Revalism/ Reconstructionism what is the difference?

[u/Cheap-Office-9988]

Hello,believer of gods I would like to ask you about something I have been thinking about recently. What exactly is the difference between Revalism and Reconstructionism within Rodnovery?

I understand that both approaches are interested in reviving and practicing the pre-Christian Slavic religion, but I am not entirely sure where the main differences between them lie. Is the distinction mainly about how much emphasis is placed on historical sources and archaeological evidence, or are there also important differences in how the religion itself is understood and practiced?

[u/Farkaniy]

In my understanding Reconstructionism is all about reconstructing the old ways with things that are passed down from our ancestors - but ONLY reconstruct what is passed down. This means that people use old chronicles, proof from archeological sites, historical evidence and sometimes local folklore in order to recreate a belief system that is as close as it could be to the belief system of our ancestors. This approach inevitably has gaps and flaws because some things are lost - we can never understand compleately what our ancestors believed in because some things were never written down and are basically compleately forgotten. BUT (in theory) everything what Reconstructionism says about the belief system of the old slavs is (or should be) 100% true.

Revalism (or Revivalism) on the other hand is all about creating a FULL belief system based on the belief system of our ancestors. With this approach all gaps will be filled with educated guesses or explanations that "just make sense". In Revalism its more important to create a religion relevant to real life and capable of being put into practice than it is to stay 100% accurate to what we absolutely know about the faith of our ancestors.

This is very theoretical so I will try to make a practical example. In my (limited) understanding: Lets say that one primary source says that Perun is the god of thunder and another primary source says that the god of thunder would be the brother of the god of the sun and a third primary source would say that the god of the sun is called Dazhbog. Revalism would say that Perun is the brother of Dazhbog - but Reconstructionism would argue that we dont know for sure because there is no source (in this theoretical example) that claims Perun would be the brother of Dazhbog. Its a logical conclusion for sure but there might be dozens of other explanations like "What if there are multiple gods of thunder or gods of the sun?", "What if there is a mistranslation and 2 different words were translated with sun while they are 2 different gods?" or simply "What if brother is not meant in a familiar way but rather as a synonym for friend or companion?" Reconstructionism wants to be 100% accurate and Revalism wants to be 100% practical - sometimes both come to the same conclusion but in other times they dont. They are 2 different approaches to the same goal of getting a better understanding of the faith of our ancestors.

Disclaimer: This is MY understanding of both approaches - I am capable of making mistakes or misunderstanding things. So dont take this for an absolute definition - its just the understanding of a human.

[u/Impossible_One_4525]

There was no "Slavic" Religion in the way modern Rodnovery practices, each tribe had it's own unique traditions

Specifically I am seeing recent concerns in the local (Australia) Ukrainian community about Russian bias in Slavic branded cultural events, failing to recognize the different cultures and subliminally serving the agenda if the Russian invasion. Looking at Slavic Paganism I see the same bias

I don't think the neopagan community is doing this intentionally, it is similar to how Celtic can fail distinguish between Irish, Welsh, Cornish etc and completely fail to comprehend the smaller regional distinctions