Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
318
result(s) for
"Religion and culture -- Russia"
Sort by:
Rus - Ukraine - Russia
An outspoken opponent of pro-Russian, authoritarian, and far-right streams in contemporary Czech society, Martin C. Putna received a great deal of media attention when he ironically dedicated the Czech edition of Russ–Ukraine–Russia to Miloš Zeman—the pro-Russian president of the Czech Republic. This sense of irony, combined with an extraordinary breadth of scholarly knowledge, infuses Putna’s book. Examining key points in Russian cultural and spiritual history, Russ–Ukraine–Russia is essential reading for those wishing to understand the current state of Russia and Ukraine—the so-called heir to an “alternative Russia.” Putna uses literary and artistic works to offer a rich analysis of Russia as a cultural and religious phenomenon: tracing its development from the arrival of the Greeks in prehistoric Crimea to its invasion by “little green men” in 2014; explaining the cultural importance in Russ of the Vikings as well as Pussy Riot; exploring central Russian figures from St. Vladimir the Great to Vladimir Putin. Unique in its postcolonial perspective, this is not merely a history of Russia or of Russian religion. This book presents Russia as a complex mesh of national, religious, and cultural (especially countercultural) traditions—with strong German, Mongol, Jewish, Catholic, Polish, and Lithuanian influences—a force responsible for creating what we identify as Eastern Europe.
eBook
Letters from Heaven
Letters from Heavenfeatures an international group of scholars investigating the place and function of 'popular' religion in Eastern Slavic cultures. The contributors examine popular religious practices in Russia and Ukraine from the middle ages to the present, considering the cultural contexts of death rituals, miracles, sin and virtue, cults of the saints, and icons. The collection not only fills a void in religious scholarship, but also responds to current theoretical challenges.
Reflecting critically on the heuristic value of popular religion and on the concept of popular culture in general,Letters from Heavenis characterized by a shift of focus from churches, institutions, and theological discourse to the religious practices themselves and their interconnections with the culture, mentality, and social structures of the societies in question. An important contribution to the fields of religion and Eastern Slavic studies, this volume challenges readers to rethink old pieties and to reconsider the function of religion.
eBook
\Tsar and God\ and Other Essays in Russian Cultural Semiotics
Featuring a number of distinguished essays by internationally known Russian cultural historians Boris Uspenskij and Victor Zhivov, this collection encompasses various ground-breaking works appearing in English for the first time. Focusing on several of the most interesting and problematic aspects of Russia’s cultural development, these essays examine the survival and reconceptualization of Russia’s past in later systems, and some of the key transformations of Russian cultural consciousness. This volume contains important examples of cultural semiotics and indispensable contributions to the history of Russian civilization.
eBook
Slavophile Empire
Twentieth-century Russia, in all its political incarnations, lacked the basic features of the Western liberal model: the rule of law, civil society, and an uncensored public sphere. InSlavophile Empire, the leading historian Laura Engelstein pays particular attention to the Slavophiles and their heirs, whose aversion to the secular individualism of the West and embrace of an idealized version of the native past established a pattern of thinking that had an enduring impact on Russian political life.
Imperial Russia did not lack for partisans of Western-style liberalism, but they were outnumbered, to the right and to the left, by those who favored illiberal options. In the book's rigorously argued chapters, Engelstein asks how Russia's identity as a cultural nation at the core of an imperial state came to be defined in terms of this antiliberal consensus. She examines debates on religion and secularism, on the role of culture and the law under a traditional regime presiding over a modernizing society, on the status of the empire's ethnic peripheries, and on the spirit needed to mobilize a multinational empire in times of war. These debates, she argues, did not predetermine the kind of system that emerged after 1917, but they foreshadowed elements of a political culture that are still in evidence today.
eBook
Russian Notions of Power and State in a European Perspective, 1462-1725
This book highlights the main features and trends of Russian
\"political\" thought in an era when sovereignty, state, and
politics, as understood in Western Christendom, were non-existent
in Russia, or were only beginning to be articulated. It
concentrates on enigmatic authors and sources that shaped official
perception of rulership, or marked certain changes of importance of
this perception. Special emphasis is given to those written and
visual sources that point towards depersonalization and
secularization of rulership in Russia. A comparison with Western
Christendom frames the argument throughout the book, both in terms
of ideas and the practical aspects of state-building, allowing the
reader to ponder Russia's differentia specifica .
eBook
Jewish philanthropy and enlightenment in late-Tsarist Russia
The Society for the Promotion of Enlightenment among the Jews of Russia (OPE) was a philanthropic organization, the oldest Jewish organization in Russia. Founded by a few wealthy Jews in St. Petersburg who wanted to improve opportunities for Jewish people in Russia by increasing their access to education and modern values, OPE was secular and nonprofit. The group emphasized the importance of the unity of Jewish culture to help Jews integrate themselves into Russian society by opening, supporting, and subsidizing schools throughout the country.
While reaching out to Jews across Russia, OPE encountered opposition on all fronts. It was hobbled by the bureaucracy and sometimes outright hostility of the Russian government, which imposed strict regulations on all aspects of Jewish lives. The OPE was also limited by the many disparate voices within the Jewish community itself. Debates about the best type of schools (secular or religious, co-educational or single-sex, traditional or \"modern\") were constant. Even the choice of language for the schools was hotly debated.
Jewish Philanthropy and Enlightenment in Late-Tsarist Russia offers a model of individuals and institutions struggling with the concern so central to contemporary Jews in America and around the world: how to retain a strong Jewish identity, while fully integrating into modern society.
eBook
Icons Axed, Freedoms Lost
In Icons Axed, Freedoms Lost, Vyacheslav Karpov and Rachel L. Schroeder demonstrate how Russia went from persecuting believers to jailing critics of religion and why, in contrast, religious pluralism and tolerance have solidified in Ukraine. Offering a richly documented history of cultural and political struggles that surrounded desecularization—the resurgence of religion's societal role—from the end of the USSR to the Russo-Ukrainian war, they show Russian critics of desecularization adhered to artistic provocations, from axing icons to \"punk-prayers\" in cathedrals, and how Orthodox activists, in turn, responded by vandalizing controversial exhibits and calling on the state to crush \"the enemies of the Church.\" Putin's solidifying tyranny heard their calls and criminalized insults to religious feelings. Meanwhile, Ukraine adhered to its pluralistic legacies. Its churches refused to engage in Russian-style culture wars, sticking instead to forgiveness and forbearance. Icons Axed, Freedoms Lost offers original theoretical and methodological perspectives on desecularization applicable far beyond the cases of Russia and Ukraine.
eBook
Persistent Antimarket Culture: A Legacy of the Pale of Settlement after the Holocaust
We estimate long-term effects of Jewish presence in Europe before World War II, using discontinuity at the border of the \"Pale of Settlement\" area where Jews were allowed to live in the Russian Empire. Current residents of the Pale have lower support for market, and are less entrepreneurial but more trusting compared to those outside the Pale. We suggest a mechanism and test for it: anti-Semitism generated persistent antimarket culture and trust among non-Jews. Consistent with this mechanism, antimarket attitudes and trust decrease with distance to pogroms controlling for historical Jewish presence. Self-identification and cohesion of majority depends on the presence of minority.
Journal Article
Modern Occultism in Late Imperial Russia
Modern Occultism in Late Imperial Russia traces the
history of occult thought and practice from its origins in private
salons to its popularity in turn-of-the-century mass culture. In
lucid prose, Julia Mannherz examines the ferocious public debates
of the 1870s on higher dimensional mathematics and the workings of
seance phenomena, discusses the world of cheap instruction manuals
and popular occult journals, and looks at haunted houses, which
brought together the rural settings and the urban masses that
obsessed over them. In addition, Mannherz looks at reactions of
Russian Orthodox theologians to the occult.
In spite of its prominence, the role of the occult in
turn-of-the-century Russian culture has been largely ignored, if
not actively written out of histories of the modern state. For
specialists and students of Russian history, culture, and science,
as well as those generally interested in the occult, Mannherz's
fascinating study remedies this gap and returns the occult to its
rightful place in the popular imagination of late nineteenth- and
early twentieth-century Russian society.
eBook