Religion, Morality, and Community in Post-Soviet Societies

by Steinberg, Mark D.; Wanner, Catherine

• ISBN13: 9780253352668
• ISBN10: 0253352665
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2008-10-23
• Publisher: Indiana Univ Pr

Summary

In the post-Soviet environment of expanded civil freedom with great everyday uncertainty, unhappiness, injustice, and suffering, religious organizations and beliefs in Russia and Eurasia face numerous opportunities and intense challenges. Based on recent research and interdisciplinary methodologies, this volume examines how religious organizations and individuals engage the changing and troubled environment in which they live. The contributions investigate not just Russian Orthodoxy, but also Old Belief, Judaism, Islam, Buriat shamanism, and Catholicism. Among the important questions considered are how religion addresses problems of charity, memory, justice, community, morality, nationalism, democracy, and civil liberties.

Author Biography

Mark D. Steinberg is Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and editor of Slavic Review. He is editor (with Heather J. Coleman) of Sacred Stories: Religion and Spirituality in Modern Russia (IUP, 2007).

Catherine Wanner is Associate Professor of History and Religious Studies at the Pennsylvania State University and is author of Communities of the Converted: Ukrainians and Global Evangelism.

Table of Contents

Introduction

To Save the World or to Renounce It: Modes of Moral Action in Russian Orthodoxy

The Freezing of Historical Memory? The Post-Soviet Russian Orthodox Church and the Council of 1917

Aleksandra Vladimirovna: Moral Narratives of a Russian Orthodox Woman

Old Belief Between "Society" and "Culture": Remaking Moral Communities and Inequalities on a Former State Farm

Communities of Mourning: Mountain Jewish Laments in Azerbaijan and on the Internet

Social Welfare and Christian Welfare: Who Gets Saved in Post-Soviet Russian Charity Work?

Shamanic Transformations: Buriat Shamans as Mediators of Multiple Worlds

Fearing Islam in Uzbekistan: Islamic Tendencies, Extremist Violence, and Authoritarian Secularism

Religious Freedom in Russia: The Putin Years

Afterword: Policy Implications of the Research and Analysis Further Reading

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.