Religion and Magic in Socialist and Post-Socialist Contexts. Vol. 1: Historic and Ethnographic Case Studies of Orthodoxy, Heterodoxy, and Alternative Spirituality 1

The chapters collected in Religion and Magic in Socialist and Post-Socialist Contexts are informed by two political events of the recent past: the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Without those events and the sociocultural dislocations that ensued, interest in religion and magic in Eastern Europe very likely would have remained displaced by the more familiar stories, at least among Anglo-Saxon scholars of secularization and disenchantment. Instead, the upheaval of those years helped reveal an array of transnational, national, and regional cultures in Eastern Europe that, like cultures around the globe, are permeated by religion and magic. Contents Patrick Lally Michelson Foreword................................................................................................ 7 Alexandra Coțofană and James M. Nyce Introduction ......................................................................................... 17 Tatiana Bužeková Common Work on the Future: Concept of Healing in Neo- Shamanism .......................................................................................... 33 Ekaterina Grishaeva, Valeria Shumkova What Does It Mean to Be a True Orthodox in Post-Secular Russia: Attitude Toward Magic Among Orthodox Believers in the Middle Ural ............................................. 51 Victor Shnirelman How to Become the “Slavic-Aryans”: The Founders of the Russian Neo-Paganism and Their Ambitions .................................. 75 Alexandra Coțofană The Curse Prayers of Saint Vasile or How to “Declare War to the Devil” ......................................................................................... 99 Dzvenyslava Hanus Maternity Rituals in the Soviet Western Ukrainian Borderland ... 119 Tatiana Khoruzhenko “Media Witches” in the 21st-Century Russia................................. 141 Sarah Rafailjović (Un)orthodox Practice: Magic and Retraditionalization in Post-Socialist Serbia. ................................................................... 157 Anna Ozhiganova Health Magic in Russian New Age .................................................. 175 List of Contributors .......................................................................... 175 Religion and magic have played important roles within Eastern European societies where social reality and socio-political balance may differ greatly from those in the West. Although often thought of as being two distinct, even antagonistic forces, religion and magic find ways to work together. 0By taking on various examples in the multicultural settings of post-Soviet and post-socialist spaces, this collection brings together diverse historical and ethnographic analyses of orthodoxy and heterodoxy from the pre- and post-1989 periods, studies on the relationship of religious and state institutions to individuals practicing alternative forms of spirituality, and examples of borderlands as spaces of ambiguity. 0This volume is at the crossroads of anthropology, history, as well as cultural memory studies. Its archival and field research results help us understand how repurposing religious and magic practices worked into the transition that countries in Eastern Europe and beyond have experienced after the end of the Cold War vol. 1 Historic and ethnographic case studies of orthodoxy, heterodoxy, and alternative spirituality -- with a foreword by Patrick Lally Michelson -- vol. 2 Baltic, Eastern European, and post-USSR case studies -- with a foreword by Anita Stasulane.