in Russian Society: State Policy, Regional Challenges, and Individual Rights Conference Proceedings Edited by F. Joseph Dresen

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OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 Religion in Russian Society: State Policy, Regional Challenges, and Individual Rights Co-sponsored by the Henry M. Jackson Foundation June 8–9, 2006 Washington, D.C.

CONTENTS

PANELIST BIOGRAPHIES 1

CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS 5

PREFACE 7

WELCOMING REMARKS 9 Blair A. Ruble, Director, Kennan Institute Neelima Shah, Program Officer, Henry M. Jackson Foundation

PANEL 1: RUSSIAN STATE POLICIES AND PRACTICES ON RELIGION 11 Chair: David Abramson, Analyst for and Eurasia, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Department of State Alexey Malashenko, Scholar in Residence and Program Co-Chair, Religion, Society, and Security Program, Carnegie Center Robert Crews, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Stanford University, and former Research Scholar, Kennan Institute Nancy Hewett, Senior Adviser on Eurasian Affairs, Office of International Religious Freedom, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State Elizabeth Sewell, Associate Director, International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Brigham Young University

PANEL 2: THE REGIONAL CHALLENGE: 31 MANAGING RELIGIOUS DIVERSITY Chair: Margaret Paxson, Senior Associate, Kennan Institute Sascha Goluboff, Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Washington and Lee University, and author, Jewish : Upheavals in a Moscow Synagogue Alexander Bogomolov, Vice President, Association of Middle East Studies, Ukraine Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer, Research Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Georgetown University PANEL 3: INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM OF IN RUSSIA 51 Chair: H. Knox Thames, Counsel, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (U.S. Helsinki Commission) Nikolas Gvosdev, Editor, The National Interest; Senior Fellow, Institute for Strategic Studies, The Nixon Center; and Senior Fellow, Institute for Religion and Public Policy Catherine Cosman, Senior Policy Analyst, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Firuz Kazemzadeh, Professor Emeritus of History, Yale University; former Vice Chairman, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom; and Senior Adviser, Office of External Affairs, Baha’i Faith Discussant: Kate Brown, Associate Professor of History, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

FINAL OBSERVATIONS 71 Panelist Biographies

David Abramson is an analyst on Central president of the Kyiv-based Association of Asia in the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Middle East Studies (AMES), of which he is Intelligence and Research. Previously, he also a founder. AMES is a nongovernmental worked in the State Department’s Office of think tank engaged in research and policy analy- International Religious Freedom, where he sis focusing on the Middle East, Central Asia, promoted religious freedom in the Middle East the Caucasus, ethnic conflicts, minority issues, and contributed to U.S. outreach efforts toward and Ukraine’s domestic and foreign policies. the Muslim world, including the American Bogomolov is the author of Islamic Identity in Muslim community. Abramson received a doc- Ukraine (2005), which was declared the nation- torate in cultural anthropology from Indiana al Book of the Year 2005 in humanities in University, specializing in community and con- Ukraine. He is a regular contributor to major flict in post-Soviet Uzbekistan. He spent four Ukrainian media (TV, print, radio) on the years as a research fellow at Brown University’s Middle East and Muslim minority issues. Watson Institute for International Studies before heading to Washington. Abramson has lectured Kate Brown is an associate professor of histo- and written on and secularism in ry at the University of Maryland, Baltimore Uzbekistan, the politics of civil society assis- County. She is the author of A Biography of No tance in Central Asia, and the role of religion in Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland U.S. foreign policy. (Harvard University Press, 2004), which won the American Historical Association’s George Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer is a research Louis Beer Prize for the best book in interna- professor at Georgetown University in the tional European history, the Heldt Prize from Department of Sociology and Anthropology the Association of Women in Slavic Studies, and and the Center for Eurasian, Russian, and East an honorable mention for the American European Studies (CERES). She is editor of the Association for the Advancement of Slavic M. E. Sharpe journal Anthropology and Archeology Studies’ Wayne C. Vucinich Prize for 2005. She of Eurasia and of the books Shamanic Worlds: holds a Ph.D. in history from the University of Rituals and Lore of and Central Asia (1997), Washington and has received fellowships from Culture Incarnate: Native Anthropology from Russia the Social Science Research Council, the (1995), and Russian Traditional Culture (1992). International Research and Exchanges Board, She is author of The Tenacity of Ethnicity: A the Davis Center of Harvard University, the Siberian Saga in Global Perspective (Princeton National Council for East European and University Press, 1999). Her fieldwork since Eurasian Research, and the Eurasia Foundation. 1986 has focused primarily on the Turkic- speaking [Yakut] of the Russian Catherine Cosman joined the staff of the Federation, and in the 1990s she helped organ- U.S. Commission on International Religious ize exchanges of Native American and Native Freedom in late 2003 as senior policy analyst for Siberian leaders. She is editor of a forthcoming the region embracing the member states of the volume, Religion and Politics in the Russian Organization for Security and Cooperation in Federation (M. E. Sharpe), and is at work on a Europe (OSCE). She has also served on the U.S. research project, “Siberian Spirits of Diversity: Commission on Security and Cooperation in New from Ancient Roots? New Europe as senior analyst on Soviet dissent Frontiers for World Religions?” (1976–89). At Human Rights Watch (1989–92), she wrote several studies on ethnic conflicts in Alexander Bogomolov holds a Ph.D. in Central Asia and on human rights. At the Free Arabic linguistics and speaks fluent Arabic and Trade Union Institute (1992–96), she worked Persian. He has traveled and lived extensively in with emerging trade unions in Kazakhstan and the Middle East. Since 1995 he has been vice Azerbaijan. In Estonia, she was the senior expert

RELIGION IN RUSSIAN SOCIETY 1

of the OSCE Mission (1996–98.) She managed Eurasian affairs, general aspects of U.S. foreign the Central Asian and Caucasus grants program policy, and developments in the Middle East. He at the National Endowment for Democracy received his doctoral and master’s degrees from before joining the Communications Division at Oxford University, where he studied on a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in 1999, Rhodes Scholarship, and has written or edited a where she founded and edited the online period- number of books, including Church-State icals Media Matters and (Un)Civil Societies. Besides Relations in the Byzantine and Russian Empires a B.A. in history from Grinnell College, she (Mellen Press, 2001). He has held academic holds an M.A. from Brown University in Slavic appointments at Baylor University and languages and literatures, which she also studied Georgetown University. at the doctoral level at Brown. She has also stud- ied at the Free University of Berlin and the All- Nancy Hewett has been a foreign affairs offi- Union Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. cer and senior adviser on Eurasian affairs to the ambassador at large for international religious Robert Crews is an assistant professor in the freedom in the Office of International Religious Department of History at Stanford University. Freedom, Bureau of Democracy, Human He holds a B.A. from the University of North Rights, and Labor (DRL), U.S. Department of Carolina at Chapel Hill, an M.A. from State, since June 1999. Her portfolio includes Columbia University, and a Ph.D. from activities promoting religious freedom in the Princeton University. A former research scholar successor states of the former Soviet Union, at the Kennan Institute, he is the author of For with a primary focus on Russia and Central Prophet and Tsar: Islam and Empire in Russia and Asia. Hewett joined the State Department in Central Asia (Harvard University Press, 2006). June 1993, serving in DRL’s Office of Democracy Programs from 1997 to 1999, and Sascha Goluboff holds a Ph.D. in anthropol- before that as special assistant in the Office of the ogy from the University of Illinois at Urbana- Coordinator for U.S. Assistance to the Newly Champaign. She is an associate professor of cul- Independent States, in the Democracy tural anthropology at Washington and Lee Assistance Office. She holds a Ph.D. in applied University in Lexington, Virginia. She did her linguistics from the University of Texas at dissertation research on Jewish religious revival Austin. Prior to her arrival at the State and ethnic identity in Moscow in 1995 and 1996, Department, she spent 20 years in academic life and published this work as Jewish Russians: working with the international community, Upheavals in a Moscow Synagogue (University of teaching, doing research, and administering pro- Pennsylvania Press, 2003). Tracking the rapid rise grams at a number of universities. of a transnational congregation headed by a Western rabbi and consisting of from Firuz Kazemzadeh was born in 1924 in Georgia and the mountains of Azerbaijan and Moscow, where his father served for many years , along with Bukharan Jews from on the staff of the Iranian Embassy. He received Central Asia, Jewish Russians evaluates the process his college education in the United States, that created this diverse gathering and offers an obtaining a B.A. (magna cum laude, Phi Beta intimate sense of individual interactions in the Kappa) and an M.A. from Stanford University in context of the synagogue’s congregation. 1947 and a Ph.D. in Russian history from Goluboff’s new fieldwork project is located in the Harvard University in 1950. Having settled in Mountain Jewish village of Krasnaia Sloboda, the United States, Kazemzadeh began his aca- Azerbaijan. She is interested in the links among demic career as a research fellow in Slavic stud- mourning rituals, Mountain Jewish women’s ies at the Hoover Institution, Stanford daily experiences, and Jewish religious and ethnic University. He was subsequently a research fel- identity in and beyond the Caucasus. low at the Russian Research Center and the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard. In Nikolas Gvosdev is the editor of The National 1956 Kazemzadeh began teaching at Yale Interest and a senior fellow in strategic studies at University, where he was appointed a professor the Nixon Center. He is a frequent commenta- of history in 1968. He has been professor emer- tor on U.S.–Russian relations, Russian and itus since his retirement in 1992. He is the

2 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 author of The Struggle for Transcaucasia, and was based on more than 17 months of field- 1917–1921; Russia and Britain in Persia, work in a single village in the Russian North. In 1864–1914:A Study in Imperialism, and of chap- 2005 Paxson published Solovyovo: The Story of ters in several collective works such as The Memory in a Russian Village (Indiana University Cambridge History of Iran, as well as numerous Press and Woodrow Wilson Press). In addition articles in various journals. Having been to social memory, Paxson’s broader research involved for many years in the defense of human interests include post-socialist transition, agrari- rights, Kazemzadeh was appointed in May 1999 an religion and traditional healing, and the phi- by President Bill Clinton to serve on the U.S. losophy of science. During 1999–2000 she Commission on International Religious worked with David Hoffman of The Washington Freedom for a term of two years. He served for Post conducting research for his book The one year as the Commission’s vice chairman and Oligarchs. She has published academic articles in was reappointed for another two-year term in various venues and journalistic pieces in The 2001. He has testified before congressional Washington Post Sunday Magazine and The committees on the state of religious freedom Wilson Quarterly.Paxson has received awards and and the persecution of religious communities in fellowships from the Social Science Research many countries and on the ratification of Council, the International Research and treaties on genocide and on torture. For 35 Exchanges Board, the Kennan Institute, and years, Kazemzadeh was a member of the other organizations. She has also worked as a National Spiritual Assembly of the Baha’is of consultant in organizational anthropology; a the United States, serving at various times as its coordinator, designer, and presenter for Mayor chair, vice chair, secretary, and secretary for William A. Johnson’s Biracial Partnerships for external affairs. He has taught at Baha’i schools Community Progress, a race relations initiative in Europe and North America, and lectured on in Rochester, New York; and as an instructor in Baha’i topics in Europe, the Americas, the Department of Sociology and Anthropology Australia, and New Zealand. Kazemzadeh was at Concordia University, Montreal. for more than 30 years a member of the edito- rial board of World Order, a Baha’i magazine. Blair A. Ruble is director of the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow Wilson International Alexey Malashenko is a scholar in residence Center for Scholars in Washington. He also and co-chair of the Religion, Society, and serves as director of the Comparative Urban Security Program at the Carnegie Moscow Studies Project at the Woodrow Wilson Center. Center, and has been a professor at the Moscow He holds an M.A. and a Ph.D. in political sci- State Institute of International Relations of the ence from the University of Toronto (1973, Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 2000. 1977), and an A.B. in political science from the He previously worked at the Institute of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of (1971). He has edited more than a dozen vol- Sciences, and has taught at Colgate University umes. His booklength works include a trilogy in the United States. He is an expert on Muslim examining the fate of Russian provincial cities populations in the Russian Federation and during the 20th century, Leningrad: Shaping a Commonwealth of Independent States, and has Soviet City (University of California Press, authored, co-authored, or edited more than a 1990); Money Sings! The Changing Politics of dozen books on the subject. Malashenko holds Urban Space in Postsoviet (Woodrow advanced degrees in political science and histo- Wilson Center Press and Cambridge University ry from Moscow State University. Press, 1995); and Second Metropolis: Pragmatic Pluralism in Gilded Age Chicago, Silver Age Moscow, Margaret Paxson joined the Kennan and Meiji Osaka (Woodrow Wilson Center Press Institute in November 2002 as a senior associate. and Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). His She holds a B.A. in anthropology from McGill latest book, Creating Diversity Capital: University (1987) and an M.Sc. and a Ph.D. in Transnational Migrants in Montreal,Washington,and anthropology from the University of Montreal Kyiv, was published by the Woodrow Wilson (1991, 1999). Paxson’s doctoral research was on Center Press and Johns Hopkins University the subject of social memory in rural Russia, Press in 2005.

RELIGION IN RUSSIAN SOCIETY 3

Neelima Shah is a program officer at the of the BYU Law Review. She has taught cours- Henry M. Jackson Foundation in Seattle, es on comparative law, comparative constitu- Washington, where she leads the foundation’s tional law, international human rights, and programs in land use planning. She holds a mas- European Union law at the J. Reuben Clark ter’s degree in public affairs from the University Law School. of Washington, and has been a German Marshall Fellow. H. Knox Thames has served since 2001 as counsel to the U.S. Helsinki Commission, an Elizabeth Sewell is associate director of the independent federal agency tasked with moni- International Center for Law and Religion toring human rights within the 55 participating Studies at Brigham Young University (BYU), states that make up the Organization for where she writes and lectures on church-state Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). and comparative law topics and has co-organized For the Commission, Thames monitors reli- and participated in dozens of conferences and gious freedom and issues concerning refugees academic projects with other scholars and with and internally displaced persons in all 55 OSCE government leaders from around the world. She countries. He has served as a member of U.S. has taken part in drafting commentaries and State Department delegations to numerous legal analyses of pending legislation and other OSCE meetings, as well as traveled on behalf of developments affecting religious freedom, and the Commission throughout Europe and has assisted in drafting an amicus brief on inter- Central Asia. The State Department has also national religious freedom issues for submission selected Thames to serve as one of the two U.S. to the U.S. Supreme Court. She has published appointees to the OSCE Panel of Experts on numerous articles and chapters on church-state or Belief. Thames’s previ- issues and has been an associate editor of ous professional experience includes associations Facilitating Freedom of Religion and Belief and two with World Relief Refugee Services and books on law and religion in post-communist AmeriCorps, and graduate legal research with Europe. She has also testified before Congress on the State Department’s Office of the Legal religious freedom issues. Adviser for Human Rights and Refugees, the Before joining the International Center for legal office for the United Nations High Law and Religion Studies, Sewell was an asso- Commissioner for Refugees, and the U.S. ciate in the Washington, D.C., office of Mayer, Helsinki Commission. He has authored numer- Brown & Platt. She also clerked for Judge J. ous articles and reports on a variety of human Clifford Wallace on the U.S. Court of Appeals rights issues, both for the U.S. Helsinki for the Ninth Circuit. Sewell graduated summa Commission and in his private capacity. He is a cum laude from the J. Reuben Clark Law member of the Maryland State Bar Association School at BYU, where she was editor in chief and the American Society of International Law.

4 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 Conference Organizers

The Henry M. Jackson Foundation The Kennan Institute The Henry M. Jackson Foundation is guided by The Kennan Institute was founded as a division of the principles, values, and interests of the late the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Senator Henry M. Jackson. His emphasis on the Scholars in December 1974 through the joint ini- need for objective analysis, making informed tiative of Ambassador George F. Kennan, then policy choices, and taking a longer-term view is Wilson Center Director James Billington, and reflected in all of the Foundation’s work. The historian S. Frederick Starr. Named in honor of Foundation seeks to promote dialogue between Ambassador Kennan’s relative, George Kennan the academic and policy worlds, between the “the Elder,”a 19th century explorer of Russia and public and private sectors, and between citizens Siberia, the Kennan Institute is committed to and their government. improving American expertise and knowledge Since its establishment in 1983, the Henry about Russia and the former Soviet Union. M. Jackson Foundation has committed more The Kennan Institute bridges the gap than $17 million to nonprofit organizations and between the world of ideas and the world of educational institutions in the United States and public affairs by bringing scholars and govern- Russia. These grants provide essential support ment specialists together to discuss political, and seed funding for new initiatives that offer social, and economic issues affecting Russia and promising models for replication and address other successor states to the Soviet Union, seek- critical issues in four areas in which the late ing always to place these issues within their his- Senator Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson played a key torical context. leadership role during his 43-year tenure in the United States Congress: international affairs The Woodrow Wilson International education, environment and natural resources Center for Scholars management, public service, and human rights. Established by an act of Congress in 1968, the Through the Foundation’s grant making, and Wilson Center is our nation’s official living strategic partnerships and initiatives, the memorial to President Woodrow Wilson. As Foundation seeks to make a lasting impact in the both a distinguished scholar—the only region, in the nation, and in the world today. American president with a Ph.D.—and a nation- The Foundation continues to actively make al leader, Wilson felt strongly that the scholar grants in international affairs and human rights and the policymaker were “engaged in a com- and to a very limited extent in its environment mon enterprise.” and natural resources management and public The Wilson Center is a nonpartisan institute service programs. In addition, through the for advanced study and a neutral forum for Foundation’s strategic partnerships and initiatives open, serious, and informed dialogue. It brings strategy, the Foundation utilizes the expertise of preeminent thinkers to Washington for extend- its Board of Governors and staff to convene ed periods of time to interact with policymakers leaders to discuss timely public-policy issues, and through a large number of programs and proj- partner with local and national organizations and ects. The Center seeks to separate the important with foundations to leverage its resources and from the inconsequential and to take a historical carry forward the Jackson legacy. and broad perspective on the issues.

RELIGION IN RUSSIAN SOCIETY 5 Preface

In June 2006, the Kennan Institute organized a Current policy, as Robert Crews observed, conference with the support of the Henry M. closely reflects the tsarist-era practice of state Jackson Foundation titled “Religion in tolerance in conjunction with co-optation of Russian Society: State Policy, Regional major religions by state authority. At the same Challenges, and Individual Rights.” The con- time, since the passage of Russia’s 1997 law on ference convened experts from Russia and Freedom of Conscience and on Religious Ukraine to present their firsthand expertise on Associations, those religions that are not iden- the subject, as well as scholars, policymakers, tified as being within the Russian tradition are and experts on religion in Russia. The result- subject to harassment and unequal treatment. ing presentations and dialogue provided a rich As a result, the Russian government is often mixture of expertise and experience to the accused of repressing religion. As the panelists conference participants. This occasional paper noted, however, Russia shares the European is an edited transcript of the proceedings. tradition of state-church relations, in which a As the title suggests, the conference primary religion is frequently favored under addressed three main issues: the Russian gov- law and custom. ernment’s policies and practices with regard to Regardless of state preferences, the reality religion; the challenges facing regional govern- on the ground in many Russian regions is one ments and institutions that have to function of different ethnicities and or branches of amid religiously diverse populations; and the faiths living in proximity. The second panel of space for individual religious rights in a state the conference addressed how these diverse where one religion, , is so impor- groups function in practice. There is competi- tantly linked with Russian national identity. tion for members and for influence with and The topic of religion and religious toler- resources from the state, as illustrated by Sascha ance is rapidly emerging as an important means Goluboff’s case study on Jewish groups. A par- of understanding how Russia is developing as a ticularly valuable contrasting example presented society. In a post-1991 climate of new state by Alexander Bogomolov concerns Ukraine, formation, changing demographics, and mass which confronts the same issues of religious migration, religion touches upon all spheres of diversity, but does not extend official state pref- social, political, and cultural life. In a region in erences to any religion or religious group. flux, issues of religion and religious tolerance Finally, the panel on individual religious are also important for national and internation- freedom framed an interesting discussion on al security. the notion of freedom itself. Nikolas Gvosdev The interaction between religion and the pointed out that Russians have unprecedented state in Russian history is extraordinarily com- freedoms as individuals. It is when they press plex. Centuries of imperial expansion and rule for rights as members within a group, especial- over an increasingly multiethnic and multicon- ly a minority or foreign religious group, that fessional population were followed by 70 years they encounter resistance from the state. Firuz of harshly imposed state in the Soviet Kazemzadeh noted that religious freedom in Union. The end of Soviet rule brought Russia today is incomparably greater than in unprecedented religious freedom to the the Soviet era; yet, in comparison with the Russian people. It also ushered in an influx of United States, it is severely limited. foreign religious influences that challenged This is but a brief overview of the confer- Russian notions of identity and society. ence proceedings. The assembled panelists and The first panel, on Russian policy and prac- discussants engaged in a substantive discussion tices on religion, raised a number of issues that ranging from how religion is lived on a per- must be considered if one is to understand the sonal level, to whether state policy prevents or words and actions of the central government. exacerbates religious extremism, to how reli-

RELIGION IN RUSSIAN SOCIETY 7

gion shapes the identity of individuals and International Religious Freedom for her invalu- communities. able advice and input in organizing this confer- The Kennan Institute would like to thank ence. We also gratefully acknowledge the finan- Catherine Cosman of the U.S. Commission on cial support of the Henry M. Jackson Foundation. —F.Joseph Dresen

8 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298

Welcoming Remarks

Blair A. Ruble, Director, Kennan Institute Neelima Shah, Program Officer, Henry M. Jackson Foundation

Blair A. Ruble: The topic of religion and reli- with both of them, and also with the person gious tolerance is rapidly emerging as critical to from the Jackson Foundation to whom I am how we understand what is taking place in about to turn over the floor, Neelima Shah. Russia and how Russia is developing as a socie- ty. As the title of the conference suggests, we Neelima Shah: I am delighted to be here to want to try to talk through the Russian govern- represent the Henry M. Jackson Foundation. I ment’s policies and practices, the challenges fac- would like to add my welcome to Blair’s, and ing regional governments and institutions—par- to thank you all for participating today in what ticularly in areas that have to function with reli- should be a very provocative, thoughtful, and giously diverse populations—and the space for informative discussion. individual religious rights in Russia. With this conference, the Jackson This program fits into a series of programs Foundation is very pleased to continue what has we have held at the Kennan Institute. Later this been an ongoing and, we think, fruitful part- summer, we will hold a session about how we nership with the Kennan Institute. This kind of talk about the issues of religion, of Russia and partnership allows the Jackson Foundation to religion, and of religion in societies in general. have a bit more of a presence in Washington, We feel that there is a paucity of language for D.C. We work nationally, and partnerships like the policy community, even for the academic this help us do our job better. In this case, it community, for talking about religion. We are allows us to work with one of the premier insti- hoping this conversation will begin to move tutes working to convene scholars and interest- toward how to talk about religion as a living ed people in the community on key issues in social ecosystem that interacts with other social Russian studies. ecosystems; to conceive of how one talks about We believe that the subject matter of this religion as a verb rather than as a noun; and to two-day conference is of profound importance, talk about it as a living aspect of social life, and the Jackson Foundation is very pleased to be including state policy. Our hope is to integrate part of this timely discussion. Some of you may the discussion of the nouns of policy with a know that the Jackson Foundation has been discussion of the verbs of the practices of reli- working in Russia on human rights issues for gious communities. about a dozen years and has spent over a million This conference is the result of conversations dollars on projects working on the ground to we have had over a long period of time with support nonprofit organizations in Russia, pri- Lara Iglitzin at the Henry M. Jackson marily concentrating on basic human rights, Foundation and with Cathy Cosman with the political and civil rights, and religious freedom U.S. Commission on International Religious and tolerance. We hope that today’s agenda will Freedom. They have been full of wonderful help the Foundation to do its job better and ideas and suggestions about how a meeting like improve its informed and thoughtful grant mak- this should be organized in order to be produc- ing in the area by learning from the experts tive for everyone. It has been a pleasure to work assembled here.

RELIGION IN RUSSIAN SOCIETY 9

Panel 1: Russian State Policies and Practices on Religion

Chair: David Abramson, Analyst for Russia and Eurasia, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, U.S. Department of State Alexey Malashenko, Scholar in Residence and Program Co-Chair, Religion, Society, and Security Program, Carnegie Moscow Center Robert Crews, Assistant Professor, Department of History, Stanford University, and former Research Scholar, Kennan Institute Nancy Hewett, Senior Adviser on Eurasian Affairs, Office of International Religious Freedom, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, U.S. Department of State Elizabeth Sewell, Associate Director, International Center for Law and Religion Studies, Brigham Young University

Alexey Malashenko: I think it is true that should add one more modern problem—the with Russia, the more we try to understand credibility of religion. the real role of religion in Russia the less we If I am not mistaken, the credibility or understand it. That is because of the changing approval level of Orthodoxy is about 55 per- situation inside Russia. It is also because of big cent. It is much higher than the rating of the distinctions between the relative positions of Russian government, though perhaps the rating different religions. So to summarize at the received by Russian president is onset of my presentation, my opinion is that little bit higher than the ratings religion in gen- religion in Russia, as ideology and institution, eral and Orthodoxy in particular receive. continues to play a very important role, and I talk about religion, and of course you have sometimes we don’t understand it. to ask me what, specifically, I am talking Today I want to concentrate my attention on about—clergymen, ideology, tradition, culture? two religions, Orthodoxy and Islam. Why? I do not know, because when we try to under- Because when people speak about Russia and stand the relationship between state and religion, the notion of religion, the general vision of when we want to understand the role of religion Russia is that it is an Orthodox society and in society, we have to get a general vision, country with a very large Islamic presence. I because sometimes we talk about religion as if don’t want to say that we have to neglect other about an ideological or spiritual elite. Sometimes religions, but in my opinion, when we talk we talk about religion as culture. Sometimes we about religion in Russia we first have to deal may use the notion of a religious community. So with these two religions: Orthodoxy and Islam. I apologize, but in my presentation I have to use Very simply, this is true because approxi- the word religion in a different context. mately 80 percent of the Russian population, What about the Russian state today, and the or more, is Orthodox. There are something administrations of presidents Putin and Yeltsin? like 20 million in Russia. The official They both needed religion. Primarily, of figure is 14.5 million, but it depends on how course, they needed two religions—Islam and we count Muslims in the Russian Federation. Orthodoxy—because of these two faith’s high We have to talk about these two religions level of credibility. because of general history, because of their Second, Yeltsin and perhaps especially Putin presence throughout Russian society, because badly needed a certain additional or supple- of their influence on Russian politics and the mentary legitimating factor. The state, and the state, and because these two religions have had official programs and policies of the state, are some political meaning of late. Perhaps I not very popular in Russian society. The state

RELIGION IN RUSSIAN SOCIETY 11

needs the approval of religion, according to There is, of course, a certain amount of some religious idea. Putin, his team in general, cooperation between different political parties and the secular elite needed a certain religious and religious groups. There is cooperation interpretation of their political and social life. between Russian nationalist parties and even For instance, several weeks ago at a certain some left parties and religious groups—mostly Russian Orthodox sobor (assembly), the partic- Orthodox. I may say that there is a problem of ipants presented a religious idea, an Orthodox some Russian nationalist parties wanting to idea, for Russian official policy, and it was nationalize certain religions. If you read Russian approved with pleasure by the Kremlin. In the religious newspapers, if you look through the Kremlin, they understand very well that they Internet, you may note that in nationalist ideol- need a certain endorsement from outside for ogy there is now practically no barrier between their policies in the social and political fields. religion and nationalism. They talk now about The leadership of the Russian Muslim com- Russian Orthodoxy, even while they forget munity did the same thing. It presented an about the presence of Orthodoxy in places such Islamic social conception, but it was very close as Serbia and Bulgaria. This is a big difference to the state’s secular conception of the develop- between today’s situation and the situation two ment of certain social problems. or even one year ago. Russian Orthodoxy has This may be evidence that despite the pop- become more and more a national and nation- ularity of Putin, he feels that he is weak. alist religion. Russian tradition and Russian history generally The idea that , the show that when a ruler feels that he is weak, he “Russian way of development,” and Russian turns to church and to religion. I want to repeat Orthodoxy’s views on human rights have prior- that today, in certain situations, Putin is some- ity over anything that comes from abroad is very times ready to accept assistance even from offi- prominent now. Russian nationalism, or per- cial Russian Islam, and in my opinion that is haps, more accurately, Russian isolationism, is very important. increasingly based on Orthodoxy. That is why in The second question is: If Russians respect April 2006 there was so much talk about the spiritual leadership of both Orthodoxy and Orthodox human rights and Orthodox demo- Islam, why do those religions need the state? cratic values and so on. This question does not need a long explanation. In Islam, the main problem is that in these Cooperation and alliance with the state creates moves, the and more favorable working conditions for the reli- Russian Orthodox ideology are completely sup- gious and spiritual elites. It gives them additional ported by official Islam. They think alike—that authority in the eyes of believers, because if they traditional values are the values of both are closer to the president, then they are closer to Orthodoxy and Islam, and that these values have power. And, of course, cooperation with the to be protected against all kinds of penetration state gives the Patriarch, the bishops, the muftis, from abroad. and the imams additional opportunities to realize A week ago, I assisted at a special seminar their ambitions, including political ambitions and organized by the Central Spiritual Muslim material ambitions. Good relations with the state Board of the Russian Federation. The main task give them the opportunity to save their property. of this seminar was how to create a barrier As you know, the question of who owns what is against penetration from abroad. The partici- a very important question in the relations pants did not discuss the problem of radical between the Kremlin and the Orthodox and Islam; they did not discuss the problem of Muslim communities. Osama bin Laden. They only talked about the Of course, Islam and Orthodoxy are both West, about American and European influence. very politicized. That is quite normal, in my So a coalition between Islam, Orthodoxy, the opinion. We declare, and it is written in the state, and nationalism is evident. Russian Constitution, that religion is separated I do not want to talk a lot about relations from the state, but it is not true. The degree of between Islam and Orthodoxy. It is an exciting political activity of religion is very high, problem; if you ask, I can answer. But what whether in Orthodoxy or Islam. I could pro- about the future? The two main religions of the vide many examples. Russian Federation will play an important role

12 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 in a generation or so. I think this way because I Islam may allow us to sort out what is particular do not believe that in several years the Russian to Russia, and what is more broadly a global Federation will reach a high level of political, issue of human rights. social, and economic stability. I do not believe Since 1991 the Russian state, like the other that Russia will be able to avoid political, social, former Soviet republics, has struggled with a and economic crises. In that situation, where new obligation to try to meet international there is an emergence of instability or crisis the human rights norms with respect to religious role of religion will increase, in particular the policies. I think we can applaud the effort. It has role of Orthodoxy and Islam. The state, the not always been so serious, and one reason why central administration in the Kremlin, will once is because in its search for legitimacy, as Alexey again need assistance from religion. noted, the Russian state has tried to appeal to But at the same time, if I am indeed right what it calls distinctly Russian historical tradi- and Russia must survive some crisis, we have to tions. This is what anthropologists would call an pay more attention to Islam. The recent history invented tradition, but there is a deep history, of Russia proves that while Orthodoxy con- beginning with Catherine the Great, of stantly tends to support the central administra- Russian toleration. This is not toleration in the tion, there is a deep split within Islam. If some- American sense of laissez-faire. This tradition thing dangerous happens, I believe that once that Catherine introduced was really one that again we will have to deal with a very strong involved intensive state policing of a limited Islamic opposition—and not only in the North group of confessions earmarked for toleration. Caucasus region but everywhere, even in So in addition to Orthodoxy, we have regions that are now considered very settled. , , and Islam as the religions Perhaps I am too pessimistic in my remarks, but most clearly marked for toleration under Yeltsin I make these short observations based only on and Putin. my point of view. Thank you very much. But what is interesting about this in the Russian case, both in the 19th century and Robert Crews: Thank you. In the tradition of today in Russia, but also for Europe, is that the appealing to multiple confessions at once, I will state’s attempts to construct institutions have take the Manichean approach. Since Alexey has run into some fundamental sociological and been somewhat pessimistic and gloomy— theological impediments arising from the although he is probably right—I will try to Muslim past. There is nothing like a Muslim counterbalance that by being overly optimistic. church. As one historian at Columbia I have three points to make as an historian. University has argued, Islam has known neither Most basically, all of this has a history. We are all the burden nor the benefit of a church struc- interested in human rights and contemporary ture. So naturally, for states in various political politics, but I think that some attention to the contexts that have attempted to control Islam, past—and perhaps, more appropriately, the including Europe and Russia today and Russia Russian revisiting of the past—since 1991 might in the past, the state tries to create some kind of shed some insight into all of this. churchlike structure. As Alexey noted, one of While Alexey was pessimistic in some the chief impulses is to create some kind of respects with regard to Islam, I am inclined to body of doctrinal positions that will assist the see Russian politics dovetailing in key ways with state in advancing its policies. Alexey already European politics, specifically on the has given us some contemporary examples of Continent. I have in mind principally what we this, in which the so-called official clerics sup- see in Germany and France with respect to state ported by the Kremlin have very reliably attempts to manage and police Islam. I share offered authoritative confirmations of state pol- with all of you the concern with events in the icy, arguing that there is some kind of religious , which I think are exceptional foundation for such positions. This was true in with respect to the wider Muslim community in the 19th century, and this is true in other coun- Russia. I share all of your criticisms of the tries today as well. Russian state, yet I have some anxiety about sin- But the flip side of this is that in construct- gling out Russia. I think it would be useful to ing a church structure, the state also has the put this in some global context. A case study of burden of trying to identify that which is

RELIGION IN RUSSIAN SOCIETY 13

authentic about the tradition. What’s tradition- ate a churchlike structure in Russia in the 19th al? How do we know what is traditional in century, or in Russia today, it has unleashed a Islam? The Russian state did not know in the hotly contested struggle for religious authority. 19th century, and it does not know today. In Who speaks for Islam? Which Muslim clerics practice, this has brought the Russian state, past should garner state support? And here, I am and present, into dialogue with Muslim interested in hearing the later presentations, authorities, and also, critically, with Russian especially with respect to the Jewish communi- scholars, historians, and Orientalists, as well as ties. Throughout the 19th century in Russia, those trained in the disciplines of Islamic stud- the Muslims and the Jews, ironically, shared all ies, Arabic philology, and so on. We have a long these wonderful dilemmas about religious tradition of Russian scholars working within authority: which rabbis would enjoy state sup- the bureaucracy in the Russian imperial period. port, which kind of Judaism would be tolerated In many of the cases that have been flagged by under the tsars? In the little bits I know of the human rights activists as violations of Muslim Jewish cases, we have seen rabbis competing for human rights, it is these Orientalist scholars, state patronage. And in the Muslim case, there especially in the provinces, who have re- is a very strong suspicion among journalists, emerged to interpret particular Muslim texts in among human rights activists, and among order for the state to identify which claims are Muslims themselves that denunciations of nontraditional, which texts are somehow going Muslims by Muslims are at the heart of a num- to incite hatred, which texts are illegitimate, ber of cases—particularly where clerics have and which texts are going to incite terrorism. been charged with Wahhabism, which is an This is clearly a reflection of another compo- elastic term we can return to later, or offenses nent of this institutionalizing policy, which is a ranging from pornography to pedophilia, drug strong anticlerical streak. In this regard, the possession, and possession of weapons. All these 19th-century context is critical, because the charges often can be traced beyond the prose- state wants a church, it wants official Muslim cutor’s office to the rival mosque, whether in clerics, and it wants to lend these clerics sup- St. Petersburg or in the provinces. port insofar as policing is necessary to keep out This is nothing new to Putin’s Russia. This rivals, in a kind of trade-off. Alexey noted that has a long tradition within the history of Muslim Muslim clerics receive something in exchange societies, particularly in Russia and other places for offering confirmation of state views. So as where the state is trying to identify a single part of this policing practice, there is, of Islamic authority to which the state can speak. course, a reward for clerics who go along. Yet Again I will highlight the role of non- there is also a deep sense of distrust. Not all of Muslims, that is, of scholars, people in the uni- these local institutions backed by the state enjoy versities and in academic institutions in Russia, equal support, and so there is a wide variation who have also been called on to identify which by region in the local institutions that receive behaviors are terrorist and which texts are going state support. to induce terrorism, all in a kind of Orientalist There is a doctrinal interest at stake here. tradition that is familiar to people who study Another concrete example is the access that colonialism in the 19th century. So first there is some of these official Muslim institutions enjoy an impulse to create institutions; second, there is with respect to the army. The Mufti’s Council a real dilemma about religious authority and the in Moscow has a publication that is aimed at unleashing of contests among Muslims. Muslim Russian soldiers, which offers so-called The third critical factor in Russia is the moral and so-called patriotic teachings in the geopolitical or even international one. In the spirit of the Putin ideology. past, as in the case of Russia’s treatment of As I noted, there is a regional character. The Catholics, Protestants, Jews, and Buddhists, the North Caucasian cases are somewhat distinctive Kremlin has had anxiety about the transnational and problematic, and I suspect we will return nature of all these communities. For example, to them over and over in the course of our dis- there is the pope in Rome. In the 19th century, cussions. of course, it was the sultan in Istanbul, who A second point about these hierarchies is that appeared to be the potential center of Muslim whenever the state has tried to attempt to cre- authority, who would compete for the alle-

14 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 giance of Russia’s Muslims. Today it is more dif- ing that it is engaged in a war of attrition fuse in the absence of a single Islamic center. against terrorists. But I think it is useful to Despite bin Laden’s claims to embody that cen- recall in Washington that this is very much akin ter, there really isn’t one. to what we have seen in Europe and, indeed, Alexey has already noted that there is a strong in the United States, , and . concern with sealing off Russia’s borders. This is I see Russian politics toward religion actu- of course a project of the FSB [Federal Security ally moving Russia closer to Europe. Now, this Service], but it is also, as Alexey rightly noted, is not a cause for celebration. Obviously, I have dear to the hearts of Muslim authorities who a dim view of European policies toward Islam enjoy the Kremlin’s patronage. Yet this linkage and its Muslim communities. Of course, there between Russia’s Muslims and Muslims abroad are differences. Russia’s Muslims are indige- is somewhat more complicated than I am mak- nous. Islam is the oldest religion in Russia, in ing it, because the desire on the part of Muslims fact, with conversions occurring before the in the state is not simply to seal off the border. arrival of the Orthodox Christian missionaries. It is also to have good relations. This is why the As I have stated, the Russian state has attempt to marginalize alternative centers of approached Islam by trying to construct insti- authority for Russia’s Muslims is an impetus tutions, by cutting off transnational ties, and by behind sealing off the borders. Russia’s concern manipulating religious authority to validate with maintaining good relations with its Muslim state policies. It has also used these institutions neighbors is also a major break with Russian to try to conduct surveillance of the activities policies toward Islam. That is, it operates as a of mosque communities and personnel. kind of moderating influence. I will conclude by suggesting that the Russian Here also we see continuity with the 19th pattern fits a broader European pattern—one century. Russia has wanted influence in that really goes back to the early 19th century, Afghanistan. It has wanted influence in Iran, as when structurally the mold of Russian state is clear today from the nuclear issue. Russia building and Russian state politics was laid with would like to have better relations with Turkey. Russia looking to Europe, looking to Napoleon, There is fear of the spread of Islamic radicalism looking to France, and looking to France’s from the south, but there is also a strong inter- attempt to accommodate but also discipline est in exporting influence and maintaining good Protestants and Jews. For me, this is very much a relations, especially at a moment when U.S. European story, yet I share with you the anxiety relations with the Muslim world are very poor. about the state of human rights and religious I think the case of Iran is the most compelling freedom in Russia today. example, which we can discuss further. Thank you. Russia’s concern with its image in the Muslim world has led it to become an observer Nancy Hewett: I will turn from our last to the Organization of the Islamic Conference. speaker’s historical approach to a focus on the It is not yet a full-fledged member, to my events of the last year. My office reports to knowledge, [Editor’s note: the Russian Congress on religious freedom every year, as Federation is an observer state to the required by the International Religious Organization of the Islamic Conference] but it Freedom Act. We produce reports on religious participates in these discussions and clearly has freedom, which are available on the State sent out feelers again, especially in this geopo- Department website [www.state.gov]. We fol- litical context. low events not only to advocate on behalf of The last reason why the international con- religious freedom in our foreign policy but to text of geopolitics and the international dis- get a picture of what actually is happening, in course of human rights and politics are so order to inform our foreign policy. We noted in important is that the Putin regime has used the our last religious freedom report on Russia, war on terror to identify a wide range of which came out in November 2005, that con- Muslim actors as extremists and, most recently, ditions deteriorated for some minority faiths as terrorists. This geopolitical context is also while remaining largely the same for others. I one in which Russia can appear to justify its certainly agree that the vast majority of Russians actions in the Caucasus and elsewhere, claim- practice their faith freely if they are Russian

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Orthodox or if they are Muslims affiliated with Moscow. Not all members wish to unite under the congregations that have official clerics. Moscow, and those who do not are continuing But religious freedom in Russia remains to have severe difficulties. Metropolitan incompletely realized as long as there are Valentine was attacked in his home. He is dia- minority religious groups who are harassed and betic. The bandages were removed from his have difficulties. Usually, these are the groups feet, and his feet were beaten. He was knocked that have strong ties to foreigners, as our previ- unconscious. He lost the use of a foot, and part ous speakers have suggested. For example, the of his foot had to be amputated. He was in the Jehovah’s Witnesses have difficulties. Even hospital for six months. Many of the clergy though they have been in Russia since pre-rev- under his jurisdiction reported being threat- olutionary times, they quite often are consid- ened when they went public with the fact that ered to be tools of the West. They have had a the Church of St. Olga, which adheres to this great deal of difficulty, especially after being particular Orthodox alternative, was turned banned last year in Moscow. Although they over to the mainstream Russian Orthodox have not been banned in other cities, they now Church by the courts. have increasing difficulty finding venues for There have been other congregations of their large meetings, which are an important other alternative Russian Orthodox believers part of their worship practice. that have reported difficulties. We know that Most recently in Moscow, on April 12, their some Roman Catholic congregations and some most sacred liturgical event of the year, their have had difficulties. You can read Commemorative Dinner for the Death of the about these things in the Religious Freedom Lord, was interrupted by Special Forces. They Report and in the Religious Freedom Section put 200 people out in the street, would not let of the Human Rights Report. There are some them finish the service, took about 14 of the congregations of evangelical nondenomina- leaders down to the police station, and when tional Protestants that we might expect to have their lawyer arrived, they beat the lawyer. This difficulties with their tithes and sometimes their does seem like quite an excessive response. In funding coming from the West. Of course, the reporting this, the Jehovah’s Witnesses did say Muslim congregations that have been men- to us that we should be sure to acknowledge tioned that have some connections outside of that they did, however, have meetings in many Russia have difficulties as well. other districts in Moscow that were uninter- Although it is primarily with local authori- rupted. So it was just in the one place where ties that minority religious groups tend to have they experienced this difficulty. Their national the greatest difficulties, we sometimes see trou- headquarters in St. Petersburg is currently ble from the Federal Security Service, the under pressure because the thought is, I OMON special forces unit, and the Procuracy. believe, that if the authorities can find an These agencies or institutions, in which the excuse to shut down the national headquarters role of the federal government is intertwined for any kind of infraction—taxes, violations of with that of local representatives of those agen- fire codes—they will have an excuse then to cies, are apparently acting on behalf of their shut the church down nationally. Right now parent agencies or acquiescing in the mistreat- the Jehovah’s Witnesses have a national registra- ment and abuse of minority religious groups. tion as a religious organization, and that is what I mentioned the harassment of Jehovah’s allows them to continue to worship, even Witnesses, the raids on worship services, denial though they have been banned in Moscow. of worship space, the blacklisting of groups as The Scientologists have not been able to dangerous sects or cults, the closures of places even register as a religion, and they have of worship. We have seen some groups denied difficulty even setting up centers as social registration or have their registration revoked. organizations. This has been the case for some of the mosques We find that the Russian Orthodox Church in the Caucasus. We have seen slander against outside of Russia, headed by Metropolitan minority religions, including portrayals of Valentine of Suzdal, is having many difficulties, Muslims as terrorists. We also have seen some despite the recent attempt to unify that television programs portray the evangelical Orthodox alternative under the Patriarch of Protestants and Jehovah’s Witnesses as danger-

16 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 ous sects and cults, thereby increasing pressure visual effect on the population of seeing a on these groups over the past year. mosque being torn down is at odds with what One interesting thing that has happened, one would expect enlightened authorities to which I think is supported by some of the desire to promote Muslim engagement and things we heard this morning from earlier moderation in that area. speakers, is that we have seen a near cessation We get reports from human rights advocates of attacks on Pentecostal churches. We do hear who try to provide us with evidence that securi- from time to time of attacks, but they have ty officers have increased their harassment of almost come to a complete standstill. Some Muslim clerics, arbitrarily arresting, planting people have thought that it might have been evidence on, and reportedly even torturing prompted by the attention the U.S. Congress some of the observant Muslims in the North put on the issue last year. Congress had a hear- Caucasus. There are Muslim believers who claim ing on April 14 in which it highlighted the that they are not involved in extremist activity, arson attacks on Pentecostal and Baptist but who have been targeted for harassment and churches, and there have been some congres- ill treatment because they are observant. sional resolutions in support of minority reli- I mentioned the mosque closings. There gious groups in Russia. have also been denials of registration for many But many think and argue that this is really mosques. For example, the Stavropol regional the result of the participation of the authorities have denied 39 of 47 applications, Pentecostal bishop Sergei Ryakhovsky in the which is a rather high level of denial. Public Chamber—that his courting by, and There has been the restrictive and intrusive some people would say co-opting by, the legislation that is just coming into force on non- Russian government has led to the cessation of commercial organizations that has some provi- all of the attacks. Earlier, he was under pressure sions which, if applied to religious organizations, to join the Public Chamber and become more could possibly be used to intimidate or close politically active, and we saw an increase in them. They certainly are intrusive or restrictive. these attacks and activities against the I am not a lawyer, but we have asked lawyers at Pentecostal churches. This is something about the State Department to look at the legislation. which some observers have wondered. Until the G-8 meeting is over and all of the We have seen pressure on some Muslim implementing regulations have been worked groups, which the authorities partly justify as out, we are not going to know how this law is being antiterrorist activity. We have seen that in going to be implemented, but there is a poten- Europe as well, of course. We heard of regional tial for abuse there. The law on nongovernmen- officials closing mosques in Nalchik in October, tal organizations [NGO law] amends four differ- which some observers thought contributed to ent Russian laws. The law on closed administra- the violence there. We have seen how a mosque tive territorial formations does not seem to apply in Astrakhan, one that was supported by the to religious groups. The law on public associa- mayor of a previous administration, suddenly tions does not apply specifically to religious found its congregation passing into disfavor groups, but in fact says that all but religious with the current mayor. Now the mosque, organizations are affected by it. The law on non- which had been nearing completion, is to be profit organizations has the potential to do the torn down because of violations of certain most mischief. The bulk of the law does not building inspection codes. Some experts note apply, but it does amend Article 32 with respect that there are rumors, and it could be an urban to new reporting requirements, and provides legend, that President Putin was on a visit and authority for the Ministry of Justice, which is did not like the sight of the mosque on the road the registering entity, to request certain docu- from the airport into the center of town, which ments from religious groups. Authorities are was why this action against the mosque was ini- even permitted under the law to send represen- tiated. There were those who tried to have some tatives to participate in events and to conduct an kind of a compromise by erecting a Russian annual review of any organization’s activities, Orthodox Church in the vicinity, but I gather including activities of religious organizations, to that that alternative was turned down. The last I see if they are in conformity with the stated goals heard is that the mosque will be destroyed. The under their statutes.

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There are a couple of provisions that we are Russians’ ambivalent relationships with foreign- uncertain about, but one such rule will require ers. I will also look at some of the state policies the provision of certain kinds of organizational and practices that are new and have come about data about the organization within three days of as a result of the ideological vacuum at the fall of its effectuation. The implementation of that the Soviet era. We have heard about some of the rule is still being worked out, but it might attempts to bring in and institutionalize the dom- include providing the names of the founding inant religions. This is an interesting situation, members, if they are still attached to the organ- because unlike in the tsarist era, individual reli- ization. It might be that the people who will gions must now compete in a more pluralistic, represent the government agencies involved globalized society with other conceptions that will be listed as the contacts for the organiza- focus more on protection of individual rights or tion with the government. It is not quite clear on the separation of church and state. to us how that is going to work. But first, a look back at the legacy of Soviet Then there is the civil code, which is the and tsarist policies and practices. One thing that fourth law that the NGO law amends, and those I am not sure has been brought out is the idea of effects are still not clear to us. I think we will the lack of rule of law. I think it is difficult to know much more after the G-8 meeting is over overestimate the impact this is having on reli- and the Russian government then turns its atten- gious groups and others. Nancy Hewett men- tion to nongovernmental organizations. But I tioned a number of practical problems that reli- think it does suffice to say that this NGO law gious groups face. Part of the problem is that they does not amend the federal Law on the Freedom have no recourse. They are not able to turn to of Conscience and on Religious Associations of courts and expect neutral, evenhanded treatment 1997, and the latter is still the primary law that of their cases. There is still a sense of telephone regulates the formation, registration, and dissolu- justice, where the courts rule based on outside tion of religious organizations. influences instead of the law. There is arbitrari- While I have focused on the negative from ness from the police or the FSB, particularly with the past year, which is a necessity since we are regard to Muslim groups as well as other minori- tasked with monitoring what is going on, I ties. There are questions of selective prosecution don’t wish to give the wrong impression of or nonprosecution based on outside influence. what is happening in Russia. Certainly it is the The Sakharov Center put on an exhibition a few case that the vast majority of Russians have years ago that the Russian Orthodox Church what they would say is religious freedom, if became very upset at and saw as defamatory. The they are Russian Orthodox or if they are leaders of the center were prosecuted successful- Muslims. There are also many Pentecostals who ly for inciting religious hatred. But on the other worship freely and have no problems, and there hand, there are numerous accounts of groups and are many other Protestant groups that are able individuals who deface synagogues or Protestant to worship and have no problems. We hear churches, or who have firebombed different about the problems because it is our job to Protestant churches or other institutions, who report on them. are not being prosecuted for their actions. There are problems, particularly in the Elizabeth Sewell: What I would like to do is regions, with refusals to implement federal law, to try to pull this information together a little bit, or with attempts to get around the federal to tie together some of the current developments requirements or counteract them with additional in the policies and practices of the Russian state local requirements. There are refusals based on with some of the historical analysis and some technicalities, as Nancy mentioned. Local other features of and history that authorities will use lack of compliance with a fire we have heard about. Some of the current prac- code to deny registration or other building per- tices are part of the legacy of the cultural and mits. A lot of these problems stem from an over- political attributes of the Soviet and tsarist eras. all lack of rule of law, under which all groups Specifically, I will look at issues like the lack should be treated evenhandedly, whether they of rule of law, tendencies to have a strong ruler— are minorities or majorities. and then for subordinates to anticipate the desires Certainly there are some positive develop- or presumed wishes of their superiors—and ments in this area. Some courts have been will-

18 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 ing to uphold the rights of unpopular groups, policies on religion is what I would call an particularly the federal Constitutional Court, ambivalent Russian approach to foreigners. On which has had a liberal interpretation of the the one hand, there are some, going back to 1997 law on Freedom of Conscience and on Peter the Great, who seek out the West, seek Religious Associations. This court upheld the new ideas, seek interaction, and want to have right of the Salvation Army to be registered, those connections. You see that in religion with although that case has since bogged down in the acceptance of international norms, such as local bureaucracy issues. Federal officials have when Russia submitted itself to the jurisdiction generally applied the 1997 law liberally, so of the European Court of Human Rights. there is progress here. But particularly at the There is also the sentiment that Russia plays a local level, there is still a significant problem unique role and can contribute something that stems from the Soviet era and a lack of unique to the world because of its religious strength of rule of law. beliefs, and this is clear from the global religious Another tradition that stems from the past summit it is attempting to hold before the G-8 and is influencing the present is the tradition of meetings in St. Petersburg next month. having a strong leader, and then for subordinates But together with that, there is a very to try to anticipate his wishes. It is interesting to strong element of what we have heard from all note that in contrast to Yeltsin, Putin has been three of the panelists—that there is a fear of much more demonstrative about his close ties foreigners or foreign influence. Likewise, there with the Orthodox Church. Alexey Malashenko is a fear of any religion that is associated with touched on this. He mentioned how perhaps it foreigners, even though, in the case of some is weakness in the leadership that leads it to turn Protestants or the Jehovah’s Witnesses, they to religious organizations for additional support may have been in Russia more than 100 or 150 and validation. In any case, Putin has made a years and really should be seen as indigenous point of visiting the Patriarch regularly, and groups by now. making these visits visible in the media. This also plays out in terms of “spy mania,” Understanding this, what is interesting to see is as it has been called. This is a perception that if how this plays out on the lower levels. At lower you cannot see your enemies they must be hid- levels, it has been interesting to notice how offi- den, and so Russians see enemies in foreigners cials have made a point of being much more or people who are associated with foreign openly Orthodox as well. They have built organizations. You see this in the media, even Orthodox chapels in the Ministry of Justice and in the mainstream media. There have been in the courts. Government officials regularly reports of Catholics or Seventh-day Adventists consult with local Orthodox leaders even on committing ritual murders or being spies. questions of whether to register other religious Nancy Hewett also mentioned the NGO organizations. law that came into effect earlier this year. Some Nancy Hewett mentioned the rumor about of the provisions come down particularly hard Astrakhan, how Putin reportedly made a com- on foreign organizations and foreign sources of ment to the effect that there should not be a funding. It is not clear how they will play out, mosque in a certain place. Whether or not the but these provisions seem to allow the state to rumor is true, I think what is telling is that the ban financial transfers from abroad to local rumor exists and is accepted as a credible rea- NGOs. I have heard that this is already having son for the destruction of the mosque. an impact on the ability of religious organiza- I think Malashenko also mentioned how tions to cooperate with foreign partners to official Islam followed very closely and engage in charitable activities. endorsed certain state policies to bolster its You also see this fear of foreigners playing legitimacy. That is also at least partially out in legislation against proselytizing. Three explained by this practice of anticipating the regions already have restrictive laws, and the desires of those in power and attempting to Duma Committee on Religious Affairs is garner favor by doing what you expect those in reportedly working on legislation that would power would prefer. regulate proselytizing as well. Distrust of out- Another historical, cultural, and political siders goes far back. Jewish groups have long aspect that continues to have an impact on state been seen as dangerous outsiders. In January

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2005 there was a request by prominent Russian The assumption seems to be that the coun- nationalists to ban all Jewish religious organiza- try would be divided up along ethnic lines, and tions, which fortunately the state dismissed out that the Russian state would cooperate with of hand. Islam in predominantly Muslim areas. What I Then there is the current competition for think this reveals is a very interesting mind-set ideological power, and the institutionalization that underlies the practices that we heard of some of the dominant religions. There is an about, particularly from Alexey Malashenko ideological vacuum now, although the state has and Robert Crews. You see what we might call formally adopted a democratic constitution an ethnoconfessional mind-set, in which reli- and a secular system. The constitution has a gion is something that is divided up along eth- provision requiring equality of religious organ- nic lines. This was prominent in Europe par- izations. But both Alexey Malashenko and ticularly after , when nations Robert Crews mentioned attempts by either entered into treaties designed to protect ethnic the state or religious organizations, or by both, minorities and their religious practices. But in to forge a closer relationship between church Europe and in the United States since World and state. Sometimes this is seen as just the War II, there has been a growing consensus Orthodox Church; sometimes it is described as that the need is to focus on individual rights, the “traditional” faiths—meaning Orthodoxy, rather than minorities as ethnic groups per se, Islam, Buddhism, and Judaism. and that one should have the right to move in The Orthodox Church’s position is under- and out of those groups. standable, looking at its history and its theo- I appreciate the comment by Robert Crews ries. They have traditions of close church-state that Europeans more often work with religious cooperation and ideas of canonical territory— groups as groups. They have more cooperative ideas that correspond with closer association, church-state systems, and that often forces more but do not necessarily fit as neatly with the decentralized groups like Muslims to create an new constitutional order of nondiscrimination. artificial hierarchy so that they can cooperate But this attempt at ideological dominance more easily with the state. It is interesting, how- or mutual co-optation by the Orthodox ever, that in Europe, Muslims are now a bit of Church or this quartet of so-called traditional the exception to this practice. In France, there is faiths is a repeated feature of Russian state pressure to avoid discrimination and to respect policy and practice. They were mentioned in the autonomy of religious organizations. In fact, the preamble to the 1997 law, but officially some of that pressure comes from the organiza- according to the 1997 law there are no special tions that feel that too close a cooperation with benefits for these groups. There have been the state can violate their autonomy. That is cer- regular attempts in the Duma to introduce tainly a point that I think Robert Crews made legislation that would grant them such status, very well about the lack of internal autonomy but they have always been defeated. It is not that comes when a religion becomes co-opted happening at the overt level, but what is hap- by the state or becomes too close. pening at an informal level is a series of formal If you are talking to Russian government and informal agreements whereby the fields of officials, some of the most thoughtful ones will education, chaplaincy, military, law enforce- talk about that and say, “We are just a more ment, customs, prisons, FSB, and the army European system than we are an American are becoming in many cases exclusive to the one. Do not try to judge us by your American Orthodox Church. You may be aware of the standards. We really line up much more close- “Foundations of Orthodox Culture” class that ly with Europe.” I think a point worth making the Orthodox Church has been trying to have is that European systems do have a cooperative introduced as mandatory. My understanding is approach that is different from that of the that the course work focuses predominantly United States, but they also have a very strong on Orthodox theology. There is an attempt to base of individual protections, individual introduce it in the educational curriculum of rights, and a system of rule of law. All of these secondary schools. The federal government at protections help prevent abuses that could hap- this point is backing off, but the church has pen in a cooperative system, where coopera- been successful in some regions. tion with the state means that minority-group

20 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 rights can be trampled and such groups then groups—that is, the ability to choose their become marginalized, which is what we see own leaders, to choose their own members, happen in many cases in Russia. and to believe what they choose? There is a problem that the laws themselves are vague enough that they leave room for dis- How do we talk about religion and the crimination, particularly in their implementa- state in Russia? tion. The NGO law, for example, allows for registration to be denied or groups to be dis- Do we think along ethnoconfessional solved for threatening the national unity, cul- lines? tural heritage, or national interests of the Russian Federation. That is sufficiently broad Do we think about institutions? for most minority religions to fall into, partic- ularly with the mind-set that foreigners or Do we think about spiritual/cultural groups allied with foreigners are a threat to issues? national security. The extremism law passed in 2002 also has Do we talk about individual rights? similar vague provisions that have already been abused in terms of “propaganda of exclusivi- 5. What kind of models do we use for our ty,”such as groups saying that they believe that thinking? Do we use European models, do they have the sole truth and that they are bet- we use American models, or do we try to ter than other religions. In the case of Islam, look back to historical Russian models? Are materials making that claim have been found there problems with those? If so, where can to be extremist, but that is clearly selective. we turn to try to seek a better understand- Most religions would have something along ing of Russian state policies and practices those lines. on religion? Orthodoxy and Islam are not monolithic. There are those within them who are com- David Abramson: Before we open the floor mitted to minority rights and those who real- for discussion, I want to supplement Elizabeth ize that they are in a changed society, that it is Sewell’s questions with a bundle of related too late in the day to return to the era of the questions on how we conceptualize religion in tsars. But it is certainly a difficult road for Russia. Thus, some other questions that we minority religions. can also consider would be: I would like to end with some questions that I think were brought up by the different 1. In what ways do Russian state policies fos- presentations, and then I will turn it back to ter competition over religious authenticity, our moderator for question-and-answer. But both within religious communities and in some of the questions are: terms of what constitutes legitimate reli- gion in terms of a hierarchy? 1. Where are Russian state policies headed? 2. To the extent that there is a fostering of 2. If we see continued instability in the state competition, does this inherently create and the economy, would that, as Alexey obstacles to the realization of religious free- Malashenko suggested, move the govern- dom or even religious tolerance? ment closer to dominant churches, and closer to Orthodoxy? 3. Finally, is this competition changing in 21st-century Russia, and if so, how? And 3. Would the state’s closeness with Islam cause what impact will this have on freedoms and a split within Islam? also on the potential for future conflict and instability expressed in religious terms? 4. If the state were closer to Orthodoxy or Islam, how could it avoid discrimination I think these are questions that all of the against minority groups or impingement on panelists have raised, and I wanted to call the autonomy of dominant religious attention to them.

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COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS are religious insofar as they are about religious authority, which of course is central to all this. Malashenko: I want to add one more prob- But when one presses the issue and tries to dis- lem, very briefly—the problem of generations. cover which aspect of Muslim tradition is being We have been talking about religions in terms contested here, the ground gets much more of today. I think that we have to mention the slippery. I do not mean to suggest that there are problem in Orthodoxy of the generation born purely material interests at stake, but I think between 1965 and 1975. It is a new phenome- oftentimes it comes down to a critical question non. They are becoming more and more active. of the control of mosques. They are becoming more and more open to the Yet this has had a wider impact on some world, but at the same time this generation, in issues, as others have noted. It can have an my opinion, is much more nationalist yet much impact on freedom of religious expression. To cleverer than its predecessor. draw on just one case, in St. Petersburg there As for Islam, it is also the problem of gener- has been a dispute over who can say prayers at ations that we missed—I mean the generation funerals. The state—that is, the local adminis- of Muslims and clergymen between 22 and 28 tration—has essentially assigned a monopoly to years old. They are also very clever, very ambi- one mosque and denied an alternative mosque tious, but this is also a generation of Muslim the right to open, and thus the right to con- radicals. I remember that three years ago when duct funeral prayers. Here we see a very tangi- I spoke to Muslim spiritual leaders who were ble impact on the lives of a mostly Tatar between 35 and 50, they denied any radical Muslim community in St. Petersburg that was influence, saying, “Well, they will come from left unable to choose its own spiritual leader to the Middle East and we will educate them.” say prayers at a fellow member’s death. They came, and now I am not sure. I am relat- Beyond this, though, it is very hard to sort ing a general opinion that had existed in the out where the theological differences lie. Muslim clergy. Now there is a new generation, Perhaps I am naively optimistic, but I tend to and it can change the face of Islam. I think it is ignore most comments that you see in the press a very important point. Today we are encoun- about the supposed radicalism of so-called tering other people, and we often do not Wahhabis and other so-called extremists in the understand them. Russian Federation. I would be delighted to see the evidence of this—to hear the sermons, to Crews: Those are all wonderful questions. I see the texts, or to see the concrete connec- am not sure where to start. I am prompted by tions between a certain kind of political activi- Alexey to respond to his comments about the ty and a given mosque community. international conflict within Islam. Unlike Now a group that we have not yet discussed, Alexey, I think that if we are going to look for Hizb ut-Tahrir, is one about which I think we alarmist trends in the future, the state’s attempts all have different opinions. I think the state to arbitrate these disputes is actually more like- repression of Hizb ut-Tahrir is more likely to ly to be a source of friction than a younger result in some kind of outright social unrest generation of people who were trained in a than ignoring a group that is, to be sure, anti- new way. Semitic and disgusting in a wide number of In my more limited discussion with Muslim areas. I am not pro–Hizb ut-Tahrir, but out- clerics in Russia, I have been struck by their lawing it as the Germans have done in the tra- frustration with what they would describe as a dition of outlawing other kinds of neo-Nazi or kind of poverty of theology among Russian neofascist groups is a step that in fact enjoys the Muslims. What is so interesting about these support of many Muslims, but is still something institutions, and why I have drawn attention to that merits our attention. them, is that fortunately, I think, they are To add some other questions—Which meant to be recipients of state support. They groups are we going to advocate for? Which are meant to provide alternatives to contacts groups are going to enjoy the protection of abroad. But I think the conflicts dividing them international human rights?—I think this prob- are the kind of fissures that are rarely, if ever, lem is our own. David raised an important theological in nature. They are serious. They question about what are real faiths. Can we

22 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 scrutinize what is being constituted as real, and pay bribes that are often in the thousands of dol- what is being condemned as totalitarian and lars. Many groups are too poor to do that, or fake? Where do we draw our own lines? Does they refuse on principle to pay, and then they that extend to a group like Hizb ut-Tahrir, have trouble. It is another question to throw out which has been outlawed throughout the for- there: To what extent do they leave themselves mer Soviet Union and in a handful of open to repression because they refuse to play European countries, although it is more or less ball with the system, and what is the implication based in ? of that for Russian society in trying to establish the rule of law? Hewett: The question about what is a dan- gerous totalitarian sect or cult underlies many Sewell: I think the comment about the gen- of the intolerant acts that we see reported, erations raised an interesting point, and that is because there is the widely held view that the issue of what is going to happen in the many of these groups are dangerous, and the future. One thing that is happening is increased Russian Orthodox Church has clerics who fre- familiarity with the unknown over time. I was quently say that publicly. There are clerics who thinking of the chair of the Religious Studies do not, and who are clearly more modern— Department at the Russian Academy of State perhaps they are in that younger age group that Service, which is in the official presidential was mentioned earlier—but many of them do. administration. When she came to office, she I have been at a conference in Moscow where swore that she would never get on a podium the microphones were turned off when the with a Protestant, but within a year she had. Jehovah’s Witnesses’ representative got up to Part of it is a matter of familiarity, of starting speak. The microphones just went dead. We to come to understand some of the other got them back on, and some of the Russian groups, and that is something that you will see Orthodox clerics in the room took out news- more of in the next generations than we have papers and put them up in front of their faces in the past. But I think one of the problems and made a big show of not paying attention. that I have seen, particularly with the current There were those who did not, but you can generation, is increased passivity, less involve- clearly see the tensions in society there, and I ment in politics, tuning out, and growing dis- am sure the tensions exist within the religious illusionment. People seem more interested in groups themselves as well. their own economic and personal lives, and it A very good question is, What will the is interesting to think about what kind of established religious groups do? In the case of impact that is going to have. I think we will see the Scientologists and Jehovah’s Witnesses, some changes for the better. David Abramson authorities acting in support of the established raised the issue of competition creating obsta- religious groups have called in outside experts cles to religious freedom. One way of looking in court cases to try to persuade the court that at competition is that it may be at least part of certain groups are not viable religious groups. the solution: allowing free competition among In most cases, the outside experts whom the groups in the marketplace of ideas and keeping authorities have lined up have failed to make the state from being so protectionist that it the case that these smaller groups are totalitar- interferes in the free trade of ideas. We can ian sects and cults. think of that as a metaphor, without pushing it If I may throw out yet one other question: If too far. The Russian state may not develop minority religious groups fail to play ball under along American lines, but where will it end up the current system—that is, if they refuse to in comparison to the Europeans or other parts bribe the tax inspector and the fire inspector, of the world? and to pay bribes for expedited registration and the various hoops that religious groups must Alexander Bogomolov: I would address jump through—does that set them up for more some of the issues that were brought to the table problems than they might otherwise have? I by Dr. Sewell in her presentation. It is useful to hear from members of these organizations that think about how we could address the conceptu- they are asked for bribes quite frequently and are al framework with which we look at religion. To told that they will not have any problem if they my mind, one thing we should focus on is what

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are the pragmatic issues behind our conversation, will improve in Russia in all probability when i.e., what do we actually want? This is a matter of they stop this practice. I do not expect them to values. It seems that for many if not most of us stop it soon, however. here at this table, the concept of religious free- The situation in Ukraine provides a good dom is the guiding principle. I will address this comparative background as another post-Soviet notion in more detail in my presentation, but I case. We do not have politicians who consistent- believe that the concept of religious freedom is a ly advocate for religious freedoms and for secu- value concept that can only be produced and sus- larism. There is no other clear understanding, tained in a democratic, secular society. It is not even in the current administration, about the really a religious concept as such. It is a concept value of secularism, a society in which secularism that is located outside religion proper. We see that means freedom for different religious groups. But many religious groups, specifically the dominant the situation that we have now is one in which religious groups, most characteristically the we do not have one dominant group. We do not Russian Orthodox Church, are the greatest fight- even have one dominant Orthodox Church in ers against religious freedom. Similarly, in the Ukraine. That in itself is very conducive to dem- Middle Eastern context, Iranian clergy fight ocratic management of diversity. against any notion of religious freedom except for I suppose the greatest challenge and the the official , and the same is hap- greatest nightmare for the current Russian pening elsewhere in the Muslim world. administration is to see what happens if Russia From the practical point of view, the only sit- grows increasingly Muslim. They see religious uation in which religious groups start fighting diversity as a challenge to their political identi- for religious freedom is in a diverse society ty—not so much to the cultural or religious where we find many faiths, and where there is a identity as to the political identity of their state. sustainable religious minority as such. You will This is perceived as a real threat. This is the par- find in many contexts that minorities, regardless ticular framework in which the value of reli- of their specific religious rules, fight for a sus- gious freedom should be viewed. tainable religious diversity, for religious freedom as such. We see, for instance, that Muslims who Abramson: The idea that Russia was not a have majority status do not fight for religious secular society in the Soviet period, and con- freedoms, but in contexts such as they do tinues not to be a secular society today, makes fight for such rights because they are minorities me wonder. I will again throw the idea of social among the Hindus and the Christians. and cultural change out on the table, because I am not an expert on Russia, but in the we always want to see what kinds of changes post-Soviet context we have a different prob- there have been since the Soviet period with- lem. I once wrote that we experienced one of out exaggerating them. The question is that if the most consistently secular societies for about religion is seen primarily as a source of mobi- 70 years, but this is not true. I have changed my lization, it means you have Orthodox clergy or opinion about that. We never had secularists, Muslims getting together to talk about what we had atheists. I now realize that this is a dif- “human rights” means in terms of Orthodoxy ferent story. or what “democracy” or “human rights” means I believe that the problem with religious within Islam. This kind of debate is not taking freedom in Russia is that Russia is not a secu- place in Russia alone. lar society. I am not talking about religiosity Does that mean that they are trying to use here, but about the role of religion in a more those terms by incorporating them into that general social context and the way the state, concept of mobilization? Or, because they are society, and the elites deal with religion. They actually taking on these terms, does that indi- largely see religion as a useful source of mobi- cate that there is some change going on in their lization for different purposes. That is how thinking? Why are they taking on these terms? Putin’s administration is running the game in Russia—by deploying Russian Orthodoxy. Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer: I have a They use it as a reference point for ideological very specific question for Alexey Malashenko construction, utilizing religious themes as a that also unties the issue of corruption that source for their own purposes. The situation Nancy Hewett just raised, as well as the issue of

24 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 generations. I understand that this is more of a Muslim spiritual leadership, some were very ground-level question. We need to know how astonished and some recognize that they made much of this sort of thing is going on. I under- a mistake. I do believe that it is not a problem stand that in there have been of radicalism, it is not a problem of instances of different mosques passing to differ- Wahhabism—it is a problem of competition ent kinds of groups. The implication is that this and who will stay. Those who came from the is happening not only as younger generations Middle East are much more educated, they take hold, but also as some imams “buy out” know Arabic, and so on. They bring with certain mosques as a means of moving in the them some new ideas. This is a problem. So if direction of greater radicalization. By way of you go to Tatarstan, if you go to Russia, you reference, this comes from some survey may get completely different information. It research and interview material from Edward depends on with whom you talk. Pinantan that he has recently compiled on Tatarstan. It is an alarming trend if it proves to Question: The use of religion as part of the be real. Have you had any information on this? mobilization of state identity is nothing new, particularly when empires collapse. The Soviet Malashenko: That is a good question. In Union was an empire. Think back to Europe in 2001, even as late as 2002, I discussed the prob- the 16th and 17th centuries. There was the lem laid out in your question with people from Protestant Reformation, the collapse of the Tatarstan, including clergymen and people Holy Roman Empire, and the emergence of around the president of Tatarstan, Mintimer new states based on religion and religious iden- Shaimiev. Everybody told me that this problem tity, which was also accompanied by religious is exaggerated by many, including by Russian wars that solidified those identities. Consider newspapers in Moscow. Since 2004, or even by what happened with Yugoslavia when it broke the end of 2003, I was shocked to hear the up, and continues to break up now. Kosovo same people, the same scholars, and the same split from Serbia. Clearly, religion is part of officials begin to talk about the appearance of these developments. several hundred new imams and young men My concern is that this is simply the begin- who had graduated from Middle East institutes. ning of a process. What has been going on in They came back, and they asked for places to Crimea in the last few years? Is religion going serve as imams in mosques. Of course, in 2004 to be absent from tension in this region, par- mosques were closed to them. They then began ticularly if religion is being used increasingly as to organize circles around themselves, even an idea for mobilizing a state identity? The within existing mosques. This problem of so- point I am making is that this is not unknown called penetration of radical ideas was recog- in European history. nized in 2004 and 2005 by the spiritual board of Muslims of Tatarstan, and in particular with- Malashenko: I think this is a big problem for in the Muslim University of Russia, situated in Kazakhstan, and not just for the short term but Tatarstan, in . well into the future. In the region practically What do we have now? In Tatarstan and in nobody discusses your question, but sometimes as well, we have a network of it seems that scholars are very fearful. They are these imams who have established connections afraid about such an evolution, because if we between themselves and have penetrated sever- look at the global map, Kazakhstan is now per- al mosques, including four or five mosques in haps considered as a certain exception and is safe. Kazan. Sometimes officials recognize that this One theory on how Kazakhstan has kept its or that mosque is under the control of radicals; integrity is that Kazakhs are bad Muslims, and sometimes they do not. But clergymen of the the members of the Russian Orthodoxy in older generations of the and Yeltsin Kazakhstan are no better. I do not know eras are afraid of these developments, and they whether the situation improves under such do not know what to do about them. conditions. The same dynamic exists in practically each oblast of Russia where there are those who Question: I have a question for Nancy came back from Middle East. Among the Hewett about the concept of totalitarian sects.

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I wonder how specific this phenomenon is to by the government. The government offered us Russia, because as far as I have been able to another nice piece of land in trade, which was determine, the theoretical justification for approved by the mayor’s office. Then, as the terming certain groups as totalitarian sects development plans went ahead, the project drew came to Russia from people who simply took the attention of the Orthodox Church and other these concepts from the United States and people who were not comfortable with the proj- applied them in Russia. I was wondering if you ect. There were large protest marches complain- had any comments. ing that this was undermining the ethnicity of the state, and that drew a lot of attention. Then Hewett: I am glad you raised that issue. the mayor’s office withdrew the permission, Unfortunately, we saw the re-emergence of the which had been progressing through the admin- concept of totalitarian sects and cults in Europe, istrative processes at the time. We received an especially in France and in Germany, not so explanation that there were some questions many years ago. Russian policymakers seem to about certain sentences that were not dotted have been influenced by the Europeans from this properly and other similar reasons. perspective. Lest you think our office only takes What was interesting was that the conflict on post-Soviet states, we also speak to the then began to draw a lot of interest in India and Europeans and have in fact engaged with also in the United Kingdom, where there is a Germany and France on their religious freedom large Hindu population. As a result, there was policies and on this very issue in particular. pressure coming from British members of But once an organization is on the totalitar- Parliament and other international observers. ian sect list in Russia, then the rest of the post- When the mayor of Delhi was in Russia Soviet states seem to follow suit in their poli- recently promoting cooperation between the cies. In fact, it appears that security services two governments, she put the issue on the share lists of not only which groups to watch table, and within the last month the Russian out for, but also which individuals. Thus, indi- government has said that it is going to go ahead viduals who lose the ability to get into one of and allow the new temple. the post-Soviet states because of proselytizing Part of what drew a lot of attention in India or related activities will often then have diffi- was that Archbishop Nikon made some very culties getting into any of the others. The inflammatory comments in his efforts to draw impetus does seem to have come from the attention to the whole situation. These remarks West—that is, the existence of this kind of list irritated a lot of people in India and drew a lot of totalitarian sects in the West presented more international attention from the larger Russia with the opportunity to adopt the same Hindu communities abroad. practice. It certainly suited its purpose as well. So it might be of interest to see how the India card comes into play, because of the his- Question: Robert Crews talked about inter- torical Russian-Indian relationship and, in this national influences and how those complica- case, one archbishop who warned of “the evil tions come into play, particularly in terms of demon that personified the power of hell the Middle East and the West. But it might be opposing God coming from India.” When you interesting to consider also the concept of the say such things, people get riled. That may, in Eastern influence, particularly India’s historical turn, lead to some kind of moderation. relationship with Russia. Sometimes members Officials within the church have had to come of the Russian Orthodox Church may overplay out to say that the archbishop’s comments are their hand, which in turn gets covered by an not church policy, and that he speaks for him- international press that is moderate on religious self. That excessiveness led to a little bit of freedom. moderation in the church’s stance. Such factors For example, the Hare Krishna Caucus has may come into play in the future. been officially registered in Russia since 1988, and our largest community was in Moscow. A Crews: That is a wonderful suggestion, and it large temple had been functioning for many also brings to mind another issue that has not years there, but because of some road construc- been mentioned as much, and that is the cen- tion and city development, the land was taken tralization of religion as an object of mobiliza-

26 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 tion. Perhaps others can comment on this at ular anti-Semitism, popular Islamic phobia, greater length. I do not follow all the public- and so on. These are real phenomena. Racism opinion survey work, and that kind of data is is something that has not received the scholar- alien to me. In what little data I have seen ly attention it deserves in Russia, but it is about Islamic phobia in Russian society, some extremely serious. I think it will have some of the numbers that I have seen from Moscow, impact on the options that are open to the at least, are quite high. Kremlin in the future. So again, it is just a way Another issue that might be worth thinking of saying that we could talk about state mobi- about in this case with respect to this Indian lization as an element of religious policy, but I connection from abroad is Russian society. We think that there is a Russian society to consid- have focused on the Kremlin, and obviously er. Russia is a state that is attempting to shore these panels are devoted to state policy. But I up its legitimacy. It wants to be popular at think that, as in Europe, certain communities some level, and policing is not available in the have exerted very strong social pressure on the same way that it was under the Soviet regime. state to limit the exercise of freedom of con- science. Certainly among Muslims, what is so Question: What happened to the militant interesting is that these institutions have suc- atheists? Are there groups that oppose all reli- cessfully drawn Muslim laypeople into the liti- gion and want to return to the happy days of gation of these disputes. So even beyond the my own childhood in Moscow? level of the clerics and the capital cities, we have laypeople who are engaged in this. I Bogomolov: I do not know about Russia, should note that it is at their initiative. They are but in our own particular case, which is also a not simply passive objects of state mobilization. post-Soviet case, atheism was a profession I think that, in looking ahead, one critical rather than a belief. It had been so in the Soviet factor to consider would be not just the genera- Union since at least the middle of the last cen- tional question among Muslims, but also among tury. Russians. Alexey alluded to nationalism, but I was struck when I had a brief interview with an Comment: It was a game. assistant to the Mufti in Moscow when he drew my attention to his fear of pogroms aimed Bogomolov: It was also a profession. You against Muslims in Moscow. It seems far-fetched, could formally be licensed to be an atheist and but if you are there for awhile, you see acts of go and deliver propaganda lectures and be paid violence against Africans or people presumed to for it. In our case, all those former profession- be from the Caucasus. One could imagine a al atheists are now involved in religious studies. context for such fears in Moscow, especially now They produce a very interesting and very con- that there are close to a million Azeris in fusing discourse. Moscow who work in niches of the economy where they are thought by local Muscovites to Malashenko: I want to add that I assisted at be complicit in a negative side of capitalism. In a forum organized by Muslims, with some par- the markets, the locals see Azeris who are dark ticipation from the Orthodox Church, and the skinned, who are Muslim, and who are engaged problem they discussed was the struggle against in capitalism. There is a confluence of ethnic and Islamic radicalism, Western influence, pagan- racial stereotypes. ism, and atheism. When I asked them about I think it is significant that the state has atheism, some Muslims explained to me that looked back to a Russian past when there were there is inequality between paganism and athe- multiple confessions that were deemed tolera- ism. When I put the same question to people ble. It may not have been as diverse as most of from the Orthodox Church, they said, “Maybe us would want in its structure, and it was lim- we should agree and maybe not.” But anyway, iting, but at least there is that generic constitu- it is not fashionable to say that you are an athe- tional foundation upon which, presumably, ist. I think that in a short time it will come future generations can build. But where that back. It does not mean that once again we will will stand vis-à-vis public opinion is perhaps become an atheistic society, but some element worth more scrutiny, because there is also pop- of it must exist.

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Sewell: I will add one comment on the ques- These words were repeated practically verba- tion of the atheists. They certainly do show up in tim by Putin, and Russian clergymen were the religious studies programs. We also see some shocked. They had gotten accustomed to criti- as policymakers, and there the emphasis is often cizing and persecuting Wahhabism. By the way, on separationism. They do not describe them- there is a coincidence between this presidential selves as antireligious necessarily, but will say they sentence and the visit of Hamas to Moscow. We are promoting church-state separation. At times, can talk about a very ambiguous situation. religious policy seems to move from one extreme Islamic radicalism is badly criticized, but at the to the next—from hostile, antireligious separa- same time there are some positive trends, and not tionism that is pushed by the atheist contingency only in Palestine. Maybe it is possible to talk to to closer cooperation pushed by those, such as these people and have a dialogue. nationalists, who feel closer ties to Orthodoxy. I understand that all these are typical specula- There is a lack of the kind of middle ground that tions, but it helps to correct a general position we have here in the United States of people who toward Islam in the North Caucasus. Among the want some separation but are themselves sympa- Russian political elite, including Putin himself, thetic to religious groups. There is less of a sense they recognize that there are some ways to talk to in Russia that religious groups can benefit from them and not to kill them. separation than there is here. But you certainly When you asked about radicalism, Islamism, still have an atheist bloc out there. and so on—it is not a very integrated group like a political party. This is a confederation of differ- Question: Going back to the discussion of ent approaches. There are those who are more Slavic radicalism in Russia, I wonder whether moderate and less moderate, more radical and there is a consensus among the panelists about less radical. There are those whose target is the what actually constitutes Islamic radicalism in local administration and perhaps Putin. But at the Russia, and whether the conception of Islamic same time, there are people who are able to radicalism in Russia is different elsewhere. Also, negotiate, whether with the president of is there a spiritual debate within Russia on these Dagestan or the . This is a ideas? Is conflict the result of competition, as very important thing. Alexey suggests, or is there a real basis in theolo- Since approximately 2002 or 2003, a new gy for the conflict? trend has emerged. In the North Caucasus there are those who will not identify them- Malashenko: So many questions. Indeed, it is selves with Chechen separatists, nor with those very interesting, but I feel that I am not able to who will speak about social justice or Soviet answer all your questions because of a lack of territory, nor with those who want to get rid of time. There is a debate inside Islam; it exists. Putin. There are some who identify themselves Despite all the words about the struggle against with global jihad. It is not a joke. Indeed, they Wahhabism, fundamentalism, and the rest, there believe that they have a special mission. In the is a very strong discussion. It is underway, first of 1990s some in the Russian secret services, and all, in mosques and in institutions in the North some official Russian propaganda, said a lot Caucasus. It has spread in Tatarstan and even in about the existence of such a trend, but at that Bashkortostan. We have some Russian-language time it never really existed. Now it has publications that can be read by Muslims, and let emerged, and nobody knows what to do about me say that this is first a clandestine or semiclan- it beyond saying they are gangsters and bandits. destine form of discussion. But they are real mujahideen who claim to While Wahhabism and fundamentalism and so occupy a special Caucasian position in the on were not officially prohibited a year ago, they world jihad. I do not know how many there were persecuted. If I accuse somebody of being are, nobody knows. Maybe something around a a Wahhabi or fundamentalist, he may encounter thousand, but they are all across the North some problems. Yet in January or December of Caucasus, and nobody knows how many peo- 2005, Dmitri Kozak, President Putin’s represen- ple support them. tative in the Southern Federal District, asked why we criticize Wahhabism and suggested that Abramson: Would any of the other panelists we should talk about it and not just criticize it. like to address that question?

28 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 Hewett: I would imagine that where global confrontation is one that is subject to debate, of jihad exists, and the notion of overturning the course. How central is Islam to this? One could state as part of that, is where the dividing line also focus on two competing nationalisms, with will come eventually in regard to what Russia foreign-policy adventures thrown into the mix. will tolerate and what Russian government But more broadly, it is only natural to expect officials will tolerate. They probably will allow that Muslims in the Russian Federation who discussion about more fundamental under- have access to the Internet, who have access to standings of Islam that we often associate with travel, and who have access to education abroad Wahhabism in the traditional sense—that I are going to be more integrated into a kind of think you see starting to emerge with this ref- global Muslim community. How the state erence to Putin’s note of caution about criti- accommodates that development, or fails to cizing Islam. There is a desire in the Muslim accommodate it, will help determine whether community in Russia to have a moral compass or not these people will choose radical alterna- and to have an ideology to guide one’s actions tives. I think that is to be expected. I also think in the present and to anchor one’s life. I think radicalism as a term is a code word that 95 per- they will be tolerated up until the point that cent of the time is used to characterize people they advocate against the people in power. who are adopting norms that come from abroad. It does not mean that they are adopting Crews: I will add one line. Radicalism is a terrorist norms or are joining Al Qaeda. It may subjective and often polemical category. If we mean that they are choosing to grow a beard, or take the detainees of Guantánamo, to my that they are choosing to adopt an alternative knowledge there never have been any form of dress, or that they trained in a there. But there are a handful of Jordanian madrassa. But if we begin to label all Russian subjects in Guantánamo who are from those people radicals and terrorists, put them in various parts of the Russian Federation. But camps, or hold their faith in contempt, then I these guys are the product of civil war. They are think the Russian state, like other states, will all Muslim, and the whole Russian-Chechen really implant a problem.

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Panel 2: The Regional Challenge: Managing Religious Diversity

Chair: Margaret Paxson, Senior Associate, Kennan Institute Sascha Goluboff, Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Washington and Lee University, and author, Jewish Russians: Upheavals in a Moscow Synagogue Alexander Bogomolov, Vice President, Association of Middle East Studies, Ukraine Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer, Research Professor, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Georgetown University

Margaret Paxson: I thought the discussion ties on the ground, and how is diversity with- this morning was fascinating and a great start to in that context dealt with? Is diversity more our day. From the perspective of an anthropol- difficult on the ground than it is up at the level ogist, I saw that we started up in the realm of of the state? Or is it perhaps a little bit easier? the states and in the realm of policies and state There were some hints of that this morning. As actors, and that of course is crucial to the issues we go on, we can think about the special prob- that we are trying to get at in our conference. lem of living together in diverse communities, But right now, we are going to move down to at the level of the community. the level of communities, and I think that is also quite important. We will look at the prob- Sascha Goluboff: I am a cultural anthropol- lem of religion and what religion is, and what ogist. Information for this paper comes from it does, and how it is also a verb, as opposed to my ethnographic research. I did work in a noun. It is really important to get into the Moscow during 1995–96 and in 2000. In addi- lived practices of peoples and communities. tion, I have talked to people on the phone and I can say a couple of words of introduction corresponded by e-mail about what is going on about my own research and how religion sur- over there, which I will utilize in this presen- prised me. My own fieldwork as an anthropol- tation. I also have updates from newspaper ogist was done in a small village in rural reports and the like. Russia, and I had no intention whatsoever to I will begin by mentioning what we usually study religion per se while I was there. When I hear about Jews in Russia, such as incidents of got there, I learned that there were no church- popular and legislated anti-Semitism. There is es nearby, and only one person in the whole also what people are calling the renaissance of village would ever go to church. But at the Jewish life. In January 2005, a group of same time, there was a great deal of religion deputies from the retracted a and religious practice. And when I say that, I demand, sent earlier to the Prosecutor mean that in the moments of people’s direst General’s Office, to ban all Jewish organiza- fears and their most transcendent hopes, they tions in Russia. The original demand stated turn somewhere. They turn to God or saints or that anti-Semitic acts in Russia are the product wherever. I take that as a certain form of reli- of anti-Christian behavior on the part of Jews, gious practice. or committed by Jews themselves as grounds to If you take this religion as more or less liv- take punitive measures against patriots. ing and without institutions and you think Another press story relates to some of the about that and how it works, you get to one of other incidents we have been discussing about the problems that we are trying to examine: the control of religious texts. It concerns a What is religion as it is practiced by communi- translation of the Shulkhan Arukh, which is

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basically about Jewish ways of life, and how it Moscow. An inside source told me that suppos- was investigated as to whether it incites nation- edly the Israeli Embassy has registered any- al and religious hatred. In February 2006, pro- where from 80,000 to 100,000 Israelis living in posed amendments to Russia’s law on freedom Moscow. Some people estimate that the num- of conscience would have enabled authorities ber of Jewish communities in Russia has grown to close down religious associations more easi- from 87 to 200. ly by allowing the Federal Registration Service Sources are contradictory, but we could say [FRS] to carry out inspections at the slightest that according to figures from 2003, there are suspicion of extremism and go to court to get perhaps 400,000 to 700,000 Jews in Russia. associations banned. This right would apply to These are the kinds of reports that we are hear- conducting religious study checks as well. ing in the media as well. In fact, some say that Whereas Russian Orthodox and Protestant the upsurge of anti-Semitism is a backlash communities are unworried about such propos- against the increase in Jewish communities. als, it is said that Muslim, Jewish, and Krishna Others have said the Russian government is organizations are concerned that the Federal actually genuinely committed to repairing the Registration Service could become an instru- wrongs of the past, and they reference Putin’s ment for suppression of freedom of belief. recent speech at Auschwitz, where he noted We also hear about grassroots anti-Semitism, that there are “acts of anti-Semitism and intol- such as graffiti on synagogues and violent erance in Russia, and we should feel ashamed attacks against Jews. The Moscow bureau of of what is going on in the present.” People are Human Rights Watch said that Moscow is the thus speculating on the ties between rising anti- most dangerous city for Jews in Russia, with 27 Semitism and the visible face of Jews in Russia. anti-Semitic attacks in the period 2004–05. My hypothesis is that the media’s focus on the There is also a reported rise in racial vio- complex relationship between rising anti- lence and expressions of racial extremism, and Semitism and the upsurge in visible Jewish activ- increasing use of racist and xenophobic dis- ities, while important, disguises the extremely course in politics, according to the European diverse nature of Jewish identity and community Commission against Racism and Intolerance. in Russia. The presence of grassroots and possi- Its report also said that visible minorities, like bly legislative anti-Semitism really and truly neg- the Jews, are the main targets of racially moti- atively impacts the possibilities of the rights of vated attacks. I think this was also mentioned Jewish individuals and organizations to achieve by the earlier speakers. their full potential, but the future of the Jewish Finally, Russia’s new Public Chamber was religion in Russia hinges more on the outcome also mentioned. This is a consultative body cre- of a less reported phenomenon. ated by Putin to serve as a bridge between the There is a struggle among Jewish communi- state and civil society, and the chamber con- ties in Moscow for power and resources, and it cluded that xenophobia and fascism are gen- takes place on two levels. The first level is the uine problems and serious threats. occasionally reported conflicts among Jewish The most recent attack of this sort happened spiritual leaders, who represent competing this past January, when a 20-year-old man Jewish factions, over who has authority to direct assaulted worshippers at a synagogue with a religious practice and policy in Russia. This hunting knife. He was sentenced to 13 years in relates back to Robert Crews’s point about prison and mandatory psychiatric treatment. He authenticity. The second conflict, which is was not found guilty of racial hatred. Instead, he almost unreported in the media, concerns nego- was found guilty of murder on racist grounds and tiation among different Jewish ethnic groups wounding nine men, but basically the other within these Jewish factions for influence and charges against him were dropped. material goods. This of course relates to Alexey You can look at examples of legislated anti- Malashenko’s point about the fight over what Semitism and grassroots anti-Semitism. But on belongs to whom, and it plays a big role here. the other hand, you have what many are calling Let me talk about conflicts among Jewish a visible renaissance of Jewish life in Russia. An spiritual leaders. There are two different Jewish estimated 57,000 Jews have come back to federations, each with prospective leaders.

32 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 KEROOR is the Congress of Jewish Religious more underground. Rabbi Berl Lazar came to Communities and Organizations of Russia. the Soviet Union in 1990 with the blessing of FEOR is the Hasidic Federation of Jewish the Rebbe to oversee the reconstruction of Communities of Russia. As it so happens, Hasidic synagogues and revive Jewish life. President Putin is aligned with FEOR and not The conflict between the Orthodox and the KEROOR. Lubavitcher Hasidim came to a head in 2000, There are other groups, but these are the when FEOR elected Berl Lazar to be the chief two powerhouses. Let me just briefly talk rabbi of Russia. At that time, the Putin admin- about them. KEROOR is headed by the chief istration recognized both chief rabbis, but then rabbi of Russia, Adolf Shayevich. Pinchas the competition intensified over who would Goldschmidt is the chief rabbi of Moscow. gain Putin’s ear and thus more influence in They are Orthodox Jews, and their offices are government policy over Jewish religious located at the . organizations and their material holdings. It KEROOR also includes Reformed Jews. soon became clear that Berl Lazar had gained Zinovi Kogan, a Reform Jewish leader, is chair the favor of Putin. This shows how Putin and of KEROOR. the Russian government do not want to deal FEOR is Lubavitcher Hasidic, and is head- with Jewish religious diversity. Putin frequent- ed by Rabbi Berl Lazar, who also holds the ly visited FEOR’s main synagogue. He lit a title of chief rabbi of Russia. Thus, there are menorah with Berl Lazar. In March 2001, Berl two rival chief rabbis of Russia. Shayevich was Lazar replaced Shayevich on the President’s elected by Russian Jewish leaders and then Berl Council for Cooperation with Religious Lazar was elected by his own group. Organizations, and in September 2005 Lazar Lubavitcher Hasidim have institutions all was the only Jewish religious leader among the throughout Russia, and their two synagogues 42 people directly appointed by Putin to serve in Moscow are Bolshaya Bronnaya and Marina in the Public Chamber. Roscha. The end result is that the Hasidic communi- Let me briefly explain the differences ty centered at Marina Roscha is now the main between the Orthodox and Hasidim. The community, and it has gained a lot of funding. Hasidim started as a mystical and popular Russian Jews from all over the former Soviet movement in southern Poland and Ukraine in Union come to Marina Roscha to go to yeshi- the 18th century. The Baal Shem Tov, the va, obtain job opportunities, and find suitable founder of the movement, provided a new way marriage partners in Israel or the United States. of being religious that moved away from the The consequence here is that Jewish leaders Orthodox notion that one must study the conceptualize diversity among religious Jews as Jewish texts, the Torah and Talmud, to become a negative, because unity in a mission will gain religious and knowledgeable and thereby gain favor with the government, and those who are access to God. Instead, the Baal Shem Tov out of favor do not have the ties and means nec- practiced mystical healing, and he believed in essary for success. We have a conflict between serving God through joy and song. The Hasids FEOR and KEROOR for control over the thus became opposed to the Orthodox, who Jewish community and Putin’s attention. continued to stress Talmudic learning as the What we have, then, is a competition for core of Jewish practice. As time went on, the souls, so to speak. Both groups are vying for Hasidim saw themselves as even more pious the attention of the same growing Jewish pop- than the Orthodox. They kept higher kosher ulation. There is also a struggle to make Jews laws and were in general more “orthodox” religious. Some of you are probably familiar than the Orthodox. with the notion that being Jewish in the Soviet The last Rebbe of the Lubavitcher Hasids, Union was associated with ethnic identity, a Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, ran an sort of secular identity with a historical tradi- underground support network for Hasids dur- tion. This is a competition to make those Jews ing the Soviet Union, and its base was Marina become religious and follow religious laws. Roscha Synagogue. Thus, the Hasids were I want to focus briefly on this other aspect; present throughout the Soviet period, but were that is, the negotiation among different Jewish

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ethnic groups within FEOR and KEROOR synagogue. Yet there are still debates as to for power and resources. I focus on the which one is in charge, and they all have their Moscow Choral Synagogue, where I did my own sponsors. fieldwork. On the outside, it looks like a typi- The competition among the Hasidim and cal stronghold for the Orthodox group. There the Orthodox Jews for followers, and the media were four different Jewish groups during my attention that these conflicts attract, belie the time at the synagogue: the Russian Jews, the more complex reality of Jewish religious diver- Bukharan Jews, the Georgian Jews, and the sity in Russia. It is diversity not only of denom- Mountain Jews from the Caucasus. All of them ination, but also of ethnicity in terms of ties to came to Moscow looking for better lives, espe- homeland, in terms of culture, and in terms of cially after the fall of the Soviet Union, and language. These distinctions hold sway even if, each one of them attempted to gain their own say, Mountain Jews ally themselves with space within the Choral Synagogue—to have Orthodox Jews or the Hasidim. A Russian state their own rabbis and to gain resources from policy that continues to favor one Jewish local and international sponsors. There was lots denomination over the other, or exerts pressure of discourse over who was more moral in terms on Jewish groups to align themselves with one of access to money and the ability of each group over the other for expediency, will in the group to compete in this new post-Soviet busi- end work to exacerbate the differences between ness culture. They really defined themselves in denominations and ethnic groups. As each terms of gaining access to synagogue space, group works to win over the Kremlin and which was also manifested in their ability to establish physical evidence of its strength, such gain sponsors within the Jewish community. as synagogues, it will put more resources into In conclusion, this quick rundown shows that struggle rather than into meeting the needs that post-Soviet religious Jewish identity is of its individual congregants. contextual, so one cannot simply be “Jewish” I also think that this competition to gain and in Russia today. Being Jewish means a choice to display those resources could infringe upon between associating oneself with the Hasidim the rights of Jews in terms of their ability to or with the Orthodox. Also, it means choosing worship. Since the Kremlin does not really rec- what ethnic adjective you put in front of “Jew.” ognize alternative versions of Judaism, those Are you a Russian Jew, Georgian Jew, left without funding or ties to the government Bukharan Jew, or Mountain Jew? All of these are not successful in exercising their rights or different ethnic Jewish groups have interna- meeting their needs through different ways of tional ties, and they also have their own web- worshipping. sites and are very interested in maintaining those international links. Alexander Bogomolov: I am going to talk The Moscow Choral Synagogue has recent- about Islam. My experience is of course with ly received some money to have a cupola Islam in Ukraine, not Russia. While there is an restored to its synagogue, but the Marina increasing amount of difference between these Roscha Synagogue is definitely more illustri- two cultures and countries, I still believe that ous. In addition to the richly appointed main this experience and the outcome of this study prayer room, it has a gym as well as a basketball can be used for comparative purposes as part of court. One of its main sponsors is the Russian what could be referred to as the post-Soviet oligarch Roman Abramovich, so you can context. There certainly are things that both imagine that it has a lot of money. countries inherited from the past, and these Now there is also the question of the traditions and memories, including within the Sephardic Synagogue. I have heard contradic- government, are still relevant. tory reports about this small synagogue. Some I was interested in the previous presentation say it is for the Mountain Jews; others say it is and noted a few things that are valid in terms of for the Bukharan Jews. There is conflict comparison, whether for Islam or other religions between them, because they do not want to in the post-Soviet context. It strikes me that the align themselves with the Hasidim or the notion of unity as a value is pretty much present, Orthodox—they each want to have their own no matter which confessional denomination we

34 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 may talk about. These points are true about terms of public recognition and acknowledg- Orthodoxy and are certainly true about ment from the government as experts on reli- Muslims. Ukrainian Muslims talk about unity a gion. They have dominated the secular dis- lot, but they do not have it, and I predict that course about religion thus far. they will not have it anytime soon. I have had a chance to study and to con- We are talking about religious freedom, template the situation regarding religiosity in and, as was mentioned in the program for the the Ukrainian context of the province of conference, about managing diversity. I would Donbas, which is a mining province in eastern like to start by emphasizing the importance of Ukraine. The local Muslim population there these notions, and I believe that in the post- dates to the late 1920s or 1930s. They are for- Soviet context the challenge is how to shift mer economic migrants who settled down in a from administering the faith to managing faith compact fashion so that they stayed together, and diversity. This is the challenge we all face sharing a cluster of streets or a neighborhood, in the post-Soviet context, and which so far and they continue to live in this fashion. governments have largely fallen short of meet- I spoke to former and current mullahs and ing, both in Ukraine and in Russia. This is to several generations overall, and came to cer- basically the topic of the conference. tain conclusions. Some results have been pub- But to understand why, I believe that a lished in English, as has been noted by our col- more careful study of the basic notions of the league Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer, in a pub- conceptual operators we use for understanding lication of the Institute for the Study of Islam religion in the post-Soviet situation is needed. in the Modern World titled Islamic Knowledge in A much used, and probably overused, notion the Ukraine. My contention or theory is that for describing the situation of religion in the despite the Soviet government’s ideology of former Soviet Union is that of revival, vozrozh- atheism and the mechanisms and institutions denie in Russian or vidrodzhennia in Ukrainian. that worked against religion in the former This concept is usually translated into English Soviet Union, the social frameworks for the as “renaissance,” and sometimes as “resur- support of Islamic knowledge were always gence” or “revival.” It projects the idea of there. This is evident in the local context of something being dead for a certain period of Donbas, and I believe it is so in many other time and then somehow resurrected. This is areas as well, despite the absence of organized how it has been conceived. A kind of revivalist religion. The transfer of knowledge was going discourse has emerged in the , on, and the fashion in which it was done led which is also the language of most Ukrainian me to the conclusion that what I believe to be Muslims. Most Ukrainian Muslims do not a normal human demand for religiosity was speak Ukrainian, and in their public discourse satisfied in a rather nice fashion, despite the they largely tend to use Russian as well as eth- fact that religion itself was suppressed. nic languages such as the Crimean Tatar lan- The practical social outcome of the policies guage. Other ethnic languages are less in use. against religion, in this particular context at In this discourse, which has a lot of similar- least, was that religion was largely excluded ities both in Ukraine and in Russia, a large from the public domain. It was driven inside space is dedicated to this notion of revival, and the household, but it still was a very popular I believe this notion is sometimes taken by phenomenon. It was always a group phenome- external observers at face value. In reality, peo- non. The communal character of Islam makes ple are not returning somewhere, and the idea this religion stand out among others, to an of using the past as a reference in constructing extent, and in that particular context this their future somehow escapes a large part of aspect was maintained and even increased. even academic discussion. This concept is espe- What I am trying to arrive at is that this cially missing from government-produced dis- seeming boom of religious identities on the courses and the discourses produced by those part of the newly formed faith groups after the former atheists who are now involved in reli- collapse of the Soviet Union, in both Ukraine gious studies. These individuals are now per- and Russia, is something else in its inner haps the most powerful experts, at least in nature. It is not a sudden increase of demand

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for religiosity as such. The driving force behind the table in the previous session, and that is this phenomenon is substantially different. It whether Islam lacks a “church.” I think this is a comes from the fact that the collapse of the simplification. Islam has produced and contin- institution of the Soviet state—and with it the ues to produce new hierarchies, as any human entire social fabric in the local sense, the orig- organization always does. The fact is that inal sense, the personal sense, and finally in the Islamic hierarchies, in in particular, national sense—led to people having a sense of are less formalized than many Christian vacuum in their lives. This is not a vacuum of denominations, and do not so easily lend them- ideologies, as it has been publicly perceived and selves to co-optation by the government. But much written about, but instead a vacuum of the attempts nevertheless are always there, and identities. Religions provide a very fertile refer- it is so not only in the case of Russia, but also ence base for building and constructing identi- in Muslim countries such as Egypt and else- ties. This is what actually brought about the where, that we see that the government sees boom of identities, and even more so when the creation of controllable imams or mullahs as other ways of expressing oneself and sustaining its paramount task. It is not something bor- group identities are suppressed. This dynamic is rowed from Europe or Napoleon—it is there in thus more pronounced in a context where we the heartlands of Islam. find a harsher and more authoritarian regime, The problem again is diversity. What the and such is the case in Russia as opposed to governments and the elites are faced with in Ukraine. Not only after the Orange both Russia and Ukraine is an increased and Revolution but even before, Ukraine had a unexpected amount of social diversity in many softer regime in this area. different shapes. Religion is only one side of The driving force for increased diversity is that. The challenge the democracies and non- not only religious diversity but also youth sub- democracies in the post-Soviet space face is not cultures. My colleagues working in Belarus, only religion itself, but how to deal with and for instance, have seen a boom of youth sub- manage this diversity. Religion in particular, cultures unlike in Ukraine. We have much less for whatever reason, is perceived as a greater diversity of youth subcultures. These identities, diversifying factor than ethnicity. The Soviet the religion as such, help sustain groups against Union somehow managed and learned how to the domination of bigger groups and certainly live with hundreds of ethnicities, but failed to against suppression by the state. Religion, as learn how to learn with multiple religious opposed to ethnicity and ethnic nationalism as identities. Those identities were driven down a more consistent ideological framework for into little pockets and never posed a challenge. sustaining ethnic identity, provides compara- It would be true to say that religion poses a tively easier ground, or material, for identity greater threat to the management of post- construction. It offers a text, which could be Soviet administrative systems. It challenges, in a discussed, disputed, and reinterpreted by dif- more profound way, their capacity to adminis- ferent competing subgroups inside a larger ter and control things. group. This enables people to create different One supporting fact from my studies in versions of the same identity. For instance, Crimea to sustain this notion—and some reli- there are different ways of being Muslim or gious people would perhaps not like me to say Christian based on varying interpretations of this—is that religious symbols tend to be used those faiths, resulting in varying forms of more extensively in situations of confrontation social organization and identity construction. as opposed to situations of peace and friend- There might be a dispute as to whether your ship. Ethnic symbols, such as ethnic dances and Islam or my Islam is better, for instance. I folklore music, are accepted in very different believe that the same thing is going on with ways. They are not perceived by anybody as a the Jewish community in Russia, as was threat in the public space, whereas the public described in the previous presentation. presentation of a different religion is. Crimean So religion is a basic reference, which is who want to be more visible and have more flexible in a way, paradoxically. I would their voices better heard at their demonstra- address something that has already been put on tions are increasingly using religious symbols.

36 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 The situation in Crimea has another point idea was brought to the table by the local gov- of relevance to the case of Russia and also to ernment, and said that they also needed some- this section of the conference on regional chal- thing patriotic. They questioned why they were lenges. The nature of this challenge is that we excluded from the approval for the construction have two major faiths in Crimea. One is of such a large church as well as the govern- Orthodoxy, which is actually a Russia-based, ment-sponsored memorial. But the Muslims’ Moscow-administered church, and there reaction was to begin planning the construction already has been a lot said about the way of a larger mosque. They are seeking approval Russian authorities cooperate with the for construction, and have raised money for it, Orthodox Church and use it in the context of but they face enormous bureaucratic difficulties promoting Russian nationalism. That point is in securing a site for it. important for Ukraine, because the nature of The most conspicuous and notorious case the challenge in the region is not just Islam and in point is the idea of the Crimean Orthodox Russian Orthodoxy but also Russian national- metropolitan Lazar to mark the 2,000th ism within Ukraine. anniversary of in the year 2000 by Religious symbols, such as churches and placing large stone crucifixes all across Crimea, crosses, are used as a language of dominance by particularly in places densely populated by the Russian majority against Muslims, who Crimean Tatars. This has provoked a wave of constitute 12 percent of the Crimean popula- protests from the Tatars. I have been to sites of tion. Crimean Tatars use their religious sym- these protests and spoken with the participants, bols in a similar fashion to fight back, and this including the most moderate protestors, who symbolic war has been going on since the mass attempted to mediate the dispute. The issue repatriation of Crimean Tatars to Crimea. was also brought to the highest government A characteristic example that I can mention is level, where it is still pending. The so-called the biggest mosque in Crimea. It hosts a wor- continue to make such provocations shipping crowd of up to 400 people. The specifically to show off in front of Muslims. Russian Orthodox Church went on to build a The Muslims react in turn, and this symbolic church that is at least five times bigger than the war is the result. mosque. It does not mean that the religiosity or This is evidence for my initial contention, the number of Orthodox worshippers is greater, that the claim of certain of our so-called reli- but the intention was to construct the larger gion experts that politics are epiphenomenal to church right in the middle of the town and religiosity or religious freedom is not true—it select a provocative name, Alexander Nevsky, as is the other way around. Religiosity is largely the patron of this church. In the history of an epiphenomenon of an increased demand for Russian colonization of Poland and other places, group identity, and identity politics is probably the usual practice was to build a church to St. the framework for certain other things. The Alexander Nevsky, the warrior saint who fought government should try to understand that. But the Western crusaders—the Teutonic Knights. A so far, the government’s efforts are very much prominent case in point was the Warsaw scattered in Ukraine, at least. Alexander Nevsky Cathedral that was demol- On the level of legislation in Ukraine, reli- ished in the mid-1920s by the Polish authorities gion is primarily treated as an issue of human less than 15 years after its construction, for it had rights and freedom. The government takes that been viewed by Catholic Poles as a symbol of approach in its legislation on religion as well as Russian dominance. in some other spheres, like migration. I was In Crimea, the projected Alexander Nevsky surprised to find it is sometimes more progres- Cathedral was included as part of a single sive than much Western European legislation, memorial place with graves and a tank monu- but it does not necessarily work. ment dedicated to World War II, after a pro- At the same time, Islam is framed as a for- longed dispute with the war veterans. It is a eign faith in the Ukrainian culture and by very sensitive issue, particularly in Crimea, many in the government as well. It is not an because many retired army pensioners reside official policy, but the perception is there that there. Muslims immediately reacted when the Islam is a nonlocal or imported thing, and

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therefore can be easily excluded and avoided. this case, Putin is sending a message of support When government does try to interfere in reli- for “folk Islam,”a moderate, tolerant Islam that gion and mediate between religious groups, it has a lot of pre-Islamic aspects to it. does so between branches of Orthodoxy. We As a cultural anthropologist, I look at the have plenty of branches of Orthodoxy, and the importance of religious traditions and ethnici- driving force behind government efforts is the ty, and their politicized correlations over time. idea of perhaps uniting everybody behind I feel very challenged that Alexander shared values and making Ukraine into a Bogomolov has proposed a competing, juxta- monolith. I do not think it will work. posing view to explain which is more impor- The only reason we have become an tant, religion or ethnicity, in terms of the way acknowledged democracy is because we have in which symbols are used and competed for. I always had diversity over the past 15 years, and am not sure we can actually say whether either we will continue to have this diversity. This is type of identity, particularly religion, is more our destiny. Many people in the government incendiary. However, when there is a mix of hate this, but in fact it will continue. We have both of these interesting identity dynamics, diversity on the level of different branches of there can be extra potential for extremism. It is Orthodoxy, we have diversity on the level of going to be very important to start thinking religion overall, and even in economics we do about ethnic diversity and religious diversity not have one dominating force—we have many and their nexus in more subtle ways. These are competing ones. Therefore, Ukraine has to just very general opening remarks. develop a democratic framework for dealing Two more images are salient to showing a with religious issues, and I believe that under- range of politicized religion in Russia. A standing diversity as a value would be a good famous Tatar cartoon dating from the turn of starting point. the 20th century depicts moderate Islam and advocates education for women. And most Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer: These pre- delightful is an early-1990s photograph of a sentations provide such rich offerings that I feel Russian Orthodox priest exorcizing evil spirits as if I have more than enough to talk about just from the church in the courtyard of the KGB by discussing what has been said today. But my complex in Moscow. I should mention that I role here is also going to be to expand a bit on am in the process of editing a book on religion other aspects of religious communities, in addi- and politics in Russia, and so this conference tion to making some comments specifically comes at a great time for me to think about about what we have just heard. some general trends concerning religious com- I want to warm up with some images rele- munities. I do not want to reduce things to vant to the debates about President Putin’s role. lowest common denominators, however. I will I will first talk about Russia, but I am also also briefly bring in not only the missing going to make a real effort to make some excit- Buddhist community, but also mention some of ing comparisons given Alexander Bogomolov’s the missing shamanists, since I do my own wonderful talk on Ukraine. fieldwork out in the Far East in the Sakha On a recent trip to , President Putin Republic [Yakutia]. posed in the center of a Buddhist group. While My first trend concerns increasing pluralism. the photo is admittedly not set in Russia itself, It is not enough just to say that there is diversi- salient symbolism is very much there—Putin ty in Russia and to talk about “managed plural- right in the middle of a kung fu group with ism” concerning the four “privileged” religions. Buddhists. He is the center of attention within It is also important to understand how diversity a community, and he presents an image of a can sometimes be misrepresented, and how public figure in a religious midst. He has no people can be accused of being extremist when problem with this, or with traditional religion they are not. Given this process, what we can do as a value. He’s sending a message about offi- is learn how to focus on the practitioners them- cially sponsored religions. There is another selves and what they are saying about their own photo of Putin dancing at a Muslim Tatar festi- conditions and their own debates? I think val, Sabantui, in Tatarstan several years ago. In Sascha Goluboff’s and Alexander Bogomolov’s

38 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 essays, discussions, and books all point to these Republic, is that each generation tends to kinds of sensitivities. One message is: do not remake its own traditions. This sometimes radicalize people until they radicalize them- shocks people who think of traditions as stable, selves. Relevant here is [French philosopher] timeless. People with renewed interest in reli- Bruno Latour’s idea of “iconoclash.” Certainly, gion are processing a lot of very diverse kinds we just saw how this can play out in Ukraine— of knowledge, and so they are picking and iconoclash symbolism as opposed to some sort choosing from tradition what kinds of idioms of larger clash of civilizations predicted by and symbols will become important and when Samuel Huntington. Latour highlights debates they will be triggered. In sum, ethnicity itself inside religious communities as well as between does not equal religion, and religion does not religious communities. equal ethnicity—in neither Russia nor Communities also relate to each other vari- Ukraine, two places where there has been con- ously over different issues. I think one of the siderable diversity. more interesting trends that we have seen this My third major trend has to do with polar- past spring is Muslim and Orthodox leaders ization and extremist minorities within reli- getting together over issues of morality to gions. Here I need to be less upbeat. The rele- protest gay parades and gay politics. We have a vant dynamic is that similar kinds of funda- lot of shifting political diversities and voices mentalisms seem to be arising in various reli- here. It is more diverse than perhaps a cliché gious communities. I think something is devel- about a few cleavages within a given religious oping in Russia that may potentially motivate community might convey. anthropologists to attempt to create typologies My second big trend in the way religious of fundamentalisms, or to think about the trig- politics play out, certainly in Russia and gers for fundamentalisms. What creates polar- Ukraine, has to do with folk syncretic tradi- ization, and what influences young people to tions and the linkage of religion to ethnona- turn into radical Muslims? Obviously, arresting tional backgrounds. There has been a lot of young people for radicalism before they have manipulation on this score, including by offi- become radical can tend to polarize them, for cial demographers, by authorities, and by example in the North Caucasus. “religious entrepreneurs.” As scholars, we have Another thing to consider when looking at trouble defining the demographics of national Russian Orthodox discourses and the radical- and religious congruency, especially since we ization of Russian nationalists has to do with did not get accurate responses in the last [2002] their legitimate—and I am using a value word census, when no question was asked on reli- here—complaints against the “McDonald-iza- gion. We also have some unexpected new data. tion” of the spirit, as some Russian Orthodox We have Russians converting to Islam, as well officials have said. So, yes, there is a tendency as the more obvious issues concerning how towards an “us and them” discourse in religion. you count Muslims—whether you count 14 I am not sure that it is by definition sharper just million or 20 million. Do we count every because it concerns religion, but we certainly member of an associated with do see this playing out in some contexts. Islam as Muslim? A further issue becomes how One way to get an early warning sense of to look at diversity within religious communi- the potential for fundamentalism is to study the ties, especially because of the delicate phe- geography of religion or the geography of reli- nomenon of “folk Islam”—mixes of pre- gious competition. This pertains to the reli- Islamic traditions. Here I might surprise people gious symbol competitions that we have heard by saying that there is also diversity and debate about, over the ways in which mosques and within shamanic traditions. These concern churches are contended for in every city in issues of shamanic revival, small intellectual Russia. In , where I have done a lot of groups fighting among themselves over how my urban fieldwork, there is a new shamanic best to portray and maybe reinvent religion in temple. This type of construction had not the name of national identity. occurred before in shamanic traditions, but the One of the things that I talk about a lot, intelligentsia decided that they needed a including when I go into the field in the Sakha “House of Purification” [Archie Diete] as a

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way to compete with missionaries and the Church. I am not only talking about the ram- Russian Orthodox Church. One of the things ifications of the 1997 Law on Freedom of that happened in the process of shamanic Conscience and on Religious Associations. I renewal and revitalization—and yes, it is revi- am talking about how people feel in these talization because of the Soviet repression—is actual Russian-dominated communities. that the planned temple was supposed to be I want to refer again to Alexander right next to a new Russian Orthodox church. Bogomolov’s work. He mentioned briefly how The archbishop of the region complained, and issues of Soviet antireligious repression, or the the temple was placed down the street a block way that religious and political diversity was away. But then there was further complaint handled, had always been a little softer in from the Russian Orthodox community Ukraine. I pricked up my ears, because one of because—and this I got directly from an inter- my favorite theorists of ethnonationalism is an view with the archbishop—the steeple that was historian of China named Prasenjit Duara, who planned for the temple was higher than that of has a theory of hardening and softening bound- the Russian Orthodox Church. They built it aries. He talks about the zigzags in histories of anyway, and the political dynamics within that hardening and softening boundaries, and how it temple and surrounding it are considerable. is much more difficult to return to “soft” Let me go on to other examples of compe- boundaries after they have been hardened with tition and fighting with symbols. We have from ethnonational animosity. His work combines Sascha Goluboff some absolutely fascinating issues of ethnonationalism and religion, but examples of conflict within the Jewish com- focuses on the ethnonational identities. munity, with two major competing communi- Let me get to a final point about the trends ty centers. And while we are talking about and then make a few more comments on the symbols in Moscow, we also have the famous specific presentations. One of the things that I symbol of Christ the Savior, the Russian think we need to think more about is the struc- Orthodox cathedral rebuilt on the site of a tural ramifications of political zigzagging and swimming pool, funded through volunteer mixed signals from authorities and their reso- donations and also huge individual and corpo- nance inside communities. After the exuberance rate “donations” made at the behest of Mayor of the freedoms under the Russian Federation Yuri Luzhkov. Here, the political dynamic is 1993 constitution, it is particularly hard to cope about sacred/secular tensions, as well as asser- with the uneven and unfair implementation of tions of Orthodoxy. the 1997 Law on Religious Organizations. I Some symbols and competitions are not so would make the argument that President Putin acrimonious. I do not want to give the impres- has created some real structural, long-term sion that they are all at the same level. I think implications for the way he has been trying to they get to a level of real seriousness when reg- handle and manage pluralism. I want to give istrations for communities to build temples get some credit to my colleague and former taken away and when religious communities Georgetown student Nick Gvosdev. A lot of fight over registration. That is when polariza- people have picked up his phrase “managed tion and real radicalization start setting in. pluralism” in the discussion on religion. This brings me to another trend. The polit- But think for a minute about what it means ical context within a recentralizing Russia as President Putin gives signals about picking [Rossiia] is a pull away from federalism. There particular leaders over others. Sascha Goluboff is a retraction of spoken and unspoken prom- was beginning to get to this. By the end of her ises concerning republic control over educa- talk, she was saying that it is really quite a tion and cultural values. This builds on and counterproductive process when people are so feeds into a regeneration of Russian xenopho- involved in the competition for recognition bia, whether it is manifested against Tatars, from powerful elites and for themselves to against Muslims in general, against people become sole official authorities. Here we have from the East, or against shamanists. Some particular leading religious leaders, like Rabbi derive a sense of privilege in identification Berl Lazar, playing out their own internal with the mainstream Russian Orthodox competitions. These internal competitions—

40 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 fissures, if you will—were already there. But I cannot resist describing briefly the cartoon suspect that they are unfolding more sharply in mentioned earlier, which comes from this the current context. In Judaism, it is not sim- journal and portrays images of women flying ply an easy or familiar Sephardic and out of a birdcage, symbolizing their educa- Ashkenazi cultural/religious split, but rather it tion. Gasprali’s statement about women’s edu- becomes the much more acrimonious politi- cation was, “Whoever loves his own people cized splitting that Sascha described. There is and wishes it a great future must concern him- the split between the groups associated with self with the enlightenment and education of KEROOR [Congress of Jewish Religious women, restore freedom and independence to Communities and Organizations of Russia] them, and give wide scope to the develop- and FEOR [Hasidic Federation of Jewish ment of their minds and capabilities.”This has Communities of Russia, supported by Putin]. become part of Muslim tradition in Russia. There are further splits among the Mountain “Neo-Jadids” in Tatarstan have taken up Jews, Georgian Jews, Russian Jews, and Gasprali’s cause, such as Raphael Khakimov. European Jews with a more secular orienta- He is one of the advisers to President tion. Then there are the issues of who is more Shaimiev of Tatarstan, but unfortunately he is moral, who is more powerful, and who has a not as popular as some of us would like him to greater claim to authority. be. There is a kind of cacophony and compe- I think Sascha’s work brings us beyond the tition over the soul of what Muslim identity work of a colleague from Russia, Simen Koslov, will be like, particularly in Tatarstan. So we whose summary of 20th-century Jewish life, have one version from Khakimov called published in the journal I edit, Anthropology and “Euro-Islam,” which has been hijacked partly Archeology of Eurasia, suggested that while there because officials have started using it, includ- are lots of splinter groups, Jewish life has recent- ing President Putin. (Putin likes to call it ly been based on striving for social connections “Russian Islam.”) We also have Salafis, and cultural memory, rather than actual reli- Wahhabis, and Hizb ut-Tahrir. I advise all of gious belief. I would like to hear how Sascha you to make up your own minds about the would respond to that as a question. Hizb ut-Tahrir version of radical Islam by In Islam, we know of huge debates. I did viewing its website. It is pretty scary. And then not stress the Tatar case, although I would we have the more culturally grounded, mysti- have, had we had a regional contribution from cal traditions of Sufism, with various kinds of Tatarstan. But I want to emphasize that some ethnic identities to it. of the polarization and structural fissures have I will not go into the comparable kinds of been particularly tragic in the very places we splits and fissures in Buddhism, but I could. have been looking at and touting for their reli- There are fascinating ways that the Buddhist gious diversity, such as Crimea or the communities also have been splintering, luck- regions. These are places famous for their ily not to the point of real radicalization. interethnic mixings, for their tolerance of Let me end by setting out several challeng- multiple religions, for their multicultural ing questions. I think from Alexander identities, and for their pride in diversity. Bogomolov we have the challenge of trying to Polarization becomes especially tragic in these understand why religion does tend to lend kinds of contexts. itself to these symbolic wars. We need to think In the Tatar case, a relevant reform tradi- about the political and social contexts of reli- tion at the turn of the 20th century was giosity, and the way it is used so that religion known as Jadidism, glossed as “the new way.” becomes, forgive me, the heart and soul of It came from the Crimean Tatar intellectual identity politics. Ismail Bey Gasprali [Gasprinski], allowing us And from Sascha Goluboff’s work, I think to celebrate a liberal Crimean Tatar tradition we not only find an enormous amount of rich that attempted to bridge Eastern and Western and specific material about Jewish identity philosophies. Gasprali symbolically destroyed growing and transcending the ethnic-group many stereotypes. For instance, his daughter identities and fissures, but going further, we edited a satirical journal called Ha Ha Ha.I also begin to see how debates turn on issues of

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authenticity. Who is more moral, who is a rad- ty population, which is Russian. Whether or ical, and why? How do specific communities not the officials are atheists, they favor the interact with and cater to state policy? These Orthodox denomination, or any Christian themes are important in this changing, moving denomination, including the Armenian target issue that we are discussing today. Orthodox Church, over Muslims. This is quite clear. They tend to put aside the political over- COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS tones that are now brought to the table here. These issues are actually very important, and Paxson: There is a question that has been in they receive a great deal of attention in the air today as I have listened, and I am sure it Crimea, particularly in the context of symbol- will be in the air tomorrow. I think that for those ic wars. This is now the most obvious and the of us who work on religion, it has been in the most important manifestation of the tension air for a long time, but it strikes me as something between Russians and Muslims in Crimea. We worth bringing up as we go further, and that is can talk about tension, we can talk about the question of what religion is. exclusion, and we always are asked “why” and What is religion actually? What kind of to produce evidence. And while this evidence object, if it is an object? What kind of verb, if is very obvious and clear, the government tends it is a verb? And where is it located? I think to miss or pretend not to see it. We want to there are implications to that. Is it located in bring the issues to the table to sort out the states? Is it located in institutions? Is it in eth- actual complaints of Muslims and to see to nic groups or local communities or cultural what extent they are relevant. communities or in the privacy of people’s For me, the challenge is to sort out and to hearts? Now, I am sure that the truth of it is address in some way, not completely, the first that it is everywhere. But it seems to me that question you asked—What is religion?—and to thinking about this theoretically has implica- define the actual religious demands. Or, let’s tions for how we think about diversity and say, the material goodies the government can what it is and what it does, and what we have come up with, assets and so forth, to help peo- to do to help foster unity in diversity. I want to ple sustain or address their actual religious let that question hang there as we go forward, demand as such. Which demands are psycho- because lots of points have come up that have logical, which are social, which are more or made me think that it matters where we think less purely religious? But when we look at religion is primarily located. mosque attendance, it is very difficult to make For now, I want to add one question I want these distinctions. When we look at the param- all of you to consider, and then we should go eter we use in our research and that many peo- to Marjorie’s questions, and then open it up to ple use—mosque attendance as a measure of the floor. Returning to my initial comments, I religiosity—I am not sure, at least in some cir- said we started up here at the level of the state cumstances, whether these groups, particularly and here we are at the level of the community. the younger groups in Crimea, come there to My question, then, is what does looking close- pray or to assert themselves as a group. This is ly and deeply at communities do to inform the the point. The dividing line is very unclear broader debate of the state? What do people between these things. But it is really important who think about states need to know from all to apply cultural anthropology as perhaps the of you who look at communities up close? best theoretical framework to help the commu- What are some of the most important points? nity sort out the actual issues, and particularly to sort out the political as opposed to the reli- Bogomolov: In reference to communities, I gious. It can help show the government where have a project for which we hope to secure the the dividing line roughly goes, and also intro- funds that will bridge the gap between the duce a very important but missing notion in communities and the government. The govern- the post-Soviet context: the notion of the pub- ment in the Crimean case is very much lic domain or public sphere as a complex thing. involved in these symbolic wars, because most The post-communist government tends to of the officials obviously belong to the majori- see the public sphere in a scattered or fractured

42 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 fashion. I can show you pieces of discourse work, then it is a more encompassing and mul- from the newspaper on the new religious leg- tilayered dynamic, but it is also trickier than to islation in Ukraine, on the political sphere, on start dividing the problem of what is political the social sphere. They tend to divide these and what is religious. I find it a little bit iron- issues, but they are indivisible. It is very impor- ic, but it suddenly occurred to me that we have tant for the government to understand its role all—and I do not accuse anyone in the room if as a mediator, and not as a dominant force or I am not accusing myself—been aware of at administrative force. It is not there to tell the least the idea that Islam’s reputation is that it is religious communities what to do, but the role a more political religion by definition, or that is more or less like those guys at intersections there is a kind of built-in politicization. It is a who direct traffic and help people take turns— tricky thing to say, because actually Islam itself and not much else. is quite politicized. But I suspect that all reli- gions are quite politicized. There may be dif- Goluboff: I think Alexander is on target with ferent degrees and different ways—this hard that. I would talk a bit about specifics. Looking and soft boundary issue—but I am a little nerv- at the Jewish religion, people used to talk in the ous about claiming that one kind of religion is Soviet period about being veruiushchii (a believ- by definition more political than another. er) versus religioznyi (religious). Being a believer Then we get into the issue of what a reli- indicated your own personal faith that you gious community or a specific religion needs, could hide from the authorities, and being reli- not only according to the definitions, as gious was something that you would demon- Maggie Paxson is challenging us to think about strate. The Orthodox Jewish and Hasidic reli- them, but also as Alexander Bogomolov gions are about acting—faith and action are seen described. He asks how much reconstruction as one. When you talk about what is religion in does a specific religion need, and I am not sure the Jewish context, you really cannot separate that the issue is what religions need as much as politics from religion, because acting Jewish is what people say they want. This negotiation also a political statement. may be exactly what you were trying to get at, In thinking about what communities can tell and the point is, of course, that we are way us about the state, it seems that we can really beyond the idea that there is a post-Soviet vac- look at specifics from the Jewish case. It is not so uum that is being filled by nationalism or by much the state as a monolith, but it is how each religion. Instead, it is a mix of these, and the different group tries to align itself with oligarchs different kinds of competitions between or particular figures within the state. A lot of nationalism and religion, which seem to be people now, as they have in the past, say as sort triggering a lot of ferment, including within of a joke that being Jewish is a profession. But in the younger generation, which Alexey talking to people on the ground, they say that a Malashenko brought up this morning and lot of young Russian Jews are Russian-speaking about which we need to think a lot. But what Jews from Belarus or from Ukraine who are we can think about in a more positive way is coming to the Hasidic centers because they can how this community knowledge is being built. make a living there. In a way, religion has How is solidarity building being used as a become a way in which people can prosper in resource in a more positive sense? If there are difficult times. There is a lot of crossover among going to be these kinds of negotiating sessions politics, economics, and religious belief that in Crimea, then that is all the better. perhaps people know is happening, but maybe the government is not really thinking theoreti- Question: I have three questions for Mr. cally about it. Bogomolov. First, what are the lines of division One concept of flourishing civil society within the Muslim community in Ukraine, implies a bigger, broader idea of the interrela- and would you describe them as ethnic or doc- tionship of the state and all other levels of soci- trinal? Second, in your estimate, what is the ety. For certain purposes, I like to divide civil size of the Muslim community of Ukraine? society so as to focus on informal groups from My third question has to do with the organiza- below. If you start with that kind of frame- tional structure of the clerical establishment. Is

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it similar in Ukraine to the spiritual administra- not happened very often in Ukraine so far, but tions in Russia, or is it different? And in this I predict it could happen more often in the context, is there an emergence of so-called future. It has happened at least three or four parallel Muslim congregations that sponta- times in Crimea already.The younger groups of neously form and perceive themselves as not people who affiliate themselves with Hizb ut- necessarily opposed to, but as alternatives to, Tahrir claim ownership, and they also claim government-sanctioned establishments? their rights to the local mosques through their influence with the local imam. Bogomolov: Thank you for the questions. All The community is a most important institu- these questions were addressed in our recent tion. The other important institution is the book. The simplest one is, How many Muslims mosque as such, and the symbolic value it rep- are there? We used the census, the most recent resents for the local community. The next- census on the year 2001 in Ukraine, and we higher organizational body is usually something included all ethnic groups that are traditionally that would be officially referred to as a Muslim Muslim in our calculations, because the nation- directorate, but it is different from the case of al census did not have a question on religion. Russia. The directorate has interesting roots as This figure also included migrants, of course, an institution in imperial Russia, and has con- because the national census did not require tinued in different forms in the Soviet and respondents to produce a passport. post-Soviet eras. It is quite a story. Figures on Arabs in Ukraine previously This history has convinced lay Muslims that reported to me were blown out of proportion. in order for everything to be alright with Islam There is a much smaller number of Muslims in in their neighborhood or community, they Ukraine—about 439,000. For all the disputes should have some kind of directorate. They got and rivalries that Muslims have among them, used to that notion. And that is how we came they agree on one common thing—which is the to reproduce it in Ukraine. We have repro- claim that there are two million Muslims in duced three such official institutions. One of Ukraine. those institutions, the genuine one reproduced Consider also the level of religiosity, which by local Muslim initiative, is often referred to we base on calculations of mosque attendance by Muslims as Muftiyat in Crimea, also called and also some other external factors we were the Spiritual Directorate of Muslims in Crimea able to verify. The real number is much less, of in the official government documents. A sec- course. Of the above 439,000, perhaps 10 to 15 ond one, organized by Tatars in Donbas, dis- percent are really interested in religion; the tinguishes itself from the other centers, but was rest—not so much. The number of frequent vis- actually organized with the same idea in itors to mosques is probably somewhere around mind—to have their own mufti. They have 20,000 to 40,000 people. But if asked, most now secured one Al-Azhar University [Cairo] Muslims, particularly in the Crimean context, graduate for that particular post. would definitely state their identity as Muslim, The third institution is not very genuine. It even if they had never been to a mosque. This is actually an enterprise run by a Lebanese indi- goes to my initial and basic thesis of identity as vidual who is connected to the global Habashi the key to understanding the problem. network that is primarily based in Lebanon but Regarding organizational setup, there are also has an office here in the United States and different points. We have several types of in some other countries. Muslim organizations in Ukraine. The most So those are the Muslim directorates, but important of them is the religious community, they are not co-opted by the government, as is registered or unregistered. Sometimes they do the case in Russia. This guy from Lebanon is not need to register. But the registration proce- very smart, actually. He had established himself dures in Ukraine are easy, and any 10 people with the local Ukrainian government prior to can register as a religious community at any the collapse of the Soviet Union, and afterward time. It is very easy. It is also a challenge, participated in a failed attempt by the because sometimes you have two groups in the Ukrainian authorities to mimic Russia’s same location that will claim a mosque. It has approach to controlling Muslim affairs. The

44 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 institution of the Muslim Directorate in Russia Question: I am writing about relations is pretty much based on the idea of Islam as a between the church and KGB in Russia, and I traditional faith on par with—or perhaps in the want to address my question to Sascha capacity of a junior brother of—Orthodoxy. In Goluboff. In your opinion, why does Putin Ukraine it does not work because we do not support and not Adolf Shayevich? have the same tradition. At least, nobody per- ceives Islam as something indigenous except Goluboff: I do not know exactly why. I think for the Muslims themselves, particularly the it goes back to earlier, when Putin seemed to Crimean Tatars, who see Crimea as their be indecisive and a named indigenous land. Generally, officials in the Vladimir Gusinsky supported [chief rabbi Ukrainian context perceive Islam as a foreign Adolf] Shayevich. I think that perhaps persuad- faith, and therefore it makes no sense for them ed Putin. Then the oligarch Boris Berezovsky to have these co-opted Islamic institutions, and supported Lazar while Berezovsky was still in so Russian policy for dealing with Muslims favor with Putin. I think there was a Gusinsky- does not work there. Putin rivalry at that time, which perhaps influ- We have new types of organizations. We enced his view. have Islamic centers and networks of centers. Also, the Hasidim seem to be much better The most successful project of this sort is a at gaining resources and connections than Muslim Brotherhood–sponsored project, ar- Shayevich. Shayevich is a Russian Jew, and I Raid, which presents itself as an association of think Lazar is originally from Italy and conse- different entities. It is one of the favorite tac- quently has connections internationally. I think tics of the Muslim Brotherhood to have a fed- there is also the allure of foreign connections erated type of organization. They have regis- that perhaps Putin also likes, but that is specu- tered legally all across the nation as separate lation. entities. One or more offices might be closed, but it would take a great effort to close all of Question: I have visited both synagogues, and them. But it is one and the same network. I it was so obvious that one of them was out of mention closure because there was a case in favor and the other was favored. Shayevich’s which one of the offices, located in synagogue was shabby. The entrance door Zaporizhzhya in the east, was actually knocked could not be opened and closed easily. down by the local authorities. It was not a Everything was sort of dank and unpleasant, national initiative; it was a local initiative to and the people whom I met there seemed to be close this office. frightened, which surprised me. There was a Finally, we also have what we call a religious sense of apprehension and insecurity, whereas opposition—a very few tiny local Salafi groups in Berl Lazar’s synagogue there was a gym. in Crimea and an up to 150-member-strong People were running around. There was a sense Hizb ut-Tahrir group with no more than 500 of ownership of the place, and that made a sympathizers. There are very few genuine good impression on me. Wahhabis, by which I don’t mean terrorists, of course, but individuals coming from Saudi Goluboff: That is true. People I talked to Arabia professing the specific Saudi version of recently said that Berl Lazar and his group want the rigorous Hanbali Islam. They had offices in to create a Jewish campus in Moscow, and Crimea from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. apparently plan to expand to land nearby as Strangely enough, it is alleged that the most well as build more Jewish facilities, all with the outspoken Russian nationalist and Communist, blessing of the government. Leonid Hrach, then speaker of the Crimean local parliament, was the one who helped Catherine Cosman: In fact, Mayor Luzhkov them open an office in Crimea—the first has granted them a big plot of land for a muse- Wahhabi stronghold in Ukraine, so to say. It um of tolerance. has since been closed by security forces. That is more or less the organizational setup Paxson: One thought that Bob Crews raised of the Ukrainian Muslim community. this morning was that most conflicts are not

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theological in nature. Can you all comment on with the bathwater and talk only about the whether you think most conflicts within these idiom of religion as if it were just a foil. There communities are or are not theological in is also some genuine debate about issues of nature? beliefs and their sources, and it gets back to the question of authenticity. In religious debates in Bogomolov: Religion in our particular case, the Sakha Republic, one academic ethnogra- the post-Soviet situation, presents itself as a ref- pher is basically accusing another more funda- erence point and also as a symbolic system. To mentalist shamanist of picking and choosing me, theology in that regard is a language by from of all sorts of different grab bags of ethno- which people express themselves and by which graphic sources from the Turkic world in order they express their differences. I took note of to construct and supposedly reconstruct a the fact that the disputes of this nature going whole cosmology and worldview of the Turkic on in Crimea in our particular case—and I see nine heavens, and multiple gods. And the per- that increasingly elsewhere in post-Soviet son who is being accused in this particular case cases—are expressed more readily in stone than says, “No, wait, I really do get my inspiration in language. This is probably because the real from a spiritual mystical authority. I am not sources of knowledge are waiting to be studied getting it from just putting together all sorts of by the newly reconverted religious scholars and different archival sources.” imams. It is easier to express yourself through I think that to deny that there is some pas- the size of your mosque than through the text, sion concerning theology would also be a mis- because the latter requires more effort and take. In other words, we have to look at all of more learning. these levels together. And maybe the question kind of reflects our own worldviews. Goluboff: I also took note of that idea, and also that conflict arises over modern rather than Crews: I was speaking directly about the other theological issues. That definitely had resonance communities of the Russian Federation, and I for me, and I think that Alexander’s point is well think that what I said was that the conflicts that taken. I think that if you asked the leaders of the have surfaced since the 1990s among Muslims, two Jewish groups, they would say it was theo- to my mind, have been principally less about logical—the difference between the Hasidic doctrinal issues. I appreciated the last point outlook and the non-Hasidic Orthodox out- about all this being in flux. Bogomolov men- look. But having done some fieldwork among tioned people being reconverted, and this Hasidim and new converts, I can say that they whole notion of what form the theology will really do not explain why you should do things, take. There is a great deal of uncertainty about they just say you should do things a certain way all of that. But I think the doctrinal issues are because it is the right way. So I think that peo- not advanced forcefully. In fact, I think the the- ple, including new converts, have a very simplis- ological journals do not advance them forceful- tic view about that. It plays out not only in terms ly. What are advanced forcefully, I think, are of buildings, but also in terms of Jewish para- claims about religious authority and who can phernalia that one needs in order to pray cor- speak on these issues. It is not simply a question rectly. For example, recently, Torah scrolls that of materialism. I think we would all agree that had been confiscated by the Soviet government I am not positing an either/or question. were returned to the favored Jewish group, and so there are also disputes as to who gets the right Malashenko: I would add that we have to kind of religious paraphernalia that one needs analyze the situation in the Middle East, and besides just the buildings. not just in Central Asia, or the Caucasus, or in Russia, of course. Balzer: I am not sure we can completely gen- eralize about the nature of conflict. In other Comment: We know that it is much deeper words, while there may often be material issues than that. I am a Russian from the same area, at stake and political and ego issues, I do not just on the Caspian. I think it is a bit more than think we should completely throw out the baby a resurgence of religiosity among the modern.

46 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 You never had that among the educated people other religions. I was wondering if you had any in Iran. Khomeini happened, and everything comments about that. changed right in front of our eyes. It happened under a very serious regime with schools. They Balzer: I am glad you brought this up, were living in this society, and all of a sudden because I have a list of some of the fissures that these ideas started coming. I see going on in the Orthodox community. Clearly, the basic one is the kind of liberal Bogomolov: So far as I understand, the ques- Orthodox intellectual ideas that came from the tion is why all of a sudden in the Middle East late, murdered Father Alexander Men’s theolo- there is an upsurge of religiosity. This issue has gy, and now his successors. The people who been addressed by others. The thesis I proposed are arguing that there is nothing inherently is that religiosity does not provide a complete undemocratic about Orthodoxy, for instance, explanation, and in many ways religiosity is have very strong voices. But they are countered epiphenomenal to other social demands, such as on the right, or whatever you want to call it, the demand for group identity. by people like Metropolitan Ioan and others. In the Middle East, the period between the They are clearly not only insiders representing 1960s and the end of the century witnessed the the nexus of nationalism with Orthodoxy, but collapse of national projects built on the idea of also claim greater purity on other things. I sus- nationalism, and also projects based on the ide- pect that Patriarch Alexei II sometimes feels ology of Marxism. Both failed very dramatically. himself somewhere in between, and is trying And now comes the traditional reference- to juggle the various groups theologically, ide- based model to the fore. People utilized Islam ologically, and politically. But he is by reputa- for the sake of building a new national project, tion, and by some behavior, also more aligned and it differs in its scope and its geography in with the conservatives among the Orthodox. many ways. It does not necessarily coincide What I think is also very fascinating, and this with the nation-states, because the idea of comes out in some of the writing of Father nation-states is pretty much a contested one in Georgi Chistakov, and in the work of Victor the Middle East. That is what is happening, Shnirelman, who warns about it, is the even and religiosity follows it. messier mix of Russian Orthodoxy and Russian In our particular case, I see the younger peo- paganism. The mix includes a nexus of Russian ple in Crimea abusing the tenants of Islam. They pagan nationalism with some Orthodox ideas go to the mosque, and they abuse the elderly and some of the anti-Semitic ideas of Oleg people for the sake of promoting their case as a Platonov. I think that the whole Russian new religious group. It clearly shows that their Orthodox spectrum is enormous, and therefore motivation is not pure religiosity as such. the range of what can be studied, and how peo- ple talk to each other about it and form groups Question: I have a general question. We have and make claims, is extremely rich. talked about the different competitions within Judaism and within Islam. What has sort of Question: This panel is dealing with religion gone unnoticed is the competition within at the community level, and I wanted to com- Orthodoxy itself—the rise of what I would call ment on how demographics play a role, espe- an almost radical Orthodox fundamentalism, cially with the rise of Muslims within the which is a grassroots movement. I would argue Russian Federation that is projected for that here you actually do have a theological 2015–18. At this time, the cohort of 18-year- justification for this, because the argument olds who will be entering the draft will be at there is not about power, it is about very the- its smallest, and this same cohort will also have ological issues about who is in authority and the highest percentage of Muslims. It spells how to face this new globalizing world. The interesting things for how Russians handle tol- answers the fundamentalists are arriving at are erance at the community level down the road. extremely different from the official positions and are actually strangely resonant with what is Goluboff: I think that the ways in which occurring in fundamentalist communities in Russians deal with racial diversity—and this

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was brought up in the earlier panel—is a big of the ethnonational or racial “other” that issue for the other Jewish ethnic communities. comes with this. Then that gets added into the It seems to me from my own research talking to idiom of the Muslim “other.”Again, it is when people on the ground that it is important, for these notions are mixed together that they example, for Mountain Jews to talk about how become particularly incendiary. But I have a they are Jews, and not Azeris, and to differen- feeling underneath that this is racism. tiate themselves—even though on the street they can be targeted for anti-Caucasus attacks. Cosman: Following on this question and On Alexander’s point about religiosity’s point, what I cannot understand is Russian epiphenomenon for identity, it seems to me state policy on this issue. Putin’s state of the that, at least in the different Jewish groups, you nation address expressed a lot of concern about cannot understand religiousness without the demographic future of the Russian nation. understanding ethnicity. For Mountain Jews Yet consider the ways in which Muslims are and Bukharan Jews, these sorts of small com- portrayed in the media, for example. Or, if munities identify themselves, in terms of fami- human rights groups are correct, consider that ly networks and in terms of language, as differ- there have been at least 200 fabricated cases ent from their Muslim neighbors: that against Muslims. Police arrest people because Jewishness has been part of their everyday lives, they are too devout and are therefore suspected and now, because of international connections, of being extremists. Surely this is a very they have to show that they are Jewish, too, and defeatist policy in the longer run, meaning 25 try to link up with international Jewish organ- years down the road. It can become a self-ful- izations. So, on the one hand, they acknowl- filling prophecy. That is more of a comment edge that they come from Muslim communi- than a question. ties, but at the same time they show how dif- The other comment I have is about ferent they are both to Jews and to non-Jews as Protestants. I know none of you are particular- well. It is a very complex picture. ly talking about Protestants, but even though they are a relatively small group, they are grow- Balzer: If I understood the intent behind your ing very rapidly, from what I understand. There question, you are also worried about issues of is the question of their international or perceived demographic threats from growing American and Western connections, and some- Muslim communities, their fertility rates being times Asian connections, and also the kinds of greater than Russian fertility rates. It is almost media slander to which they are subjected. like a reprise of the old arguments about the They are even subject to psychiatric incarcera- Soviet Union and population projections. And tion. There have been conferences where they yet demography is not destiny. Clearly this is a have complained of being libeled in the press much politicized issue, and it is about percep- and subjected to psychiatric examination tion. I suspect that a refined breakdown of dif- because they had been labeled extremists. ferent categories of different kinds of Muslims, showing they are not a monolithic threat, Balzer: Well, Cathy, on the first point I could might be a good concept to project in the more not agree with you more. I think it is enor- popular literature and newspapers. mously self-defeating, and I suspect that many I understand where it is coming from. But people in the room feel the same way. The the other thing that I think would be very comment is well taken. interesting to deal with here is the issue of On the Protestant communities, there is an xenophobic attacks on so-called blacks. The interesting angle here that I do not want to problem is the racial perception of this issue, I overplay, especially because I said you cannot suspect, and not so much a perceived Muslim completely correlate religion and ethnicity.The threat, per se. In other words, this goes back to Protestant communities that are more tradi- Alexander Bogomolov’s issue of which is more tional within territory—the dangerous—nationalist- or racist-based issues, Evangelical Lutheran Church of Ingria, the or splits over religion. There is an awful lot of Finlanders, the Ingermanlanders—are the kinds heat and animosity and misplaced projections of communities that can build on a reputation

48 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 of having existed since the 19th century with- happen with their cases, and this also goes for in the territory of the Russian Empire. the registration process. Catholics can also make this argument. These groups can all argue that their communities Cosman: I just wanted to add that some have long been in Russian territory, and are Protestant communities have the most difficult therefore traditional according to the rules for time in traditionally Buddhist republics, oddly registration under the 1997 law on religious enough. organizations. They have grounds for arguing with officials—of course, only if the officials Bogomolov: I will again use Ukraine as a want to act. post-Soviet context that is different from Russia. The problem becomes the local authorities I am not an expert on Christian confessions as who perceive the Protestant communities as such, but I know something about Protestants being outsiders and who worry about outside in Ukraine. I need to emphasize here that I have missionaries. We all know, and I am not trying nothing against religiosity. Science as such to avoid the issue, that much of the acrimony speaks a mundane language, and that is why I comes from a perception that missionaries are emphasize the materialistic side of religion— competing for believers who might otherwise because I do not dare say anything about God. I have been Russian Orthodox. Here, I think do not think it is for the scholar to speak about the argument could easily be that the Russian God, as such. I can and do pray sometimes, as Orthodox Church should not feel so threat- everybody does. For cultural anthropology, for ened and that these missionaries are not neces- the social sciences, and for the policymakers, it sarily targeting the same people. A lot of evi- is very important to sort out exactly the materi- dence from the Christian soup kitchens, and al and the group interests. from the work that people such as anthropolo- Coming back to your question about the gist David Lewis have been doing in multieth- Protestants—we have a lot of Protestants in nic communities throughout Russia, is that Ukraine. We have a large and growing com- people who were of mixed ethnic background munity of Pentecostals in western Ukraine or are very impoverished are the ones who which is supposedly taking away from the tend to be attracted. We do have a materialistic social support of the Greek angle on this as far as the soup kitchens and the and also partly the Orthodox Church. And the aid and the charity go. But perhaps we can Greek Catholics and Orthodox might well be make some rational arguments in the popular unhappy about that development, but there is press to try to downplay the threat that these not such a harsh debate about this trend in missionaries appear to represent in some peo- Ukraine, and nobody is killing anybody over ple’s minds. That may be too rational, though, it. There is nothing like assaults. You never see because these attacks on Protestant evangelicals or hear anything about that. There are disputes, have been pretty irrational. One such attack and I have been party to some disputes. just occurred this past week in the Sakha By the way, in some areas in western Republic that is particularly shocking, because Ukraine, particularly in Volyn Region, the it was perpetrated by a policeman and a bank Pentecostals have won an unexpectedly high security guard on evangelical Christians who reputation among the local Orthodox and were giving out literature in public, which is Catholics. They praise them and they say, “If not particularly illegal. This attack may be you need a good construction worker, let’s prosecuted. In other words, some incidents get find a Protestant.”That is what they say. These played out in the courts in various directions. particular Pentecostals do not drink, are very I guess the bigger picture here is that there diligent, and have won a great reputation in is such a huge diversity about the ways these their neighborhoods. People do not really kinds of cases are dealt with on the ground leave their own faith. They continue to go to locally. The unevenness of the way these court Catholic churches, to Greek Catholic church- cases play out is part of what I think is fright- es, and to Orthodox churches, but they will ening the religious communities. They have also praise Pentecostals at the same time. That very little way of judging exactly what will is how it works.

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I will say that the relations between religious absolutely support this idea. Why? For their minorities—and this may sound a little bit part, they want to become a bridge between Marxist—reflect the temperature in the society Russia and the Muslim world. More concrete- to a large extent. And in our case, the temper- ly, they want to play the role of mediator in ature is much lower than in Russia and every- Russian business affairs with some in the thing is OK. They have a much higher temper- Muslim world. The majority of Russian busi- ature in Crimea, and that is where we do have nessmen understand that it is an impossible assaults. idea. I remember that the first attempt along these lines was made approximately 10 years Balzer: I was just reflecting on what ago. That was a complete failure. But anyway, Alexander Bogomolov has been suggesting all they try to repeat it. along. I am going to give a little fuel to your I want to add one funny thing. If you read fire, since I had argued for being careful about some Russian political fiction, you will find just considering the material interest. There is a that there is a widespread idea that the restora- figure in the Muslim community, and I suspect tion of Russia will be achieved through an Alexey Malashenko knows a lot more about alliance with the Muslim world through the this, who has emerged as Putin’s choice to lead creation of a coalition between Russia and the the Muslim community, and I am a little sur- countries of the Persian Gulf. In this scenario, prised we have not really talked about him total control of oil would be restored. This is today. This figure is Mufti Talgat Tadzhuddin point number one. [Tadjutin]. He is somebody who represents the Point number two: Russian Orthodoxy is most amazing zigzags, if seen as a symbol. He is something too old to enable the revival of quite a character. There must be something on Russian society.That is why Russia badly needs him so that the Putin administration can ensure an Islamic element. Maybe Russia needs a cer- his compliance. This is somebody who had tain Islamization. But if it should happen in a declared jihad on the United States at one confrontation between Russia and the West, point, and who has really gone back and forth some Russians as well as some Muslims would in terms of his self-presentation, from being a be winners. If you think that I enjoy the kind of official Muslim who toes the line to prospect, I do not. seeming quite radical. One wonders when we But as I said before, these ideas come from get such mixed messages from the same leaders fiction. But I know that people in Moscow read exactly what is going on, and I think it may be such books. The idea that we can help save a naked manipulation of politics. Alexey, do Russia by embarking on the road to you have any insights into this? Islamization is becoming more and more pop- ular. Everybody understands that it is impossi- Malashenko: We have to go back a little bit, ble, it is stupidity. But when you read in a to 2003. At that time, somebody from the newspaper in Moscow that Russia is becoming Foreign Ministry gave Putin the idea that a member of the Islamic Conference, when Russia should become a member of the Islamic you read that Putin said that Russia—I forget Conference. This problem was actively dis- the exact quote—is a protector of Islam or cussed within the Putin team and they decided something like that, it is very interesting. that it would be OK. I do not know what we will finally get, but The next step was to present Russia as a medi- we are helping to bring about a very strange ator between the West and the Muslim world. situation of Russia attempting to use Islam and The next step was more concrete—to present the Muslim world. You can observe it when Russia as a mediator between Muslim radicals in you consider the Hamas visits. Europe and the United States. They wanted to By the way, in one of these fictional books manipulate Islam. They have a very profound ide- published in 2000, the author mentioned that ological background, and I think that maybe they Russia must distribute nuclear weapons among will continue to work on this line. some Muslim countries, first of all Iran. The Of course, this position of Putin’s is very book was published, I emphasize, in 2000. That favored by Russian Muslim communities. They is interesting.

50 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298

Panel 3: Individual Freedom of Faith in Russia

Chair: H. Knox Thames, Counsel, Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (U.S. Helsinki Commission) Nikolas Gvosdev, Editor, The National Interest; Senior Fellow, Institute for Strategic Studies, The Nixon Center; and Senior Fellow, Institute for Religion and Public Policy Catherine Cosman, Senior Policy Analyst, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom Firuz Kazemzadeh, Professor Emeritus of History, Yale University; former Vice Chairman, U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom; and Senior Adviser, Office of External Affairs, Baha’i Faith Discussant: Kate Brown, Associate Professor of History, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

Nikolas Gvosdev: I thought I would first There is an expanding zone of personal auton- offer a general comment on what many people omy that is moving upward and outward for have observed over the last several years not most Russians, and at the same time there is simply with regard to religious freedom but to this contraction in civil society that is occur- a variety of civil and political liberties in ring. Those two lines have not yet quite crossed Russia. There is a paradox of shrinking institu- for most people. This is one reason why you tional space and greater state intrusion into have this dichotomy where, on one side, organizational affairs combined with a growing Westerners are saying Russia is not free and that middle class that includes more Russians than at conditions are getting worse; Freedom House is any point in its history. Russians now have saying Russia is not even partially free anymore. greater access to a middle-class lifestyle with all On the other side, you encounter Russians in that that entails, especially the ability to fund the middle class who could not disagree more, and support choices of personal autonomy.This and say that they have opportunities that their is to say, an increasing number of people who grandparents or parents never had. This have the freedom to travel can now afford to dichotomy is even more pronounced when one travel. It is not enough to have a right to do looks at the second post-Soviet generation, the something—one must have the ability to fund current 18-to-24-year old demographic, it and to put it into practice. We all know the which, particularly in Moscow, St. Petersburg, statistics on the geometric expansion of digital and the provincial cities, has greater access to communications. More and more Russians opportunities and whose sense of personal today are wired into cyberspace and are able to autonomy is much greater. We see very clearly access information and to communicate beyond in the polling data that for the most part people the traditional methods that were more suscep- may complain about corruption, they may tible to state monitoring and state control. complain about an unregulated bureaucracy, As we have seen in the last few years, the but most people do not sense that a greater state state has moved to reassert its claims to regulate centralization is infringing upon their percep- and manage civil society, including the religious tion of personal autonomy. sphere. This has not really led to a major reac- The problem in the long run, of course, is tion on the part of the emerging Russian mid- that eventually these trend lines may intersect. dle class, in part because the contraction that is Perhaps the state will stop its drive toward cen- occurring has not quite hit home for them yet. tralization and control, or even begin to roll

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these efforts back in the next few years. But at markedly different understanding of religious the rate things are going, at some point in the freedom, and it comes from the pre-revolu- near future there will be a sense that the state’s tionary period in Russian history and certainly power to regulate and control civil society will the Soviet period, when there was state com- begin to infringe upon people’s perceptions of pulsion to participate and to confess to a par- personal autonomy. We are just not at that stage ticular faith or ideology. If you look at pre-rev- yet, and that is why I think it is important to olutionary Russian history, a number of peti- understand that we can have this dichotomy in tions, particularly at the time of the 1905 rev- which a society is becoming more regulated olution, were from people requesting the right while many individuals do not really have a to leave the Orthodox Church and return to great sense of panic about it. being Lutherans or return to being Muslims. How this plays out with regard to religious That is not something that really occurs in freedom is also interesting, because the extent post-Soviet Russia. The common joke is that to which the choice one makes for private there is a great deal of concern, particularly in autonomy is something that the state does not some of the Orthodox circles, that whether you really regulate. I have used this story before, so go to church or not is not the critical issue; but if people have heard it, I apologize. A colleague if you choose not to go, it should be the of mine in Moscow who is very interested in Orthodox Church. But if you are not going to Buddhism and Eastern spirituality is in a posi- church, you are not under any compulsion. No tion now where he can travel to India, as a one comes in and says you have to go to an growing number of Russians do. He can access procession, or to fast, or anything of that all the literature he wants on the Internet and sort. Again, for most people the sense of free- he can travel to congresses and retreats. If dom of religion means that I am not compelled someone were to say to him that he did not to do something. So far, there is less of a sense have a great deal of religious freedom, he that freedom of religion means equal access to would respond that, in terms of his personal the public square or a free marketplace of ideas. life, he certainly did. The question is more Usually it is still interpreted by most people in complex when it begins to move beyond indi- terms of no restriction on one’s ability to do viduals exercising autonomy and using their something, and I think that this dichotomy is own resources and time to follow their own something to keep in mind. It is why one finds personal religious and spiritual commitments. in opinion polls and surveys that questions about Individual religious behavior does not really freedom of religion usually rank lower when interest the state. But when that behavior rises people are asked what they see are the most fun- to the level of organization, where groups of damental rights that they should be guaranteed people want to get together, own property, and in society, and I think that contributes to some build centers, that is when we begin to see the of the trends that we have seen. difficulties that can emerge. Then we can begin What I wanted to do for the remainder of to see difficulties, either because of official my own talk here is to move away, perhaps, policies or simply, as in so many other areas of from things that are quantifiable and engage in post-Soviet life, because of the weakness of the a certain degree of speculation about where rule of law and the existence of a bureaucracy some of these trends may lead, particularly that still does not feel accountable—certainly with regard to what happens in Orthodox not to the people, and not always to higher communities. authority. But to the extent that people per- We all know from the polling data that a ceive that their personal ability to make choic- majority of citizens of the Russian Federation es is intact, then the state becomes less of a will identify themselves as being Orthodox. pressing concern. The statistics vary anywhere from 55 to 70 per- At the same time, in much of the polling cent. We also know that the level of practice is data you see, people define freedom of religion much lower. While 55 to 70 percent of citizens as meaning freedom from religion. That is, as of the Russian Federation may identify them- long as they are not being forced to do some- selves as Orthodox, when you look at the data thing, it is not of concern. This, of course, is a on how many people are actually practicing or

52 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 are involved in a church, then you are looking talks on reunifying the Russian Orthodox at anywhere from 1 to 7 percent of the popu- Church Abroad with the Patriarchate go, that lation. So we have this interesting development may remove one potential area for division. in which people claim the identity, but do not [Editor’s note: In May 2007, the Russian necessarily involve themselves in the life and Orthodox Church Abroad formally re-entered practice of the institutional church. into with the Moscow What also come into play are those same Patriarchate and has become an autonomous trends toward personal autonomy in so many entity within the Russian Orthodox Church.] other areas of Russian life. Orthodoxy itself is But as we have seen, particularly in a coun- not immune to this. The extent to which try like Greece, where a parallel Orthodox Russians have new sources of information and Church has existed for decades, or as we now opportunities to travel means that generally see in places like Ukraine and Estonia, where accepted ideas about what constitutes the splits that have occurred are not temporary Orthodoxy are going to be changing. Take, for but are likely to become permanent, Russia example, the growing number of Russians who may have multiple versions of Orthodoxy with visit other countries with Orthodox communi- multiple jurisdictions. Certainly the United ties, including the United States, and then States is an excellent example. In a completely immediately begin to see that there are differ- free marketplace of religious ideas, Orthodox ences in Orthodox practice. There is a certain communities in this country have been very degree of cross-fertilization that goes back and free to break down, in some cases, along polit- forth, with people questioning, for example, ical lines, ethnic lines, and, even more impor- why there cannot be a greater role for women tantly, reimagining lines. in liturgical life, or why shouldn’t there be a One thing that we sometimes miss when we more democratic parish council system. think about Orthodoxy is that we think about it Likewise, there is a greater variety of literature in ethnic and national terms. There also has that floats around and can influence ideas. been, and increasingly so in the last few decades, So far, what has happened in Russia is that a process of reimagining. These movements can the Moscow Patriarchate has been relatively be very small, in fact, but we have seen groups successful in holding together under its jurisdic- in this country that will claim an Orthodox tional wing the majority of people who would identity, but also want to reinterpret Orthodox define themselves as Orthodox. Of course there traditions and to be able to express them. has been some dissent, but for the most part, It is a trend that also has been happening in unlike in a number of other Orthodox coun- the Catholic Church in this country. An over- tries, there has not been a major split or schism. whelming majority of American Catholics But I think the trend lines are such that at some remain affiliated with the Roman Catholic point in the future a time will come, as has hap- Church. But where I am from, in south Florida, pened in Greece, Estonia, Georgia, and there are independent Catholic movements that Ukraine, when the ability of the hierarchy to want to be Catholic, but want to reinterpret hold together a consensus jurisdiction may Catholic teaching—whether it is in regard to come under threat. Then a very interesting divorce, to homosexuality, or to the role and question will arise in Russia about Orthodoxy ordination of women. Of course, in this coun- and the Russian national identity: To what try the Catholic Church does not have the extent does Orthodoxy have to be identified power to go to the state and request or demand with the Moscow Patriarchate and therefore that it shut down these groups or prevent them identified with a specific jurisdiction? from using the Catholic name. The same thing The Patriarchate has been able to fend off, has happened with the different Orthodox com- with some success, the potential challenge that munities in the United States. would have been posed by the , Let me mention two interesting develop- who can make in some cases an equal or even ments in Russia. They may be outliers, but greater claim to Russian national authenticity they are interesting and have occurred in the with its form of Orthodoxy than the last two years. The first, and it may have been Patriarchate can itself. Depending on how the done as a joke, was the performance of the first

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gay marriage by an Orthodox cleric. This of and bubble more from within, and people start course led to a major reaction—the priest was saying, “We don’t want to be Anglicans, we suspended, and supposedly the church where don’t want to be Lutherans, we don’t want to be the act took place had to be resanctified. But it Presbyterians—we want to be Orthodox, and is interesting that an issue like gay marriage that we are going to redefine these things in an has divided Western religious communities has Orthodox format.”It could have very interesting popped up in Russia. implications for how religious freedom develops. Another possible outlier, which I saw on a One possible direction is that Russia could Russian website, was a report of a chapel that move much more toward the model of Greece, has a woman who is vested as an Orthodox where until very recently the Greek state made priest and who says that she is putting together a it very clear that Orthodoxy was to be identified community. Does it matter if these are one or with the Church of Athens. If you were not two isolated events? What is interesting, I think, affiliated with the Church of Athens, then you is that the ability to say that there is a single were not really Orthodox, or your Orthodoxy Orthodox identity may come under increasing was suspect, and therefore you were not given a threat, from the perspective of the Patriarchate. great deal of freedom to operate. Or Russia The extent to which the Patriarchate attempts to could move toward what is happened in Estonia put forward a vision of Orthodox life that per- and Ukraine, where the division of the haps is not in sync with 21st-century Russia Orthodox community into multiple jurisdic- might accelerate these trends. tions makes it harder for the state to prefer a par- I have a wonderful book that I bought for ticular form of Orthodoxy. It has certainly been my son put out by the Orthodox Church. It is the case in Ukraine. People can talk about a wonderful, colorful book; but the vision of Ukraine being a majority-Orthodox country, life that it presents is of village life. It shows but when you have three to four competing people in colorful folk costumes and villages Orthodox jurisdictions, it is much more difficult and flowers and animals, and that is just not the for the state to prefer one over the other. Russia of the 21st century. Russia is an urban- I do not have statistics to offer regarding ized society that has moved beyond this sort of these ideas, but I mention them as interesting agrarian vision. I think that in the first decade trends. In the 1990s, the debate was about reli- or so after the collapse of the Soviet Union, gious freedom in Russia—about indigenous not just in Russia but throughout Eastern versus nonindigenous, and new religious Europe, there was a sense of longing to return movements versus traditional faiths. It may be to history and perceived cultural roots. So far, that in the coming decades the question will the church has been relatively successful in por- focus on the internal discussions within those traying itself as a link to a Russian past. But traditional faiths and what, in turn, that does to sooner or later, questions will arise about inte- the climate for religious freedom. Will it result grating modern life with the past. in movement toward what used to be the In the 1990s there was a reaction against Greek model, where the state has a great deal Western movements, like the Protestants, that of influence and can interfere, or toward what came in to offer a different vision of Christian developed in Ukraine and has benefited not life. This reaction culminated in the 1997 Law only Orthodox groups in Ukraine but the cli- on Freedom of Conscience and on Religious mate of religious freedom in general? If the Associations, which held these other factions as Orthodox branches are not united, it is harder somehow alien to the Russian experience. to set up a system that does not favor religious What Russian society, the Patriarchate, and freedom in general. others are not quite ready to handle as well is I see two trend lines. First, there is a dichoto- what happens when these challenges begin to my between increased centralization and rising pop up in indigenous Orthodox forms. It is one personal autonomy that is happening in society thing to say that women priests are to be found as a whole. Second, there is ferment within only in “foreign churches” like the Anglican or Russia’s “traditional” religious communities. Episcopalian, and that this practice is from the Certainly, I know less about what happens in the outside. What happens if it begins to generate Jewish and Muslim communities, which are also

54 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 designated as traditional faiths for Russia. These court to overturn denials of registration have trends could lead to some interesting changes in often been successful. However, administrative the decades ahead in how religious freedom is authorities have sometimes proven unwilling understood in post-Soviet Russia. to implement court decisions. Russian author- ities have also denied registration to certain Catherine Cosman: I should say that the religious communities based on the allegedly commission where I work [the U.S. insufficient time they have existed, despite a Commission on International Religious 2002 Russian Constitutional Court decision Freedom] is planning to go to Russia at the that an active religious organization registered end of next week, so part of what I am saying before the 1997 law could not be deprived of is framed by that upcoming event. The deteri- legal status for failing to re-register. oration in conditions for religious freedom and According to the U.S. State Department, a other human rights appears to be a direct con- January 2006 amendment to the law requires sequence of the increasingly authoritarian that all registered local religious organizations nature of the Russian government and the notify the Federal Registration Service [FRS] growing influence of chauvinistic groups in within the Justice Ministry within 36 hours of Russian society that seem to be tolerated by any change to its leadership or legal address. If the government. In the commission’s view, the a local organization fails twice to meet this country’s progress toward the rule of law and requirement, the FRS may file suit with the protection of religious freedom and other court to have it dissolved. At the federal level, human rights is now in peril. Despite setbacks the vast majority of religious organizations in the past year, it can be said that the practice have been registered under a liberal interpreta- of religion in Russia today, particularly for the tion of the 1997 law by federal officials and the individual, is freer than during the Soviet peri- Russian Constitutional Court. There have od, when atheism was a strictly enforced state been several noticeable exceptions. In March policy and much religious expression was at 2004, a Moscow court decision banned the least partially repressed. Nevertheless, advances Jehovah’s Witnesses in that city, and that ban in religious freedom protections that emerged was upheld on appeal, marking the first time immediately after the fall of the USSR are now that a national religious organization in Russia in danger of being reversed. had a local branch banned under the 1997 law, A January 2006 law regulating noncommer- even though 135,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses prac- cial organizations allows Russian government ticed their faith in registered communities in officials to attend meetings of registered reli- many other parts of Russia. The Salvation gious communities and provides for increased Army has not been re-registered, despite a controls on foreign donations, which will like- Constitutional Court ruling that overturned ly hamper the charitable and other activities of the government’s decision not to register the religious groups. Although the number of vio- organization in Moscow. Local officials some- lent anti-Semitic incidents has not increased, times either refused outright to register groups there has been a noticeable rise in the number or created obstacles to registration. In addition, of anti-Semitic sentiments expressed in official there are not enough specific guidelines on the government circles as well as in the media. In 1997 religion law and not enough knowledge- addition, there has been a significant increase able local officials, which have contributed to in allegations of official discrimination against, this problem. as well as harassment, detention, and imprison- In the past year, there were reports that the ment of members of, the country’s numerous previous Procurator General encouraged local Muslim communities. prosecutors to challenge the registration of In 1997, Russia passed a new Law on some religious groups deemed “nontraditional” Religious Organizations. It requires registra- to Russia. In addition, some Muslim clerics tion at both the federal and local levels. The have reported that it has become more difficult law creates difficulties for previously unregis- to register new Muslim communities. For tered as well as newly registered groups. example, registration has been arbitrarily denied Religious groups that have taken their cases to to 39 of Stavropol Region’s 47 mosques.

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A number of minority religious groups con- Supreme Court, but also to the European tinue to report difficulty obtaining permission to Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg about build houses of worship, since local government the decision to demolish the new mosque. officials often create barriers. These groups In addition, I think it is important to note that include Roman Catholics, Protestants, Old the head of the Union of Muftis, Ravil Believers, Molokans, and Muslims. They have Gainuddin, said that he could not understand also reported problems acquiring land for new why Astrakhan authorities could move to destroy buildings, as have other alternative Orthodox a mosque in light of President Vladimir Putin’s communities. Religious groups that are seen as recent positive statements about Islam. He also nontraditional to Russia face particular difficul- said that in the future Russia’s Muslim leaders ties. For example, in November 2005 Moscow will not only continue their own protest against authorities overturned their decision to provide the destruction of the mosque in Astrakhan but a lot for the building of a Hare Krishna temple, will also ensure that Muslims in Russia and in and in 2006 the community lost its appeal. I other countries are informed about the situation should add that since then, a Moscow official has of their co-believers in the Russian Federation. I said that land will be found for the Hare Krishna think that indicates that they are planning to temple, although it is not clear exactly whether attract more publicity about problems the it will be in or around Moscow. Muslim community faces in Russia. In other cases, local authorities have been The Russian Orthodox Church, which has responsive to the needs of a religious commu- played a special role in Russian history and cul- nity. For example, following protests by church ture, enjoys a favored status among many members in June 2005, the Moscow Russian government officials, and this situation Department for Building Policy reportedly sometimes results in restrictions on other reli- ordered that land be found for the Emanuel gious communities. The Russian Orthodox Pentecostal Church to build a center. Church receives the overwhelming majority of For Muslims, the situation is mixed. In a various types of state support, including subsi- majority of Muslim areas, the local government dies for the construction of churches, although often funds the building of new mosques. In other religious communities sometimes benefit. Tatarstan, the local government has funded the The Russian Orthodox Church also has agree- building of 1,000 new mosques and several ments with a number of government ministries dozen Islamic schools. In areas where the on guidelines for public education, religious Muslim population is new or in the minority, training for military personnel, and law however, the community may face difficulties enforcement. in building or operating places of worship. Early in 2006, a bill was introduced to allow In October 2005 in the city of Nalchik, only clergy from the Russian Orthodox Church capital of Kabardino-Balkaria in the North to serve as official military chaplains. Members of Caucasus, the regional governor closed six of registered Protestant communities in distant areas the seven mosques in that city and allowed the claim that they do have some access to military remaining mosque to be opened for only a few personnel, but that varies from region to region. hours a week. In Astrakhan, the capital city of In general, however, the authorities prohibit Astrakhan Region, local authorities have Muslim services at military facilities. ordered the demolition of the local communi- Russian Orthodox officials sometimes use ty mosque that the previous government had their influence with regional authorities to helped fund. This case is apparently going to restrict the activities of other religious groups. the Russian Supreme Court. Paul Goble of There are frequent reports, particularly on the RFE/RL reported today that apparently the local level, that minority religious communities parishioners of the mosque in Astrakhan are must first secure permission from the Russian maintaining a round-the-clock watch on the Orthodox Church before being allowed to mosque, forming a human chain. The May 1, build, buy, or rent a house of worship, and that 2006, deadline for demolition of the mosque local authorities sometimes deny registration to has obviously come and gone, and they are minority groups at the behest of local Russian planning not only to appeal to the Russian Orthodox Church officials. In July 2005, for

56 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 example, the Sverdlovsk regional railway disappeared in November 2005 after interroga- authority, reportedly in response to pressure tion by the Federal Security Service. The from Russian Orthodox Church officials, can- Russian government continues to refuse to celed a three-day congress of 5,000 Jehovah’s make a serious effort to address reports of Witnesses scheduled to be held in a railway- chronic human rights abuses in that administered stadium. Because of the perceived are reportedly carried out by the Russian mil- links to the decade-long conflict in Chechnya itary, Chechen government forces, and and acts of terrorism worldwide, in 2005 Chechen rebel fighters. Despite entreaties from Muslims throughout Russia increasingly became the U.S. State Department, Russian authorities the targets of widespread discrimination, media have not sought negotiations to find a political attacks, and occasional acts of violence. In many solution to the decade-long war in Chechnya. of these incidents, there is growing concern Many in Russia’s Jewish community state among human rights organizations in Russia that despite some continued problems, condi- that religion has been a major factor. tions for the country’s Jews generally have In February 2003, the Russian Supreme improved, partly because, unlike in the Soviet Court reportedly met in secret and banned 15 period, the state no longer acts as an official Muslim groups because of their alleged ties to sponsor of anti-Semitism. In 2005 construction international terrorism. The evidence on began on a Jewish community building com- which the court made this decision has never plex on land donated by the city of Moscow, been made officially public, but police, prose- which will include a school, a hospital, and a cutors, and courts reportedly have used this new museum of Russian Jewry, the Holocaust, decision to arrest and imprison individuals and religious tolerance. from among Russia’s estimated 20 million Nevertheless, anti-Semitic acts, including Muslims. Persons suspected by local police of public pronouncements as well as vandalism involvement in alleged Islamic extremism have and physical attacks, continue, particularly in reportedly been subjected to torture and ill Russia’s western regions. In January 2005, treatment in pretrial detention, prisons, and twenty members of the Russian State Duma labor camps. There are as many as 200 cases of called on the Procurator General to ban all imprisonment of Muslims on what are appar- Jewish organizations in Russia, alleging that ently fabricated criminal charges of possession Jewish texts teach incitement of religious and of weapons and drugs. ethnic hatred. Although the letter was later Since the 2004 hostage taking in Beslan, officially withdrawn, none of the signers have police actions against Muslims in the North expressed regret for the views it expressed. In Caucasus have intensified. The Russian human April 2005, another letter expressing similarly rights group Memorial described most cases virulent anti-Semitic views was signed by against Muslims in that region as “trumped 5,000 people, including many well-known up.” Nine female Muslim students at Russian public figures and Russian Orthodox Kabardino-Balkaria State University reported- Church officials. Both letters were publicly ly were detained in June 2005 and interrogated condemned by the Russian Foreign Ministry. for wearing the hijab and engaging in group However, a Moscow district prosecutor study of the Koran. opened an investigation into the Jewish organ- Mosque closings in Nalchik in October ization that published a translation of the let- 2005 resulted in violence when 300 attackers ters, as well as into charges brought by Jewish targeted military garrisons and police stations, and human rights organizations that the letters leaving 34 police and members of the armed themselves, by promoting hatred of Jews, vio- forces dead. Following this incident, police lated federal laws against ethnic incitement. harassment of Muslim clerics and torture of These investigations were later closed with no alleged militants reportedly increased. charges being brought. According to the State Department, the head In September 2005, border guards at of the Islamic Research Institute in Nalchik, Moscow’s Domodedovo Airport denied re- who sought to promote dialogue between the entry to the rabbi of the Moscow Choral authorities and Muslims, is reported to have Synagogue. A Swiss citizen, he has lived in

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Moscow since 1989, and his family resides firebombed in April 2005. The Jehovah’s there. His visa status has since been resolved, Witnesses reported two incidents in March 2006 after a delay of several months. Casual anti- in which members were assaulted, one suffering Semitic statements reportedly are so numerous a concussion. that law enforcement bodies pay no attention There are continued reports of difficulties for to them. While official investigations into anti- foreign religious workers in entering Russia, Semitic activity by individuals have increased, either to work or to visit. Catholic authorities official efforts to combat chauvinist and anti- reported a decrease in visa problems for Catholic Semitic groups decreased in 2005. There was a priests in 2005, though foreign Catholic priests significant exception in May 2005, when a in the Pacific Region remain unable to invite Novgorod city court ruled that three distribu- other foreigners to assist them. None of the tors of an anti-Semitic bulletin constituted “an seven foreign Catholic clergy barred by author- extremist community,” as defined under the ities from entering Russia in 2001 or 2002 have criminal code. All three defendants received since been allowed to return to the country. The conditional sentences, but were banned from Russian authorities have also not resolved pend- distributing mass media, and one was also ing visa requests by the Dalai Lama to visit the banned from engaging in journalism. Republic of , although the Tibetan Anti-Semitic attacks and vandalism often go Buddhist leader was finally allowed to visit the unpunished except for high-profile incidents, traditionally Buddhist region of in late such as an attack in January 2005 in Moscow on 2004, though the conditions of his visit were two rabbis who were U.S. citizens. The two extremely restrictive. In the past year, the attackers in that case were sentenced to four Russian government also denied entry to high- years and 18 months in prison, but the court ranking British and Danish Salvation Army offi- failed to find that they were motivated by hatred. cials who sought to attend a church congress, In March 2006, a Moscow court sentenced a reportedly on the grounds that it was not in “the 21-year-old defendant to 13 years in prison for interests of state security.” the stabbing of eight men in a Moscow syna- I want to close by noting that a lot of peo- gogue, but did not find him guilty of inciting ple have referred to the official status for reli- racial hatred. The perpetrator had reportedly gions in Russia, mainly Buddhism, Judaism, been reading anti-Semitic literature before com- Russian Orthodoxy, and Islam. Since this refer- mitting the act. The number of reported inci- ence is only in the preface to the 1997 law, dents of vandalism of Jewish cultural and reli- therefore, in the opinion of Russian experts gious sites in 2005 was estimated to be on a sim- such as Aleksandr Verkhovsky, the letter of the ilar level to that in the previous year. law does not confer on these four faiths the for- There also continue to be official efforts to mal legal status of traditional religions. What portray foreign sects, mostly evangelical that means in practice, of course, is another Protestants, as alien to Russian culture and soci- question. But the former human rights ety. Officials do little to counter libelous media of Russia, Oleg Mironov, who is attacks or discrimination. Security services treat a constitutional lawyer, has also said that this the leadership of some minority religious reference in the preface to the 1997 law, aside groups, particularly Muslims and adherents of from the issue of its legal status, also violates newer religions, as security threats. Many offi- the Russian Constitution, which very clearly cials in the legislative branch and in law enforce- separates religion from the state. ment speak of the need to protect the country’s “spiritual security” by discouraging the growth Firuz Kazemzadeh: I find it very difficult to of sects and cults, usually understood to include comment, not only on this morning’s talks but Protestant and newer religious movements. on everything that has transpired at this confer- Evangelical Protestants also continued to be sub- ence, because religion in Russia is so complicat- jected to societal violence in the past year— ed. Almost anything one says about religion in churches and prayer houses were vandalized in Russia is true and false at the same time. It several regions. The Slavic Law Center reported depends on your perspective. It depends on how that a Baptist church in Oblast was you see things. In my own case, I am burdened

58 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 by the disease of historians who cannot talk doms, yet nobody pays any attention to those about anything that happens today without freedoms. When we look at Russia, we have to thinking of the controversy between Iosif make distinctions between what the law says Volotsky and Nil Sorsky as one of the sources of and what the practices are—that is, practices of the problems in the Orthodox Church and in the state and practices of individuals. The the relationship between church and state today. church is subservient to the state. The state To this I must add that I am myself a kind derives advantages from the support that the of an historical relic. I am old enough that my church gives it, but the church also receives memory stretches to the very end of the 1920s. advantages from the state. It is a reciprocal rela- I remember the closing down of the Babayev tionship which existed under the tsars even sweet shop on Pokrovka Street when the New before Peter the Great, even before the aboli- Economic Policy came to an end. This is one tion of the Patriarchate. It was expressed in of the earliest traumas of my childhood. This . I remember a story by wonderful place where we used to buy sweets Nikolai Leskov in which a priest trying to had suddenly disappeared. induce a young man to confess to him says, I remember the 1930s and the Stalinist ter- “You know the secrecy of the confessional is ror quite vividly. So when I look at the situa- always preserved except in government cases.” tion of religion today in Russia, I must com- Here is a priest admitting it, and this is written pare it to what I saw or read about in the not by a Marxist but by a very Orthodox Soviet Union, and the contrast is tremendous. Russian writer. Compared to the 1930s and 1940s, Russia has On the subject of respect toward law and almost absolute religious freedom. The change understanding of law, we can look at Russian is incredible. The Cathedral of Christ the literature. There is a story by Chekhov in Savior has been rebuilt. To see that building which a poor peasant unscrews some bolts and rise again, to see other churches repaired, is nuts from the railroad because he is going to amazing. Down by where I used to go to use them for fishing. When he is brought school there was a pretty little church, deteri- before a magistrate and the magistrate talks to orated over the years. It looked shabby; the him about the crime he has committed, the windows were broken. The last time I was in poor man simply cannot understand what rel- Moscow I passed by, and the church was evance the law has in this situation. He was renewed. It was bright; the cupolas were gild- thinking about fishing, not about the law. ed again. So from that perspective, how can we There is another story, in which the judge deny that there is religious freedom in Russia? says to the defendant, “How shall I judge you, But when you switch perspectives and look at according to the law or according to my con- the situation in Russia from London or from science?” The poor defendant says, “Please, any point in the United States, religious free- according to your conscience.” He is afraid of dom in Russia is indeed severely limited. the law. The law is something in the books—it There is today the issue of control of reli- is formidable, it is frightening. Conscience is gious organizations, but that is not a new issue. something else. You can deal with it. You can There was control under the tsars, there was deal with people. control in the Soviet Union, and this brings Finally, there is the business of individuals me to the idea that I wish were expressed more undertaking to enforce certain norms, no mat- in our conversations here about what could be ter what the law may say. Again, I go back to termed “popular culture.” Now the law is one Chekhov and Sergeant Prishibeyev, a character thing; the general practice of the law is some- who cannot tolerate certain behavior of the thing else. In Great Britain, the queen declares peasants in his little village and who decides to war. Can you imagine Queen Elizabeth start- enforce his views on them. When he is brought ing a war? Every criminal in Britain is arrested to court, he cannot understand why he is on the orders of the queen, in theory, but being convicted for telling people what to do, whom can she arrest? because people need to be told what to do. In other societies, as in the Soviet Union, a Now, that has a lot to do with religious constitution may proclaim all kinds of free- freedom. Manifestations, frequently very open

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ones, of anti-Semitism or anti-Islamic senti- what laws have been written. All of this is very ments in themselves inhibit the activities of important, I will not deny this. But it is only a these communities. They feel intimidated and part of the picture, perhaps not even the most uncomfortable. They want to disappear from important part of the picture. One would have sight, and that inhibiting effect can be very to do—and we have heard this mentioned sev- damaging to religious communities. eral times—fieldwork. One has to go among Now, as I said before, generalizations about the people; one has to see how they really feel religion in Russia are extremely dangerous. But in respect to freedom of religion. having made that warning, I will still indulge in some generalizations. I feel, for instance, that COMMENTS AND QUESTIONS the dislike of foreigners persists, and coexists with admiration for foreigners. Even under the H. Knox Thames: Thank you very much. Soviets, items that were imported from abroad Before I open up the panel to questions from were considered good and domestic products the floor, I would like to pose one to get the were considered poor. True or false, that was a conversation rolling. I always find it interesting prevalent feeling. “Foreign” meant something when people, in talking about religious free- was good, yet the foreigners themselves some- dom in Russia, say that it is better than it was how were suspect. in the Soviet times. Well, I would hope so. That Anti-Semitism is pervasive. The educated was such an extreme, brutal system that just classes partake of it just as the uneducated classes about anything would be better than what was do. Again, it is not universal. It would be unjust happening during the Soviet times. I would like and unfair to say that all Russians dislike the Jews. to hear from the panel about where they see It is a question of proportions, and the propor- the trends going in respect for religious free- tion of anti-Semitic Russians to non–anti- dom generally in Russia. We have heard from Semitic Russians is, I am afraid, quite high. Nick Gvosdev’s talk that while the government The Orthodox Church undoubtedly includes is trying to increase its reach, there are still many people with very high spiritual aspirations individual freedoms at this point, and individu- who preach and practice kindness. But the als feel free in their personal lives. church as an institution frequently takes positions Cathy Cosman pointed out in her presenta- that promote religious intolerance. When I was tion that the various groups encounter different in Moscow with the U.S. Commission on conditions for their enjoyment of religious International Religious Freedom in 2003, I freedoms. Communities from Christian back- picked up a book at an exhibit, a book published grounds face registration problems. The by the Patriarchate. In it there were lists of evil Muslim community seems to have a much religions, including my own, that were equated more oppressive experience with local and fed- with satanism and called totalitarian cults. It is the eral government agencies. And the Jewish com- church that produced this. munity encounters anti-Semitism that seems to These things exist, and the state itself, for continually crop up, not from the government various reasons, may promote some of such but from society. activities and sometimes restrain them. But I do Finally, Professor Kazemzadeh spoke about not think the blame can be put entirely on the the distinctions between what laws are on the state. If there is anti-Semitism, if there is intol- books and what is done in practice, and the erance, it is part of society’s past. It is part of problems at the societal level. the inherited popular culture, and in this If I could hear from each of you—where do respect Russia is no different from other coun- you see this going, looking forward 5 to 10 tries of the world, where all sorts of intolerance years? Will religious freedoms continue to and restrictions on freedom of religion exist. grow, or do you fear that they will be con- And it is not always the fault of the state. stricted? When we discuss the situation in Russia, it is not enough to look at what the government Gvosdev: I think, first, that it is important to does—what proclamations have been made, situate what happens in Russia in a larger what preambles have been written to laws, European context. Certainly, religious freedom

60 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 in Russia is better than it was in the Soviet comparison with Germany, and as one moves period, and I think everyone can agree with from Germany to Russia, one sees a number of that. That does not mean that what replaces it the same trends. It is just that in Russia religion is always going to be seen as optimal, depend- policy is not always applied according to the ing on your perspective. If you are asking that rule of law, and Russians simply are not as effi- Russia be compared to the Soviet past or com- cient as Germans in implementing things. To pared to the United States or Britain in how the extent that there is a continuum, situating you evaluate religious freedom, you will clear- post-Soviet Russia on a central European con- ly get very different answers. tinuum for religious freedom will have mean- There are larger questions in terms of where ing to the extent that Russia becomes more of Russia’s own orientation is headed. For exam- a rule-of-law society where the bureaucracy is ple, is Russia more or less akin to Greece in under the control of the state and the courts. religious freedom? We still have problems with That would be a positive, but that does not Greece. Greece is a member of the European mean that we are going to sit back and say that Union and NATO. Yet we do not look at if Russia in 2015 is like Germany in 1990, the Greece and say it is a paragon of religious free- religious freedom issue has disappeared. dom as we would like it. I would argue that we also need to see If Russians were interested in emulating some Russia not only as its own entity, but also as aspects of the German or Austrian model for reli- part of the debate in Europe itself about reli- gious freedom, or the lack thereof, that would gious freedom. Just as the Russians have lists of include state registration, under which the state undesirable religions, the French do as well. has the power to recognize specific groups and to And just because France is a democracy, it does designate others as a security risk. If Russia were not mean that we are not very critical of the to emulate Germany, would that mean that we French government for how, in our opinion, it would be satisfied with its level of religious free- seeks to overregulate religion and in some cases dom? From an American perspective, we could prevent what we would consider to be the free say that it would be an improvement from the exercise of religion. Soviet period, or perhaps even from the post- Soviet period. Cosman: It is a complicated question. Putin I think that there is a question of where early on promoted the “dictatorship of the Russia is headed. It may head in a more positive law,”and some surmised early on where he was direction. In some areas, it could just as well head heading. Apparently, Russia now has twice as into trends that we have discussed. Certainly, the many bureaucrats as it did in the Soviet period, commission has pointed out that although which is pretty remarkable. I think it is also Continental Europe is comprised of democracies, very relevant in light of the Federal it does not mean that we agree with all of their Registration Service, which is in charge of perspectives on how they deal with religious free- registration procedures not only for religious dom issues. I think that will be part of this dis- communities but also for NGOs, and which cussion for years to come. If Russia does end up was planned as early as 2004. According to one following the traditional Greek model for how it source, when Putin signed the NGO law into regulates religion, it may be an improvement. But law in January, he signed an addendum to the that does not mean that we in the United States law empowering this Federal Registration would say that it was optimal that they now had Service, which is headed by a lawyer friend of the Greek model of regulation. That would his from St. Petersburg, Sergei Movchan, to equate with the effective establishment of a reli- hire 30,000 bureaucrats all over Russia. To me, gion, along with discrimination not only against this bodes much greater state control. religions that were perceived to be minorities, Professor Kazemzadeh’s observations about but also discrimination against groups that sought the emphasis on the state, and perhaps not to dissent from the main institutions. enough emphasis on societal attitudes and I would submit that Russia to some extent views, rings true. Xenophobia is a problem needs to be considered as part of this overall around the world, and more common in an era European context. It is interesting to make the of globalization and migration. I think it is

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important to keep in mind that Russia today perhaps simultaneously a growth of tolerance has the world’s second-largest number of and intolerance, depending on the segment of migrants. Although the official figure is 2.5 the population with which you deal. I am not million, informed estimates say that the actual convinced that, on the matter of laws, govern- number is closer to 10 million, and most of ment arrangements necessarily represent very those people, with the exception of some much. I understand that in Finland, for Georgians, are Muslims. The largest single instance, the social security system is adminis- number, I guess, come from Azerbaijan. These tered by the Lutheran Church. Finland is cer- Shia Muslims, among whom at least some of tainly a free country, and nobody has ever the Moscow-based Azerbaijanis are quite well complained about religious intolerance in off, add another complicating factor to the Finland. Nobody discriminates against the building and funding of new mosques. other religious groups, including the However, xenophobic attitudes are increas- Orthodox, who have been quite numerous in ingly directed against migrants, of whom only Finland since the tsarist era, the Jews, or even 10 percent have legal status and most of whom the Baha’is. When members of religious live under extremely difficult situations. To me, minorities retire, they get their paychecks, you cannot really separate freedom of religion nobody discriminates against them, and yet from xenophobia. Maybe this is a particular Finland has established the primacy of the attitude on my part, but if you are concerned Lutheran Church. with freedom of religion from the point of I would be quite happy to see the Orthodox view of every religion, then that concern Church proclaimed the national church in should extend to societal attitudes toward Russia if tolerance were to prevail in popular minorities. There tends to be an overlap attitudes, if children were taught tolerance in between ethnic groups and their religious affil- the Russian schools, and if there were a kind iations, and therefore, unfortunately, I see of Russian civil rights movement such as we xenophobia on the increase, and the statistics have experienced in the last decades in the support this. There has been some recognition United States. I have lived in the United States by the Russian government that it is facing an now for 60 years, and the difference between increasingly serious problem in that regard. I attitudes toward the black population 60 years hope that this will result in the government ago and now are striking. It is visible every- renewing and expanding such initiatives as the where, and not just with Colin Powell and official tolerance program, which for some rea- Condoleezza Rice. The change has been enor- son was ended a year early. But it is possible that mous in the daily life of society. Here you have the government will simply employ more the state cooperating with the public, but the crackdowns to prevent the more violent xeno- impulse is coming not from the state, but from phobic acts. the people. So perhaps one may be optimistic It is a complicated picture. Certainly I agree that in Russia, with the expansion of its hori- with Nick Gvosdev that one does need to see zons and knowledge, popular movements will Russia in a more European context, for the arise that will advocate a change in attitude. simple reason that Russia has more of a Again, that is also a part of Russian tradition. Napoleonic legal structure. It does not have the After all, Russia is the country that brought us Anglo-Saxon legal structure. Therefore, Chekhov and Tolstoy. Dostoyevsky may have Russia’s legal prism is more from a Continental been a bigot, but Tolstoy was not. All of these European perspective, certainly, than a British elements are there. Who knows which will or American one. prevail in the short run, but I continue to be optimistic. Kazemzadeh: Here again contradictions abound. On the one hand, there is a growing Paxson: I would like to return to some of the xenophobia. On the other hand, as was point- comments that Dr. Kazemzadeh made earlier, ed out a minute ago, more Russians travel, the because I think it helps us orient ourselves middle class is growing, and new ideas are pen- toward some of the bigger questions that we have etrating that expanding middle class. There is been trying to get at these past couple of days.

62 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 First of all, his comments marked the com- kinds of religions present. There were lots of plexity of the situation with regard to religion in Protestant sects, Mennonites and Evangelical Russia, now and in the past, and that is very Lutheran sects; there were Jews; there were important to remember. And then there are the Polish Catholics and Ukrainian Catholics; and contradictions—that is, while tolerance exists, there were also Orthodox, of course. What I intolerance also exists. That is actually epistemo- found in my research were people who actual- logically and theoretically very interesting and ly felt that they could move from religion to important, because material exists to go in one religion, especially starting in the 1880s and direction, and material exists to go in another ’90s. I think that villagers were especially active direction. They are both there. Things will go a in seeking out other religions to draw inspira- certain way, but they could go either way, and tion, and they mostly did this because they they could go either way at any moment. were thinking about questions of social justice, I want to return to popular culture and its economic equality, who gets the land, and importance and place with regard to this ques- who gets access to the law. They found that the tion. I agree that this is a very crucial aspect, terms were often weighted against those in the one that we have not talked about enough in village, and that the landowners controlled the past couple of days, although I think we property, economic transactions, access to discussed it a bit yesterday. As a researcher and courts, and knowledge of the law. as an anthropologist who has done fieldwork, I So the villagers would seek out Hasidic bear both the strengths and weaknesses of my Jews. Orthodox believers often sought out field. An anthropologist sits in one place, usu- Protestants, evangelicals, and Mennonites who ally for a really long time, and knows that one talked about social justice and who talked place really well to the exclusion of other about sources of inspiration that came directly places. So my remarks have to be understood to the individual without any mediation from with that in mind. religious hierarchies such as priests, ministers, In the tiny little village where I lived in the and rabbis. They actually started to create syn- Russian North, where religiosity was a mixed cretic religious movements that were based in practice, there was a great deal of tolerance for the village. What you would find was a villager, other people, for other ways of being, for often illiterate or barely literate, who gathered other ethnic identities, and for other religions. all this information and said, “I’ve got the They housed Jews during World War II who word of God. It came directly into me, and this had been evacuated from St. Petersburg. The is what we ought to do.” woman I lived with was a war orphan. She They inspired each other to go do very bold lived among other war orphans from all over things with the courts and the local landown- the world, and she spoke of them with warmth er. Leaders in these communities would often and sometimes even love. This was a people be women, and I think they were inspired to who had terrible things happen to them, and do something that they would not normally they could be mean to each other. There were do—defy gender norms and defy the norms of Gypsies in the area, there were Jews in the area, the power structure—because of religion. and excluding some tiny remarks here and What I found was a terrific and inspiring there, in my microscopic investigation of this force in Ukraine in the 1880s and ’90s, and group of people I saw the potential for toler- once again in the 1930s during the resistance ance in this small place. That is important. It is to collectivization. These religions inspired not Russia as a whole, it is not urban Russia, people to say, “God has told us we should go, but it is there. And here I will turn the floor and we should resist them taking our kulaks over to Kate Brown to make a comment about away.” Again, women led these movements in the material for tolerance and intolerance in village after village. They did this, I think, the popular culture. because they were drawing on ideas from other religions that were around them, and you saw Kate Brown: In the places I have studied in this particularly in Ukraine. This is a place that Ukraine, in both the 19th century and the was a great mixing ground for ethnicities and early part of the 20th century there were all religion, and I think this was empowering.

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I wonder about what we find today. have an ethnic connection back to Russia, they Xenophobia or intolerance toward religions think you should be Protestant. outside Orthodoxy is in part a reaction to mass It is interesting when people who are not migrations and people moving in. But is it not particularly religious use religious identity as a also a part of a larger world movement? I would way of establishing some markers as to who like to have the panel put this in perspective. If belongs and who does not. I think that one we could place this in a global context, it would aspect of tolerance and intolerance is the ques- seem to be a comparative project. What about tion about the halfway approach. I think that anti-Muslim sentiment worldwide, or in the there is a middle ground, not only in Russia American national context? What about anti- but elsewhere, where you can find a balance Semitism? Take France as an example, where between tolerance of everything and intoler- we see both anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim ance, where people will say, “We will tolerate a attitudes on the rise. What about increasing certain degree of diversity, but not beyond global migrations combined with xenophobia these limits.” and retrenchment to less tolerant religions? We This comes back to why the preface to the can see this in the rise of the Christian Right in 1997 Law on Religious Organizations, even if the United States, which of course has policy it is entirely legally valid, reflects the cultural implications. The handshake between govern- thinking among at least some of the people. It ment and less tolerant religious attitudes is not says, “Yes, we have diversity in Russia, because something that is unique to Russia. I would like we have our Kalmyk Buddhists, we have our to see some comments on that. Bashkir Muslims, we have our Jews, and we have our Russian Orthodox. This is our diver- Gvosdev: First of all, about the raw material sity, and anything beyond that we do not really for tolerance, I think it is interesting that you accept.”That is an issue for the United States as see that it can go both ways among people who well, because our oft-trumpeted religious are religious as well as people who claim a cer- diversity usually has meant diversity among tain identity but are not religious. That is, some Christians, which is what we trumpet when we of the most tolerant people are those who are proclaim that we have 2,000 Christian denom- religious and devout, and therefore recognize inations in the United States. that in the followers of other faiths. You can Having lived and taught in Texas, I can tell also find people who are very religious but are you that the Christian zone of tolerance usual- very intolerant. ly means that they accept the Baptist Church, I think an interesting development in the Presbyterian Church, and the Free Church, Russia is that some of the intolerance that is and maybe the Catholics might be included. expressed is coming from people who are cul- The Orthodox are “sort of on the edge,” but turally Orthodox but are not really religious. can be accepted. Maybe Jews can be accepted. That is, they do not go to church and they are Now Texas is increasingly confronted with not really interested in spirituality. For them, what happens with Muslim and Hindu immi- Orthodoxy is a marker and a way to distin- gration. The concern then is that people’s guish us from them, especially from those who acceptance of religious freedom, their toler- are ethnically Russian but profess another faith ance, and their ability to process diversity begin that is identified with another national com- to break down. munity. This growing phenomenon of ethnic I think that is a real issue for Russia. Russians becoming Muslims is an interesting Russians themselves are exposed to diversity as one, and Paul Goble has been very interested more Russians go abroad. There is more mix- in that dynamic. ing as more Central Asians return or migrate to There is also the idea that if you are going Russia, and as Chinese migrants arrive. People to be Christian, you should follow the form of are trying to make sense of how much diversi- Christianity that fits your own national identi- ty they can tolerate and how they can hold ty. Oddly enough, I have run into Russians their communities together. who do not understand that there are One of the impacts of globalization has been Orthodox Americans. Unless you somehow the ability of people and ideas to move back and

64 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 forth. How did a lot of this antisectarian litera- and uneducated. I think someone else pointed ture pop up in Russia in the 1990s? It is not out here yesterday that the social structure for indigenous—it comes from Germany and the many young people in that age group has been United States. The irony is that some Protestant eroded, and so they are increasingly at loose movements in the United States have put out ends and open to all kinds of influences, both literature against the Jehovah’s Witnesses and for bad and good. I think that some of the tol- similar groups, and now that literature has erance found in villages might be also because migrated to Russia. The Russians then took that they are more isolated, and their memories and literature and decided to add the Baptists and their identities are more whole. They are not as other Protestant groups. There has been this buffeted about by the vicissitudes of different exchange of literature and ideas, which again kinds of influences and ideas, and are not as puts Russia in a larger European context. likely to encounter strangers. Villagers have There is no longer an iron curtain between known everybody else, along with their fami- Russia and the rest of Europe, and as trends lies, for decades at least. develop in other parts of Europe, they migrate Interestingly, it seems there is increased to Russia and then from Russia back into intolerance in prisons among people based on Europe. I have not read this interesting novel religious affiliation. Religiously based gangs are that came out, The Mosque of Notre Dame de increasingly active and violent. And part of that Paris [by Elena Chudinova], which apparently may be because they spend a lot of time watch- is a best seller. It is set in 2040, and Europe is ing Russian TV—and Russian TV engages in a part of the Caliphate. It depicts the struggle of lot of ethnic and religious stereotyping. Russian a Russian, an Israeli, and a Serb to destroy Orthodox or non-Muslim prisoners view neg- Notre Dame, which has been turned into the ative stereotypes of Muslims, and therefore they Mosque of Paris. Those are themes that res- fear each other. It has resulted in less TV being onate in many parts of Europe, not simply in available in prisons, and some Muslim prisoners Russia. I think it is important to see these have had to be removed from parts of the trends, particularly the concern about Islam prison system where previously they could be and whether Hizb ut-Tahrir is a peaceful reli- housed with no particular problem. gious political movement or a terrorist group There are also some interesting polling data and so on. Something happens in Russia, that show that if someone is genuinely reli- something happens in London, something gious—as opposed to being religious as kind of happens in Berlin—events now tend to cross- a marker of ethnic or other sentiments—they pollinate and to reinforce each other. I think it tend to be more tolerant. And that is true for is important to see these not just as isolated any religious group. trends in Russia, but as part and parcel of what is happening in the rest of the world. Kazemzadeh: Again, this is such an enor- mously complicated thing. For instance, in Cosman: I agree with what Nick Gvosdev Southern California, in prisons and in schools has just said, but would add just a few varia- there are fights between Hispanics and blacks. tions. One disturbing development is that one Both groups are minorities, both have a diffi- American in particular has contributed to the cult life, and still they fight each other. But the rise of increased intolerance in Russia, and that religious element does not seem to enter into is David Duke. Apparently, he pays regular vis- it. It is an ethnic fight. It is the difference in its to Russia and to Eastern Europe and stirs language and customs. Cardinal Roger the pot in various unpleasant ways. Mahony of Los Angeles, who is of Irish I think Paul Goble has pointed out that the descent and as white as they come, defends level of racist intolerance, or I should say xeno- illegal aliens and is willing to violate America’s phobia, is highest in the western parts of laws to extend help to them. So there is no Russia. In other words, it is in the cities, where precise correlation. In some instances there is, people are cheek by jowl with someone who in some there is not. But I have no doubt that looks very different, where you find the skin- awfulness has become globalized. Take, for heads, who are usually young, unemployed, instance, a country like Iran. It was never a

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paragon of tolerance, but in the last few Turks, people who could not get their status decades it has been so terrible that one simply regularized and so were not able to leave a hor- does not recognize the country. It is happening rible situation. As a consequence, the United in so many countries. States opened up a refugee resettlement program I am glad that somebody mentioned France, to bring them here. But I wonder if they could because was more or less a have left and had the proper documents and joke. Less than 10 percent of French people moved to another place in Russia where they went to church. The French nationality was had been welcomed, or that was just empty, based on the mythology of the Revolution. It would that problem have gone away? was as secular as it comes, and all of a sudden you have a strange paradox. You have the rise of Goluboff: I have a comment regarding this both anti-Semitism and anti-Islamism. You notion of material for tolerance and popular cul- would think that if people wanted to be anti- ture in Russia. It strikes me, as an ethnographer Muslim they would become pro-Israel, but that looking at small things in populations, that in my doesn’t happen either. research looking at groups of Jews from Russia, I think that you could call it the tribalization the Caucasus, Georgia, and Central Asia, they of humanity. You have smaller and smaller found that they had to make differences among units. People invent identities. They do not themselves. Being Jewish as an identifying factor seem to be satisfied to be members of a nation just did not seem to be good enough. I found or of a recognizable ethnic group; instead, they that the idea of ethnicity is much more fluid, and are looking for subgroups and for tiny little that those from the Russian-Jewish side can say enclaves, and then those become the most that they feel Russian. important elements. They had a notion of feeling Russian, of admiring churches, of admiring the icons, of Cosman: Apropos of France, just before the feeling a link, whether or not the dominant riots last fall I met with some young French culture allowed for that kind of fluidity. They Muslim activists. They were very glad that the felt that link, and would talk about how they government had spoken out very strongly felt more in common with Russians than with against anti-Semitism, but they regretted that Jews from Azerbaijan, even though they were the government had not done so against the all Jewish. There was that cultural authenticity, many public anti-Muslim statements in France. that material for tolerance. But it is not recog- nized by the dominant society, and if it is rec- Thames: In comparing the experience here in ognized, it is not validated as important. So the United States for religious freedom with maybe we do have these smaller contextual that in Europe and Russia, I think part of it is movements of fluidity and ethnicity, but it does our Anglo-Saxon legal tradition. But I have not seem to play out in the larger frame. also wondered if it is just the combination of government policy and free movement, togeth- Comment: I would like to comment on some er with lots of open spaces. When you had of the statements made. They are really interest- Baptists here in Episcopalian Virginia, it did ing, but they touch on something very impor- not work out so well. But they could leave and tant about what is happening beyond Russia in find an empty space where they could find reli- terms of transnational movements. In many cases gious freedom. The Latter-day Saints were in it is this reassertion of identity, of trying to Illinois. It was not working so well, but they locate oneself in a globalized world by focusing could and did move out to Utah and enjoy reli- narrowly on what group one belongs to or what gious freedom. religion one belongs to. This leads in part to a In Western Europe you have freedom of phenomenon that has been tracked all over the movement, but not too many empty spaces world—the resurgence of religion in the public where you are not rubbing up against each sphere and the need for public demonstrations of other. Russia has lots of empty spaces, but not so religiosity and one’s belief. A part of it is in reac- much freedom of movement. I can think of tion to secularization. With the secularization of cases like in Krai with the Meskhetian the 20th century, the understanding was that

66 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 religion was a private matter that did not belong and the Mormon temple was shut down. in a public sphere, that a secular society meant On the other hand, in Saratov you have the exclusion of religion, and that religion about as many mosques as churches. You have would wither away and die. the local population actually protesting against You see this reaction to secularization all rebuilding a church on a site that now has a park over. You see Muslims in Nigeria or Indonesia and a stadium. The locals want their kids to have wear head scarves, which they did not wear somewhere to run around, and they are asking before. You see a desire for a more demonstra- why they would need another church when tive orthodoxy in Russia, or wherever the case there are already three in their neighborhood. may be. It is an interesting pattern that is hap- A final fascinating element that I found in pening all over. Saratov was a memorial to commemorate World I think that some of the comments about War II, and there, surrounded by tanks and air- Russia’s return to Europe are useful. If you planes and all sorts of things, is this artificially look more carefully at what is happening in constructed village built up over the last two or Europe, there is increased pressure against dis- three years. It represents the houses donated by crimination—consider the decisions of the members of the local ethnic communities, and European Court of Human Rights. Some there are 20 or 25 different houses. There is a things that are happening in Russia do not Ukrainian house, a Belarusian house, a Russian match up very well with that. Greece certainly house, a Bashkiri house, an Uzbek house, a does have a much more unified church-state Tatar house, and so on. They are very proud of system than the United States—one that most this reflection of their community.Today’s com- Americans would not feel very comfortable ments really sparked this memory that I had of with. But I think it is interesting that even this visit, and it speaks to this issue of contra- Europeans do not feel comfortable with it. The dictory evidence about tolerance and intoler- European Court of Human Rights has made ance in one place. very clear statements that a number of aspects of the Greek approach are not compatible with Balzer: I want to make a comment that draws European laws. Russia is trying to sort out on what Kate Brown and Maggie Paxson were where it will end up and how it will deal with talking about, having to do with some of these these issues. As Americans, our tendency may new syncretic religious movements. We have be to be dismissive and say that Russia is just not talked much about a phenomenon that is moving into Europe. Having studied European growing worldwide, and that is the degree to systems, I think that it is not as simple as that. which mixing and matching of religion is cre- There are pressures against discrimination even ating what Toby Lester called, in his Atlantic in cooperative systems like Austria or Monthly article “Oh, Gods!” the newest growth Germany. There have been some successful trend of the 21st century. One of the things court challenges to some of the most discrim- that I was thinking about, as I thought of the inatory features of those systems. That pressure historical backgrounds of syncretic movements is going to be felt in Russia as well. and these revitalization movements, which I have studied comparatively for many years, is Comment: I was intrigued by the conversa- that a lot of them, unfortunately, are not so tion about complexity and the necessity to look tolerant. It is very interesting that the cases that at the local context. I wanted to follow up on you are highlighting and that you found have that with an experience that I had visiting created conditions in which the syncretism Saratov about two months ago. What I found allows for room for tolerance. Sometimes these fascinating there was this presence of contradic- are revitalization movements that are very tions. On the one hand, you had a Mormon defensive in nature, but also are very us/them community that attempted to build a temple in the way that they frame an enemy. Often in and had actually gotten permission to do so Russia, it has been an anti-Russian thing on from the governor. They were all set up to do it, the part of non-Russians. It is unfortunate to and then a new Orthodox bishop comes along say, but at the same time I really think we need to visit the governor and says, “I don’t like this,” to think about the ways in which these move-

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ments have an enormous complexity and diver- partner in this relationship over the last several sity and often get lost in the shuffle as we think years. Of course, how the next Patriarch is select- about so many of the dominant religions and ed is going to be quite interesting. their dynamics with the state or with society. Having said that, I come back to the point The conditions right now in Russia socially that I raised in my initial presentation, which is and culturally are so chaotic that a lot of this given that the number of people who are actu- new religious phenomenon is bubbling up ally going to church on any given Sunday or in from local levels. It is certainly happening in any given month is relatively small, the new the Sakha Republic, where I do my fieldwork, movements and syncretism are likely to contin- but it is also happening in Tuva, , and ue in spite of the Patriarchate. many other places as well. I would add that they Is the Patriarchate going to continue to be in cannot be lumped all together, but nor should a position of having a near-monopoly in Russia they all be seen as automatically tolerant. on the Orthodox identity or not? The answer depends on whether an increasing number of Comment: Russia does have the fluidity that people become so dissatisfied with the we are discussing today. But in fact there is one Patriarchate or with its leadership that they organization that overwhelmingly determines decide that they want to separate and form religious policy in Russia. It is the Moscow something else. We are seeing this play out over Patriarchate. I am studying the Moscow the question of Russian Orthodox communities Patriarchate’s relations, as well as its corporate in Western Europe right now. As of today, one relations, with the KGB. Even here in of the Russian Orthodox bishops in England has America, I am making unbelievable discoveries now been accepted into the Patriarchate of not just about the Soviet era, but about today Constantinople. He is taking communities out as well. My question is the following: How do of the Moscow Patriarchate, but not to become you in America view the Moscow Greek, interestingly enough. It is this notion of Patriarchate—as an independent organization, churches in the Russian Orthodox tradition, but or as a part of the Russian government? not affiliated with the Moscow Patriarchate. If these trends are happening in Western Europe, is Gvosdev: It is probably best described as out- there a delayed mechanism by which eventually side the state. It is not like in Greece, where this comes back to Russia? And then of course, there is a formal establishment, or even in what response will the state have? I do not know. Britain, where the Anglican Church has a for- I suspect that the state will probably lean more mal establishment and the prime minister gets to to the Greek model, under which the Orthodox pick bishops in the name of the queen. Church in Greece is defined as the Church of But it is very clear that the legal question is Athens in communion with Constantinople, not the whole picture. There is a very clear and if you are not a part of that, then you can- interrelationship of hierarchies in Russia not be designated as being Orthodox. between church and state, and between business What happened in Ukraine was that a suffi- and government. It is very revealing that the cient number of people broke out of an existing decisions of the 1917 Council of the Russian church structure. It then became harder for the Orthodox Church, which provide for bishops to state to impose one Orthodox variant. I could be elected by the local dioceses in assemblies, see a situation in which 10 years from now there have not been restored. You do not have the might be multiple Orthodox jurisdictions in genuine restoration of what in 1917 was seen as Russia, as you already have in Estonia, Greece, the authentic Orthodox traditions, but rather a Ukraine, and elsewhere, unless the state decides system of promotion and movement through the to use its power very heavy-handedly to enforce hierarchy that is still centrally controlled. There a particular Orthodox jurisdiction. is a certain degree of influence back and forth. This comes back to another point, and I I was at a conference at Columbia University think maybe not just for Orthodoxy but for on relations among the Russian state, the Russian other religions in the Sakha Republic and else- church, and society. We heard the extent to where. What happens when local officials do not which the church has been very much the junior step back from this issue, and they actually have

68 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 an interest in the outcome? What happens if fication of Orthodoxy in Ukraine under a you have officials who say, “I prefer this variant Ukrainian patriarchate, which would then strip of Orthodoxy” or “I really want to see this syn- the Moscow Patriarchate of its parishes. For the cretic movement move forward.” same reason, the Moscow Patriarchate in I think that is why there is a lot of stuff bub- Estonia is a big proponent of religious freedom. bling underneath the surface. We have to see what happens when the current Patriarch dies Cosman: It is also interesting to note that the or retires—how the next Patriarch is chosen and Patriarch was born in Estonia. I think the whether or not that decision sits well. It hap- Russian government could be more conscien- pened in Bulgaria. It happened in the former tious about informing officials about relevant Yugoslavia, where you now have three compet- Russian laws and international legal commit- ing Orthodox jurisdictions. ments in the sphere of religion. It is necessary, The Russian government successfully main- and would be fairly simple to do. Many local tained its influence over the church in the 1990s officials in Russia really believe that the because most of the splinters were small enough Russian Orthodox Church is the official that they could be contained. Father Gleb church and should be granted veto power over Yakunin going off to the independent other churches or permission to build houses Ukrainians could be contained. Father Georgi of worship. Kotchekov and his movement could be con- tained. The Russian Orthodox Church Abroad Kazemzadeh: In Russia, local officials are coming back to Russia could be contained. appointed by the state. Russian governors are not These developments were small enough to be elected, as they are here in America. That is why contained. Whether that continues over the local officials listen to the orders from Kremlin next 10 to 15 years is an open question, I think. about which religion to support, and they are If the dominant religious movement itself ordered to support the Moscow Patriarchate. splits into factions and fissures, then that creates Here in America, I am sure that not all the reli- a completely different environment for the legal gious experts know that in Russia the church regime for religious freedom. If people want to buildings belong to the state even now, not to support Orthodoxy, then the next question is the community. For example, if this or that which Orthodoxy? Political figures like presi- Russian parish decides to move to another juris- dents Kuchma, Kravchuk, and Yushchenko in diction or even to join another religious group, Ukraine were able to respond to demands to that parish has to leave not only its property but support “Orthodoxy” by replying, “Great, the church building to the Moscow Patriarchate which Orthodoxy?” Their solution has been to and go to the other jurisdiction. visit all and favor none. Could something like that happen in Russia? Question: From what I understand, the I do not know. Given that most Russians are not Patriarchate in the last hundred years has been really religiously active, this could end up being shrinking. It lost all these churches and parish- a split of 2 percent versus 2 percent. I think the es in the 1917 revolution, and now in Ukraine field is open. and Estonia it refuses to give up another thing and fights to remain dominant where it still Cosman: I would say that the Russian has power. Has it become more of an Orthodox Church is the first among equals, entrenched body? without doubt. I also think that the Moscow Patriarchate stands to lose a lot in Ukraine, Kazemzadeh: The Moscow Patriarchate has since, I believe, half of its parishes are based in never had a great problem, because it is a Ukraine. bureaucratic and not a spiritual organization. It was created by Stalin in 1953 in order to Gvosdev: The Moscow Patriarchate in deceive the West that there was religious free- Ukraine is a very strong proponent of religious dom in Russia. All the priests and students of freedom and of no state interference precisely the ecclesiastic academy who began to study in for that reason. Its big fear was of a forced reuni- 1943 were drawn from the army and security

RELIGION IN RUSSIAN SOCIETY 69

organizations. We just do not understand some- Bogomolov: I am also not an expert on the times that today’s Moscow Patriarchate is an authorities, but our recent experience in organization that was created by Stalin and Ukraine, particularly during the Orange headed up by the KGB under Lavrenti Beria. Revolution, has increased my interest in the So today’s Patriarchate is not the same as the Moscow Patriarchate. During this period, old Patriarchate. After the Declaration of 1927 Moscow used the Moscow Patriarchate to sup- [in which Metropolitan Sergy Stragorodsky port a government that we strongly disliked. declared the church’s absolute loyalty to the That undermined the credibility of the Soviet state], a great part of the Russian clergy Moscow Patriarchate, even among ethnic did not acknowledge it or just went under- Russians in Ukraine. The vicissitudes of the ground, and this persists in Russia. Orange Revolution have brought me into close contact with some organizers of marches—i.e., Cosman: According to a recent public-opin- supposedly sacred processions—in support of ion poll, the Russian Orthodox Church has a Viktor Yanukovych. The Christian marchers higher credibility rating than any other institu- were holding crosses and portraits of tion in Russia. Yanukovych. I found it interesting that the organizers came directly from Moscow, and Kazemzadeh: Yes.But let us remember events some of them had nothing to do with religion in Russia about 10 years ago. At that time you at all. That brings me to the conclusion that it could see Stalin’s portrait on top of cars passing is not really important whether or not the by.Why so? They did not believe the Soviet gov- Russian president can substitute Patriarch ernment then, and they do not believe the Alexei II for somebody else. This is largely a Russian government now. They do not believe symbolic figure. Putin. They need something spiritual. They do not have a lot of assurance about which religion Thames: We are going to have to leave it to choose. They do not have enough informa- there, as we are out of time. I would like to tion, because all the state channels are filled only thank our panelists and conference participants with the Moscow Patriarchate. for this stimulating discussion.

70 KENNAN INSTITUTE OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 Final Observations

For generations, it was impossible for observers political movements of various kinds, as indi- to evaluate the extent to which religious beliefs vidual adherents negotiate new relationships to endured, shifted, or were reshaped in the cli- religious practice—including new rites, new mate of an antireligious Soviet state. Since the beliefs, and sometimes new moral codes— fall of the Soviet Union, it has become increas- Russia faces a question: What kind of state will ingly clear that religious beliefs and practices of it be and what kind of state will it become? many forms persisted even while churches, syn- Spanning a rich, varied, complex territory, agogues, mosques, and other religious institu- how can it harness its native diversity for the tions were repressed and destroyed. Some of purpose of building a tolerant, just, and open these religious practices were openly defiant, country? How can it become an example to but others retained their relevance in people’s other nations in the ways it protects individu- lives more quietly: defining values, connecting als and communities in their public expressions communities, informing identities, and address- of religious practice, and in their private ing some of the deepest hopes and fears of peo- moments of spiritual longing? ple living in volatile times. Russia can choose many paths in this regard. In these years after the collapse of the Soviet In its diversity, it can become a country that is Union, religious practice survives and, in welcoming to religious difference and safeguards many ways, thrives brilliantly. There is explo- and protects the rights of individual peoples and ration into world religions that long dominat- communities for the sake of the inclusive whole. ed in the region: Orthodox Christianity, Islam, Like other great countries with complex pasts, it Judaism, and Buddhism. But there is, of can also choose more troubled futures of official course, also active investigation into new vari- intolerance or unofficial fanaticism. There is no ations and permutations of religious practice, religion that fails to offer versions of a moral life, including new sects with new social, econom- a civilized world. Russia is fortunate to have ic, and political mores attached to them. As several of these traditions to engage. It is fortu- religious institutions develop in this changing nate to be able to choose, today and in the years ideological space, as these new institutions yet to unfold, the path of deep inclusion over attach themselves to social and sometimes deep and devastating alienation from within.

RELIGION IN RUSSIAN SOCIETY 71 Religion in Russian Society: State Policy, Regional Challenges, and Individual Rights Conference Proceedings Edited by F. Joseph Dresen

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars OCCASIONAL PAPER #298 KENNAN One Woodrow Wilson Plaza 1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW INSTITUTE Washington, DC 20004-3027 Tel. (202) 691-4100 Fax (202) 691-4247

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