| Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Posted: 8/10/2006 6:30:00 PM | Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Does anybody have knowledge about how Religions that once existed in a land but were destroyed by an authoritarian power came back to life?
We have examples of the former USSR in which many religions were wiped out (or so we thought) and nobody practiced in public for generations and all the preists killed.
We have similar examples of the Roman era Europe and Britain in which the native religions were wiped out (or so we thought) and nobody practiced in public for generations and all the preists killed.
In both instances the native pagan religions returned to both Russia, Ukraine and the Celtic lands (Europe, Britain, France).
In history by the thinnest of margins, entire religions have grown back to areas it was once nearly destroyed. The USSR was very cruel in wiping out the Shaman based pagan religions as was Rome in wiping out France, Britain, Germany and Ireland.
How does religion survive persecution? When the books are burned and the preists killed? I can see it starting over from a few fragments of teachings and the written data base filled again from the memories of those teachings of those survivors. | |
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| Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Posted: 8/10/2006 7:22:11 PM | You'd be surprised how hard it is to completely destroy a culture. Even the Aztec and Myan civilizations, which were wiped out by spanish conquistadors, have some reminents of it left and enough to know what they did, their beliefs, ect...
Not even Hitler, who had an army of millions and a country of hate could kill each and every german jew.
Cultures are just hard to extinguish. Ideas are even harder. | |
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| Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Posted: 8/10/2006 8:05:01 PM | Resurrect religion?
Why?
The sooner we can streamline a basic education to get rid of it all, the quicker we can eliminate a large chunk, maybe the vast majority, of collective human suffering.
Let it go, man. | |
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| Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Posted: 8/10/2006 10:55:01 PM | Chrysostom
What a moronic comment and such a Nazi point of view.
In my opinion, although lands and countries borders are destroyed unless one can destroy all the people who follow a belief system within that country the religion itself cannot be destroyed. It will remerge eventually. The teaching, stories, rituals what have you will be told and lived once again.
As you well know attempts at ethnic cleansing persay were experienced by the Jewish and the Serbs to name a couple. The purest from of hatred and utterly complete failed attempts at wiping out their religion. | |
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| Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Posted: 8/11/2006 8:56:35 AM | Nazi POV? I don't think so. Teutonic gods and the occult featured prominently in Nazi ideology.
Maybe Marxist would be a more sensible criticism, but I'm not out to jam anything down anyone's throat - just forcing people to open their eyes and do some thinking, because global peaceful interaction is gonna forever be unattainable without a basic and universal common groundwork for communication. This, I hope, will lead to a weakening of organized religion.
The Serbian conflict was an ethnic issue, whereas the Jewish extermination was an assault on religion disguised as ethnicity and race. I don't think it's wise to conflate the two. | |
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| Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Posted: 8/11/2006 9:46:26 AM | Ok...I just...have to say something about the "country of hate" comment...
And that is simply... isn't it amazing what people will do, when they are in fear for their lives? It's not the entire countries fault... a few misguided tyrants ran their collective mouths and got things done in the beginning, and then they showed their true colours by which point it's far far too late. | |
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| Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Posted: 8/11/2006 5:05:18 PM | The sooner we can streamline a basic education to get rid of it all, the quicker we can eliminate a large chunk, maybe the vast majority, of collective human suffering.
People will suffer no matter with or without religion. Getting rid of it all together will solve nothing of the worlds problems. Man's inhumanity to man will continue until the Universe is long gone. Those who do not have what they wish will always blame the lack on another and take recourse.
Nice idea though to end suffering. The world may never know. | |
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| Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Posted: 8/11/2006 7:28:58 PM | Chrysostom is right, mostly. Nazi ideology saw pure blood germans as the rightfull rulers of the world and the arrian race (blond hair blue eyes) the superior human as dictated by god. Something about divine right. However, half of it is mearly propoganda by Hitler to bring the country together and whip it into a war machine. Remember, Germany was hit hard by the sanctions of WWI. The entire country was poverty stricken, people were poor, miserable, and despirate. Blaming all of Germany's problems on a group of people who have migrated there (Jews were displaced many years earlier by the muslims) allowed him to essentially say "Hey, were good until THEY came here. Therefore they must be the problem." With the promise of strength, population morality rose and they built themselves one of the most fearsome war machines history has ever known.
However it is also been noted by some scolars that hitler himself had a jewish mother/father who he resented and while his scapegoat techniques were obviously planned, it's also possible they had a hint of personal motivation in them.
So Chrysostom, it really was scapegoat technique with a possible hint of religious intollerance.
Also shanadoah, how would you know such religious clensing never happened if it would have wiped out all traces of it and thus making sure you never knew it existed?
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| Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Posted: 8/12/2006 12:36:33 PM | Religions are destroyed by any power group that wants to control the spirit and minds of the people.
We have China blasting entire Buddhist sacred cities out of Tibetan mountain sides for 30-50 years. We have the Roman Empire and Holy Roman Empire destroying native religions in Europe for 1300 years. Massive time scales of multi-generational, complete (near) destruction.
Marxist-Leninist-Trotsky-ites who created the USSR continued for 83 years to wipe out every Christian and Pagan church and practice. That's multiple generations. Let's do look at this from a World Perspective and get out of our own narrow world views. Marxist-Leninists put entire Christian and Pagan families in cattle cars and sent them to death camps, an estimated 20 millon to their deaths.
It can be any regime with any name given to it. The question is HOW to reconstruct Religions in areas it was destroyed not the petty insular views on why. Reconstruction is the topic. How did Christianity come back to Russia? How did Pagan Shamanism come back to Russia?
How? Let's look at positive constructive methods.
What were the methods by which Christianity and Pagan Shamanism regained foothold in Russia after USSR destroyed all religions. We're talking a good eighty yearsm a couple generations of being completely wiped out.
When we are discussing the destruction and annhiliation of, lets say Christianity and Pagan Shamanism from Russia to the extent that several generation live and grow by only the oral and secret hidden fragments of the religion, much like the Druids who fled Roman Empire extermination by leaving and going to seek refuge in Ireland and Scotland.
Every religion no matter how large or how small has suffered persecution, the question of this thread is the Reconstruction of these Religions. Detals, tales and stories, as well as studies.
What are the methods, based on facts and tales, by which these religions grew back.
I will lead by example:
Druids came back through the hiding within the conquering belief system:
"According to the earliest known surviving biography of a British Celtic saint, written about the end of the sixth century AD, 'A Life of Samson,' Samson's teacher, the famous Illtyd (C.AD 425-505) was 'by descent a most wise Druid'."
Source: http://www.keithhunt.com/Druids3.html
"The late fourth, early fifth century AD, Celtic Christian theologian Pelagius, of whom Victricius so strongly disapproved, was eventually declared a heretic after his conflict with Augustine of Hippo. Pelius, was accused of attempting to revive Druidic philosophy on Nature and Free Will."
So some religions barely survive by hiding within the power system until it is safe.
Like Christians who pretended to be Trotsky-Communists to survive persecution, only to later revive Christianity in Russia. | |
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| Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Posted: 8/14/2006 5:35:56 AM | Chrysostom
You are right on another partial point, Hitler used the ideas of the Norse gods to promote nationalism. He did not believe in them and did not use them to influence his beliefs. Basically, he used the old gods and their belief as a marketing tool. | |
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| Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Posted: 8/15/2006 5:22:58 PM | I'm glad to see you firmly bringing this thread back on topic.
A good example of religion surviving in the way you mention is the way in which African priests kept their traditions intact through capture and slavery. A possible strength was that many of these religions involved the transmission of knowledge through patient listening, observation, and memorization, not through reading; so they brought their libraries with them simply by refusing to forget.
Once in Brazil, Cuba, Haiti, etc., they learned to disguise their religion under the guise of Catholic saints, in Lukumi (sometimes called Santeria), Vodoun, etc. Back in their homelands, the different religions were persecuted and marginalized by missionaries, but not quite.
Religion, when it survives, survives in sacred space and in the hearts and minds of elders, in songs and in stories. Sometimes people do not know that they are still practicing an ancient custom. It is *critical* to listen to the elders; in their memories and in watching what they do religion still lives. Even if you think you've heard this folktale a dozen times (or this parable, or seen this little ritual) STOP and watch and listen, as it is different every time.
As to whether it can be totally reconstructed when it's gone, I suppose that's debatable. Some would say that languages and religions die if they are not used, some would say no. I would be concerned about religion that is utterly reconstructed out of the library and from nothing else, and I would prefer to learn it one-to-one and experientially, but that is merely my opinion.
Dolly | |
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| Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Posted: 8/15/2006 5:33:01 PM | | People thought the Druids in Ireland and England were all destroyrd as well, but thankfully the rules of not writing down the beliefs were kind of scrapped when they saw the enemy approaching. You still have to take it all with a grain of salt, afterall we're still dealing with the written word but they will survive as long as they are passed on to people who share the ideology(sp?) | |
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| Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Posted: 8/23/2006 9:58:29 PM | | Mike, you may be interested in a group of books by Steven Lawhead. They are based on the Arthurian legends and he attempts to reconstruct the actual climate of ancient Britain. It is an interesting blend of Christianity and Paganism. Fascinating reading. | |
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| Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Posted: 8/27/2006 7:26:41 PM | Yes the Arthurian books by Steven Lawhead are very interesting. It's vital to bring into that time period Pelagiansim, the drift within Briton Christianity away from Rome's doctrine of terror and sin.
The spiritual strength of the Britons in the post Roman Emprie occupation with very early Christianity which started to drift into Pelagianism which Rome saw as Paganism.
So Rome sent the "christian" killer mercenary St. Germanicus of Auxerre over to Briton and Wales to rebuild the Christian spiritual belief in the drifting Palagians who were being defeated by the Pagan Saxons invading from eastern Briton.
More on Pelagianism in Arthurian--Saxon time in Briton.
429 AD
St. Germanus visits Britain to combat the Pelagian heresy, and leads local forces to defeat raiders.
http://www.cit.gu.edu.au/~s285238/DECB/DECBmin.html
While St. Germanicus carried gold and money to fund and arm the soldiers Arthurs tribal group, the added spiritual combination of Fear, Terrorism and Money of Roman Christanity evidently also instigated the Arthurian kings/knights to at least try to put up some kind of a fight against the more spiritually powerful Saxon Odinist pagans.
Even in 561 AD the Druids were still in Briton leading the Armies of Welsh and Briton against the invading Odinist Saxons.
561 AD
Before the battle of Culdremne (561) a Druid made an airbe drtiad (fence of protection?) round one of the armies, but what is precisely meant by the phrase is obscure.
http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/DRO_ECG/DRUIDISM.html
The time period between the retreat of most of the Roman Empire's pagan armies and the growth of Roman Christianity is a fascinating time period becuse in Briton we then have all three religion main groups, Druids, Christians, and Odinists. True diversity.
http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/DRO_ECG/DRUIDISM.html
Basically in the Arthurian time we have both Roman Christianity (in Arthurian Roman Papal funding) briefly reviving then declining again, and Pagan Druidism rising and declining in Briton at the same time the Saxons invade with a renewed vigor of unabated Odinism.
590 AD
The Saxons at this time were mostly Odinists/Asatru.
Odinism
This is the closest to the original religion. Odinists focus on the worship of Odin (obviously), and are usually intellectuals, warriors or practictioners of magic. While the worship of other Gods is common for an Odinist, they are all secondary.
http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node=Asatru
It's a fascinating time to study the survival of spiritual faiths and how they survived so they could be reconstructed. Gradually the Gold and Arabic Mathematics of the Roman Church won sway, at least in public, over Druidism and Odinism/Asatru, but what can be bought with money can be lost easily as well. All the native religions of Europe are increasing and coming back, people just got tired of all the sin, hell, threats and damnation of what they now see as clearly transparent spiritual terrorism by Rome.
Based on William Blake (1757–1827), one of the greatest poets in the English language, being the chief Druid for Briton and Wales, it's easy to see that the native religions of Briton are being reconstructed in full.
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| Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Posted: 8/28/2006 2:22:05 PM | There seems to be this fractured logic in believing that the Marxist-Leninists (i.e. the Communist Party of the USSR) destroyed "native faith" (pagan, nature, animist etc) and judeo-christian paths.
The "pagan churches" flourished despite the oppression. Within Lithuania itself the Summer Solstice was revived in the late 1960s and one of the leaders of the movement was stripped/banned from his university. But it still persevered.
The faiths were not publically practiced, but they were practiced. The Soviets were not opposed to religion per se, but to any expression of nationalism. Many of the pagan churches/groups within the former USSR were persecuted not because of their beliefs, but because their practices would revive a sense of national pride/patriotism, which was anethma to the Soviet ideology.
How did the pagan practices survive under the Soviet occupation? By the populace in general just declaring them to be cultural practices.. that it is perfectly normal every August 15th to have a party by a lake (Zolines, which is similar to Lughnasadh), that it is perfectly normal to have a picnic in the cemetary around November 2nd - last chance to tend the graves of family members ... and so forth.
People under the Soviet Occupation were very inventive and very good at protecting their beliefs. | |
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| Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Posted: 9/1/2006 5:32:39 AM | Remember that Marxism is itself a pagan religion. We struggle for a future imagined state, that does qualify for a spiritual condition. In pagan Marxism we struggle for a Nirvana.
Yet, Marx allegedly says otherwise. Marxism is technically, in it's printed word, a religion that denies being a religion. Religions have oral or printed doctrine, organized social structure, and state an actual spiritual component, something immaterial.
Religion is [the world’s] general basis for consolation…The struggle against religion is…a struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is at the same time an expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the sentiment of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of [people], is a demand for their real happiness… [in Tucker, Marx-Engels Reader, 1978: 53-4]
Marx:"It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of [people], is a demand for their real happiness
Marxism: http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_2/marx.html
Marxism asks that you give your wealth and labor to the "State" much like the Catholic, Hindu or Buddhist churches, in order that after you die, your children will live in an "ideal" stateless state, a Nirvana, if you will. Marxism is Judeo-Catholic-Paganism on a large scale.
It's very interesting topic on what constitutes an organized force that attempts to destroy religion.
There seems to be this fractured logic in believing that the Marxist-Leninists (i.e. the Communist Party of the USSR) destroyed "native faith" (pagan, nature, animist etc) and judeo-christian paths.
The "pagan churches" flourished despite the oppression. Within Lithuania itself the Summer Solstice was revived in the late 1960s and one of the leaders of the movement was stripped/banned from his university. But it still persevered.
The Communist Party of the USSR saw Paganism as a threat and put many Pagans in cattle cars to the death camps, the concentration camps, the Gulags.
Read this:
After the conqest of the Baltic countries by the USSR Dievturi have been acknowledged as dangerous enemies of the Soviet rule and persecuted. They were perceived by the Soviet rulers as Latvian chauvinists, inherently inimical to the ideas of communism and internationalism. Ernest Brastins has been executed in Astrakhan in the forties, some of Dievturi went to exile. Those who settled in the USA have registered their denomination and continued their activity. One of them is Janis Tupesis, professor at Wisconsin Uniwersity, who came back to Latvia and was elected to the Parliament as a representative of the Peasant Party and later he became the Latvian ombudsman.
http://www.vinland.org/heathen/pagancee/
Marx said religion was the opiate of the massess and 20 million Christians were killed because of it in Marxist-Leninist USSR. Yet many don't see Marxism and Communism as a religion itself, albeit a Pagan one. Communism can even be said to be a pagan religion itself if you look at it with an open mind as it talks about an imaginary future state which in the human is a spiritual condition with an organized means to achieve it. Marxism fully qualifies as a religion.
Like Druidism in Ireland, Wales and Scotland the invading authorities tried to destroy it but it still survived. Same in Russia and Latvia.
Christians persecuted in Marxism-Leninism USSR
The main target of the anti-religious campaign in the 1920s and 1930s was the Russian Orthodox Church, which had the largest number of faithful. Nearly all of its clergy, and many of its believers, were shot or sent to labor camps.
http://www.ibiblio.org/expo/soviet.exhibit/anti_rel.html
By 1985 fewer than 7,000 Russian Orthodox Church churches remained active
By 1926, the Roman Catholic Church had no bishops left in the Soviet Union, andby 1941 only two of the almost 1,200 churches that had existed in 1917, mostly in Lithuania, were still active.
Fearful of a pan-Islamic movement, the Soviet regime systematically suppressed Islam by force, until 1941.
I seems the conquering forces can never completely eradicate all the existing religions. It is the invading or conquering authorities, and their religioins, pagan such as Communism, or otherwise, that have seemed, as we have pointed out, to allow some small fragment of the existing religions to survive, perhaps to prevent total revolt, perhaps because they wanted to control the people and not totally break them. | |
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| Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Posted: 9/1/2006 9:41:47 AM |
The Communist Party of the USSR saw Paganism as a threat and put many Pagans in cattle cars to the death camps, the concentration camps, the Gulags.
Read this:
After the conqest of the Baltic countries by the USSR Dievturi have been acknowledged as dangerous enemies of the Soviet rule and persecuted. They were perceived by the Soviet rulers as Latvian chauvinists, inherently inimical to the ideas of communism and internationalism. Ernest Brastins has been executed in Astrakhan in the forties, some of Dievturi went to exile. Those who settled in the USA have registered their denomination and continued their activity. One of them is Janis Tupesis, professor at Wisconsin Uniwersity, who came back to Latvia and was elected to the Parliament as a representative of the Peasant Party and later he became the Latvian ombudsman.
http://www.vinland.org/heathen/pagancee/
If you read that carefully, they were persecuted for being chauvinists, i.e. Nationalistic. They were not persecuted for their pagan beliefs, but for what those beliefs could engender - national pride in being Latvian (the Dievturi are Latvians) - much like the founder of Romuva suffered persecution in the late 60s and early 70s in Lithuania. It's not the religion per se, but what that religion can do - foster a sense of national pride. | |
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| Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Posted: 9/1/2006 9:57:34 AM | The USSR was nationalism. Christianity was closely linked to nationalism in all Baltic countries as it was in Russia.
Paganism was linked to Ethnic identity, not National identity. Marxism was directly nationalism, state identity.
If you read that carefully, they were persecuted for being chauvinists, i.e. Nationalistic.
If you read it for what it says, it says the Dievturi religion of the Latvians was persecuted. If you believe the "Soviet Newspeak" on being "a threat to the people for nationalism and chauvinists" then we need to further examine more sources to find out the truth about the USSR and religous persecution.
This is the definition of Dievturiba:
"Dievturiba is a modern revival of the indigenous Baltic religion"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dievtur%C4%ABba
The state religon was Christian before 1917 so nationalism would have been Christian, not Pagan.
So they were persecuted because of their pagan religion, Dievturiba. Soviet Gulag police called their religion "chauvinist". Does marx? If they say it's "chauvinist" does that excuse it from persecution?
They were not persecuted for their pagan beliefs, ...
Actually they were presecuted for their pagan beliefs by Pagan Marxism-Communism.
The Dievturiba are not a nationality but a religious sect.
...much like the founder of Romuva suffered persecution in the late 60s and early 70s in Lithuania. It's not the religion per se, but what that religion can do - foster a sense of national pride.
Lithuania was still under the essentially Pagan religion of Marxist-Lenninism in 1960-70.
Beliefs are what constitute a religion. We can't say the Sovets only thought those ewho belonged to pagan Religious groups were "chauvinists", Which religions are not "chauvinist"?
Does being "chauvinist" dissallow a religion from being legitimate? Is Roman Catholic Christianity "chauvinist" because it has Rome and the Vatican?
Is Roman Catholocism "chauvinist" because they have their own little country in the Vatican State, it's own little soverign state? No, of course not. chauvinism has nothing to do with an excuse to persecute people who beleive in any Pagan or mainstrean religion. Marxist Soviet Union was oppression pagans because of their Religion not because somebody stoood up and said they were a "chauvinist" as a factory.
Is there a USSR law that acutually used the word "Chauvinist" in one of the criminal code articles? It's a French word, so I doubt it. Enemies of the state is more like it as the actual legal Soviet language.
Dievturiba is essentially a pantheistic religion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dievtur%C4%ABba
Marx said that Communism was about abolishing religion. So Lenin and Trotsky attempted to abolish as many religions, including Pagan, they could.
Nationalism is ethnic identity, such as the Russians or Latvians, it can include languages, dialects and particular religous sects, but religions themselves are not nationalism.
Millions of Pagans killed by Pagan Marxist-Leninists....
http://condor.depaul.edu/~rrotenbe/aeer/aeer16_2.html
"In the past the singer of epics, or khaidzhi, enjoyed a position similar to that of the shaman. These storytellers, who performed in a type of throat singing called khai, came from their own ancestral lineage and underwent initiation like shamans. They showed talent from childhood, and were respected for their clairvoyant abilities. Storytelling was understood as a healing art. "
Ethnic Groups not "nationalism"
"Cultural Revival
The revival of shamanic tradition fills important needs in the spiritual life of the Khakass, and also serves as an inspiration to their artistic, political and ecological movements. More even than individual healing, today's shamanic practice focuses on healing the ethnic group as a whole."
"They worshipped her because she was the Soul of the People. When the people is alive and blossoming, she too is well. But now the Khakass have stopped worshipping the spirits of Fire, Water, Mountain, and Taiga."
This is Ethnic religion, ethnic spirituality, true Pagan religion.
http://www.kmu.gov.ua/control%5Cen%5Cpublish%5Carticle%3Fart_id=236072&cat_id=32672
Lenin and Trotsky killed millions of Pagans, they put them in cattle cars to their deaths.
Marxism-Leninism was a Pagan Religion and they didn't want any competition.
When we study Pagan religions they are by no means Nationalistc, but Ethnic and spiritual beyond nationalistic lines.
"the Khakass have stopped worshipping the spirits of Fire, Water, Mountain, and Taiga."
"
It was the Marxist Pagans that wanted to claim Nationalism. Marx wanted to nationalize Religion, all religions whether they be Pagan or Christian. | |
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| Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Posted: 9/1/2006 12:55:39 PM | As a practicing member of Romuva and very good friends with the Elders in both Dievturiba & Romuva (and the fact that *I* am Lithuanian) I can quite clearly say that the pagan practices of the Balts (Latvians & Lithuanians) were persecuted for the sense of national pride they provided. Jonas Trinkunas, of Romuva, was persecuted and excluded from the University of Vilnius - I have seen the paperwork and have discussed this with him, the few times I have been to Lithuania and attended academic conferences with him.
Christianity, within the Baltics, was just a thin veneer. The pagan practices persevered well into the 20thC and into the Soviet Occupation. Any Latvian or Lithuanian, even if they are Christian, will proudly celebrate their pagan festivals - Jani/Jonines, Zolines, Velines, Kucios, etc. I just got back from a trip to the Baltics in which on Zolines (August 15th) there was a huge festival to celebrate the Honey Harvest and the Bee Goddess - all state sanctioned.
Having 2 parents who survived the Soviet Occupation, it was *any* expression of National Pride which was supressed - be it literary, musical, pagan, visual arts - anything that exhaulted Lithuanian Pride, Latvian Pride, Estonian etc, was an anethma to the Soviet Ideology. It was the same with the Russian Orthodox Church. | |
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| Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Posted: 11/21/2006 4:19:28 AM | Having 2 parents who survived the Soviet Occupation, it was *any* expression of National Pride which was supressed - be it literary, musical, pagan, visual arts - anything that exhaulted Lithuanian Pride, Latvian Pride, Estonian etc, was an anethma to the Soviet Ideology. It was the same with the Russian Orthodox Church.
It was actually religious persecution. I don't think the USSR was against nationalistic pride, as the Communist USSR State was the ultimate nationalistic pride, so how would Russian Orthodox be against Russian national pride?
*any* expression of National Pride which was supressed
The Soviets wanted expression of National Pride. The Soviet Communists were very nationalistic and against religions, such as Pagans. Soviet Communism saw religion as NOT being national pride.
The Soviets saw Religion as getting in the way of National Pride (to the State).
The State, the Nation, was the religion of the Soviet rule. | |
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| Reconstructing Religion in Areas Where it was Destroyed.
Posted: 11/21/2006 5:37:40 AM | How to reconstruct a "destroyed" religion?
First, there would be the consdieration of *how* destroyed is it. Is it a religion practiced, say, 8000 years ago, of which we have no cultural record, nor written record or examples of language, and only the most meagre of physical/archeological evidence.
In pretty well all ethnocentric tribal religions, while there is "religion" proper, ie. sacral songs, conduction of various holy rites, overseeing capital punishment, priesthoods, etc., religion touches upon everything in their cultural experience. The deities gave them their language and the gift of poetry, gave them the first seeds and taught them the art of farming, taught them how to master, slaughter, and prepare animals for consumption, gave them law, gave them the gifts of reason, creatvity, vigor, passion, etc., etc.
So the question of how much culture survives is quite significant, as culture is an expression of our own particular way of perceiving and expressing things. Certain impulses, such as the divine spark, will inevitably give rise to like-cultural forms even if the old form is wiped away.
The more vibrant the remaining culture in the here and now, along with the more written evidence one has of the by-gone religious beliefs, the easier it will be for the beliefs to reweave themselves and assume their place within the greater tapestry of the remaining culture.
Regarding Hitler, the Nazis and the Jews; while Hitler did use the names of certain Germanic deities as propaganda tools, he was a Darwinist who beleived that Christianity was the naturally superior religion. Everything about the Nazi Regime screamed *southern Europe*, from the large standing armies and belief in the superiority of their own ideologies to their desire to conquor and rule the Earth... such values as fly in the face of native Germanic cultural values and probably explain why Hitler had to look to Italy and Japan for allies. Not to mention why every single Germanic country that could resist and fight Hitler *DID* fight Hitler to whatever extent they were able.
As for Anti-Semitism, there is nothing that remains of indigenous Germanic culture that indicates any unnatural prejudices for other tribes of men, Jews included. The Roman Empire on the otherhanded had a prejudice against the Jews for not suffering conquest well. Germanic people could relate and would likely have admired their pluck; as they boasted about how they, the "hillbillies" of the civilized world, shattered the legend of the invincibility of Rome's legions. The Roman Catholic Church hated the Jews because they betrayed the Catholic deity, or see him as a Rabbi rather than a deity, or some other nonsense. Some Christian people continue to hate them today because Jews believe, quite rightly IMO, that they are the people of "the Book". | |
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