L’occultisme dans la Russie moderne et dans la culture soviétique : une perspective historique

The real explosion of the occult observed in Russia between the end of the Empire and the beginning of communism (c. 1890-1925) was linked to the pressures exerted on the people – the disconcerting effects of the 1890’s industrialisation campaign, the conflicts between classes and ethnic groups, the 1905 Revolution, the First World War and the February and October 1917 Revolutions. While beliefs and traditional values, those of institutional christianism as well as those concerning the rationalism of Lights, were losing their credibility, people who were disheartened and disorientated, turned to the occult. They were in search of meaning and orientation in a rapidly-evolving world and of answers that « science » could not give. To paraphrase Nietzsche, the Russians experienced the death of a myth. Over the last few years, the death of another myth meant the reappearance of the occult and even of the doctrines and the beliefs which had become widespread between 1890 and 1925.The interest in the occult was not new in Russia, but its followers in the upper classes were relatively numerous. This evolved considerably in the 1890’s and became even more distinct after 1906, because of the lifting of the censorship and the legalisation of private associations which had previously been forbidden.Occultism in different forms, from popular superstition to occult systems as sophisticated as Theosophy and Anthroposophy, became fashionable in all classes of society, and inspired art, literature, thought and politics, from the end of the Empire to the beginning of communism. Rasputin was only the tip of the iceberg. Local practices and doctrines imported from the west were combined in all possible ways. Witchcraft, chamanism, palmistry, astrology and faith-healing often existed in the same person, accompanied by mystic freemasonry, spiritualism, theosophy, anthroposophy and concepts of the fourth dimension.These same ideas are spreading today in the ex-Soviet Union. The fact that they have many points in common with western New Age movements suggests that the importance of the occult cannot be reduced to modernisation, but it is rather an attempt to answer the essential problems of the human condition