ABOUT THIS BOOK

Thinking Orthodox in Modern Russia illuminates the significant role of Russian Orthodox thought in shaping the discourse of educated society during the imperial and early Soviet periods. Bringing together an array of scholars, this book demonstrates that Orthodox reflections on spiritual, philosophical, and aesthetic issues of the day informed much of Russia’s intellectual and cultural climate.
Volume editors Patrick Lally Michelson and Judith Deutsch Kornblatt provide a historical overview of Russian Orthodox thought and a critical essay on the current state of scholarship about religious thought in modern Russia. The contributors explore a wide range of topics, including Orthodox claims to a unique religious Enlightenment, contests over authority within the Russian Church, tensions between faith and reason in academic Orthodoxy, the relationship between sacraments and the self, the religious foundations of philosophical and legal categories, and the effect of Orthodox categories in the formation of Russian literature.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Patrick Lally Michelson is an assistant professor of religious studies at Indiana University, Bloomington. Judith Deutsch Kornblatt is professor emerita of Slavic languages and literature at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

REVIEWS

“Perhaps no Russian social class has been more colorfully and crudely pigeonholed than the ‘ecclesiastics’—from the nihilistic seminary student through the village priest, exotic sectarian, and high-ranking but obscurantist religious bureaucrat. This path-breaking volume corrects the picture with fascinating unexpected histories: of a Russian Orthodox Enlightenment, of miracle-verification in a Marxist era, of academic churchmen developing theism out of Kant and legal philosophers insisting on a religious base for human dignity, of Pushkin (and Pasternak) read through a sacred lens and Vladimir Solov’ev through a liberal one. A treasure-house of solid research and intellectual rigor, in which we see the believing Russian mind working together with the Russian heart.”—Caryl Emerson, Princeton University

“Whereas scholarship has focused on Church history, the clergy, and popular Orthodoxy, it has largely neglected Russian religious thought. This volume examines leading figures, from Platon (Levshin) to Pavel Florenskii, as well as critical issues, such as Imiaslavie and miracles; its impressive erudition, original research, and critical rethinking of key texts and figures make this a major contribution to our understanding Russian Orthodoxy.”—Gregory Freeze, Brandeis University

“A serious contribution to the analysis of Russian religious history [that] will, hopefully, stimulate further reconsiderations of the role of lay and ecclesiastical religious thought in Russia’s intellectual and cultural development.”—Slavic Review

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface
Introduction
            Patrick Lally Michelson and Judith Deutsch Kornblatt

Part I Thinking Orthodox in the Church
1 Orthodoxy and Enlightenment in Catherinian Russia: The Tsarevich Dimitrii Sermons of Metropolitan Platon
            Elise Kimerling Wirtschafter
2 Theology on the Ground: Dmitrii Bogoliubov, the Orthodox Anti-Sectarian Mission, and the Russian Soul
            Heather J. Coleman
3 Archbishop Nikon (Rozhdestvenskii) and Pavel Florenskii on Spiritual Experience, Theology, and the Name Glorifiers Dispute
            Scott M. Kenworthy

Part II Thinking Orthodox in the Academy
4 V. D. Kudriavtsev-Platonov and the Making of Russian Orthodox Theism
            Sean Gillen
5 The Struggle for the Sacred: Russian Orthodox Thinking about Miracles in a Modern Age
            Vera Shevzov
6 "The Light of the Truth": Russia's Two Enlightenments, with Reference to Pavel Florenskii
            Ruth Coates

Part III Thinking Orthodox in Society and Culture
7 Written Confession and Religious Thought in Early Nineteenth-Century Russia
            Nadieszda Kizenko
8 Anagogical Exegesis: The Theological Roots of Russian Hermeneutics
            Oliver Smith
9 Kant and the Kingdom of Ends in Russian Religious Thought (Vladimir Solov'ev)
            Randall A. Poole
10 Religious Thought and Russian Liberal Institutions: The Case of Pavel Novgorodtsev
            Vanessa Rampton
11 What Is Beauty?: Pasternak's Adaptations of Russian Religious Thought
            Martha M. F. Kelly

Afterword
            Paul Valliere
Contributors
Index

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