Kolovrat in Russia

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

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In Russian culture, the swastika occupies a very special place. In terms of the prevalence of this sacred symbol, Russia is hardly inferior to even such a country as saturated with Aryan symbolism as India. The swastika can be found on almost any objects of Russian folk art: in the ornament of embroidery and weaving, in carving and painting on wood, on spinning wheels, rolls, rubbles, ruffles, stuffing, printed and gingerbread boards, on Russian weapons, ceramics, items of the Orthodox cult, on towels, valances, aprons, tablecloths, belts, underwear, men's and women's shirts, kokoshniks, chests, platbands, jewelry, etc.

The Russian name for the swastika is "Kolovrat", i.e. "Solstice" ("Kolo" is the Old Russian name for the sun, "gate" - rotation, return). Kolovrat symbolized the victory of light (sun) over darkness, life over death, reality over navu. According to one of the versions, the Kolovrat symbolized the increase in daylight hours or the rising spring sun, while salting - the decrease in daylight and the setting autumn sun. The existing confusion in the names is generated by different understandings of the rotational movement of the Russian swastika. Some researchers believe that a "right" or "straight" swastika should be called a cross with the ends bent to the left. According to this version, the semantic meaning of the swastika is as close as possible to the ancient one (the symbol of "living" fire), and therefore its curved ends should be considered precisely as tongues of flame, which, when the cross rotates to the right, naturally deviates to the left, and when the cross is rotated to the left, to the right under the influence of the oncoming air flow. This version, of course, has the right to exist, but one should not discount the opposite point of view, according to which the swastika with the ends bent to the right should be called "right-sided".

In any case, in many villages of the Vologda region, just such a swastika is still called "Kolovrat", and even more often make no distinction between right- and left-handed swastikas in general. In my opinion, "Kolovrat" and "salting" are different names for the same sign. "Salting" is literally movement (rotation) along the sun. But the "Kolovrat" ("rotation", that is, the movement of the sun) is the same! There is no contradiction between these two primordially Russian words and never has been!

In the Russian tradition, in general, the left-sided swastika has never been considered "evil", and there has never been any opposition of multidirectional swastikas on Russian soil. In the overwhelming majority of cases in Russian ornaments, left- and right-sided swastikas always stand side by side without any hint of their "hostility".

It is possible that the disputes over the direction of rotation of the swastika were a distant echo of the Old Believers' rejection of Nikon's round of churches against the sun. But at the same time, the Old Believers treated both the one and the other swastika with equal respect and never opposed them to each other. It is curious that swastika motifs in Russian folk embroidery were especially widespread in the areas where Old Believers lived. And this is not surprising: Russian Old Believers were the most zealous keepers of ancient (including pagan) traditions, and although they formally opposed paganism, in their spirit they were still incomparably closer to paganism than to Christianity.

This fact can be disputed as much as you like, but from this it will not cease to be a fact. And a huge number of pagan swastikas on Old Believer vests and towels are eloquent evidence of this.

One of the first Soviet scientists who dared not only pronounce the word "swastika", but also call it the main element of Russian embroidery, was Vasily Sergeevich Voronov.

“Pure geometric patterns prevail in embroidery, which apparently constitute an older ornamental layer,” he wrote in 1924, “their main element is the ancient motif of the swastika, complicated or fragmented in countless witty geometric variations (the so-called“crests”,“forcing "," trump cards "," wings ", etc.). On this motive, as a basis, the artistic inventiveness of the embroiderers unfolds”1.

In the Christian tradition, the swastika acquired additional semantic meaning and turned into a symbol of light that conquers darkness. It could be seen on the vestments of clergymen, salaries, chalice, christening chambers, icons, book miniatures, epitrachelials, in the painting of churches, on the tombstones of Orthodox graves, etc. In the ornamental belt between the apostolic and hierarchical ranks of the Kiev Cathedral of St. Sophia (11th century), gold multidirectional swastikas with shortened ends are placed in green rhombuses with red outlines. They can be seen both on the southern and northern sides of the apse of Kiev Sophia. In the Chernigov Transfiguration Cathedral (16th century), an ornament of right-sided swastikas surrounds the central drum and the staircase tower. The swastika meander adorns the arched passage to the Kiev Lavra, the floor of the gateway church of the Holy Trinity. Along the edge of the cast-iron steps of the Nikolsky Cathedral of the Nikolo-Persrvensky monastery near Moscow, there is also an ornament of swastikas. Swastika motifs are easily guessed on the headband of an ancient Russian manuscript of the late 15th century "The Words of Gregory the Theologian"; on the headpiece of the Gospel of the XVI century; on the headpiece "Oath to the Priesthood" printed by the St. Petersburg Synodal Printing House in January 1909, on the headpiece of the Gospel of the late 19th century, on the headpiece of the Apostle of the 16th century, etc.

The capital letter of the name of Christ in many editions of the books of John of Kronstadt was depicted in the form of a swastika

A similar technique was used by the North Russian woodcarvers. On the "Easter cake" (a type of composite gingerbread board for baking ceremonial Easter) of the 19th century from the Verkhovazhsky district of the Vologda region, the letter "X" in the abbreviation "ХВ" (Christ Voskrsse!) Is made in the form of a swastika with curls at the ends 3. On the famous face of Christ Pantokrator (Almighty) in the Novgorod Sophia Cathedral, two multidirectional swastikas are placed on the chest under the Lord of the Almighty. The icon of Our Lady of the Reign, revealed in the village of Kolomenskoye in the Church of the Beheading of John the Baptist in the laziness of Nicholas II's abdication from the throne, also has an image of a swastika crowning the crown.

Left-sided swastikas adorn the hem of the princely robes on the 16th century icon of the Holy Princes Gabriel and Timothy kept in the Church-Archaeological Office of the Moscow Theological Academy. Large left- and right-sided blue swastikas are clearly visible on the blue priestly phelonion from the miniature of the Collection of Proverbs and Stories of the late 19th century 4. At the ends of the 15th century epitrachili from the former Sevastyanov collection of the Rumyantsev Museum, the swastika ornament with schematic doves is clearly borrowed from Islamic architecture 5.

Most often, swastika symbols of various forms are found on the icons of the Mother of God, in the same way as swastika ornament often adorns women's peasant clothes: in both cases, swastikas act as magical (and primarily, of course, pagan) amulets. In this case, we simply cannot talk about any "aesthetic considerations": icon painters never allowed themselves liberties and strictly followed traditions, especially in the use of various signs and symbols. Swastika symbols are also found on the famous seven-lobed vyatka temporal rings dating from the X11-XITI centuries. On the ring from Zyuzino, right-sided swastikas are placed on the two upper blades. In their outline, they exactly repeat the emblem of the RNE A. P. Barkashov. On the ring from the mound group in Dubki Tsaritsynskiy, left-sided swastikas are located just below - on the second from the top, each blade. On the Rassokhino ring, a left-sided curved swastika is present on the shield 6 itself.

On ancient Russian rings, the image of the swastika is found everywhere. It is noteworthy that most often we see here a right-handed rectangular swastika, placed in a circle, oval or square. And only in some cases does it appear before us with rounded or spiral curls. During excavations in Novgorod (estate "E" of the Nerevsky excavation site), ten rings with a swastika were discovered at once in the workshop of a 14th century caster. Similar rings of the Russian type were found in the Bulgarian settlement on the Volga, as well as in many Russian cities.

Only in the collection of the Vologda collector M. Surov there are six rings with the image of a swastika. Two of them are cast plate with three and five square marks, respectively. In the center of both rings there is a right-sided swastika, in the hallmarks on the sides there are X-shaped crosses. Two more rings from the same collection bear spiral swastikas on square and oval shields, respectively. Of greatest interest are the two remaining rings with the image of a right-sided rectangular swastika. In the first case, it is enclosed in a square shield with a dotted rim and four convex points at the corners; in the second, on a leaf-shaped shield with a thin convex rim. The last four rings could well have been cast by local Vologda craftsmen in the XIII-XVI centuries, since the compositions on them are very peculiar and, as far as I know, have no analogues either in private or in museum collections.

Even more often, the swastika mark was applied to the bottoms and sides of ancient Russian clay vessels. Moreover, the swastika itself here took a variety of forms: it could be either left- or right-sided, three- and four-pointed, with short and elongated blades, depressed and convex, with rectangular, rounded, spiral, branching and comb ends. There is no doubt that these hallmarks were used as generic signs. Researchers prefer to call them "marks of ownership", but in essence they were primitive family coats of arms. There is a lot of evidence that these signs were passed on from father to son, from son to grandson, from grandson to great-grandson, etc. The sign itself could become more complicated, since the son often brought something new to it. But its basis necessarily remained the same and was easily recognizable. In my opinion, it is here that one should look for the origins of Russian heraldry, which is now engulfed in swamp flowering and is entirely oriented towards the West. Conciseness, severity and expressiveness: these are the components of true Russian emblem. Modern pro-Western coats of arms, distinguished by their deliberate overload and lurid pomp, are clear evidence of the megalomania of their owners and developers. The smaller the person, the more magnificent his coat of arms: isn't this a trend of our time?

The original image of the swastika, inscribed in the middle cross, is in the southern nave of the Cathedral of St. Sophia of Novgorod (11th century). Before us is another prototype of the emblem of the RNU by Alexander Barkashov. And yet, the swastika sign was most actively used by Russian weavers and embroiderers. If there was an opportunity to collect Russian towels, tablecloths, valances, shirts and belts with swastikas embroidered on them from the storerooms of all Russian museums and private collections, I am sure that the huge halls of the Hermitage and the Tretyakov Gallery combined would not be enough to accommodate them. The abundance and variety of swastika motifs in Russian folk embroidery can shock any novice researcher. It should be borne in mind that a huge number of photographs of Russian embroidery items with swastika patterns have never been published. In Soviet books on folk art, they appeared only occasionally, and then either in a reduced form, or under the guise of other compositions. The first edition, in which swastika motifs (mainly on the example of Olonets mantles) were presented quite widely, was the book "Pictorial motives in Russian folk embroidery", which was published in 1990. Its main disadvantages include the too small size of the illustrations, in which in some cases it is possible to see the swastika patterns only through a magnifying glass. In the rest of Soviet publications on folk art, swastika motifs in embroidery were deliberately presented in negligible quantities so that the reader would never get the impression of their dominance among other popular motives.

The swastika in Russian embroidery acted both as an independent motive and in combination with other elements: plant, geometric, zoomorphic, cult, etc. In later everyday subjects, it practically does not occur. And this is quite understandable: everyday scenes, for all their originality, have little in common with the Russian tradition and do not carry almost any sacredness. The presence of the swastika sacralizes any object, be it a village valance or the tomb of a Roman emperor.

Apparently, any generally accepted rules in the image of the Russian swastika never existed: it was applied to the fabric arbitrarily, depending on the imagination of the embroiderer. Of course, there were samples of patterns, but they existed in a very limited space, often not leaving the volost or even the village. Hence - such a variety of swastika compositions in Russian embroidery. And hence the difficulties in their attribution and binding to a specific area. So, for example, the Tarnogo swastikas are generally larger than the Severodvinsk ones, but this does not mean at all that there were no large ones on the Northern Dvina, and small ones were not found near Tarnoga. Regarding the Russian North, we can say this: every village has its own swastika pattern. One gets the impression that the embroiderers competed with each other, trying to outmaneuver their rivals and by all means make their own basche pattern. It should not be forgotten that the skill of embroiderers at that time was valued much higher and was almost the best "recommendation" for future grooms, and the shirt of a girl who came to the gatherings served as a kind of "visiting card" for her. Swastika motifs in folk embroidery are found literally everywhere: in Ukraine, in Belarus, in central and even southern Russia. However, the unconditional priority in this area belongs to the Russian North. This is explained quite simply: with the planting of Christianity, the most staunch pagan adherents left for the North - where there had not yet been forced baptisms by "fire and sword", where people had not yet been driven into rivers by whole crowds under the watchful eye of foreign priests and extravagant princes. It was these people who were the “last Mohicans” of pagan Rus, and it was they who managed to establish age-old traditions in the Russian North. Swastika patterns on Russian towels, valances and tablecloths are a visual display of ancient Russian Vedic traditions and, no doubt, carry a much deeper meaning than modern researchers of Russian folk art imagine.

The legendary Ryazan hero, who defended the Russian land from the Mongol invaders and with his unparalleled courage won the respect of even his enemies, went down in history under the name of Evpatiy Kolovrat. The left-sided swastika was painted on the wall of the window opening of the Ipatiev House in Yekaterinburg before her death by the last Russian Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. There is evidence that she accompanied the image of the swastika with some kind of inscription, but its content remained unknown. Emperor Nicholas II drove a car with a swastika in a circle on the hood. He and the Empress signed personal letters with the same sign.

Numismatists are well aware of "kerenki" in denominations of 250, 1000, 5000 and 10,000 rubles, on which a two-headed eagle is depicted against the background of a swastika-Kolovrat. This money was printed until 1922, but the matrix for them was made by the order of the last Russian Emperor, who intended to carry out a monetary reform after the war.

It is curious that it was precisely in the first years of Soviet power, i.e. simultaneously with the aforementioned “kerenki”, banknotes of various denominations (from 1 to 10,000 rubles) were put into circulation, in the ornament of the watermarks of which the six-pointed stars of David were clearly visible. It is even more curious that on November 3, 1919, the swastika was approved as the sleeve insignia of the Kalmyk formations of the Red Army. Information about this came from the candidate of historical sciences, Colonel V. O. Daypis, who headed a department of the Institute of Military History of the USSR Ministry of Defense. The document published below and the sketch attached to it were discovered by the colonel in the Central State Archive of the Soviet Army (now the Russian State Military Archive).

Appendix to the order

“To the troops of the South-Eastern Front of this city. 713.

Description: rhombus 15x11 centimeters made of red cloth. In the upper corner there is a five-pointed star, in the center there is a wreath, in the middle of which is "LUN GTN", with the inscription RSFSR. The diameter of the star is 15 mm. Wreath - 6 cm. LUN GTN size - 27 mm. Letters - 6 mm.

The badge for the command and administrative staff is embroidered in gold and silver and for the Red Army soldiers - stencil. The star, "LYUNGTN" and the ribbon of the wreath are embroidered in gold (for the Red Army men with yellow paint), the most neness: and the inscription - in silver (for the Red Army men with white paint)."

The author of this document, apparently, is the commander of the South-Eastern Front, a former colonel of the tsarist armies V. I. Shorin, repressed in the late 1930s and posthumously rehabilitated.

Moreover, there is quite serious evidence that the swastika sign in the 1920s was also used as the emblem of one of the party publishing houses in Karelia. In the late 30s - early 40s of the last century, peasant clothes with swastika signs embroidered on it were everywhere confiscated and destroyed by the "n-kavedeshniki". “In the north,” writes V. N. Dyomin, - special detachments went to Russian villages and forced women to take off their skirts, ponevs, aprons, shirts, which just threw themselves into the fire. " In some places, it got to the point that the peasants themselves, fearing reprisals, began to destroy towels, items of clothing with swastika signs embroidered on them. “Even those grandmothers who, for centuries, embroidered this sign on mittens,” R. Bagdasarov rightly notes, “after the Patriotic War, they began to call it the“German sign”. Alexander Kuznetsov, a researcher from Ust-Pechenga, Totemsky District, Vologda Region, describes an interesting incident that took place on the eve of World War II in the homeland of his ancestors in the village of Ihalitsa. An employee of the NKVD who arrived in the village spent the night with the chairman of the collective farm Zapletaly and during dinner noticed an ubrus towel hanging on the shrine, in the middle of which a large intricate swastika was illuminated by a lamp, and along the edges were patterns of small rhombic swastikas. From indignation, the eyes of the guest of the herd are bulging, like those of a crayfish. The old mother Zapletala, who was lying on the stove, managed to calm down the raging "NKVD" by force and to explain to him that the sign placed in the center of the ubrus was not a swastika at all ("we do not know such a word"), but "Shaggy Bright", the pattern on side strips are "jibs".

The incident in Ihalitsa, unlike other places, did not develop, because the next day an NKVD officer walked around the whole village and made sure that there are "bright" and "jibs" in almost every peasant house. Itself. Kuznetsov believes that the name "brightly" brought to us one of the nicknames of the Slavic solar deity Yarila, and the word "shaggy" reflected the deep knowledge of our distant ancestors "about the Sun, that fiery tongues - prominences - are raging on the surface of the sun. "Brightly" - so until recently in the villages they could say about a man who alone during a fight put three opponents on the ground. And silushka in the village has always been respected. " Another evidence of the fight against the swastika was found in the Central Depository of Soviet Documentation and published in the first issue of the magazine "" in 1996. On August 9, 1937, the manager of the Moscow regional office of Metisbyt, a certain comrade Glazko, turned to the Commission of Party Control under the UK VKP (b) with a model of a churn made at plant number 29, the blades of which have a "look of a fascist swastika." The inspection established that the author of the churn design was Tuchashvili, a senior engineer of the consumer goods trust of the GUAP. During 1936 and 1937 the plant produced 55763 churns. The head of the consumer goods department, Krause, said that the blades of the churn were similar to the Nazi swastika, but the deputy. the head of the trust Borozdenko replied: "If only the working class was good, do not pay attention."

The position of the deputy will be supported by the head of the trust Tatarsky and the director of plant No. 29 Aleksandrov. “The release of churns,” wrote the informer to the Party Control Commission, “whose blades look like a fascist swastika, I consider an enemy grandfather. I ask you to transfer the whole matter to the NKVD. The draft resolution is attached. Team Leader of Tyzhprom KPK Vasiliev. October 15, 1937 . The informer's efforts were not in vain. Exactly two months later, at a meeting of the Bureau of the Party Control Commission under the Central Committee of the CPSU (b), a decision was made:

one. Take into account the statement of the People's Commissar of the Defense Industry L. M. Kaganovich that within a month the blades of the churns, which look like a fascist swastika, will be removed and replaced with new ones.

2. The case of the design, manufacture and failure to take measures to stop the production of churns, the blades of which look like a fascist swastika, shall be transferred to the NKVD. Voting results: “for” - Shkiryatov, “for” - Yaroslavsky. December 15, 1937.

It is not difficult to guess about the further fate of Tuchashvili, Borozdenko and Tatarsky, isn't it? Thanks to such vile denunciations, hundreds of thousands of Russia's best people suffered in the 1930s. The names of the “arbiters of destinies” (or, more precisely, their pseudonyms) are well known to us: not one of them has ever been punished for their bloody crimes. “For a long time from the special depository no one was given out to anyone an innocent book by BA Kuftin“The Material Culture of the Russian Meshchera”(Moscow, 1926),” writes VN Demin. "Only because it is devoted, in particular, to the analysis of the spread of the swastika ornament among the Russian population." The swastika with the protruding ends of the cross against the background of the eight-pointed star of the Virgin is the official emblem of the Russian National Unity (RNU) organization. The combination of these two symbols in the RNU emblem is by no means accidental. The image of the eight-pointed (Russian) star symbolized the presence of the main deity and was often found on military banners, clothing, weapons, and various household and cult items. In the Christian tradition, the eight-pointed star received an additional semantic meaning: it is called the "Star of the Virgin" or "Bethlehem", since it lit up in the sky during the birth of Jesus Christ and, moving across the sky, showed the Magi the way to his cradle. Her image is found in all icons of the Mother of God displayed in Russia. The swastika in the RNU emblem is housed inside the star, that is, as if superimposed on its silhouette (hence the elongated straight ends of the cross itself - "rays" or "swords", as they are sometimes called). The opinion that such "ray" swastikas (as in the RNU emblem) have never been encountered in Russian culture is erroneous. For example, on a homespun totem, there is a lump of towel from the collection of M. Eight of them are embroidered severely! In addition, you can be convinced of the same by opening the 524th page of the famous book by BA Rybakov "Paganism of Ancient Rus", published in 1987, where in fig. 87 depicts the vyatka temporal ring of the 12th century with spellbinding signs of fertility, on the sides of which are the very "ray" swastikas. It is noteworthy that the academician himself considers this type of swastika "not as a sign of the sun, but only as a sign of fire" and also relates it to the fire method of cultivating land for arable land, noting that "the swastika was found not only in Zyuzin, but also in other mounds near Moscow ".

During the exhibition "Russian National Costume" in the halls of the State Russian Museum in St. Petersburg, one of the visitors (a certain M. Blyakhman) tried to destroy by burning a woman's wedding dress, richly decorated with swastikas. At the police station, the scoundrel brazenly declared that in this way he was fighting "fascism."

Other local names for the swastika are also known: “kovyl” (Tula province), “horse”, “horse shank” (Ryazan province), “hare” (Pechora), “mushroom” (Nizhny Novgorod province), “loach” (Tver province.), "Crooked-leg" (Voronezh province.), Etc. On the territory of the Vologda lands, the name of the swastika was even more diverse. "Kryuchya", "Kryukovei", "Kryuk" (Syamzhensky, Verkhovazhsky regions), "flint", "fire", "horse" (horse-fire?) (Tarnogsky, Nkzhsensky regions), "sver", "cricket" (Velikoustyugsky district), "leader", "leader", "Zhgun", (Kichm.-Gorodetsky, Nikolsky districts), "bright", "shaggy brightly", "kosmach" (T (Otemsky district), "jibs", " chertogon "(Babushkinsky district)," mower "," kosovik "(Sokolsky district)," cross "," vratok "(Vologda, Gryazoyetsky districts), rottenets," rottenka "," vrashun "(Sheksninsky, Cherepoveshiy districts), "Ugly" (Basayevsky district), "miller" (Chagodoshensky district), "krutyak" (Belozersky, Kirillovsky districts), "dust" (Vytegorsky district). The most archaic of them, undoubtedly, is "fireworks." the original meaning of the magic symbol of the swastika: "living fire" - "fire" - "flint" - "fire".

The motive of Nietzsche's glorified "eternal return", the cycle of life, surprisingly found its embodiment in the remote Vologda "outback". In many villages of the Tariog and Nyuksen districts, the semantic and symbolic meaning of the swastika is defined in a short, simple and ingenious way: "everything and everyone will return." This phrase contains much more wisdom than a dozen sophisticated philosophical teachings put together. Contrary to the opinion widespread in scientific circles, the direction of rotation of the cross with bent ends in the Russian tradition was not decisive: both on pagan and Christian ornaments, left-sided (Kolovrat) and right-sided (salting) swastikas peacefully coexist.

In Russia, the different orientation of the swastika was most often associated with the rising and setting Sun, with awakening and falling asleep Nature, but there could be no talk of any "opposition" (good-evil, light-dark, higher-lower, etc.), since the semantic and symbolic meaning of the Russian swastika has never been torn from its roots and was as close as possible to the ancient Aryan.

As you can see, the swastika in Russia was one of the most widespread and deeply revered symbols. This sign has not the slightest relation either to German, or to Italian, or to any other "fascism". And nevertheless, for more than eight decades now, it is he who has been subjected to the most fierce and vicious attacks from first communist and now democratic ideologists, it is he who is trying to equate with all the evil that humanity has experienced in the 20th century. In addition to the fact that these attacks are absolutely unfounded, from a historical point of view, they are also absurd: to expose any symbol to disgrace, even if it be the personification of evil itself, is not just barbarism and an extreme degree of ignorance, it is also blatant savagery., which has no analogue in world history. One can only regret the mayor Yuri Luzhkov, who signed the Law of Moscow No. 19 (dated May 26, 1999) "On administrative responsibility for the production and display of Nazi symbols on the territory of Moscow."According to the spirit and letter of this law, for example, the entire collective of the folklore ensemble “Sudarushka” from the Tapnogsky district of the Vologda region, which was on tour in the capital, should be prosecuted “for wearing Nazi symbols on the territory of Moscow” (Art. 2) and fined the amount of 20 to 100 minimum salaries of the corpse.

Such prohibitions, in my opinion, are absolutely meaningless. Then why has it still not occurred to anyone to impose a ban, for example, on the same devilish symbolism? Walk through the city's commercial kiosks and you will see dozens of Satanic symbols and signs of Baphomet on all kinds of bracelets, key chains and chains.

Has anyone considered it necessary to ban the five-pointed star (the Masonic pentagram) - this kabbalistic and truly bloody symbol, under whose sign Russia has experienced so much torment and suffering as no other country in the world has ever experienced.

By no means am I calling for the installation of a swastika on the tricolor Russian flag. But the need for the rehabilitation of this ancient traditional Russian symbol, in my opinion, is long overdue. The first serious domestic research devoted to the symbolism of the swastika was R. Bagdasarov's book "The Swastika: A Sacred Symbol", published by the Moscow publishing house "White Alvy" in 2001 and since then has been reprinted twice.

Despite all its shortcomings, this book was a valuable contribution to the study and comprehension of the deepest meaning of the swastika symbol. To the main drawbacks of R. Bagdasarov's research, I attribute an excessive enthusiasm for theological interpretations, an excessive amount of secondary facts, lyrical digressions and theological philosophies.

In general, this book was written from a neutral position, and its author, to the best of his ability, remained impartial in his assessments, observing formal objectivism, although his sympathy for the ancient Aryan symbol is obvious.

For my part, I do not hide the fact that I treat this symbol with the deepest respect and love. You need to feel the swastika, pass it through your heart, accept it with all the "dark sides" and giblets, love it without looking back so that no one in the world can prevent you from penetrating its deepest essence, knowing its innermost mystical meaning: only in this case, research can acquire real value for future generations. It was impossible to publish such a book twenty years ago. It is possible that it will be impossible to publish it in the future. Therefore, it was a matter of my honor to give my best and put all my soul into research. This book contains about 3500 illustrations. All in all, there are more than 11.5 thousand of them in my collection. Someday - I am absolutely sure of this - the multivolume and beautifully illustrated "Encyclopedia of the Swastika" will be published, which will mark the actual, and not imaginary, rehabilitation of this great Aryan sacred symbol.

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