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Articles by Katri Pynnöniemi

1. 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.

2. 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.

3. “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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. Special section: New Age and alternative beliefs in socialist Eastern Europe Introduction. New Age spiritualities of (post-) socialism

   Baltic Worlds has in this special section “New Age and alternative beliefs in socialist Eastern Europe” invited scholars from different disciplines to address topics relating to the diversity of new religious beliefs in Eastern Europe during the socialist era and beyond. The authors, five scholars studying the multiple expressions of New Age spirituality on their own material, propose to view New Age from various angles.

7. Political participation during and after the pandemic. A mixed picture

   The two-day conference “Political Participation in Central and Eastern Europe during the Pandemic” discussed how the profile of participants and political participation did change compared to the pre-pandemic situation and highlighted the variation in the modes of political representation in Central and Eastern European countries.

8. Territory, state and nation. The geopolitics of Rudolf Kjellén

   The topic for the workshop was “Great powers and small states — Rudolf Kjellén’s Baltic geopolitical visions and the role of democracy.” Participants responded enthusiastically to this specialized but inclusive topic, addressing the history of the legendary — but often ostracized — political scientist and father of terminology and theories of geopolitics and biopolitics, Rudolf Kjellén (1864–1922).

9. Atomic heritage: Examining materiality, colonialism, and the speculative time of nuclear legacies

   At the 4-days conference Atomic Heritage an international group of speakers discussed the legacies and geographies of nuclear cultures in sites ranging from Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia, Japan, certain Pacific Islands, France, the UK, Sweden, the USA, and Germany -- to name but a few.

10. The Holocaust, post-colonial studies, and German politics of memory Historians in a new dispute

    Ashort article by the Australian historian Dirk Moses published on May 23, 2021, in the Swiss journal Geschichte der Gegenwart has sparked a heated debate among German intellectuals and historians on the singularity of the Holocaust. The debate partly presents itself as an updated version of the German historians’ debate (Historikerstreit) from the late 1980s.

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