In a broad sense, the Vedic and pagan culture of the Russian people is the essence of Russian folk culture, which is fundamentally united with the culture of all Slavic peoples. These are Russian historical traditions, life, language, oral folk art (legends, epics, songs, fairy tales, fairy tales, and so on), ancient written monuments with all the knowledge contained in them, Slavic wisdom (philosophy), ancient and modern folk art, the totality of all ancient and modern religious teachings.
The same can be said about the culture of any other people, for Vedic and pagan culture is the basis of culture as such, the source of any field of knowledge, all faiths, including doctrines that deny the existence of the spiritual world.
The ideological basis of folk culture is the idea of the community of spirit of people speaking the same language, an understanding of the unity of goals of the people (its self-preservation, saving and increasing spiritual and material wealth, and so on). Regardless of worldview, faith or irreligion, everyone who considers themselves a member of a given people and connects their destiny with it agrees with these goals.
In a narrow sense, Vedic and pagan culture are the essence of folk religious culture. The general ideological basis of this culture is the belief in the existence of a spiritual world and intelligence in the surrounding nature. This belief is supported by both spiritual practice and Vedic theology.
The ideological basis of the main Russian Vedic religious culture is Russian Vedism, or pra-Vedism, a righteous faith that preceded the Vedism of India and Iran. This is an ancient monotheistic doctrine, that is, faith in the existence of the Almighty, spiritual knowledge that has come down to us in the form of folk Orthodox traditions (the faith of Russian people was called Orthodoxy even before the baptism of Rus'), as well as in the form of oral traditions and sacred texts.
Unlike Vedism, paganism (including Russian) cannot have a single ideological basis. Most often, paganism is understood as the belief in the existence of many gods and the denial of the existence of the Almighty (polytheism).
Paganism is also called pantheism, that is, the veneration and spiritualization of Nature while denying the God of the Family. In ancient times, paganism was also understood as belief in foreign gods, or veneration of demigods, denial of religion as such (atheism). In the Christian era, paganism was the name given to any non-Christian faith.
The interpretation of paganism as a folk faith (from “tongues” - peoples) is now widespread, which leads to many misunderstandings. Because then it turns out that, for example, Christianity is not a folk faith, but this is not so. In addition, everything from atheism to Vedism is called by one name. Therefore, we reject this interpretation of “paganism” and contrast Russian Vedism, an ancient monotheistic faith, with paganism (polytheism, pantheism, atheism).
This does not mean that all Russian paganism, understood as a set of folk non-Christian beliefs and superstitions, does not represent spiritual value. In Russian paganism one can find many precious fragments of the ancient Russian Vedic faith - collected together, they represent the Russian Vedic faith in its entirety. Therefore, following the usual usage, here sometimes the Russian Vedic tradition will also be called paganism (based on the fact that it includes the Vedic faith).
However, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that in modern and ancient paganism is the legacy of heresies of all times, and even anti-Christianity, reaching Satanism in all its forms. You must always understand what kind of paganism we are talking about: culture, tradition, or lack of culture, madness. It should be remembered that there are no number of paths leading into darkness.
Russian Vedism should also be distinguished from other faiths of Vedic roots: all varieties of Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and others, for Russian Vedism is the essence of the Russian national variety of the Vedic faith. Accordingly, Russian Vedic culture is the Russian national variety of Vedic culture. Russian Vedism is international in content as much as the Vedic faith itself is international, and national in image, language and origin.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru