Religion and the Russian Revolution

Conflicts, Encounters, and Transformations

Francesca Silano, Alexander Agadjanian, Scott M. Kenworthy, Nadieszda Kizenko (Herausgeber)

Buch | Hardcover

408 Seiten

2026
Indiana University Press (Verlag)
9780253076151 (ISBN)

Noch nicht erschienen (ca. August 2026)
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On the eve of World War I, the Russian Empire was among the most diverse in the world, and religious identity was the single most important factor for determining a subject's relation to the imperial state. The revolutions of 1917 overturned the Empire's religious world. The Provisional Government sought to disentangle the state from its long-standing ties to the Orthodox Church; minority religious groups looked forward to greater freedom of practice; and, with the Communist Revolution of October 1917, Bolshevik anti-religious activists looked to bring about the death of God and the birth of the New Soviet Person.

Drawing on archives, periodicals, ego-documents, visual imagery, and other key sources, Religion and the Russian Revolution examines not only how diverse religious groups and individual actors were affected by revolutionary politics, but also the critical role religious discourses and practices played in shaping revolutionary imagery and action. The chapters dive into the rich and varied landscape of personal and collective religious experiences before, during, and after the 1917 Revolutions. In so doing, the contributions gathered in this volume document perceptions of violence, everyday religious practices, visual imaginaries, and new definitions of "religion" and "the sacred" across Russia.

By rethinking the religious implications and consequences of this radical era, Religion and the Russian Revolution forcefully illustrates that the Revolutions of 1917 cannot be fully understood without exploring the ways in which the sacred and the revolutionary overlapped and informed each other.

Francesca Silano is Assistant Professor of History at Providence College. Alexander Agadjanian is a Leading Research Fellow at Yerevan State University. He is author of Turns of Faith, Search for Meaning: Orthodox Christianity and Post-Soviet Experience and (with Scott M. Kenworthy) of Understanding World Christianity: Russia. Scott M. Kenworthy is Professor of Comparative Religion at Miami University of Ohio. He is author of The People's Patriarch: Tikhon Bellavin and the Orthodox Church in North America and Revolutionary Russia and The Heart of Russia: Trinity-Sergius, Monasticism, and Society After 1825. Nadieszda Kizenko is Professor of History at the University at Albany. She is author of Good for the Souls: A History of Confession in the Russian Empire and A Prodigal Saint: Father John of Kronstadt and the Russian People.

Acknowledgments
Introduction: Religion and Revolution in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, by Francesca Silano
Part 1: Before the Revolution
1. "Can a Christian be a Socialist?": The (Ir)reconcilability of Christianity and Socialism in Revolutionary Russia, by Alexandra Kardos
2. Churching Russian History: Orthodoxy in the Great War and Revolution, by Gregory L. Freeze
3. Charismatic Orthodoxy in Revolutionary Ukraine and Russia: Stefan (Vasilii Karpovich Podgornyi) and His Followers, 1832–1960, by J. Eugene Clay
Part 2: The Fall of the Romanovs
4. The Death of White Tara: How Russia's Buddhists Responded to the Collapse of the Romanov Dynasty, by Nikolay Tsyrempilov
5. Confession and Penance in Revolutionary Russia and Ukraine, by Nadieszda Kizenko
6. The "Parish Revolution" of 1917 in Russia: Laity, Clergy, and Church Authorities in the Struggle for Power in the Orthodox Parish between March 1917 and April 1918, by Aleksey Beglov
Part 3: Bolshevism and the New Person
7. God-Building and Authoritarianism: A Discussion of Bolshevism and Religion, by Daniela Steila
8. "Wings of Revolution", by Mark D. Steinberg
9. Antireligious Propaganda and Cultural Cleansing: The Bolshevik Art of Spiritual Warfare, 1922–1925, by Vera Shevzov
10. "Dying is easy in Russia now—getting buried, on the other hand, is very complicated": The 1918 Funeral Reforms and Their Consequences, by Anna Sokolova
11. Canon Law in a Bolshevik Courtroom: The Russian Revolution as an Orthodox Legal Revolution, by Francesca Silano
Part 4: Personal Responses to Revolution
12. From Freedom to Apocalypse: Changing Perceptions of Revolution in Muslim Ego-Documents, by Alfrid Bustanov
13. Russian Orthodox Women in Unorthodox Times: Patterns of Female Agency and Authority in the Revolutionary Era, 1917–1927, by Page Herrlinger
Part 5: The Remnant: Keeping the Community
14. Searching for an Identity: Mennonites in Revolutionary Ukraine, by Aileen Friesen
15. Rabbi Joseph Isaac Schneersohn: The Making of a Jewish Religious Leader in the Soviet Union, by David E. Fishman
Afterword: Religion and the Russian Revolution: Ongoing Reinvention, by Alexander Agadjanian
Index

Erscheint lt. Verlag	4.8.2026
Co-Autor	Aleksey Beglov
Zusatzinfo	8 color illus., 13 b&w illus., 1 b&w table
Verlagsort	Bloomington, IN
Sprache	englisch
Maße	156 x 235 mm
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Neuzeit (bis 1918)
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Geschichte ► Teilgebiete der Geschichte ► Religionsgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Religion / Theologie ► Christentum
ISBN-13	9780253076151 / 9780253076151
Zustand	Neuware