religious practices

On Anna Stepanova, a Peasant from the Kostroma Uyezd, Revered as the Theotokos

This paper examines the eighteenth-century Kostroma Christ-believers’ community. It is based on the 1747 police investigation case against the merchant Ivan Krupennikov, held in the Fund of the Most Holy Synod at the Russian State Historical Archive. One of the important figures in the case was Anna Stepanova, a peasant from the Kostroma district, revered as the Theotokos. The paper introduces new archival materials and describes some religious practices of heterodox communities in eighteenth-century town of Kostroma.

Religious Tradition in Today’s Society: Theoretical Analysis

This article analyzes problems of preservation and reproduction of religious tradition in modern society using the example of Russian Orthodoxy. The author uses the apparatus of the phenomenological philosophy of A. Schutz to analyze the translation of «high» forms of tradition. P. Bourdieu’s concept of habitus is used to describe the mechanism of the transmission of tradition in its «popular» manifestation.

The Market of Muslim Goods and Services in Dagestan: Practices of Consumption and Public Debates

The «New» Mennonites of the Ural and Siberia: Genesis and Transformation of Ethnoconfessional Communities in the 1940s – 1960s

The article explores the genesis and transformation of Soviet ethno-confessional communities in the 1940s – 1960s, using the case of the so called «new» Mennonite communities in the Ural and Siberia. The development of these communities depended on the extreme conditions of a transition they went through, from the traditional rural life to the urban industrial setting. In these communities we see new mechanisms of solidarity, based on inter-communal and inter-religious communication.

What Can We Know about Soviet-era Religiosity? A Comparison of Archival and Oral Sources from the Postwar Volga Region

Based on materials from archival research and ethnographic fieldwork in the Middle Volga region, this article considers the relationship between archival evidence and oral history in attempts to learn about religious practices in the Soviet Union.

Religious Practices, Everyday Religiosity and Western Mass Culture in the Closed City of Dniepropetrovsk in Post-Stalin Era (1960–1984)

Part of a larger research project about Soviet cultural consumption and identity formation, this article explores the connection between religious practices and western mass culture in the industrial city of Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, in the late socialist period. The Committee of State Security closed Dnepropetrovsk to foreigners in 1959 when one of the Soviet Union’s biggest missile factories opened there.

“The City without Churches”: Religiosity in Magnitogorsk in 1930-s

The paper explores religiosity in a newly built Soviet city of Magnitogorsk. The author finds out that in spite of official antireligious policies and the declarative goal to create a “city without churches”, the population continued religious practices. The way religiosity was officially controlled and measured — by the number of churches, visible religious attributes, and open rituals — helped create a relatively calm life for believers with their “invisible” practices.

Taking the Holy Communion in Soviet Era: Practices of the Russian Orthodox Laity

The paper uses the method of historical anthropology to look at the evolution of the practice of the Holy Communion in the Russian Orthodox Church during the Soviet era. The author shows that the frequency of individual communion increased in 5-10 times comparing to the pre-Revolutionary period when it was usually practiced no more than once a year.