New Religious Movements and the Study of Folklore: the Russian Case

The present article deals with the question of emergence of new religious movements in contemporary Russia. Although sociological approach to the study of new religious movements proceeds usually from the theories of secularization, the author claims that the appearance of these movements should be viewed also in various contexts of national and historical peculiarities of different cultures. He stresses the importance of new urban mythology and semi-Orthodox mysticism as a basis for autochthonous Russian new religious movements emerged in the 1990s. The collapse of the Soviet ideology evidently resulted in the symbolic vacuum, which was to be filled with diverse social, political, religious and ideological patterns. Proceeding from the study of religious practices and personal narratives by the followers of “The Last Testament Church” (also known as “the sect of Vissarionovtsy”), the author argues that indigenous Russian new religious movements appear to be typical “crisis cults” comparable to so-called “cargo-cults” and other messianic and prophetic movements of this kind. This particular case demonstrates that the rise and functioning of new religious movements are often more complicated and probably depend not only on the secularization.