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

8 October 2021

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Iryna Voloshyna

Please join us at noon on Friday, October 15th for the Folklore Lunch presentation. Our presenter, Iryna Voloshyna, is a PhD student in Folklore at Indiana University, Bloomington. In her presentation entitled "Belief and Faith Healing in the Time of Covid-19 - Return of the Legend: Anatoly Kashpirovsky's Treatment of COVID-19," Iryna will demonstrate how people in post-Soviet countries and post-Soviet immigrant communities resurrected their faith and trust in the once forgotten Anatoly Kashpirovsky.

Kashpirovsky, a psychotherapist and charismatic leader legendary in the USSR in the 1980-90s, became popular again in 2020 amidst global instability. Offering “health sessions” online via his YouTube channel, Kashpirovsky claims to be using strictly scientific, although innovative, methods to treat COVID-19. However, the responses of his patients show that people tend to perceive him as a folk healer, a psychic, or a magician, more than as a physician. Furthermore, Kashpirovsky entertains conspiracy theories about the possible harm that American vaccines can do to the Russian people.

Click here to see the poster.