| Festival of Perun | |
|---|---|
 Rite in honor of Perun in Ukraine | |
| Observed by | Slavic people |
| Type | Ethnic |
| Date | 20 July |
| Related to | Perun |
Festival of Perun, Perun's Day, Perunica is a Slavic festival in honor of the god Perun celebrated by modern Slavic neopagans (rodnovers); its existence in times before the Slavs began to be Christianized remains hypothetical.
The existence of the cult in pre-Christian times is a hypothesis put forward as part of Boris Rybakov's interpretation of the ornamentation of archaeological artefacts. [1] The cult of Perun was probably replaced by the cult of the prophet Elijah among the Kyiv boyars in the process of Christianization of Rus. Elijah's Day, celebrated in Christian times on July 20, bore distinct features of ancient pagan cults, and it is presumed that it replaced the original festival in honor of the god of thunder Perun. [2] In popular belief Elijah wields storm clouds to influence the fertility of the fields and uses lightning against demons and blasphemers. [3]
The festival is celebrated on July 20 or 21 [4] by the neopagans in Poland within registered religious organizations, [5] as well as informal communities, and also in other Slavic countries, including Ukraine, [6] Slovakia, and Russia, where in some groups of rodnovers this holiday is regarded as the most important of the year. [7] During the festival there are games (sports competitions) in honor of Perun, during which participants compete in such disciplines as combat sports and tug-of-war. [4]
Prav (Правь), Yav (Явь) and Nav (Навь) are the three dimensions or qualities of the cosmos as described in the first chapter of the Book of Light and in the Book of Veles of Slavic Native Faith (Rodnovery). Older sources mention only Nav and Yav concepts of ancient slavic cosmology, similar to Yin and Yang in Taoism, and Prav was not part of the concept. The literal meanings of the Prav, Yav, and Nav words, are, respectively, "Right", "actuality" and "probability". They are also symbolised as a unity by the god Triglav. Already Ebbo documented that the Triglav was seen as embodying the connection and mediation between Heaven, Earth and the underworld / humanity; these three dimensions were also respectively associated to the colours white, green and black as documented by Karel Jaromír Erben.
Stribog is a god in Slavic mythology found in three East Slavic sources, whose cult may also have existed in Poland. The sources do not inform about the functions of the god, but nowadays he is most often interpreted as a wind deity who distributes wealth.
Svetovit, Sventovit, Svantovit is the god of abundance and war, and the chief god of the Slavic tribe of the Rani, and later of all the Polabian Slavs. His organized cult was located on the island of Rügen, at Cape Arkona, where his main temple was also located. According to the descriptions of medieval chroniclers, the statue representing this god had four heads, a horn and a sword, and to the deity himself were dedicated a white horse, a saddle, a bit, a flag, and eagles. Once a year, after the harvest, a large festival was held in his honor. With the help of a horn and a horse belonging to the god, the priests carried out divinations, and at night the god himself rode a horse to fight his enemies. His name can be translated as "Strong Lord" or "Holy Lord". In the past it was often mistakenly believed that the cult of Svetovit originated from St. Vitus. Among scholars of Slavic mythology, Svetovit is often regarded as a Polabian hypostasis of Pan-Slavic god Perun. His cult collapsed in 1168.
Rod, in the pre-Christian religion of Eastern and Southern Slavs, is the god of the family, ancestors and fate, perhaps as the supreme god. Among Southern Slavs, he is also known as Sud. He is usually mentioned together with Rozhanitsy deities. One's first haircut (postriziny) was dedicated to him, in a celebration in which he and the rozhanitsy were given a meal and the cut hair. His cult lost its importance through time, and in the ninth or tenth century he was replaced by Perun, Svarog and/or Svetevid, which explains his absence in the pantheon of Vladimir the Great.
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 harken 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.
A volkhv or volhv is a priest in ancient Slavic religions and contemporary Slavic Native Faith (Rodnovery).
Ynglism, institutionally the Ancient Russian Ynglist Church of the Orthodox Old Believers–Ynglings is a direction of Rodnovery formally established in 1992 by Aleksandr Yuryevich Khinevich in Omsk, Russia, and legally recognised by the Russian state in 1998, although the movement was already in existence in unorganised forms since the 1980s. The adherents of Ynglism call themselves "Orthodox", "Old Believers", "Ynglings" or "Ynglists".
Ivanovism is a Rodnover new religious movement and healing system in Eastern Europe based on the teachings of the Russian mystic Porfiry Korneyevich Ivanov (1898–1983), who elaborated his doctrines by drawing upon Russian folklore. The movement began to take institutional forms between the 1980s and the 1990s, and in the same period it had an influence on the other Rodnover movement of Peterburgian Vedism.
Peterburgian Vedism or Peterburgian Rodnovery, or more broadly Russian Vedism and Slavic Vedism, is one of the earliest branches of Rodnovery and one of the most important schools of thought within it, founded by Viktor Nikolayevich Bezverkhy in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the 1970s. Early Peterburgian Vedism developed independently from other Rodnover movements in the inland of Russia, due to the distinguished culture of the city of Saint Petersburg itself, and represents one of the most cohesive right-wing nationalist Rodnover movements.
In Slavic Native Faith (Rodnovery) there are a number of shared holidays throughout the year, when important ritual activities are set according to shared calendars. Generally speaking, ritual activities may be distinguished into "external" (exoteric) and "internal" (esoteric) relatively to the different communities. External ceremonies are mass gatherings, usually held on important holidays dedicated to the worship of common gods, and involving large numbers of people. Internal ceremonies are those restricted to specific groups, and holding special meaning for such groups; they may comprise private rituals and worship of specific ancestors.
Slavic Native Faith or Slavic Neopaganism in Russia is widespread, according to some estimates from research organisations which put the number of Russian Rodnovers in the millions. The Rodnover population generally has a high education and many of its exponents are intellectuals, many of whom are politically engaged both in the right and the left wings of the political spectrum. Particular movements that have arisen within Russian Rodnovery include various doctrinal frameworks such as Anastasianism, Authentism, Bazhovism, Ivanovism, Kandybaism, Levashovism, Peterburgian Vedism, Slavic-Hill Rodnovery, Vseyasvetnaya Gramota, the Way of Great Perfection, the Way of Troyan, and Ynglism, as well as various attempts to construct specific ethnic Rodnoveries, such as Krivich Rodnovery, Meryan Rodnovery, Viatich Rodnovery. Rodnovery in Russia is also influenced by, and in turn influences, movements that have their roots in Russian cosmism and identify themselves as belonging to the same Vedic culture, such as Roerichism and Blagovery.
Rodnovery is critical towards what Rodnovers call the Russian: моноидеология, lit. 'mono-ideologies' By "mono-ideologies", they mean all those ideologies which promote "universal and one-dimensional truths", unable to grasp the complexity of reality and therefore doomed to failure one after the other. These mono-ideologies include Christianity and the Abrahamic monotheisms in general, and all the systems of thought and practice that these religions spawned throughout history, including both Marxism and capitalism, the general Western rationalistic mode of thinking begotten by the Age of Enlightenment, and ultimately the technocratic civilisation based on the idea of possession, exploitation and consumption of the environment. They are regarded as having led the world and humanity to a dead-end, and as destined to disappear and to be supplanted by the values represented by Rodnovery itself. To the "unipolar" world created by the mono-ideologies, and led by the American-influenced West, the Rodnovers oppose their political philosophy of "nativism" and "multipolarism".
Slavic Native Faith (Rodnovery) has a theology that is generally monistic, consisting in the vision of a transcendental, supreme God which begets the universe and lives immanentised as the universe itself, present in decentralised and autonomous way in all its phenomena, generated by a multiplicity of deities which are independent hypostases, facets, particles or energies of the consciousness and will of the supreme God itself.
In the Russian intellectual milieu, Slavic Native Faith (Rodnovery) presents itself as a carrier of the political philosophy of nativism/nationalism/populism (narodnichestvo), intrinsically related to the identity of the Slavs and the broader group of populations with Indo-European speaking origins, and intertwined with historiosophical ideas about the past and the future of these populations and their role in eschatology.
Festival of Veles, Veles' Day is a holiday in honor of the Slavic god Veles, celebrated by rodnovers in February.
Slavic-Hill Rodnovery is one of the earliest branches of Rodnovery that emerged in Russia in the 1980s founded by Aleksandr Konstantinovich Belov (1957–), and one of the largest Rodnover movements in terms of number of practitioners, counted in the many tens of thousands. The movement is characterised by a military orientation, combining Rodnover worldview with the practice of a martial arts style known as "Slavic-hill wrestling". The locution "Slavic hill" refers to the kurgan, Indo-European warrior mound burials of the Pontic–Caspian steppe.
Modern Paganism, also known as Contemporary Paganism and Neopaganism, is a collective term for religious movements which are influenced by or derived from the various historical pagan beliefs of pre-modern peoples. Although they share similarities, contemporary Pagan religious movements are diverse, and as a result, they do not share a single set of beliefs, practices, or texts.
Mono-ideologies are a concept in Russian political and philosophical discourse.