A time of persecution or a time of glory? The Russian Orthodox Church’s centenary commemorations of the 1917 Revolution

Abstract

ABSTRACT Existing analyses of the 1917 Russian Revolution centenary commemorations organised by the Russian Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) present the Church as a monolithic institution and argue that its commemorations resulted from a political goal to become the leading expert in Russia’s politics of memory. In this contribution, we propose a more nuanced approach. Using concepts derived from memory studies, we claim that the Church’s centenary commemorations were the result of complex memory processes. First, it was a path-dependent product of two prior commemorations of historical events – the martyrdom of the new martyrs, and the restoration of the patriarchate. Second, it was a result of commemorative activities undertaken by different clergymen who are actively shaping memory of the past but who propose different interpretations of it. Finally, these agents of memory have activated the carrying capacity of different mnemonic representations to support their interpretations of the past, bringing significant change to the Russian Orthodox Church’s official memory of the 1917 Revolution.