I was banned in the discord channel for 3 days for symbolizing the Kolovrat on PFP. I want to say that this symbol means “the eternal movement of life, the movement of the solar disk across the sky”. Based on this definition, which I follow, I don’t understand why I was banned. I am not going to change my avatar and the reason for that is my love and pride for my culture and my people. I am currently unbanned, but I don’t want to get banned again for symbolizing my pride. I would appreciate it if your opinion on this symbol changes after my post.
This is less clear-cut. There are just as many sources claiming it’s a Slavic symbol, primarily Rodnovers, and just as many claiming that it’s an invention by Neo-Nazis who claim it’s from ancient times. I couldn’t find any documents supporting a slavic pre-Nazi origin (that I can read) so as far as I can tell claims that it’s ancient slavic are dubious. Not to say it didn’t exist in ancient times, some ancient Greek pottery has the symbol, but there isn’t evidence that it’s specifically an ancient Slavic symbol. It is worth noting a lot of the modern usage of this symbol sprouted from Alexey Dobrovolsky, a neo-nazi. Many notable neo-nazi groups utalise the symbol; the Russian National Unity had adopted a variant of the symbol as their flag, as do the neo-nazi Rusich Group who are fighting in Donbas as we speak. The Rodnovers are also quite controversial, and many hold anti-Semitic beliefs and ethnic nationalism.
If I hesitated to guess, a ban was handed out with the explanation that it is a neo-Nazi symbol and how some of the variants of it literally are a swastika. There’s of course a lot of debate around that and people trying to reclaim usage of the symbol. I don’t have any historical expertise to be able to make any kind of claim on this subject. A ban seems justified, considering UO mods would much rather be safe than sorry.
This webpage seems to be a decent resource on the topic.
“Print literature which could be used for citation of the origin and meaning is almost non-existent, and the known titles are very general and provide no sources (eg. Kushnir 2014 ; Kushnir 2016 : 67). It therefore seems that “kolovrat” was established as the main symbol of Slavic faith in times when Neopaganism was forming in eastern Europe, and there was a demand for unifying symbol based on Slavic material culture (Pilkington – Popov 2009 : 282)”
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First of all, I’m impressed how much work you did researching that.
But @Gekk_Here - I mean this in the nicest way possible but I would recommend finding an alternative way to express pride in your avatar like a country flag or something. A questionable at best symbol that resembles a swastika is a bad first impression, and an easy way to not only get banned, and likely also might be offputting to others and make people shy away from you online.
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Meanwhile, burrowing into the literature on archaeology, e.g.: “N.I.Troitsky and modern studies of historical and cultural heritage of Central Russia: Collection of articles: In 2 vol.” we can find such images (attention to #23):
Hey, @Gekk_Here
The other commenters are generally accurate as to why you were requested to change your PFP. Similar information was provided in your tempban reason, as well as my acknowledgement that there’s many symbols that aren’t always considered ‘inappropriate’/hateful depending on the context or region. (Spinning wheels in particular are fairly common.)
Sorry – if you rejoin the server, please change your displayed PFP. I understand that you feel your usage wasn’t rule-breaking, but we will continue asking users to change their PFP over this and similar symbols moving forward.
That’s cool! I can’t exactly read Russian, but if by some miracle I learn how to I’ll read that study.
So you’re saying it’s also a forbidden symbol? It’s a spinning wheel, too. At this rate, freedom of speech and thought will finally die in this game. “The harder you push the spring, the harder it will bounce back.”
Appeal denied. Rejoin the server with a different, more appropriate profile picture when the ban expires.