Свобода совести и модернизация вероисповедного законодательства Российской империи в начале ХХ в оп А. А. Сафонов (review)

464 Рецензии/Reviews who (like Shamil Basaev, killed in 2006) stand in opposition to the Naqshbandiyya, can use the same terminology as Shamil did (as correctly observed on P. 241). These simplifications notwithstanding , King’s book is extremely welcome for his consistent attempt to understand identities in the Caucasus as constructed and “relational” (P. 15); “in an environment in which cultural exchange was the norm,” even the lines between imperialist and native can sometimes be indistinct (P. 42). This insight is true not only for the nineteenth century but also for our times: “In the Caucasus, the real story of the late twentieth century is not about deep-rooted sentiments of ethnicity or ancient grievances but about the ways in which personal ambition, structural incentives, and the simple presence of sufficient quantities of guns led to bloody conflict” (P. 212). Nadieszda KIZENKO А. А. Сафонов. Свобода сове- сти и модернизация вероисповед- ного законодательства Российской империи в начале ХХ в. Тамбов: “Издательство Першина Р. В.”, 2007. 367 с. Указатель имен. Указатель религиозных верои- споведаний и сект. ISBN: 978-591253 -077-7. This book, as its title suggests, examines the legislation on religion begun by the imperial government in February 1903 and concluded by the Provisional Government in October 1917. In his monograph, Aleksandr A. Safonov argues that these varied laws should be analyzed together from the perspective of freedom of conscience. This perspective leads him to suggest that early twentiethcentury Russian legal opinion was caught between two tendencies: “progressive” secular Western ideas valuing the freedom of the individual and the “native” tradition of recognizing the dominant position of the Russian Orthodox Church (and the autocracy) in the religious life of Russian society.Through his study of religious reforms, Safonov seeks to reach larger conclusions about Russian political and legal culture at the beginning of the twentieth century. This is a salutary endeavor. The liberal strains in pre-revolutionary Russia have been consistently identi- 465 Ab Imperio, 1/2009 nothing from Western-language scholarship from the same period. While he cites such potentially valuable works as D. Iu. Arapov’s work on state regulation of Islam, for example, he does not include the essential and enormously influential work of Robert Crews.3 He mentions G.A. Kozlitin’s 2004 candidate dissertation from Rostov-on-the-Don on the legal position of Jews in the Russian empire, but lists none of the key works of Benjamin Nathans, Gabriella Safran, or Yuri Slezkine.4 The whole corpus of recent Englishlanguage (not to mention French or German) work on the problems of religion in the Russian empire – Nicholas Breyfogle, Robert Geraci, Paul Werth, Michael Khodarkovsky, Agnes Kefeli, Heather Coleman – all are missing.5 Gregory Freeze’s fied, valued, and studied as such in the emigration and in non-Russian scholarship, but less so in postSoviet Russian scholarship.1 More characteristic of Russian scholarship is to look at political and religious phenomena grouped either more broadly or institutionally.2 In this context, Safonov’s work is potentially very timely (particularly given the legislative reforms concerning religion Russia enacted from the mid 1980s to 1997). As Safonov notes, when it comes to religious reform in modern Russia, past experience is unusually resonant. This book conveys some of that resonance. Safonov bases his research on extensive Russian-language sources published in Russia, including secondary sources from the last twenty years – but almost 1 The classic works include P. N. Miliukov. Ocherki po istorii russki kul’tury: v trekh tomakh. Paris, 1930-1964 (reprinted: Moscow, 1993-1995); Marc Raeff. Plans for Political Reform in Imperial Russia, 1730-1905. Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1966; and Richard Pipes. Struve: Liberal on the Left, 1870-1905. Cambridge, MA, 1970. More recently, Aileen Kelly continues this tradition, see: Aileen Kelly. Toward Another Shore: Russian Thinkers between Necessity and Chance. New Haven, 1998. 2 Sergei Firsov, for example, examines the Russian Church in its entirety (see his recent work: Russkaia tserkov’ nakanune peremen (konets 1890-kh – 1918 gg.). Moscow, 2002). 3 Robert D. Crews. For Prophet and Tsar: Islam and Empire in Russia and Central Asia. Cambridge, MA, 2006. 4 Benjamin Nathans. Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter with Late Imperial Russia. Berkeley, 2002; Gabriella Safran. Rewriting the Jew:Assimilation Narratives in the Russian Empire. Stanford, 2000; Yuri Slezkine. The Jewish Century. Princeton, 2004. 5 Most of these authors have contributions in: Robert P. Geraci and Michael...