Between History and Religion: The New Russian Martyrdom as an Invented Tradition

Abstract

This article is part of the special cluster titled Social practices of remembering and forgetting of the communist past in Central and Eastern Europe, guest edited by Malgorzata Glowacka-Grajper In the year 2000, during the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church, more than one thousand victims of Soviet repressions—people persecuted and murdered by the Soviet regime—were glorified and named the New Russian Martyrs. By presenting the origin and background of the phenomenon, authors demonstrate that the New Martyrdom is a kind of invented tradition. They focus on analysis of the tension that occurs when history becomes religion by highlighting some problematic issues with regard to the New Martyrdom and showing how the Russian Orthodox Church is addressing them. The analysis sheds new light on the political use of religion for the creation of narrative about the past in contemporary Russia.

Political Imagery and the Russia-Germany-America Triangle

“…A Russian past of Christianity and atheist totalitarianism presents difficulties for a regime seeking to justify and extract political capital from both (Bogumił and Łukaszewicz 2018; Smith 2019). The incongruities did not go unnoticed.…”

“…These tales style the present as a potentially cathartic turning point: the reactions to past aggressions were too "weak" and thus enabled the aggressor to renew the aggressionyet it is still possible to do the right thing and confront the aggressor head-on. (Sangar et al 2018, 185) Religion A Russian past of Christianity and atheist totalitarianism presents difficulties for a regime seeking to justify and extract political capital from both (Bogumił and Łukaszewicz 2018;Smith 2019). The incongruities did not go unnoticed.…”

Zuzanna Bogumił. Gulag Memories: The Rediscovery and Commemoration of Russia’s Repressive Past. New York: Berghahn Books, 2018

“…Перед нами -первая обобщающая книга о мемориализации ГУЛАГа. Зузанна Богумил уже достаточно давно работает с этой темой и опубликовала несколько статей на русском, английском и польском языках (Богумил 2010;Bogumił 2012aBogumił , 2012bBogumił, Moran, and Harrowell 2015;Bogumił and Łukaszewicz 2018;Voronina and Bogimił 2018). И вот теперь эта книга -обобщение полевого материала, собранного в течение нескольких лет в ходе поездок по нескольким основным «островам архипелага».…”