# How Soviet TV Audiences Fell Under the Spell of Mass Hypnosis Artist Anatoly Kashpirovskiy

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/how-soviet-tv-audiences-fell-under-the-spell-of-mass-hypnosis-artist-anatoly-kashpirovskiy/
- Published: 2026-11-01T18:16:01+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-01T19:26:53+00:00
- Original publisher: Variety
- Original article: https://variety.com/2026/film/global/soviet-tv-audiences-mass-hypnosis-anatoly-kashpirovskiy-1236936646/
- Topics: Art, Culture, Entertainment, Geopolitics, Music, Offbeat, Politics, TV, Weird & Viral

## Key points

- Kashpirovskiy became a Soviet television sensation.
- His broadcasts reached an audience of about 300 million.
- A new documentary draws on hundreds of hours of archival footage.

## Summary

Polish filmmaker Łukasz Konopa’s documentary “Kashpirovskiy. Under the Spell”, screening at the Ji.hlava documentary festival, revisits the Soviet-era television hypnotist Anatoly Kashpirovskiy. The story matters as a portrait of a mass cultural phenomenon during the political and social upheaval surrounding the collapse of communism.

A trained doctor, Kashpirovskiy became widely known through televised sessions that reached an audience of about 300 million people across the Soviet Union. His claims and stunts included operations without anaesthetics and persuading Chechen leader Shamil Basayev to release 1,500 prisoners. Researchers across Ukraine, Poland, Georgia and the Czech Republic found hundreds of hours of archival footage; HBO provided completion funding in 2025.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.