History is omnipresent in this anthology on many levels. The are historical reasons why, for example, Czechs are more secularized than some other nations in the region, or why Bulgarians are more oriented toward Russia. Furthermore, because the Pagan movements being studied often make reference to the pre-Christian past, there are many references to the historical figures, tribal kingdoms, and ancient mythologies of the nations featured in this volume. The modern Pagan discussion about how that past should be understood often becomes entangled in the discipline of history itself, as individual communities either attempt to mold their practice to match a mainstream academic understanding of history or critique that mainstream view and offer alternative interpretations.

All of the countries represented here share a common historical experience of some form of twentieth-century communism. But even their experiences of communism were not the same, with some becoming part of the new communist reality during the First World War, while others were brought into the Soviet sphere only after the Second World War. Different nations suffered different hardships and traumas, such as the Holodomor (forced starvation) of Ukrainians 1932–3 or the mass deportations of ethnic Balts from their homelands in 1944–55. All of the countries experienced forms of dissent and revolt against the system, but their most intense expressions happened at different times and in different manners (the Hungarian Uprising of 1956, the Prague Spring of 1968, the Solidarity movement in Poland in the 1980s, and the Singing Revolution in the Baltic states in 1987–91).