contributors

Articles by Barbara Törnquist-Plewa & Magdalena Góra

1. Statement of Solidarity

   The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24 violated the territorial integrity of the independent Ukrainian state and is causing extreme suffering to Ukrainian people. Baltic Worlds deplores and condemns this violation of international law and the cruelty of the war against Ukraine’s civic population. For many years, the political, economic, social and cultural development of Eastern Europe has been the principal focus of the scholarly research published in the journal. Baltic Worlds has an extensive networks of readers, contributors and colleagues at educational and cultural institutions in the broader region of Easter Europe, including Ukraine and Russia. The current war threatens and concerns us all. With this statement Baltic Worlds declares its solidarity with the Ukrainian people, who are the innocent victims of Russian aggression, and demand that all Russian troops be withdrawn from Ukrainian territory with immediate effect and an immediate end to the Russian army’s attack on the civic population. Baltic Worlds condemns in the strongest terms the violent destruction of Ukraine’s cultural heritage, cities, and educational facilities as a result of Russia's full-scale invasion. Stop the war immediately!

2. Response to the Russian war on Ukraine

   There has been open conflict between Russia and Ukraine since 2014, when Russia annexed Crimea. On 24 February 2022, we woke to the news that Russia had begun a military invasion targeting all of Ukraine, following a period of increased aggression. Baltic Worlds has a specific focus on research into the Baltic Sea region and Eastern Europe and many contributors and colleagues come from Ukraine – as well as from Russia. And, for that matter, from Poland, Germany, the Baltic States and south-eastern Europe. In these uncertain times in Europe and the wider world, it is important to differentiate between a political regime and the researchers at the various universities. Baltic Worlds wants to continue to work with researchers and higher education institutions in Ukraine, as well as with researchers in Russia. Baltic Worlds as a scholarly journal will follow the development closely and will publish on the situation from a scholarly approach here at the website and/or in the printed journal. Baltic Worlds, as well as the publishing Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES) and the whole Södertörn University, is deeply concerned about the consequences of Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in terms of human suffering, academic freedom, and Ukraine’s sovereignty. We wish to support our colleagues in Ukraine in every way we can. The political regime led by Vladimir Putin must immediately cease its military aggression and respect international law. Ninna Mörner, Editor-in-Chief, Baltic Worlds Joakim Ekman, Director of the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES)

3. Freedom & Resistance 2021

   There are several recent reports highlighting a worrying trend towards what one could call attacks on democratic values such as independent media and academic freedom.

4. Defining the future for the people. Defining the future for the people. Examining a proposed link between cultural heritage and the future

   Cultural Heritage and the Future, Cornelius Holtorf & Anders Högberg, eds., (London & New York: Routledge, 2021), 256 pages.

5. A multifaceted picture of the memory processes in Eastern Europe. In search of reconciliation

   CBEES Annual Report 2020: Constructions and Instrumentalization of the Past. A Comparative Study on Memory Management in the Region, Eds. Ninna Mörner et al., (Södertörn University: Stockholm, 2021). 186 pages

6. Re-imagining the Ukrainian Ancestral Land The Vedic and Aryan influence of Ridnovir geopoetics

   Ukrainian Neo-pagan groups, known as Ridnoviry, since the 1950s, sought to develop an archaic cosmic piety around nature and primordial traditions, to providing an alternative to the disillusions of Soviet materialist atheism and give meaning to an uprooted nation, Mainly influenced by an environmentalist and Hinduist imaginary, the landscape constitutes the main element of inertia structuring this belief. Indeed, the emotions embedded in the Brahmin knowledge and the aesthetic permanence of territory are the foundations of what could be called a pagan “geopoetics”. This concept, based on environmentalism and poetry, was part of the deployment of a new understanding of nature, and the claim of a Ukrainian ascendance linked with the Vedic and Aryan origins myth. Focusing on the main Neo-pagan groups Ridna Ukrayins’ka Natsional’na Víra (RUN-Vira) and Ob’iednannia Ridnoviriv Ukraïny (ORU), I propose in this article to return to the genealogy of this belief and show the role of geopoetics in the construction of Ukrainian Neo-paganism.

7. From Sofia’s Salons to the Mountain Ranges of Kozhuh Social and functional dimensions of esotericism in late socialist Bulgaria

   The article observes esoteric spirituality in Bulgaria in a longue dureé frame and argues the existence of a consistent tradition since the late 19th century. Based on biographical research, contemporary sources and archive materials, the article delivers insights into the social and functional dimensions of esotericism in socialist Bulgaria and answers the question of how esoteric and New Age subculture could spread in a supposedly antireligious socialist society.

8. “I was fascinated by the extent of occulture in a communist country like Yugoslavia of the 1970s”

   A conversation with Nemanja Radulović on esotericism and New Age in communist Yugoslavia, and alternative and occult expressions and thinking.

9. Giving birth to a Baby Dolphin Esoteric representations of human-dolphin connections in the late Soviet waterbirth movement

   This article describes the New Age version of the dolphinist myth and the practices of human-dolphin communication that developed in the late Soviet Union in the grassroots movement for “home waterbirth and active raising of infants.” The Aquaculture method, authored by the psychic healer and charismatic teacher Igor Charkovsky (1936–2021), included intensive training of pregnant women, giving birth in water, infant swimming, and diving from the first day of life, as well as metaphysical connections with dolphins.

10. Occultism in the GDR? The paranormal as heterodoxy of scientific worldview

    The article summarizes the main findings of a socio-historical study devoted to the question of the political and social handling of “paranormal,” “parapsychological” or “occult” knowledge, experiences, and practices in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The “scientific worldview” derived from Marxism-Leninism and propagated in the GDR was essentially a scientistic conception of reality. Against this background, all occult or paranormal topics were rigorously rejected in the public discourse of the GDR.

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