Obsessed with Culture: The Cultural Impetus of Russian Neo-pagans

Abstract

Following the dissolution of the USSR, ethnic culture, together with ethnic history, proved to be a powerful political tool which legitimized new states and new political borders. By the turn of the 1990s, some Russian political activists were calling for a development of their own ethnic culture and communities. A Russian Neo-pagan movement developed, led by educated urban intellectuals tired of cosmopolitan urban culture and seeking to retrieve the unique “original culture” of their ancestors. In order to imagine this culture, however, they referred to a variety of sources from Slavic, German, Indian and South American cultures. In this chapter, Shnirelman scrutinizes the ideas of some well-known Neo-pagan leaders, focusing on their sources, motives, attitudes and values, which combine Russian ethnocentrism with a cosmopolitan outlook in unexpected ways.