“All the sisters of the world”: pan-Slavic conspiracies and the weaponization of womanhood

Abstract

The article looks at the development of the idea of pan-Slavism, historically dating back to the 19th century, and its reincarnation across Czech and Slovak online conspiracy spaces, particularly Telegram channels, focusing on how the notion of “sisterhood” is discussed and developed in them. The analysis highlights two dimensions of Pan-Slavic sisterhood: (a) an imagined community built on symbolic references to a shared history and (b) a unit of political organization that emphasizes the role of women in restructuring society according to a “tradition” based in this imagined history. It argues that sisterhood is, similar to the tradwife movement in the US, rooted in a deeper ideological critique of neoliberal society and, ultimately, employed as a tool of female empowerment. Methodologically, the analysis relies on ethnographic methods (participant and non-participant observation and ethnographic content analysis).