Religion, Morality, and Community in Post-Soviet Societies

In the post-Soviet environment of expanded civil freedom with great everyday uncertainty, unhappiness, injustice, and suffering, religious organizations and beliefs in Russia and Eurasia face numerous opportunities and intense challenges. Based on recent research and interdisciplinary methodologies, this volume examines how religious organizations and individuals engage the changing and troubled environment in which they live. The contributions investigate not just Russian Orthodoxy, but also Old Belief, Judaism, Islam, Buriat shamanism, and Catholicism. Among the important questions considered are how religion addresses problems of charity, memory, justice, community, morality, nationalism, democracy, and civil liberties.

Mark D. Steinberg is Professor of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and editor of Slavic Review. He is editor (with Heather J. Coleman) of Sacred Stories: Religion and Spirituality in Modern Russia (IUP, 2007).

Catherine Wanner is Associate Professor of History and Religious Studies at the Pennsylvania State University and is author of Communities of the Converted: Ukrainians and Global Evangelism.