title: Mamallapuram

text: The site has 40 ancient monuments and Hindu temples, including Descent of the Ganges or Arjuna's Penance – one of the largest open-air rock relief in the world. The site includes several categories of monuments: "ratha" temples with an architecture of monolith processional chariots built between 630 and 668 CE; the mandapa viharas with halls and stone roofs with narratives from the "Mahabharata", Shaktism and Vaishnavism; rock reliefs particularly bas-reliefs of Shaivism, Shaktism and Vaishnavism; stone cut temples particularly those dedicated to Shiva that also reverentially display Vishnu and others, built between 695 and 722 CE; and, archaeological excavations with inscriptions some dated to 6th century and earlier. The cave temples and monolithic temples were built during the Pallava Period. The site is managed by the Archaeological Survey of India.


title: Mamallapuram

text: India census, Mahabalipuram had a population of 12,345. Males constitute 52% of the population and females 48%. Mahabalipuram has an average literacy rate of 74%, higher than the national average of 73%: male literacy is 82%, and female literacy is 66%. In Mahabalipuram, 12% of the population is under 6 years of age.


title: Joel McKinnon Miller

text: Joel McKinnon Miller (born February 21, 1960) is an American actor who is best known for portraying Don Embry on "Big Love" and Detective Norm Scully on "Brooklyn Nine-Nine".


title: Joel McKinnon Miller

text: Joel McKinnon Miller was born in Rockford, Minnesota, on February 21, 1960. He took opera singing lessons as a child, and later attended the University of Minnesota Duluth, where he studied theatre and opera. He dropped out in 1983 to attend The Acting Company but returned to his alma mater to finish his degree in theatre with an acting emphasis in 2007.


title: Joel McKinnon Miller

text: Prior to "Big Love", McKinnon Miller's main television role was that of Lyle Nubbin in three episodes of "Las Vegas". Since 1991 he has also appeared as a guest star on several American television series, including "Cold Case", "Murphy Brown", "The Commish", "Curb Your Enthusiasm", "Pacific Blue", "Dharma & Greg", "The X Files", "ER", "Malcolm in the Middle", "Roswell", "", "Deadwood", "Six Feet Under", "Desperate Housewives", "Boston Legal", "Nip/Tuck", "American Horror Story," "The Closer", and "Everybody Loves Raymond" (in which he portrayed George, the custodian, in the episode "").


title: Joel McKinnon Miller

text: McKinnon Miller's biggest film role is in the 2003 award-winning television film "Secret Santa". He also played supporting characters in the films "The Truman Show", "Galaxy Quest", "Rush Hour 2" and "Men in Black II", and supplied the voice of Bromley in the animated feature "The Swan Princess". He was a main cast member throughout the TV series "Brooklyn Nine-Nine" as Detective Norm Scully.


title: Joel McKinnon Miller

text: On December 30, 2018, McKinnon Miller sang the national anthem at the U.S. Bank Stadium. He identified himself as a lifelong Minnesota Vikings fan.


title: Joel McKinnon Miller

text: He married Tammy McKinnon in 1984 and has lived in Los Angeles since 1991. He and his wife have two children, Owen and Caitlyn. His daughter Caitlyn is an environmental planner and got married in October 2019.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: The Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) is a critically endangered cheetah subspecies currently only surviving in Iran. It once occurred from the Arabian Peninsula and the Near East to the Caspian region, Transcaucasus, Kyzylkum Desert and northern South Asia, but was extirpated in these regions during the 20th century. The Asiatic cheetah diverged from the cheetah population in Africa between 32,000 and 67,000 years ago.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: The Asiatic cheetah survives in protected areas in the eastern-central arid region of Iran, where the human population density is very low. Between December 2011 and November 2013, 84 individuals were sighted in 14 different protected areas, and 82 individuals were identified from camera trap photographs. In December 2017, fewer than 50 individuals were thought to be remaining in three subpopulations that are scattered over in Iran's central plateau. As of January 2022, the Iranian Department of Environment estimates that only 12 Asiatic cheetahs, 9 males, and 3 females, are left in Iran.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: In order to raise international awareness for the conservation of the Asiatic cheetah, an illustration was used on the jerseys of the Iran national football team at the 2014 FIFA World Cup.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: "Felis venatica" was proposed by Edward Griffith in 1821 and based on a sketch of a maneless cheetah from India. Griffith's description was published in "Le Règne Animal" with the help of Griffith's assistant Charles Hamilton Smith in 1827.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: "Acinonyx raddei" was proposed by in 1913 for the cheetah population in Central Asia, the Trans-Caspian cheetah. Hilzheimer's type specimen originated in Merv, Turkmenistan.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: Results of a five-year phylogeographic study on cheetah subspecies indicate that Asiatic and African cheetah populations separated between 32,000 and 67,000 years ago and are genetically distinct. Samples of 94 cheetahs for extracting mitochondrial DNA were collected in nine countries from wild, seized and captive individuals and from museum specimen. The population in Iran is considered autochthonous monophyletic and the last remaining representative of the Asiatic subspecies.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: Mitochondrial DNA fragments of an Indian and a Southeast African cheetah museum specimens showed that they genetically diverged about 72,000 years ago.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: The Asiatic cheetah has a buff-to-light fawn-coloured fur that is paler on the sides, on the front of the muzzle, below the eyes and inner legs. Small black spots are arranged in lines on the head and nape, but irregularly scattered on body, legs, paws and tail. The tail tip has black stripes. The coat and mane are shorter than of African cheetah subspecies. The head and body of an adult Asiatic cheetah measure about with a long tail. It weighs about . They exhibit sexual dimorphism; males are slightly larger than the females.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: The cheetah is the fastest land animal in the world. It was previously thought that the body temperature of a cheetah increases during a hunt due to high metabolic activity. In a short period of time during a chase, a cheetah may produce 60 times more heat than at rest, with much of the heat, produced from glycolysis, stored to possibly raise the body temperature. The claim was supported by data from experiments in which two cheetahs ran on a treadmill for minutes on end but contradicted by studies in natural settings, which indicate that body temperature stays relatively the same during a hunt. A 2013 study suggested stress hyperthermia and a slight increase in body temperature after a hunt. The cheetah's nervousness after a hunt may induce stress hyperthermia, which involves high sympathetic nervous activity and raises the body temperature. After a hunt, the risk of another predator taking its kill is great, and the cheetah is on high alert and stressed. The increased sympathetic activity prepares the cheetah's body to run when another predator approaches. In the 2013 study, even the cheetah that did not chase the prey experienced an increase in body temperature once the prey was caught, showing increased sympathetic activity.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: The cheetah thrives in open lands, small plains, semi-desert areas, and other open habitats where prey is available. The Asiatic cheetah mainly inhabits the desert areas around Dasht-e Kavir in the eastern half of Iran, including parts of the Kerman, Khorasan, Semnan, Yazd, Tehran, and Markazi provinces. Most live in five protected areas, viz Kavir National Park, Touran National Park, Bafq Protected Area, Dar-e Anjir Wildlife Refuge, and Naybandan Wildlife Reserve.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: During the 1970s, the Asiatic cheetah population in Iran was estimated to number about 200 individuals in 11 protected areas. By the end of the 1990s, the population was estimated at 50 to 100 individuals.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: During camera-trapping surveys conducted across 18 protected areas between 2001 and 2012, a total of 82 individuals in 15–17 families were recorded and identified. Of these, only six individuals were recorded for more than three years. In this period, 42 cheetahs died due to poaching, in road accidents and due to natural causes. Populations are fragmented and known to survive in the Semnan, North Khorasan, South Khorasan, Yazd, Esfahan, and Kerman Provinces.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: In summer 2018, a female cheetah and four cubs were sighted in Touran Wildlife Refuge Iran's Semnan province.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: The Asiatic cheetah once ranged from the Arabian Peninsula and Near East to Iran, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Afghanistan and Pakistan to India.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: It is considered regionally extinct in all of its former range, with the only known surviving population being Iran.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: In Iraq, the cheetah was still recorded in the desert west of Basrah in 1926. The last record was published in 1991, and it was a cheetah that had been killed by a car. In the Sinai peninsula, a sighting of two cheetahs was reported in 1946. In the Arabian Peninsula, it used to occur in the northern and southeastern fringes and had been reported in both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait before 1974. Two cheetahs were killed in the northern Saudi Ha'il Region in 1973. In Yemen, the last known cheetah was sighted in Wadi Mitan in 1963, near the international border with Oman. In Oman's Dhofar Mountains, a cheetah was shot near Jibjat in 1977.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: In Central Asia, uncontrolled hunting of cheetahs and their prey, severe winters and conversion of grassland to areas used for agriculture contributed to the population's decline. By the early 20th century, the range in Central Asia had decreased significantly. By the 1930s, cheetahs were confined to the Ustyurt plateau and Mangyshlak Peninsula in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and to the foothills of the Kopet Dag mountains and a region in the south of Turkmenistan bordering Iran and Afghanistan. The last known sightings in the area were in 1957 between the Tejen and Murghab Rivers, in July 1983 in the Ustyurt plateau, and in November 1984 in the Kopet Dag. Officers of the Badhyz State Nature Reserve did not sight a cheetah in this area until 2014; the border fence between Iran and Turkmenistan might impede dispersal.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: The cheetah population in Afghanistan decreased to the extent that it has been considered extinct since the 1950s. Two skins were sighted in markets in the country, one in 1971, and another in 2006, the latter reportedly from Samangan Province.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: In India, the cheetah occurred in Rajputana, Punjab, Sind, and south of the Ganges from Bengal to the northern part of the Deccan Plateau. It was also present in the Kaimur District, Darrah and other desert regions of Rajasthan and parts of Gujarat and Central India. Akbar the Great was introduced to cheetahs around the mid-16th century and used them for coursing blackbucks, chinkaras and antelopes. He allegedly possessed 1,000 cheetahs during his reign but this figure might be exaggerated since there is no evidence of housing facilities for so many animals, nor of facilities to provide them with sufficient meat every day.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: Trapping of adult cheetahs, who had already learned hunting skills from wild mothers, for assisting in royal hunts is said to be another major cause of the species' rapid decline in India, as there is only one record of a litter ever born to captive animals. By the beginning of the 20th century, wild Asiatic cheetahs sightings were rare in India, so much so that between 1918 and 1945, Indian princes imported cheetahs from Africa for coursing. Three of India's last cheetahs were shot by the Maharajah of Surguja in 1948. A female was sighted in 1951 in Koriya district, northwestern Chhattisgarh.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: Most sightings of cheetahs in the Miandasht Wildlife Refuge between January 2003 and March 2006 occurred during the day and near watercourses. These observations suggest that they are most active when their prey is.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: Camera-trapping data obtained between 2009 and 2011 indicate that some cheetahs travel long distances. A female was recorded in two protected areas that are about apart and intersected by railway and two highways. Her three male siblings and a different adult male were recorded in three reserves, indicating that they have large home ranges.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: The Asiatic cheetah preys on medium-sized herbivores including chinkara, goitered gazelle, wild sheep, wild goat and cape hare. In Khar Turan National Park, cheetahs use a wide range of habitats, but prefer areas close to water sources. This habitat overlaps to 61% with wild sheep, 36% with onager, and 30% with gazelle.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: In India, prey was formerly abundant. Before its extinction in the country, the cheetah fed on the blackbuck, the chinkara, and sometimes the chital and the nilgai.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: Evidence of females successfully raising cubs is very rare. A few observations in Iran indicate that they give birth throughout the year to one to four cubs. In April 2003, four cubs found in a den had still closed eyes. In November 2004, a cub was recorded by a camera-trap that was about 6–8 months old. Breeding success depends on availability of prey.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: In October 2013, a female with four cubs were filmed in Khar Turan National Park. In December 2014, four cheetahs were sighted and photographed by camera traps in the same national park. In January 2015, three other adult Asiatic cheetahs and a female with her cub were sighted in Miandasht Wildlife Refuge. Eleven cheetahs were also sighted at the time, and another four a month later. In July 2015, five adult cheetahs and three cubs were spotted in Khar Turan National Park.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: The Asiatic cheetah has been listed as Critically Endangered on the IUCN Red List since 1996. Following the Iranian Revolution of 1979, wildlife conservation was interrupted for several years. Manoeuvres with armed vehicles were carried in steppes, and local people hunted cheetahs and prey species unchecked. The gazelle population declined in many areas, and cheetahs retreated to remote mountainous habitats.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: Reduced gazelle numbers, persecution, land-use change, habitat degradation and fragmentation, and desertification contributed to the decline of the cheetah population. The cheetah is affected by loss of prey as a result of antelope hunting and overgrazing from introduced livestock. Its prey was pushed out as herders entered game reserves with their herds. A herder pursued a female cheetah with two cubs on his motorbike, until one of the cubs was so exhausted that it collapsed. He caught and kept it chained in his home for two weeks, until it was rescued by officers of the Iranian Department of Environment.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: Mining development and road construction near reserves also threaten the population. Coal, copper, and iron have been mined in cheetah habitat in three different regions in central and eastern Iran. It is estimated that the two regions for coal (Nayband) and iron (Bafq) have the largest cheetah population outside protected areas. Mining itself is not a direct threat to the population; road construction and the resulting traffic have made the cheetah accessible to humans, including poachers. The Iranian border regions to Afghanistan and Pakistan, viz the Baluchistan Province, are major passages for armed outlaws and opium smugglers who are active in the central and western regions of Iran, and pass through cheetah habitat. Uncontrolled hunting throughout the desert cannot be effectively controlled by the governments of the three countries.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: Conflict between livestock herders and cheetahs is also threatening the population outside protected areas. Several herders killed cheetahs to prevent livestock loss, or for trophies, trade and fun. Some herders are accompanied by large mastiff-type dogs into protected areas. These dogs killed five cheetahs between 2013 and 2016.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: Between 2007 and 2011, six cheetahs, 13 predators and 12 Persian gazelles died in Yazd Province following collisions with vehicles on a transit road. At least 11 Asiatic cheetahs were killed in road accidents between 2001 and 2014. The road network in Iran constitutes a very high risk for the small population as it impedes connectivity between population units.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: Efforts to stop the construction of a road through the core of the Bafq Protected Area were unsuccessful.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: Between 1987 and 2018, 56 cheetahs died in Iran because of humans; 26 were killed by herders or their dogs.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: In September 2001, the project "Conservation of the Asiatic Cheetah and its Associated Biota" was launched by the Iranian Department of Environment in cooperation with the United Nations Development Programme's Global Environment Facility, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the IUCN Cat Specialist Group, the Cheetah Conservation Fund and the Iranian Cheetah Society.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: Personnel of Wildlife Conservation Society and the Iranian Department of Environment started radio-collaring Asiatic cheetahs in February 2007. The cats' movements are monitored using GPS collars. International sanctions have made some projects, such as obtaining camera traps, difficult.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: A few orphaned cubs have been raised in captivity, such as Marita who died at the age of nine years in 2003. Beginning in 2006, the day of his death, 31 August, became the Cheetah Conservation Day, used to inform the public about conservation programs.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: In 2014, the Iranian national football team announced that their 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2015 AFC Asian Cup kits are imprinted with pictures of the Asiatic cheetah in order to bring attention to conservation efforts. In February 2015, Iran launched a search engine, Yooz, that features a cheetah as logo. In May 2015, the Iranian Department of Environment announced plans to quintuple the penalty for poaching a cheetah to 100 million tomans (around US$2800 as of February 2022). In September 2015, Meraj Airlines introduced the new livery of Iranian Cheetah to support its conservation efforts.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: Iranian officials have discussed constructing wildlife crossings to reduce the number of deaths in traffic accidents.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: In 2014, an Asiatic cheetah was cloned for the first time by scientists from the University of Buenos Aires. The embryo was not born.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: In February 2010, photos of an Asiatic cheetah in a "Semi-Captive Breeding and Research Center of Iranian Cheetah" in Iran's Semnan province were published. Another news report stated that the centre is home to about ten Asiatic cheetahs in a semi-wild environment protected by wire fencing all around.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: In January 2008, a male cub aged about 7–8 months was recovered from a sheep herder and brought into captivity. Wildlife officials in Miandasht Wildlife Refuge and the Turan National Park have raised a few orphaned cubs.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: In December 2015, it was reported that 18 Asiatic cheetah cubs had recently been born at Pardisan Park.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: The Asiatic cheetah whose long history on the Indian subcontinent gave the Sanskrit-derived vernacular name "cheetah" to the species "Acinonyx jubatus", also had a gradual history of habitat loss there. In Punjab, before the thorn forests were cleared and extensively utilized for agriculture and human settlement, they were intermixed with open grasslands grazed by large herds of blackbuck; these coexisted with their main natural predator the Asiatic cheetah. The blackbuck, no longer extant in Punjab, is severely endangered in India. Later, more habitat loss, prey depletion, and trophy hunting were to lead to the extinction of the Asiatic cheetah in India by the early 1950s.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: The debate over whether cheetah reintroduction is compatible with the stated aims of wildlife conservation, started soon after extinction was confirmed. In 1955, the former State Wildlife Board of Andhra Pradesh proposed the reintroduction of the Asiatic cheetah in two districts of the state, on an experimental basis. In 1965, the pros and cons of reintroduction were critically discussed by M. Krishnan in a newspaper article. In 1984, Divyabhanusinh was asked to write a paper on the prospect of cheetah reintroduction in India for the Ministry of Environment and Forests. This paper was subsequently sent to the Cat Specialist Group of Species Survival Commission of the IUCN, where it sparked international interest.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: In the 1970s, India's Department of Environment formally wrote to the Iranian government to request Asiatic cheetahs in use for reintroduction and apparently received a positive response. The talks were stalled after the Shah of Iran was deposed in the Iranian Revolution, and the negotiations never progressed. In August 2009, Jairam Ramesh, the then-Minister of Environment, rekindled the talks with Iran for sharing a few of their animals. Iran had always been hesitant to commit to the idea, given the very low numbers present in the country. It is said that Iran wanted an Asiatic lion in exchange for a cheetah, and that India was not willing to export any of its lions. The plan to source cheetahs from Iran was eventually dropped in 2010.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: Proposals for the introduction of African cheetahs were made by the Indian government in 2009, but disallowed by India's supreme court. The court reversed its decision in early 2020, allowing the import of a small number on an experimental basis for testing long-term adaptation. On 17 September 2022, five female and three male Southeast African cheetahs between ages four and six, a gift of the government of Namibia, were released in a small quarantined enclosure within the Kuno National Park in the state of Madhya Pradesh. The cheetahs, all fitted with radio collars, will remain in the quarantined enclosure for a month, whereupon initially the males and later the females will be released into the park.


title: Asiatic cheetah

text: The scientific reaction to the translocation has been mixed. Adrian Tordiffe, a wildlife veterinary pharmacologist at the University of Pretoria who is an enthusiast considers India to provide "protected space" for the fragmented and threatened population of the world's cheetahs. K. Ullas Karanth, one of India's foremost tiger experts has been critical of the effort, considering it to be a "PR exercise," which given India's realities involves "high mortalities," and requires a continual import of African cheetahs.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: The Slavic Native Faith, commonly known as Rodnovery and sometimes as Slavic Neopaganism, is a modern Pagan religion. Classified as a new religious movement, its practitioners hark back to the historical belief systems of the Slavic peoples of Central and Eastern Europe, though the movement is inclusive of external influences and hosts a variety of currents. "Rodnovery" is a widely accepted self-descriptor within the community, although there are Rodnover organisations which further characterise the religion as Vedism, Orthodoxy, and Old Belief.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Many Rodnovers regard their religion as a faithful continuation of the ancient beliefs that survived as a folk religion or a conscious "double belief" following the Christianisation of the Slavs in the Middle Ages. Rodnovery draws upon surviving historical and archaeological sources and folk religion, often integrating them with non-Slavic sources such as Hinduism (because they are believed to come from the same Proto-Indo-European source). Rodnover theology and cosmology may be described as pantheism and polytheism—worship of the supreme God of the universe and worship of the multiple gods, the ancestors and the spirits of nature who are identified in Slavic culture. Adherents of Rodnovery usually meet in groups in order to perform religious ceremonies. These ceremonies typically entail the invocation of gods, the offering of sacrifices and the pouring of libations, dances and communal meals.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Rodnover ethical thinking emphasises the good of the collective over the rights of the individual. The religion is patriarchal, and attitudes towards sex and gender are generally conservative. Rodnovery has developed distinctive strains of political and identitary philosophy. Rodnover organisations often characterise themselves as ethnic religions, emphasising their belief that the religion is bound to Slavic ethnicity. This belief often manifests itself in forms of nationalism, opposition to miscegenation and the belief that fundamental differences exist between racial groups. Rodnovers often glorify Slavic history, criticising the impact of Christianity on Slavic countries and arguing that these nations will play a central role in the world's future. Rodnovers share the strong feeling that their religion represents a paradigmatic shift which will overcome the mental constraints which were imposed by feudalism and by what they call "mono-ideologies".


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: The contemporary organised Rodnovery movement arose from a multiplicity of sources and charismatic leaders just on the brink of the collapse of the Soviet Union and it spread rapidly during the mid-1990s and 2000s. Antecedents of Rodnovery existed in late 18th- and 19th-century Slavic Romanticism, which glorified the pre-Christian beliefs of Slavic societies. Active religious practitioners who were devoted to establishing the Slavic Native Faith appeared in Poland and Ukraine during the 1930s and 1940s, while the Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin promoted research into the ancient Slavic religion. Following the Second World War and the establishment of communist states throughout the Eastern Bloc, new variants of Rodnovery were established by Slavic emigrants who lived in Western countries, later, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union, they were introduced into Central and Eastern European countries. In recent times, the movement has been increasingly studied by academic scholars.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Scholars of religion regard Slavic Native Faith as a modern Pagan religion. They also characterise it as a new religious movement. The movement has no overarching structure, or accepted religious authority, and contains much diversity in terms of belief and practice. The sociologist of religion Kaarina Aitamurto has suggested that Rodnovery is sufficiently heterogeneous that it could be regarded not as a singular religion but as "an umbrella term that gathers together various forms of religiosity". The historian Marlène Laruelle has described Rodnovery as "more inclusive than just adherence to a pantheon of pre-Christian gods".


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: The scholar of religion Alexey Gaidukov has described "Slavic Neopaganism" as a term pertaining to "all quasi-religious, political, ideological and philosophical systems which are based on the reconstruction and construction of pre-Christian Slavic traditions". The scholar of religion Adrian Ivakhiv has defined Rodnovery as a movement which "harkens back to the pre-Christian beliefs and practices of ancient Slavic peoples", while according to the historian and ethnologist Victor A. Shnirelman, Rodnovers present themselves as "followers of some genuine pre-Christian Slavic, Russian or Slavic-Aryan Paganism".


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Some involved in the movement avoid calling their belief system either "paganism" or "religion". Many Rodnovers refer to their belief system as an "ethnic religion", and Rodnover groups were involved in establishing the European Congress of Ethnic Religions. The usage of this term suggests that the religion is restricted to a particular ethnic group. Some practitioners regard "ethnic religion" as a term synonymous with "Native Faith", but others perceive a distinction between the two terms. Laruelle has emphasised that Rodnovery "cannot necessarily be defined as a religion in the strict sense"; some adherents prefer to define it as a "spirituality" ("dukhovnost"), "wisdom" ("mudrost"), or a "philosophy" or "worldview" ("mirovozzrenie").


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: According to Shnirelman, it was the Soviet Union's official scientific atheism, which severely weakened the infrastructure of universalist religions, combined with anti-Westernism and the research of intellectuals into an ancient "Vedic" religion of Russia, that paved the way for the rise of Rodnovery and other modern Paganisms in Eastern Europe. After the Soviet Union, the pursuit of Rodnovery matured into the spiritual cultivation of organic folk communities ("ethnoi") in the face of what Rodnovers consider the alien cosmopolitan forces which drive global assimilation (what they call "mono-ideologies"), chiefly represented by the Abrahamic religions. In the Russian intellectual milieu, Rodnovery usually presents itself as the ideology of "nativism" ("narodnichestvo"), which in Rodnovers' own historical analysis is destined to supplant the mono-ideologies whose final bankruptcy the world is now witnessing.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Shnirelman has stated that Rodnovery does not actually constitute the "restoration of any pre-Christian religion as such". Rather, he describes the movement as having been "built up artificially by urbanised intellectuals who use fragments of early pre-Christian local beliefs and rites in order to restore national spirituality". In this way, Slavic Native Faith has been understood—at least in part—as an invented tradition, or a form of "Folklorismus". Simpson has noted, speaking of the specific context of Poland, that unlike historical Slavic beliefs, which were integral to the everyday fabric of their society, modern Slavic Native Faith believers have to develop new forms of social organisation which set them apart from established society. Textual evidence for historical Slavic religion is scant, has been produced by Christian writers hostile to the systems being described and is usually open to multiple interpretations.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: In developing Slavic Native Faith, practitioners draw upon the primary sources about the historical religion of Slavic peoples, as well as elements drawn from later Slavic folklore, official and popular Christian belief and from non-Slavic societies. Among these foreign influences have been beliefs and practices drawn from Hinduism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Germanic Heathenry, Siberian shamanism, as well as ideas drawn from various forms of esotericism. Other influences include documents like the "Book of Veles", which claim to be genuine accounts of historical Slavic religion but which academics recognise as later compositions. According to the folklorist Mariya Lesiv, through this syncretic process, "a new religion is being created on the basis of the synthesis of elements from various traditions".


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Some Rodnovers do not acknowledge this practice of syncretism and instead profess an explicitly anti-syncretic attitude, emphasising the need to retain the "purity" of the religion and thus maintain its "authenticity". Other Rodnovers are conscious that the movement represents a synthesis of different sources, that what is known about ancient Slavic religion is very fragmented, and therefore the reconstruction requires innovation. Laruelle has thus defined Rodnovery as an "open-source religion", that is to say a religion which "emphasizes individual participation and doctrinal evolution, and calls for the personal creation of religious belief systems".


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: A different perspective is offered by the historian Svetlana M. Chervonnaya, who has seen the return to folk beliefs among Slavs as part of a broader phenomenon that is happening to "the mass religious mind" not merely of Slavic or Eastern European peoples, but to peoples all over Asia, and that expresses itself in new mythologemes endorsed by national elites. The notion that modern Rodnovery is closely tied to the historical Slavic religion is a very strong one among practitioners.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: In crafting their beliefs and practices, Rodnovers adopt elements from recorded folk culture, including from the ethnographic record of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Practitioners often legitimise the incorporation of elements from folk culture into Slavic Native Faith through the argument that Slavic folk practices have long reflected the so-called "double belief" ("dvoeverie"), a conscious preservation of pre-Christian beliefs and practices alongside Christianity. This is a concept that was especially popular among nineteenth-century ethnographers who were influenced by Romanticism and retains widespread popularity across Eastern Europe, but has come under criticism in more recent times. Slavic Christianity was influenced by indigenous beliefs and practices as it was established in the Middle Ages and these folk practices changed greatly over the intervening centuries; according to this, Rodnovers claim that they are just continuing living tradition.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: The concept of double belief is especially significant in Russia and for the identity of the Russian Orthodox Church and the folk Orthodoxy of the Old Believers; in that country, it is an oft-cited dictum that "although Russia was baptised, it was never Christianised". The movement of the Old Believers is a form of "folk Orthodoxy", a coalescence of Pagan, Gnostic and unofficial Orthodox currents, that by the mid-seventeenth century seceded from the Russian Orthodox Church (the "Raskol", "Schism"), channelling the "mass religious dissent" of the Russian common people towards the Church, viewed as the religion of the central state and the aristocracy. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union there has been a new wave of scholarly debate on the subject within Russia itself. A. E. Musin, an academic and deacon of the Russian Orthodox Church, published an article about the "problem of double belief" as recently as 1991. In this article he divides scholars between those who say that Russian Orthodoxy adapted to entrenched indigenous faith, continuing the Soviet idea of an "undefeated paganism", and those who say that Russian Orthodoxy is an out-and-out syncretic religion. Slavic Native Faith adherents, as far as they are concerned, believe that they can take traditional folk culture, remove the obviously Christian elements, and be left with something that authentically reflects the historical beliefs of the Slavic peoples.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: According to Ivakhiv, despite the intense efforts of Christian authorities, the Christianisation of the Slavs, and especially of Russians, was very slow and resulted in a "thorough synthesis of Pagan and Christian elements", reflected for instance in the refashioning of gods as Christian saints (Perun as Saint Elias, Veles as Saint Blasius and Yarilo as Saint George) and in the overlapping of Christian festivals on Pagan ones. The scholar of Russian folk religion Linda J. Ivanits has reported ethnographic studies documenting that even in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Russia there were entire villages maintaining indigenous religious beliefs, whether in pure form or under the cover of a superficial Christianity. According to her, the case of Russia is exceptional compared to western Europe, because Russia neither lived the intellectual upheavals of the Renaissance, nor the Reformation, nor the other movements which severely weakened folk spirituality in Europe.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: The most commonly used religious symbol within Rodnovery is the "kolovrat" ("spinning wheel", e.g. ), a variant of the "swastika" (Sanskrit: "wellbeing", "wellness"). As such, it represents wholeness, the ultimate source of renewal, the cosmic order and the four directions.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: According to the studies of Boris Rybakov, whirl and wheel symbols, which also include patterns like the hexafoil, "six-petalled rose inside a circle" (e.g. ) and the "Perun's sign", or "thunder wheel" (e.g. ), represent the thunder god Perun or the supreme God ("Rod"), expressing itself as power of birth and reproduction, in its various forms (whether Triglav, Svetovid, Perun and other gods) and were still carved in folk traditions of the Russian North up to the nineteenth century. The contemporary design of the "kolovrat" as an eight-spoked wheel was already present in woodcuts produced in the 1920s by the Polish artist Stanisław Jakubowski, under the name "słoneczko" ("little sun"). According to Laruelle, Rodnovers believe that it is a symbol of "accession to the upper world". For some Rodnovers, the Orthodox cross is another Slavic version of the "swastika". Rodnovers generally present their symbols in high-contrast colour combinations, usually red and black or red and yellow.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: The Anglicised term "Rodnovery", and its adjective "Rodnover(s)", have gained widespread usage in English and have been given an entry in the second edition (2019) of the academic "Historical Dictionary of the Russian Federation". It means "Native Faith" and it is the name used by the majority of the movement's adherents. The term is adapted from Slavic forms, and variations of it are used in different Slavic languages: for instance, in Ukrainian it is "Ridnovirstvo" or "Ridnovirya", in Russian "Rodnoverie", in Polish "Rodzimowierstwo", and in Czech "Rodnovĕří". The term derives from the Proto-Slavic roots *"rod", which means anything "indigenous", "ancestral" and "native", also "genus", "generation", "kin", "race" (e.g. Russian "rodnaya" or "rodnoy"); and *"vera", which means "faith", "religion". Within the movement, it has also been used to define the community of Native Faith practitioners themselves as an elective group. The term has different histories and associations in each of the Slavic languages in which it appears. The suffix "-ism" is usually avoided in favour of others that describe the religion as if it were a practice or craft (which is the meaning of the Ukrainian and Russian suffix "-stvo", thus translatable with the English suffix "-ery, -ry").


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Sometimes the term "Rodnovery" has also been interpreted as meaning "faith of Rod", a reference to an eponymous concept of supreme God, "Rod", found in ancient Russian and Ukrainian sources. Aitamurto stated that in addition to being the most used term, it is the most appropriate because of its meanings. It has deep senses related to its Slavic etymology, that would be lost through translation, which express the central concepts of the Slavic Native Faith. "Rod" is conceived as the absolute, primordial God, supreme ancestor of the universe, that begets all things, and at the same time as the kin, the lineage of generation which is the ancestral bond to the supreme source. "Rodna" or "rodnaya" is itself a concept which can denote the "nearest and dearest", and such impersonal community as one's native home or land. A variant of "Rodnovery" is "Rodianism" ("Rodianstvo"), which Laruelle also translates as "Ancestrism".


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: The earliest known usage of this term was by the Ukrainian emigree Lev Sylenko, who in 1964 established a mimeographed publication in Canada that was titled "Ridna Vira" ("Native Faith"). The portmanteau "Ridnovir" began to be used by Ukrainians to refer to the broader movement (not restricted to Sylenkoism) by at least 1995, popularised by Volodymyr Shaian. From Ukraine, the term began to spread throughout other Slavic countries. In 1996, the non-compound form was adopted by a Polish group, the Association of Native Faith ("Zrzeszenie Rodzimej Wiary") and in 1997 by the Russian Union of Slavic Native Belief Communities (Союз Славянских Общин Славянской Родной Веры) led by Vadim Kazakov, while the portmanteau "Rodnoverie" was widely popularised in Russia by "volkhv" Veleslav (Ilya G. Cherkasov) by 1999. By the early 2000s, the term was widespread across Slavic countries. In 2002, six Russian Rodnover organisations issued the "Bittsa Appeal" ("Bittsevskoe Obraschchenie"), in which, among the many topics discussed, they expressed the view that "Rodnovery" should be regarded as the foremost name of the religion. The spread of the term reflected the degree of solidarity in establishing a broader brand and a sense of international movement despite the disagreements and power struggles that permeated the groups. The term was originally also applied to the modern Pagan religions of non-Slavic groups—for instance, in the Polish language Lithuanian Romuva has been referred to as "Rodzimowierstwo litewskie" ("Lithuanian Native Faith") and Celtic Paganism has been referred to as "Rodzimowierstwo celtyckie" ("Celtic Native Faith"), however, "now, especially if you write [it] with the capital letter, the term is understood, first of all, as a designation of the Slavic Native Faith".


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: The appropriate name of the religion is an acute topic of discussion among believers. Many Rodnovers have adopted terms that are already used to refer to other religions, namely "Vedism", referring to the historical Vedic religion and the ancient Iranian religion, and "Orthodoxy", commonly associated to Orthodox Christianity. For instance, one of the earliest branches of Rodnovery is known as "Peterburgian Vedism". They explain that "Vedism" derives from the word "to know" and implies that rather than dogmatically believing ("verit"), Vedists "know" or "see" ("vedat") spiritual truths. The term was first employed by Yury Petrovich Mirolyubov—the writer or discoverer of the "Book of Veles"—in the mid-twentieth century, and later adopted by the founder of Peterburgian Vedism, Viktor Bezverkhy.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: In Ukraine and Russia many important Rodnover groups advocate the designation of "Orthodoxy" (Russian: "Pravoslaviye", Serbian: "Pravoslavlje", Ukrainian: "Pravoslavya") for themselves. They claim that the term, which refers to the "praise" or "glorification" ("slava") of the universal order ("Prav", cf. Vedic "Ṛta", "Right"), was usurped by the Christians. Another term employed by Rodnovers, but historically associated to the Russian Orthodox Christian movement of the Old Believers, is "Starovery" (Russian: Старове́ры "Starovéry", "Old Faith").


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Some Slovenian practitioners use the Slovenian language term "ajd", which is a loan-word of the Germanic-language "heathen". When using English language terms to describe their religion, some Rodnovers favour "Heathen", in part due to a perceived affinity with the contemporary Germanic Heathens who also commonly use that term. Another term employed by some Rodnovers has been "Slavianism" or "Slavism", which appears especially in Polish ("Słowiaństwo"), in Russian ("Slavianstvo"), and in Slovak ("Slovianstvo"). The ethnonym "Slavs" (Polish: "Słowianie", South Slavic: "Sloveni", Russian: "Slavyane"), derives from the Proto-Slavic root *"slovo", "word", and means "those who speak the same words", and according to Rodnovers it has the religious connotation of "praising one's gods".


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: In Slavic languages the closest equivalent of "paganism" is "poganstvo" (taking for instance Russian; it itself deriving from Latin "paganus"), although Rodnovers widely reject this term due to its derogatory connotations. Indeed, many Slavic languages have two terms that are conventionally rendered as "pagan" in Western languages: the aforementioned "pogan" and "yazychnik". The latter, which is a derivation of the near-homophonous "yazyk", "tongue", is prevalent and has a less negative acceptation, literally meaning "pertaining to (our own) language". It is often more accurately (though by no means thoroughly) translated as "Gentile" (i.e. pertaining "to the "gens"", "to the kin"), which in turn it itself renders in Slavic translations of the Bible. Some Russian and Ukrainian Rodnovers employ, respectively, "Yazychestvo" and "Yazychnytstvo" (i.e. "our own language craft", "Gentility"), but it is infrequent. "Yazychnik" has been adopted especially among Rodnovers speaking West Slavic languages, where it has not any connotations related to "paganism". Thus, Czech Rodnover groups have coined "Jazyčnictví" and Slovak Rodnovers have coined "Jazyčníctvo". According to Demetria K. Green of the Johns Hopkins University, Rodnovery is strictly intertwined with the development of East Slavic languages, and especially of Russian language, which preserved embedded in themselves ideas and terminology of ancient Slavic religion over the centuries facilitating its revival in the modern era.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: By the mid-1930s, the term "Neopagan" had been applied to the Polish Zadrugist movement. It was adopted among Rodnovers in the 1990s—when it appeared in such forms as the Russian "Neoyazychestvo" and the Polish "Neopogaństwo"—but had been eclipsed by "Slavic Native Faith" in the 2000s. However, the prefix "neo-" within "Neopaganism" is a divisive issue among Rodnovers. Some practitioners dislike it because it minimises the continuity of indigenous pre-Christian beliefs. They regard themselves as restoring the original belief system rather than creating something new. Others embrace the term as a means of emphasising what they regard as the reformed nature of the religion; the Polish Rodnover Maciej Czarnowski for instance encouraged the term because it distinguished his practices from those of the pre-Christian societies, which he regarded as being hindered by superstition and unnecessary practices like animal sacrifice. Many Rodnovers straightforwardly reject the designator "paganism", whether "neo-", "modern", "contemporary" or without prefixes and further qualificators, asserting that these are "poorly defined" concepts whose use by scholars leads to a situation in which Rodnovery is lumped together with "all kinds of cults and religions" which have nothing to do with it.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Prior to their Christianisation, the Slavic peoples were polytheists, worshipping multiple deities who were regarded as the emanations of a supreme God. According to Helmold's "Chronica Slavorum" (compiled 1168–1169), "obeying the duties assigned to them, [the deities] have sprung from his [the supreme God's] blood and enjoy distinction in proportion to their nearness to the god of the gods". Belief in these deities varied according to location and through time, and it was common for the Slavs to adopt deities from neighbouring cultures. Both in Russia and in Ukraine, modern Rodnovers are divided among those who are monotheists and those who are polytheists. Some practitioners describe themselves as atheists, believing that gods are not real entities but rather ideal symbols.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Monotheism and polytheism are not regarded as mutually exclusive. The shared underpinning is a pantheistic view that is holistic in its understanding of the universe. Similarly to the ancient Slavic religion, a common theological stance among Rodnovers is that of monism, by which the many different gods (polytheism) are seen as manifestations of the single, universal impersonal God—generally identified by the concept of "Rod", also known as "Sud" ("Judge") and "Prabog" ("Pre-God", "First God") among South Slavs. In the Russian and Ukrainian centres of Rodnover theology, the concept of Rod has been emphasised as particularly important. According to the publication "Izvednik", a compilation of views on theology and cosmology of various Rodnover organisations, "the rest of the gods are only his faces, noumena, incarnations, hypostases", it is a God similar to the "cosmos" of ancient Greek philosophy in that it is "not the master of the universe, but it itself the universe". While most Rodnovers call it Rod, others call its visible manifestation Svarog or Nebo ("Heaven"), and still others refer to its triune cosmic manifestation, Triglav ("Three-Headed One"): "Prav→Yav-Nav", "Svarog→Belobog-Chernobog", "Svarog→Dazhbog-Stribog", or "Dub→Snop-Did". Peterburgian Vedists call this concept "One God" (Единый Бог, "Yediny Bog") or "All God" (Всебог, "Vsebog"). Rod is also "Time" ("Kolo"), scanned by the cycle of the Sun, ad reflected in the turning of the hours, the days, the months, the seasons, and the year.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: The root *"rod" is attested in sources about pre-Christian religion referring to divinity and ancestrality. Mathieu-Colas defines Rod as the "primordial God", but the term also literally means the generative power of family and "kin", "birth", "origin" and "fate" as well. Rod is the all-pervading, omnipresent spiritual "life force", which also gives life to any community of related entities; its negative form, "urod", means anything that is wrenched, deformed, degenerated, monstrous, anything that is "outside" the spiritual community of Rod and bereft of its virtues. Sometimes, the meaning of the word is left deliberately obscure among Rodnovers, allowing for a variety of different interpretations. Cosmologically speaking, Rod is conceived as the spring of universal emanation, which articulates in a cosmic hierarchy of gods; Rod expresses itself as "Prav" (literally "Right" or "Order"; cf. Greek "Orthotes", Sanskrit "Ṛta") in primordial undeterminacy (chaos), through a dual dynamism, represented by Belobog ("White God") and Chernobog ("Black God"), the forces of waxing and waning, and then giving rise to the world in its three qualities, "Prav-Yav-Nav" (meaning "right"-"manifested"-"unmanifested", but called with different names by different groups), namely the world of bright gods, the world of mankind, and the world of dark gods. The Belobog–Chernobog duality is also represented on the human plane as the Perun–Veles duality, where the former is the principle of martiality and the latter is the principle of mystical philosophy. Triglav and Svetovid ("Worldseer") are concepts representing the "axis mundi" and, respectively, the three qualities of reality and their realisation in the four dimensions of space.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: When emphasising this monism, Rodnovers may define themselves as "rodnianin", "believers in God" (or "in nativity", "in genuinity"). Already the pioneering Ukrainian leader Shaian argued that God manifests as a variety of different deities. This theological explanation is called "manifestationism" by some contemporary Rodnovers and implies the idea of a spirit–matter continuum; the different gods, who proceed from the supreme God, generate differing categories of things not as their external creations (as objects), but embodying themselves as these entities. In their view, beings are the progeny of gods; even phenomena such as the thunder are conceived in this way as embodiments of these gods (in this case, Perun). In the wake of this theology, it is common among Slavic Native Faith practitioners to say that "we are not God's slaves, but God's sons", many of them emphasising the ontological freedom of the different subsequent emanations so that the world is viewed as a "dialectical manifestation" of the single transcendental beginning and continuous co-creation of the diversified gods and the entities which they generate. The Russian "volkhv" Velimir (Nikolay Speransky), emphasises a dualistic eternal struggle between white gods and black gods, elder forces of creation and younger forces of destruction; the former collectively represented by Belobog and the latter by Chernobog, also symbolising the spiritual and the material. Such dualism does not represent absolute good and evil, but the black gods become evil when acting out of agreement with older and stronger white gods.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Pantheons of deities are not unified among practitioners of Slavic Native Faith. Different Rodnover groups often have a preference for a particular deity over others. Some Rodnover groups espouse the idea that specific Slavic populations are the offspring of different gods; for instance, groups relying upon the tenth-century manuscript "The Lay of Igor's Host" may affirm the idea that Russians are the grandchildren of Dazhbog (the "Giving God", "Day God"). The Union of Slavic Native Faith Communities founded and led by Vadim Kazakov recognises a pantheon of over thirty deities emanated by the supreme Rod; these include attested deities from Slavic pre-Christian and folk traditions, Slavicised Hindu deities (such as "Vyshen", i.e. Vishnu, and "Intra", i.e. Indra), Iranian deities (such as Simargl and Khors), deities from the "Book of Veles" (such as Pchelich) and figures from Slavic folk tales such as the wizard Koschei. Rodnovers also worship tutelary deities of specific elements, lands and environments, such as waters, forests and the household. Gods may be subject to functional changes among modern Rodnovers; for instance, the traditional god of livestock and poetry Veles is called upon as the god of literature and communication.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: In Ukraine, there has been a debate as to whether the religion should be monotheistic or polytheistic. In keeping with the pre-Christian belief systems of the region, the groups who inherit Volodymyr Shaian's tradition, among others, espouse polytheism. Conversely, Sylenko's Native Ukrainian National Faith (RUNVira; also called "Sylenkoism") regards itself as monotheistic and focuses its worship upon a single God whom the movement identifies with the name Dazhbog, regarded as the life-giving energy of the cosmos. Sylenko characterised Dazhbog as "light, endlessness, gravitation, eternity, movement, action, the energy of unconscious and conscious being". Based on this description, Ivakhiv argued that Sylenkoite theology might better be regarded as pantheistic or panentheistic rather than monotheistic. Sylenko acknowledged that the ancient Slavs were polytheists but believed that a monotheistic view reflected an evolution in human spiritual development and thus should be adopted. A similar view is espoused by Russian Ynglism, while another distinctively monotheistic Rodnover movement that has been compared to Sylenkoism is Russian Kandybaism. Lesiv reported about a Sylenkoite follower who said that "we cannot believe in various forest, field and water spirits today. Yes, our ancestors believed in these things but we should not any longer", as polytheism is regarded as obsolete within the religion. Some polytheist Rodnovers have deemed the view adopted by Sylenko's followers as an inauthentic approach to the religion.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Rodnovery emphasises the "this-worldliness" of morality and moral thinking, seen as a voluntary and thoughtful responsibility towards the others and the environment that sprouts from the awareness of the interconnectedness of all things and of the continuity of spirit–matter and not as a strict set of rules. Rodnovers generally believe that death is not a cessation of life, and believe in reincarnation only in mankind and in the possibility of deification in paradise, "Iriy" or "Vyriy", which is the same as "Prav". Rodnover ethics consist in following "Prav", that is "seeking, finding and following the natural laws", which results in strengthening and being aware of the principle of retribution (action–reaction; or "karma"). Rodnover ethics have been defined as a "safety technique" and as "ecoethics", at the same time environmentalist and humanistic, stemming from the awareness that all existence belongs to the same universal, cosmic God. Although some Rodnovers aspire to paradise, they argue that retribution is not deferred to a transcendent future but realised in the here and now; since gods manifest themselves as the natural phenomena, and in people as lineage descendants, Rodnovers believe that actions and their outcomes unfold and are to be dealt with in the present world. People are viewed as having unique responsibilities towards their own contexts: for instance, the duty of parents is to take care of their children and that of children to take care of their parents, the right of ancestors is to be honoured, and the land deserves to be cultivated.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Rodnovers blame Christianity for transferring personal responsibility into a transcendent future when actions will be judged by God and people either smitten or forgiven for their sins, in fact exempting people from responsibility in the present time, while at the same time imposing a fake moralism of self-deprecation, self-destruction and suppression of the flesh. According to Rodnovers, justice and truth have to be realised in this life, so that "turning the other cheek", waiving agency and intervention in the things of this world, is considered immoral and equivalent to welcoming wrongness. In other words, fleeing from the commitment towards the forces at play in the present context is the same as a denial of the gods; it disrupts morality, impairing the individual, society and the world itself.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Rodnovers value individual responsibility as the cornerstone for the further maturation of humanity, equating the conversion to Rodnovery with such maturation. This emphasis on individuality is not at odds with the value of solidarity, since collective responsibility is seen as arising from the union of the right free decisions of reflexive individuals. By using terms of Émile Durkheim, Aitamurto says that what Rodnovers reject is "egoistic individualism", not "moral individualism". Immediately related to the morality of a responsible community is the respect for the whole world of nature, or what Aitamurto defines "ecological responsibility". Rodnovers are concerned with the oversaturation of cities and the devastation of the countryside, and they aim at re-establishing harmony between the two environments. However, there have been difficulties with Rodnover involvement in the wider environmentalist movement because of many environmentalists' unease with the racial and anti-Christian themes that are prominent in the religion.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Rodnover ethics deal with a wide range of contemporary social issues, and they can be defined as conservative. Aitamurto summarised Rodnover ethics in the concepts of patriarchy, solidarity and homogeneity, with the latter two seen as intrinsically related. Laruelle similarly found an emphasis on patriarchy, heterosexuality, traditional family, fidelity and procreation. Shnirelman observed that Rodnovers' calls for social justice tend to apply only to their own ethnic community.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Within Rodnovery, gender roles are conservative. Rodnovers often subscribe to the view that men and women are fundamentally different and thus their tasks also differ. Men are seen as innately disposed towards "public" life and abstract thought, while women are seen as better realising themselves in the "private" administration of the family and the resources of the house. Rodnovers therefore reinforce traditional values in Slavic countries rather than being countercultural, presenting themselves as a stabilising and responsible social force. They may even view their upholding of social traditionalism as a counterculture in itself, standing in the face of modernism and globalism.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Ideas and practices perceived as coming from Western liberal society—which Rodnovers perceive as degenerate—are denounced as threats to Slavic culture; for instance, alcohol and drug consumption, various sexual behaviours and miscegenation are commonly rejected by Rodnovers, while they emphasise healthy family life in harmonious environments. Many groups in both Russia and Ukraine have demanded the prohibition of mixed-race unions, while the doctrine of the Ynglist Church includes an articulate condemnation of race mixing as unhealthy. Aitamurto and Gaidukov noted that "hardly any women" in Russian Rodnovery would call themselves feminists, partly due to Rodnover beliefs on gender and partly due to the negative associations that the word "feminism" has in Russian culture. In adopting such a conservative stance to sexual ethics, practitioners of Rodnovery can adopt misogynistic and homophobic attitudes. Aitamurto and Gaidukov noted that it would be "difficult to imagine that any Rodnover community would accept members who are openly homosexual". Some groups have a more accommodating attitude about the coexistence of different lifestyles, holding that tolerance should be a key value.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: There is no evidence that the early Slavs ever conceived of themselves as a unified ethno-cultural group. There is an academic consensus that the Proto-Slavic language developed from about the second half of the first millennium BCE in an area of Central and Eastern Europe bordered by the Dnieper basin to the east, the Vistula basin to the west, the Carpathian Mountains to the south and the forests beyond the Pripet basin to the north. Over the course of several centuries, Slavic populations migrated in northern, eastern and south-western directions. In doing so, they branched out into three sub-linguistic families: the Eastern Slavs (Ukrainians, Belarusians, Russians), the Western Slavs (Poles, Czechs, Slovaks) and the Southern Slavs (Slovenes, Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Macedonians and Bulgarians).


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: The belief systems of these Slavic communities had many affinities with those of neighbouring linguistic populations, such as the Balts, Thracians and Indo-Iranians. Vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov studied the origin of ancient Slavic themes in the common substratum represented by Proto-Indo-European religion and what Georges Dumézil defined as the "trifunctional hypothesis". Marija Gimbutas, instead, found Slavic religion to be a clear result of the overlap of Indo-European patriarchism and pre-Indo-European matrifocal beliefs. Boris Rybakov emphasised the continuity and complexification of Slavic religion through the centuries.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Laruelle observed that Rodnovery is in principle a decentralised movement, with hundreds of groups coexisting without submission to a central authority. Therefore, socio-political views can vary greatly from one group to another, from one adherent to another, ranging from extreme pacifism to militarism, from apoliticism and anarchism to left-wing and to right-wing positions. Nevertheless, Laruelle says that the most politicised right-wing groups are the most popularly known, since they are more vocal in spreading their ideas through the media, organise anti-Christian campaigns, and even engage in violent actions. Aitamurto observed that the different wings of the Rodnover movement "attract different kinds of people approaching the religion from quite diverging points of departure".


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: There are, nonetheless, recurrent themes within the various strains of Rodnovery. The scholar of religion Scott Simpson has stated that Slavic Native Faith is "fundamentally concerned with questions of community and ethnic identity", while the folklorist Nemanja Radulovic has described adherents of the movement as placing "great emphasis on their national or regional identity". They conceive ethnicity and culture as territorial, moulded by the surrounding natural environment (cf. ecology). Rodnovery typically emphasises the rights of the collective over the rights of the individual, and their moral values are the conservative values typical of the right-wing of politics: emphasis on patriarchy and traditional family. Most Rodnover groups will permit only Slavs as members, although there are a few exceptions. Many Rodnovers espouse socio-political views akin to those of the French "Nouvelle Droite", and many of them in Russia have come close to the ideas of Eurasianism. In this vein, they often oppose what they regard as culturally destructive phenomena such as cosmopolitanism, liberalism and globalisation, as well as Americanisation and consumerism.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: The political philosophy of Rodnovery can be defined as "nativism", "nationalism" and "populism", all of which render the Russian word "narodnichestvo". This is often right-wing ethnic nationalism. Aitamurto suggested that Russian Rodnovers' conceptions of nationalism encompass three main themes: that "the Russian or Slavic people are a distinct group", that they "have—or their heritage has—some superior qualities", and that "this unique heritage or the existence of this ethnic group is now threatened, and, therefore, it is of vital importance to fight for it". There are Rodnovers with extreme right-wing nationalist views, including those who are Neo-Nazi and openly inspired by Nazi Germany. Some blame many of the world's problems on the mixing of ethnic groups, and emphasise the idea of ethnic purity, promoting ideas of racial segregation, and demanding the legal prohibition of mixed-race marriages. Some regard ethnic minorities living in Slavic countries as a cause of social injustice, and some Russian Rodnovers encourage the expulsion from Russia of those they regard as aliens, namely those who are Jewish or have ethnic origins in the Caucasus, an approach which could require ethnic cleansing. Other Rodnovers are openly anti-Semite, a category which for them means not only anti-Jewish but more broadly anti-Asian, anti-Christian and anti-Islamic, and anti-Byzantinist sentiment, and espouse conspiracy theories claiming that Jews and Asians control the economic and political elite. Other Rodnovers hold philo-Semitic views instead; for instance, Kandybaites regard Jews and Asians in general as part of the same Eastern spiritual humanity of which the Slavs themselves are part, opposed to a Western despiritualised beastly humanity.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Many other Rodnovers deny or downplay the racist and Nazi elements within their community, and claim that extreme right-wingers are not true believers in Slavic Native Faith because their interests in the movement are primarily political rather than religious. There are groups that espouse positions of cultural nationalism and patriotism, rather than extreme ethnic nationalism and racism. For instance, the Russian Circle of Pagan Tradition characterises itself as "patriotic" rather than "nationalist", avoids ethnic nationalist ideas, and recognises Russia as a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural state. Moreover, there has been an increasing de-politicisation of Rodnovery in the twenty-first century. The scholars Kaarina Aitamurto and Roman Shizhenskii found that expressions of extreme nationalism were considered socially unacceptable at one of the largest Rodnover events in Russia, the Kupala festival outside Maloyaroslavets.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Laruelle has observed that even in groups which reject extreme nationalism or are apolitical, ethnic identity is still important, and a good Rodnover is considered one who is conscious of ethnic identity, national traditions, and knows the history of the ancestors. Shnirelman similarly noted that there is a loose boundary between the explicitly politicised and less politicised wings of the Russian movement, and that ethnic nationalist and racist views were present even in those Rodnovers who did not identify with precise political ideologies. Rodnovers of the settlement of Pravovedi in Kolomna, Moscow Oblast, reject the very idea of "nation" and yet conceive peoples as "spirits" manifesting themselves according to the law of genealogy, the law of the kin. Many Rodnovers believe in casteism, the idea that people are born to fulfill a precise role and business in society; the Hindu "varna" system with its three castes — priests, warriors and peasants-merchants — is taken as a model, although in Rodnovery it is conceived as an open system rather than a hereditary one.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: The scholar Dmitry V. Shlyapentokh noted that it is the Russian right-wing in general to have identified itself with Paganism, due to the peculiar political climate of benevolence and cooperation with Jews and Muslims of the contemporary Russian government and Orthodox Church. Rodnover themes and symbols have also been adopted by many Russian nationalists who do not necessarily embrace Rodnovery as a religion, for example many members of the Russian skinhead movement. Some of them merge Rodnover themes with others adopted from Germanic Heathenry and from Russian Orthodox Christianity. A number of young adherents of the Slavic Native Faith have been detained on terrorism charges in Russia; between 2008 and 2009, teenaged Rodnovers forming a group called the Slavic Separatists conducted at least ten murders and planted bombs across Moscow targeting Muslims and non-ethnic Russians.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: The socio-political system proposed by Rodnovers is based on their interpretation of the ancient Slavic community model of the "veche" (popular assembly), similar to the ancient Germanic "thing" and ancient Greek democracy. They propose a political system in which decisional power is entrusted to assemblies of consensually-acknowledged wise men, or to a single wise individual. Western liberal ideas of freedom and democracy are traditionally perceived by Russian eyes as "outer" freedom, contrasting with Slavic "inner" freedom of the mind; in Rodnovers' view, Western liberal democracy is "destined to execute the primitive desires of the masses or to work as a tool in the hands of a ruthless elite", being therefore a mean-spirited "rule of demons".


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Some Rodnovers interpret the "veche" in ethnic terms, thus as a form of "ethnic democracy", in the wake of similar concepts found in the French "Nouvelle Droite". Aitamurto has defined the Rodnover idea of the "veche" as a form of grassroots democracy, or, using the term preferred by the Ynglists, as a "samoderzhavie", that is to say a system of "self-power", "people ruling themselves". The Anastasians too organise their communities according to their interpretations of the "veche", regarded as the best form of "self-government", where everyone expresses his opinion which is taken into account for the elaboration of a final unanimous decision; this process of unanimity arising from multiple opinions is seen as manifesting the divine law itself, theologically represented as the manifoldness of reality which is expression of the singularity of God.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Shnirelman noted that the movement of Rodnovery is fundamentally concerned with the concept of "origins". Historiosophical narratives and interpretations vary between different currents of Rodnovery, and accounts of the historical past are often intertwined with eschatological views about the future. Many Rodnovers magnify the ancient Slavs by according to them great cultural achievements. Aitamurto observed that early Russian Rodnovery was characterised by "imaginative and exaggerated" narratives about history. Similarly, the scholar Vladimir Dulov noted that Bulgarian Rodnovers tended to have "fantastic" views of history. However, Aitamurto and Gaidukov later noted that the most imaginative narratives were typical of the 1980s, and that more realistic narratives were gaining ground in the twenty-first century.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Many within the movement regard the "Book of Veles" as a holy text, and as a genuine historical document. Some Rodnovers take their cosmology, ethical system, and ritual practices from the "Book". The fact that many scholars outspokenly reject the "Book" as a modern, twentieth-century composition has added to the allure that the text has for many Rodnovers. According to them, such criticism is an attempt to "suppress knowledge" carried forward either by Soviet-style scientism or by "Judaic cosmopolitan" forces. Other modern literary works that have influenced the movement, albeit on a smaller scale, include "The Songs of the Bird Gamayon", "Koliada's Book of Stars", "The Song of the Victory on Jewish Khazaria by Svyatoslav the Brave" or "The Rigveda of Kiev".


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Some Rodnovers believe that the Slavs are a race distinct from other ethnic groups. According to them, the Slavs are the directest descendants of an ancient Aryan race, whom they equate with the Proto-Indo-Europeans. Some Rodnovers believe that the Aryans originated at the North Pole but moved southwards when the climate there became uninhabitable, settling in Russia's southern steppes and from there spreading throughout Eurasia. The northern homeland was the "Hyperborea", and it was the terrestrial reflection of the north celestial pole, the world of the gods; the North Pole is held to be the point of grounding of the spiritual flow of good forces coming from the north celestial pole, while the South Pole is held to be the lowest point of materialisation where evil forces originate. In claiming an Aryan ancestry, Rodnovers legitimise their cultural borrowing from other ethno-cultural groups whom they claim are also Aryan descendants, such as the Germanic peoples or those of the Indian subcontinent.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Rodnovery has a "cyclical-linear model of time", in which the cyclical and the linear morphologies do not exclude each other, but complement each other and stimulate eschatological sentiments. Such morphology of time is otherwise describable as "spiral". The Rodnover movement claims to represent the return to a "Golden Age", while the modern world is seen as having entered a stage of meaninglessness and collapse; Rodnovery heralds the re-establishment of the cosmic order, which cyclically dies but then revives in its original form, either by returning to the lifestyle and life-meaning attitudes of the ancestors (retro-utopia), or by radically restructuring the existing world order on the principles of a renewed primordial tradition (archeofuturism). Archaic patterns of meaning re-emerge at different levels on the spiral of time. Some Rodnovers consider the Slavs to have a messianic role in human history and eschatology, for instance believing that Ukraine and Russia will be the world's future geopolitical centre, or the cradle of a new civilisation which will survive the demise of the Western world.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Although their understanding of the past is typically rooted in spiritual conviction rather than in arguments that would be acceptable within the academia, in which their historiosophy is often regarded as pseudohistorical, many Rodnovers seek to promote their beliefs about the past among academics. For instance, in 2002 Serbian Rodnovers established Svevlad, a research group devoted to historical Slavic religion which simulated academic discourse but was "highly selective, unsystematic, and distorted" in its examination of the evidence. In various Slavic countries, many archaeologists and historians have been hesitant about giving credence to Rodnover interpretations of history. In turn, Rodnovers have accused academics of being part of a conspiracy to conceal the truth about history.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Many Rodnovers consciously and actively reject Christianity and the Abrahamic monotheisms, regarded as destructive forces which erode organic communities, with Christianity being perceived as a foreign entity within Slavic culture. They consider the Abrahamic religions and their later secular ideological productions—Marxism, capitalism, the general Western rationalism begotten by the Age of Enlightenment, and ultimately the technocratic civilisation based on the idea of possession, exploitation and consumption of the environment—as "mono-ideologies", that is to say ideologies which promote "universal and one-dimensional truths", unable to grasp the complexity of reality and therefore doomed to failure one after the other. Some Rodnovers also take a hostile stance towards Judaism, which they regard as having spawned Christianity, or believe that Christianity has led the Slavs under the control of the Jews. As an alternative to the "mono-ideologies" and the world of "unipolarity" that they created, Rodnovers suggest their idea of "multipolarism".


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Christianity is denounced as an anthropocentric theology which distorts the role of mankind in the cosmos by claiming that God could have been incarnated as a single historical entity (Jesus), at the same time creating hierarchical and centralised powers that throughout history defended the rich, legitimised slave mentality, and promoted humile behaviour, antithetical to the Rodnover ethical emphasis on courage and fighting spirit, and to the theological emphasis on the ontological freedom of living beings. Christianity is also considered as a system that destroys morality by casting human responsibility away from the present world and into a transcendent future, its theology also enforcing a separation of the supreme God from the world. Its anthropocentrism is ultimately deemed responsible for ecological disruption, due to the fact that its theological exaltation of mankind above the world produces in turn an existential model for mankind's technocratic domination of the world of nature.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Rodnovers express their anti-Christian views in various ways. Many Rodnover groups organise formal ceremonies of renunciation of Christianity ("raskrestitsia", literally "de-Christianisation"), and initiation into Rodnovery with the adoption of a Slavic name. The folklorist Mariya Lesiv observed Rodnovers marching in Kiev in 2006 chanting "Out with Jehovah! Glory to Dazhboh!", while in 1996 an Orthodox Christian cathedral was desecrated in Minsk by Rodnovers who covered it with graffiti, including one which read "Christians, go away from our Belarusian soil!". Simpson noted that in Poland, several Rodnovers launched a poster campaign against Valentine's Day, which they regarded as not being an authentically Polish celebration. In Russia, Rodnovers have vandalised and torched various churches.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Christians have also been responsible for opposition to Slavic Native Faith, for instance through the establishment of social media groups against the movement. The Russian Orthodox Church has expressed concern for the growth and spread of Rodnovery across Russia on various occasions. Some hierarchs of the Church have however called for a dialogue with the movement, recognising the importace of the values about the land and the ancestral tradition that it carries with itself, and even proposing strategies of integration of Rodnovery and the Russian Orthodox Church. Some Russian Rodnovers have attempted themselves to improve relations with the Orthodox Church, arguing that Russian Orthodoxy had adopted many elements of historical Slavic belief and rites, though for some by corrupting their original meaning. In this way they argue that Russian Orthodoxy is distinct from other forms of Christianity, and seek to portray it as the "younger brother" of Slavic Native Faith. The Orthodox Christian Old Believers, a movement that split out from the Russian Orthodox Church during the reform of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow in the seventeenth century, is seen by Rodnovers in a more positive light than the mainstream Russian Orthodox Church, as Old Believers are considered to have elements similar to those of the Slavic Native Faith.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Rodnovery is essentially a religion of the community, with most adherents actively joining organisations; only a minority of believers choose solitary practice. Laruelle has observed that most Rodnover groups emphasise the exoteric aspect of the religion, organising large communal, popular celebrations, and spreading exoteric knowledge open to all. However, there are more closed groups that require more stringent commitment from their adherents, and emphasise esoteric teachings and practices, including complex initiation rituals, reference to systems similar to Jewish Kabbalah, prayer and magic. For many Rodnovers, greater importance is given to the construction of "authentic" Slavic rituals rather than psychologically empowering practices. For many others, rituals may include magical practices and are meant at the creation of shared meanings and new community ties. Ceremonial accuracy is often considered essential for the efficacy of a ritual, but at the same time Rodnover rituals have been regarded as flexible frameworks, wherein there is room for elaboration and experimentation. Sources that Rodnovers rely upon include valued scholars like Vladimir Dal and Boris Rybakov.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Most Rodnover groups strongly emphasise the worship of ancestors, to continue and cultivate the family, the kin and the land, as the ancestors are those personalities who effectively generated presently living offspring. An example of ancestor worship is the ritual of "Veneration of Ancient Russian Knights" practised by the Russian Rodnover organisation Svarozhichi, centred in Yekaterinburg and widespread in the Ural region, on May 9, in honour of the victory of Svyatoslav I of Kiev against the Khazars. Some Sylenkoite organisations commemorate Ukrainian national heroes such as Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, and Hryhory Skovoroda.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: According to Aitamurto, rituals play "a central role in defining, learning and transmitting the religion", and thus they constitute an important complement to Rodnover theology. Ritual practice makes use of mythology, symbolism, codified chants and gestures. Myths and symbols are considered to emerge from the subconscious of humanity, and to be imaginified sacred knowledge which has to be deciphered and reinterpreted since the true meaning is not always apparent. Among the most common myths is that of "Belovodye" (the esoteric kingdom of "White Waters"), deriving from eighteenth-century Old Believers' culture. Symbols such as the trident, the "swastika", and objects representing fire, are prominent features of Rodnover rituals. The "swastika" (or "kolovrat", as the eight-spoked wheel is called in Rodnovery) is considered the main symbol for mystical ascension to the divine world. Other symbols such as animals, geometric shapes, and ancient Slavic runic writing, are considered to be associated to specific gods, and the prayer to their image is considered to intercede with these gods. Also appropriate chants and gestures are believed to allow the participants to enter in communion with the upper world. Some Rodnovers espouse ideas similar to those of Jewish Kabbalah, namely the discipline of "Vseyasvetnaya Gramota" ("Universal Script"), which holds that there is a connection between language, script and the cosmos (corroborated by the etymological connection between the word "yazychnik", "pagan", and "yazyk", "language", which share the same root): the Cyrillic and Glagolitic scripts, and their alleged ancestor, are considered to have magical usefulness to cooperate with the universe and communicate with God, and to see past events and foresee future ones.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Rituals take place at consecrated places and generally include the lighting of fire ("vozzhiganie ognia"), invocation of gods, the singing of hymns, sacrifices ("prinesenie treby") and the pouring of libations, circle-dances ("khorovod" or simply "kolo", "circle"), and usually a communal meal at the end. Some Rodnover organisations require that participants wear traditional Slavic clothes for such occasions, although there is much freedom in interpreting what constitutes "traditional clothes", this definition generally referring to folkloric needlecraft open to a wide range of artistic patterns. Circle-dances may be clockwise ("posolon", i.e. sunwise, rightwise) in those rituals dedicated to the gods of "Prav" (overworld), or counterclockwise ("protivosolon", i.e. withershins, leftwise) in those rituals dedicated to the gods of "Nav" (underworld).


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Rituals of initiation include a formal renunciation of Christianity ("raskrestitsia") which entails the baptism with a Slavic name ("imianarechenie"), the ritual of entry into a brotherhood ("bratanie"), and rituals of marriage and death. The renaming symbolises the death and rebirth of the individual into the new community. Male brotherhoods practise the cutting of a second "life line" on the palm of the hand of converts, symbolising the new "blood bond" that is formed with other members.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: There is much variation between major currents and organisations of Rodnovery. For instance, the Association of Sons and Daughters of Ukraine of the Native Ukrainian National Faith (OSIDU RUNVira), one of the churches of Ukrainian Sylenkoism, holds a weekly "Holy Hour of Self-Reflection", in which practitioners read from Sylenko's "Maha Vira", sermons are given, the ancestors are commemorated, and prayers and hymns are given, and the meeting ends with the singing of the national anthem of Ukraine. The rival and near homonymous Association of Sons and Daughters of the Native Ukrainian National Faith (OSID RUNVira), also conducts weekly services, but incorporates a wider selection of sources—such as readings from the pan-Rodnover "Book of Veles" or the poetry of Taras Shevchenko—into the proceedings, and its liturgy is characterised by a more colourful ritual action. The structure of these Syenkoite rites is modelled on those of the Eastern Orthodox Church.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Espousing a holistic worldview that does not create a dichotomy between mind and body, many Rodnover groups employ physical techniques, or martial arts, as means for cleaning, strengthening and elevating the mind. Some Rodnover groups incorporate practices which are not Slavic in origin. For instance, a group of Polish Rodnovers has been documented to use the "fire poi" at their Midsummer festivities, a practice that originally developed in Pacific regions during the mid-twentieth century. The Ukrainian organisation Ancestral Fire of the Native Orthodox Faith promotes a healing technique called "zhyva" that has close similarities to the Japanese practice of "reiki". In another instance, Lesiv observed a Ukrainian Rodnover who legitimised the practice of "yoga" by claiming that this spiritual tradition had originally been developed by the ancestors of modern-day Ukrainians.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Rodnover organisations have inherited ideas of commonality and social governance from Slavic and Russian history. They recover the pre-Christian social institution of the "veche" (assembly), which they also see as reflecting the concept of "sobornost" formulated in twentieth-century Russian philosophy. "Veche" is used as the name of some Rodnover overarching organisations, as well as international councils. Aitamurto characterises the "veche" as a model of organisation "from below and to the top", following descriptions given by Rodnovers themselves—that is to say a grassroots form of governance which matures into a consensual authority and/or decision-making. Local Rodnover groups usually call themselves "obshchina" (the term for traditional peasant communities), while "skhod", "sobor" and "mir" are used for informal meetings or to refer to traditional Russian ideas of commonality. Another term for a community, though not frequently used, is "artel". A form of organisation of Rodnover communities consists in the establishment of places for commonunal living, such as fortresses ("kremlin") or citadels ("gorodok"), in which temples are surrounded by buildings for various social uses. The Slavic Kremlin Vitaly Sundakov is one of such centres, located in the Podolsky District of Moscow Oblast. Some Rodnover networks have established entire villages all over Russia; this is the case, among other examples, of those Rodnovers who are part of Anastasianism.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Rituals and religious meetings are often performed in rural settings, forests and clearings. The basic structure of a temple of the Slavic Native Faith, the ritual square (капище, "kapishche"), is constituted by a sacred sacrificial precinct, accessible only to the priests, at the centre of which are placed poles with carved images of the gods and a ritual fire ("krada"). Temple buildings (храм, "khram") may be present. The poles, or statues, are called "rodovoy stolb" ("ancestral pole"), "idol", "chur", but also "kapy". The sacrificial ground is usually in the northern part of the square, so that during the sacrificial ceremonies both the priests and the laymen look towards the divine North Pole; otherwise, in the cases of those communities who give more importance to the cycle of the Sun, it is located in the eastern part of the square. In 2015, the Temple of Svarozich's Fire, in the form of a simple wooden architecture, was opened by the Union of Slavic Native Belief Communities in Krasotynka, Kaluga. Gaidukov documented that in the 2000s Rodnovers erected a statue of Perun in a park near Kupchino in Saint Petersburg, although they did not obtain official permission first. The statue remained in place for some time until being removed by the authorities in 2007 when a decision was made to construct a church nearby.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Rodnovery is headed by a priestly class distinguishable into the orders of "volkhv" (translatable as "wiseman", "wizard", i.e. "shaman", or "mage") and "zhrets" ("sacrificers"). They are those responsible for holding rites for worshipping the gods and leading communities and religious festivals. "Volkhvs" are the higher rank of the sacerdotal hierarchy, while "zhrets" are of a lower authority. Though the majority of Rodnover priests are males, Rodnover groups do not exclude women from the priesthood, so that a parallel female priesthood is constituted by the two ranks of "zhritsa" and "vedunya" ("seeresses"). Prestige is not limited to male priests; a priestess, Halyna Lozko from Ukraine, is an acknowledged authority within the Rodnover movement, and the settlement of Pravovedi in Kolomna is governed by a priestess. In 2012, a number of Rodnover organisations in Russia made an agreement for the mutual recognition of their priesthood and for the uniformisation of ordination policies.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: The Rodnover priesthood is characterised by a number of attributes, sacred objects which mark their role. Besides varieties of "traditional" clothing and the tambourine, the most distinctive element accompanying the Rodnover "volkhv" is their staff, conferred at the moment of their initiation, an "invariable attribute of religious and secular power (the sceptre, the wand) in the traditions of the peoples of the world". In Rodnovery, the priestly staff represents the "axis mundi", the world tree, the invisible "pillar of strength", of the spiritual power of creation, and it is considered the vessel of one of the two parts of the soul of the "volkhv" or the representation of their own self.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: According to Rodover cosmology: the top of the staff of the "volkhv" represents the overworld, "Prav", and is either carved as an anthropomorphic face representing the patron deity of the "volkhv", or as the symbol of "Rod", and is associated with "Rod" itself, the "God of the gods", representing the unity of the generated gods in the universal "Rod", or with his visible manifestation, Svarog; the middle part of the staff represents "Yav" and Perun, and is carved with the symbols of the powers that the "volkhv" "commands" in the real world; the bottom of the staff represents "Nav" and Veles, and is burnt in fire to symbolise the infernal forces of the underworld. The wood of which the saff is made is chosen according to the patron deity of the priest: beech and maple are associated to Svarog and Dazhbog, oak to Perun, conifers and hazel to Veles, birch and rowan are associated to the goddesses (Mokosh, Lada, Lelya). The staff is covered with cuts which are vertical lines if masculine and associated with the power of "Rod", while a spiral or circle cuts if feminine and associated with the goddess of the Earth. The staff has to be treated accorting to certain rules, and rubbing oils with spells, and hanging claws, fangs, amulets and other objects attached to threads are, considered to accumulate power within a staff.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: The common Rodnover ritual calendar is based on the Slavic folk tradition, whose crucial events are the four solstices and equinoxes set in the four phases of the year. Slavic Native Faith has been described as following "the cycles of nature", of the seasons of the year. A festival that is believed to be the most important by many Rodnovers is that of the summer solstice, the "Kupala" Night (June 23–24), although also important are the winter solstice festival "Karachun" and "Koliada" (December 24–25), and the spring equinox festival Shrovetide—called "Komoeditsa" or "Maslenitsa" (March 24). Festivals celebrated in spring include the Day of Yarilo and the "Krasnaya Gorka" (literally "Red Hill", celebrated between April 30–May 1), the latter dedicated to ancestor worship; while in autumn Rodnovers celebrate the Day of Marzanna and that of Mokosh (November 10). Other festivals include the Days of Veles (multiple, in January and February) and the Day of Perun (August 2), the latter considered to be the most important holiday of the year by some Rodnover organisations. The Anastasians also celebrate the Day of the Earth on July 23 with characteristic rituals prescribed in their movement's books.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Usually, the organisation of festivals involves three layers of society: there is a patronising "core" of practitioners, who are often professionally affirmed people, usually belonging to the intellectual class; then there is the population of committed adherents; and then there is a loose "periphery" constituted by sympathisers, generally relatives and friends of the committed followers. Aitmurto notes that festivals are usually set in the evenings, the weekends and on public holidays, in order to allow everyone's participation. Shizhenskii and Aitamurto described one Kupala festival, held over the course of three days outside Maloyaroslavets in Russia; at this event, weddings, purification rituals, and name-giving ceremonies took place, accompanied by musical performances, martial arts, and folkloric plays, while a market sold traditional handicrafts. The interplay with the gods and the cycle of nature which they represent is displayed through large-scale ceremonies which Aitamurto defines as "aesthetically lavish", vectors of a great deal of creativity. For instance, the end of winter is marked by burning straw images of Marzanna, the goddess of winter, while celebrating the victory of Yarilo, the god of the full swing of natural forces; the end of summer, instead, is marked by the burial of an image of Yarilo.


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Adherents of Slavic Native Faith often adopt elements from recorded folk culture, giving new meaning and purpose to Christianised or non-Pagan contents. Some Rodnover groups have appropriated or reappropriated Christian festivals. The same Kupala Night is a reappropriation, being the day of the year when Christian churches set the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist. The calendar of some Sylenkoite organisations includes holidays that have been de-Christianised, such as a "Christmas of Dazhboh's Light" and an "Easter of the Eternal Resurrection".


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: A number of Rodnovers have expressed their religion through visual arts, with Svyatoslav I of Kiev being one of the most popular historical subjects among Rodnover artists. In the 2010s, Rodnovery entered the mass market culture of Slavic countries by promoting ethnic clothing, ethnic hairstyles, ethnic tattooing, by creating and disseminating its own systems of symbols and images, but also genres of music, cinema and fiction. Some Rodnovers espouse linguistic purism, proposing the replacement of foreign words with Slavic equivalents (such as "svetopisi" instead of "fotografii", or "izvedy" instead of "interv'iu").


title: Slavic Native Faith

text: Rodnovery generally emphasises a healthy lifestyle of the individual, to be extended as a healthy lifestyle of the nation; restriction of food intake, avoidance of certain foods, and sport activities, timed to significant events or holidays, have acquired a ritual character for many Rodnover groups. A popular sport movement associated with Rodnovery is "Russian jogging" (Русские пробежки, "Russkiye probezhki"). Rodnover rituals and festivals often include martial arts displays; these sometimes symbolise seasonal change, such as the victory of spring over winter, or can be regarded as manifestations of bravery, strength, and honesty. "Slavic-hill wrestling" ("Slavyano-goritskaya bor'ba") was established by the Russian Rodnover Aleksandr Belov. Other martial arts styles that are popular among Rodnovers are "bench wrestling" ("lavochki") and "wall against wall" ("stenka na stenku").