The feasts of “Stado” and “Kupala Night” in the rituals of the Polish Rodnovers. A revival of ethnographic sources

It is argued in this study that contemporary Rodnovers (practitioners of Slavic Native Faith, or Rodnovery) revive ethnographic and historical sources by applying two strategies: (re)construction of pre-Christian Slavic rituals and (re)paganisation of 19th-c. folk rituals. It is a new kind of practice: source materials are not modified for the purpose of presentation to receipients from “outside” (as is the case with folklore and historical reconstruction) but function as the basic substrate of religious customs and beliefs, practiced by Rodnovers themselves. Despite appearances, this is not a continuation of folk tradition but a new religious phenomenon, whose major actors use ethnography and folk content in a creative and unorthodox manner.