Religion and Magic in Socialist and Post-Socialist Contexts II

Baltic, Eastern European, and Post-USSR Case Studies

James M. Nyce, Alexandra Cotofana, Andreas Umland

• Publisher: ibidem
• Year: 2017
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• eBook ISBN:
  9783838294056

Religion and magic have often played important roles in Baltic, Eastern European, and post- USSR societies like those in Russia, Romania, Serbia, Latvia, Kyrgyzstan, and Estonia. Taken together, the studies presented in this collection suggest that the idea that religion and magic are connected to each other in some consistent, universal way may be nothing more than a reminiscence from nineteenth century anthropology. Further, these studies challenge another part of anthropology's historical legacy: the idea that magic is something that modernity and modernization will transcend. Rather, these studies suggest instead that magic is a form of work that brings modernity into being and helps render it intelligible to those who find themselves engaged in its creation. This volume brings together historical (pre- and post-1989), ethnographic, and areal studies which look at the divergent roles of state, culture, society, tradition, and the individual in enactments of magic and religion. Assessing the role magic and religion have played in the countries of Eastern Europe and beyond before and after the Cold War, it is an absorbing read for scholars of anthropology and history as well as ethnology.

Table of contents

• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Foreword: Religion and Magic behind the Iron Curtain
• Introduction
• The Heritagization of the “Kalinitsa” Feast in Assenovgrad, Post-socialist Bulgaria: A Case of Syncretism between Paganism and Christianity
• Lingering Orality in the Contemporary Russian Zagovor
• Conversion to Pentecostalism and the “Rudari” Community from Filiaşi in the Context of Romanian Post-Socialism
• Magic in Soviet and Post-Soviet Estonia
• Trust and Credibility of Folk-healers and other Magical Agents in Contemporary Serbia
• From Tartu Semiotics to Enlightened Magic: Transformations within Scholarly Discourse in Latvia during the Transition from Socialism to Post-Socialism
• Spiritual Hybridity and Religion in Post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan
• Getting into the Spirit of the Season: Winter Customs between Magic and Religion in Rural Romania
• The Moral and Ontological Ambiguity of a Borderland: Identity, Magic, and Witchcraft in Bucovina, Northern Romania
• Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society SPPS
• Copyright