Religion and Identity in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Festschrift for Paul Bushkovitch

Sources First!

Religion and Identity in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Festschrift for Paul Bushkovitch. Nikolaos A. Chrissidis, Cathy J. Potter, David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, and Jennifer B. Spock, eds. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2011, 253–56.       Sources First! Robert O. Crummey Opening   this   volume,   Nancy   Shields   Kollmann   eloquently   described   Paul   Bushkovitch’s  qualities  as  a  scholar.  The  collected  essays  that  follow  serve  as   an  impressive  tribute  to  him  as  a  teacher  and  mentor.  Their  wide  range  and   remarkably   high   quality   make   clear   just   how   much   he   transmitted   to   his   students.  Their  loyalty  and  affection  for  him  were  also  clear  to  everyone  who   took  part  in  the  conference  at  which  they  were  first  presented.     The  motto  of  this  volume  epitomizes  Bushkovitch’s  work  as  a  historian— “sources  first!”  In  Jennifer  Spock’s  words,  “Paul  Bushkovitch  …  has  consis-­‐‑ tently   practiced   what   he   preached   and   made   primary   sources   the   point   of   departure  for  all  historical  research.”1     Paul’s  writings  make  abundantly  clear  what  this  commitment  means.  In   his  view,  once  historians  have  identified   the  most  important   sources   on  the   subject  of  their  research,  they  must  first—and  most  importantly—read  these   documents   carefully,   literally,   and   completely.   Only   after   doing   this   can   scholars   then   proceed   to   investigate   the   provenance   of   the   texts;   the   milieu   from  which  they  came;  how  best  to  interpret  their  contents;  and  how  to  use   them  appropriately  to  illuminate  the  subjects  of  their  research.     These  criteria  may  seem  self-­‐‑evident,  but,  in  practice,  they  are  not.  They   rule  out  what  the  late  Iakov  Lur’e  and  others  have  called  “the  consumer  ap-­‐‑ proach  to  sources,”  that  is,  searching  in  them  for  passages  to  support  a  pre-­‐‑ determined  conclusion  or  ideological  stance.     Moreover,  they  contradict  the  assumption  that  Paul  and  I  occasionally  en-­‐‑ countered   in   our   graduate   training—namely   that,   as   scholars   in   the   20th   century,   our   job   was   to   extract   from   the   sources   the   statements   that   would   have  the  greatest  significance  for  our  own  contemporaries,  particularly  when   viewed   through   the   lens   of   the   prevailing   methodology   and   interpretative   frameworks   of   our   time—at   that   moment,   a   potent   cocktail   of   neo-­‐‑Freudi-­‐‑ anism  and  neo-­‐‑Marxism.  The  authors  of  polemical  texts  may  have  truly  be-­‐‑ lieved  what  they  said  and  wrote,  but  the  ultimate  importance  of  their  state-­‐‑ ments   lies   in   what   they   can   contribute   to   understanding   the   past   from   the   perspective  of  our  own  time.   Not  so,  says  Bushkovitch!  In  order  to  understand  men  and  women  of  the   past   on   their   own   terms,   historians   have   an   obligation   to   accept   that   they                                                                                                                             1  See  Spock’s  article  in  this  volume,  p.  25.   254 ROBERT O. CRUMMEY meant  what  they  said—and  all  that  they  said—until  proven  otherwise.  On  a   personal  level,  I  found  Paul’s  admonition  liberating.  It  reinforced  my  convic-­‐‑ tion  that  the  Old  Believer  polemicists’  writings  concentrated  on  the  liturgical   and  theological  issues  that  really   were   most  important  to   them.  To  be  sure,   they  were  well  aware  of  their  political  position;  nevertheless,  their  arguments   about  the  sign  of  the  cross  and  other  issues  of  this  kind  were  not,  at  bottom,   “medieval”  ways  of  expressing  political  opposition  or  social  protest  in  relig-­‐‑ ious  language.  And  I  could  only  applaud  Paul’s  insistence  that,  for  example,   his  17th-­‐‑century  Orthodox  theologians  and  preachers  likewise  firmly  believed   their  own  statements.   All  of  this  is  not  to  say  that  historians  can  return  to  the  world  they  study.   All  historians  bring  the  baggage  of  their  own  time  and  place  and  their  indi-­‐‑ vidual   personalities   and   experience   to   their   reading   and   analysis   of   the   sources.  So,  for  that   matter,   did  the   original  authors   of   the   sources  and  the   successors  who  edited  or  copied  them.     In  the  essays  in  this  volume,  Paul’s  students  have  applied  his  admonition   to  focus  on  the  sources  in  several  different  ways.  Most  of  them  focus  on  a  sin-­‐‑ gle  literary  or  polemical  text,  a  discrete  body  of  documents,  or  accounts  of  a   single  ritual  or  a  small  number  of  related  events.2     The  first  method  can  loosely  be  labeled  explication  de  texte.  Applying  this   approach,  Michael  Pesenson  analyzes  two  treatises  on  prophesy—the  Kniga  o   Sivilliakh  and  the  Khrismologion—written  in  1672  by  Nicolae  Milescu  Spafarii,   the  Moldavian  immigrant  translator  in  the  Posol’skii  Prikaz.  Spafarii  reinter-­‐‑ preted  the  Sibylline  Oracles  and  the  image  of  the  Fourth  Kingdom  in  the  Book   of   Daniel   to   underline   Muscovite   Russia’s   role   as   the   agent   of   God’s   will   among  the  nations,  above  all,  as  champion  of  the  Orthodox  Christians  under   Ottoman...