Assianism

Assianism (Уацдин) is a folk religion derived from the traditional mythology of the Ossetians, modern descendants of the Scythians of the Alan tribes, believed to be a continuation of the ancient Scythian religion. The religion is known as "Assianism" among its Russian-speaking adherents ("Assianism" means the religion of the "As" or "Oss"—an ancient name of the Alans, from which the Greeks possibly drew the name of "Asia", which is preserved in the Russian and Georgian-derived name "Ossetians"), and as Uatsdin (Уацдин), Ætsæg Din (Æцæг Дин; both meaning "True Faith"), Æss Din (Æсс Дин, Ossetian-language rendering of "Assianism"), or simply Iron Din (Ирон Дин, "Ossetian Faith") by Ossetians in their own language. It started to be properly reorganized in a conscious way during the 1980s, as an ethnic religion among the Ossetians. The religion has been incorporated by some organisations, chiefly in North Ossetia–Alania within Russia, but is also present in South Ossetia, and in Ukraine. The Nart sagas are central to the religion, and exponents of the movement have drawn theological exegeses from them. The revival of Ossetian folk religion as an organised religious movement was initially accorded the formal name Ætsæg Din (Æцæг Дин, "True Faith") in the 1980s by a group of nationalist intellectuals who in the early 1990s constituted the sacerdotal Styr Nykhas ("Great Council"). Ætsæg, meaning "truthful", is the name of the foundational kinship in the Nart sagas, while din corresponds to the Avestan daena, meaning divine "understanding" or "conscience", and today "religion". Fearing that the concept of Ætsæg Din carried implications of universal truth that might offend Christians and Muslims, the Ossetian linguist Tamerlan Kambolov coined the alternative term Uatsdin (Уацдин) in 2010, which has become the most common name for the religion in Ossetian. Daurbek Makeyev, the most known exponent of the movement, has preferred to name it Æss Din (Æсс Дин), meaning the "religion of the Æss", "As" or "Os", an alternative ancient name of the Alans, preserved in the Russian and Georgian name "Ossetians", and root from which the ancient Greeks likely drew the term "Asia".