith of modern Rodnovers - not the same!
If Rodnoverie is a subculture built on pagan beliefs, then in addition to it there is still a huge number of pagans who do not belong to Rodnovery. However, their circles are replenished at a rapid pace. Having pagan views, a person sooner or later stumbles somewhere in the social network on the publication of materials that are interesting, in his opinion, and correspond to his worldview. He decides to join the community, albeit virtually, but de facto becoming a member of this society. Those. that if I'm in that mine school age I would have flipped through the Internet and stumbled upon such materials - they would obviously interest me. To be honest, 5-6 years ago, while studying the Internet, I came across materials from neo-pagans, and I liked them. However, in the end, having a bit of critical thinking, I did not fall for these provocations and turned away from this outwardly attractive information.
Modern pagans (Rodnovery) at the temple
At that moment, I was interested in the Vikings, Scandinavia, nature and aesthetics of the north of Russia, taiga, ancient times, Germanic and Slavic tribes, and so on. The neo-pagan materials attracted me, first of all, for their aesthetics. After all, most of the publications of modern pagans and now are various pretentious pictures, which depict daring warriors in armor, Vikings, chopped luxurious huts with carved platbands, beautiful girls with braids and dresses with ornaments, fairy-tale worlds in the fantasy genre, happy people who lead round dances - and everything is clearly done in a propaganda style. In general, drawn pictures attract attention, and under them is a text that allegedly contains a description of the life and life of the Slavs, their beliefs and other things. However, most of these descriptions do not pass any criticism - they were invented by the authors of these resources, and this did not happen in reality. Plus, the lion's share of all material falls on Christian Russia, and is presented as pagan. Therefore, modern Rodnoverie cannot command any respect - because of outright lies and falsification of materials.
An example of pretentious propaganda pictures of Rodnovers
Due to the lack of any sources of that time, modern neo-pagans are forced to engage in composition, the assumption of how it could be then. But after all, you can assume as much as you like, but without sources, such assumptions are worthless, and Rodnoverie in this case is an absolutely new, modern religious cult built on lies and falsification. And if you ask me why, despite objective criticism, Rodnovers still continue to be Rodnovers, I will answer you: because their views are at a low stage of development, they have not undergone evolution, as was the case with me when I abandoned astrology and superstition.
An important point will be the fact that the lion's share of adherents who sympathize with neo-paganism are people in a state of neophyteism, i.e. undecided, doubting, those who have just stumbled upon neo-pagan propaganda and perceive it as something patriotic. Those. the number of seasoned neo-pagans is not so great in fact. Due to the fact that their views have not yet undergone rapid growth and evolution, they buy into the pseudoscientific information of neo-pagans and take it on faith. Despite the objective criticism, which is now quite enough, people who are greedy for neo-paganism are still led to all these fabulous pictures and fictional stories. The charm of a fictional past is so beautiful that sometimes no amount of criticism can dispel these myths. In addition, people turn on conspiracy thinking about Jewish-Masonic conspiracies. People do not want to accept criticism, because the vast majority of people who sympathize with neo-paganism, as practice shows, have non-critical thinking: people who are prone to abstract thinking, fantasizing, in general, are kind, loving the Motherland, respecting manual labor. There are many neo-pagans among the visitors of this site.
If you do not touch Russia and Europe, then you can take India, where many people profess Hinduism. Once upon a time, Buddhism arose from Hinduism - as more perfect form, based on the dharmic concepts of South Asia. Buddhism is an evolution of views, it is a progress, a way forward, while Hinduism is a regression, a movement in place. It does not matter whether it is Christianity or Islam - monotheism was precisely the very evolution of human views from the wild, primitive man- to a higher and more civilized. A return to paganism is a way back, a regression, it is a cultural degradation, a decline. All attempts by modern pagans to present paganism as something highly cultured, pure, good are futile, and, apart from their fairy-tale pictures, there were no historical sources testifying to the "purity" of paganism.
Paganism has always and everywhere been cruel. If monotheism says that a person must control himself, curb his instincts, then paganism has always relied on primitive human instincts. Blood for blood, an eye for an eye, cults of aggression and strength - when all issues can be resolved only by force, and the one who is stronger is right. An example is pagan Scandinavia, where jarls could change almost every day, dying from the sword of a new applicant. Society was built on a primitive biological dogma of power, dominance hierarchies, slavery and submission.
Household paganism
And yet, most of today's pagans do not belong to the Rodnover subculture, while de facto remaining pagans. For paganism runs through all spheres of our activity. If a Rodnover is most often a person prone to something archaic, ancient, traditional, then the one I'm talking about may not love and despise it at all.
I have already spoken above about astrology and various superstitions, which are also a manifestation of paganism. Astrology is an attempt to study by the stars and celestial bodies certain events on Earth, an attempt to predict events according to the "heavenly book of fate." The nature of superstitions is such that all superstitions are built on the principle of either protection from something negative or to attract something positive.
Therefore, any pagan cult has always been built precisely on superstitions - on the fear of people of some objects, situations and on an attempt to correct these situations. Therefore, in any pagan cults there have always been priests, sorcerers, sorcerers, oracles who were engaged in predicting events and trying to correct them. In this regard, the clergy of traditional denominations, with a general similarity to the priests, differ from them in that they are not authorized to predict events and change them, their role is mediation between man and God. Therefore, the activity of a priest was called witchcraft, and the activity of a priest was akin to the activity of a shepherd - a teacher, sage, mentor, because the priest does not change anything. The believer himself is engaged in changes - through his repentance and the sacraments, and the priest is only an intermediary.
fortune teller
In Christianity, as in Islam and Buddhism, in order to change your future, you must change yourself, but in paganism it is different. You come to the sorcerer, pay him money for the service, and he either predicts something for you, or tries to change the course of events with some actions, rituals. In this regard, a huge number of Christians do not really understand what Christianity is, and treat it as paganism. They spend crazy money on various icons, gold chains, candles, "to build a temple", to pray for themselves by the clergy, thinking that the more money they spend, the better their future will be. And they themselves do nothing to improve themselves. "I paid you, God, why don't you help me?" - Entrepreneurial attitude towards God, as towards one's business partner. They are not Christians at all, but real pagans. Exactly the same as those who go to sorcerers and soothsayers, witches and fortune-tellers. They have constancy of intentions, one sorcerer did not help - I will go to another. Orthodox priest they represent a sorcerer, a priest, mentally endowing him with qualities unusual for him.
idolaters
money worship
However, not only such people can be called pagans. There is much more modern paganism. For example, paganism can also be called faith in the Golden Calf, the service of mammon - craving modern man to material well-being and the cult of money. When material wealth is the goal of life, and the desire for enrichment is the only activity. Such people go to church to light a candle for the success of their enterprise, for their next business transaction to be successful, for more profit, etc. When all the main traditional confessions call for non-possessiveness, moderate asceticism, and the observance of the measure in one's needs, the pagan, on the contrary, achieves the highest material indicators.
"No one can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be zealous for one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon" (Matthew 6:24)
All big bourgeois, bearers of big capital, oligarchs are just such pagans. Instead of engaging in ordinary, socially useful work, they are engaged in investment and speculation. They get money out of thin air, selling already created goods and services, giving money in growth at interest. Such pagans I would call money worshipers.
Chinese talisman for increasing money
It does not mean at all that they worship money in the literal sense - they put a bunch of bills in front of them and bow down - worship happens in a different way. As others worshiped idols, gods, bringing them gifts, sacrifices, so modern money worshipers worship money, sacrificing something for the sake of increasing money. This worship is performed in the form of superstitious rituals. For example, some pagans (mostly women) use various conspiracies which, in their opinion, will bring more money. They pronounce some phrase in front of the money and put it in their wallet, hoping that the number of pieces of paper will increase precisely because of this ritual.
"Everything grows and multiplies from the sun, and money - from the moonlight. Grow, multiply, add. Enrich me (your name), come to me. Amen!" Z contract to raise money.
Others constantly count them, repeating that "money loves counting." Still others put them in a wallet in a special way, others put some amulets in a wallet, or not in a wallet, but simply keep them in the house. Chinese amulets in the form of a toad with a coin or just a coin with a hole on a string are popular. There are hundreds of them...
Nevertheless, the worship of money is paganism, not monotheism (monotheism), because money worship is only part of a large pagan view of man, and besides it there are others, because the pagans have many gods.
Bestiality
Another kind of idolatry animal worship. This disease affects people who are fond of various vegetarian diets, and most of all - vegans. Refusal of animal food due to the poor quality of meat products (sausages made from I don’t understand what, hormonal meat, etc.) is quite understandable and logical - people are afraid for their health. The religious overtones are also quite understandable, for example, fasting, when a believer is forbidden to eat animal food, as well as "delicious" food, i.e. refusal as asceticism, as an element of control over oneself and one's vices, but only for a while.
However, another thing is when a person refuses meat because he believes that "killing animals is not good!" Extreme representatives of vegans refuse not only food, but also leather and any animal products. Ardent animal rights activists, they all put animals above humans and do not allow them to be killed just because, in their opinion, it is "wrong". This is nothing but animal worship.
food worship
The next type of modern paganism is food worship. When people pay excessive attention to the food they eat. They eat something specific, or, most often, on the contrary, they refuse something, bending over this or that food. Raw foodists can be attributed to food worshipers. Instead of being omnivores and eating all kinds of food, they exclude animal foods and cooked foods. They believe that their diet can bring their health to a better state, get rid of diseases, even cancer, and much more. The extreme stage of the raw food diet, in their opinion, is the so-called "prano diet", when the body no longer needs earthly food, but enough "energy replenishment".
Among the raw foodists there is not a single churched Orthodox, believing Muslim, Jew, and also hardly any authentic Tibetan (or Mongolian, Buryat, Kalmyk, Chinese, or even from South-East Asia) a Buddhist will be a raw foodist. A raw food diet can only be accepted by people with an occult, pagan outlook, no matter who they call themselves. The vast majority of raw foodists are fond of esotericism and the occult, there are many raw foodists among Rodnovers.
Food worship is also any endowment of food with some properties, for example, the belief that a healing tea or infusion can save me from cancer is also food worship. Food worship is also any gluttony, when a person indulges his stomach with various delicacies - "a feast during the plague." Such a person serves his stomach as a god. Submits to the "will of his stomach", as the will of the master, and satisfies his culinary needs and desires.
Cult of personality
The most serious form of idolatry is human worship, i.e. erection in the framework of a cult of some kind certain person. For example, the "cult of personality" of a famous person, such as, for example, I. Stalin, or V. Lenin. Endowment of some person magic power or something powerful. Icons with Stalin differ from icons of saints in that on the icons of saints, unlike any idols, the face of a saint is depicted, and the person praying does not pray to the icon as such (a piece of wood), but to the saint. In the same way, you can pray without an icon. Whereas the role of an idol lies precisely in the fact that the worshiper prays to a particular idol, believing that this particular idol is capable of bringing him benefits, or vice versa, adversity (if not pleasing him). Therefore, in ancient times, many pagans had their own personal idols, to which they made sacrifices.
Such a cult of personality still exists among many, when, for example, they put water in front of the TV for a conspiracy, believing that the speaker’s voice has healing power. Other unbelieving communist atheists for some reason keep figurines of Ilyich and carefully store them. In reality, the personality cult of Stalin and Lenin, of course, was exaggerated, but this took place.
Serious types of human worship is the cult of the mother or the cult of a woman in a matriarchal society - when all activity is associated with activity for the sake of a woman (wife, mistress, mother). I wrote more about this in an article about matriarchy. Then a man is ready to break into a cake for the sake of a woman, and women, taking advantage of this, manipulate such a man who worships women. Such a man is too dependent on women, he cannot live without them. To be honest, all these flowers, confessions, inscriptions under the window on the pavement - this is all pagan worship. Traditional denominations do not recognize such behavior; in them, the roles of men and women are built hierarchically and patriarchally.
Like it or not, but the cult of personality exists among famous people: actors, musicians, prominent political figures. They are exactly the same people: they do not glow in the dark, there is no halo above them, but when many admirers meet with the objects of their cult - their idol - what emotions and feelings do they experience: "Here I finally touched Myself! I can shake give him a hand, kiss him, take an autograph" and so on and so forth ... What is this, if not a cult of personality?
"Do not make for yourself an idol and no image of what is in the sky above, what is on the earth below and what is in the water below the earth. Do not worship them and do not serve them;" - second commandment. Ref. 20:2-17
materialism, material worship, fetishism
The next actual type of paganism is material worship, or materialism, fetishism - when people worship material objects. Various talismans, amulets, pebbles from "places of power" - all this is fetishism.
Fetishism is a religious worship (cult) of inanimate material objects - fetishes, to which supernatural properties are attributed, which has become widespread among primitive tribes. Wikipedia.
However, not only talismans can be objects of worship and instill some kind of faith in a person - the cult of ordinary household items, for example, items of clothing, is most often a cult. When a person puts on this or that fashionable thing on himself, then subconsciously he endows it with something magical. For example, if I wear this jacket or this coat, blouse, watch, I will look "cooler". I will feel more confident in this, however, no other changes will happen to me and the world around me. Those. it is this particular thing that will give me some magical power- and I will become "cooler".
"Several hundred people lined up at the entrance to GUM on Red Square in Moscow to become owners of the new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus smartphones. According to some reports, people have been queuing since the evening." News report from the media.
The pagan amulet "Red Thread", distributed by the followers of the occult Jewish movement of Kabbalah. Sold to stupid tourists in Israel.
Those who played computer games of the fantasy genre will understand: when a hero finds some thing (armor, helmet, sword, amulet, etc.), then by putting it on, he becomes better in some way, depending on the value of this thing . Those. it is this thing itself that adds +1 to magic, +10 to dexterity, etc. to him. AT Everyday life the same thing happens to us: when we put on some cool clothes, we begin to feel stronger, cooler, more successful, more powerful, in general, better than we were before putting it on. From the feeling that we consider ourselves better, we experience joy, satisfaction (endorphins are produced), which means that this very thing influenced the improvement of well-being and we realized at the same time that we supposedly became better.
Finally
I understand that this is a controversial issue, many will disagree with me and prefer archaic forms of social organization - this is their business. In our country, even now, in many ways, everything is built in the same way, and it is not at all necessary to be a Rodnover or a Druid in order to be a pagan at the same time. Paganism still permeates many spheres of our activity, it never left us and was always next to us; paganism will exist until our last days. It is in our gut, in the deepest corners of our vast inner universe, and it is simply impossible to remove it completely.
Paganism is a primitive beast that sits in our bodily shell, and often this beast wakes up and takes possession of us. Paganism lives in politics and economics, in science and art - in all spheres of our activity.
In this article, I do not condemn anyone, although I criticize, giving my assessment of the events. Each person has free will and has the right to choose certain things, views, and so on. I may not agree with something, but I respect the conscious choice of people, the rejection of something, or vice versa, acceptance. If you want to accept certain pagan beliefs, this is your right. With this article I would like to show what they consist of and what they are. Thank you for attention!
Talking about Perun, "Russian gods", "Book of Veles" and "pre-Christian Orthodoxy" with a serious face makes you want to pinch yourself ... or whoever says it. What is behind modern paganism, Rodnovery? Neo-pagans”, who swear their love for the Russian people, in fact, they despise this people. It is more correct to call pagans "neopagans" - as they are usually called by religious scholars and ethnographers. All pagan peoples widely and constantly borrowed rituals, cults, and beliefs from each other. In Ukraine, Slavic paganism is represented by "RUNVera" and the Union of co-religionists of Ukraine and the Diaspora, known as "Ukrainian Pagans".
Russia and new paganism
Truth, or rather “rule,” are, in the opinion of the new pagans, the laws supposedly governing the universe. These "laws" are indifferent to good or evil, because according to neo-pagans, neither good nor evil as such exist. This is what the new pagans think. What does this have to do with talk about traditionalism, about “restoring the ancient primordial faith of the Slavs, the Native Faith”? The native faith of the new pagans is Satanism. Because even many Orthodox Christians are like that only in appearance. YaD writes that the new Satanism will be "far from the purely philosophical Satanism that we know today." Baptism is when people knowingly refuse their Christian baptism.
II. Where to look for "Russian gods"?
The pagans themselves abandoned paganism. 5. If Slavic paganism is the religion of the strong, then why did it lose to Christianity, the religion of the weak? The conclusion is unequivocal - since Jesus Christ himself said that the pagans of the north do not need to carry Christianity, then the Slavs do not need this religion. After all, Christ himself said ... This quote directly contradicts the second most popular statement of neo-pagans that "we are not servants of God, we are children of the gods." See? Before the Baptism of Russia, there is still a lot, and the Slavs are already called Orthodox, which means that Orthodoxy is the name of the original, pre-Christian faith of the Slavs! He defended Russia from the filthy (pagans), prayed for icons (in the epic "At the outpost of the heroic"), which also does not fit with the image of a fighter against Christianity. In fact, Ivan Sergeevich wrote about one particular village where a sect spread about the next coming of the "Antichrist" and the sectarians often called themselves "perfect Christians."
The ancient Greek historian Herodotus wrote that they came to the lands of the Middle Dnieper a thousand years before Darius, that is, one and a half thousand years before the birth of Christ. And their gods are precisely the gods of Skolots, Wends, Antes, and so on. But these are by no means Russian gods. And there is very little information about these gods. Then, even before his conversion to Christ, he tried to bring all the pagan gods of different Slavic tribes to the same denominator. Fans of paganism cannot choose either Russians or Slavic gods"generally". The ancient land of the Vyatichi resisted Christianity for the longest time (until the 12th century), and it also became the first land that began the path to liberation from Christian foreignness. This people, having come to new lands, was already Christian. Were there human sacrifices in the cults of the Slavic tribes? There was one Varangian, a Christian ... and he had a son ... on whom the devil's envy fell. Arkona is a city of the Baltic Slavs. In Arkona, in addition to Sventovit, the pagan god Radegast was also revered.
See what "Paganism in Russia" is in other dictionaries:
All other so-called. “Russian pagans” or “neopagans” are nothing more than charlatans or simply outright sectarians who pulled knowledge and gods from a pine forest for their “religions”. The fact that they celebrated Easter means nothing. There is nothing similar to Orthodoxy. That's just the fact that they celebrated Easter for the sake of appearance, while worshiping their gods, and is called "external Orthodoxy." They believe that they support the real traditions of Russia, but in fact they will come up with something that they like. Because all the official churches are for non-resistance to evil by violence.
Paganism is a term denoting forms of religions of polytheism that preceded theism. It is believed that it comes from fame. "tongues" are non-Christian "peoples" hostile to Orthodoxy. Paganism - (from the Church Slavonic languages peoples, foreigners), the designation of non-Christian religions, in a broad sense, polytheistic.
However, any action of a pagan should also be based on his personal spiritual experience, while not entering into an imbalance with World Harmony. It is worth noting that paganism in Russia today is not some kind of cult, but a unique and all-encompassing philosophy, which continues to be a national phenomenon. This difference is especially pronounced when comparing the program principles that pagans profess in large cities, as well as pagans in rural pagan associations.
Ardent animal rights activists, they all put animals above humans and do not allow them to be killed just because, in their opinion, it is “wrong”. This is nothing but animal worship.
After the removal of the ban on religiosity, people got the opportunity to believe in anything or not to believe at all. Someone discovered Orthodoxy, someone - other religious confessions and cults, but many decided to start looking for pre-Christian beliefs. If Rodnoverie is a subculture built on pagan beliefs, then in addition to it there is still a huge number of pagans who do not belong to Rodnovery. I have already spoken above about astrology and various superstitions, which are also a manifestation of paganism. In Christianity, as in Islam and Buddhism, in order to change your future, you must change yourself, but in paganism it is different. In this regard, a huge number of Christians do not really understand what Christianity is, and treat it as paganism.
Orthodoxy is not necessary and it is not possible to invent. Even non-church people imagine what exactly Christianity evaluates as sin. And in response they say (through the mouth of a certain singer) - “It’s so hard for me! And here you can’t imagine anything better than the “ancient Rus”. This is our gospel too!” Yes, there was duality.
Some Rodnovers call themselves "Orthodox". In their opinion, the concept of “Orthodoxy” arose from the “Vles-Knigovoi triad: Yavo, Pravo, Navo” and the phrase “Right to praise”.
They say you can go back to pre-Christian times, because Russia is there too. But is Orthodox Christianity really a religion of slavery, a religion of non-resistance to evil by force? This view of Christianity is completely wrong. Christianity is better than paganism, not because it created such an Empire, and not because we have become accustomed to it for a thousand years. Only Christianity explains the meaning of human life and the meaning of history.
It turns out that the pagan Germans, like the pagan Slavs, have the same source of power. This is the realm of death. Everything else is dead and alien. The rest is an alien world, as I wrote above - the world of the dead. And if paganism is established in the present, then the entire Christian heritage must be destroyed. Otherwise, the triumph of paganism is impossible, for it and Christianity are opposites. But do not think that Christianity is only temples, clergy, culture, in general - all sorts of "heritage".
There will be no place for Orthodox Christianity in this new society. It won't because the reality they are building has nothing to do with historical Russia. And in general, according to the same Mr. Brzezinski, we are a “black hole”. Hence the inevitability of civilizational conflicts. Perhaps some of us believe that states at the turn of the 21st century are guided by the norms of international law and sacredly observe the rights of all, even the smallest peoples? All Russian history testifies that this faith is Orthodox Christianity.
They are very fond of calling themselves patriots and stigmatizing the enemies of "Light Russia", by which they primarily mean Christians. Since ancient times, Russian people have perceived their Fatherland and their statehood as a God-given vessel, which is called upon to preserve Orthodox faith before the Second Coming of Christ. In the West, Christianity was first corrupted into Catholicism and Protestantism. And what about the new pagans?
What is modern paganism
The self, without sufficient grounds, is identified only with polytheism. An optimistic, life-affirming type of pantheistic worldview has developed from the realization of man's kinship with the ever-reviving deified nature.
(With) "At Slavic paganism and the Russian Orthodox Church one audience "
If a few decades ago, a full-time propagandist of scientific atheism from the Knowledge society had been informed that hundreds of residents of megacities revere Perun and Svarog, performing rituals in front of their carved images, he would have twisted his finger at his temple and immediately reported to the KGB.Today this is a reality: pay attention to young people with runes and kolovrats in the form of tattoos or prints on black T-shirts, in one click you can find hundreds of videos about Slavic neo-paganism, and there are groups of believers in all major cities of Russia.
This is the paradox - for centuries, paganism steadfastly held out in the countryside, yielding to Christianity the right to be the religion of the townspeople. Now the lion's share of his adherents live in cities.What is Slavic neo-paganism? Who becomes its adherents and where do they get the knowledge about how our ancestors believed a thousand years ago? Is neo-paganism capable of becoming a real political force, and why are the grains in it that have come down to us from hoary antiquity generously flavored with a surrogate written in the 1990s? Obzor talked about this in detail with the author of lectures on modern paganism - a teacher at the Russian Christian Academy for the Humanities, a candidate of historical sciencesDmitry Galtsin :
Why in our time, with its digitalization and artificial intelligence, everything more people practice paganism, returning to the "childhood of mankind"?
In my opinion, modern paganism as living religiosity is a product of modernity. To form from a huge number of different cult practices, mythologies, pantheons and philosophical systems a certain common area with a single, so to speak, denominator, opposing it to others "world religions ", it was possible only if there was, in fact,"world religions', primarily Christianity.
For the believer, the attractiveness of the rite is more important than its historical "authenticity.
In order for this undertaking not to be destroyed by the dominant religion, a minimum guarantee of freedom of conscience and speech was necessary (this is why paganism appears not in the Islamic East, but in the Christian West, which has already crossed the border of the Middle Ages). In order for the rather complex ideas of antiquity to be assimilated by a sufficient number of people, appropriate media and a literate population were needed. Finally, in order for the idea of some kind of idyllic past to arise, where one can return at least for the duration of the ritual, a sufficient critical distance in relation to the present and a certain artistic culture is necessary, which will provide an aesthetic embodiment.
By the way, how do you feel about the very term "neopaganism"?
I know that even in the scientific community it is perceived ambiguously.
I don't really like the term neo-paganism because only in the 20th century for the first time do people appear who agree to call themselves pagans, paganism arises as a religious self-determination.Before, no one called himself that, and most importantly, he did not feel himself a part of one universal religious element. Today, with all its internal differences and even conflicts, a follower of, for example, the Lithuanian religion "Romuva”is more likely to see a congenial person in a Russian Rodnover than in a tribal Catholic. In the cultural reality that modern pagans are turning to - the reality of the ancient policy, early feudal Russia, Scandinavia of the Viking Age, and even more so tribal "prehistory”- there was no religion at all as a sphere of life in our modern sense.
Undoubtedly, there are most of the components " religious”, to which we are accustomed: there is a cult, there is a pantheon and often quite developed ideas about gods and other sacred characters, there is an institute of clergy, there are specialists on a variety of religious and magical issues. But all this, apparently, was not at all differentiated in consciousness into a separate identity, it was not something with which a person was ready to associate himself in the first place.
That is why the ancient types of religiosity in most of the globe were swallowed up and pushed out new', or, as they are more commonly called, 'world » religions, in which appeared actually religious identity, which does not depend on other identities and admits them next to itself.The modern world is a world of identities. People are strivinginvent» yourself, choose your own environment, environment, your own value system. Paganism in this sense is one of the options associated with a number of values that I spoke about above - nostalgic admiration for the historical past, craving for Nature (whatever is understood by it), the desire for "spiritual”, which goes beyond conventional religiosity. Since practically all varieties of modern paganism refuse to strictly prescribe to their followers a set of doctrinal or ethical provisions, a fairly high level of independent religious creativity on the part of the practitioner is also assumed here. Such an active position, position, if you like "seeker" and even " inventor” is a very modern phenomenon that has little to do with the main principle traditional society- conservative conformism.
In this respect, Slavic neo-paganism differs from similar Western cults?
Slavic paganism in literature is often referred to as "reconstructionist " type - this means that the main goal here is considered to be "revival» religious practices of the Slavic peoples of the early Middle Ages. Similar movements exist all over the world.Slavic modern paganism has a fairly long history in countries such as Poland, the Czech Republic and Ukraine - in Russia, oddly enough, it appears only in the second half of the 20th century. And there are reasons for this:Slavism"For such nations as Czechs, Poles and Ukrainians, it was a symbol of the struggle for liberation, cultural and political, and in Russia it has been since the 19th century, in conjunction with"Orthodoxy" and " autocracy”, was built into the imperial discourse - the religious niche was already occupied here.
If we talk about the social portrait of a Russian pagan, who is he?
As Roman Shizhensky, one of the researchers, points out in the monograph, modern Slavic paganism is still poorly understood: there is no corpus of empirical information collected in the course of field research. But on the basis of the data already obtained by sociologists, the following can be asserted: Slavic paganism, like other types of modern paganism - the religion of the townspeople. Most often, these are educated city dwellers, having a specialized secondary or higher education, working more or less in their specialty. In the 1990s, the scientific and technical intelligentsia were unequivocally spoken of as a characteristic environment for the spread of pagan identity. It is rather difficult to say about political preferences, but in general, Slavic pagans somehow value the autochthonous and traditional more than the globalist and revolutionary, so it is unlikely that one can find supporters of globalization among them.
When groups of Slavic pagans were formed in Russia in the 1990s, almost all of them declared sympathy for imperial statehood and perceived the collapse of the USSR and the emergence of capitalism in Russia, a consumer society, as a catastrophe. Often this was also associated with a commitment to political communism and almost always with nationalism of varying severity. This period of the history of paganism turned out to be reflected in the scientific literature and popular reviews of paganism (WCH press), and this circumstance still serves the Slavic pagans in a rather bad service: much has changed since then, and today it is no longer possible to talk about that Slavic paganism is a religious continuation of aggressive nationalism. Already in the 2000s, the main forces of the developing Slavic paganism were directed "inside» - on the development of religious pictures of the world, practices, building links between pagans and their groups. Political rhetoric had virtually disappeared by the 2010s.
Zbruch idol against the background of a miniature "Games of the Slavs" from the Radziwill Chronicle of the 15th century
Recently, Patriarch Kirill expressed concern about the increased interest in paganism among athletes and military personnel, including special forces. Metropolitan Isidore of Yekaterinodar and Kuban also reported on the "manifestation of elements of paganism" among the Kuban Cossacks. In your opinion, why are people of these categories interested in paganism?
About athletes, military men and Cossacks, I can only say that these strata are traditionally associated with conservative views. In today's Russiaconservativerather means political right. Slavic paganism, tied to the notion of the importance of ethnicity, undoubtedly fits well with such sympathies.The ethical and aesthetic moment is also important: in Slavic paganism, the “military"The theme is glorified as the highest value of the defense of the fatherland, and often just a war with"not ours", "male » values - physical strength, courage, dominance. Part of the Slavic pagan ritual is often funny fights or active sports games of a competitive nature. At native faith holidays, the physical action generally prevails, and the verbal component (the main component of the ritual "big religions”) is generally subordinate to her. It is clear that suchbodily» Religion may appeal to people who are oriented towards physical action.
However, the statements of any church officials on this occasion, it cannot be perceived otherwise than as a fact of intra-church life: church language is flexible and metaphorical, and, for example, “neopaganismYou can name almost anything with which this hierarch does not agree. In his statement, Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate Kirill drew such attention to the connection between sports and paganism that it seemed to some Russian pagans that he equated sports with paganism.
It must be remembered that the Slavic pagans are probably the only real opponents of the ROC (MP) in the religious field, because they are focused precisely on the audience that the modern Orthodox Church in Russia, these are Russian people for whom their “Russianness", them " historical memory " and " traditions". I put these words in quotation marks because in this context I perceive them as propaganda concepts. The fear of Orthodox functionaries before Slavic paganism, in my opinion, is caused by the fact that the latter manages to play these three trump cards even more successfully than Orthodoxy - after all, in Slavic paganism all this clearly functions as sacred in itself.At the same time, in ordinary life, the interest of the Orthodox in modern paganism is a rather frequent phenomenon. I myself witnessed a situation (it was at a public lecture in one of St. Petersburg universities), when an Orthodox monastic, in full agreement with the Slavic pagans present here (apparently, “Vedists”), said that Russian Orthodoxy organically absorbed ancient faith ancestors, and even presented the lecturer with a nail, on the hat of which solar symbol(this is indeed an authentic magical artifact from the Russian North) as a sign of gratitude.
If we study ancient myths at school, and we can get acquainted with the worldview of the ancient Germans from medieval epics, then there are not so many sources with the East Slavic cult. Usually his opponents cite as an argument - show at least one source about the paganism of Ancient Russia (with the exception of already Christian chronicles and the Tale of Igor's Campaign), which existed before the second half of the 20th century. Today we really do not know how they believed and performed rituals in pre-Christian Russia, what was the pantheon?
Compared with ancient cultures, all the data we have about the pre-Christian beliefs of Europe is scarce. The Slavs were even less fortunate than the Celts and Germans - if in Ireland and Iceland, Christians showed a certain interest in old traditions and even wrote them down (albeit censored), in Slavic lands the position was different. There are few sources, all that we can draw from them are the names of the gods, individual elements of the ritual and single cult prescriptions.
A follower of, for example, the Lithuanian religion "Romuva" is more likely to see a congenial person in a Russian Rodnoverie than in a tribal Catholic
However, the paucity of sources testifies rather to the strength of pre-Christian traditions throughout the Middle Ages. It was pointless to write about paganism, because it still surrounded the inhabitants of Ancient Russia. If we talk about the West Slavic lands, then there the struggle against paganism was also a war for Germanization, part of the feudal-churchDrang nach Osten. Nonetheless, reconstruction of the pantheon and beliefs of the Slavs is possible, as shown by the richest research literature on this topic from the 18th century to the present day. In addition to written sources, it is impossible to do without archeology, data from historical linguistics, folklore, anthropology, and cross-cultural studies. The picture that we get at the output will, of course, be only a sketch. However, in this sense, any ancient religiosity for us is largely a book with seven seals. Even ancient religiosity, about which we know so much, is far from being as well understood by us as many assume.
Another common Christian idea of paganism is its bloody nature and the need for sacrifices. How do modern pagans relate to these ancient rites and do without sacrifice?
It is also worth mentioning that Jewish religiosity until the 2nd century was also centered around bloody sacrifices - sacrifices to the very God whom Christians also consider their own. Until now, the blood sacrifice is preserved in Islam and, as far as I understand, in Armenian Christianity. It seems to me that here, too, this is primarily due to a certain economic structure.
A number of researchers speak of "fantasy paganism", which does not bind itself with the need to at least roughly correlate with ancient Russian realities. Why are adherents of this trend extremely uncritical to sources, taking on faith not only religious remakes, but also common myths of folk history, alternative chronology?
Because the religious behavior of a person is rather indirectly connected with the sphere of scientific rationality. Much more important is not the actual "authenticity» history, and its attractiveness for practice. They say that in the 1990s, trust in outright fakes in the region Slavic antiquities was due to the monstrous illiteracy of people who were interested in them, their low educational level. However, we see that many times"exposed» motives « fantasy paganism ” are popular even today, when a huge amount of information is available about what we reliably know about the ancient Slavs. This means that such versions of history, mythology, such religious texts resonate in the souls of their "consumers».
A striking example is the Book of Veles, which, despite the fact that the vast majority, as I think, of Slavic pagans, recognizes it as a fake, nevertheless, as a whole, continues to influence the movement. The style characteristic of the ritual texts of modern Slavic paganism - I would call it "pseudo-archaic ”- was largely set by this particular work (and not, for example, by the manner of representing Old Russian speech in works of Soviet art). I have already had to say that I see here a certain influence of Velimir Khlebnikov and some people close to him."archaizing" futurist poets who at the beginning of the 20th century sought to create a new old language, returning it to magical, primitive roots.
Despite the skepticism of scientists and even many believers, the Velis book continues to influence Slavic neo-paganism
As for pseudo-history, here the need to have "my» the history of the Slavs and / or Russians, which would allow legitimizing the pagan religion. In the official, clichéd version of Russian history, paganism is perceived as something " filmed ”, left in the past, as something that is done away with once and for all. The main impulse of Slavic paganism is precisely in disagreement with such a vision of history. Accordingly, the community seeks to find its history - given how little we know about the pre-Christian religiosity of the Slavs, the frank invention of the past in this sense seems to be a working alternative.
Does Russian neo-paganism have a chance to grow into a sufficiently large and unified structure capable of influencing social and political processes, to become the ideology of a significant part of Russians? Why?
It seems to me that this is impossible. Not now, not in the future. Paganism by its very nature is a protest religion, a minority religion. You can talk with Pavel Nosachev about "marginal religiosity ". Paganism exists not so much in stable communities as in amorphous"cult environment "(cultic milieu), by Colin Campbell. The political possibilities of such an environment as a separate group are limited - all the more, it will inevitably include people of different social groups with different interests in the social, economic and political spheres.
"Ideology”is, first of all, a clear and coherent program regarding what people want to see around them, what changes they need in the world. Slavic pagans are united by their love for the ethnic - but this love can manifest itself in diametrically opposed, say, political positions. So, for one Rodnover, this will result in empire, in dreams of the territorial expansion of Russia, for another - in the adoration of the local, loyalty " small homeland». One Slavic pagan can be a consistent xenophobe and consider any relationship (and even more so marriage) with " non-Slavs"religious crime, and the other, on the contrary, strive to create a new ethnic group and even new religious traditions based on the synthesis of the Slavic tradition and the traditions of other peoples of Russia (and even abroad). There are Slavic pagans who sing of scientific progress and its technical achievements, but there are absolutely all of this rejecting and advocating "renunciation of civilization." Everyone justifies their position with the same assumptions.
Joint projects of various Slavic pagan communities are now aimed more at developing a single semantic field in which it is possible to solve religious tasks proper - the demarcation of the priesthood and"laity", the unification of the sources of tradition, the rules of interaction between various pagan groups and the mechanisms for representing the Slavic pagan community in the media and on the Internet. There is no talk of a centralized development of a single ideology.
