In accordance with the Orthodox Jap Church, the spirit of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin now should have embarked in heaven or hell. The faith believes it takes 40 days after dying for souls to achieve their ultimate vacation spot, a threshold that the as soon as hotdog vendor reached on 1 October.

Dozens of on a regular basis Russians and fighters gathered in Moscow and a number of other different Russian cities to mark the event, amid notable silence from officers and state media. Prigozhin, who died in a aircraft explosion weeks after having led the largest mutiny Russian president Vladimir Putin has confronted in his 22-year rule, is regarded as buried at Porokhovskoye cemetery in St-Petersburg.

Makeshift memorial to Yevgeny Prigozhin and Dmitry Utkin in Moscow (Platel / CC by SA 4.0)

No Orthodox Saint

It could be mistaken to imagine that the mercenary boss was a strictly abiding orthodox throughout his life, nevertheless. Apart from a observe document that may have questioned most claims to piousness, Prigozhin and his troops largely practiced Slavic neo-paganism, or Rodnovery, an ideology intently linked to nationalist sentiments inside the Russian army, particularly particular forces and safety forces.

Representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church have been fast to shed doubt on the mercenaries’ religion following the failed mutiny on 23 June, when closely armed Wagner troops in Ukraine advanced north toward Moscow, capturing the town Rostov and even nearing a Russian nuclear base.

Patriarch Kirill’s vicar, Bishop Euthymius, hinted in his sermon that Prigozhin and his mercenaries served pagan idols, and thus Satan himself. Following Prigozhin’s secret funeral, consideration was additionally drawn to the cross image erected on his stone, which bears nearer resemblance to the pagan and Old Believer crosses endowed with roofs, golubets, than a conventional Orthodox tomb cross.

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Golubets cross in an Previous Believer cemetery in Kem, now Karalia. Dmitry Shchukin / Adobe Inventory.

Rodnovery

From the Russian Rodnaya vera (“Родная вера”), “Native religion”, Rodnovery emerged after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when Russian nationalists thrived amid Soviet nostalgia and mounting curiosity in Russian and historic historical past. The motion additionally fed off mass esotericism of the 1990s, because the void left by the communist challenge gave rise to different political practices equivalent to predictions, divination and channeling.

Most Rodnovers imagine Slavs originated from the traditional “Aryans” (or “Hyperboreans”, the inhabitants of the traditional northern civilisation), deriving a particular civilising mission towards the remainder of the world. In accordance with numerous estimates, there are several hundred to several thousand neo-pagans in every major city in Russia (as much as 100,000 all through Russia).

Mercenaries look as much as myriad gods. For instance, Russian martial arts club, from which fighters are sometimes recruited to be despatched to particular models, have been reported to hold out rituals at Rodonoveran temples by Kaluga, North West of Moscow, in honour of the Slavic thunder god Perun, and a few mercenaries have described themselves as “warriors of Perun”. However Wagner PMC additionally seems to be past the confines of Slavic neo-paganism to include Scandinavian and Germanic gods.

The Scandinavian god Wotan – also referred to as Odin – is usually invoked. Then there’s the Germanic thunder god Thor, in some ways Perun’s Germanic equal, whose legendary hammer Mjelnir might be discovered adorning the our bodies of fighters within the type of tattoos and medallions.

Execution rituals

It’s attainable to learn Wagnerians’ partiality towards sledgehammers to torture and kill enemies as one other reference to Thor’s Mjelnir. Footage exhibits the fighters already wielding the device within the Syrian conflict, with no less than one 2017 video showing soldiers crushing a man’s hand. In November 2022, one other video of a person being executed by a sledgehammer blow to the top after having switched sides within the Ukraine conflict additionally surfaced.

Later that month, Yevgeny Prigozhin expressed his disapproval of EU legislators’ resolution to position Wagner PMC on the bloc’s terrorist listing by sending a sledgehammer smeared with flake blood to the European Parliament. The Wagner chief is on document acknowledging the device as a symbol of the god Thor.

Wagner Group’s sledgehammer executions are linked with Norse god Thor’s hammer, Mjolnir. Supply: Hakeem / Adobe Inventory.

Runes

Different neo-pagan symbols favoured by the mercenaries embrace the kolovrat, a photo voltaic swastika, which additionally seems within the fighters’ tattoos and medallions. Furthermore, runes, letters of historic Germanic pre-Christian writing which are attributed particular mystical properties, have been noticed on army autos, uniforms and tattoos. Significantly frequent is the Tiwaz (Týr) rune, an historic pagan signal symbolizing army management. Favoured by the Nazi regime, it grew to become fashionable amongst supporters of white supremacy, particularly in militaristic teams.

The Othala rune symbolizes legacy, heritage and inherited property and is fashionable amongst supporters of white supremacy. In Libya, the mercenaries of the PMC Wagner positioned this rune on army tools.

Within the Central African Republic, “Wagnerians” used the “STD” runic inscription, consisting of Sigrún, Tiwaz, and Thurisaz runes, on their chevrons. In Slavic neo-paganism, this inscription is interpreted as “Warriors bring good and peace by their force” or “Bringing light with their force”.

The kolovrat photo voltaic swastika is being utilized by the Wagner group. Supply: shawlin / Adobe Inventory.

The Affect of Prigozhin’s Proper-Hand Man

Neo-Paganism owes a lot of its reputation inside PMC Wagner to the group’s alleged co-founder and Prigozhin’s right-hand man, Dmitry Utkin (name signal “Wagner”), who died in the plane crash alongside his boss. In accordance with one of many PMC commanders:

“Wagner is a troublesome man on the whole, not a flabby fellow. He got here to the positions close to Palmyra, undressed, he has a German swastika on his arm [on his shoulder], a tattoo. His helmet has horns. He’s a Rodnover. To turn out to be an organization commander, it’s fascinating to be a Rodnover”

Former combattant from the paramilitary firm, Marat Gabidullin, even recounts that Utkin created an “ideological division” in 2019 in PMC Wagner to “popularise” neo-paganism among his subordinates.

Nazi Undertones

The Wagnerianes’ penchant for neo-paganism is additional echoed within the Russian safety providers. According to military sources, neo-paganism accounts for half of the personnel in some elite models of the Russian safety providers.

Members of the Wagner group coaching Belarusian troops. CC by SA 3.0.

Neo-pagan mercenaries’ veneration of heroes, cult of power and braveness in addition to frequent use of runes typically make them stray towards neo-nazism. In 2021, an image surfaced of a bare-chested Dmitry Utkin, revealing tattoos of Nazi collar tabs with Waffen SS bolts and military rank. Different Wagner heads have been captured giving the Nazi salute.

As well as, the nationalists who merged into neo-paganism launched the concepts of superiority and anti-Semitism (Victor Shnirelman writes about this intimately, for instance, in his e book “Russian Rodnovery. Neo-paganism and nationalism in fashionable Russia”), the thought of defending the homeland and their family members from the “machinations of the West”.

Within the case of PMC Wagner and comparable militarized teams, Rodnovery typically seems to be a non secular element of the phenomenon which Russian sociologist Nikolai Mitrokhin has dubbed “Russian militarism” or “militarized Russian nationalism” – the Russian army’s nationalism.

In accordance with him:

“On the coronary heart of this nationalism is an ideology explicit to the special-purpose models within the Soviet military (particular forces, marines, border guards, and so on.), which explains why these guys, largely from the provinces, with large fists, who have been drawn not into gangs, however into sports activities sections of fist preventing or wrestling, after which despatched to those particular forces, why they must work tougher than peculiar troopers, to be prepared at any second to die for the state”.

The article ‘From Nordic symbols to sledgehammer executions: Inside the Wagner Group’s neo-pagan rituals’ by Denys Brylov was initially revealed on The Conversation and has been republished below a Artistic Commons license.

Prime picture: The image kolovrat engraved on a tree. Supply: anji77702 / Adobe Inventory.