- 107 Dewey Hall
Department of Religion
Smith College
Northampton, MA
01063
Vera Shevzov
Smith College, Religion, Faculty Member
- Religion, Visual Culture, Russian Studies, Iconography, History of Christianity, Russian History, and 43 moreOrthodox Theology, 19th century Russian History, Eastern Christianity, Russian Orthodoxy, Anthropology of Eastern Christianity, Cultural History of Russia, Russian Religious Thought, Ecclesiology, Imperial Russia, Russia (History), Russian Intellectual History, Theology, Russian Orthodox Church, Church History, Orthodox Christianity, Virgin Mary, Religious Studies, Religion and Politics, Anthropology of Religion, Russian Religious Philosophy, Russia, Anthropology of Christianity, Religion & the Public Sphere, Ukraine (History), Byzantine Iconography, Russian Politics, History and Memory, Secularism, Russian Philosophy, GULAG, Cultural Studies, Art History, Visual Studies, Christian Iconography, Gulag Studies, Mariology, Eastern Orthodoxy, Material culture of religion, Sacred Art, Intellectual History, History Of Emotions, Russian Revolution, and история религий, преимущественно христианствоedit
- Current research: 'Memory, Narrative, and Theology in Post-Gulag, Post-Atheist Russian Orthodoxy;" and a book on Mary in Modern, Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia.edit
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antireligious, atheism, Bolshevik, freedom of conscience, internal colonization, Lenin Nicholas II, religion and violence, Russian Orthodoxy, Russian Orthodox church, secularization
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Introduction to "Framing Mary: The Mother of God in Modern, Revolutionary, and Post-Soviet Russian Culture." Northern Illinois University Press, 2018, pp. 3-36.
Research Interests: Religion, Christianity, Russian Studies, Russian Literature, Iconography, and 13 moreHistory of Christianity, Visual Culture, Russian Orthodox Church, Russian History, Russian Orthodoxy, Russian & Soviet Art, Orthodox Christianity, Russia, Religious Studies, Virgin Mary, Orthodox Church, Icons, and Eastern Orthodoxy
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This chapter examines the fate of the Russian Orthodox Church—as an institution and community—during Russia’s years of revolution, from the reign of Nicholas II through the 1917 February Revolution and subsequent Bolshevik coup. It argues... more
This chapter examines the fate of the Russian Orthodox Church—as an institution and community—during Russia’s years of revolution, from the reign of Nicholas II through the 1917 February Revolution and subsequent Bolshevik coup. It argues that Orthodoxy’s legal status as a ‘primary and predominant’ faith, and the state ascription of the ‘Russian people’ to Orthodoxy from birth under imperial rule, were in large part responsible for Orthodoxy’s institutional turmoil during these years. Further, the chapter challenges the use of the term ‘secularization’ with respect to the Bolshevik regime’s anti-religious policies. In the span of weeks, the Bolshevik regime not only homogenized Orthodoxy into the mix of ‘traditional faiths’—all pinpointed for eradication—but also relegated Orthodoxy to the position of least desired and most hazardous within that mix. Accordingly, this work argues that, from any observant believer’s perspective, Bolshevik efforts to cultivate the New Soviet Person—wh...
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In a recent collection of essays on people’s sacred worlds and the academic study of them, historian Robert Orsi has suggested that we think about religion in terms of relationships that believers form with holy figures. ’These... more
In a recent collection of essays on people’s sacred worlds and the academic study of them, historian Robert Orsi has suggested that we think about religion in terms of relationships that believers form with holy figures. ’These relationships have all the complexities’, he maintains, ’of relationships between humans’. If we apply this approach to modern Russia, it quickly becomes evident that the study of women in Orthodox Christianity inevitably leads to, if not begins with, a study of women’...