Pandemic, but Make It Fashion: Ukrainian Embroidered PPE in the Time of COVID-19

Embroidered pandemic wear has become one of the newest cultural fashion trends to emerge in Ukraine and within its Canadian diaspora. This article explores the ways in which embroidery as a traditional form of culture retains meaning within modern contexts, while also serving as a vehicle for experimenting with atypical applications of cultural symbols and representations. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, cloth masks have been recommended by public health officials, including the World Health Organization, as a preventative measure to limit the spread of the virus. On the basis of digital fieldwork, I discuss the meanings and inspirations behind these embroidered masks, while conducting a material culture analysis of the objects themselves. I argue that, through a subversion of their common purpose— to hide one’s identity— masks have been used in the pandemic as an open/performative display of culture. I contend that this display acts as a means to promote tradition through ephemera and assert cultural importance. This, coupled with the personal/private use of embroidery as a protective talisman, has fueled a trend of embroidered personal protective equipment in popular culture. In this article, I examine the purpose, use, and form of these masks in order to bring light to the ways in which cultural traditions and objects act (and developed prevalence) as a form of pandemic response.

Heralds at the Bells: Messages of Hope from West Balkan Bards During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Between March and May of 2020, a number of guslars (bards) and other traditional singers from Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, and Serbia flooded YouTube with songs about the COVID-19 pandemic. Though the musicians chose divergent vantage points from which to approach the topic of the pandemic, all settled on a similar goal. They sought to deliver a message of solidarity and hope to those struggling with the realities of life under lockdown measures and to allay the fears and uncertainties that spread with the virus. This article provides a critical overview of the guslars’ songs to explore their shared and divergent tropes, themes, and tones, and to highlight the goals of their singers in disseminating their messages in traditional form. Here I comment on what the high degree of convergence in the songs’ final messages reveals about vernacular responses to the pandemic and folk views on the measures taken to halt the virus’s spread. Finally, the article places these songs into a wider historical context of contemporary singing to the gusle, remarking on the vagaries of navigating authority when one sings subjective opinion in the name of a collective.

COVID-19 Narratives in a Carpatho-Rusyn Village in Transcarpathian Ukraine

In a Carpathian village whose tradition I have been studying for a number of years, in pre-COVID-19 narratives about illness, an unexpected illness— especially a potentially fatal one—was often viewed as a sign from above. Depending on the relation between the speaker and the affected person, it might either cast doubt on the person's behavior or indicate an undeserved tragic stroke of fate. Uis paper examines whether that has changed during the COVID-19 pandemic. I explore how people in this village talk about the pandemic, and how their narratives fit into, and possibly add to, our understanding of traditional values, supernatural beliefs, and the linguistic expression of these values and beliefs in the village.

Return of the Legend: Anatoly Kashpirovsky’s Treatment of COVID-19

The tensions between western scientific and alternative medicine become more palpable during times of uncertainty. The COVID-19 pandemic has been a period of confusion, evoking mistrust of conventional medicine, which has been unable to fully protect people from this new disease. Gis situation has compelled some to seek help and comfort elsewhere. This article demonstrates how people in post-Soviet countries and post-Soviet diasporic communities resurrected their faith and trust in Anatoly Kashpirovsky, a legendary psychotherapist and charismatic leader who first rose to prominence in the USSR in the 1980-90s. On the basis of digital fieldwork conducted during the lockdown, I showcase how Kashpirovsky once again became popular in 2020 at a moment of global economic, social and political instability. While Kashpirovsky’s audience finds comfort in his professional training and medical experience, his YouTube “health sessions” offer treatments for COVID-19 that relegate him to the realm of folk healer, magician, or psychic.

Encyclopedia of Coronavirus Rumors and Fakes: A Report

As a member of the Folklore Commission of the International Committee of Slavists, I am privileged to listen to the presentation of new research conducted in the countries of the Slavic world. On July 10, 2020, the Commission heard Nikita Petrov of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration in Moscow present the Encyclopedia of Coronavirus Rumors andFakes. This website is run by Petrov, Aleksandra Arkhipova and their team of Dar’ia Radchenko, Anna Kirziuk, Maria Gavrilova, Irina Kozlova, Sergei Belianin and Boris Peigin. The encyclopedia can be found at the following link: https://nplus1.ru/material/2020/04/08/coronarumors.

Folklore and Conspiracy Theories of a COVID Dissenter: The Life and Sermons of Father Sergii (Romanov)

The religious studies scholar Bruce Lincoln famously defined myth as “ideology in narrative form” that “naturalizes and legitimizes” social taxonomies. Over two decades, Father Sergii (Romanov), a convicted murderer who turned toreligion while in prison, has used myth to shape his public persona, legitimize his spiritual leadership, cultivate the loyalty of his followers, and articulate a vision of holy Russia that seeks to reconcile the Soviet and imperial pasts. Weaving his personal biography into a narrative of national redemption from the sin of regicide, he has helped construct and lead a complex of monasteries. Drawing on a variety of narratives that emphasize Russian exceptionalism, Sergii and his admirers present the cleric as a divinely appointed emissary to lead their nation to spiritual greatness. Je conspiracy theories that support this worldview have also encouraged Sergii to denounce both secular and ecclesiastical authorities and to reject public health measures designed to stem the coronavirus pandemic. Despite his revolt against his bishop, Sergii remained in control of his convent until his dramatic arrest on 29 December 2020. Jis article analyzes some of Sergii’s mostsignificant narratives, traces their origins, and weighs their social implications.