Saint-Alexandre sur-Seine. L'église russe de Paris et ses fidèles des origines à 1917 by Nicholas Ross (review)

Abstract

350 SEER, 84, 2, 2006 Slezkine convincingly argues that the Jews were in no way a target of the purgesof I937,and theirprominence among the repressedis simplya resultof the significantJewish contingent among the Bolshevik old guard. Slezkine traces the roots of state-sponsoredanti-Semitism to the immediate pre-war years, when Stalin sought to win over Hitler by imitating his racial politics. During World War Two, paradoxically, the Nazis's anti-Semitic ideology spilled over into the Soviet occupied areas, which preparedthe wide popular base for post-war anti-Jewishcampaigns. Slezkine sums up the Soviet period as the rise and fall of the Jews, whose new 'golden calf (the Revolution) propelled them to the heights of power and eventuallyalmost crushed them. The Russian-JewishRevolution aside, the twentieth century is proclaimed theJewish century for several additionalreasons:this is the age of Marxism, Freudianism, capitalism, anti-Semitism (or, shall we add, the culmination thereof in the Holocaust), and American Liberalism, and Slezkine rightly seesJews at the inception or at the centre of all of these diversephenomena. This is the Jewish century also because of the rebirth, after a hiatus of two millennia, of theJewish state, and Slezkine does in fact turn his attention to Israel toward the end of the book. His attention is cursorythough, ignoring any specifics or complexities of the Middle Eastern context and repeating a few unflatteringbut 'politicallycorrect' opinions encountered frequentlyin the Westernpress.Israelemergesin Slezkine'snarrativeas a nationalisticstate of Zionistpioneers, athletes and soldiers,'self-consciouslyWestern in the face of "Oriental darkness"and ideologically Apollonian in the face of Western Mercurianism'(p. 364). Israel is portrayed as benefiting from special status as a 'countryto which standardrulesdid not apply'(p. 366) on account of the Holocaust. In any event, the topic of Israel is soon dropped, as the author launches into a paean to the truly 'Mercurian'society of the United States, where meritocracy has become part of the state ideology. While this rosy pictureof the 'land of opportunity'seems grotesquelyanachronisticin view of the current prevalence of cronyism in the American political establishment, one is compelled to agree that, during the Jewish century',Jews have in fact fared better in America than elsewhere. The strengthsof Slezkine'sbook are in rich factual information, sophisticated argumentation,and a fresh look at a number of thorny issues, such as the natureof anti-SemitismorJews and the Revolution. Both engagingand at times infuriating, nheJewishCentugy cannot fail to capture a wide intellectual audience. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies MAIA RUBINS University College London Ross, Nicholas. Saint-Alexandre sur-Seine. L'igliserussede Paris et sesfdeles des origines a I9I7. Collection historique de l'Institutd'etudes slaves, 41. Les Editionsdu Cerf,Paris,2005. 320 pp. Illustrations.Figures.Tables. Notes. Bibliography.Index. ?30.00 (paperback). This is the firstpartof a two-volumehistoryof the RussianOrthodox community in Paris.The second volume will takethe storyas faras the I96os. Central REVIEWS 35I to the narrativeis the community'smain place of worshipin the French capital , the church of St Alexander Nevsky. Built in i86i in a quirky,composite half-Byzantine,half-Kolomenskoestyle, the church is situatedin a small side street,just a few minutes walk from some of the city's famous landmarkson the Champs-Elysees. The opening chaptersconcentrateon the pre-historyof the church, which Nicholas Ross correctly sets in the broader contexts of Russia's tepid, sometimes rockydiplomaticrelationswith Francein the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries until more durable and closer ties were established in the I89os. Prior to the construction of the church and its immediate precursor, the chapel of St Peter and Paul, which occupied rented accommodation in rue Meslay (I8I9-3I) and rue Neuve de Berry(I83I-6I), celebrationof Orthodox rituals was very much a makeshift affair, usually held in rooms of the Ambassador'sapartmentswith minimal ad hoc refurbishments.The quest to find more suitablepermanent lodgings for worship was encouraged by monarchswho recognized the symbolicweight of religiousritesand ceremoniesas a means to enhance Russia'spolitical presence abroad and, as relationswith France became either more propitiousor triumphalist,they actively pursued the matter through decrees, appointing archpriests,priests and deacons as 'emissariesfor the faith'. In I757, for example, shortly after signing a treaty with France and Austria,ElizabethPetrovnaorderedthat 'chapelsbe sent' to European capitals where the Ambassador...