Ynglism
Ynglism, institutionally the Ancient Russian Ynglist Church of the Orthodox Old Believers–Ynglings, is a white nationalist branch of Slavic paganism 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".
The Ynglist Church was described by some scholars as having a complex and well-defined doctrine and liturgy, an authoritative leading hierarchy, and as focusing on esoteric teachings. The Ynglists regard themselves as preserving the true, orthodox, religious tradition of the Russians, of all Slavs, and of all white European "Aryans". Other Rodnover groups in Russia are strongly critical of Ynglism; at a veche of Russian Rodnover organisations Ynglist doctrines were formally rejected. In the mid 2000s the church faced judicial prosecutions for ethnic hatred and Khinevich himself was convicted with probation between 2009 and 2011. After the central organisation in Omsk was dissolved, the movement proliferated into multiple groups in all the regions of Russia, and also in various countries of Europe and North America. The holy writings of Ynglism are the four Slavo-Aryan Vedas.
Overview
Terminology
The term "Ynglism" refers to the Ynglings, one of the early Germanic royal families, whom Ynglists believe to be descendants of the Aryan race who originated from the Omsk region of Western Siberia, Russia. This narrative runs contrary to the leading scholarly consensus of the homeland of the historical Proto-Indo-Europeans. According to the Ynglists, the term has cosmological significance, referring to the order of the universe carried by the primordial fiery radiance — the Ynglia, personified as Yngly — emanated by the supreme God, Ra-M-Kha. They also call their religion "Orthodoxy" and "Old Belief".According to Ynglist history and terminology, the Slavic term for "Orthodoxy", Pravoslavie, is older than Christianity. The term, which means the right way of living in accordance with the law of the universe, was appropriated by Eastern Orthodox Christianity among the Slavs only by the 17th century, through the reforms of Patriarch Nikon of Moscow, in order to wholly absorb the indigenous religion which was then still prevalent among the population. Prior to the reform, Christianity used the Greek-based loanword Ortodoksalnost. The term "Russian" and related ones would derive instead from the Aryan root ros, referring to "brightness" and "holiness".
The definition "Old Believers", which today is employed to refer to Christians who preserved pre-Nikonian rituals, who are more correctly called the "Old Ritualists", was imposed on the latter during the same Nikonian reform. Their previous name was "Righteous Christians", and "Old Believers" referred instead to indigenous Slavic religion. According to the Ynglists, these theories would be proven by 13th-century documents preserved by a sect of the Christian Old Believers.
Characteristics
Aleksandr Y. Khinevich is a native of Omsk and graduated from the Omsk State Technical University. He began to give an organisation to Ynglism between the 1980s and the early 1990, starting from the community Dzhiva-Astra which practised exorcism and traditional medicine, and formally founded the Ynglist Church in 1992, in Omsk. In the same year he published a book entitled Ynglism, Short Course, in which he put forward the backbone of his doctrine, and he visited the United States where he claimed to have established branch groups of the Ynglist Church. Later in the 1990s he published the Slavo-Aryan Vedas, the fundamental books of Ynglism. As the head of the Ynglist Church he is known by his followers as Pater Diy, or volkhv Kolovrat. He does not qualify Ynglism either as a "paganism" or as a "religion", but rather as a "cosmic wisdom" brought by the Aryans, and preserved since ancient times in the region of Western Siberia. The scholar Elena Golovneva argued that it is accurate to classify Ynglism a "new religious movement", or an "invented tradition", which nonetheless contains elements drawn from very old sources. Scholars have identified influences from Hinduism, Zoroastrianism, Helena Blavatsky's Theosophy, and German Ariosophy within Ynglism. The scholars Alexey V. Gaidukov and Kaarina Aitamurto described Ynglism as a movement focused on esotericism, with an authoritative leading hierarchy and a well-defined doctrine and liturgy.In the 1990s Khinevich had in all likelihood an acquaintance with Viktor Bezverkhy, the founder and major ideologist of Peterburgian Vedism. Khinevich would have been granted the title of "honorary Wend" by the Union of Wends, the Rodnover organisation founded by Bezverkhy in 1990. Although there was not a full-fledged cooperation with the Peterburgian Vedists, and they never accepted the Slavo-Aryan Vedas of Ynglism, Khinevich reportedly took inspiration from Peterburgian Vedism and reprinted many materials of the Union of Wends. In the 2000s, Nikolay Viktorovich Levashov, after having elaborated his own teachings widely based upon Ynglism, established another organised Rodnover current, Levashovism, which recognises the Slavo-Aryan Vedas as its fundamental sources.
The scholar Polina P. Kocheganova noted that the "cosmic religion" proposed by Ynglism may be regarded as a "modernist" approach to Rodnovery, different from other currents which represent a "traditionalist" approach. Similarly, Gaidukov defined Ynglism as an eclectic or "polysyncratic" form of Rodnovery. For its characteristics, Ynglism is not regarded as genuine Rodnovery by some other Rodnover groups; in 2009, two of the largest Russian Rodnover organisations, the Union of Slavic Native Belief Communities and the Circle of Pagan Tradition, issued a joint statement against Ynglism, Levashovism, and the doctrines of other authors, deeming them "pseudo-Pagan teachings, pseudo-linguistics, pseudo-science and outright speculation." Kocheganova observed that, however, also the teachings of those Rodnover groups which criticised Ynglism are based on hypotheses about ancient Slavic religion.
Writings and authors
The central holy writings of the Ynglist movement are the Slavo-Aryan Vedas, purportedly ancient texts allegedly passed down generation by generation in Western Siberia, whose most ancient parts would be tens of thousands of years old. They were allegedly originally written on santy, tablets made of noble metals, which would now be kept in a secret location by the high priests of Ynglism and would contain texts composed of 186,000 "Slavic Aryan runes", first transliterated into Cyrillic script and printed on paper in 1944. Four hundred Dacian golden copies of the original Siberian tablets are claimed to have been discovered in 1875 at the Sinaia Monastery in the Bucegi Mountains, Romania, and handed over to the king Carol I of Romania, of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen family, who ordered to recopy them in lead before melting most of the golden ones to replenish the royal treasury; known as the "Dacian Santies", they would be preserved in various private vaults and museums of Romania. The Vedas were effectively published by Aleksandr Khinevich since the mid 1990s, and were preceded in 1992 by the book Ynglism, Short Course in which Khinevich put forward the core of his doctrine. The Ynglists claim that the Scandinavian Eddas are a western European Latinised version of their ancient Vedas.The first Veda comprises the Book of the Wisdom of Perun and the Saga ob Inglingakh, a Russian version of the Old Norse Ynglinga saga. The second Veda comprises the Book of Light and the first part of the Word of Wisdom of the Wise Velimudra. The third Veda comprises the Ynglism, the Ancient Faith of Slavic and Aryan Folks and the second part of the Word of Wisdom. The fourth and last Veda of Ynglism contains the Source of Life and the White Way. A fifth book, though not part of the canonical Vedas, is Slavic Worldview, Confirmation of the Book of Light. After they were published by Khinevich, the Ynglist Vedas were sold in many thousands of copies. According to Golovneva, such popularity of the books proves that they are "far from being marginal", as they represent "the basis for a certain kind of popular knowledge of ancient history".
Besides their Vedas, the Ynglists also rely upon the Book of Veles, and also upon various Gnostic scriptures, including the Secret Gospel of John and the New Testament of the Holy Apostle Thomas discovered in 1945. Apart from Aleksandr Khinevich, another important Russian author of Ynglist literature is Aleksey V. Trekhlebov, one of the earliest and closest disciples of the former. Trekhlebov came from the study of Indian religions, and he is a yogi; he claimed to have received initiation in Nepal from a high lama, who advised him to seek the truth in his own native traditions. He has dedicated his life to the "spiritual and moral education of the Slavs, the spiritual revival of the Russians towards mental health and enlightenment"; for this purpose, he has written various Ynglist books, including The Blasphemers of Finist the Bright Falcon. In Ukraine, a notable spreader of Ynglist ideas was Volodymyr Kurovskyi, who contributed to the making of the documentary Igra Bogov.
Beliefs
According to the Ynglists, their beliefs represent the original religion of the Aryan race, which was preserved in the purest and most detailed forms by the Slavs and the Iranians, while the Indo-Aryans who migrated into the Indian subcontinent mixed with native Indians and corrupted the original Vedic doctrines. According to the prolific Ynglist writer Aleksey Trekhlebov, one of the closest disciples of Aleksandr Khinevich, the Slavic tradition offers three postulates for knowing truth: word, vision and experience. It is therefore open to a certain degree of personal gnosiology: in estimating the validity of a given truth a person should listen the opinion of his spiritual teacher, read what the Slavo-Aryan Vedas say about it, and ponder whether it seems reasonable in the light of his own experience.The scholar Victor Shnirelman observed that the Ynglist doctrine owes much to Slavic, Germanic, Iranian and Indian sources, but integrates gods and concepts from other cultures as well. For instance, Ynglist beliefs include the idea of reincarnation matching that of Hinduism, and the idea of a struggle between good and evil forces matching that of Zoroastrianism. The scholar Robert A. Saunders described Ynglist doctrine as influenced by late nineteenth and early twentieth-century German Ariosophy. The Ynglists themselves believe that their doctrine systematises ideas already contained in the original "Russian spiritual culture", and that it would be the way for saving mankind from degeneration.