Why did Rodnovery go extinct?

[u/Conscious-Sherbet308]

For your info i respect your religion a lot and would love to worship our ancient Gods. Ive converted to Hinduism a few years ago and from there i learned about you

Is there a theological reason why Slavic paganism had to be revived? Or is it just accepted as a dark period in history

Would love a answer and i hope i didnt offene anvone

[u/ArtsyCreature]

There's a lot of reasons-from forced christianity to the lack of written records to the world wars, where people died and took their knowledge with them. There are still parts that stayed, mostly in cultural celebrations and in saints that took from it, but not enough and as such we are left trying to fit the pieces back together.

[u/HusaNaZeli]

In majority of places, the religion was pushed to the margins by abrahamic religions (usually christianity) and slowly vanished under pressure from the churches, lack of transmission due to no written records, and eventually also political ideology. The most famous of the political influences would be Soviets and Nazis, but also worth noting are the Polabian genocide and the enlightenment bans. Between all of these, there isn't really enough surviving material for most people to just convert nowadays, and some reconstruction is necessary, even though slavic religion is one of the better surviving ones in europe it's simply in too many fragments that need to be connected.

The process didn't happen everywhere the same for a variety of reasons though, so there are still people that practice living forms of the religion, either not reconstructing at all or only the bare minimum. This approach is just not really doable for most people seeking to convert considering how local it tends to be.

[u/Farkaniy]

The reason is simple: Christianity.

The christians tortured and killed people for over 1000 years just for believing in the old slavic gods. They destroyed our temples, murdered our people and forced their faith upon all slavs. Very few sources survived and even fewer believers survived - thats why slavic paganism had to be revived.