The pitfalls of inverted Utopias: Notes on The Concept of the Left by Leszek Kolakowski Part 3

(Notes: More than most of what I post, this should probably be read in order. The first section is here, and the second section is here.)

It is not negation that is sole goal of an “left” Utopian vision.   As Kolakowski states, “But the act of negation does not in itself define the Left, for there are movements with retrogressive goals. Hitlerism was a negation of the Weimar Republic, but this does not make it leftist” (146). The fact that this has to be continually restated through history is telling: Not all negations with the current are progressive.  Indeed, it is not only the left that is Utopian, but also the right and the center. The right can posit it’s reinvigorated mythic pasts, and the liberal can project its current administrative Endstaat against all classes without dissolving them.

Kolakowski makes it clear: “Thus the Left is defined by its negation, but not only by this: it is also defined by the direction of this negation, in fact, by the nature of its utopia” (146).  For the left it is not just the negation of the present, but an inclusion of all excluded in the present in that negation.  Let me speak in plain terms, to paraphrase Orwell, everyone lives in a decent world, or we all don’t.  That is one of the first axioms built into any left-oriented Utopian negation.   This is a goal: it is not a split between means and ends, but it is both a mean and an end.  If the goal of Utopia is dropped for political expediences there there is a regression.  This is not to say that some concessions to history reality or political necessary can’t be made, but they must be made in a explicit context.  This becomes clear in the way Kolakowski defines “by Utopia I mean a state of social consciousness, a mental counterpart to the social movement striving for radical change in the world–a counter itself inadequate to these changes and merely reflecting them in an idealized and obscure form” (146).  Now there is a lot to unpack in this, particularly in light of Kolakowski’s claim that while he remained something akin to a Democratic Socialist that Marxism was eschatology, a claim that seems to be a self-diagnosis more than anything. Yet this vision of utopia isn’t eschatology, its just orientation. To be able to fight for a negation in a positive sense, one have some notion, however ill-defined, of some of a positive outcome, or of, at minimum, what is absolutely unacceptable in the current. Kolakowski states “Utopia is, therefore, a mysterious consciousness of an actual historical tendency” (147), one can see a tension between spiritual language and historical materialism synthesized. In fact, the mere utopia is a problematic for Kolakowski “[a]s long as this tendency lives only a clandestine existence, without finding expression in mass social movements, it gives birth to utopias in the narrower sense, that is, as it should be. But in time utopia become social consciousness; it invades the consciousness of a mass movement and becomes one of its essential driving forces” (147).  The individual utopia is a waste of time, but so is the inarticulate one.  Yet Kalokowski notes that this is always a source of thought even if backed by the power of social movements.  In fact it is unable to manifest in its first utterances or even its first attempts at consciousness in the collective sense.  Yet without this dream nothing is possible: without Utopian socialism for the scientifically and Hegelian-minded Marx to critique, there can be no possibly existing negation of the world.  As Kolakowski notes later, “The existence of a utopia as a utopia is the necesssary prerequisite for its eventually ceasing to be a utopia” (148).  Without a demand for what is impossible in the current, we are limited to historical conditions.  If we limit our goals to the means: a party of labor, a general strike, a third party, or even a revolution.. we have become fundamentally confused.  But as Kolakowski says “utopia is a tool of action upon reality and of planning social activity”–it breaks the dialectical opposition between means and ends.    When we renounce our first axioms–our utopias–we have lost.

Then Kolakowski reminds us that the left is relative position, not an absolute one.  ”the Left is relative-one is leftist only in comparison with something” (147). Even counter-revolutionaries have a relative left to their being, one that favors the more utopian end of the counter-revolutionary goal.  This can make inverted Utopias attractive and can be the way that neo-liberals or, in darker guises and prior, fascists can siphon from any revolutionary movement easily.  Corey Robin’s has written well on this, but many an American Trotskyist dark tunnel to neo-conservatism proves the point. Stalins flirtations with the anti-comintern pact prove the point.  The CPUSA endorsement of Democrats proves the point. Furthermore, if left is always relative, then any movement–even a communist movement–does still have a meaningful left and right branch if it is progressing towards its program.

A left that is not revolutionary-even if its revolution is not violent–is not a left for long either.  Again, let’s look at Kolakowski’s words “[t]he revolutionary movement is a catch-all for all the ultimate demands made upon existing society. It is a total negation of the existing system and, therefore, also a total program. A total program is, in fact, a utopia” (148).  One can think of the seemingly vapid anarchist (or perhaps situationist) slogan: be realistic, demand the impossible.

A few points before I stop and continue this in another post. One can see that one strain of thought between say a Stalinist of the most vulgar variety and a center-liberal is the instance that historical contingency does not just limit the means, but also the goals. Also while Utopias do not arise idealistically, that is to say, outside of material conditions of the present, one is left with a sense that perhaps Kolakowski has not fully reconciled what this meant.  Our imaginations on the future must be tempered by a discipline we do not currently have and a future we cannot currently know.  Our utopias must almost always be progressive in the negative sense: we learn how to transcendent the social condition our the prevailing ideology almost entirely negatively at first.  We know we dream of impossible emancipation because we are exploited and oppressed. We may not be able to see what lack of exploitation and oppression looks like even in the mists of a successful revolutionary struggle. To forgive this is dangerous. While I doubt Kolakowski would have intended this, his implications leave us with something like Adorno’s negative dialectics of emancipation.

Marginalia on Radical Thinking: Interview with Bradley Coufal

Skepoet: I discovered your blog through Douglas Lain podcast and he described you as venturing into activism after really getting into Zizek:  What prompted that exactly?

Bradley Coufal: I had been reading Zizek for a few years before going to graduate school. At the University of New Mexico I studied with Adrian Johnston who is a student of Zizek’s. I decided to leave the university for a number of reasons but the primary one had to do with a fundamental gap between what I was studying (German Idealism into the history of the Marxist tradition) and the intuitions in which I found myself (a university system that is basically functioning as a debt creating apparatus now that mortgage based debt had busted). Not the mention the sort of contradictions I found in studying a history of thought which is said to support and benefit the working class while hiding away in classrooms. A part of me just wanted to really get out there and talk to people about these things. I may return to the university in the future but for now I’m doing other things. I still study philosophy and am constantly reading so it’s not a major change for me.

Skepoet: Has #occupy helped clarify any of your thinking in that regard?

Bradley Coufal: Clarify my thinking in what regard? Sorry, I just want to be sure I’m clear on what you’re asking.

Skepoet: Sorry for the vagueness, clarify your thinking in regards to applying your philosophical background to a particular praxis?

Bradley Coufal: I want to make clear that I am not one of those Marxists who think if we could get everyone to understand Marx then revolution would surely happen. I believe philosophy, the true philosophy, is about always attempting to antagonize in the sense of posing questions and positions which force a particular logic to confront its own contradictions and limitations. Philosophy’s most powerful function is to undermine another position on it’s own accord-by it’s own standards. I think the Marxist tradition, at least with regard to something like ideology, is about recognizing the elicit claims (of capitalism) while, at the same time, expounding the implicit symptoms of (capitalism’s) mystification and attempt to situation them so the destabilizing contradictions become more apparent. In my discussions and speeches at occupy I have taken this approach. I noticed that much of what occupiers recognize as problems are merely symptoms of a systemic problem. What I have attempted to do thus far is give some very clear arguments and lines of thought that (hopefully) bring some of this to light for others. My point of departure with many classic Marxists is that I do not think contradiction necessarily entails a dialectical movement to some greater form of freedom. I think there is now, more than ever, the possibility of, one the one hand, a contradiction being, itself, the ground for a structure of hegemony or, on the other hand, the overcoming of a contradiction instantiating something far worse in order to maintain some semblance of the former structure. I would like to note here that when I talk about people recognizing symptoms of capitalism as problems I do not mean structures of oppression or power such as race, gender, etc. I am referring strictly to those socioeconomic and political symptoms at the heart of the occupy movement (government/corporate ties in particular). Sorry if that didn’t quite answer your question. To sum it up I think the greatest thing philosophy can do is recognize a historical position as having formulated a number of answers based on some structure of thought functioning as a source of mystification and proceeding to provide the questions to those answer in a way that subverts that mystification. It’s a field whose sole purpose is to provide a reading of another field in a way that could not be given from within said field. Right now politics is in need some philosophy.

Skepoet: Do find that this produces cognitive dissonance in the people you talk to?

Bradley Coufal: I hope so.

Skepoet:  How important do you think an Althusserian concept of ideology is key to liberal reformism in Occupy?

Bradley Coufal: For liberal reform, itself, to function as a position I do not think it’s important at all. My interest in Althusser’s (and Lukacs’s) depiction of ideology is with regard to recognizing the ideological structure of the state, the dominating class, or whatever does not simply exist “out there”. With regard to occupy I am a bit torn, here. I do not think it is necessarily key that everyone understand that ideology is wrapped up with subjectivity and that it’s the air we breathe but it would surely help. On the other hand I think there is the risk of people assuming that recognizing this, in thought, is tantamount to overcoming it. Althusser even makes clear that those who assume they are outside ideology are the most ideologically trapped. For me, I think we Marxists can recognize this (Althussarian) position and act as if we are not anti-humanists in order to engage subjects to confront that which they have subjected themselves to in order to form an identity.

Skepoet:  Do you find working within a consensus framework helpful, limiting, or both?

Bradley Coufal: As far as the consensus framework I am, again, torn. It’s exciting to see all voices being engaged but, and maybe this is me being a bit of an asshole, I find a lot of the back and forth among occupiers to be a waste of time. I have heard some criticism for this attitude but I am in no way interested in some pseudo-relativist, one love sort of thing where we all agree that we all have to listen and understand each and every voice and the rest of it. I have found a great deal of people involved with Occupy Austin to be idiots and to deny my position as a possibility would be to undermine the (one love) position I just described. This is something I find interesting at times. One will make the claim that all positions are valid until someone has the position of “I do not care about your position because it’s wrong and here’s why…”. Suddenly, then, all talk about preserving all voices is ended. I want to unpack this spontaneous urge to allow the seemingly vacant position of authority to act as an authority against positions demanding a position be taken. I think Lenin was onto this same sort of thing. At some point we do have to say yes/no.

Skepoet:  Do you think banality in a lot of back and forth is because a lack of historical reference or the fact that a lot of these people are getting a voice for the first time or a bit of both?

Bradley Coufal: It’s difficult to really answer but I would assume it’s a bit of both. The banality, for me, has come from hearing people basically argue for internalized political campaign slogans and point to all sorts of symptoms of failures of capitalism while providing nothing more than reformist plans of action which assume these symptoms are the result of having improper capitalism rather than “real capitalism”. It’s exciting to hear people finally having a chance to be heard and I fully encourage it but I hope many of the occupiers will leave these GAs with more questions than answers.

Skepoet:  Do you think Occupy has severed a lot of left liberal loyalty to Obama?

Bradley Coufal: I think a lot of former Obama supporters have come to occupy because they had severed their loyalty. I was surprised to have not really met a single occupier who believed Obama, and the Democratic party for that matter, was any different than the other options. If anything can be said to be most in consensus among the GA it is the recognition that there is one party. Some still speak of excuses for why Obama didn’t do this or that but mostly I think this movement has made clear that the liberal democratic system has totally failed if we hold the expectation that representation is democratic.

Skepoet:  So what does this mean practically?

Bradley Coufal: To be honest, I don’t know.

Skepoet:   I appreciate your honesty. Do you see this as moment of re-invigoration for “the left”?   Do you think that Marxism has really made a come back as a viable principle in this. Many are arguing that the anarchists have really been more on top of things than left-liberals or the Marxists in #Occupy?

Bradley Coufal: Here’s what I can say about this from my experience. I think Marxism has had the misfortune of having been trapped in academia for a long time now. Again, this is part of my motivation to get involved in activism. Anarchists seem to, at least here in Austin, make up the majority of seasoned activists so their ability to really organize and make solid decisions does not surprise me. As far as comparing the two I see the situation as this: Anarchism, I think, comes across as a much more accessible system of thought for someone just getting involved in activism or just beginning to revolt against the status quo, even in thought, because it is a system of thought that still maintains the position that ideology, along with all institutions of power, are to be overcome. This brings up back to Lukacs and Althusser. Anarchists, at least those I have met, generally seem to see ideology as an outside force in a way that fails to really take into account some of the more psychological dimensions of it all. In this sense I think it is easier to be an anarchist than a communist because anarchism poses an outright emphasis on individuals (as Western culture already does), seems to equate a recognition of ideological structures with negating said structures, and sets up a sort of either/or with statist/antistatist positions. I realize there is so much to be unpacked here but for the sake of the interview format I am generalizing quite a bit. Nonetheless, I think anarchism has the advantage of being much a much more simplistic position which makes itself appealing to many.

Skepoet:   Do you see occupy moving forward significantly in the winter months?

Bradley Coufal: I am wondering what the winter months will bring for the occupation with regard to the weather. I have been saying for months that the occupations would probably not make it past the winter months simply because it’s going to get too cold in most part of the country to continue occupying these locations 24/7. With that being said I think it is simply the 24/7 aspect of the occupation that will end. I will be interested in seeing how solid the networking and organization has become over the past few months.There are big thing in the works such as the December 12 national port blockades. There has also been a movement across the country to occupy various meetings of institutions of power and mic check them in order to force our voice into these discussions. A great example of this happened about a week ago at the University of Texas where a group of occupiers mic checked a meeting discussing plans to raise tuition costs. It will be these sorts of acts happening on a regular basis along with strategies to infiltrate and (hopefully) attempt to slowly replace these institutions with our own organizations that will really instantiate the occupy movement as a serious political movement. I think Zizek was right when he said, with regard to occupy wallstreet, it is not simply what we are doing here while it lasts that is important but, rather, what we do the day after. We have already proven to ourselves and others that we are fully capable of coming together in a powerful way. All we need to do is continue.

Skepoet:   Do you think the battle over the narrative, which is to say an ideological battle, over the meaning of these events, is going to heat up?

Bradley Coufal: As far as an ideological battle I think these sorts of struggles will come and go. From within the occupations I am happy to see a lot of occupiers maintaining the position that developing a position which speaks for the entire group (in the sense of saying what the group wants and from whom it wants it) is not something they are interested in doing. I think maintaining some ideological fragmentation at this stage is necessarily. As a Marxist I think it is simply a matter of time before the real economic conditions make themselves more and more evident. The weekly discussions I have been involved in often lead to this sort of breaking point apropos the failures of capitalist logic v. those defending this logic (with reformist intentions) based solely on some sort of belief. In the end I do not think it will be a matter of Marxists defining the movement v. anarchists defining it. Those I have met who are at the forefront of the activities here in Austin are fully aware of the retroactive historicism that will come and we are simply trying to understand what we are doing as we do it. I will say, however, that the battle over ideological narrative will most certainly begin being fought between those involved in party politics. If anything I want to urge those involved in the occupations to resist letting this movement be taken over by Obama supporters, Obama haters, etc. We have already gotten this far without the need of these institutions and it will be unfortunate if the occupy movement becomes, for the left, what the Tea Party movement has become for the right.

Skepoet: Thank you for your time.

Bradley Coufal: Thank you for giving me the opportunity to spontaneously work through some questions.

Marginalia on Radical Thinking Series can be found here, here, here,  here,  here  here, and here. 

Now for something completely different… Amateur Religious Ethnography Botched, Or the Pagan Interviews, Part 18

Milan Petrović and I discuss Родноверие, a heathen religion virtually unheard outside of Eastern Europe.

Skepoet: What is your religious background and how did you come to it?

Milan Petrović: I’m Slavic pagan.My religion is called Rodna vera, Rodnovery, Ridna Vira, Родноверие (same term in different Slavic languages)

rod = kin, kinsfolk – this word is the root of the words like rodbina = family, next of kin, and priroda = nature, environment.  very, vera, vira = faith, religion

My people preserved a lot of its pagan, pre-Christian religion through number of folk customs and rituals and folklore. Since I was a child my mother and my grandmother told the fairy tales of my people and among them a number were actually myths of Slavic religion. As a kid, not being aware of that, I’ve searched for a path outside Abrahamic religions, e.g. reaching toward Celtic religion. While I was visiting a remote mountainous region of my country, where I took part in several old customs, it sort of clicked to me… I’ve understood why the ritual was being performed in certain order and what is symbolic meaning of objects used in the ritual. Then I’ve spent some time exploring sources on Slavic religion and recognized the legacy of my ancestors. The path of Slavic religion suited my ethical and other norms perfectly.

Skepoet: What is your academic background?

Milan Petrović: I’m an engineer, MSc

Skepoet: How do you see these interacting with each other?

Milan Petrović: They are complementing each other, thus helping understand better what I know and what I believe in.

Skepoet: To what extent of slavic pagan sources still readily available or they primarily reconstructed from folklore and local practice?

Milan Petrović: I must admit that I don’t quite understand this question.  The folklore is primary Slavic pagan source. Let me clarify this. Folklore was invariably omitted from academic studies of Slavic religion because of the bias of the academic community based on their religious affiliation (either Christian or atheist), distrust toward oral sources, lack of understanding between urban and rural and lack of field work on the part of ethnologists and historians.It was not until late XX century when folklore of the Slavic people started to be more seriously explored by some members of the academic community (unfortunately percentage is still tragically low), although some earlier attempts were quite successful (however being rather solitary cases, they did not produce follow ups). It was only then that customs and rituals of the Slavic people were first compared with and then confirmed by written sources of the early and middle medieval age and archaeological findings.

Two good examples are:

• the custom described by Saxo Grammaticus (Gesta Danorum, 14:39:5) that is still practiced in parts of Ukraine, Bulgaria and parts of Herzegovina.
• the old Slavic calendar found on the pottery in Ukraine, dated to III or IV century AD, that shows uncanny match to the Slavic folk festivities throughout the year

At the beginning of XXI century more attention was given to reexamination of folk songs. In many cases a coded myths were found. The need to code myths into folk songs was due to persecution of Slavic pagans by the Christians. It’s a mechanism of passing down oral tradition in an form easy to remember, but hard to decipher for those not familiar with the code (i.e. Christian authorities), not unknown in other European pagan religions. To be honest, in case of some folk songs a certain amount of reconstruction needs to be done, because sometimes singers of the folk songs hadn’t been properly trained to pass on the meaning of the symbols used in the folk songs.

Therefore, the question that makes distinction between “folklore and local practice” and “pagan sources” slightly confuses me. You see, there is no need to reconstruct a custom that already exists, and had existed for thousands of years without any change. And the term “local” practice applied on rituals that are performed in areas sometimes divided by thousands of kilometers made me smile. Of course, numerous customs were banned or discontinued with the advance of Christianity–more so in urban than in rural areas. Good example for that is that now Slavic people bury their dead instead of burning them.

If you are asking about written pagan sources on Slavic religion, as far as I know, none credible enough has been found so far, although there are Christian chronicles that claim such writings did exist. At this point I need to mention a huge controversy in Slavic religion called the Book of Veles. Most scholars claim it to be a forgery based on linguistic evidence; however some scholars defend its authenticity. Since the original wooden tablets were lost during WWII only translation is available for further study. Being such a controversial subject that often leads to heated debates I’ve opted out to not mention it as pagan written source.

Skepoet: I suppose I should have worded it better, I was thinking of pagan-written textual sources. 

Milan Petrović: So far, except the calendar that I’ve previously mentioned, there are none that are not controversial or disputed by scholars.

Skepoet: What are the greater challenges you see for scholarship in your tradition?

Milan Petrović: If you are thinking on financial award or aid given to a student the challenge is there is no adequate institution that deals in education that would give such an award.

If you are thinking on challenges for scholars the answer is not so simple. The problem is multifaceted (just like a number of Slavic gods). First, there is an obvious bias in academic community. Scholars of social sciences in most cases regard Slavic religion as anachronism, a surpassed relic, a primitive and barbaric set of customs and superstitions rather than religion and culture in full sense of the term. The trouble is of course lack of Slavic pagans in academic community that would represent fairly and without bias the legacy of our ancestors. The scholars that are adherents of Christianity, in most cases follow the views of religious authorities with outright hostility towards Slavic religion (infamous statement of patriarch of Russian Orthodox Church given in September 2010 to the Russian state TV channel “Россия” on Slavs before Christianization is illustrative example), while atheistic scholars in most cases deny even the very existence of Slavic mythology (statement of certain professor from Department of Ethnology and Anthropology of Belgrade University in which he, not only claims that Slavic mythology doesn’t exist, but also denounces the scholars that research it as “freaks” and “tellers of stories for children”) or regard it as backward, something that has no place in modern society. Those scholars that present their findings (based on archaeological, ethnological and other evidence) regarding Slavic religion face hostility among their peers (e.g. the recent case of Professor   Đorđe Janković, renowned archaeologist, who has been prevented  from further teaching on the University, after publishing his findings that are clear and indisputable proof that Slavic people on Balkan peninsula continued to burn their dead long after the official history claims they were converted to Christianity).

That brings us to the second problem – problem of bad science. The lack of proper scientific method among scholars of social sciences is present, thus they often express their own subjective views based on their cultural and religious background, instead of objective evaluation of evidence. Wishing to improve their careers and gain recognition of their peers many scholars choose to ignore every piece of evidence that would stir academic community or question the established theories. Another example of bad science is lack of multidisciplinary approach. The historians almost never consult archaeologists, ethnologist, etymologists, ethnomusicologists, etc. keeping their interest only in written sources, and the later scholars likewise keep their interests firmly buried deep within their respective areas of expertise. This lack of communication leads to number of hypothesis that are accepted as proper theories among academic community but cannot be applied in the field, because the model they propose is not only inaccurate it is thoroughly wrong (and often in direct conflict with the models proposed by the scholars from different sciences). There is of course the ever present cultural and pseudoscientific influence of the powerful western academic communities that often results in Slavic scholars tuning their papers to be in accord with those theories that are established in the West, though a plenty of evidence exists to show them wrong. Sad fact is that more Slavic scholars dwell on Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Abrahamic and other religions instead on the religion of their own people.

Such a bad science and misrepresentation of Slavic religion leads us to the third problem – the frustration because the lack of proper study of Slavic religion, meager number of papers on it and reluctance of majority of scholars to research pre-Christian period of Slavic people is open invitation to hordes of cranks ready to fill in the void. Starting with “fakelore”, going through wild hypothesis of Atlantis and Lemuria, down to UFO’s and aliens building pyramidal shaped mountains these cranks are firmly claiming the other side of bad science spectrum, being no better than their counterparts – proponents of “official” science.

As one can imagine, when proper study is done and scholar publishes his or hers findings that are based on material and other evidence, often using multidisciplinary approach, the said scholars finds himself or herself under of salvo of boos and nays from both crank camps (“officials” and “alternatives”), being too alternative and revolutionary for the proponents of official science and at the same time being too official and close to the academic community for the proponents of alternative science.

Finally, there is fourth problem, one that should be the only and biggest problem for scholars, but unfortunately it isn’t – the need for hard work in the field. You can’t deal with Slavic religion just using the written sources, because they are not nearly numerous nor informative enough, and being written by adherents of Abrahamic faiths they are biased and need to be viewed as such and not on their face value.

This requires from scholar to travel many thousands of kilometers; learn number of languages; visit remote rural regions where rituals and customs of Slavic religion still survive in their full continuity and in spite of Christianity and Islam; to compare folklore of different Slavic people (since not all of them saved the same pieces of Slavic religion); to study folk songs and try to decipher them; setting hypothesis based on what one knows and testing them against the customs and beliefs still practiced, written sources and material evidence provided by archaeology - a proper scientific approach. However, it’s far easier to sit in the comfort of your home and copy-paste what others wrote before you being aware that is the way for your career to advance and not to stir the water.

Skepoet: What are the relevant language skills required to start sincere study of Slavic paganism? 

Milan Petrović: Slavic languages have three branches, so in ideal case at least one language from every branch (preferably the one that is spoken by most people) would be required, i.e. Russian for East Slavic branch (this is the language in which most titles on Slavic religion are written in), Polish for West Slavic branch (language spoken by one of the most numerous populations of Slavic pagans), and Serbian for South Slavic branch (language that allows one an access to every language of central South Slavic language system and also the language in which most of the papers on Slavic religion and customs in Balkans are in, closely followed by Croatian and Bulgarian).

Of course, one rarely has the time to learn all of them, but during the course of the study it would be quite beneficial to know them, not only because of the local customs and rituals, but also because of the lack of good translations (or sadly, too often, lack of any translations) of chronicles and papers. However, all Slavic languages are quite similar one to another, and if researcher knows at least one of them he or she will have little difficulty to understand at least other languages from the same group and quite possibly the languages from other groups. I hope the speakers of other Slavic languages would forgive me for this recommendation which is based solely on practicability and personal experience of studying Slavic religion, mythology and customs of Slavic people. Perhaps some of them would make different choice based on their experience or affinities.

Skepoet: I How relevant do you find comparative religious studies for Slavic ritual and cultus?

Milan Petrović: Comparative religious studies are extremely important. They allow one to discern not only between different layers of Slavic religion (distinguishing pre-Bronze Age period myths from those of later times), but also between influences of different religions. This line of research requires a lot of exploring of other religions but it’s quite rewarding because it allows one to understand better not only Slavic religion, but also other religions as well, and other cultures and in the end the ways of human race. For instance, the myth of deity in the form of rustling wild boar coming from the sea to save the Earth (mentioned in the Chronicle of Thietmar, bishop of Merseburg ) is found both in Slavic religion and in Hinduism (Varaha, third avatar of Vishnu) showing strong connection between the two. On the other hand, rituals and customs concerning crossroads that share similarities not only with geographically close pagan religions, like Greek religion, but also with very distant religions like Mayan, show a common legacy of human race, a way humanity develops through observation of its environment. Another reason for using comparative religion is discerning between folk customs that are legacy of Slavic religion, that have thousands of years of continuity, and those that were influenced by other religions or borrowed from them. Slavic people today are predominantly Christian and atheist, with small numbers of Sunni Muslims, Judaists and Slavic pagans (rodnovers). Therefore one can’t underestimate the influence of Abrahamic religions on folklore. While some Slavic people converted fully to Christianity (keeping the folk customs separate from the religion, which is the case mostly with Roman Catholic and Protestant Slavic people) other have religion that is syncretism between Slavic religion and Christianity (which is the case with some Slavic people where Orthodox Christianity is dominant). In evaluation of customs and rituals, experiences of other non-Slavic people that also have syncretic religions is very helpful, helping to establish a model by which we can better understand the syncretisation process.

Skepoet: What are Slavic pagans general relationship to other forms of European Heathenry and Neo-paganism?

Milan Petrović: Excellent relationship between Slavic and Nordic pagans can be observed during annual Slavic and Viking festival in Wolin, Poland (this year the XVII festival was held). There is also number of adherents of Nordic religion among Slavs. In Asian parts of Russia there is some relationship with local shamans. Relations with other pagan religions are not so organised and vary between local groups of Slavic pagans (and of course vary on availability of adherents of other pagan religions). Relations with adherents of neo-pagan religions usually fall into category of personal contacts. One has to bare in mind that Slavic pagans are not so organised, with exemption of Russia, Poland and Ukraine, as their West European counterparts are. There is also linguistic barrier – Slavic people understand each other quite well and they are largest group in Europe, so they can quite easily find someone to talk to among themselves. There is some interest among Slavs for some of the neo-pagan religions, e.g. Wicca. On the other hand, pagans from West Europe often have no idea of the very existence of Slavic religion or growing number of Slavic pagans. I hope this article would lead to establishing connections between Slavic pagans and members of other pagan and neo-pagan religions and improving inter-pagan relationship.

Skepoet: Has the internet been helpful in getting knowledge about Slavic pagan religions out to be public?

Milan Petrović: As is the case with every other knowledge, Internet has been of tremendous help in disseminating knowledge about Slavic pagan religion. It’s fast and allows cheap Internet publishing to flourish, thus making it possible for number of publications and papers to see the light of day, which would be otherwise almost impossible. Internet also has important purpose serving as the connecting media of choice, through which Slavic (and other) pagans can learn and explore their (and others) religion and get in contact with other Slavic (and other) pagans. The wonder of Internet made possible for virtual communities to form, which in turn becomes real communities and groups of Slavic pagans. The solitary Slavic pagans, living abroad or in small towns or remote regions, where it’s hard to find another that shares similar beliefs are enabled to be in contact via Internet with other Slavic pagans, which might be even on another continent. This improves their quality of life significantly. I believe this process is common for every other pagan and neo-pagan religion.

Skepoet: Is there anything you’d like to say in closing?

Milan Petrović: With the trend of rise in numbers of Slavic pagans and increased visibility of Slavic pagan religion in society one should expect certain changes or at least an effort for changes among Slavic people. We should be able to observe (hopefully in near future) strengthening of environmental awareness and support for renewable energy sources and sustainable development among Slavic people (since most Slavic pagans are concerned about their environment, which is result of Slavic religion being nature oriented and earth based) and some lesser political consequences (as most Slavic pagans are at the same time panslavists, drive towards some sort of Slavic union would become somewhat stronger). It is my most sincere wish that atmosphere of religious tolerance should be achieved between Slavic pagan religion and Abrahamic faiths, and that gross images of recent years of Slavic pagan temples, shrines and holy places destroyed, burnt and desecrated by Christians would finally become thing of past. Hopefully non-pagan Slavs will understand that Slavic pagan religion is part of their ancestral legacy.
I hope this interview would inspire readers to seek out information on Slavic pagan religion and make more contacts with Slavic pagans across the world. Slava!

Religious Ethnography Series can be found here, here, here, here, here, here,  here, here, here, here,  here  here, here, here,here here, and here.