State, Religion, and Society in Russia and the Nordic Countries

State, Religion, and Society in Russia and the Nordic Countries

Danish version >>>

Download the report here  >>>

Political developments in Russia during the last couple of years have made it clear that Western expectations that Russia, since the collapse of the Soviet Union, was about to become a “normal” country have been at best premature, if not simply unfounded; based more on western wishful thinking than on Russian realities. That this seems to have been a surprise to many in the West, including politicians and opinion makers, testifies to an insufficient understanding of those factors in Russian society that inhibit or prevent Russia from developing according to western standards of “normality”.

The proposed conference on State, Religion, and Society in Russia and the Nordic Countries will attempt to widen understanding by focusing on important obstacles of history and mentality against Russia’s development towards western “normality”.

Russia’s long past as a theocracy (governed by assumed divine prescriptions), as an imperial state, now possibly with newly rekindled imperial ambitions, and the accompanying ideas of representing an independent civilization are all factors now being openly and publicly discussed in Russia. None of them are new in themselves, even though they appear in new shapes and contexts and partially with new arguments. As such, they are among many signs of the reinvigorated and growing importance of religion since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

No matter what westerners may think about such ideas (and that’s rarely anything good), it is in the interest of the West, including the Nordic Countries, to know and possibly to understand them as a basis for continuing relations with Russia. In this connection, it is important to note that the Nordic countries, by virtue of their own historical experience of relations between state, religion, and society, have some special, if only partially acknowledged, presuppositions for understanding Russia. In spite of decisive differences, Russia and the Nordic countries also share some surprising historical similarities in this connection. In as much as the Nordic countries, Denmark and Norway in particular, and Russia can be considered paradigmatic of their respective versions of Christianity (Lutheran Protestantism and Orthodoxy), their respective relations between church and state provide a good basis for comparison and analysis of both differences and similarities and of the factors that prevent a mutual understanding. In this context, different experiences and understandings of theocracy are particularly significant.

At the conference, a number of specialists will offer their views on Russia’s “special path” as a basis of interpretation and discussion.

The conference will be arranged by the Foundation for Danish-Norwegian Cooperation and will take place on Tuesday-Friday, 3-4 November 2016, on Schæffergården, Gentofte, Copenhagen, Denmark.

The conference has been planned by Christian Gottlieb. 

The conference language is English

Thursday, 3 November 2016

From kl. 11.00 Arrival. Registration  
12.00-13.30 Lunch  
13.30-13.45

The conference will be opend by 
Bertel Haarder, Danmark´s Minister  of Culture and Ecclesiastical Affairs

13.45-14.00 Introduktion
14.00-14.35 Christian Gottlieb
The history and theology of Russian theocracy
14.35-14.50 Questions and discussion
14.50-15.25 Per-Arne Bodin
The “Symphony” in contemporary Russia
15.25-15.40 Questions and discussion
15.40-16.10 Coffee break
16.10-16.45 Elina Kahla
Third Rome today: Russian Church/State collaboration 
16.45-17.00 Questions and discussion
17.00-17.35 Jeanne Kormina
St. Nicholas II: Orthodox understanding of empire
17.35-17.50 Questions and discussion
18.30-20.30 Dinner  
20.30 -  Socializing. Musical entertainment  

Friday, 4 November 2016

08.00-09.00 Breakfast
09.00-09.35

Pål Kolstø

Russia’s imperial tradition today

09.35-09.50 Questions and discussion
09:55-10:25

Geir Flikke

Russia’s “special path” in the relation between state and nation

10.25-10.40 Questions and discussion
10.40-11.10 Coffee break
11.10-11.45 Kristian Gerner

Clericalization, militarization and acquiescence:  
Reflections on state and society in contemporary Russia

11.45-12.00 Questions and discussion
12.00-13.30 Lunch
13.30-14.05 Uffe Østergaard
Nordic/Lutheran vs. Russian-Orthodox political culture
14:05-14:20 Questions and discussion
14.20-14.55 Christian Gottlieb
After secularization: Russia and the Nordic countries
14.55-15.10 Questions and discussion
15.10-15.40 Coffee break
15.40-16.30 Concluding discussion

Medvirkende

  • Christian Gottleib

    Organizier

    Dr Christian Gottlieb (b. 1961) has been adjunct professor of church history at the Faculty of Theology, University of Copenhagen, since 2014. Having studied theology and church history at the universities of Copenhagen and Cambridge, he earned a doctorate of theology at Copenhagen University for a dissertation on the Russian religious philosopher N.A. Berdyaev and his protest against the Russian Revolution (published as: Dilemmas of Reaction in Leninist Russia: The Christian Response to the Revolution in the Works of N.A. Berdyaev, 1917-1924). He was for many years a research librarian and, in 2007-14, head of HM the Queen’s Reference Library, Copenhagen. He has also worked as an external lecturer of church history at Copenhagen University and since 2013 occasionally as a travel guide on cultural tours to Russia

  • Bertel Haarder

    Opens the conference

    Danmark´s Minister  of Culture and Ecclesiastical Affairs

  • Per-Arne Bodin

    Per-Arne Bodin är professor i slaviska språk vid Stockholms universitet. Hans forskning fokuseras på rysk och polsk litteratur i en kulturhistorisk kontext. Han har under många år arbetat som skönlitterär översättare. Han har också skrivit flera böcker om den ryskortodoxa traditionens betydelse i den ryska kulturen. Hans senaste bok är "Från Bysans till Putin: Historier om Ryssland”.

  • Geir Flikke

    Geir Flikke (b. 1963) is currently Associate Professor at the University of Oslo. He holds a PhD degree from the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Oslo (2006), with a thesis on Russia's democratization movement from the 1990s. He was Assistant Director of NUPI (2006-2010), and assumed his position as Associate Professor at the University of Oslo from January 2013. He is currently heading the Norwegian Research Council project NEPORUS, analyzing the changing framework for social organization and social mobilization in Russia, and teaches courses in history, nation-building and politics in Russia/ Eurasia. Home page: >>>

  • Kristian Gerner

    Kristian Gerner is Professor Emeritus of History, Lund University. His research and journalism has focused on 20th century Russian (Soviet) Central and East European history and historical culture. His books on Russian and Soviet history include Ideology and Rationality in the Soviet Model. A Legacy for Gorbachev. (With Stefan Hedlund: Routledge 1989) and Ryssland. En europeisk civilisationshistoria (Russia, a history of a European civilization: Historiska Media 2011, 2015. Hjemmeside: >>>

  • Elina Kahla

    Elina Kahla, PhD, docent in Russian Cultural History, University of Helsinki.
    Conducts research in Russian cultural history, cultural orthodoxy, and the Russian Orthodox Church in post-secular society. Her research interests also include modernization studies and the cultural practices of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. She is a fellow at the Center of Excellence in Russian Studies funded by the Academy of Finland (2012–2017), and the director of the Finnish Institute in St. Petersburg. Her latest publications include: The Russian Orthodox Church today: Transformations between secular and sacred. - Philosophical and Cultural Interpretations of Russian Modernisation. Edited by Katja Lehtisaari and Arto Mustajoki; Routledge, forthcoming, pp. 59-74; and Civil religion in Russia: A choice for Russian modernization? -   Baltic Worlds BW Vol VII:2-3, 2014 p 56-64.

  • Pål Kolstø

    Professor  of Russian studies at the University of Oslo. Dr. Philos. with a dissertation on Leo Tolstoy's relationship to the Orthodox Church. For the last 20 years  he has mainly been working on nationalism and ethnic relations in Russia and the other former Soviet republics. Latest publication (as editor together with Helge Blakkisrud): "The new Russian: imperialism, ethnicity, authoritarianism, 2000-2015", Edinburgh University press.

    Home page: >>>

  • Jeanne (Zhanna) Kormina

    Professor at the Dept of Sociology, Higher School of Ecomonics at St Petersburg, social anthropologist, specialist in Anthropology of Religion. Since 2000 she taught courses on religion, ethnographic methods of research and introduction to social anthropology in Russia and abroad – in Penn State University (USA, 2014) and Eastern University of Finland (2016). Her publications include one monograph and two edited volums including «Invention of Religion in Post-Soviet Context».

  • Uffe Østergaard

    Uffe Østergård, f. 1945. Professor emeritus i europæisk og dansk historie ved Department for Business and Politics, Copenhagen Business School. Tidligere Aarhus Universitet og direktør for Dansk Institut for Holocaust og Folkedrabsstudier, København. Primære forskningsområder: politisk kultur og nationalisme i Frankrig, Italien, Tyskland, Østrig-Ungarn, Amerika, United Kingdom, det Osmanniske Rige og Tyrkiet, Balkan, Norden, Danmark, 1. og 2. verdenskrig, nazisme, fascisme, totalitarisme, kulturhistorie, national identitet og nationalisme, international politik, europæisk civilisation og integration, EU, geopolitik, regioner i Europa, holocaust, erindringspolitik, politisk kultur og traditioner i Europa, velfærdsstaten, religion, historisk sociologi, politisk teori. 

Nyhetsbrev

Du modtager om lidt en mail, hvor du skal bekræfte tilmeldingen!

Lukk
Lysebu