[20] 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.

[56] 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.

[85] 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.

[91] 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.

[150] 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".

[144] Other Rodnovers are openly antisemitic,[168] a category which for them means not only anti-Jewish but more broadly anti-Asian, anti-Christian, anti-Islamic, and anti-Byzantinist sentiment,[169] and espouse conspiracy theories claiming that Jews and Asians control the economic and political elite.

[170] 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.

[208] 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.

"[39] An example is Yuri Sergeev's adventure novel "Stanovoi Ridge" (1987), whose protagonist in the 1920s in the Yakut taiga discovers elderly "Old Believers" who store knowledge of "the wonderful beauty of religion, which they defiled and killed", and a secret library with texts, citing the Book of Veles.

[212] A number of Rodnovers use pseudohistorical works by such authors as the public figure Valery Skurlatov (also wrote under the pseudonym Saratov)[213] and the Arabist and active antisemite Valery Yemelyanov (Velemir) (author of Dezionization), whose writings were later used by V. A. Ivanov and V. V. Selivanov, under the pseudonym "V. A. Istarkhov" (author of The Strike of the Russian Gods), A. M. Ivanov (Skuratov),[214] the writers Vladimir Shcherbakov, Vladimir Chivilikhin and Yuri Petukhov, the dissident and neo-Nazi and neopagan ideologue Alexey Dobrovolsky (Dobroslav) (author of a number of pamphlets), philosopher and founder of Russian Vedism Viktor Bezverkhy (Grandfather Venedov, Ostromysl), public figure P. V. Tulaev (Buyan), Alexander Belov ("Selidor"), creator of Slavic-Goritsa wrestling, the artist and publicist Igor Sinyavin, Gennady Grinevich, who allegedly deciphered ancient texts as Slavic, the philosopher Valery Chudinov, known for finding and "deciphering" Slavic inscriptions on almost any object, Vladimir Avdeyev, the creator of the doctrine of "racology" (on the superiority of the "Nordic race" over others), public figure and artist N. N. Speransky (Velimir) (Kolyada Vyatichi), founder of the large Rodnover association Union of Slavic Communities of the Slavic Native Faith Vadim Kazakov, the creator of the native faith association Skhoron Yezh Sloven Vladimir Golyakov (Bogumil II Golyak), psychologist-hypnotist Viktor Kandyba ("prophet" Kandy), Ynglist Alexey Trekhlebov (Vedaman Vedagor), "healer" and follower of Khinevich and creator of Renaissance.

Vladimir Avdeyev (later the creator of the doctrine of "racology" which espoused the superiority of the "Nordic race" over others; a member of Alexander Belov's "Moscow Slavic Pagan Community") wrote in the book "Overcoming Christianity" (1994) about the inferiority of the era of Pisces, associated with the domination of monotheistic religions, and future blessed cosmic age of Aquarius, designed to return humanity to the original primordial prosperity.

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.

[248] 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.

[264] 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.

[269] Shizhensky 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.

[278] In 1818, the Polish ethnographer Zorian Dołęga-Chodakowski (Adam Czarnocki; 1784–1825) in the work O Sławiańszczyźnie przed chrześcijaństwem ("About the Slavs before Christianity") declared himself a "pagan" and stated that the Christianisation of the Slavic peoples had been a mistake.

[281] In Czechia, in 1839, the doctor and teacher Karel Slavoj Amerling (1807–1884) founded the Brotherhood of the Faithful of the New Slavic Religion (Bratrstvo Věrníků Nového Náboženství Slávského), identified as pantheism and as a means for the Czech National Revival; the group was, however, banned by the Austrian rulers just one year later, in 1840.

[306] Vedism was also explicitly espoused within more official Soviet circles; Apollon Kuzmin (1928–2004), leader of the neo-Slavophile historiography, did so in his 1988 book "The Fall of Perun" (Padenie Peruna), in which he supported indigenous Slavic religion while criticising Christianity as the cause of the Mongol yoke (which led to the incorporation of Kievan Rus' in the Golden Horde from 1237 to 1480).

[123] A number of senior followers broke with Sylenko during the 1980s, rejecting the idea that he should be the ultimate authority in the religion; they formed the Association of Sons and Daughters of the Native Ukrainian National Faith (OSID RUNVira) and secured legal control of the temple in Spring Glen.

Koliada Viatichey is theologically dualistic, giving prominence to the complementary principles of Belobog and Chernobog, respectively governing spirit and matter, a polar duality which reflects itself in humanity as the soul and the body.

Polytheism is accepted for its ability to "account for the complexity of the world with its multiple good and evil forces", and particularly emphasised is the popular Russian belief in the great goddess of the Earth (Mokosh or Mat Syra Zemlya).

[376] The scholar Pavel A. Skrylnikov notes that a salient feature of the movement is what he defines "ethnofuturism", that is to say, conscious adaptation of Merya heritage to the forms of modernity, in a process of distinction and interaction with Russian Native Faith.

[384] In 2009, on the occasion of a conference specifically dedicated to the subject held at the Moscow State University, the philosopher Alexander Dugin praised the renewal of Scythian culture as an inspiration that will be beneficial to all descendants of Indo-European peoples and to the whole world.

[394] These books teach what the scholar Rasa Pranskevičiūtė has defined as a "cosmological pantheism",[395] in which nature is the manifested "thought of God" and human intelligence has the power to commune with him and to actively participate to the creation of the world.

[398] In his writings, Megre identifies the ideal society which the Anastasians aim at establishing, based on its spiritual ideas, as an ancient Slavic and Russian "Vedism" and "Paganism", and many of his teachings are identical to those of other movements of Rodnovery.

[404] The Way of Troyan (Тропа Троянова, Tropa Troyanova; where "Troyan" is another name of the god Triglav, regarded as the patron god of Russia), incorporated as the Academy of Self-Knowledge (Академия Самопознания) and the All-Russian Association of Russian Folk Culture (Всероссийское Общество Русской Народной Культуры), is a Rodnover psychological movement founded in 1991 by the historian and psychologist Aleksey Andreev (pseudonym of Aleksandr Shevtsov) relying upon a thorough ethnographic fieldwork, especially focused on the Ofeni tribe of Vladimir Oblast.

[406] According to the movement, which presents itself as the true, orthodox, olden religion of the Russians, the Slavs and the white Europeans,[406] Yngly is the fiery order of reality through which the supreme God—called by the name "Ramha" in Ynglist theology—ongoingly generates the universe.

[423] He borrows from various Eastern traditions, including Hinduism (Tantrism), Buddhism and Taoism,[424] but also Western Neoplatonism, Hermeticism and alchemy, as well as the medieval German mysticism of the Friends of God (Meister Eckhart and Johannes Tauler).

[429] The 2012 Sreda Arena Atlas complement to the 2010 census of Russia, found 1.7 million people (1.2% of the total population of the country) identifying themselves as "Pagans" or followers of "traditional religions, worship of gods and ancestors".

[464] While the contemporary association is completely adogmatic and apolitical,[465] and refuses to "introduce a solid religious or organisational order" because of the past internal conflicts,[466] between 2000 and 2010 it had a complex structure,[465] and redacted a Code of Native Faith defining a precise doctrine for Czech Rodnovery (which firmly rejected the Book of Veles).