Orthodox Russia in Crisis: Church and Nation in the Time of Troubles
by Isaiah Gruber
Northern Illinois University Press, 2012 Cloth: 978-0-87580-446-0 | eISBN: 978-1-60909-049-4 Library of Congress Classification BX490.G78 2012 Dewey Decimal Classification 281.947009032
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS
ABOUT THIS BOOK
A pivotal period in Russian history, the Time of Troubles in the early seventeenth century has taken on new resonance in the country’s post-Soviet search for new national narratives. The historical role of the Orthodox Church has emerged as a key theme in contemporary remembrances of this time—but what precisely was that role?
The first comprehensive study of the Church during the Troubles, Orthodox Russia in Crisis reconstructs this tumultuous time, offering new interpretations of familiar episodes while delving deep into the archives to uncover a much fuller picture of the era. Analyzing these sources, Isaiah Gruber argues that the business activity of monasteries played a significant role in the origins and course of the Troubles and that frequent changes in power forced Church ideologues to innovate politically, for example inventing new justifications for power to be granted to the people and to royal women. These new ideas, Gruber contends, ultimately helped bring about a new age in Russian spiritual life and a crystallization of the national mentality.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Isaiah Gruber is an author and lecturer who has lived on four continents and in six countries. He specializes in the histories of Russia, Eastern Europe, Judaism, and Christianity. Dr. Gruber is currently a researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as well as an independent translator and lecturer. [ isaiahgruberphd.com ]
REVIEWS
“In this important and highly original book the author brilliantly chronicles the business-savvy Church’s cozy relationship with increasingly unpopular (and unlikely) tsars, and he skillfully charts the monasteries’ accumulation of huge profits while Russia’s economy declined and most of the population suffered. It is here that Gruber arrives at one of his most important conclusions and offers a far more nuanced appraisal of the impact of the Time of Troubles on the Church than the simplistic traditional argument that the Church was a big winner for having heroically helped to end the Troubles.”
— Chester S. L. Dunning, Texas A & M University
“This book is an important contribution to the literature on seventeenth-century Russia, on the Orthodox Church, on political ideology in Muscovy, and on monastic economies.”
Orthodox Russia in Crisis: Church and Nation in the Time of Troubles
by Isaiah Gruber
Northern Illinois University Press, 2012 Cloth: 978-0-87580-446-0 eISBN: 978-1-60909-049-4
A pivotal period in Russian history, the Time of Troubles in the early seventeenth century has taken on new resonance in the country’s post-Soviet search for new national narratives. The historical role of the Orthodox Church has emerged as a key theme in contemporary remembrances of this time—but what precisely was that role?
The first comprehensive study of the Church during the Troubles, Orthodox Russia in Crisis reconstructs this tumultuous time, offering new interpretations of familiar episodes while delving deep into the archives to uncover a much fuller picture of the era. Analyzing these sources, Isaiah Gruber argues that the business activity of monasteries played a significant role in the origins and course of the Troubles and that frequent changes in power forced Church ideologues to innovate politically, for example inventing new justifications for power to be granted to the people and to royal women. These new ideas, Gruber contends, ultimately helped bring about a new age in Russian spiritual life and a crystallization of the national mentality.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Isaiah Gruber is an author and lecturer who has lived on four continents and in six countries. He specializes in the histories of Russia, Eastern Europe, Judaism, and Christianity. Dr. Gruber is currently a researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as well as an independent translator and lecturer. [ isaiahgruberphd.com ]
REVIEWS
“In this important and highly original book the author brilliantly chronicles the business-savvy Church’s cozy relationship with increasingly unpopular (and unlikely) tsars, and he skillfully charts the monasteries’ accumulation of huge profits while Russia’s economy declined and most of the population suffered. It is here that Gruber arrives at one of his most important conclusions and offers a far more nuanced appraisal of the impact of the Time of Troubles on the Church than the simplistic traditional argument that the Church was a big winner for having heroically helped to end the Troubles.”
— Chester S. L. Dunning, Texas A & M University
“This book is an important contribution to the literature on seventeenth-century Russia, on the Orthodox Church, on political ideology in Muscovy, and on monastic economies.”