Of Religion and Empire

by Geraci, Robert; Khodarkovsky, Michael

• ISBN13: 9780801487033
• ISBN10: 080148703X
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2001-01-01
• Publisher: Cornell Univ Pr

Summary

Russia's ever-expanding imperial boundaries encompassed diverse peoples and religions. Yet Russian Orthodoxy remained inseparable from the identity of the Russian empire-state, which at different times launched conversion campaigns not only to "save the souls" of animists and bring deviant Orthodox groups into the mainstream, but also to convert the empire's numerous Muslims, Buddhists, Jews, Catholics, and Uniates. This book is the first to investigate the role of religious conversion in the long history of Russian state building. How successful were the Church and the state in proselytizing among religious minorities? How were the concepts of Orthodoxy and Russian nationality shaped by the religious diversity of the empire? What was the impact of Orthodox missionary efforts on the non-Russian peoples, and how did these peoples react to religious pressure? In chapters that explore these and other questions, this book provides geographical coverage from Poland and European Russia to the Caucasus, Central Asia, Siberia, and Alaska. The editors' introduction and conclusion place the twelve original essays in broad historical context and suggest patterns in Russian attitudes toward religion that range from attempts to forge a homogeneous identity to tolerance of complexity and diversity.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(19)
Part I The Western Regions: Christians and Jews
Rescuing the Orthodox: The Church Policies of Archbishop Afanasii of Kholmogory, 1682--1702	19	(19)
Georg Michels
Orthodox Missionaries and ``Orthodox Heretics'' in Russia, 1886--1917	38	(32)
J. Eugene Clay
Between Rome and Tsargrad: The Uniate Church in Imperial Russia	70	(22)
Theodore R. Weeks
State Policies and the Conversion of Jews in Imperial Russia	92	(23)
John D. Klier
Part II Converting Animists and Buddhists
The Conversion of Non-Christians in Early Modern Russia	115	(29)
Michael Khodarkovsky
Big Candles and ``Internal Conversion'': The Mari Animist Reformation and Its Russian Appropriations	144	(29)
Paul W. Werth
Russian Orthodox Missionaries at Home and Abroad: The Case of Siberian and Alaskan Indigenous Peoples	173	(28)
Sergei Kan
The Orthodox Church, Lamaism, and Shamanism among the Buriats and Kalmyks, 1825--1925	201	(28)
Dittmar Schorkowitz
Part III Facing Islam
Colonial Dilemmas: Russian Policies in the Muslim Caucasus	229	(21)
Firouzeh Mostashari
The Role of Tatar and Kriashen Women in the Transmission of Islamic Knowledge, 1800--1870	250	(24)
Agnes Kefeli
Going Abroad or Going to Russia? Orthodox Missionaries in the Kazakh Steppe, 1881--1917	274	(37)
Robert P. Geraci
Conversion to the New Faith: Marxism-Leninism and Muslims in the Soviet Empire	311	(24)
Shoshana Keller
Conclusion	335	(10)
Notes on Contributors	345	(4)
Index	349