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Religious life has been perhaps the least explored and most poorly understood aspect of imperial Russian history. This annotated translation of a dissident priest's exposé of the parish clergy adds significantly to our knowledge, providing a graphic picture of the Orthodox church in the mid-nineteenth century. For the first time, we are able to grasp the profound importance of the church in the everyday lives of ordinary men and women.I. S. Belliustin's Description of the Clergy in Rural Russia was published abroad and smuggled back into the empire in 1858, on the eve of the Great Reforms. Its shocking depiction of a church pervaded by venality and ignorance created a sensation in high society and government circles. It generated a new sense of self-awareness among the younger clergy and sparked a reform movement that climaxed in the years just before the 1917 Revolution. Much more than a chapter in the history of Russian Orthodoxy, Belliustin's memoir is a major document in Russian social history. Throughout, the author ranges beyond the seminary and the parish to touch on almost every aspect of village life. Gregory Freeze has translated this text and supplied extensive annotations. His introduction is a masterly--and long-needed--survey of the church's role in the social and political life of imperial Russia.Written by a wry and trenchant observer, this portrait of rural Russia will be read with interest by students and scholars of Russian history, of the Orthodox church, and of the social and religious history of nineteenth-century Europe.
Wrestling with a would-be assassin, inspecting the toilets in a rural prison, responding to a challenge from his mistress's enraged husband—all these matters could be part of a Russian provincial governor's day. More often, he was entangled in administrative routine, troubled by a steady flow of orders from St. Petersburg, and tormented by complaints from local powerbrokers. What was His Excellency—the tsar's viceroy—a bureaucratic flunky or a harassed politician? Drawing on a broad range of materials in Soviet and Western archives, Richard Robbins here gives us a richly textured portrait of the Russian provincial governors in the last years of the old regime. He focuses on the governors as people and working officials, emphasizing their relations with government bureaucrats, representatives of the privileged classes, peasants, and proletarians. Robbins uses anecdotal evidence to good effect in drawing a vivid picture of provincial life at the turn of the century. He persuades us that the popular image, etched by Gogol and Dostoyevsky, of the governor as incompetent and corrupt, is in need of revision. With convincing detail, he demonstrates that the viceroys of the late imperial period were increasingly professional, and some of them proved to be remarkably skilled politicians.
The Soviet Union crumbles and Russia rises from the rubble, once again the great nation--a perfect scenario, but for one point: Russia was never a nation. And this, says the eminent historian Geoffrey Hosking, is at the heart of the Russians' dilemma today, as they grapple with the rudiments of nationhood. His book is about the Russia that never was, a three-hundred-year history of empire building at the expense of national identity. Russia begins in the sixteenth century, with the inception of one of the most extensive and diverse empires in history. Hosking shows how this undertaking, the effort of conquering, defending, and administering such a huge mixture of territories and peoples, exhausted the productive powers of the common people and enfeebled their civic institutions. Neither church nor state was able to project an image of "Russian-ness" that could unite elites and masses in a consciousness of belonging to the same nation. Hosking depicts two Russias, that of the gentry and of the peasantry, and reveals how the gap between them, widened by the Tsarist state's repudiation of the Orthodox messianic myth, continued to grow throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Here we see how this myth, on which the empire was originally based, returned centuries later in the form of the revolutionary movement, which eventually swept away the Tsarist Empire but replaced it with an even more universalist one. Hosking concludes his story in 1917, but shows how the conflict he describes continues to affect Russia right up to the present day.
By the mercy of God I am a Christian, by my deeds a great sinner, by calling a homeless wanderer of the lowliest origins, roaming from place to place. Here, see my belongings: a bag of dry crusts on my back and the Holy Bible in my breast pocket; that's it. In 1884 there appeared in Russia a slim volume containing four short tales. They told of a pilgrim, a lone wanderer, led by his quiet curiosity and a deep spiritual longing to undertake a lifelong journey across the land. A folk hero, a figure familiar from the works of Tolstoy and Leskov, this gentle pilgrim and his simple story would soon travel the world - and would even, much later, traverse the pages of JD Salinger's Franny and Zooey as the 'small pea-green cloth-bound book' that Franny keeps close in her handbag. The pilgrim's ancient journey takes him from a city monastery through forests, fields and the steppes of Siberia. He walks by day and by night, through rains and summer months, finding food and shelter where he can. Along the way, he encounters priests and professors, convicts, nuns and beggars, a tipsy old man in a soldier's greatcoat, from whom he slowly gathers great stores of wisdom and experience. But at the heart of his journey is his time spent praying as he journeys on alone, discovering the peace and consolation that come of constant prayer and silent contemplation. Simple and sincere, The Way of a Pilgrim paints an enduring picture of a life of detachment through wandering and prayer. And, as the pilgrim makes his way through the wilds, he invites us to travel with him, along an ancient path into an immense, mystical landscape.
This eagerly awaited study of Russia under Alexander I, Nicholas I and Alexander II -- the Russia of War and Peace and Anna Karenina -- brings the series near to completion. David Saunders examines Russia's failure to adapt to the era of reform and democracy ushered into the rest of Europe by the French Revolution. Why, despite so much effort, did it fail? This is a superb book, both as a portrait of an age and as a piece of sustained historical analysis.
Across the Revolutionary Divide: Russia and the USSR 1861-1945 offers a broad interpretive account of Russian history from the emancipation of the serfs to the end of World War II. Provides a coherent overview of Russia's development from 1861 through to 1945 Reflects the latest scholarship by taking a thematic approach to Russian history and bridging the ‘revolutionary divide’ of 1917 Covers political, economic, cultural, and everyday life issues during a period of major changes in Russian history Addresses throughout the diversity of national groups, cultures, and religions in the Russian Empire and USSR Shows how the radical policies adopted after 1917 both changed Russia and perpetuated an economic and political rigidity that continues to influence modern society
Focusing on the period between the revolutions of 1848-1849 and the First Vatican Council (1869-1870), The Public Image of Eastern Orthodoxy explores the circumstances under which westerners, concerned about the fate of the papacy, the Ottoman Empire, Poland, and Russian imperial power, began to conflate the Russian Orthodox Church with the state and to portray the Church as the political tool of despotic tsars. As Heather L. Bailey demonstrates, in response to this reductionist view, Russian Orthodox publicists launched a public relations campaign in the West, especially in France, in the 1850s and 1860s. The linchpin of their campaign was the building of the impressive Saint Alexander Nevsky Church in Paris, consecrated in 1861. Bailey posits that, as the embodiment of the belief that Russia had a great historical purpose inextricably tied to Orthodoxy, the Paris church both reflected and contributed to the rise of religious nationalism in Russia that followed the Crimean War. At the same time, the confrontation with westerners' negative ideas about the Eastern Church fueled a reformist spirit in Russia while contributing to a better understanding of Eastern Orthodoxy in the West.
This new edition retains the features of the first edition that made it a popular choice in universities and colleges throughout the US, Canada and around the world. Moss's accessible history includes full treatment of everyday life, the role of women, rural life, law, religion, literature and art. In addition, it provides many other features that have proven successful, including: a well-organized and clearly written text, references to varying historical perspectives, numerous illustrations and maps, fully updated bibliographies accompanying each chapter as well as a general bibliography, a glossary, and chronological and genealogical lists.
A broad, panoramic view of Russian imperial society from the era of Peter the Great to the revolution of 1917, Wirtschafter's study sets forth a challenging interpretation of one of the world's most powerful and enduring monarchies. A sophisticated synthesis that combines extensive reading of recent scholarship with archival research, it focuses on the interplay of Russia's key social groups with one another and the state. The result is a highly original history of Russian society that illuminates the relationships between state building, large-scale social structures, and everyday life. Beginning with an overview of imperial Russia's legal and institutional structures, Wirschafter analyzes the "ruling" classes, and service elites (the land-owning nobility, the civil and military servicemen, the clergy) and then examines the middle groups (the raznochintsy, the commercial-industrial elites, the professionals, the intelligentsia) before turning to the peasants, townspeople, and factory workers. Wirtschafter argues that those very social, political, and legal relationships that have long been viewed as sources of conflict and crisis in fact helped to promote integration and foster the stability that ensured imperial Russia's survival.