Slavic Neopaganism - By Country - Russia

Russia

Russian rodnoveriye movement is extremely heterogenous. The first Rodnover association in Russia was registered in 1994. Rodnover groups in the Russian Federation include the Slavic Communities Union based in Kaluga. The largest religion is that of Rod. Lesser deities include Perun and Dazhbog. Russian centers of Rodnovery are situated also in Dolgoprudny, Pskov and other cities. Moscow has several pagan temples.

Most Russian Rodnovers draw their material from some combination of written medieval chronicles, archaeological evidence, 19th and 20th century fakelore, artistic invention, direct "divine revelation" and many variants of the Aryan myth, which place the source of the Slavic civilization and its beliefs as far as the Etruscans and even Atlantis.

Rodnoveriye in Russia involves a large amount of xenophobia, especially antisemitism. In 1992 a political party ("Russkaya Partiya") associated with neopaganism issued a manifesto, calling for declaration of "Christianity (which preaches the idea of God-chosen Jewish people) a Jewish ideology, and a foreign religion that aids the establishment of a Zionist yoke in Russia".

In Russia and Ukraine, many Rodnovers use the Book of Veles as a sacred text. This work is considered by scholars in general to be a 20th-century literary forgery.

Most, but not all, Rodnovers place a heavy emphasis on some form of nationalism as part of their ideology combined with anti-Christian sentiment (they consider Christianity a Jewish superstition). In some cases, this may be limited to a commitment to preserve national tradition and folklore; in other cases, it may include chauvinism directed against other ethnic groups. Dr. Victor Schnirelmann, a cultural anthropologist at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology in Moscow, has written that ethnic nationalism, xenophobia, racism, and antisemitism are core values of many Russian Rodnover groups, and that they base their ideology on the Aryan myth. Schnirelmann also says neopaganism is prevalent among the skinhead groups in Russia.

Recent translations into Russian of "racist and antisemitic teachings" by the Italian fascist Julius Evola and the antisemitic Theosophist Alice Bailey support this tendency, he says. The promotion of the Panslavist and specifically russocentric ideas by right-wing associations (they deny the independent ethnicity of Belarussians and Ukrainians) of the Russian Rodnovery groups have led to inferences that these groups promulgate Russian imperialism.

The Moscow Bureau of the Human Rights Watch notes prevalence of xenophobic, racist, and antisemitic views among Russian neopagan groups. In 2010 there were several incidents of violence by Russian neopagan extremists against Orthodox Christians and non-Russians.

Roman Shizhensky, a scholar of Russian neopaganism, states that it is a manufactured "parareligious" movement based on fabricated mythology. The scholar Victor Schnirelmann expresses a similar opinion. Russian neopaganism has been described by the culturologist I.B.Mikheyeva as "highly politicized quasireligion" with extremist tendencies. Schnirelmann gives a similar assessment of a "quasireligion" based largely on ideology. His assessment is an interpretation of the statements of Russian Rodnover leaders.

Volhv Veleslav is one of the foremost priests in Rodnovery. His early works form the basis of Slavic neopaganism and its reconstruction.