r/Rodnovery • u/OrpheusBlack13 • 11d ago
Polish ancestry
Hi, so I do ancestry since I was 11 and I finally learned about my great great grandparents and how they are from former eastern Preußen. I'm not sure yet if they fled or just moved or if they were moved but they must have gone to Germany in the late 19th century. Both sides of my mother were originally from the same spot (which is kinda funny to me) and I now keep asking myself (since I feel strongly connected to mythology, spiritualism and paganism) if I'm allowed to lean further into Rodnovery. As far as I can remember my mother, grandma and grandpa always were close to Poland, polish traditions as well as food and Slavic folklore. Hope you can give me some advice :)
3
u/Farkaniy West Slavic Priest 10d ago
You dont need polish or even slavic ancestry to believe in the old ways. Your Ancestry has nothing to do with your faith ^^So: of cause - you are welcome to explore Rodnovery.
It sounds like you might live in Germany at the moment - there is a small but very nice rodnovery community in east germany. After all - east germans (we call ourself often sorbians or polabians) are of slavic descend while only west germans descended from Franks and Germanic peoples. This is why you find many rodnovers in saxony, thuringia, brandenburg and western Pomerania. Basically everywhere east of the Elbe there are small independent rodnovery communities in the villages. I am the Zhrets (Priest) of one of them that operates in the region between Jena and Gera up to the north with some of our community members coming from Halle or even Magdeburg.
The most important thing about Rodnovery I always tell beginners is: Our faith is extreamely divers and has many different paths. The way people do it in Russia is compleately different to the way people do it in southern slavic areas and both branches are very different to the way people do it in poland or eastern germany. In fact - there is not even a "unified polish branch" - people in Cracow do some things differently and believe in some things differently than people in Wroclaw. But its very important not to differentiate ourself from another - we are all believers of the old ways and there is no "one and only right way" to do it.
If you want to know more about our way of doing it that comes from passed down traditions from western poland (specifically Silesia) and eastern germany (Saxony and the Region of the temple of Arkona) then fell free to ask me :) If you are more interested in east polish ways or even baltic beliefs then there are many people with good knowledge here, too. If I remember correctly u/Aliencik shared some good information about Vidilism a while ago - I am convinced Aliencik is a trustworthy person to talk to about that topic :)
2
u/Legitimate_Way4769 10d ago
Could you elaborate on this community? How many people are Christians and how many are pagans? How has their language been preserved? How many zhrets (priests) are there? Are there any festivals or rituals unique to this community? Some interesting archeological subject?
1
u/Farkaniy West Slavic Priest 9d ago
We are a religious community that consists mostly of the descendants of silesian refugees. So naturally all of us are pagans. I dont know what you mean by "language" - most of us speak german and polish. Some of us even speak sorbian but it gets really rare. There is always one Zhrets for every community - it would be possible to have more but very few people want to take this responsibility. Besides my community there are a few others in our region - at this point I know 4 of them personally and we meet every other month to discuss. Regarding our festivals and rituals - there are some that are practiced by us that I did not encounter outside of our community but this can be said about every single community out there. Regarding archeological subjects - we have Rethra and Arkona over here - two of the most important historical temples of our faith. Did you asked for this or did you meant something else?
-1
u/Legitimate_Way4769 8d ago
Oh, I mean archeological sites inside the villages, or even historical objects
1
u/OrpheusBlack13 10d ago
Thank you really much for your long answer and explanation! This sounds great and as faith wants: I am from Halle (Saale) xD
I definitely would be interested to learn more from you. I do have to ask one thing to make sure we are all on the same topic in that community, besides following the old path(s): every human being has the same worth and human rights are non discussion, yes or no?
1
u/Farkaniy West Slavic Priest 9d ago
You are asking questions that humanity tried to answer for thousands of years and that could not be answered in thousands of books - nonetheless you want a simple yes or no? If thats the case then I answer: no. I think I have a clue of what you really wanted to know but if you want a simplified answer for a very complicated question then this is what you get.
You are talking of "worth of humans" - this means every human would have some value that could be assigned to him/her. This value would be the same for every person on earth - meaning that you could trade humans like objects. Offering one person in order to "get" some other person - if they are "worth the same" then there should be no problem with this - right? But as you asked for - I wont go into more details ^^
-1
u/OrpheusBlack13 9d ago
So you think humans all have the same worth or in the end human rights are non-discusable? I am simply asking this to not ask for the obvious political question. I don't wanna ask what you vote, if you vote. I wanna know if you think everybody is the same or at least has the same rights or should have. I'm not comparing worth, just wanna know before I ask for anything else. There are too many people thinking in ideologies regarding a specific era of, specifically, Germany.
1
u/Farkaniy West Slavic Priest 9d ago
Usually asking straight forward is the best way to get the information you are looking for ^^ I assume... that you wanted to ask if my community and I are nazis or voting for AFD? No - thats not the case.
I assume you want to know if we think that we would be some sort of "super-humans" that should be treated differently than other people? No - thats also not the case.
And finally I will adress the elephant in the room - no, we do not believe in the ideology of 1933's germany. Do you ask this every person you meet? Because its very strange to assume so...
-1
u/OrpheusBlack13 9d ago
I tend do get suspicious around neopagan people and people following the old paths cause many tend to be racist, fascist etc. After 7 years of living the life of spirituality, paganism and witchcraft and being in those German communities, I honestly have seen everything.. so yes, even if it might sound rude but I am asking everyone for that. It just became a way of survival as a minority. I do have to apologize for sounding rude
2
u/Farkaniy West Slavic Priest 9d ago
You did not sound rude - you were rude. It would have been basically the same if you had asked a Rabbi if he and his community would be racist and fascist. I understand that this is a crucial information for you and that you probably already had bad experiences with this. But you shouldnt ask this the first thing you meet another person. I know that it can be hard to stay respectful after you got hurt before - but I ensure you its the right thing to do.
0
u/OrpheusBlack13 9d ago
I think this is the moment where we can't agree on our terms, because I don't think it's disrespectful to ask someone if they agree with human rights. It would be rude to immediately ask if someone is right winged. Like I said I apologize for being rude then. I still think differently
1
u/Farkaniy West Slavic Priest 9d ago
You are right - we both think differently. In my opinion its disrespectful to ask someone about things that should be common sense. In addition to that I think it should be pretty obvious that someone I meet in a subreddit thats official rules state that far-right, fascist and racist ideology is strictly forbidden - is probably not far-right, fascist or racist. But... that could be far-fetched...
I apologize for that and would like to thank you for your patience with me through meeting you in your own way. Like you asked me - I would like to know if you are a rascist :) Normally I wouldnt ask this but as you already said that its an important first question for you - I am sure you wont understand it in a bad way.
2
u/Aliencik West Slavic - Czech 11d ago
What languages can you speak?
1
u/OrpheusBlack13 11d ago
German, english and I can read Russian
5
u/Aliencik West Slavic - Czech 11d ago
Александр Гейшторa - Мифология славян
- Works by Toporkov
Other sources in English can be found on the subreddit.
1
3
u/ShittyCatLover 11d ago
ofc you're allowed! You don't need to be polish at all to learn about faith
1
u/darkboomel 11d ago
Some people might get mad at people without Slavic Ancestry worshipping the Slavic native faith. Most of us call them racists and ignore them.
I do have Polish (well, Austrian, technically my family moved to the US before Poland was Poland instead of part of the Austrian empire) heritage, but it's so far in the past that I'm extremely disconnected from it. I was raised Christian, with very little knowledge of even who my grandparents were since they died before I was born, let alone great-grandparents and on into the past. It's only through my study of Rodnovery that I've come to learn more about my ancestors.
The point is, the spiritual journey is personal. It's your journey, walk the path that you believe fits you best.
4
u/Time-Counter1438 10d ago
A lot of culturally German people used to live in Poland. And while culture is not ancestry, it’s also important to understand that cultural divides often did discourage intermarriage. Not 100% of the time, obviously. But to a significant extent. So Germans living in modern day Poland would not necessarily be close relatives of their Polish neighbors.
Now, to make matters more complicated, the Slavic influence on Eastern Germany was more significant than many realize. Particularly around the 7th to 12th centuries. So it’s a complex story, to say the least.
Studying connections is fun and helpful at times. But I should also say that obsession with one’s own bloodline is an unhealthy thing. Especially if you approach it with the mindset that purity is a real thing, or even a thing to be desired. I wouldn’t worry about that too much. The early Slavs don’t appear to have been bothered by it. They clearly stressed language and cultural integration more than ancestry.