“Beware: Cult!”
How the “sekta” was portrayed in the print media after the collapse of the Soviet Union, 1990–2000
“Beware: Cult!” I think we have all seen headlines like this in the news. Some people they frighten with a reminder of how many cults there are; others they irritate with the aggressive insistence with which newspapers pin labels on certain religious groups.
Some time ago I analysed the central print media of 1990–2000 and noted differences in how the concept of sekta (“cult”, “sect”) was used in Russia and in Latvia. Let us take the socio-cultural context of those years into account and look at what exactly shaped this attitude towards the concept.
Interest in the concept of sekta, and in the phenomenon behind the word, flared up with particular force in the early 1990s. The cause was a series of historical events that followed Latvia’s exit from the Soviet Union, which brought social and personal upheaval. The loss of a firm ideological foundation eroded the moral values that had held society together and left people uncertain about the future. These processes could be observed in the minds of the Russian-speaking population in Russia and in Latvia alike. It was at this time that Russian speakers encountered foreign preachers in their own countries. These factors gave rise to a new understanding of the word sekta.
Translated from the Russian original with the help of AI. Read the original (in Russian).