Neopagnism is the term used to define a contemporary resurgence in interest of Pagan spirituality. NeoPaganism differs from ancient or “traditional” Paganism in that, while it integrates elements of traditional practices and customs it is essentially a revived construction based on the influence of a variety of cultures.

The Balkan states of Eastern Europe, being one of the last places to yield to a Christian “conversion”, has been axiomatically one of the first places to embrace a form of Neopaganism. This has been particularly prevalent in the modern day states of Lithuania
and Latvia, where the observance of the summer solstice since pre-Christian times holds spiritual as well as traditional significance.

Wilhelm Storosta, a Lithuanian playwright and philosopher born in 1868 was among the first to revive the celebration of the solstice at the end of the 19th
Century. Calling himself “Vydunas” or “he who sees clearly”, Storosta started a popular movement synthesising traditional Slavic pantheism with the more modern and in Western Europen terms “traditional” theosophical belief.

The movement created by Storosta gained in popularity up until the Soviet invasion of Lithuania, with its atheistic tendencies, when it fell into decline. Since the Sixties, however, it has enjoyed a strong revival in both Lithuania
and Latvia and has spread to
Poland and Germany with the creation in 1990 of the Prussa Club, celebrating the fellowship of native Baltic religions. The movement also enjoys popularity in Ukraine and Russia.

Neopaganism in Eastern Europe is a counter-cultural expression of the independence and religious free-thinking which preceded the Christianisation’ of the Slavic and Baltic regions, whose strong cultural traditions have survived more or less intact, but whose expression had hitherto been stilted by the expectation that they would conform with European Christian “norms”.

Ironically it can be seen as a fusion of many of the ancient beliefs with much of the Christian philosophy imported from Western European folklore, religion, belief and tradition, but without the constraints of monotheistic values and prejudices.

Piotr Wiench explores the influence of Storosta and others in the resurgence of pseudo-traditional beliefs in Eastern Europe and draws an interesting comparison with neo paganism in Eastern and Western Europe, arguing that the latter is both politicised to a greater extent and dependent on traditional “magic” and supernatural forces than the brand of neo paganism embraced by the Balkan states.

In 1991, Jacek Dobrowolski, founder of the first Polish Buddhist community, published a poem in which he compares Polish Neopaganism with the ancient beliefs of the Indo-Iranians and comments on their similarities in holding god and nature jointly responsible for the continuation of life on earth.