The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture (Paperback)

by Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal (Editor) "The occult was a remarkably integral part of prerevolutionary Russian and Soviet culture..." (more)
Key Phrases: occult journalism, folk occult, illiustrirovannyi zhurnal, New York, Soviet Union, Daniil Andreev (more...)

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Product Description
A pioneering, richly interdisciplinary volume, this is the first work in any language on a subject that has long attracted interest in the West and is now of consuming interest in Russia itself. The cultural ferment unleashed by the collapse of the Soviet Union reawakened interest in the study of Russian religion and spirituality. This book provides a comprehensive account of the influence of occult beliefs and doctrines on intellectual and cultural life in twentieth-century Russia. Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal's introduction delineates the characteristics of occult cosmology which distinguish it from mysticism and theology, and situates Russian occultism in historical and pan-European contexts. Contributors explore the varieties of occult thinking characteristic of prerevolutionary Russia, including Kabbala, theosophy, anthroposophy, and the fascination with Satanism. Other contributors document occultism in the cultural life of the early Soviet period, examine the surprising traces of the occult in the culture of the high Stalin era, and describe the occult revival in contemporary Russia. The volume includes bibliographical essays on Russian occult materials available outside Russia. Contributors MIKHAIL AGURSKY, Hebrew University

VALENTINA BROUGHER, Georgetown University

MARIA CARLSON, University of Kansas

ROBERT DAVIS, New York Public Library

MIKHAIL EPSTEIN, Emory University

KRISTI GROBERG, North Dakota State University

IRINA GUTKIN, University of California, Los Angeles

MICHAEL HAGEMEISTER, Ruhr University, Bochum

LINDA IVANITS, Pennsylvania State University

EDWARD KASINEC, New York Public Library

JUDITH DEUTSCH KORNBLATT, University of Wisconsin

HKAN LVGREN, independent scholar

BERNICE GLATZER ROSENTHAL, Fordham University

WILLIAM F. RYAN, Warburg Institute, London

HOLLY DENIO STEPHENS, University of Kansas

ANTHONY VANCHU, University of Texas, Austin

RENATA VON MAYDELL, Munich University

GEORGE YOUNG, independent scholar

Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Cornell University Press (June 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080148331X
• ISBN-13: 978-0801483318
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #864,382 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Russian and Soviet Occultism and Esoterica., September 22, 2003

By	New Age of Barbarism "zosimos" (EVROPA.) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

_The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture_ is a compilation of essays written by various scholars on the various underground and occult aspects of Russian culture and later of the culture of the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks who created the Soviet Union did much to portray Russian culture under the Tsars as backward and the Russian peasant as illiterate and prone to superstition; however, as one sees by reading this book many individuals within the Soviet Union themselves had elaborate occult and esoteric beliefs. While the Soviet Union tried to ban writers and intellectuals and suppress all religion or "irrational" developments of the human spirit, this effort largely failed due to the very creative nature of man (so misunderstood by Marxists). Russian culture has always been influenced by surviving pagan beliefs and through the Christian tradition preserved in the Russian Orthodox Church; however, influences from freemasonry, Swedenborgianism and spiritism, Theosophy, Anthroposophy, Eastern religions, and other occultists such as Gurdjieff and his interpreter Ouspensky have also played an important role in shaping the occult underground culture in Russia. In addition, various German philosophical idealists such as Kant, Schelling, and Hegel came to play an important part in the development of Russian thought along with iconoclasts such as Nietzsche and romantics and anarchists. This book includes a brief introduction to the occult culture in Russian and Soviet thought and various essays, followed by a conclusion dealing with modern developments in Russian culture. Essays included are an essay on folk magic and divination among the Russian peasantry with emphasis on the survival of paganism and the role of the Russian Orthodox Church; an essay on the role of the peasant and the occult in Russian literature with reference to the authors Ivan Turgenev, Andrei Bely, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn; an essay on the role of the Jewish Kabbalah in Russian occultism including reference to Christian Sophiologists including the theologians Vladimir Solovyov, Pavel Florensky, and Sergei Bulgakov; an essay on the role of Satanism with emphasis on the role of Satan in the Orthodox Churches and Russian tradition as well as mention of the novels of Andrei Bely; an essay on "fashionable occultism" including reference to the Theosophical and Anthroposophical societies, spiritualism, and freemasonry; an essay on the thought of Nikolai Fedorovich Fedorov; an essay on Russian cosmism which included ideas on space exploration and immortality with reference to Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Biocosmist and panpsychist; an essay on technology and the role of the Soviet engineer; an essay on occult socialist realism (interestingly occult ideas based upon the Christian veneration of saints were behind the Soviet action taken in preserving Lenin's body); an essay on the filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein and the role of the occult and gnosticism in his thinking; an essay on Vsevolod Ivanov; an essay on Daniil Andreev famous mystic and writer who combined world religions in what he termed "The Rose of the World"; and a concluding essay on the role of occultism in politics which mentions various Russian Rightist groups including the Traditionalist thought of Aleksandr Dugin and the role of the infamous antisemitic tract, _Protocols of the Elders of Zion_. In sum, this book constitutes an enormous compendium of material on various occultists, writers and groups, as well as a useful bibliography including details about various obscure journals and rare books, and will prove invaluable to the researcher in esoteric thought. Many in America are largely ignorant of the alternative belief systems which exist among the Russians and which existed under the Soviet tyranny, and hopefully this book will prove a useful tool to alleviating that ignorance. For all those interested in alternative modes of perceiving reality and in discarded belief systems, the ideas presented in this book will prove to be a fascinating look at the deep recesses of the Russian (and Soviet) psyche.