The Culture of War and Militarization within Political Orthodoxy in the Post-soviet Region

Transcultural Studies. 2016. Vol. 12. P. 15–38.

Knorre B. K.

This article is focused on “Political Orthodoxy”, an ideological trend and sociocultural phenomenon with regard to its impact to militarization and justification of war from religious point of view. The author pays his attention to elaboration the idea of “Orthodox civilization” by the part of Orthodox nationalist teoreticians striving to transform Orthodoxy into “political religion”, he scrutinizes development of eschatological ideologems and war apologia that appeared alongside this process. He examines the models of mythological outlook connected with Political Orthodoxy as manifested throughout the last decade, in particular with reference to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Through the lens of the latter the author gives examples of practical embodiment of religiously influenced militaristic discourse, shows some epiphenomena (side effects), in particular, hate, aggravation of the conflicts, separation into ‘friends’ and so on.

Keywords: национализм, values, ценности, nationalism, священное, милитаризация, политические религии, политическое православие, the sacred, Political religions, militarization, Orthodox civilization, culture of war, conflict in Ukraine, Political Orthodoxy, православная цивилизация, культура войны, конфликт на Украине

Publication based on the results of: Этико-поведенческие предпочтения в православных субкультурах современной России: между "empowerment" и "oppressiveness" (2013)