Russian Rodnovery originated in the Soviet dissidents' circles of the 1970s, as intellectuals became concerned for the eradication of traditional Russian culture and identity. An intellectual circle that cultivated themes of Slavic indigenous religion formed as a wing of the predominantly Orthodox Christian samizdat nationalist journal "Veche" (1971–1974). The first manifesto of Russian Rodnovery is considered to be the letter "Critical remarks by a Russian man" ("Kriticheskie zametki russkogo cheloveka") published on such journal, anonymously in 1973, by Valery Yemelianov (1929–1999), who was then close to Khrushchev. The letter criticised Christianity as a product of Judaism serving the interests of Zionism. The journal attracted various personalities, including Anatoly Ivanov, the artist Konstantin Vasilyev (1942–1974), and Nikolay Bogdanov, among others. Vasilyev's art is widely celebrated within the Rodnover community. Ivanov, who declared himself a Zoroastrian and subscribed to "Arism" or "Slavism", published a fervently anti-Christian pamphlet entitled "The Christian Plague" ("Khristianskaya chuma"). Throughout the 1970s, the nationalist dissident movement split into two branches, an Orthodox Christian one and another one that developed National Bolshevism, which eventually continued to harbour Pagan traditionalists. Other influential texts in this period were Valery Yemelianov's "Desionizatsiya" ("De-Sionisation") and later Istarkhov's "Udar russkikh bogov" ("The Strike of Russian Gods").