In the Twilight of Ideologies: Power and Esotericism in Soviet State Socialism
In the Twilight of Ideologies: Power and Esotericism in Soviet State Socialism

Summary/Abstract: At the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, esoteric/occult ideas and movements played an important part in the intellectual, scientific and artistic life of Russia. Occultism lived in symbiosis for some time with virtually every 19th-century ideology, and, to a certain degree, it managed to convert this strange ability into the ideological environment of state socialism as well – a system that was officially hostile towards occultism. However, the relationship between state power, based on “dialectic materialism”, and the various forms of occult ideas that survived in that era was not always clear: it kept changing with time, and depended on the influence of those ideas on society. In this paper I will propose some frameworks for the interpretation of the bizarre dynamics between esotericism and Soviet state power, and argue that the reactions of state power to the various manifestations of esoteric ideas – from (quasi-) scientific to community-building and individualistic manifestations – require different interpretative approaches.

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