Colonizing Russia's Promised Land: Orthodoxy and Community on the Siberian Steppe

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Aileen E. Friesen

Colonizing Russia's Promised Land

Orthodoxy and Community on the Siberian Steppe

Aileen E. Friesen

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English

University of Toronto Press
20 February 2020

History of religion; Society & culture: general; Age groups: adults; Alternative lifestyles; Social groups: clubs & societies

The movement of millions of settlers to Siberia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries marked one of the most ambitious undertakings pursued by the tsarist state. Colonizing Russia's Promised Land examines how Russian Orthodoxy acted as a basic building block for constructing Russian settler communities in current-day southern Siberia and northern Kazakhstan. Russian state officials aspired to lay claim to land that was politically under their authority, but remained culturally unfamiliar. By exploring the formation and evolution of Omsk diocese

a settlement mission

Colonizing Russia's Promised Land reveals how the migration of settlers expanded the role of Orthodoxy as a cultural force in transforming Russia's imperial periphery by ""russifying"" the land and marginalizing the Indigenous Kazakh population.

In the first study exploring the role of Orthodoxy in settler colonialism, Aileen Friesen shows how settlers, clergymen, and state officials viewed the recreation of Orthodox parish life as practised in European Russia as fundamental to the establishment of settler communities, and to the success of colonization. Friesen uniquely gives peasant settlers a voice in this discussion, as they expressed their religious aspirations and fears to priests and tsarist officials. Despite this agreement, tensions existed not only among settlers, but also within the Orthodox Church as these groups struggled to define what constituted the Russian Orthodox faith and culture.

By: Aileen E. Friesen
Imprint: University of Toronto Press
Country of Publication: Canada
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 157mm, Spine: 25mm
Weight: 500g
ISBN: 9781442637191
ISBN 10: 1442637196
Pages: 240
Publication Date: 20 February 2020
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Aileen E. Friesen is an assistant professor and Co-director of the Centre for Transnational Mennonite Studies at the University of Winnipeg.

Reviews for Colonizing Russia's Promised Land: Orthodoxy and Community on the Siberian Steppe

"""This work does fill an important gap in our knowledge and understanding of the Orthodox Church’s important role in Russifying the empire’s Siberian frontier in the last decades of the tsarist regime. It should be of interest to scholars specializing in Russian imperial history as well as the history of Christian missions in settler colonial situations."" -- Sergei Kan, Dartmouth College * The Russian Review * ""In this engaging monograph, Aileen Friesen examines the role of the Orthodox Church in colonizing, Russifying, and ""civilizing"" the Siberian frontier between 1895 and the Bolshevik Revolution."" -- J. Eugene Clay, Arizona State University * Sibirica * ""Friesen’s work makes a valuable contribution to the growing historiography on Siberia and more broadly on Orthodox identity and lived religion as she exposes the diversity of ‘authentic expression of Orthodox belief.’ Her writing is rich with vivid descriptions of the Siberian landscape and amusing anecdotes that bring the conflicts and contradictions over the nuances of religious ritual to life."" -- A.J. Demoskoff, Briercrest College and Seminary * Journal of Mennonite Studies *"