Orthodox Russia: Belief and Practice Under the Tsars - Softcover

"This excellent collection provides both generalist and specialized essays about revelatory aspects of Russian Orthodoxy. . . . Using a variety of methods, they shed light on the complex and variegated practices and beliefs that have shaped Russian Orthodoxy over the past thousand years."-Michael Wolfe, Religious Studies Review "This book is a must reading for those interested in the history of religion and culture in Russia."-Lilya Berezhnaya, Cahiers du Monde Russe "The stimulating essays in this book should give folklorists food for thought."-Faith Wigzell, Folklorica "This collection of essays edited by Valerie A. Kivelson and Robert H. Greene adds to the growing literature on Russian religious life, with a particularly welcome focus on the pre-revolutionary phase from the mid-fifteenth to the early twentieth centuries."-Gregory L. Freeze, American Historical Review "This volume breaks fresh ground in the study of Orthodoxy in Russia. In fact, Valerie A. Kivelson and Robert H. Greene's compilation provides a good barometer on the study of Russian Orthodoxy in the American academy. Fortunately, the news is good-these chapters show great nuance and depth."-Roy R. Robson, Slavic Review "The series of essays in this book are written by some of the best scholars in the field of Russian religion and culture."-Ellen Gvosdev, Journal of Church and State "Although the editors also claim the authority of the archives, only one essay rests extensively on new documents. Nevertheless, each of these works is filled with a wealth of interesting information and insight, even the epilogue, which may teach readers more about the Western church than the Eastern. Despite footnotes intended to make them accessible to non-specialists, these essays, both in style and content, are extremely academic, and the bibliography alone makes the book a valuable scholarly asset."-E.A. Cole, Choice "Orthodox Russia resituates the study of Russian Orthodox culture within the history of lived experience-something that scholars would not have attempted a generation ago. With essays by some of the finest historians working on Russian Orthodox culture, the book demonstrates how the field has become an ever more integral part of wider cultural studies."-Stephen K. Batalden, Arizona State University

Orthodox Christianity came to Russia from Byzantium in 988, and in the ensuing centuries it has become such a fixture of the Russian cultural landscape that any discussion of Russian character or history inevitably must take its influence into account. Orthodox Russia is a timely volume that brings together some of the best contemporary scholarship on Russian Orthodox beliefs and practices covering a broad historical period-from the Muscovite era through the immediate aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. Studies of Russian Orthodoxy have typically focused on doctrinal contro-versies or institutional developments. Orthodox Russia concentrates on lived religious experience-how Orthodoxy touched the lives of a wide variety of subjects of the Russian state, from clerics awaiting the Apocalypse in the fifteenth century and nuns adapting to the attacks on organized religion under the Soviets to unlettered military servitors at the court of Ivan the Terrible and workers, peasants, and soldiers in the last years of the imperial regime. Melding traditionally distinct approaches, the volume allows us to see Orthodoxy not as a static set of rigidly applied rules and dictates but as a lived, adaptive, and flexible system. Orthodox Russia offers a much-needed, up-to-date general survey of the subject, one made possible by the opening of archives in Russia after 1991. Contributors include Laura Engelstein, Michael S. Flier, Daniel H. Kaiser, Nadieszda Kizenko, Eve Levin, Gary Marker, Daniel Rowland, Vera Shevzov, Thomas N. Tentler, Isolde Thyrêt, William G. Wagner, and Paul W. Werth.