Концепция «волн» в контексте истории русского неоязычества: опыт классификации

Abstract

The article proposes a view of the history of Russian neopaganism as a gradual emergence and coexistence of three waves of movement. Each of them has its own characteristics in ideology and political, activist and religious practice. The first wave of neopaganism was represented by such publicists as A. M. Ivanov, V. N. Emelyanov and A. A. Dobrovolsky and laid the foundations of the worldview, as well as formulated the major claims against Christianity and Judaism. These claims, formulated in the form of anti-Semitic and anti-Christian conspiracy narrative, considered by the author as an element of the “scapegoat mechanism” described by the anthropologist R. Girard. Two other fundamental elements of the worldview were ethnic primordialism and esoteric religiosity. The second wave was represented by the leaders of religious groups and popular writers such as I. G. Cherkasov, N. N. Speransky, L. R. Prozorov, A. Yu. Khinevich and focused on the “invention of tradition” (in the terminology of the historian E. Hobsbawm). Within this wave, two trends can be distinguished — traditionalist and modernist. The trends differ from each other in their approach to the invention of tradition. The third wave was associated with youth right-wing extremism and originated among former neo-Nazi skinheads, such as members of the Combat Terrorist Organization D. A. Borovikov and A. M. Voevodin. Ideologically, it had continuity from the first wave, but was more radical in practice. Representatives of this wave tended to be critical of their own nation, which does not follow the young right-wing radicals in their uprising against the Zionist Occupation Government (ZOG).