The Dissertation Workshop is a graduate educational seminar open to graduate students and their advisors. CES invites graduates students who are interested in attending this workshop or in presenting their research to contact Nikolas Weyland, CES Dissertation Workshop Coordinator.
Emma Friedlander is a third-year Ph.D. candidate in the history department. Her dissertation examines the popular culture of alternative spirituality in the late Soviet and post-Soviet periods in the Eastern European portion of the Soviet Union.
In the years surrounding Soviet collapse, a notable craze for alternative spirituality and the paranormal swept society. This paper examines the inflection of horoscopes, premonitions, and exposés on psychics, UFOs, and alternative medicine trends in the newly independent tabloid press in the early 1990s. This chronology transcends the boundaries of official Soviet collapse in December 1991 to conceive of 1990-1993 as a cohesive era experienced by people as the “end of times.” The paper traces press discussions about alternative spirituality and the paranormal to ask how people interpreted the craze surrounding them. It identifies the combining of alternative spirituality with rampant sexuality and consumerism in the tabloids to argue for an abandonment of the previous moral order and search for a new one. Ultimately, the boulevard press provided a vital space for people to discuss and grapple with late and post-Soviet culture. Sources from Russia, Ukraine, and Latvia demonstrate their shared legacy of Soviet popular culture while revealing meaningful differences in the former republics.
