Ynglism
Ynglism, institutionally the Ancient Russian Ynglist Church of the Orthodox Old Believers–Ynglings is a direction of Rodnovery formally established in the early 1990s by Aleksandr Khinevich from Omsk, in Siberia, Russia. The movement was already in existence in unorganised forms since the 1980s. Members call themselves simply "Orthodox Old Believers", "Ynglings" or "Ynglists". The church is described by the scholar Kaarina Aitamurto as having a well-defined doctrine, an authoritative leadership, and focusing on esoteric teachings.
Ynglists regard themselves as preserving the true, orthodox, religious tradition of the Russians and of all Slavs. Other Rodnover groups in Russia are strongly critical of Ynglism; during one international veche of Rodnover organisations it was even declared a false religion. In the early 2000s the church faced judicial prosecutions for ethnic hatred, and volkhv Khinevich himself was imprisoned from 2009 to 2011. The holy writings of Ynglism are the four Slavo-Aryan Vedas.
Etymology and definition
The term "Ynglism" refers to the Ynglings, the oldest royal kins of Scandinavia, whom the Ynglists believe to have originated from the Omsk region of Russia. To the Ynglists, the term has cosmological significance, referring to the order of the universe emanated by the supreme God. 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 and refers to the right way of living in accordance with the order of the universe. The term was appropriated by the Christian Eastern Orthodox Church 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 loanword Ortodoksalnost.
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" it itself referred to indigenous Slavic religion. According to the Ynglist Church, these theories would be proven by 13th-century documents preserved by a sect of the Christian Old Believers.
In his teachings, Aleksandr Khinevich, the father of Ynglism who is known among his followers as Pater Diy, does not qualify Ynglism either as a "paganism" or as a "religion". The scholar Elena Golovneva says that it is accurate to classify Ynglism a "new religious movement", or an "invented tradition", and nevertheless its contents are derived from very old sources.
Beliefs
According to the Ynglists, their religion represents the original religion of the Indo-Europeans or Aryans, 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 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.Theology and cosmology
The scholar Victor Shnirelman describes Ynglist theology as esoteric, and, by the words of volkhv Aleksandr Khinevich himself, as "neither monotheistic nor polytheistic" as were the beliefs of the "early ancestors"—the earliest Indo-Europeans, whom Khinevich identifies as the Slavic Aryans. According to Shnirelman, Ynglist theology owes much to Slavic, Germanic, Iranian and Indian sources, but integrates gods and concepts from other cultures as well. The idea of reincarnation matching that of Hinduism, and the idea of a struggle between good and evil forces matching that of Zoroastrianism, are both incorporated within Ynglism. The scholar Robert A. Saunders describes Ynglism as influenced by late nineteenth and early twentieth-century German Ariosophy. All deities are regarded as the manifestations of a supreme universal God, so that Ynglist theology may be defined as monistic. Ynglist sources define Ynglism, and Slavic religion overall, as a "rodotheism", that is to say "worship of the gods of the kins", that links back to the supreme God of the universe, which is the universe's supreme ancestor.Ynglists believe that all these ideas fit the original "Russian spiritual culture" which may rescue people from corruption. Much like other esoteric sciences, they are ambivalent towards Christianity, recognising Jesus as an important prophet while accusing Christian churches to have distorted his original message, which would be preserved in apocryphal literature. The journal Zhiva-Astra issued by the Ynglist Church has published Gnostic scriptures that are popular among Russian nationalists. Ynglists say that early Slavic volkhvs were aware of the concepts of a supreme God and of the trinity, which were later borrowed by Christian organisations. Like other Rodnover groups, Ynglists consider Christianity as an anti-national international machination aimed at the enslavement of people, chiefly Russians.
The highest God and its order
According to Ynglism, "Yngly" is the structural order of the universe and of all phenomena, characterised as a fiery radiance emanated by the supreme God, called "Ramha" in the Ynglist usage. Ramha is absolute, unknowable, unfathomable, and yet manifest in the gods generating of all phenomena in accordance with the supreme order, Yngly. This last is personified as the intelligence of God, keeper of the source of the fire of the universe, and is the model of the earliest progenitor of humanity. Yngly is represented by the swastika symbol, which Ynglists call the "image of Yngly", the first written symbol of humanity.Besides the similarity of the names of the Ynglist Ramha and the Indian Rama, it is worthwhile to note that Ramha is identified with the ancient Egyptian concept of Ra central to the other Russian Native Faith practice Vseyasvetnaya gramota.
A hymn to Ramha declaims:
A hymn to Yngly declaims:
The gods of nature
Primary concepts are the already described absolute God and the matrix into which its gods incarnate—the Earth, characterised as Midgard in Scandinavian terminology. A third important concept is Rod, who is the archetype of humanity, progenitor of all ancestors. Gods are described as immutable, informational personal laws who harmoniously engender the different forms of life in the universe and support them in their course. They are all in accordance with the order begotten by the supreme God, but at the same time they may exceptionally intervene in the course of phenomena helping people's spiritual evolution along the right path, if people are motivated by sincere creativity and love. An Ynglist dictum is that "the gods are our fathers, and we are their children".Ynglists distinguish three classes of gods: "Gods-Protectors" are those patronising the celestial bodies, the stars and planets, the Earth, the Moon as well as the "Rods", the progenitors of human lineages ; "Gods-Governors" are those who control various elements, desires, the measured flows of life on Earth; "Gods-Guardians" are those who ward various locations on Earth, such as arable lands, forests and the countries of the Aryans. The most important gods from these categories are the "Highest Gods" : the "Rod-Forefather", Vyshen, Svarog, Perun, Ramkhat, Matushka, Veles, god-generatrix Mokosh, Chislobog, Dazhbog, Zhiva, god-generatrix Rozhana, Simargl, Kupala, Svetovid, Indra and Kryshen.
"Rod-Forefather" is the archetype of all the progenitors of the lineages, and is described as one and the same with Ramha, through Yngly. He is without image, like Ramha, but Ynglists worship him through the three-runes symbol of Ramha. His protection flows through Prav, Yav and Nav, the three worlds of traditional Slavic cosmology.
A hymn to Rod-Forefather declaims:
Prav, Yav, Nav, and Slav
According to Ynglist cosmology, reality consists of the three dimensions recognised by common Rodnover cosmology, Prav, Yav and Nav ; Ynglists, however, distinguish a fourth concept defining a part of Nav, Slav. Prav is the plane of the gods, who follow the right law of Ramha; Yav is the plane of matter in which all phenomena are incarnated; Nav is the world of spirit/movement, which can be Bright Nav or Dark Nav. Bright Nav, otherwise called Slav, is the dimension of ancestors, while Dark Nav is the dimension of chthonic demons. In the cosmological scheme, the Bright Nav is above while the Dark Nav is below, and the Yav is the boundary in-between the two and may develop according to the model of both. Also, Prav is purely mental, while Nav is astral, and Nav is physical.Ethics—the Nine Great Warps
The "Nine Great Warps" constitute the ethical code of Ynglism which guides the "weft" of the destiny of the Aryans and their descendants towards perfection. Only Aryans are considered to be the offspring of the gods of the Bright Nav, while non-Aryans are considered the offspring of chthonic demons. The union of whites and blacks is held to produce wicked mixlings, the "grey race"; Abrahamic religions and the masses they persuade are believed to be essentially of a grey nature.The Warps are: 1. dedication, towards the study of holy writings, traditions and ancestral wisdom, and to the worship of the gods; 2. spirituality, that is to say engagement in understanding and developing one's spiritual side; 3. compassion, for all living things created by God; 4. penitence, for upkeeping the harmony of body and spirit which grants peace; 5. tolerance, for the freedom of others which nevertheless may not go against the right laws of God; 6. friendship, towards other human lineages but not towards wicked people who go against the right laws of God; 7. love, towards all living things created by God and reflected among humans as the worship of ancestors; 8. testing, to be gone through in order to develop spiritual virtue; 9. integration, that is to say the search for and upkeeping of the meaning and purpose that everything has within its own context.
Views on history
Ynglists believe that "Yngling", a name that identifies the earliest royal dynasties of Scandinavia, means "offspring of Yngly", and that the historical Ynglings migrated to Scandinavia from the region of Omsk, which was a spiritual centre of the early Indo-Europeans. They hold that the Saga ob Ynglingakh, their Russian version of the Scandinavian Ynglinga saga, proves their ideas about the origins of the Ynglings in Omsk, and that the Scandinavian Eddas are ultimately a more recent, western European and Latinised version of their own sacred books, the Slavo-Aryan Vedas.Ynglism presents itself as the true spirituality of the Indo-Europeans or Aryans, a term which means "harmonious men", those who act in accordance with the laws of God and therefore manifest bright white features. The first Aryans were spiritually influenced by the northern celestial pole and the circumpolar stars, especially the Great Bear and the Little Bear, and the Big Dipper and Little Dipper astral images; these constellations, spinning around the pole, draw the changing image of Yngly in the four phases of the day and the year. The first Aryans dwelt at the geographic North Pole, whence they are known in Greek sources by the name "Hyperboreans". After leaving their original homeland they mostly settled in what is today Russia and broader Eurasia, where the richest occurrences of hooked cross symbolism in historical testimonies have been found, in patterns of architecture, weaponry, and tools of everyday life. Ynglism would be the means to regather the Aryans and reconnect them to their progenitors, reawakening their pristine way to perceive the world.
The area that Aryans settled once they left the pole was that which in Russian folklore is known as Belovodye, which Ynglists locate in Siberia and identify as the same as the Tibetan concept Shambhala, the Scandinavian Asgard, and the land of the Rigvedic rivers: they identify the rivers as the Yenisei and Angara, the Lena, the Irtysh and Ob, and ultimately the Ishim and the Tobol. Architectures were built according to the pattern of Alatyr, which is the same as the image of Yngly, which endows human consciousness with virtue. Omsk was the location of the capital, "Asgard the Great", of the Aryan spiritual civilisation which the Ynglists also call "Arctida", and it is the place where the salvation of all humanity begins. In Okunevo, in the same region of Omsk, was located an important religious centre, a temple.
Ethics, society and health
Family and politics
The Ynglist Church is concerned with the health of the Russians, and other Slavic peoples, and of the family as any folk's fundamental unit. They emphasise that men are innately disposed towards "public" life, while women fulfil themselves in the "private" life of the family at home. Kaarina Aitamurto describes the church as strongly patriarchal; the social model that Ynglism proposes is the traditional hierarchy of the family, headed by male elders. The veche of the church itself is conceived as the gathering of these elders, the fathers. According to Ynglist beliefs, women are "so tied to their natural task of reproduction" that they may not reach the same intellectual and spiritual achievements of men, who are naturally more prone to the abstract thinking that is needed for political assignments.Ynglism is critical of modern Western liberal democracy, and espouses instead an ideal of democracy that is more similar to ancient Greek democracy. According to the Ynglists, universal suffrage leads to unwise decisions and ultimately to the disruption of society, because the majority of people are not wise. In their view, modern liberal democracies are dictatorships of the "biggest minorities", whereas ancient Slavic veche and mir were based on "consensual decision-making". Ynglists propose the traditional Slavic principle of samoderzhavie, meaning "people ruling themselves", which according to them is the highest "true will of the people" which comes to be incarnated and exercised by a wise ruler.
Education and "beneficial offspring"
According to the church, the demographic decline of contemporary Russia has to be studied as a crisis of the psycho-physical heritage transmitted by Russian parents to their children, and of the environment where these children grow up. Within the Ynglist Church, miscegenation is considered as unhealthy, and they also condemn perverted sexuality and the consumption of alcohol and drugs as threats imported from the degenerated West. As a solution, Ynglists emphasise the theme of "creating beneficial descendants".In a broader metaphysical discourse, all forces of globalisation coming from the West are perceived as alien models that infiltrate and spoil the spirit of Slavic culture. An excerpt from the Slavo-Aryan Vedas declaims:
Ynglist doctrines emphasise a "healthy way of life", which includes eating natural and pure food, being responsible and sober, but also ideas based on theories of human biology and genetics which are "far from academic perceptions". For instance, the Ynglists firmly condemn sex out of wedlock, as they believe that it, as all other "unnatural" ways of life, shortens the lifespan, and they espouse the theory of telegony, that is to say the idea that a woman is genetically shaped by the men with whom she has sexual intercourse, and her offspring would inherit genetic characteristics of all her bedmates. By the words of Aleksandr Khinevich:
Writings
The central holy writings of the Ynglist movement are the Slavo-Aryan Vedas, purportedly ancient texts, allegedly passed down generation by generation in Siberia. They were allegedly originally written on sheets of precious metal, which would be now kept in a secret location by the high priests of Ynglism. Bad translations of the books, misinterpreted through the lens of Western science fiction, have circulated through the Internet. The Ynglists claim the Scandinavian Eddas to be a western European Latinised version of their ancient Vedas. Besides their Vedas, the Ynglists also rely upon the Book of Veles, and various Gnostic scriptures, including the Secret Gospel of John and the New Testament of the Holy Apostle Thomas discovered in 1945.The first Veda comprises the Book of the Wisdom of Perun and the Saga ob Ynglingakh, a Russian version of the Scandinavian Ynglinga saga. The second Veda comprises the Book of Light and the first part of the Word of the 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 the 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. According to Golovneva, the Ynglist Vedas are "far from being marginal, as several hundred thousand copies are published, thus representing the basis for a certain kind of popular knowledge of ancient history".
Practices
The spiritual academy of the Ynglist Church teaches their version of the Vedas, "Aryan mathematics" and ancient grammar, and health techniques. They also use a system of "Slavic runes" in which the original tablets of the Slavo-Aryan Vedas are written. The church is known for its intensive proselytism, carried out through a "massive selling" of books, journals and other media. Ynglists organise yearly gatherings in summer.Yujism
Yujism, also spelled "yudzhism" or "eujism", is the theory, learning and practice of the right vision of reality, characteristic of and taught by the "earliest ancestors" with whom the Ynglists identify. The basic requirement for yujism is the ability of figurative thought; according to Ynglists, images convey much more informations than either sounds or gestures, whence their emphasis on runes, which immediately set in motion images in the mind. The goal of yujism is the understanding of reality as a process which reveals itself as consciousness.The first rune, the aforementioned "image of Yngly" which is the swastika symbol, is conceived as well as the representation of yuj or yudzh itself, which Ynglist sources themselves equate with Indian yoga. Yuj is the expansion of human consciousness that is triggered by becoming aware of Yngly in reality. Such consciousness articulates into two opposite actions, a positive and a negative one respectively called Ha–Tha and represented by two beams of the swastika. Ynglists claim that they are the ancient Slavic name of the same concept that is known in Chinese thought and language as yin–yang.
The worldview that results from the practice of yujism is symbolised by Ynglists as an image of a "flat earth sustained by three elephants sustained by a turtle which swims in an unlimited ocean": the flat earth represents the twofold structure of perception ; the three elephants are symbols of the three dimensions of reality—Yav, Nav and Prav—material, ideal and mystical, which are also three forms of life; the turtle is yuj itself, awakened consciousness, which draws information from the ocean, which represents infinite energy.
Calendar
Structure of the year
Ynglism has a different structure of time distinguishing it from mainstream Rodnovery. According to Ynglist teachings, the structure of the year is itself a phenomenon reflecting the order of the supreme God, his action which is Yngly. Each month's name may also be written as a compound of two Ynglist runes. Ynglists claim that original Slavic months are nine, instead of twelve, and each month comprises forty or forty-one days. The first rune is either Ay, Bey, Gey, Day, E, Vey, Xey / Khey, or Tay, reflecting basic sounds in Indo-European tongues and representing the character of the given month. The second rune in the names is always the rune Let, which means "year" as well as "summer", as months are phases of the year which comes to full maturity in summer. The only exception to this rule is the first month whose name is "Ramhat", a term which refers to the beginning of Ramha's ordering action, Yngly, represented by the swastika-like first rune.| Name | Runic sign | Meaning | Corresponding Latinate month |
| Ramhat / Ramkhat Рамхатъ | Represents the principle of divinity; Ramha/Ramkha who creates and approves a new year cycle. Another symbol of this month is a hooked cross, which is the symbol of "Yngly" itself. | September–October | |
| Aylet Айлетъ | Aylet is the month of new gifts. The rune Ay means prosperity, full baskets. It is the propitious tide for weddings, for beginning building new things, and for harvests. | November | |
| Beylet Бэйлетъ | Beylet is the month of white light and peace, representing the pure radiance of divinity, glory and the rest of the soul. | December | |
| Geylet Гэйлетъ | Geylet is the month of blizzards and fierce and severe cold. | January–February | |
| Daylet Дайлетъ | Daylet is the month of the rebirth of nature; plants and animals awaken and are strengthened. | March | |
| Elet Элетъ | Elet is the month of sowing, this being the foremost meaning of the rune E. It is the sowing not only of seeds in the ground, but also of the word in people; it is therefore the month of naming and renaming of persons, for them to be born again. | April | |
| Veylet Вэйлетъ | Veylet is the month of winds. The rune Vey is an image of flying, and of blowing wind. This month is sacred to Stribog. | May–June | |
| Xeylet Хейлетъ | Xeylet, or spelled "Kheylet", is the month of the receipt of the gifts of nature. The rune Xey is an image of positive force. What was sown in Elet and grew throughout Veylet, is finally harvested in Xeylet. | July | |
| Taylet Тайлетъ | Taylet is the month of completion of the year, of divine creation, of full summer. The rune Tay means the top, the limit, the end of something. | August |
Holidays
Ynglism respects eight holidays throughout the year. They are arranged in a "year's wheel" and they correspond to the eight major deities of nature. Holidays are called "thresholds" and they mark the beginning of various phases of the year. There are also overarching phases: the phase between the holidays of Koliada and Kupalo is that of the blossoming of males, while the phase between Lelia and Mokosh that of the blossoming of females. The threshold of Perun marks a period of quiescence of forces, while the subsequent Mara is a phase that is unfavourable for both sexes. Each holiday and the period that it begins has appropriate, different ritual actions to be carried out; Ynglists believe that if one behaves incorrectly, his life cycle is disrupted, he becomes unhealthy and quickly grows old.| Festival | Meaning | Period |
| Koliada | Winter solstice. This is the threshold that marks the beginning of the spiral of the new year; forces are ready for their expansion in new creations. Men are instructed by ancestors on how to project the new year. | December |
| Veles | Veles is the god of the underworld and of wild nature, from which new growth may develop. The Veles threshold marks the period in which man thinks how to interact with natural laws and resources in order to bring his projects to completion. | February |
| Lelia | Spring equinox. The Lelia threshold is moment when the male transmits his power to the female, and symbolises impregnation, in which their power is perfectly balanced. In this phase projects are sown into matter. | March–April |
| Yarilo | The Yarilo threshold marks the phase when powers sprout. In nature, everything starts its growth and things mate with one another. In this time for merrymaking and feasts, and is a period of great creativity. | May–mid June |
| Kupalo | Summer solstice. This is the threshold when forces reach their utmost strength, and marks the phase when it is more likely for healthy children to be born. | Mid June–July |
| Perun | It is the threshold that marks the full maturity of males. On the day of Perun men show their skills with weapons and in crafts. At the same time it marks the start of the decline of youth, while women are in bloom. | August |
| Mokosh | Fall equinox. Mokosh is the goddess of fate. This threshold marks a phase of introspection, as the year is coming to its end. Men examine their actions carried out during the outgoing year, in order to be transformed for the forthcoming year. The day of Mokosh is celebrated with a ritual consisting in taking a handful of earth, reckoning an action, and giving it back to the Earth. | September–October |
| Mara | This threshold marks the death of the Sun and the triumph of the chthonic goddess Marzanna, the primordial mother. However, things die only in body, while thought continues to work and concentrates to be reborn in the new year. This makes this phase propitious for study and understanding spiritual truths. | November |
Demographics and controversies
Elena Golovneva describes Ynglism as having communities throughout all Russia. The communities' activities are financed by parishioners' contributions and two commercial organisations, "Asgard" and "Iriy", involved in building and consulting. In Golovneva's studies, Ynglists in Omsk were found to be mostly teenagers and young people, under-granduate and post-graduate students, "modern people with a great reverence for the spirituality of the past". An adherent of Ynglism said that the movement's doctrines are attractive for "a full cross-section of society", from "immature youth to bureaucrats, businessmen and military personnel", and that these people find "normal, harmonious mutual relationships" in the movement. Ynglism is not recognised as a legitimate branch of Rodnovery by mainstream Rodnover groups. In 2009, two of the largest Russian Rodnover organisations issued a joint statement against Ynglism, disapproving what they considered as Ynglists' "pseudo-Pagan teachings, pseudo-linguistics, pseudo-science and outright fiction".Links with political parties
Kaarina Aitamurto characterises the Ynglist Church as less politically goal-oriented than other Rodnover movements. By contrast, the Russian scholar of religion Vladimir B. Yashin of the Department of Theology and World Cultures of Omsk State University wrote in 2001 that the church had close ties with the regional branch of the far-right party Russian National Unity of Alexander Barkashov, whose members provide security and order during the mass gatherings of the Ynglists.Judicial prosecutions and international spread
The headquarters of the Ynglist Church were prosecuted and liquidated by law between 2002 and 2004, primarily because of its use of swastika-like religious symbolism and because of its teachings about the unhealthiness of interracial mixing. Aleksandr Khivevich himself was prosecuted on 11 June 2009 at the International Court of Justice of Omsk, which found him guilty of inciting racial hatred under the article 282 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and sentenced him to one year and a half of prison with two years of probation.Despite the prosecutions, the church continued its activities and mass celebrations as an unregistered religious movement, expanding to other regions of Russia and abroad, and Aleksandr Khinevich resumed large-scale preaching activities in 2011. The scholar Vladimir Yashin reports that it was impossible to uproot the church from public life, since in 2001 there were already about three thousand Ynglists in Omsk alone.
According to Yashin, Ynglism has come out strengthened from the prosecutions, turning into a decentralised phenomenon, so that as of 2015 it is more correct to describe it as a movement of dozens of organisations spread between the regions of Chelyabinsk, Krasnodar, Tyumen, Moscow, but also Ukraine, Germany and the Czech Republic. Ynglism, together with mainstream Rodnovery, has gathered many adherents in the North Caucasus regions, according to Yashin as a Slavic-identity counterweight against Islam. In 2015 it was the turn of the Slavo-Aryan Vedas, the sacred writings of Ynglism, to be condemned as "extremist literature" in Omsk. In the same year, Ynglist communities based in Stavropol were prosecuted on the charge of extremism.