Living in the End Times

Name: Living in the End Times
SKU: 9780253075543
Price: 1189 SEK
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Author: Vlad Naumescu
ISBN: 9780253075543

Ritual, History, and Ethics in Romania's Old Belief

Inbunden, Engelska, 2026

AvVlad Naumescu

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In the Danube Delta, on the border between Romania and Ukraine, a shrinking community of Russian Old Believers – Orthodox Christians who rejected seventeenth-century religious reforms in Russia – has struggled for survival, withdrawn from the world while simultaneously trying to engage with it. Waves of social change, from internal divisions and migration to external secularization and modernization, have reinforced this community's commitment to the old Orthodox rites and customs, as well as their long-standing conviction that the end times are imminent.Living in the End Times offers an in-depth ethnographic and historical exploration of the persistence of this community in contemporary Romania. Vlad Naumescu examines their ways of making history, pursuing continuity, and inscribing their historical experience into a narrative of radical hope. The interwoven life stories of the Old Believers challenge broader dichotomies of the secular and the religious, socialist and post-socialist, and continuity and rupture, revealing a community whose obligation to bear the past sanctifies the present and gives scope to the future. Against the threats of spiritual doubt, ritual failure, and lacking priesthood that have defined centuries of religious crisis, Old Belief has already provided its adherents the means to turn rupture into continuity, loss into creative transformation, and endings into beginnings. Living in the End Times reveals how the most orthodox of Eastern Christians became modern by staying true to their faith, inviting us to reconsider the nature of orthodoxy, historicity and modernity.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2026-04-21
Mått152 x 229 x 14 mm
Vikt410 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
Antal sidor176
FörlagIndiana University Press
ISBN9780253075543

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Antropologi inom Samhalle och politik
Europas historia inom Historia och arkeologi
Kristendom inom Filosofi och religion

"This is an excellent book, offering a powerful meditation on religious life in a dwindling Old Belief community in Romania. Naumescu shows what it means to live in the 'end times' for a community that has cultivated an apocalyptic ethos and is affected deeply by broader political economic transformations. In doing so, the book casts important light on the workings of hope, doubt, desperation, commitment, and ethics."—Mathijs Pelkmans, author of Fragile Conviction: Changing Ideological Landscapes in Urban Kyrgyzstan"A riveting exploration of some central topics in the anthropology of religion today. Naumescu's deft ethnography shows how ritual, history, and ethics entwine in the generation of radical hope amidst a fallen world."—Douglas Rogers, author of The Old Faith and the Russian Land: A Historical Ethnography of Ethics in the Russian Urals"From a small village in the Danube delta, Vlad Naumescu deftly juxtaposes Orthodox Old Believers' eventful history, running from Tsarist Russia through Romanian socialism and post-socialism, with their historicity, as characterized by stubborn continuity and expectation of imminent apocalypse. Subtle, sophisticated, and generous, this is an exemplary account of how anthropologists might study ethical engagement in religious communities."—Michael Lambek, author of Cohabiting with Spirits: The Biography of a Marriage in Mayotte