Baltic and Slavic Resources

I'm not a Slavic polytheist in any sense and I can't find any reliable sources in English, so I would be happy to be proven wrong, but I had understood Rodnovery (in particular) to be overtly xenophobic and racist (not sure about the particular website you listed, though). Doing research on it is hard because almost all of the websites I've been pointed to are in Russian, so all I've got really is Wikipedia, which says that Rodnovery in Russia is frequently xenophobic, racist, antisemitic, bigoted, and heavily nationalist, and it got the attention of the Human Rights Watch. This aside, I'd also understood that Rodnovery was largely fabricated (e.g. based heavily on the Book of Veles, which is apparently a forgery). (Wiki cites this article, among others, which is also in Cyrillic but seems to involve Neo-Nazism and an interview with Galina Krasskova.)

Again, I could be wrong, but if anyone is a better researcher than I/can find English sources/can read Cyrillic, I'd be interested. I don't want to point fingers before I'm sure what's actually happening. Y'know.

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Edit: My (Russian-comprehending, Rodnovery-knowledgable) friend has given me this book as a citation on this. The pertinent section begins on page 62 under the chapter title "5. Russian Neopaganism: From Ethnic Religion to Racial Violence."
Edit 2: This article. (To quote the friend, "...the gist of [it] is 'A rodnover fired on an Orthodox event with a rifle and killed two people'")
Edit 3: Whew sorry for all of these edits. Anyway, regarding the particular site listed above (modrodnovery), friend says:
Regarding the Primary Chronicle, the Primary Chronicle is here in Cyrillic with an English introduction, and here in an English translation. Here is an explanation of why the Book of Veles is a forgery (in Cyrillic). Lackluster explanation in English.

No, I understand your concern completely! English sources are hard to find in these things. I'd not ask that you take it down, only wished to point out the issue as an aside.

My concern is neither with Slavic paganism, nor with this particular website, but rather with Rodnoverie, as a strain of Slavic paganism, as it is predominantly practiced in Russia. While this person's modern American Rodnovery might be vastly different, the association by way of the name still aligns it with Russian Rodnovery, which, at least, suggests that one might be able to refer to other Rodnover sources.

Looking through the website listed above, I agree that there seems to be nothing noticeably racist--at the very worst, misleading. That said, I feel like this should be pointed out nevertheless.

I feel it's worth saying Russian Rodnovery is not all Rodnovery, it exists in other slavic countries. I admit that yes, many resources are Russian, but there are others. As to the racist slant, you are going to have bag eggs in every group of anything, and often they talk the loudest, that doesn't mean they are the norm. A lot of people find the term Rodnover (and it's equivalents throughout other slavic nations) as a useful descriptor, doesn't mean they're racist. I am curious if you have put these concerns to other groups with visible racist outliers?

Of course? Just because I have concerns regarding Rodnoverie does not mean that I cannot have concerns regarding other topics. One of the objects of this forum is to provide a safe space from racism and other types of bigotry. My personal object is not to take away valuable resources from polytheists, but to bring up potential objections. I specifically pointed out that I was likely to have some facts wrong, and I'm completely open to further information. Maybe introducing this discussion into this thread, a resource thread, was not the ideal circumstance, and I would be welcome to an alternative.

There is already extensive discussion regarding the racist and neo-nazi currents in Asatru and Norse polytheism, for example. And Celtic polytheisms, as well--this is also why CAORANN exists. The same is not true of Slavic polytheism, as it's not as popular a practice, but it does exist in an organizational sense. Though you are correct that Russian Rodnoverie is not the only kind to exist, informationally, it seems to be the most predominant, and that's not to be overlooked. My intent is not to label all self-described Rodnovers as racists, but rather to bring up important issues, such as, say, the highly political charge of the movement in Russia.

I will stand by the assertion that this needs to be pointed out and discussed, however, especially as some early Google search results for "rodnovery" point to sites such as Stormfront, and Rodnovery's inclusion of the Book of Veles.

I'm starting to wonder if we're talking at cross-purposes? I don't think anyone is denying that there is issues with racism here, Jack mentioned as much in the first post.

Yep it'd be great if there were more discourse regarding it (though tbh, I've seen it around? It's just not overly organised). It can be tricky with a smaller thing because finding other people to talk about it with can be difficult. The group I have been involved in (which was a general Slavic group) have been very clear about their zero tolerance for racism and such, and enforced it. I was incredibly happy to find them, because the first, most available sources I found had a hidden racist filling.

Also I think that part of the issue could be how people interpret the term rodnovery? As meaning Native-faith that can easily be seen and used as something xenophobically nationalistic. I also feel that it can be used just to denote that you are practicing something based on a nationality. I figure it's down to personal choice here, but yes it is problematic because of those nationalistic links.

As to the Book of Veles, there's a reason it's not up in the resources Perhaps it's an over sight to not to explicitly mention that "hey this thing is a fake", I also haven't read it in full as the small part I looked at wasn't relevant for me, so I don't know if it does or doesn't have things of worth regardless of authenticity.


Anyway, guess my point is that yes there's racist issues in Slavic paganism, terminology can get tangled in with that. . Sources can be tricky to find, and sometimes take digging to see if they're racist or not, or where their info came from (is this person aware that X thing came from Y source?).
On the whole, I like to assume good faith, until proved otherwise, in people/groups/website when I come across them to begin with.