Alternative Religiosities in the Communist Regime and Post-Communist East-Central European Countries

optional courses

The course addresses the dynamics of diverse alternative religiosities starting from the communist regime period up to today. It deals with the processes of (trans)formation of changeable and instable religious/spiritual ideas and groups all over East-Central Europe during this time. It also studies the past and current socioreligious processes, discussing diverse manifestations, changes and disruptions of religious phenomena concerning individual religiosities in (trans)regional and (trans)national levels.

In times of Soviet regime, atheism was the officially established ideology and alternative religiosities were mostly active underground. There was as well an unofficial cultural field that was very receptive to the arrival, formation, spread and expressions of diverse alternative religiosities and spiritualities. During the post-communist period, local alternative identities were challenged to adapt to a new situation and rich market of religious demands. In addition, newly arrived religiosities, as well as locally emerged and actively borrowing variously expressed western ideas spiritualities raised current topics among post-communist societies.

The course aims to discuss a wide range of questions related to an emerging diversity of alternative religiosities in the countries during/past the regime and their attendant fields of influence: e.g. politics and strategy of activity of communist regime towards alternative religiosities; restrictions, repressions, survival ways and resistance of representatives of alternative religiosities; (trans)forming diversities within alternative religiosities under/past the regime (individual/group alternative religiosity values, identities and practices); the milieu of alternative religiosity as a space of plurality, diversity, flow, action and resistance; alternative religiosity networks and inter-community relations; formation and transfer of religious/spiritual ideas within the communist/post-communist societies and from the outside; oppositions and connections as a response to the past (images of tradition, traditional religious institutions, post-communist cultural heritage, etc.); memory, continuity and changes within alternative religiosities, etc.

*Additional reading/not compulsory

Session 1. Lecture

Acting in the Underground: Life as a Hare Krishna Devotee in the Soviet Republic of Lithuania

Session 2. Active lecture

Menzel, Birgit. 2013. “The Occult Underground of Late Soviet Russia”. In Aries 13 (2): 269–288.

* Pranskevičiūtė, R., Aleknaitė, E. (eds.) 2017. Alternative Religiosities in the Soviet Union and the Communist East-Central Europe: Formations, Resistances and Manifestations. In Open Theology https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/opth.2017.3.issue-1/issue-files/opth.2017.3.issue-1.xml.

In order to prepare for the lecture, you need to read the article beforehand and to get acquainted with the mind map method: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5Y4pIsXTV0

Here, you can find free, convenient programs to create mind map which can be applied in the lecture:

•https://www.mindmeister.com/

• https://www.mindmup.com/

•https://www.canva.com/graphs/mind-maps/

• https://www.goconqr.com/en/mind-maps/

• https://blog.iqmatrix.com/how-to-mind-map

• https://www.mindmeister.com/blog/teach-mind-mapping/

Session 3. Lecture

Contemporary Paganism in Lithuanian Context: The Case of the Old Baltic Faith Romuva Movement

Session 4. Discussion.

Communal Utopia and Nature-based Spirituality in the Post-Communist Region

Pranskevičiūtė, R. 2015. Communal Utopias Within Nature-based Spiritualities: Vissarionites and Anastasians in the Post-Soviet Region. Ed. by Dhoest, A., Malliet, St., Haers, J., Segaert, B. The Borders of Subculture: Resistance and the Mainstream. Palgrave Macmillan, p. 183-200.