Archaeologia Polona

Knowledge as a socially active substance. Our interpretations versus Others "self-interpretations"

Anna Zalewska

This article examines the relation between knowledge of the past and the need for spiritual guidance on the part of the general public. The case study looks at how neo-pagans in our country use and abuse information about the pre-Christian world. By analysing several of the channels (leaflets, websites, performances, regulations, etc.) via which neo-pagans directly express their own positions and attitudes toward information about the past, the article shows how the dehumanized studies about pagan religion are filled with the fictive elements of neomyth treated here as a dangerous or at least mediocre fabric which structures an awareness of history. It is argued that the side-effects of the irreverence toward the Other, as well as the duties archaeologists and historians (but also novelists, journalists, filmmakers, etc.) have in balancing knowledge and contemporary reality, deserve to be analysed and understood.

Keywords: archaeological narrations, neo-pagans, the Other, usage of knowledge, writer-reader relation

Language: English