Slavic vedism

Tradition

  • Viktor Nikolayevich Bezverkhy (1930–2000) founded Society of Mages (1986), Union of Wends (1990).
    • identified Slavic religion with ancient Vedic religion, studied linguistic and conceptual Indian-Slavic parallels, and speculated about what the original “Vedic Russian” or “Vedrussian” religion was like.
    • In Bezverkhy’s thought, “Vedism” defines the worldview of the ancient Aryans, which is based upon empirical observation of the phenomena of the world and is therefore a science.
    • By “Aryans”, “Slavs” and “Wends”, Bezverkhy and his followers comprehend “all the peoples of Eurasia engaged in grain growing”. Also included Sumerians and peoples who were subject to an “early Indo-European assimilation”.
  • After the death of Bezverkhy in 2000, the early Union of Wends split into various organisations.

Theology

  • Peterburgian Vedic theology is pantheistic: all the gods are considered hypostases of a supreme God, the Yedinobog (Единобог, “One-God”; also Единый Бог, Yediny Bog, “One God”), also called Vsebog (Всебог, “All-God”)[7] or Yedinogo Sushchestvo (Единого Существо, “One Being”).
  • ① “God is everything”, ② “everything is God”, ③ “what is law is evident”

धर्मः

  • In general, Peterburgian Vedic ethics teach “family values, love for the fatherland and the folk, and strife to objectively cognise reality”.

11 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.

Rituals

Priests

  • volkhvs - “mages”, “wisemen” or “priests”
  • rodars - cult of Rod
  • rozhens - cult of the goddesses and for the care of women in labour.

Relation with other cults

  • Reverence for indigenous religions

Rejected ideologies

“ideological inventions of the defective hybrids produced by interracial mixing”

  • Abrahamism,
  • Krishnaism,
  • phenomena of Western modernity such as the technocratic civilisation, feminism, homosexuality etc..