Kateryna Zorya presents her doctoral thesis: "The Government Used to Hide the Truth, but Now We Can Speak": Contemporary Esoteric Currents in Post-Soviet Ukraine, 1990-2010

Subject: The Study of Religions
Research area: Historical Studies
Research Group: Centre for Baltic and East European Studies, CBEES
External reviewer: Oleg Yarosh, Aarhus University
Language: English

Abstract

The dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 26, 1991, marked the end of what has been called the most extensive sociological experiment in history. Newly formed post-Soviet states found themselves in a state of total anomie—a society-wide collapse of social norms. As one of its effects, a tidal wave of esoteric currents and magical practices emerged immediately after the Soviet Union’s dissolution and remained prominent in post-Soviet societies until approximately the early 2000s. For a time, there was less stigma in going to a village witch than to a psychiatrist, more acceptable to study UFOs than planned economics, and it was certainly viewed as less strange to be interested in chakras than in Marx or Engels.

This thesis explores how practitioners of esotericism navigated Ukraine from 1986 to 2014 by analyzing the content of esoteric publications produced in Ukraine, their geography of publication, and supplementary texts from other post-Soviet countries. It demonstrates that two discrete groups of practitioners can be identified, and that their strategies of self-presentation depended on the broader class relationships formed in the Soviet period. The first group, termed “working class esotericists”, was the product of the Soviet program to produce a large number of technical experts on a very limited time frame. The second group, termed “intellectual class esotericists”, were scions of pre-Soviet, intellectuals, who were drafted to teach the new technical experts and were later supposed to be replaced by them.

The empirical analysis shows that Soviet programs preserved esoteric ideas as part of a propaganda campaign against the Thomism and integrated elements of folk knowledge into its science in order to fuel industrialization. These ideas were then distributed to the population via Soviet popular science, which led to the post-Soviet occult revival. Even after the collapse of Soviet censorship, Ukrainian esotericists retained the majority of their self-presentation practices from the Soviet period. “Working class” esotericists attempted to legitimize in anomic Ukrainian society by making themselves as visible as possible, collecting accolades and serving clients. “Intellectual class” esotericists preferred to stay out of sight while contributing to the discourse by reproducing primary sources and maintaining channels of transmission. Finally, this volume illuminates how working and intellectual class esotericists valued very similar qualities—erudition, tenacity, and competence—and shows how these values manifested under conditions of anomie.

Keywords: esotericism, occultism, magic, Ukrainian history, Soviet history, transmission of esoteric ideas, intelligentsia, intellectuals, history of ideas.