More than Alive

Zuzanna Bogumił; Tatiana Voronina

More than Alive

The Dead, Orthodoxy and Remembrance in Post-Soviet Russia

by Zuzanna Bogumił (Author), Tatiana Voronina (Author)
©2023, Monographs, 246 Pages
History & Political Science

Series: Eastern European Culture, Politics and Societies, Volume 22

The process of the Orthodoxization of memory in Russia started long before the Russian Orthodox Church engaged in the memory politics. It was a grassrooted process initiated by both the living and the dead. By using religious symbols and rituals, various groups of living were restoring their relationship with the forgotten dead of Soviet repressions and war. When the Moscow Patriarchate has returned to active public life and started developing its religious memory infrastructure, the Orthodoxization process got a new up–down dimension. Finally, a turn of the Putin’s regime towards religious commemorative practices caused the disappearance of the boundary between religious and political memory. The bricolage memory, consisting of elements of Orthodox tradition and Soviet memory culture, appeared.

Cover
Title
Copyright
About the author
About the book
This eBook can be cited
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
Introduction
Why the dead?
Memoria remembrance of the dead
Remembrance of the dead – from heroes to forensic evidence
Fama remembrance of the dead
Monuments
Anniversaries
Historia remembrance of the dead
Book structure
Methodology
Part I: Grassroot Orthodoxization
From Russian to Post-Soviet Russian Living with the Dead
A duty to the dead and changes in memory politics
Reconciliation with the living
Reconciliation with the dead
Moscow Patriarchate reconciles with the dead
Nevsky Pyatachok: Orthodoxizing Knot Memory
The left bank of the river and Soviet official remembrance of the dead
The right bank of the river and grassroot remembrance
Ivan Aleksander: a local memory guardian of dead soldiers
Post-Soviet patchwork memory
Contemporary economics on bones
Conclusions
St. Petersburg: Orthodoxizing Siege of Leningrad
Victory Park’s Blockade Temple: from recreational facility to a site of memory
Conclusions
Butovo: Orthodoxizing Family Memory
Searching for the dead bodies
The power of ties between the living and the dead
1990s – Butovo as a site of family mourning rituals
Memory conflict between Orthodoxy and secular
2000s – transformation into the Sanctuary of the New Russian Martyrs
2017 – the Garden of Memory of 20,762 dead
Conclusions
Part II: Top-Down Orthodoxization
Post-Soviet ROC of the Moscow Patriarchate Living with the Dead
Religious Memoria and ROC Hierarchy of the Dead
Hierarchy of the dead of repressions
Hierarchy of the dead in the war
Religious Fama: Orthodoxizing Secular Anniversaries
January 25 – post-Soviet Orthodox Memory Day of Soviet victims
October 30 – reading the names of victims of political repressions
June 22 – candles in memory of the war dead
May 9 – walking in the Immortal Regiment
Religious Historia from religious to national narrative
The Church of the Holy Martyrs Adrian and Natalia in Staro-Panovo – cosmopolitan memory of war
The Icon of St. Nina of Georgia – international memory of the Blockade
The Sanctuary in Butovo – the mournful memory of new martyrs
The Sanctuary in Katyn – Orthodoxy as a tool of reconciliation
The Sanctuary at Bolshaya Lubyanka – victorious memory of the new martyrs
The Main Cathedral of the Russian Armed Forces – national sanctuary of war
From Orthodox Rus’ to ‘Russia- My History’ – de-Orthodoxizing religious historia
Conclusions
List of Recorded Interviews
Bibliography
Index
Series Index

Pages:

246

Year:

2023

ISBN (HARDBACK):

9783631873168 (Active)

ISBN (EPUB):

9783631908112 (Active)

ISBN (PDF):

9783631908105 (Active)

DOI:

10.3726/b21151

Language:

English

Keywords:

religion, Russia, post, Dead, Irena, Orthodoxy, Gross, Grudzińska, Tatiana, Soviet, Orthodox, Dominika, remembrance, Bogumił, Alive, Voronina, Zińczuk, Zuzanna

Published:

Berlin, Bern, Bruxelles, New York, Oxford, Warszawa, Wien, 2023. 246 pp., 45 fig. b/w.

Zuzanna Bogumił is an assistant professor at the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology, Polish Academy of Sciences. She specializes in memory studies, museum studies and anthropology of religion. Since 2006, Bogumił has worked on the memory of Soviet repressions, focusing on its secular, religious, postsecular and decolonial dimensions. Bogumił has authored, co-authored or co-edited several books.

Tatiana Voronina is an independent researcher interested in the social and cultural history of the late Soviet Union, rural history, memory politics, religion and oral history. She holds PhDs in history from the European University in Saint Petersburg (2005) and the University of Zurich (2022), and she currently works on late Soviet culture. Voronina is the author of a monograph and has published a dozen articles in leading academic journals on Soviet memory, late Soviet temporalities, and urban and rural inequality.

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More than Alive

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