REVIEWS 765 The military historian will be disturbedby a number of inaccuracies. For example, ajefreiter is a corporal not an NCO trainee, what is described as a signal-man is a bugler, and there are several references to soldiers being awarded 'Crossesof the Order of Saint Gregorius'insteadof Saint George. The author has a tendency to read more into some remarksin his sources than was probably originallyintended. Thus the emphasis in some accounts on the food and drinklaid on forthe guardsmenbefore theirdeparturefor the theatreof war 'maywell have been implyingthatwar would be a sortof feast, too' (p. I 26). When Sergeant-MajorJernvall (who became a legendaryfigure in the Finnishconscriptarmyformedin I88I) recordedthat the men thanked God fortheirinitialsafejourney, Laitalastatesthat 'byimplication,thismeant that the Guards'journey was under divine protection and that its missionwas just' (p. 132). Praise of Bulgarianvillages and the gloriouslandscape is taken to imply 'that in general virtuous people, including Finns, should be free' (p. ) This revieweris scepticalof such claims. However, Laitala'sconclusions appearsound. Loyaltyto the Russian army and the Emperorwas the reasonwhy the Finnswent willinglyand uncritically to fight in the Russo-Turkish War and why they accepted the hardships involved. As Finns, they also developed ideals derived from the heroism of theirforefathersto create a militaryidentificationwhich was loyal not only to the Emperorbut also to the nascent nationalidentityof Finland. Berkhamsted J. E. 0. SCREEN Roslof, Edward E. RedPriests.Renovationism, RussianOrthodoxy, andRevolution, I905-I946. Indiana-Michigan Series in Russian and East European Studies. Indiana University Press,Bloomington and Indianapolis, 2002. XViii+ 259 pp. Tables. Notes. Bibliography.Index. [34.50. AFTER the Bolshevikscame to power a number of Russian Orthodox clergy attempted to found a church which would supportthe fledgling Soviet state, promote socialjustice, and enhance the role of ordinary('black')clergyin the church's internal life. Until the collapse of the Soviet Union the main source for information on the 'renovationist'movement were the three volumes of memoirs by Anatoli Levitin and Vadim Shavrov published in the West as Ocherki po istoriirusskoi tserkovnoi smuty(Ktisnacht, I977). Now in his important new study Edward Roslof makes systematic use of newly-available material from Russian archives to flesh out the story. His analysis produces no big surprises;it is encouraging to find that previous scholarship in the field has been largelyon the righttrack. The impulse towards renovation started with the failed ecclesiastical reforms of the nineteenth century, and various groups and individuals had different priorities ranging from structuraland liturgical reform within the church to the development of a full Christian Socialist programme. These varioustendencies remained in tension within renovationismthroughout. Roslof shows that encouraging factionalismwithin renovationism (as well as in the patriarchalchurch) was part of the Bolshevikstrategyultimately to undermine religion in the Soviet Union. He tracesthe complex development 766 SEER, 82, 3, 2004 of the three-way relationship between the Soviet authorities and the two Orthodox churches:the authorities'attemptto use the renovationiststo defeat the patriarchalchurch duringWar Communism; the policy of letting the two churches fight it out amongst themselves during NEP from 1923; and finally the repressionof all religion from I929. Quite often the dissonance between theproclaimedlong-termaim of the governmentto achieve the disappearance of religion and the short-term tactical need to promote one religious group against anotherled to genuine confusion at grass-rootslevel and the necessity for 'decoupling', when local officials separated official ideology from their everyday implementation of church policy. The archive sourcesallow Roslof to offersome tellingillustrationsof thiskindof outcome. 'Ironically,'as Roslof notes, 'the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 194I, and not the success of the Stalinist Revolution provided the final nail in renovationism's coffin' (p. I90). There followed a new policy whereby the Soviet government recognized the institutionallegitimacy of the patriarchalchurch.The lastrenovationistparishin the Soviet Union closed in July I946 with the death of its charismaticpriest and one of the founders of the renovationistmovement, AleksandrVvedenskii. 'Scholarsdebate reasonsforthe mutualattractionof suchvariedpersonalities as Granovskii, Boiarskii, and Vvedenskii', observes Roslof (p. iI). He himself does not go very far in comparing and contrastingtheir motives, but his basic assumption is that they 'generally acted out of genuine religious conviction' (p. x). Forhim one of the most strikingaspectsof the movement to emerge from archival records is that even during the comprehensive...