#rodnovery

I. A Lesson from Heathenry: A Rose Is Not Just a "Color Variant"

You’ve likely encountered the standard division of Heathenry into Continental, Scandinavian, and Anglo-Saxon traditions. That’s the baseline. However, within these groups, a battle for the identity of the gods still rages. Are Woden, Wotan, and Odin really the same person?

A segment of scholars and practitioners stubbornly maintains that these are three distinct evolutionary branches of an idea, rather than a single monolith. Think of it like roses: enthusiasts can point out differences in scent, hardiness, and petal structure. No one serious would just wave their hand and say, "Whatever, it’s just a different color variant."

The notion that all Germanic peoples shared the exact same pantheon was born in the mid-19th century. It was then, on the wave of Romanticism, that fragments were cobbled together to form one "Great Germanic Soul." When the Brothers Grimm crafted the narrative around Ostara and the goddess Eostre, they weren’t just collecting folktales—they were building a national foundation. Soon, these theories evolved into Pan-Germanism: a vision of unity designed to paper over political fragmentation.

The problem is that many of these theories, despite a total lack of evidence, are still uncritically echoed today by people who give deep research a wide berth.

II. The Slavic "Awakening"

But let’s leave the Germans and Scandinavians aside for a moment. Let’s look at what was shaping the minds of thinkers in Slavic lands during that same era. These ideas are experiencing a renaissance today, though few realize how deeply "contaminated" they are by the 19th-century zeitgeist. Even though many Slavic nations lacked independence at the time, their visions shared the same motifs, albeit with different narratives.

The key figure in this movement is Zorian Dołęga-Chodakowski. At the turn of the 19th century, he was the first to put forward the radical postulate of a "return to the Slavic religion." Zorian became the archetype of the globetrotting intellectual. He deeply believed that traces of the ancient Slavic world survived in pristine form among the common folk—in peasant songs and rituals that Western Latin had failed to corrupt.

His diagnosis was uncompromising: "Christianity is not our native culture, for Christianity erased it."

Zorian wrote:

One must go and humble oneself beneath the peasant’s thatch in various distant lands; one must hasten to his feasts, games, and adventures. There, in the smoke rising above their heads, ancient rites still drift, old songs are hummed, and amidst the dances of the simple folk, the names of forgotten gods resonate. In that bitter twilight, one can glimpse three moons shining for them, three virgin dawns, and the seven stars of the Wain.

You could think of him as a sort of Daniel Jackson from the Stargate universe, transplanted into the reality of the Slavic world. For those unfamiliar with the 1994 film or the series: Daniel is an archaeologist and linguist who champions bold theories. He claims that "the truth lies right before us, we just need to know how to read the signs, because everything we’ve been taught is wrong."

Much like Jackson, despite his vast knowledge and ambition, Zorian wasn’t taken seriously by the scientific elite—until "higher powers" took an interest in his work (in Zorian’s case, funding from Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski and interest from the Tsarist administration). He was pulled into the gears of politics and Grand History, even while average citizens—and even the elites of his time—remained unaware of the weight of his revolutionary discoveries.

While Zorian dreamed of a return to pagan groves, his findings paradoxically served to build religious and political ideologies that had little to do with actual paganism. He provided the fuel for many later self-proclaimed researchers. His ambitions, studies, and notes were quickly seized upon by Slavophiles. For them, a return to roots wasn’t just a matter of spirituality—it was an act of political rebellion against Western Enlightenment rationalism.

Zorian on the left side, Daniel on the right side III. The Noble Savage and the Messiah of Europe

Around these assumptions, the idea of the European "Noble Savage" began to crystallize. Johann Gottfried von Herder praised the Slavs as a peaceful, hospitable people deeply tied to the land—a narrative that intellectuals across the region snatched up instantly. The argument was simple: since the Slavs accepted Christianity relatively late, they remained morally purer, closer to nature, and less "corrupted" by Western rationalism. In this vision, the Slav appeared as a noble, unblemished "child of nature."

What the West perceived as "Slavic primitivism," the proponents of this idea rebranded as the highest virtue. They went so far as to claim that the Slavs knew no slavery, no war, and no authoritarian rule, living instead in egalitarian communities based on cooperation rather than mindless conquest. It was a beautiful image, but entirely ahistorical. It served primarily to boost the national ego and act as a defense mechanism against Western cultural dominance.

While Slavic veche (assemblies) certainly existed, claiming they were a universal practice for all tribes is a massive stretch—it’s like assuming every Greek polis was a democracy. Unfortunately, the idealization of the veche as a fully democratic organ where everyone had a real voice is a pure projection of 19th-century ideals onto a distant past.

To make matters more complex, these visions often intertwined with fervent Christianity—whether Catholic or Orthodox—and the idea of Messianism. The Slavs were cast as the "Jesus" or even the "Messiah of Europe"—a people called to play a redemptive role in the continent's history. These were beautiful, if risky, visions; they allowed people to momentarily forget the harsh reality of partitions, the weight of Germanization, or the crush of the Tsarist boot.

One could multiply examples of these attitudes. In my high school, we were limited strictly to Polish literature, and only with time did I realize that Poland was no exception in this regard. (To any Slovaks, Croats, Ukrainians, or other Slavs reading this—I apologize for omitting your intellectuals and their specific concepts for now. To keep things fair, I’m skipping many Polish thinkers as well; perhaps we’ll discuss them another time).

IV. Pan-Slavism vs. Slavophilism: A Cocktail with Bitter Vodka

Pan-Slavism developed in a terrifying vice—clamped between the politics of Prussia and Austria on one side and the dominance of the Ottoman Empire on the other. The Napoleonic Wars had smuggled the spirit of the French Revolution into Central Europe: a thirst for liberty and a revolt against feudalism. Initially, the movement was built on the idea of active cooperation and brotherhood. Intelecutals met to share discoveries in the burgeoning fields of folklore, history, and philology.

Pan-Slavists were simultaneously impressed and horrified by Pan-Germanism (which was rising as a counterweight to French influence). Particularly disturbing were the anti-Slavic sentiments voiced by some Pan-German intellectuals. Slavs were dismissed as "nations without history," claimed to be "non-European outsiders," or even described as "fodder for the soil."

To counter this, Slavs began spinning hypotheses similar to those found in Pan-Germanism. The goal was to prove: "We have always been here, and our history is as ancient as yours." The hunt began for a "Slavic Olympus," "Slavic Eddas," or "Slavic Vedas"—anything to prove they weren't "inferior." In the process, they conveniently forgot that a Slav from the Balkans might not have had contact with Slavs from the Vistula, Prague, or Kyiv for centuries.

Unfortunately, Russian Slavophiles joined the party and poured a liter of bitter vodka into the Pan-Slavic cocktail. Smiling at their "suffering brothers," they offered a radical solution: "All Slavs should unite under the Tsar's scepter and convert to Orthodoxy if they wish to survive at all."

For many Slavic nations, this was a shock—a bitter pill to swallow. The Czech intellectual Karel Borovský, initially fascinated by Russia, wrote these famous words after visiting:

"The Russians call everything Russian 'Slavic,' so that later they can call everything Slavic 'Russian'."

And so, Pan-Slavism, which was meant to protect Slavs from "denationalization," became the ideological fuel for Russian imperial ambitions. Instead of protecting local cultures, it sought to impose a single, central pattern from Saint Petersburg.

This led to the first great schism. To the Russians, many Western Slavs were "traitors to Slavdom" who had been seduced by Rome—with Poles being labeled the "Judas who betrayed the Christ of Nations." To the Poles, the Russians were "Mongols pretending to be Slavs"—claiming their only Slavic element was their language, while spiritually and politically they belonged to the world of steppe despotism.

Czechs, Slovenes, Croats, and Slovaks remained skeptical, viewing Russia as a "dangerous cousin"—a relative, perhaps, but one to be kept at a distance. Ukrainians and Belarusians were torn internally between East and West. Only the Southern Slavs and Slovaks, looking for a savior from Ottoman rule, enthusiastically joined the chorus singing about "Mother Russia."

V. The Traps of the "Found Ancients"

To be clear: the Pan-Slavist conventions birthed a mountain of far-fetched theories—and not just those dreamed up by Russian Slavophiles. Suddenly, "ancient" artifacts were being "discovered" everywhere. Many turned out to be blatant forgeries, like the Mikorzyn Stones or the Queen's Court Manuscript.

Linguistics became a battlefield. Scholars began hunting for Slavic roots in almost every word, stretching facts until they snapped just to fit a thesis. The Etruscan language was claimed to be Russian (because Etruscan sounds like Eto-Ruski—"This is Russian"). The Amazons were derived from the Polish/Slavic cry "O mężonki!" (suggesting women fighting like their husbands). It was even asserted that Slavs must have had their own "Vedas" because the word Veda sounds like the Slavic viedza (knowledge).

The logic followed one rule: "It sounds similar, so it must be the same." Russian Pan-Slavists leaned into this heavily, desperate to prove a hegemony where other Slavic nations were merely "stray sheep" returning to the fold.

Much of today’s "Rodnovery" (Slavic Neopagan) mythology is rooted in this period. Even the fantasies of "Great Slavic Empires"—supposedly crushed by a joint Vatican-German conspiracy—are nothing more than echoes of 19th-century inferiority complexes.

The situation was exacerbated in the 18th and 19th centuries when German scholars working in Russia (like Gottlieb Siegfried Bayer and Gerhard Friedrich Müller) formulated the Norman Theory. Their central thesis: "The Slavic ancestors of the Russians were incapable of creating state structures on their own, so they had to be organized by Swedish Vikings—the Varangians."

Russian intellectuals went into a frenzy. Instead of accepting that Slavs (like all European peoples) lived in dynamic interaction with their neighbors, they began creating myths of total "state-building autonomy." They argued the Varangians were merely "invited" as mercenaries and insisted that Rurik was not a Swede, but a "pure-blooded" Slav.

Surprisingly, even during the Soviet era, advocating for the Norman Theory carried the risk of repression (a metaphorical or literal "bullet to the head"). The fight against "Normanism" became a key pillar of the campaign against "rootless cosmopolitanism" and Western influence. Even "State Atheism" and "Scientific Communism" couldn't protect Soviet researchers from historical and archaeological manipulations.

Boris Rybakov, despite his undeniable talent, was often blinded by a very specific brand of patriotism. His and other soviet scholar defensive need to prove Slavic superiority over the "Germanic invader" still casts a shadow over Early Medieval studies today.

While modern genetics has confirmed that the Rurikid dynasty had Scandinavian roots (proven by the haplogroup N-M178, specifically N1c1), it remains a sore spot for many Russians—even as they simultaneously take pride in the imperial might of Kievan Rus'.

VI. Slavic Frankenstein vs. Slavic Plurality

In our quest for the "true" ancient world, the 19th century created a historical Frankenstein. Many practitioners today—especially those outside Europe (like in the US) who approach Slavic belief systems through a modern lens—often don't realize they are working with a stitched-together monster. Even local enthusiasts often ignore the specific memory of the land in favor of a polished, unified aesthetic.

In the 1800s, we desperately hunted for a "Slavic Olympus" or "Slavic Eddas." We ignored the fact that even the Prose Edda was written by Snorri Sturluson—a Christian diplomat whose goal was to preserve skaldic poetry while signaling that it was time to say goodbye to the old gods. Similarly, those who envy the "solid" power of Greek myths forget that Greek mythology was a messy, evolving process with countless regional variations.

Surprising as it may be, much of what we consider "universally Slavic" is not. Whether it’s the lunula pendants, the myth of the battle between Perun and Veles, specific holidays, or even the "white linen with red embroidery" aesthetic—these were often regional or later developments. In the 19th century, diversity was seen as a sign of weakness. Today, in the 21st century, many people still crave a "Slavic Zeus"—one god to rule them all—because they fear the complexity of pluralism.

I propose something more subversive.

Instead of pretending we were a monolith, let’s follow the lead of modern Heathenry. They successfully divided their traditions into Scandinavian, Anglo-Saxon, and Continental Germanic. Let’s start dividing the Slavic world—especially in research and practice—into:

West Slavic

East Slavic

South Slavic Regarding the South Slavs, we must look beyond just language. We need to analyze whether a particular region was shaped by the Roman Catholic or the Eastern Orthodox model of Christianization. These two systems approached Slavic tribes in fundamentally different ways—one often imposing Latinity as a barrier, the other integrating the Slavic tongue into the liturgy, creating entirely different paths for how "Slavic identity" survived or was transformed within the church structure.

Each of these branches was shaped by different influences long before Christianization and after. This approach is far closer to reality. It allows us to compare sources honestly, point out errors, and engage in credible discourse.

Acknowledging our differences is not a weakness; it is a richness we don't need to hide from Germans, Greeks and other. By embracing this plurality, we might finally escape historical forgeries and the toxic fantasies of "Great Slavic Empires."

Yugoslavia may have fallen, but one of its many lessons was that clinging to a "single truth" or a "single god" often leads to conflict. Where monotheism (in all its forms) demands a monopoly on truth, polytheism offers room for everyone.

VII. Conclusion: Look into the Romantic’s Mirror

Is what we call the "revival of roots" today a genuine return to the faith of our ancestors? Or is it a continuation of a 19th-century project designed to build an identity in spite of others? Before we head into the forest to seek Perun, it is worth searching our own minds for the footprints of a Romantic poet or the delusions of a Russian Slavophile who invented that forest in the first place. Trying to force a unified "Slavic theology" into a Christian-shaped mold is problematic—it robs Slavdom of its specific charm and true spirit.

The truth is, we know far more about Slavic animism than we do about the gods themselves. We often encounter figures where it’s unclear if they are a deity, a different type of entity, or merely a "dark or bright face" of a larger force. Many modern followers of Thor, Odin, Hecate, or Aphrodite overlook animism, even though it is foundational. It is animism—more than epic tales or lists of divine names—that makes pre-Abrahamic beliefs whole and grounded.

Contrary to popular belief, the common folk directed their attention toward local spirits (the equivalents of the Fae or Kami). It was to them that the peasant brought requests, grievances, and curses. Animism teaches us one thing above all: we are not alone here. This awareness allows us to reclaim a sense of agency over our reality and the changes occurring within it.