Author: Yordan Lyutskanov
Institute for Literature, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences
Published in Slavyanski dialozi, XVII, 2020, 26
Abstract: I use the triple distinction between traditional religions, new religion movements and forms of alternative spirituality, developed in anthropology of religion. Accepting the thesis that late 20th century “New Age” had been prefigured a century earlier, I ‘map’ the forms of alternative spirituality and potential new religions in the Russian culture of the 1890s – 1930s. Noting the fundamental compatibility between Bely’s symbolism and world-view attitudes constitutive to alternative spirituality, I outline the potential belonging of his travelogues to a supertextual entity imbued by
such alternative spiritualities as “Grand Tour”-ism, Sophiology, Anthroposophy, and, in the 1920s, Leninism.
Key words: alternative spirituality, Russian “Silver Age”, Andrej Belyj, Grand Tour, Anthroposophy, Sophiology