Peterburgian Vedism
[3] Despite the isolation of the movement in its first stages, early Peterburgian Vedists drew inspiration from Russian-Ukrainian Ivanovism,[1] and established relations with Vseyasvetniks[4] and Ynglists,[5] while the use of the term "Vedism" to refer to Rodnovery goes back to Yury Petrovich Mirolyubov, the writer or discoverer of the Book of Veles.
[16] Bezverkhy explained the etymology of the term "Aryans" as being related to the verb "to plough" (орать, orat'), and "Wends" as meaning those people who "knitted sheaves" (вено венил, veno venil).
[12] Vladimir Golyakov, the founder of Skhoron ezh Sloven, one of the largest organisations of Peterburgian Vedism, said that the strength of the Slavic religion is that it may be constructed and reconstructed precisely just by observing the laws of nature itself, without the need of books and myths.
[12] For instance, it was popularised by the editor-in-chief of the magazine Russkaya Pravda, Aleksandr M. Aratov,[21] and by the influential Rodnover author Alexander Asov, who used it as a synonym of "Orthodoxy" as belief in Rod (the supreme God), affirming that it is a primordial religious knowledge that later gave rise to various regional traditions, including historical Indian Vedism; Russian Vedism, in Asov's thought, is that which would have transmitted Vedic teachings in the clearest way.
[22] Other Rodnovers draw examples directly from modern Hinduism, explaining their borrowings primarily with the fact that in India the Aryan tradition was preserved most fully, as it was not suppressed by the aggressive inroads of Christianity and Islam.
[32] Bezverkhy's thought against modern phenomena of the Western world, such as technocracy, feminism and homosexuality, contributed to the bases of the strong anti-Western sentiment which characterises Rodnover political philosophy.
[14] In the mid-1990s Bezverkhy found many like-minded followers among the Orthodox Christians of Saint Petersburg who nurtured anti-ecumenical ultranationalist sentiments supported by the then Metropolitan Ioann Snychev.
[41] At that time, discontent for Boris Yeltsin's pro-Western liberal politics turned many right-wing nationalists towards the Communist Party of Russia, which represented the forces of conservatism within society.
[40] In the early 1990s he was prosecuted for having sold copies of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf through the publishing house of the Union of Wends, and for having incited hatred towards Jews, but in both cases he was found not guilty.
[27] Other two Peterburgian Vedists, Oleg Gusev and Roman Perin, continued in the footsteps of Bezverkhy publicising their ideas through many books and newspapers, including Za Russkoye Delo and Potayennoye.
[27] Outside Saint Petersburg, the original Union of Wends also established a strong presence in Pskov, where the local Vedic community emerged in 1990 under the leadership of Dmitry V. Belyaev, a young contract soldier with a secondary musical education, whom his entourage deemed "the chief volkhv of the north-west".
[48] The Pskov Vedists organised the discussion group Patriot (Патриот) which held lectures about Vedism at the local scientific library, to which Bezverkhy himself oftentimes took part.
[48] In 1998 Pavlov ran for the duma of Pskov, and among the goals of his political program he put forward the deportation of people of non-Russian ethnicity (Jews, Gypsies, Blacks, Vietnamese, Caucasians) outside of the region.
[44] Golyakov traced his family lineage to the kin of healers named Bayan-Golyak or Golyakov-Glukhov, who had allegedly transmitted knowledge about the ancient Slavic religion through the generations; he was the leader of the Vedic community Rodobozhie, worked as an obstetrician and practised paid healing at home.
[29] In 1991 he founded Skhoron ezh Sloven (Схорон еж Словен; an Old Slavonic locution meaning "Preserved be the Slavs"),[50] which in 1997 became completely independent from the Union of Wends and gathered many of the latter's young adepts.
[54] On 13 April, Pavel Galaktionov, chairman of the Saratov branch of the Russian National Unity party, asked the governor of Saint Petersburg Alexander Beglov to formally establish a park with a Slavic temple named in honour of Golyakov.
[13] Its first manifestation is a duality, Belobog (Белобог, "White-God") and Chernobog (Чернобог, "Black-God"), lightness and darkness, and all the gods may pertain to one or the other side,[18] be them masculine energies of spirit — Vsebog itself — or feminine elementals of matter — Nature; Природа, Priroda.
[18] In the Peterburgian Vedic cosmology of God as Time which vitalises matter and manifests itself as the arborescent blood system in humans, the scholar Vladimir Povarov saw affinities with similar conceptions in other religions, namely Chronos in Hellenism and Zurvan in Zoroastrianism.
[63] Under the leadership of Viktor Bezverkhy, the Union of Wends elaborated a moral code modelled after that of the Ivanovites, constituted by Eleven Tenets: ① one should work to feed oneself, one's children and those who may not work — one who does not want to work has no place in human society; ② one should choose a job according to their own inclinations and abilities, taking into account the interests of society and, if possible, continuing family traditions; ③ one should observe labour discipline; ④ one should not smoke and not drink alcoholic beverages as long as they are going to have children; ⑤ when one reaches wedding age, they should see in the representative of the opposite sex firstly the mother (or father) of their future children, secondly their future faithful wife (or husband), and thirdly the mistress (or master) of their house; ⑥ one should not stop caring for their children until they have reached full physical and spiritual maturity; ⑦ one should respect their mother and father, who gave them life, and should not stop caring for them until the end of their life; ⑧ one should defend their homeland from enemies, observe military discipline, study military science in order to be a skillful warrior, and sacrifice their blood and life itself if necessary; ⑨ one should prefer freedom to captivity and slavery; ⑩ one should be honest, love their community and keep it healthy, should not steal other peoples' property, not marry persons unsuitable for a healthy life, not destroy their or anyone else's family, and should observe the moral code; ⑪ one should protect the healthy vital activity of all mankind, take care of the life and health of workers, and destroy the enemies of the human race with neither mercy nor regret.
The elementary functions of the family are the control of the relationships between the sexes, the production of labour force, the education of children, the economic function of the family, and, as part of that, providing for members of the family.Bezverkhy was one of the first Rodnover ideologists to expressively substantiate the idea of the perniciousness of phenomena of Western modernity such as the technocratic civilisation, feminism, homosexuality, and other phenomena, which has become the shared theme of the anti-Western sentiment within broader Rodnovery.
[15] The historical research carried out by Bezverkhy was aimed at reconstructing a "shared spiritual heritage of the white people", namely Vedism, functioning as a "foundation for the creation of new useful ideas and developments".
This means that mankind itself, as part of the All God, may and must use all the possibilities to satisfy its needs.As for the rest, Golyakov continued in the tradition of Bezverkhy, so that the organisation Skhoron ezh Sloven is against feminism and women may not participate to its ceremonies, but only assist from a distance.
[76] Wrong upbringing from women, according to Golyakov, is the root of all the vices of modern society — female emancipation, homosexuality, effeminate men who are completely ignorant about how to be representatives of the family.
[65] Their task is to show humanity the path of evolution "from beast to civilised men", represented by a ritual invented by Golyakov in which the priest impersonates a wolf which turns into a person.
[65] Myth is understood by Peterburgian Vedists as an allegorical description of natural reality in its changes, which provide the foundations for ethical norms to be followed and which are consolidated in art and rite.
[70] The early Union of Wends gave to its constituent communities complete freedom for ritual creativity, provided that they were based on the sane view of the world fundamental to the movement.
[70] They make and then burn straw puppets, praise the gods, drink mead, dance in circle (хоровод, khorovod), practise the ritual of "storming the ice fortress", and banquet with pancakes.
[34] Viktor Bezverkhy deemed Christianity a "foolishness" (чужеверие, chuzheverie) imposed by force,[13] a dogmatic construction formulated by ruling elites with the aim of enslaving masses of people.
[83] The attacks were held on 5 April to coincide with the anniversary of the victory of Alexander Nevsky over the crusaders at Lake Peipus and according to Pavlov some militants of the National Bolshevik Party of Eduard Limonov were involved in the event.
[76] In the early 2000s, the Peterburgian Vedists of Skhoron ezh Sloven together with the Orthodox Christians of the city organised the violent ousting of a Mormon preacher from the secondary schools of Kupchino, and Golyakov was brought to trial for the beating of the missionary.
