Common Resentments, Diverging Plots: On the Forms and Functions of Popular Conspiracy Culture in Eastern Europe

In the 1970s, a popular saying in left-wing alternative cultures warned: “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.” The line between anxious speculations and actual secret operations is sometimes difficult to draw. Conspiracy theories thrive on the suspicion that something is fundamentally wrong with the world—a mistrust that easily turns into resentment and hostility. The targets that such resentment evokes are often strikingly similar: sinister foreign forces, their malevolent domestic agents, or even vaster schemes orchestrated by a shadowy global cabal of evil elites. Especially in times of crisis, upheaval, or war, such narratives become powerful tools in the hands of populist politicians. Easily amplified through participatory social media and viral online trends, they have become a ubiquitous tool to mobilize supporters and delegitimize opponents.

Popular culture first breeds, disseminates, and normalizes such conspiracy theories, but also subverts and ridicules them. Here, they go viral, turn into memes or melodramatic fiction, spawn endless television series, become the butt of jokes and appear in cryptic murals. It is also where they facilitate the formation of close-knit communities and spark political movements. Through popular culture, conspiracy theories take shape as they produce identifiable figures, themes, narratives, and images that cross boundaries between genres, media, and platforms and other political and social fields. Sometimes, conspiracy plots persist for centuries. They straddle ideological divides and become common knowledge. Thus, popular culture not only articulates and comments on a climate of paranoia and resentment, but may even pave its way. At the same time, it attracts both reactionary culture warriors and their resentful followers as well as seemingly informed intellectuals, artists, politicians, and activists.

The workshop explores the interplay between conspiracy theories, popular culture, and resentment with a specific focus on current cases from Eastern Europe. By bringing together researchers with diverse expertise, we will critically assess how popular conspiracy cultures shape contemporary political imaginaries.