Deadline: February 10, 2021
We are seeking two to three participants for our panel “Yoga in Russia: Past and Present” at the 2021 ASEEES Convention in New Orleans.
This panel seeks to examine the theory and practice of yoga in Russia as a peculiarly Russian phenomenon and as part of a global health and spiritual movement. Relevant topics include:
- Yogic practices as part of interest in “Eastern” wisdom in the late Russian Empire
- The theory and practice of yoga in Russia as relation to those in the West
- “Russian Yogis:” Elena Roerich, Indra Devi, and other practitioners and popularizers
- Yoga in the Soviet Union
- Yoga in Russia today
As “a product of a deeply collaboratively and mutually transformative interaction between Indians and Europeans from the beginning of the modern period” (Newcombe 4), modern yoga emerged as a highly contested and complex phenomenon that underwent a transformation from a marginal health trend at the end of the nineteenth century into a billion-dollar industry with millions of regular practitioners around the world today. While in the United States the beginning of popularity of yoga could be traced to the work of Vivekananda (Singleton 2008), Russia presents a more complicated case. On the one hand, it was the influx of translated manuals on yoga and breathing techniques in fin-de-siecle Russia that made yogic practices part of public discourse. On the other, Russia’s interest in India and its cultural and spiritual traditions has its roots in the 15th century, when the Russian merchant Afanasii Nikitin became one of the first Europeans to travel to India. The publication of his well known travelogue sparked an interest in India that intensified and acquired political significance in the 19th century, as Russia engaged in “the Great Game” with Britain.
Please submit a one-page proposal to marina.alexandrova@utexas.edu by February 10th. Complete panel will be submitted by March 1st, 2021.