1800s–1920s: Romantic and Polish revolutionary precursors The origins of Slavic Native Faith have been traced to the
Romantic movement of late eighteenth and nineteenth-century Europe, which was a reaction against
rationalism and the
Age of Enlightenment. This was accompanied by a growth in
nationalism across Europe, as intellectuals began to assert their own national heritage. In 1818, the Polish ethnographer
Zorian Dołęga-Chodakowski (Adam Czarnocki; 1784–1825) in the work ("About the Slavs before Christianity") declared himself a "pagan" and stated that the Christianisation of the Slavic peoples had been a mistake. Therefore, he became a precursor of the return to Slavic religion in Poland and all Slavic countries. Similarly, the Polish philosopher
Bronisław Trentowski (1808–1869) saw the historical religion of the Slavs as a true path to understanding the divine creator, arguing that Christianity failed to do so. In Czechia, in 1839, the doctor and teacher
Karel Slavoj Amerling (1807–1884) founded the Brotherhood of the Faithful of the New Slavic Religion (
Bratrstvo Věrníků Nového Náboženství Slávského), identified as pantheism and as a means for the
Czech National Revival; the group was, however, banned by the
Austrian rulers just one year later, in 1840. Another precursor in Poland was
Jan Sas Zubrzycki (1860–1935), who elaborated the doctrine of "God-Knowing" (
Bogoznawstwo). It was this Romantic rediscovery and revaluing of indigenous pre-Christian religion that prepared the way for the later emergence of Rodnovery. Whereas calls to re-establish pre-Christian belief systems existed within the German and Austrian far-right nationalist movements during the early twentieth century, the situation was different in Russia. In Russia there was a shared belief among the intellectual circles that Slavic paganism had survived within the "folk Orthodoxy" of the common people (which was regarded as a
dvoeverie, a "double faith"), and the
Old Believers' movements. The study of this syncretic popular religion and philosophy was the foremost interest for late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Russian intellectuals: early revolutionaries (
Alexander Herzen,
Nikolay Ogarev,
Mikhail Bakunin),
Narodniks (Populists), and early
Bolsheviks were inspired by the radical forms of society practiced within folk religious communities, which in many ways were precursors to
socialism.
Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich was assigned by the
Russian Social Democratic Labour Party the task of studying folk religious movements, and in 1908–1910 a faction of the Bolsheviks, represented by
Anatoly Lunacharsky,
Alexander Bogdanov,
Maxim Gorky, and
Vladimir Bazarov, formulated the "
God-Building" movement (
Bogostroitelstvo), whose aim was to create a new religion for the proletariat through a synthesis of socialism with folk religion.
1930s–1950s: Early concrete developments In Ukraine, the first practitioners of Slavic Native Faith appeared in the 1930s. The Ukrainian literary magazine
Dazhboh, published in 1931–1935, was imbued with Neopagan ideas (
Bohdan Ihor Antonych and others). One of the most influential Ukrainian Rodnover ideologues was
Volodymyr Shaian (1908–1974), a linguist and philologist who worked at
Lviv University. He claimed that in 1934 he underwent a spiritual revelation atop Mount Grekhit in the
Carpathian Mountains. Particularly interested in the idea about an ancient Aryan race that were popular at the time, he subsequently began promoting what he called a "pan-Aryan renaissance". He turned to recorded Ukrainian folklore to find what he regarded as the survivals of the ancient Slavic religion. In 1944, he fled the Soviet government and travelled to refugee camps in Germany and Austria. There, he established the Order of the Knights of the Solar God (
Orden Lytsariv Boha Sontsia), a religio-political group that he hoped would affiliate itself to the
Ukrainian Insurgent Army during the Second World War. In Poland,
Jan Stachniuk (1905–1963) established the
Zadruga magazine in 1937, which gave rise to the movement of
Zadrugism. the term
Zadruga refers to a
South Slavic tribal unit. Continuing on from Dołęga-Chodakowski, Stachniuk's own work criticised
Catholicism in Poland, arguing that it had had a negative effect on the country's national character. He did not develop his ideas into a religion, and those who shared his views remained "a very loose and diverse intellectual clique". The magazine and its associated group embraced members with a wide variety of viewpoints, ranging from secularly
humanistic to religiously Slavic Native Faith stances. He was nevertheless labelled a
neopoganin ("Neopagan") by the Polish popular press, a term that he embraced as a self-descriptor in later life. In the same year,
Zdzisław Harlender (1898–1939), independently wrote the book ("Worshippers of Dadźbóg Swarożyc"), published in 1937, in which he laid out his vision for the revival of the pre-Christian Slavic religion.
Władysław Kołodziej (1897–1978) later claimed to have established, before the Second World War, the Holy Circle of the Worshippers of Svetovid (
Święte Koło Czcicieli Światowida), although there is no evidence that they conducted regular meetings until many years later. During the war, Stefan Potrzuski led a unit in the Peasant Battalion which battled the
Nazi occupation of Poland. His unit had a shrine to the god
Svetovid in their secret forest base and held group rites in which they toasted a wooden image of the deity with mead. Also Jan Stachniuk fought against the Nazi occupation during the
Warsaw Uprising. Following the end of the war and the incorporation of Poland under the Stalinist regime, both Stachniuk and Kołodziej were arrested, preventing the establishment of a Slavic Native Faith community. In 1954, a student group known as Klan Ausran was established at the
University of Łódź; officially dedicated to a study of Indo-European society, its members provided hymns and prayers. A key influence on the movement was the circulation of the
Book of Veles among Russian and Ukrainian emigrees. This text was brought to the public by the Russian Yury Petrovich Mirolyubov (1892–1970), who claimed that it had been discovered by a friend of his, Fodor Arturovich Isenbek, while serving as a
White Army officer during the
Russian Civil War. Mirolyubov alleged that the Isenbek text had been etched on wooden boards, but that these had been lost during the Second World War, leaving only his own copies. It is probable that the
Book of Veles was a literary composition produced by Mirolyubov himself. In following decades the work would have caused a sensation, with many emigrees regarding it as a genuine tenth-century text. Another supporter of the book was the Ukrainian
entomologist Sergey Paramonov (also known as Sergey Lesnoy; 1898–1968); he was the one who in 1957 coined the name
Book of Veles for the Isenbek text and also named
velesovitsa the writing system in which it was allegedly written.
1960s–1980s: Soviet Union and Slavic diaspora in the West One of the disciples of Volodymyr Shaian was Lev Sylenko (1921–2008). He subsequently left Europe and moved first to Canada and then the United States. It was in
Chicago that he established the earliest groups of the
Native Ukrainian National Faith (Sylenkoism) in 1966. Sylenko presented himself as a prophet of Dazhbog who had been sent to the Ukrainian people. In his view, the Ukrainians were the superior manifestation of the European peoples, and Kiev the oldest city of the
white race. Sylenko was a charismatic leader, and his followers praised his talents and oratorial skills. In 1979 he published the
Maha Vira ("Great Faith"), a book which he claimed chronicled the ancient history of the Ukrainian people. Sylenkoism was influenced by
deism and
Theosophy. A Sylenkoite centre, the Temple of Mother Ukraine, was established in
Spring Glen, New York. Native Ukrainian National Faith congregations were established among Ukrainian emigree communities in other parts of the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and Germany. , United States During era of
Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union (1920s–1950s), research into prehistoric societies was encouraged, with some scholars arguing that pre-Christian society reflected a form of communitarianism that was damaged by Christianity's promotion of entrenched class divisions. In doing so, pre-Christian belief systems underwent a rehabilitation. Joseph Stalin himself was a supporter of the idea of Slavic Vedism, the shared Indo-European origins of
Vedic and Slavic cultures.
Boris Rybakov (1908–2001), former head of the Institute of Archaeology, provided the first academic studies about ancient Slavic religion. In the 1960s, the renewal of militant
atheism under
Nikita Khrushchev also presupposed a recovering of pre-Christian and pre-Islamic traditions. Russian Rodnovery originated in the
Soviet dissident circles in the late 1970s, as intellectuals became concerned for the eradication of traditional Russian culture and identity. The primary neopagan ideologues of the time were the Moscow Arabist
Valery Yemelyanov (Velemir) and dissident and neo-Nazi activist
Alexey Dobrovolsky (Dobroslav). An intellectual circle that cultivated themes of Slavic indigenous religion formed as a wing of the predominantly Orthodox Christian
samizdat nationalist journal
Veche (1971–1974). The first manifesto of Russian Rodnovery is considered to be the letter "Critical remarks by a Russian man" (
Kriticheskie zametki russkogo cheloveka) published on such journal, anonymously in 1973, by
Valery Yemelyanov (1929–1999), who was then close to Khrushchev. The letter criticised Christianity as a product of
Judaism serving the interests of
Zionism. The journal attracted various personalities, including Anatoly Ivanov, the artist
Konstantin Vasilyev (1942–1974), and Nikolay Bogdanov, among others. Vasilyev's art is widely celebrated within the Rodnover community. Ivanov, who declared himself a
Zoroastrian and subscribed to "Arism" or "Slavism", published a fervently anti-Christian pamphlet entitled "The Christian Plague" (
Khristianskaya chuma). Throughout the 1970s, the nationalist dissident movement split into two branches, an Orthodox Christian one and another one that developed
National Bolshevism, which eventually continued to harbour Pagan traditionalists. Other influential texts in this period were Valery Yemelyanov's
Dezionization and later Istarkhov's
Udar russkikh bogov ("The Strike of Russian Gods"). In the 1970s, explicitly religious Rodnover groups had still to operate in secret, although a few small groups were known to exist in Moscow and Leningrad (
Saint Petersburg), closely linked to the nationalist intellectual circles. In Moscow, the
occult Yuzhinsky Circle had been established by the poet Yevgeny Golovin, the novelist Yury Mamleyev and the philosopher Vladimir Stepanov in the 1960s, while a young
Alexander Dugin would have joined the circle in the 1980s; although not explicitly Pagan, they were influenced by occult Pagan thinkers like
Guido von List and sought a return to a pre-Christian
Aryan world. In the early 1980s, the
Pamyat movement was established by figures active at the Metropolitan Moscow Palace of Culture, whom similarly looked with fondness on ancient Aryan culture. The
Pamyat movement attracted personalities interested in Vedism and welcomed the ideas developed among Russian emigrees, also organising a conference on the
Book of Veles led by Valery Skurlatov (b. 1938). From 1985 onwards,
Pamyat became affiliated with Orthodox Christianity and the Rodnover component eventually left the movement. Vedism was also explicitly espoused within more official Soviet circles; Apollon Kuzmin (1928–2004), leader of the neo-
Slavophile historiography, did so in his 1988 book "The Fall of Perun" (
Padenie Peruna), in which he supported indigenous Slavic religion while criticising Christianity as the cause of the
Mongol yoke (which led to the incorporation of
Kievan Rus' in the
Golden Horde from 1237 to 1480). In the 1980s, Boris Rybakov published his last books, including
The Paganism of the Ancient Slavs (1981) and
The Paganism of Ancient Russia (1988). Meanwhile, literary writings of important figures of village prose (
derevenshchiki) promoted Paganism, including Petr Proskurin (1928–2001) and Yury Kuznetsov (1941–2003). In 1986, Viktor Bezverkhy (1930–2000) established the Saint Petersburg-based Society of the Mages (
Obshchestvo Volkhvov), an explicitly
white supremacist and anti-Semitic organisation; it was followed by the Union of the Veneds, founded in 1990. These organisations gave rise to the stream of Rodnovery known as
Peterburgian Vedism. In 1989, Valery Yemelyanov and Alexander Belov founded the Rodnover Moscow Slavic Pagan Community based out of the Slavic-Goritsa Wrestling Club. In 1990, Belov expelled Yemelyanov, Dobrovolsky, and their supporters from the community for political radicalism.
1990s–2000s: Post-Soviet growth After
Mikhail Gorbachev's Soviet government introduced the policy of
perestroika in the 1980s, Slavic Native Faith groups established themselves in Ukraine. The collapse of the Soviet Union and its official policy of
state atheism resulted in a resurgence of open religious adherence across the region. Many individuals arrived at Rodnovery after exploring a range of different alternative spiritualities, with Asian religious influences being particularly apparent within Rodnovery at that time. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Ukraine became an independent republic, with many Ukrainians turning to strongly nationalistic agendas; among those to have done so are
pseudo-archaeologists like Yury Shylov, who posits Ukraine as the "cradle of civilisation". It is within this broader milieu of cultural nationalism and interest in alternative spiritualities that Rodnovery re-emerged in Ukraine. The United States-based
Native Ukrainian National Faith established itself in Ukraine soon after independence, with the first congregation in Ukraine gaining official recognition in
Kyiv in 1991. There had been schisms in the international organisation of Native Ukrainian National Faith. A number of senior followers broke with Sylenko during the 1980s, rejecting the idea that he should be the ultimate authority in the religion; they formed the Association of Sons and Daughters of the Native Ukrainian National Faith (OSID RUNVira) and secured legal control of the temple in Spring Glen. A second group, the Association of Sons and Daughters of Ukraine of the Native Ukrainian National Faith (OSIDU RUNVira), maintained links with Sylenko himself, whom it regards as a prophet. Despite the animosity that existed between these rival Ukrainian groups, there was some collaboration between them. In 2003, the First Forum of Rodnovers was held in Ukraine, resulting in two public proclamations: the first urged the country's government to protect what the Rodnovers regarded as sacred sites and objects, and the second called on the government not to go ahead with the proposed privatisation of agricultural land. That same year, a group called Ancestral Fire of the Native Orthodox Faith was established; in contrast to the anti-Russian slant taken by Sylenkoism, it embraced a pan-Slavic perspective. The social context of Rodnovery's growth in Russia differed from that in other parts of Central and Eastern Europe. Russian nationalists had welcomed the collapse of the Soviet system but were disappointed with the arrival of
capitalism and the dramatic economic downturn that Russia faced in that decade. Many people became unemployed, and many turned to the past, nourishing the study of ethnic roots. In this context, the growth of Rodnovery can be seen as part of the nationalistic drive to regain national pride. Many leaders of early post-Soviet Rodnovery were intellectuals who were already Rodnovers in the late Soviet times; for instance, Grigory Yakutovsky (
volkhv Vseslav Svyatozar),
Alexey Dobrovolsky (
volkhv Dobroslav) and Viktor Bezverkhy. Other leaders who emerged in this period were Aleksandr Asov, author of numerous books on Rodnover philosophy which have sold millions of copies, Aleksandr Belov, founder of the
Slavic-Hill military type of Rodnovery integrating Rodnover philosophy and
martial arts, and Viktor Kandyba, founder of
Kandybaism. Literature of a neopagan, racist,
antisemitic, and
anti-Christian nature is published by the Moscow publishing house
Russkaya Pravda, officially registered in 1994, founded by the neopagan publicist Alexander Aratov (Ogneved). The publishing house aims to "publish and distribute literature on
Aryan-Slavic-Russian issues." Mainly, it publishes the newspaper
Russkaya Pravda. The publishers of Russkaya Pravda advertised
Alexey Dobrovolsky (Dobroslav), one of the founders of
Russian neopaganism. In 1997,
Valery Yemelyanov, one of the founders of Russian neopaganism, along with a small number of followers, joined Aratov's small movement and became editor-in-chief of the Russkaya Pravda newspaper. Since 1997, the
Russkaya Pravda publishing house, represented by Aratov, has formed, together with the Kaluga Slavic community and other groups, the core of the large neopagan association
SSO SRV. In the fall of 2001, some former leaders of the
People's National Party and
Russian National Unity, as well as the editors of the
Russkaya Pravda newspaper, united to create the National Power Party of Russia. Historian
Victor Schnirelmann characterizes the publishing house and the newspaper
Russkaya Pravda as antisemitic. Since the 1990s, Russian Rodnovery has expanded and diversified. Rodnovers started to establish numerous organised groups by the mid of the decade; in 1994 the Moscow Slavic Community was the first Rodnover group to be registered by the government. Concerted efforts by the communities of Moscow and
Kaluga led to the establishment of the
Union of Slavic Native Belief Communities in 1997, characterised by nationalist views. In 1999, the communities of Moscow and
Obninsk left it as they refuted nationalism, and established another umbrella organisation, the Circle of Veles led by
Ilya Cherkasov (
volkhv Veleslav), which is one of the largest and administers communities also located in the territory of Ukraine. The
Ynglist Church too was formally established in the early 1990s, and it is considered one of the most sectarian and authoritarian denominations of Rodnovery. In 2002, groups of Rodnovers that did not share the extreme right-wing views dominant within some of the largest organisations at the time, promulgated the "Bittsa Appeal", which among other things condemned extreme nationalism and was the foundation charter of another umbrella organisation, the Circle of Pagan Tradition headquartered in Moscow. In 2009, the Union of Slavic Native Belief Communities and the Circle of Pagan Tradition issued a joint statement against Ynglism (Aleksandr Khinevich and Aleksey Trekhlebov),
Levashovism (Nikolay Levashov), as well as Valery Chudinov and Gennady Grinevich, disapproving what they reckoned as Ynglists', Levashovites' and the other authors' "pseudo-Pagan teachings, pseudo-linguistics, pseudo-science and outright fiction". , Lech Emfazy Stefański, holding a wedding ceremony In Poland, the
Wrocław-based publishing house
Toporzeł reissued Stachniuk's works and those of his disciple Antoni Wacyk. The 1940s
Zadrugist movement inspired the establishment in 1996 of the Association of Native Faith (
Zrzeszenie Rodzimej Wiary; now simply called
Rodzima Wiara, "Native Faith"), whose founder
Stanisław Potrzebowski wrote his doctoral thesis on the pre-war Zadrugism in German. Another Polish Rodnover group under the leadership of Lech Emfazy Stefański registered by the state in 1995 is the
Native Polish Church (''''), which represents a tradition that goes back to Władysław Kołodziej's Holy Circle of the Worshippers of Svetovid. Modern Rodnovery in the Czech Republic emerged in 1995–1996. Two groups were founded in those years, the National Front of the Castists (
Národní Front Castistů, where "Castists" was created as a neologism from Latin
castus, meaning "pure") and the
Radhoŝť group, founded by the
Naples-born anthropologist and professor of Slavic languages Giuseppe Maiello (whose Slavic name is Dervan) among the students of the Faculty of Philosophy of
Charles University in
Prague. The two groups, respectively renamed "Kin of Yarovit" and "Kin of Mokosh", merged in 2000 to form the Commonwealth of Native Faith (
Společenství Rodná Víra). In 1995, one of the future founders of the organisation, Radek Mikula (Ratko), had established contacts with Vadim Kazakov, leader of the Russian Union of Slavic Native Belief Communities; the relationship continued in the 2000s and led to
Rodná Víra becoming an official subgroup of the Russian organisation until 2002, while it nurtured ties with Polish and Slovak Rodnovers too. In the mid-2000s
Rodná Víra was legally registered by the Czech government, but internal disagreements culminated with its unregistration in 2010 and transformation into an informal association. Conflicts emerged around the interpretation of ancient Slavic religion: The Kin of Yarovit focused on Indo-European religion and its social
trifunctionalism, the Kin of Mokosh focused on
Neolithic Europe's mother goddess worship, while groups which emerged later, such as the "Kin of Veles", had no focus. Rodnovery spread to the countries of former
Yugoslavia in the early twenty-first century. A Serbian Native Faith group known as the Slavic Circle (
Slovenski Krug) existed during the 1990s and 2000s, merging historical Slavic religion with a ritual structure adopted from the
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. In Slovenia, a group called the Svetovid Parish of the Old Belief (
Staroverska Župa Svetovid) was established around 2005 through a union of an older group,
Ajda, with the followers of the military historian Matjaž Vratislav Anžur. As of 2013, it had between ten and fifteen members. In 2011, the Circle of Svarog (
Svaroži Krug) was founded in Bosnia. During the 1990s and 2000s, a number of groups were established in Bulgaria, namely the Dulo Alliance, the Warriors of Tangra, and the Bulgarian Horde 1938. These groups have strong political motivations, being extremely nationalistic, anti-Western, and anti-Semitic. Rodnover personalities and groups played a prominent role in the 2002 establishment of
Ongal, a Bulgarian far-right umbrella organisation. The 1990s and 2000s also witnessed the development of international contacts between Rodnover groups from all Slavic countries, with the organisation of various All-Slavic Rodnover Councils. The
Internet helped the spread of Rodnovery and a uniformisation of ritual practices across the various groups. The first Rodnover website on the
Russian Internet (so-called
Runet)—was created by a Moscow-based believer in 1996. Many Rodnovers made use of
Russian Wikipedia to promote their religion, although many switched to
LiveJournal and
mail.ru, through which they could promulgate their ideas more directly. From the mid-2000s, Rodnovers made increasing use of social media to communicate with other members of their community. Russian Rodnovery also attracted the attention of Russian academics, many of whom focused on the political dimensions of the movement, thus neglecting other aspects of the community. The scholar Kaarina Aitamurto later criticised some of these Russian-language studies for reflecting scholars' own religious biases against Rodnovery, over-reliance on the published texts of prominent figures, or for sensationalising the subject to shock or impress their audience. This attitude generated some mutual hostility between academics and practitioners of Rodnovery, rendering subsequent scholarly fieldwork more difficult. Rodnover themes entered the
heavy metal subculture, particularly in bands like
Sokyra Peruna ("
Perun's Axe"), Whites Load, and
Komu Vnyz ("Who Will Go Down"). In Poland, Rodnovery also influenced various forms of folk and popular music.
2010s: Consolidations and War in Donbas The early 2010s saw a strengthening of relations between Rodnover groups. In 2012, in Russia, representatives of the Union of Slavic Native Belief Communities, the Circle of Pagan Tradition and the Circle of Veles, signed an "Agreement on Mutual Recognition of Priests" that defined the criteria for the ordination of those wishing to become Slavic priests. On the same occasion, they once again expressed disapproval for some authors and movements, including the large
Skhoron ezh Sloven, which is also present in Belarus and Ukraine. In 2014, the Russian government officially registered the Union of Slavic Native Belief Communities as an interregional public organisation for the promotion of Slavic culture. Rodnovery has a significant role in the
War in Donbas, with many Rodnovers joining pro-Russian armed forces in Donetsk and Luhansk. In 2014
Donetsk People's Republic adopted a "constitution" which stated that the
Russian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate was the official religion of the self-declared state. This was changed with the promulgation of a law "on freedom of conscience and religious organisation", backed by three deputies professing
Rodnovery, whose members organised the pro-Russian
Svarozhich Battalion (of the Vostok Brigade) and the Rusich Company.
Donbas has been documented as being a stronghold of Russian Rodnover groups that are reorganising local villages and society according to traditional
Indo-European trifunctionalism (according to which males are born to play one out of three roles in society, whether priests, warriors or farmers). In August 2015, during the 3rd Polish Nationwide Rodnover Congress, the
Rodnover Confederation (
Konfederacja Rodzimowiercza) was formally established. Among the members are eleven organisations including the Gontyna Association, the Żertwa Association, the Pomeranian Rodnovers (
Rodzimowiercy Pomorscy), the Drzewo Przodków Association, the Circle of Radegast (
Krąg Radogost), the Kałdus Association, the Swarga Group (
Gromada "Swarga"), the WiD Group,
ZW Rodzima Wiara and the Watra Rodnover Community (
Wspólnota Rodzimowierców "Watra"). In June 2017, during the celebrations of the nationwide holiday called Stado, a new religious organisation was created: the Religious Organisation of Polish Rodnovers "Kin" (
Związek Wyznaniowy Rodzimowierców Polskich "Ród"). ==Branches, movements and influences==