Russian Orthodox Imaginaries and Their Family Resemblance to Populism
In: Journal of Religion in EuropeSearch for other papers by Kathy Rousselet in
Current site
Google Scholar
Abstract
This article sets out to demonstrate how some Russian Orthodox imaginaries bear a family resemblance to populism. These imaginaries have a distinctive ideological anchor. The influential religious figures who convey them lay claim to a legacy of political thought that can be traced back to a specific form of narodnichestvo, which is Slavophile and associated with aspirations for monarchy. This investigation of populism among Russian Orthodox Christians is structured in three parts. The article begins with a presentation of an ideological repertoire that emphasizes the centrality of the idea of “the people.” Drawing on interviews and material collected over several years in different regions of Russia, particularly Yekaterinburg, the article then looks at the rebellion of Christians who feel marginalized or consider that the Russian Orthodox Church does not have enough influence in Russia. Finally, it explores how “the people” has become central to religious practice itself.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Berdiaev, Nikolai, Mirosozertsanie Dostoievskogo (Prague: YMCA-Press, 1923).
-
Brubaker, Rogers, “Between Nationalism and Civilizationism: The European Populist Moment in Comparative Perspective,” Ethnic and Racial Studies 40/8 (2017), 1191–1226.
-
Brubaker, Rogers, “Why Populism?,” Theory and Society 46/5 (2017), 357–385.
-
Cassin, Barbara, Emily Apter, Jacques Lezra, and Michael Wood (eds), Dictionary of Untranslatables: A Philosophical Lexicon (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2014).
-
DeHanas, Daniel Nilsson, and Marat Shterin (eds.), Special Issue “Religion and the Rise of Populism,” Religion, State and Society 46/3 (2018).
-
Eparchy of Yekaterinburg, “V den’ pamiati sviatogo Simeona Verkhoturskogo mitropolit Kirill prizval sokhraniat’ veru pravoslavnuiu” (On the feast day of St Simeon of Verkhoturie, Metropolitan Kirill urged to preserve the Orthodox faith), 25 May 2019. https://ekaterinburg-eparhia.ru/news/2019/05/25/21019.
-
Fedotov, Georgy, “The Religious Sources of Russian Populism,” The Russian Review 1/2 (1942), 27–39.
-
Florovsky, Georgy, Puti russkogo bogoslovia (The paths of Russian theology) (Paris, 1937).
-
Fraser, Nancy, “Rethinking the Public Sphere: A Contribution to the Critique of Actually Existing Democracy” in C. Calhoun (ed.), Habermas and the Public Sphere (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 1992), 107–142.
-
Hunter, James, Culture Wars: The Struggle to Control the Family, Art, Education, Law, And Politics in America (New York: Basic Books, 1992).
-
Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow, “Patriarshaia propoved’ za Liturgiei v sotuiu godovshchinu rasstrela Tsarskoi sem’i,” 17 July 2018. http://www.patriarchia.ru/db/text/5239579.html
-
Knorre, Boris, “Dvizhenie za kanonizatsiu Ivana Groznogo i pravoslavno-monarkhicheskii tsezarizm” [The movement for the canonization of Ivan the Terrible and orthodox and monarchic Caesarism], in S.B. Filatov (ed.), Religiia i rossiiskoe mnogoobrazie (Russian religion and plurality) (Moscow: Letniy Sad, 2011), 503–528.
-
Kormina, Zhanna, Palomniki (The pilgrims) (Moscow: Publications of the Higher School of Economics, 2019).
-
Kormina, Zhanna, “Prorok lukavogo vremeni. Delo skhiigumena Sergiia kak sotsiologicheskii keis” (A prophet of evil: The case of skhiigumen Sergei as a sociological case study), Republic, 25 June 2020. https://republic.ru/posts/97059.
-
Jeanne Kormina, “Fervent Christians: Orthodox activists in Russia as publics and counterpublics,” Religion, State and Society 51�1 (2023), 11–29.
-
L’vova, Arina, “Patriarkha Kirilla prosiat utverdit’ ‘Molitvu Putinu.’ ’K tebe, Vladimir Blagovernyj, derzaiu voznesti svoi glas, ochist’ menia ot vsiakoi skverny …” (Patriarch Kirill is asked to approve a “Prayer to Putin.” “To you, Vladimir the Righteous, I dare to raise my voice, cleanse me from all filth …”), 8 December 2015, https://ura.news/news/1052233161.
-
Marzouki, Nadia, Duncan McDonnell, and Olivier Roy (eds), Saving the People: How Populists Hijack Religion (Oxford: Hurst, 2016).
-
Novyi den′, “Pravoslavnye Ekaterinburzhtsy prosiat meriiu ubrat′ s ulits bilbordy so Stalinym” (Yekaterinburg Orthodox activists ask the mayor to remove the billboards with Stalin from the streets), Novyi den′, 12 May 2015. https://newdaynews.ru/ekb/532775.html.
-
Osuna Olivas, José Javier, “From Chasing Populists to Deconstructing Populism: A New Multidimensional Approach to Understanding and Comparing Populism,” European Journal of Political Research 60 (2021), 829–853.
-
Panarin, Aleksandr, Narod bez elity (Moscow: Algoritm, 2006).
-
Perrie, Maureen, “The Muscovite Monarchy in the Sixteenth Century: ‘National,’ ‘Popular’ or ‘Democratic?,’” Cahiers du monde russe 46/1 (2005), 233–242.
-
Pipes, Richard, “Narodnichestvo: A Semantic Inquiry,” Slavic Review, 23/3 (1964), 441–458.
-
Polunov, Aleksandr, K.P. Pobedonostsev v obshchestvenno-politicheskoi i dukhovnoi zhizni Rossii (Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2010).
-
Razuvalova, Anna, “The Plot Device of Conspiracy in Nikolay Burlyaev’s Film Lermontov and A Director’s Diary: On the ‘Ethnography of the Emotions’ of the National-Conservative Community,” Forum for Anthropology and Culture 12 (2016), 161–185. http://anthropologie.kunstkamera.ru/files/pdf/eng012/razuvalova.pdf.
-
Ricœur, Paul, “L’idéologie et l’utopie: deux expressions de l’imaginaire social,” Autres Temps: Les cahiers du christianisme social 2 (1984), 53–64.
-
Rosenwein, Barbara H., Emotional Communities in the Early Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006).
-
Rousselet, Kathy, “Constructing Moralities around the Tsarist Family,” in Jarrett Zigon (ed.), Multiple Moralities and Religions in Post-Soviet Russia (New York: Berghahn, 2011), 146–167.
-
Rousselet, Kathy, “From Juvenile System Reform to a Conflict of Civilizations in Contemporary Russian Society,” Les Etudes du CERI 204 (June 2014). https://www.sciencespo.fr/ceri/sites/sciencespo.fr.ceri/files/Etude_204Eng.pdf.
-
Rousselet, Kathy, “La querelle des matricules ou l’imaginaire complexe des chrétiens orthodoxes russes,” in Ariane Zambiras and Jean-François Bayart (eds.), La cité cultuelle: Rendre à Dieu ce qui revient à César (Paris: Karthala, 2015), 75–96.
-
Sakhno, Sergei, “‘Peuple,’ ‘nation’ et ‘ethnos’ dans le discours russe,” Strates 12 (2006). https://journals.openedition.org/strates/1802.
-
Shchipkov, Alexander, Iazyk: Sbornik statei o stanovlenii russkogo diskursa (Moscow: LitRes 2019).
-
Serrano, Silvia, Orthodoxie et politique en Géorgie postsoviétique (Paris: Karthala, 2018).
-
Shargunov, Aleksandr, “‘Poklonis’ emu, i on pomozhet tebe!’ Svidetel’stva chudesnoi pomoshchi tsaria-strastoterptsa Nikolaia II” (“Worship him and he will help you!” Testimonies of the miraculous help of the Passion-Bearer Tsar Nicholas II), pravoslavie.ru, 1 August 2018, https://pravoslavie.ru/114797.html.
-
Snychev, Ioann, Samoderzhavie dukha: ocherki russkogo samosoznaniia (The autocracy of the mind: Essays on Russian self-knowledge) (Saint Petersburg: Tsarskoe Delo, 1995).
-
Solonevich, Ivan, Narodnaia monarkhia (People’s Monarchy) (Moscow: Rodina Publishing House, 2021), 5. http://maxima-library.org/opds/b/550716?format=read.
-
Suslov, Mikhail, “Genealogiia monarkhicheskoi idei v postsovetskikh politicheskikh diskursakh Russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi” (The genealogy of the idea of monarchy in the post-Soviet political discourse of the Russian Orthodox Church), Gosudarstvo, religiia, tserkov′ v Rossii i za rubezhom 3/1, (2014), 27–62.
-
Teslia, Andrei, “Russkii konservator: o sisteme politicheskikh vozzrenij K.P. Pobedonostseva 1870–1890-kh godov” (Russian conservatives: The system of political philosophy by K.P. Pobedonostsev in 1870–1890), Sociologicheskoe obozrenie 16/1 (2017), 151–172.
-
Venturi, Franco, Les Intellectuels, le peuple et la revolution: Histoire du populisme russe au XIXᵉ siècle (Paris: Gallimard, 1972).
-
Zambiras, Ariane, and Jean-François Bayart (eds.), La cité cultuelle: Rendre à Dieu ce qui revient à César (Paris: Karthala, 2015).
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 92 | 92 | 0 |
| Full Text Views | 96 | 96 | 35 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 92 | 92 | 8 |
Russian Orthodox Imaginaries and Their Family Resemblance to Populism
In: Journal of Religion in EuropeSearch for other papers by Kathy Rousselet in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
This article sets out to demonstrate how some Russian Orthodox imaginaries bear a family resemblance to populism. These imaginaries have a distinctive ideological anchor. The influential religious figures who convey them lay claim to a legacy of political thought that can be traced back to a specific form of narodnichestvo, which is Slavophile and associated with aspirations for monarchy. This investigation of populism among Russian Orthodox Christians is structured in three parts. The article begins with a presentation of an ideological repertoire that emphasizes the centrality of the idea of “the people.” Drawing on interviews and material collected over several years in different regions of Russia, particularly Yekaterinburg, the article then looks at the rebellion of Christians who feel marginalized or consider that the Russian Orthodox Church does not have enough influence in Russia. Finally, it explores how “the people” has become central to religious practice itself.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 92 | 92 | 0 |
| Full Text Views | 96 | 96 | 35 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 92 | 92 | 8 |