Kaarina Aitamurto holds the title of Associate Professor of the Study of Religion and works as a Principal Investigator and researcher at the Aleksanteri Institute at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests include the intersection of religion and nationalism in Russia, Islam, and contemporary Slavic Paganism. She has experience of working on projects examining the experiences of Central Asian migrants in Russia, as well as populist hate speech in European political rhetoric.
Aitamurto is the author of Paganism, Traditionalism, Nationalism: Narratives of Russian Rodnoverie (Routledge, 2014) and co-author of Slavic Native Faith (Cambridge University Press, 2026) as well as the editor of Religion, Expression, and Patriotism in Russia: Essays on Post-Soviet Society and the State (Ibidem-verlag, 2019), Global Migration and Illiberalism in Russia, Eurasia, and Eastern Europe (Helsinki University Press, 2024), and Germanic and Slavic Paganisms: Security Risks and Solutions (Bloomsbury, 2025).
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