Analysis of slavic neo-pagan beliefs through the borrowing of religious and mythological images of indian culture
Authors: Chistyakov S. S. 
Published: September 2023

Introduction. Slavic neo-paganism has been of particular interest to Russian researchers in recent decades. It is still unknown whether there are many representatives of neo-pagan movements in Russia, and the boundaries of this phenomenon are very blurred. As a result, in the scientific community, an ambiguous direction is gaining popularity as folk history, the authors of which advocate the concept of «alternative history». There is an extensive number of «scientific» works and communities based on falsifications and distortion of historical data. One of such trends, in quasi-history, is the early re-creation of Slavic culture, which is increasingly viewed through the prism of Slavic neo-pagan concepts, thereby having a significant impact on Russians' perceptions of traditional Slavic culture. Some Slavic neo-pagan traditions, in addition to the traditional foundations of early Slavic culture, use religious and mythological constructs of other world and national religions. Special importance is attached to the Indian myth-forming component, which unwittingly becomes not only a kind of historical support for the development of pseudo-historical ideas of neo-paganism, but also is the richest source for the development of «Slavic» mythology. Based on this, the analysis of Slavic neo-pagan beliefs through the borrowing of religious and mythological images of Indian culture becomes relevant.

Materials and Methods. The methodological basis of the work was the general scientific principles of historicism, consistency, unity and scientific objectivity. Historical and logical methods of scientific research in the study of cultural and religious traditions of Slavic neo-paganism have determined the objectivity and scientific character in the study of this phenomenon.

Results. Currently, the problem of modern Slavic neo-paganism lies in the fact that the reconstruction of the true appearance of the bygone culture and mythology of Ancient Russia is an extremely difficult task and requires an objective and comprehensive study of this issue. However, representatives of modern Slavic paganism claim that it is the Slavs who are the original Aryan people, with an ancient and developed culture of many thousands of years. The key sources, among neo-pagan supporters, of the origin of the Slavs and the description of their cultural and religious life are the texts of the «Slavic-Aryan Vedas» and the «Veles Book». «Veles's Book», according to representatives of Slavic neo-paganism, is the scripture of the ancient Aryans and contains particles of Slavic-Aryan wisdom preserved by the Novgorod Magi of the IX century. The «Veles Book» repeatedly contains images and plots borrowed from Eastern religious traditions, in particular from Hinduism. The content of the «Slavic-Aryan Vedas» is quite diverse. They include the Old Norse «Saga of the Inglings» interpreted by A. Khinevich, a recording of Perun's conversation with people in which he tells about the commandments, about past and future events on Earth, about the origin of the Russian people. Other pseudo–historical ideas of the origin of Slavic culture and the borrowing of mythological images of other ethnic groups by it are noted in the collection of epic songs by the Serbian historian Stefan Ilyich Verkovich – «Veda Slovena» (translated into Russian «Veda Slavs»). Attention to the collection «The Veda of the Slavs» was attracted by the enthusiastic historian A.I. Asov, having made several translations from the 1st and 2nd volumes of the book «The Veda of the Slavs». In addition, the trend of folk history is observed in attempts to prove the paramount importance of the «Slavic-Aryan» civilization over other peoples through the semantic similarity of the hydronomic objects. According to ideologists and representatives of Slavic neo-paganism, we can also observe the «Vedic» origins in Ancient Russia in the names of rivers and lakes on the territory of modern Russia.

Discussion and Conclusions. The analysis of Slavic neo-pagan traditions revealed a weak reasonableness of the judgments of ideologists and representatives of Slavic neo-paganism about antiquity and the influence of the «Slavic-Aryan» civilization on Ancient India. Proceeding from this, it is also incorrect to assume that Indian deities are prototypes of Slavic gods or included in the Slavic mythology of Ancient Russia, since the described images and attributes of Hindu gods, in the context of traditional historical chronology, appeared much later than the Slavic neo-pagan tradition ascribes to him. At the same time, we cannot exclude the fact that the «Slavic-Aryan Vedas» and the «Veles Book» became not only the basis of a distorted perception of Slavic culture for followers of neo- Pagan traditions, but also brought the «Slavic-Aryan myth», as part of folk history, into the scientific and academic world.