Russian Phenomenology,or The Interrupted Flight

In this article the author notes that Russian phenomenology has a long history that has contributed to European progress in philosophy. He presents the main ideas of Gustav Shpet, a well‐known Russian thinker and original follower of Husserl. The heart of Shpet's positive philosophy is a special, skeptical state of mind—hermeneutic phenomenology. This positive philosophy, with its synthesis of hermeneutics and phenomenology, opposes Kant's negative, relativistic thought. In his work, Shpet focuses on the concept of a text. A text's meaning is objective and grasped via the nonpsychological methods of hermeneutics. Language largely determines the development of the human spiritual world, and so the problematics of language merge with the problematics of consciousness. Because texts are human products that express the influence of linguistic consciousness, our understanding of texts should be based on the analysis of language consciousness. Shpet characterizes the whole culture as a sign‐symbolical, objectified expression of the human spirit.     

Religious political technology: Damir Mukhetdinov’s ‘Russian Islam’

ABSTRACT

This contribution introduces the concept of ‘religious political technology’ (RPT), using as a case study the strategies of Damir Mukhetdinov, deputy mufti of the Moscow-based muftiate DUMRF. RPT encompasses the construction and professional dissemination of an ideological platform that presents religion – in this case Islam – as an asset to the state and the nation. Mukhetdinov’s RPT is historically enrooted in Russia’s Islamic discourse (through references to Tatar intellectuals and theologians of the late imperial period), and presented as loyal, tolerant, peaceful and modern – and at the same time as ‘traditionalist’. His RPT is meant to appeal to mainstream trends in Russian society (including Neo-Eurasianism and Slavophile thought), to the Orthodox Church, and to the Kremlin; it also presents itself as an instrument of Russia’s foreign policy. At the same time, Mukhetdinov’s provocative statements meet strong opposition.     

Translating Islam into the language of the Russian state and the Orthodox Church

ABSTRACT

This contribution analyses the discursive strategies exercised by Russia’s state-appointed Islamic authorities. It draws on a linguistic corpus that consists of speeches and sermons by Mufti Ravil’ Gainutdin, the head of a major Muslim Spiritual Directorate in Moscow. A multi-levelled analysis shows that the mufti’s lexical and rhetorical choices correspond to the discourse of the Russian Orthodox Church elites. This affinity is a discursive strategy that allows Gainutdin to position himself as the authoritative leader of Russia’s Islamic community and to construct Islam as Russia’s ‘familiar’ and ‘traditional’ religion.     

Parafoveal processing of inflectional morphology on Russian nouns

The present study investigated whether inflectional morphology on Russian nouns is processed parafoveally during silent reading. The boundary-change paradigm [Rayner, K. (1975). The perceptual span and peripheral cues in reading. Cognitive Psychology, 7, 65–81] was used to examine parafoveal processing of nominal case markings of Russian nouns. The results yielded preview cost for morphologically related preview in gaze duration (vs. an identical baseline) and in total time (TT) (vs. a non-word baseline) and preview benefit in regressions out of the target word. The contribution of the study is two-fold. First this is the first demonstration that bound nominal inflectional morphemes are processed parafoveally in a language with linear concatenated morphology (Russian). Second the observed preview effects suggest that parafoveal preview of a morphologically related word was processed fully in the parafovea and interfered with the integration of the target word into the syntactic structure of the sentence.     

Interaction between Pentecostals and local authorities in Russia: challenging secularity from below

Certain researchers have maintained that the resurgence of religion in the Russian Federation is part of a process of desecularisation ‘from above’, following years of forced secularisation. This article postulates that, despite their status as members of what is considered a nontraditional religion, foreign to the Russian soil, Russian Pentecostal churches are actively engaged in a challenge to secularity but ‘from below’. I explore this hypothesis through the examination of three Pentecostal modes of action: social partnership, political partnership and global networking. Based on a qualitative, empirical study, this paper finds that the Pentecostal movement has forged close ties on a local and regional level with public authorities and that, through necessity and mutually overlapping interests, a certain cooperation and even complicity has developed between these local authorities and the organisations linked to the churches, thus facilitating the integration of specifically Pentecostal discourse into certain public structures. The study further shows that local and regional authorities have adopted globalised social work praxes territorialised by Pentecostals in an attempt to associate the current authoritarian regime with perceived forms of global modernity. At the same time I argue that the participation of the Pentecostal movement in a process of desecularisation is not an intentional outcome projected by the Russian regime but rather the consequence of economic and social urgency against a backdrop of a policy of New Public Management. I conclude that, due to the constantly shifting and often-arbitrary legal framework in which Pentecostals must operate in Russia today, the partnerships cultivated by the Pentecostal movement may prove to be unsustainable in the long term.     

Religion and the crisis in Ukraine

This article investigates religious nationalism in the Russian–Ukrainian conflict, which has appeared in political and popular rhetoric and has been expressed through violence. From the Tsarist era, Kyiv and Crimea have featured centrally in Russian national mythology as the cradle(s) of Russian Christianity. This nationalist conception of space persisted after political borders changed with the collapse of the Soviet Union, as has the Russian Orthodox Church's historic jurisdiction in Ukraine. As a result, Russian Orthodox believers retain a special affinity for Kyiv and Crimea, and many Ukrainian citizens have looked to Moscow for matters of faith. Subjects of inquiry include religious nationalism, the baptism of Slavic Prince Vladimir (Volodymyr), Orthodox holy places in Crimea and Ukraine, Patriarch Kirill's Russian World concept, and religious violence in Ukraine and Crimea.     

THE DEVIL IN TECHNOLOGIES: RUSSIAN ORTHODOX NEOCONSERVATISM VERSUS SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS

One of the interesting aspects of Russian self‐definition in opposition to the West is its attitude toward Western science. Russian distrust of scientific and technological progress in the West is an important force shaping contemporary Russian identity. This article touches on these issues in four parts. The first section characterizes two main conservative circles that are active in today's disputes over the significance of scientific development for Russian identity. The second demonstrates certain Russian contemporary concerns related to scientific and technological progress, which will enable us to explain the position of the Russian Orthodox Church. The third section presents the political, religious, and identity context for the suspicion toward science expressed by Russian conservatives. The final section, on the other hand, discusses the way in which Russian Orthodox neoconservatism uses Orthodox anthropology to raise suspicion toward scientific and technological achievements.     

State policies towards religion and the Russian Orthodox Church in China

This article examines the history and current state of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in China. It analyses both the declared and actual approach of the Chinese authorities towards Orthodox believers in China, as well as the attitude taken towards that approach by the authorities in Russia, where the ‘Orthodox factor’ plays an increasingly prominent role in domestic and foreign policy. The author shows that Russia’s most senior political leaders assist the ROC to strengthen the status of the Chinese Autonomous Orthodox Church (CAOC) and create better conditions for Chinese Orthodox believers. That effort has elevated the ‘Orthodox question’ to become an important issue of bilateral relations. As a result, and despite a lack of enthusiasm from the Chinese side, conditions could be created in the coming years for the normal functioning of the CAOC. At the same time, the Chinese Government is likely to consider it not as an autonomous part of the ROC (as the Orthodox canon considers it) but as one of the ‘patriotic religious organisations’ registered first at the provincial, and possibly later at the national level.     

‘Interfaith dialogue’ as a form of opposition of ‘minority religions’ to governmental pressure in Russia

Russian governmental policy toward non-traditional religious groups, especially so-called New Religious Movements (NRMs), is discriminatory. Despite Russia’s formal secularity, the government strongly supports the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC), a position which results in various limitations on many other religious groups. As a result, legal actions have been initiated against new religious groups, for example the Bhagavad Gita trial in Tomsk, Siberia, and the designation of the literature of the Jehovah’s Witnesses as ‘extremist’. However, pressure by the government can sometimes lead to the development of spontaneous interreligious oppositional associations. One important example is the ‘interfaith dialogue’ in Tomsk, where local leaders or representatives of religious groups, such as the Episcopal, Jewish, and Latter-day Saints (Mormon) churches as well as the Hare Krishna movement, unorthodox Buddhist groups, and local pagan movements, united to oppose governmental and ROC efforts to disband a Hare Krishna group in the Tomsk area. This research note presents results of a case study, which involved participant observation, of the phenomenon of oppositional interfaith dialogue in Tomsk in the period 2011–2014. I discuss factors that influenced its appearance, its relationship with the local government, and the methods of cooperation between the different religious groups within this association and offer some theoretical interpretations of these developments. The results of this case study illustrate new and important modern relationships between minority religions and the government in Russia.     

Islamic masculinities in action: the construction of masculinity in Russian visual culture about the Chechen wars

ABSTRACT

Although it lasted until as recently as 2009, before an official end was put to the Second Chechen War, famously branded as an anti-terrorist campaign, the process of reintegrating Chechnya in the realm of the Russian Federation started earlier. Politically, the so-called Chechenisation has played a central role in this process. Symbolically, however, popular culture and Russian visual culture about the conflict in particular contributed to the renegotiating process of Chechen and Russian post-Soviet identities and their interrelationship in the aftermath of the conflict. An analysis of the symbolic representation of masculine subjectivities in such cultural productions offers an insight into how popular culture functioned as a means to rehabilitate formerly demonised Chechen masculine subjectivity. It also points to the process of remasculinisation which went along with the introduction of Putin’s neo-traditionalist policy in Russian society.     

The Russian Orthodox Church in Western Europe: one or many?

This article analyses the way Russian Orthodox communities, primarily in Western Europe, cope with the ecclesiological challenge of de-territorialisation and increased individual mobility in the modern world. It focuses on the developments within the three parallel Russian Orthodox jurisdictions in Western Europe, especially since the fall of the Iron Curtain. These developments can primarily be summarised in the context of two dilemmas. First, there is the question whether the ‘temporary’ solutions that were put in place as a result of the Soviet regime’s hostility towards the Russian Orthodox Church should come to an end in the new ‘free’ circumstances since 1990. Second, there is the question of how to reconcile Russian traditions and allegiances with the religious needs of local converts to Orthodoxy. The main developments include the conflict in the UK since the death of Metropolitan Anthony (Bloom) of Sourozh in 2003, the reunification of the Russian Orthodox Church with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia in 2007 and, most importantly, the developments in the Archdiocese of Orthodox Parishes of Russian Tradition in Western Europe (Exarchate of the Patriarchate of Constantinople) since the turn of the millennium. The French debate on the future of Russian Orthodoxy in Western Europe is the most pertinent one and provides a key to understanding the challenges posed to Orthodox ecclesiology in the West.     

From Pussy Riot’s ‘punk prayer’ to Matilda: Orthodox believers,critique, and religious freedom in Russia

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the configurations of belief, critique, and religious freedom in Russia since the performance of the Russian group Pussy Riot in 2012. The ‘punk prayer’ and its legal and political aftermath are interpreted as an incidence of the contestation of the boundary between the secular and the religious in the Russian legal and social sphere. The authors show that the outcome of this contestation has had a decisive impact on the way in which religion, critique, and the human right of religious freedom have been defined in the present Russian context. In response to Pussy Riot, the Russian legislator turned offending religious feelings into a crime. The article investigates two more recent cases where offended feelings of believers were involved, the opera “Tannhäuser” in Ekaterinburg in 2015 and the movie Matilda in 2017, and analyses how the initial power-conforming configuration that emerged as a reply to the ‘punk prayer’ has revealed a ‘power-disturbing’ potential as conservative Orthodox groups have started to challenge the authority of the State and the Church leadership. The article is based on primary sources from Russian debates surrounding Pussy Riot, Matilda, and “Tannhäuser” and on theoretical literature on the religious–secular boundary and human rights.     

God in the World: Lenin,Hegel, and the God‐Builders

This article reassesses a rarely noted aspect of the Russian Revolution: the long interaction between Lenin and Anatoly Lunacharsky, the ‘God‐builder’. It traces the way Lunacharsky first outlined the God‐building position in his Religion and Socialism (1908, 1911), a text virtually lost to scholarship and interpretations of the Russian revolution. It explores Lenin's initial condemnation, for political but above all theoretical reasons, only to find him reassessing his whole argument six years later in light of his re‐engagement with Hegel in 1914. Seeing that his earlier condemnation no longer held, Lenin's response to Lunacharsky's God‐building undergoes a noticeable shift. He now realizes that marginal forms of interaction with religion may sit well with, if not lead to, communism. An examination of Lunacharsky's own perseverance with God‐building after he was appointed Commissar for Enlightenment in the new Soviet state, and of Lenin's awareness and tacit allowance for such expressions, indicate a more complex and ambivalent approach to religion on Lenin's part.     

The mediating role of identity incompatibility in the relationship between perceived discrimination and acculturation preferences in two generations of the ethnic Russian minority in the North Caucasus

Abstract

The present study tested a model in which the perceived incompatibility of ethnic Russian and regional North Caucasian identities mediates the relationship between perceived discrimination and acculturation strategies in two generations of ethnic Russian minority members living in the Kabardino-Balkar Republic, North Caucasus, Russian Federation. Two identities might be perceived incompatible when they represent conflicting sets of norms and values and the two communities may place competing demands on individual commitment and loyalty. We sampled 105 dyads from ethnic Russian families (youth: M = 18 years, SD = 2.35, 48.6% female; parents: M = 43 years, SD = 6.97, 68.6% female). The questionnaire included measures of perceived discrimination, perceived identity incompatibility, and acculturation strategies. The results of multigroup path analysis showed that the perceived identity incompatibility mediated the relationship between perceived discrimination and two strategies, aimed at culture maintenance (integration and separation) in both generations. Identity incompatibility is regarded as a psychological mechanism that explains the impact of perceived discrimination on minority acculturation preferences in a multicultural region.     

Review Article: Thomas Cranmer and the English Reformation

Abstract

Martin Bucer's role in the Edwardian Reformation has been the subject of much study, most of which has been focused on his involvement in the Vestments Controversy, his role in the revision of the 1549 Prayer Book, and on his last major work, De regno Christi, which he wrote in 1550. What has received less attention is his sojourn in Cambridge, where he spent the majority of his time in England. Bucer's sometimes tense relations with members of Cranmer's circle, and even with Cranmer himself, provide a striking contrast to the ‘electric’ impact he had in Cambridge, which serves to underscore the importance of Cambridge to Bucer's English sojourn. The individuals whom he most influenced were members of the academic community at the University of Cambridge (where he served as Regius Professor of Divinity), especially the so-called ‘Athenian tribe’—although he did encounter the hostility of many members of his College, the largely conservative Trinity College. Cambridge proved to be the locus of Bucer's influence upon the English Church in these years, and his residence there deserves greater attention than it has received to date.     

A Short Story about the Übermensch: Vladimir Solov'ëv's Interpretation of and Response to Nietzsche's Übermensch

From the 1890s on, the atheist philosopher F. Nietzsche exerted a profound and enduring impact on Russian religious, cultural, and social reality. The religious philosopher V.S. Solov'ëv perceived Nietzsche's thought as an actual threat to Russian religious consciousness and his own anthropological ideal of Divine Humanity. He was especially preoccupied with the idea of the Übermensch since sometwo decades before the Nietzschean Übermensch was popularized in Russia, Solov'ëv had already developed his own interpretation of the sverkhchelovek.     

Cortisol and symptoms of psychopathology in Russian and American college students

Cortisol is a key player in the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis response to stress, and has been related to symptoms of depression and other stress-related pathology. The present study investigated the relationship between cortisol and survey measures of stress and psychopathology as well as lifestyle in Russian and American college students. Salivary cortisol was collected upon awakening, 30 min later, at 4 p.m., and at 10 p.m. by Russian and American college students. Survey measures of anxiety and depression, as measured by the Hopkins Symptom Checklist (HSCL-25) were collected as well as scores on the Trauma History Questionnaire (THQ). In addition, measures of drinking-related problems, as measured by the Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT) and the "Cut down, Annoyed, Guilty, Eye-opener" (CAGE) were also completed. Consistent with the typically observed empirical pattern, cortisol levels increased in the 30 min after awakening and then declined across the day. Women reported more symptoms of anxiety than did men in both Russian and American samples. American students reported more symptoms of depression than did Russian students, though Russian students reported more traumatic life experiences. Americans had higher cortisol levels overall, though Russian students had larger changes in cortisol levels across the day, associated with both greater morning rises and afternoon declines in cortisol. While more Russian students reported smoking, American students reported more problems associated with alcohol use as measured by the AUDIT. The relationship between stress and health, mediating factors of lifestyle and coping, and the impact of social transition in Russia are discussed.     

Islamic practice and state policies towards religion in post-Soviet Russia

ABSTRACT

What has the Russian state policy towards Islam been in the first two decades after the Soviet collapse, and how has it affected Islamic practice in the country? This study explores Russian state policies towards religion from 1990 to 2017 and discusses their impact on Islamic practice in the country. In the 1990s, relations between the Russian state and Islam (state-Islam relations) were accommodationist: the state granted unrestricted access in the Russian public sphere for all Muslim communities and allowed a wide range of Islamic religious practices. State-Islam relations in the 2000s became increasingly regulatory: the state assumed a more active interventionist role in the affairs of the domestic Islamic community in order to control religious practices of certain Muslim factions and to ensure privileged access in the Russian public sphere for state-approved ‘traditional’ religious organisations. This contribution reveals the dynamics of the Russian state’s attitudes towards the largest minority religion in the country in the first two decades after the collapse of the Soviet state. It also offers analytical insights on the dynamic nature of state-religion relations in other secular states with religiously diverse populations.     

Personality traits of Russians from the observer's perspective

Data were collected by the members of the Russian character and personality survey from 39 samples in 33 administrative areas of the Russian Federation. Respondents (N = 7065) identified an ethnically Russian adult or college‐aged man or woman whom they knew well and rated the target using the Russian observer rating version of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory, which measures neuroticism, extraversion, openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Factor analyses within samples showed that the factor structure of an international sample combining data from 50 different cultures was well replicated in all 39 Russian samples. Sex differences replicated the known pattern in all samples, demonstrating that women scored higher than men on most of the neuroticism, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness facet scales. Cross‐sectional analyses demonstrated consistent age differences for four factors: Older individuals compared to younger ones were less extraverted and open but more agreeable and conscientious. The mean levels of traits were similar in all 39 samples. Although in general personality traits in Russians closely followed the universal pattern, some reliable culture‐specific effects were also found that future studies can help interpret. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Introduction

This article introduces the papers from two video conferences recently held between philosophers at Moscow State University and the University at Albany, State University of New York. The overarching theme is philosophical progress in the past fifty years, but the conferences were designed also to illustrate the range of work now being done by American analytic philosophers and by Russian thinkers. The Albany essays focus on philosophy of science, philosophical logic, Kantian studies, applied ethics, and ethical and political theory. The Russian essays concern philosophy of culture, philosophy of mind, phenomenology, social philosophy, feminism, and postmodernism. This introductory essay notes similarities and differences that exist among American and Russian approaches to philosophy and the prospects for the convergence (or not) of these approaches. It also indicates ways in which contemporary Russian thinkers are striking out in new directions while seeking to recover those parts of their past that were silenced during much of the twentieth century.