People’s Religion in Cross-Cultural Communication: Conceptualization of <i>Native / Vernacular</i>

Abstract

This article serves as a response to the need of developing a conceptual apparatus that would take into consideration the duality of religion. On the one hand, religion is an institution of a particular denomination and defines itself in terms of self-imposed norms, and on the other hand, religion is a living faith both popular and personal, directly experienced by individuals. We aim to study the transformation of approaches to the phenomenon of people’s religion, actualized by religious studies specializing in anthropological and folklore research questions. This study of people’s religion was conducted within the framework of semantic analysis of source materials (in Russian and in English) presented in linguistic corpuses. The novelty of the study is provided by the analysis of the understanding of religion through the prism of differences in the main connotations of the word people in Russian texts of the 11th–20th centuries. The study has revealed a change in the semantics: old disjunction of veche (popular assembly) and chern ’ (lowest classes) gives way to the distinction of Russian subjects and Christians / peasants, bearers of folk wisdom and popular superstitious beliefs. Further the latter distinction turns into the construction of universal images of unanimity of people and of a builder of socialism/communism. Solidarity is understood as the religion of unanimity and transforms from the orthodoxy of Vladimir the Great who set Christianity against pagan superstitions, through the opposition of orthodox Christians and ungodly infidels, to the distancing of orthodox Christians and raskolniks (schismatics). The quest for solidarity took the form of a search for ways to implement the ideal of the 19th century ideology of Orthodoxy, Autocracy, and Nationality and its later Soviet variation. We suggest using the concepts of vernacular religion (L. Primiano, A. A. Panchenko) and vernacular religiosity (D. A. Radchenko, N. V. Kryukova) to describe religion as individual, local and day-to-day manifestations of individual and group religiosity. The article traces the history of the inclusion of the term vernacular in social self-description, from ancient texts to the present, and reflects its prospects for religious studies, when religion is studied as a unique aspect of the daily practice of a particular social group or individual.