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Popular religion in Russia: double belief and the making of an academic myth
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posted on 2023-06-08, 08:42 authored by Stella RockThis book dispels the widely-held view that paganism survived in Russia alongside Orthodox Christianity, demonstrating that 'double belief', dvoeverie, is in fact an academic myth. Scholars, citing the medieval origins of the term, have often portrayed Russian Christianity as uniquely muddied by paganism, with 'double-believing' Christians consciously or unconsciously preserving pagan traditions even into the twentieth century. This volume shows how the concept of dvoeverie arose with nineteenth-century scholars obsessed with the Russian 'folk' and was perpetuated as a propaganda tool in the Soviet period, colouring our perception of both popular faith in Russian and medieval Russian culture for over a century. It surveys the wide variety of uses of the term from the eleventh to the seventeenth century, and contrasts them to its use in modern historiography, concluding that our modern interpretation of dvoeverie would not have been recognized by medieval clerics, and that 'double-belief' is a modern academic construct. Furthermore, it offers a brief foray into medieval Orthodoxy via the mind of the believer, through the language and literature of the period.
History
Publication status
- Published
Publisher
RoutledgePages
247.0Place of publication
London; New YorkISBN
9780415317719Series
Routledge studies in the history of Russia and Eastern EuropeDepartment affiliated with
- History Publications
Full text available
- No
Peer reviewed?
- Yes
Legacy Posted Date
2012-08-23Usage metrics
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