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| Blavatsky's place of birth, Now Blavatsky-House Museum |
Note: As the current contexts have generated a lot of commentary, I overeestimated my capacity for concision. However, I do think I can wrap up the current round of posts with three more instalments in the coming month.
Somber message from Ukraine when the war broke out in March, I think they're doing better now: 'Blavatsky H.P. museum in Dnepropetrovsk in the south of Ukraine which is now a war zone. The museum is closed until further notice and the staff is trying to preserve it in the present time. But are also and especially busy saving their own lives.'
Blavatsky ‘The Sphinx’ & Spirituality in Ukraine
Interview by Colyn Boyce with Svitlana Gavrylenko, July 5, 2022
The first members of the Theosophical Society appeared in Ukraine in
1998, the first branch in 2007, the Regional Association was approved in
2013, and the status of the Section was assigned in 2018. There are eight branches in the nation – including in Kyiv (“Ankh”),
Yalta (“Aletheiya”), Odessa (“Pearl Necklace”) Dnipro (“H.P.Blavatsky” )
and Kropyvnytskyi (“Laya”) in central Ukraine.
https://hermesrisen.wordpress.com/2022/05/07/blavatsky-the-sphinx-spirituality-in-the-ukraine-interview-by-colyn-boyce-with-svitlana-gavrylenko%ef%bf%bc/Blavatsky Under the Tsars
Marina Alexandrova, April 23, 2021
Virtual Centre for Theosophical Studies Lecture
New
research on Blavatsky's early Russian life from an intrepid Russian
studies prof. who grew up near where Blavatsky used to live.
Effects of
Theosophy on Russian Cultural History
Björn Seidel-Dreffke 2021
New book shows how deep the research is getting.
Theosophy across Boundaries brings a global history approach to
the study of esotericism, highlighting the important role of Theosophy
in the general histories of religion, science, philosophy, art, and
politics. The first half of the book consists of seven perspectives on
the activities of the Theosophical Society in very different regional
contexts, ranging from India, Vietnam, China, and Japan to Victorian
Britain and Israel, shedding new light on the entanglement of "Western"
and "Oriental" ideas around 1900. The second half explores specific
cultural influences that Theosophy exerted in the spheres of literature,
art, and politics, using case studies from Sri Lanka, Burma, India,
Japan, Ireland, Germany, and Russia. The examples clearly show that
Theosophy was part of a truly global movement, thus providing an
outstanding example of the complex entanglements of the global religious
history of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Abbasova, Pyarvin. Quest 103.3 (Summer 2015): pg. 112-113.
Since 1992, interest in the work of Blavatsky has been constantly
increasing. Many books, including her collected writings, talks, and
articles, have been published and can be found in every bookstore that
has an esoteric or spiritual shelf. Every year new editions and
commentaries are being published. I did some research and found a
Russian YouTube channel with videos and movies about HPB and lectures of
Russian Theosophists; many groups and online communities in the social
network VK (similar to Facebook) that have thousands of followers, with
information and audiobooks posted on a daily and weekly basis; and Web
sites where one can download and read books and articles for free.
Practically all the Web sites of the different spiritual organizations
have pages about Helena Petrovna or references to her work.
Nicholas Roerich's Shortcut to Promised Land
Natasha Lvovich The Montréal Review, January 2018
Good overview of Roerich's life
https://www.themontrealreview.com/2009/Exile-and-Utopia-Nicholas-Roerich-Shortcut-to-Promised-Land.php
Third Parties: Henry Wallace and the Progressive Party
Potus Geeks Sep. 9th, 2020
In 1934, when Roosevelt and Wallace had sent Nicholas Roerich and his
son George to Central Asia to search for drought-resistant grasses to
prevent another Dust Bowl, Roerich caused a stir by trying to bring
about a revival of the legendary Buddhist kingdom of Shambhalla,
variously located in Tibet, Bhutan, Nepal, or Manchuria.
Fashionable Occultism The Occult Revival in Russia Today and
Its Impact on Literature
Maria, Carlson. "Fashionable Occultism: The Theosophical World of Silver Age Russia." Quest 99. 2 (Spring 2011): 50-57.
The more intellectually inclined Theosophists also belonged to these
societies and participated in their discussions. The names of the
leading Russian idealist philosophers (Berdiaev, Sergei Bulgakov, E.N.
Trubetskoi, Sergei Frank, Vasily Rozanov, Aleksandr Meier, Dmitry
Filosofov, and N. O. Lossky) frequently appeared in Vestnik Teosofii ("Herald
of Theosophy"), the principal journal of the Russian Theosophists;
their lectures and articles were regularly reported and reviewed in its
pages. "Closely observing the religious seeking of our time, one cannot
pass by Theosophy, because for certain strata of contemporary educated
society Theosophy has made it easier to come to religion," Berdiaev
pointed out (Berdiaev, 1).
Birgit Menzel, Harriman Review v16 no4-v17 no1 64-77 April 2009
flashes of the Occult in the Soviet Past
The considerable impact of theosophy and other occult theories on Russian
Symbolist literature and art and the fact that so many of Russia's
intellectuals at some point were fascinated by theosophy, including later
Marxists such as Anatoly Lunacharsky, Maxim Gorky and Sergei Eisenstein, has
been the subject of numerous studies, in particular, Maria Carlson's brilliant
study of theosophy's influence on high artistic culture, and more recently by
Bogomolov, Obatnin and Stahl-Schwaetzer. 19
Keller on Rosenthal, 'The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture'
Glatzer Rosenthal, Bernice (editor) 2012
Occult and esoteric ideas became deeply embedded in Russian culture long
before the Bolshevik Revolution. After the Revolution, occult ideas
were manifested in literature, the humanities and the sciences as well.
Although the Soviet government discouraged and eventually prohibited
metaphysical speculation, that same government used the Occult for its
own purposes and even funded research on it. In Stalin's time, occultism
disappeared from public view, but it revived clandestinely in the
post-Stalin Thaw and became a truly popular phenomenon in post-Soviet
Russia. From cosmism to shamanism, from space exploration to Kabbalah,
from neo-paganism to science fiction, the field is wide. Everyone
interested in the occult and esoteric will appreciate this book, because
it documents their continued importance in Russia and raises new issues
for research and discussion.
Occult Russia Pagan, Esoteric, and Mystical Traditions
Christopher McIntosh
New book due December 2022
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