Religion and Culture in Early Modern Russia and Ukraine ed. by Samuel H. Baron and Nancy Shields Kollmann (review)

BOOK REVIEWS77 disputing either claim, I still regret the lateness of the terminus. Early attempts at reform are neglected—the work of Philip Neri and the (in)famous Consilium , for example—and despite Hsia's other work to the contrary (e.g., not reducing the early modern Catholic Church to the Inquisition), a sense of Counter-Reformation is in danger of dominating. On the other hand, I was pleased to note the extent of Catholic renewal into the eighteenth century. On balance, I would recommend this textbook, provided it were supplemented by a work which focuses on the early stages of reform. In this way historians can finally lay Dickens' work to rest. Kathleen M. Comerford Benedictine College Atchison, Kansas Religion and Culture in Early Modern Russia and Ukraine. Edited by Samuel H. Baron and Nancy Shields Kollmann. (DeKaIb: Northern Illinois University Press. 1997. Pp. viii, 213. $35.00.) This collection of essays, drawn from a conference held at Stanford University in 1993, purports to address the failure of modern historians to grasp the significance ofthe Russian Church in modern times.With enviable financial and institutional support, Stanford convened a number of researchers from the United States, Canada, Russia, and Ukraine,"with the goal of developing the field of early East Slavic studies." Charged with this daunting mission and eager to break down "the barriers created by established historical paradigms or by disciplinary or generational boundaries," the editors of this volume present ten essays on various aspects of early modern Russia and Ukraine, selected from a larger pool of papers presented at the meeting. Michael Flier augments his earlier thoughts on the Palm Sunday ritual of Patriarch Nikon's day. Eve Levin studies supplicatory prayers as popular religious culture. Robert Crummey reflects on schismatic hagiography and its treatment of the martyrdom of Old Believers. Isolde Thyrêt examines miracle stories as "gender-specific religious experience." Viktor Zhivov raises highly original notions ofhow personal individuality was encouraged by religious and cultural reform in the aftermath of the Time of Troubles. Engelina Smirnova studies the iconography of Simon Ushakov within medieval traditions. David Frick warns against simplistic identification of individual cultural identity in the disorderly borderlands and clashing cultures of Eastern Europe. The methodology and innovative approaches of these pieces are diverse enough to interest most scholars of religion for one reason or another. But not all these offerings treat Russian Orthodoxy directly. Specialists in social studies (and the general reader) probably will benefit more from the remaining chapters, which mesh only loosely with their companions. Janet Martin re-examines the backwardness ofRussian peasant agriculture of the sev- 78BOOK REVIEWS enteenth century and its consequences. Nancy KoUniann, always worth reading , uses her considerable anthropological skills to bring forth fresh ideas concerning social self-identification at local levels. Frank Sysyn analyzes the Khmel'nyts'kyi rebellion in Ukraine and the social tensions that helped create a new social order. Called upon at the end to offer spiritual and scholarly bouquets , Edward Keenan pens a showy postscript most useful for admitting that the current low level ofWestern knowledge of early Russian religiosity hardly qualifies us to offer "any very confident pronouncements about these subjects ." Like the American medievalist who once opined that references to Ivan the Terrible's desire to "serve in the Passion" revealed his homosexual proclivities , new generations of would-be religious and cultural scholars must initially learn the patience needed to amass the factual, spiritual, and confessional base from which valid historical inquiry can proceed, along with some appreciation of the dogma and moral order of the highly mystical church they propose to study. Newcomers to this exacting field of investigation might find this book an education, and an admonition. Joseph L.Wieczynski Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University The Questfor Compromise:Peacemakers in Counter-Reformation Vienna. By Howard Louthan. [Cambridge Studies in Early Modern History.] (NewYork: Cambridge University Press. 1997. Pp. xvi, 185; 14 Illustrations. $5995) This book can best be appreciated against the conceptual background of confessionalism and confessionalization in early modern Europe. Louthan sets out to describe an Austrian "middle way" that during a time of intensifying religious conflict sought peacefully to reconcile the differences between confessional parties...