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Russian spiritualism as religious phenomenon of the second half of the 19 th – beginning of the 20 th century

https://doi.org/10.28995/2658-4158-2023-2-120-137

Abstract

The aim of the article is to characterize Russian modern spiritualism movement as a religious phenomenon of the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The article offers answers to the following questions: it meditates upon the relation of esoterism and religion in the debate about the religious nature of modern spiritualism; it proposes the necessary distinction between occultism and spiritualism in relation to the position of Christian spiritualists; it posits spiritualism as a phenomenon of both religious modernism and fundamentalism in the light of the conflict between the universalist oriented spiritualist metaphysics and the national oriented tradition; it asserts the typology of Russian Christian spiritualism and gives account of its connections/correlations/synthesis with orthodoxy as lived religion in the Russian Empire. The central thesis of the article suggests that Christian spiritualism should be researched in the context of Christian tradition, as a means of its religious renewal and, more broadly, as one of the Christian reformation movements.

About the Author

V. S. Razdyakonov
Russian State University for the Humanities
Russian Federation

Vladislav S. Razdyakonov, Cand. of Sci. (History), associate professor

bld. 6, Miusskaya Sq., Moscow, 125047



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Review

For citations:


Razdyakonov V.S. Russian spiritualism as religious phenomenon of the second half of the 19 th – beginning of the 20 th century. Studia Religiosa Rossica: Russian Journal of Religion. 2023;(2):120-137. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.28995/2658-4158-2023-2-120-137

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ISSN 2658-4158 (Print)