Claiming Europe: Celticity in Russian Pagan and Nativist Movement (1990s–2010s)

Abstract

I focus on "Celticity" as an area of cultural material emically marked as "Celtic," whether containing real borrowings from Celtic cultures or pre-Christian religions, or not. In Russian post-Soviet milieus of Pagan, Nativist and esoteric movements, as well as in mass culture, "Celtic" may vary from a dim referential corpus serving as a backdrop for different cultural agendas to ethnic and folkloristic reconstructions in religious or secular context. The present paper looks at two contexts in which Celticity was and is articulated in modern Russia. The first was as a topic in the Slavic Paganism and Nativism between 1990 and the 2010s. Claiming an "Indo-European" identity, many Russian Pagan Nativist authors mention Celts in the context of a "big" Indo-European history of Slavs/Russians. The role of these "Celts" may vary-from close allies or kin peoples to foes and spiritual opponents. Second, Celticity plays a role in Russian non-Slavic Paganism. While Wicca in the1990s and subsequently was widely perceived in Russia as a "Celtic" religion, a Druidic movement also emerged in the twenty-first century.