{"id":5001,"date":"2013-01-09T14:34:26","date_gmt":"2013-01-09T21:34:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5001"},"modified":"2013-01-10T08:53:42","modified_gmt":"2013-01-10T15:53:42","slug":"critiquing-double-belief-in-russian-paganism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5001","title":{"rendered":"Critiquing “Double Belief” in Russian Paganism"},"content":{"rendered":"

Consider this a follow-up to yesterday’s post on Russian dream rituals<\/a>, which linked to an article whose author totally accepted the idea of spiritual practices with\u00a0 “very deep roots in pre-Christian culture.”<\/p>\n

I had not realized this, but Routledge published a book critiquing the idea of “double belief”\u00a0 (dvoeverie<\/em>) three years ago: Stella Rock’s Popular Religion in Russia: ‘Double Belief’ and the Making of an Academic Myth.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

From the catalog:<\/p>\n

\n

This book dispels the widely-held view that paganism [sic<\/em>] survived in Russia alongside Orthodox Christianity, demonstrating that ‘double belief’, dvoeverie<\/em>, is in fact an academic myth.<\/p>\n

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<\/em> 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<\/em> 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From what I have seen in current Pagan studies, the concept is indeed widely accepted by today’s Russian Pagans and by some scholars as well. I may need to read this book.<\/p>\n

UPDATE:<\/strong> From a review in Alternative Spirituality and Religion Review<\/em> by Kaarina Aitamurto:<\/a><\/p>\n

The validity of the myth has been increasingly called into question in recent decades. Rock\u2019s contribution, however, is ground-breaking in its extensive and methodologically solid approach.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Consider this a follow-up to yesterday’s post on Russian dream rituals, which linked to an article whose author totally accepted the idea of spiritual practices with\u00a0 “very deep roots in pre-Christian culture.” I had not realized this, but Routledge published a book critiquing the idea of “double belief”\u00a0 (dvoeverie) three years ago: Stella Rock’s Popular […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[5,53,4],"class_list":["post-5001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-paganism","tag-russia","tag-scholarship"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1iF","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7344,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7344","url_meta":{"origin":5001,"position":0},"title":"Paganism and\/or Patriotism: Russia’s New Slavic Pride","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 22, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"An article in Russia Beyond the Headline talks about the rising interest in Pagan Slavic roots in that county, exemplified by the increasing number of celebrations of Perun's Day, which was last Monday. As more and more Russians seek solace in patriotism, many are turning to their ancient past and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nl.media.rbth.ru\/web\/en-rbth\/images\/2015-07\/big\/RIAN_00412882.HR_468.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":12347,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12347","url_meta":{"origin":5001,"position":1},"title":"Interview with Kaarina Aitamurto on Russian Paganism","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 2, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Prof. Kaarina Aitamurto, University of Helsinki, is interviewed here for the World Religions and Spirituality Project about her research on Paganisms in Russia. She has published on Russian Paganism in The Pomegranate (here and here) and co-edited the important collection Modern Pagan and Native Faith Movements in Central and Eastern\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Finland\"","block_context":{"text":"Finland","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=finland"},"img":{"alt_text":"Kaarina Aitamurto, Univ. of Helsinki","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/kaarina-aitamurto-203x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1255,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1255","url_meta":{"origin":5001,"position":2},"title":"Pagans among Suspects in Priest’s Murder","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"(Welcome, vistors from The Wild Hunt. Stick around, click a few links.) A Russian Orthodox priest is murdered in his Moscow church, and suspicion falls both on Muslims and on Russian Pagans.But note the titles of his books.We know too much about people who shout \"Allah Akbar\" and then pull\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1529,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1529","url_meta":{"origin":5001,"position":3},"title":"No, It Wasn’t the Provocative Women","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 21, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"It was Icelandic Pagans who caused the volcano to erupt, say Russian Orthodox clerics, countering the Shiite Islamic cleric who blamed women for inciting the lust of hapless men and thus, somehow, earthquakes. They noted that Iceland \"has recently become a center of European neo-paganism of Aryan occult kind, which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7758,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7758","url_meta":{"origin":5001,"position":4},"title":"Pagan-Studies Scholars Tell Their Stories","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 12, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The new double issue of The Pomegranate is something different. It contains two long papers, but the rest is devoted to a special section on scholarly autobiography conceived and edited by Doug Ezzy (U. of Tasmania). Doug visited Hardscrabble Creek in November 2014 and while holed up in the guest\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"Pom header","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Pom-header.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Pom-header.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/Pom-header.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":833,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=833","url_meta":{"origin":5001,"position":5},"title":"My continued fascination with Gleb Botkin","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 13, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I recently found a Wikipedia entry on Gleb Botkin. I still think that he is one of the most fascinating figures in American Paganism, with a life whose arc connected the lost world of the Russian royal family to the contemporary Pagan revival of the 1950s and 1960s.He is worth\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5001"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5001\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5008,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5001\/revisions\/5008"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}