Infiltration of Illusory Ideas About Slavic Paganism into Modern Russian Scientific and Official Business Discourses: Sociocultural Risks

Abstract

This paper serves as a logical continuation of the article "Fake Science and Simulacra of Culture: Illusory Ideas about Slavic Paganism in Modern Russian Humanities", published in the journal "Voprosy Filosofii" in 2022. This paper was about the mechanism of the origin of illusory ideas about Slavic paganism and the reasons for their intrusion into scientific publications. Here we analyze the socio-cultural consequences that the functioning of this mechanism eventually leads to. The object of study in this article is the modern scientific and parascientific ideas of Russians about the paganism of the ancient Slavs, and the subject of study is the infiltration of parascientific opinions about the ancient Slavs’ paganism in scientific and official business discourses in modern Russia. The methodological basis of the research work is a case study. The methodological arsenal includes also the hermeneutic analysis of a number of texts published in Russian scientific periodicals and serving as material for the author's reflection. In the course of the study, it was revealed that illusory ideas about Slavic paganism very easily infiltrate into various publications presented both in proceedings of the scientific conferences and in scientific journals. As a result, various parascientific (in particular, neo-pagan) constructs gain weight due to their transmission in scientific periodicals. The infiltration of simulacra of traditional culture into scientific discourse leads to the fact that representatives of the scientific community, performing various expert functions, become guides of these simulacra into official business discourse. Given the state's policy of preserving and developing traditional values, it can be expected that under the guise of preserving various folk traditions, modern parascientific constructs that actually have nothing to do with genuine historical and cultural heritage can receive support.