Institution or Inspiration: Strategies for Using the Concept of Charisma in Russian Thought of the Late 19th to the First Third of the 20th Centuries

Abstract

Analyzing the emergence and development of the concept of charisma in Russia at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, this article makes an argument about the significance of words that have potential for transforming history. Until about the mid 1880s, the word “charisma” was traditionally rendered as “gift” (dar), until translations of the works of some German theologians were published. In order to convey the сonnotations of the concept of “charisma” present in German theological discourse of the time, translators chose to transliterate this word, and the newly coined term soon became widely spread. The article examines the process of enriching the concept with new meanings, while paying attention to the almost traditional opposition between charisma and office (dolzhnost’). We demonstrate how the usage of the concept almost changed on the brink of the All-Russian Church Council of 1917–1918, becoming incorporated into the authority discourse. In the conciliar documents, the patriarch is spoken of exactly in the terms of spiritual authority and charisma. The same terms are used to justify the disobedience of Metropolitan Sergius (Stragorodsky) by a number of hierarchs in the 1930s. We conclude that the concept of charisma had a significant impact on the understanding of church authority both before and after the revolution.