The ethnoconfessional portrait of Anatasians by the materials from Novosibirsk oblast

Abstract

“The Ringing Cedars of Russia”, the Anastasia movement, the cult of Anastasia, the Anastasians — that is several names for the fans Vladimir Megre’s ideas. He made them public by his series of ten books called “Ringing cedars of Russia”. These literary works contains the revelation of the fictional person — a woman named Anastasia. The fandom of Anastasia inspired by her ideas develops as an urban community, preaching the mythology of the Golden Age and Paradise lost as well as the concept of ecologism expressed by Megre. Then Anastasians began to carry out the program of moving out of cities and returning to the soil. To return to the soil for the adherents of Anastasia means to create their own family estate as a small homeland. So, having appeared in 1996, the movement has evolved from clubs of admirers of “ideas of Anastasia” to hundreds of settlements of family estates in Russia and abroad. The cultural model for the community is the idea of Vedrussia — the mythical civilization of the ancient Slavs. The main features of the Anastasia movement as an ethno-confessional one are the following: the author’s myth as a base, the reference to the origins, the revival of primordial traditions, elements of pantheism and magical practices of the participants.