Russian Orthodoxy in American Culture Wars

I confess that the "culture wars" engrossing (truly the apt word in so many ways) so-called American Christianity, already so swollen on reactionary politics and its various authoritarian fetishes, are things for which I have no patience left. But reading good scholarly analysis of the same, and seeing the connections between reactionary politics in America and Russia will make for very fascinating reading indeed when, later this year, the following book is released: The Moralist International: Russia in the Global Culture Wars  by Kristina Stoeckland Dmitry Uzlaner (Fordham University Press, December 2022), 208pp. 

About this book the publisher tells us this: 

The Moralist International analyzes the role of the Russian Orthodox Church and the Russian state in the global culture wars over gender- and reproductive rights and religious freedom. It shows how the Russian Orthodox Church in the last thirty years first acquired knowledge about the dynamics, issues, and strategies of Western Christian Right groups; how the Moscow Patriarchate has shaped its traditionalist agenda accordingly; and how the close alliance between church and state has turned Russia into a norm entrepreneur for international moral conservativism. Including detailed case-studies of the World Congress of Families, anti-abortion activism and the global homeschooling movement, the book identifies the key factors, causes and actors of this process. Kristina Stoeckl and Dmitry Uzlaner then develop the concept of conservative aggiornamento to describe Russian traditionalism as the result of conservative religious modernization and the globalization of Christian social conservatism.

The Moralist International continues a line of research on the globalization of the culture wars that challenges the widespread perception that it is only progressive actors who use the international human rights regime to achieve their goals by demonstrating that conservative actors do the same. The book offers a new, original perspective that firmly embeds the conservative turn of post-Soviet Russia in the transnational dynamics of the global culture wars.

Solzhenitsyn and American Culture

The great University of Notre Dame Press just sent me advance page proofs of a book set for release in October: D.P. Deavel and J.H. Wilson, eds., Solzhenitsyn and American Culture: the Russian Soul in the West (UNDP, October 2020), 400pp.

The entire second part, consisting of four chapters, explicitly looks at the relationship between Solzhenitsyn and Russian Orthodoxy. About this collection the publisher further tells us this:

For many Americans of both right and left political persuasions, the Russian bear is more of a bugbear. On the right, the country is still mentally represented by Soviet domination. For those on the left, it is a harbor for reactionary values and neo-imperial visions. The reality, however, is that, despite Russia’s political failures, its rich history of culture, religion, and philosophical reflection―even during the darkest days of the Gulag―have been a deposit of wisdom for American artists, religious thinkers, and political philosophers probing what it means to be human in America.

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn stands out as the key figure in this conversation, as both a Russian literary giant and an exile from Russia living in America for two decades. This anthology reconsiders Solzhenitsyn’s work from a variety of perspectives―his faith, his politics, and the influences and context of his literature―to provide a prophetic vision for our current national confusion over universal ideals. In Solzhenitsyn and American Culture: The Russian Soul in the West, David P. Deavel and Jessica Hooten Wilson have collected essays from the foremost scholars and thinkers of comparative studies who have been tracking what Americans have borrowed and learned from Solzhenitsyn as well as his fellow Russians. The book offers a consideration of what we have in common―the truth, goodness, and beauty America has drawn from Russian culture and from masters such as Solzhenitsyn―and will suggest to readers what we can still learn and what we must preserve. The book will interest fans of Solzhenitsyn and scholars across the disciplines, and it can be used in courses on Solzhenitsyn or Russian literature more broadly.

Contributors: David P. Deavel, Jessica Hooten Wilson, Nathan Neilson, Eugene Vodolazkin, David Walsh, Matthew Lee Miller, Ralph C. Wood, Gary Saul Morson, Edward E. Ericson, Jr., Micah Mattix, Joseph Pearce, James F. Pontuso, Daniel J. Mahoney, William Jason Wallace, Lee Trepanier, Peter Leithart, Dale Peterson, Julianna Leachman, Walter G. Moss, and Jacob Howland..