2.2 The Brotherhood's Critical Memory

2.2.1 Rejection of Dominant Narratives

The brotherhood firmly rejects contemporary Russia's foundational myth. Lepekhina stated that they find nothing to “rejoice” about in this Victory. For them victory is another reason to repent. When asked why, she answered: for the “inhumanity”, for the “enormous sacrifices, for when [the state] did not think of the people.” Interview with Anna Lepekhina, a Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. August 22, 2019. She also reminded me that the USSR before 1941 “took on the role of the aggressor before 1941.” Interview with Anna Lepekhina, a Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. August 22, 2019. The Brotherhood also even lists the Great Patriotic War as a reason to repent on an affiliated website - "the unjustified death of many millions of people, including during the Civil War, famine, and Great Patriotic War." “Obrashchenie Initsiativnoi? Gruppy FNPiV_211119.Pdf,” Google Drive, accessed February 22, 2020, https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Hl94BofYFbotMx_comu65fezmqwVOgew/edit. States - and Russia under President Putin is no exception - use historical memory narratives to bolster legitimacy and consolidate national identity. The triumphal myth of the Great Patriotic War is key to the Russian state's proposed consolidated national identity and its “historical legitimacy”. A great body of authors and researchers agree on this, here follows a list of the main authors and their works where this idea is found: Mikhaleva, Miller, and Mijnssen, “History Writing and National Myth-Making in Russia”, 6; Wood, “Performing Memory: Vladimir Putin and the Celebration of World War II in Russia”; I Torbakov, “The Russian Orthodox Church and Contestations over History in Contemporary Russia,” Demokratizatsiya 22, no. 1 (January 1, 2014): 145-70, 160; Thomas Sherlock, “Russian Politics and the Soviet Past: Reassessing Stalin and Stalinism under Vladimir Putin,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies 49, no. 1 (March 2016): 45-59, doi:10.1016/j.postcomstud.2016.01.001, 53; Malinova, “Ofitsial'nyi Istoricheskii Narrativ Kak Element Politiki Identichnosti v Rossii: Ot 1990-kh k 2010-m Godam”, 155. Thus, the Brotherhood's rejection of this myth is politically subversive.

The Brotherhood also rejects the current government's attempts to create the historical memory of the “great state” or “1000-year state”. Starting in the 2000s Putin's pressed for a narrative that “presented the Russian state… as the central element of national identity.” Malinova, “The Embarrassing Centenary: Reinterpretation of the 1917 Revolution in the Official Historical Narrative of Post-Soviet Russia (1991-2017)”, 279. A narrative that takes bits and pieces from Russia's history - all that point to the Russian state as being central to most important parts of Russia's history. In this context, the Russian state began to accept and even promote narratives that incorporated recognition and condemnation of the Soviet repressions, in a sort of "eclectic fusion" narrative - what one scholar called: "reconciliation without truth." Torbakov, “The Russian Orthodox Church and Contestations over History in Contemporary Russia”, 160. Iulia Balakshina, the main leader of the Brotherhood's St. Petersburg branch (and an associate professor both at St. Philaret's and at Herzen State Pedagogical University) revealed the Brotherhood's opinion of this narrative when she spoke at the conference “Ethics after the Gulag”. She described the situation in which the nation is opening up both memorials to the victims of Stalin's regime - the Wall of Tears in Moscow, and opening up statues to Stalin, as “a mess.” Speech between reports at “Ethics after the Gulag” conference by Iulia Balakshina, a Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. May 06, 2019. Lepekhina went further.

“This memory politics of reconciliation. So as to smooth over [the past], not analyze morally and ethically… or for instance how we are told that the Soviet Union is the natural successor of the Russian Empire - that [they are part of one] story. We say - this is not one story; the USSR is not the successor of the Russian Empire. This was [an illegitimate] seizure of power.” Interview with Anna Lepekhina, a Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. August 22, 2019. The Brotherhood rejects a narrative of Russian history that grants any sense of legitimacy to the Soviet state and refuses to make ethical judgments on the nature of that state. Even where the state has tried to incorporate narratives of the Repressions the Brotherhood rejects these narratives as conciliatory and legitimizing to the Soviet state.

The Brotherhood does not contend with state narratives, exclusively. The ROC is one of the few remaining cultural institutions that connects contemporary Russia to pre-Soviet, and even ancient Russia in the public imagination. Veronika Dorman, “From the Solovki to Butovo: How the Russian Orthodox Church Appropriates the Memory of the Repressions. Summary,” trans. Mischa Gabowitsch, Laboratorium: Russian Review of Social Research, 2010, 431-36, 431. As a result, the ROC is widely seen by society as encapsulating Russia's “national historic tradition.” Leslie L. Mcgann, “The Russian Orthodox Church under Patriarch Aleksii II and the Russian State: An Unholy Alliance?,” Demokratizatsiya, January 1, 1999, 23. In this context, Malinova makes it clear that the ROC is a dominant public memory actor, behind only the Russian state in its influence in this area. Malinova, “Politika Pamiati Kak Oblast' Simvolicheskoi Politiki”, 27, 32.

But unlike the state - the ROC's memory politics of Russia's 20^th century do largely revolve around a narrative of the Soviet Repressions. This is the phenomenon of the “New Martyrs” - the canonization by the ROC of Christians killed during the Soviet period who the ROC declared martyrs for their faith (the process more than quadrupled the number of ROC saints). K H Christensen, The Making of the New Martyrs of Russia: Soviet Repression in Orthodox Memory (taylorfrancis.com, 2017), 51. As the Church's power grew exponentially since the early 2000s, so too did its role as a memory actor of the Repressions where it's narrative largely remained one with the theme of “repentance” (though different groups within the ROC argued about what to repent from) connected to the “New Martyrs”. Christensen, The Making of the New Martyrs of Russia: Soviet Repression in Orthodox Memory, 65; R.Iu. Batishchev, E V Beliaev, and A A Linchenko, “Russkaia Pravoslavnaia Tserkov' Kak Aktor Sovremennoi Politiki Pamiati: Diskurs Kanonizatsii,” Studia Humanitatis, no. 1 (2018). The ROC appears to have been instrumental in the coalition that pressed for the passing of the “Concept” of comprehensive government commemoration of the Soviet Repressions in 2015. Malinova, “Ofitsial'nyi Istoricheskii Narrativ Kak Element Politiki Identichnosti v Rossii: Ot 1990-kh k 2010-m Godam”, 154. Ultimately, Christensen points to the “New Martyrs” narrative as a decided thorn in the state's memory politics narrative of the 1000 year great state, though she admits of another side of ROC memory politics. Christensen, The Making of the New Martyrs of Russia: Soviet Repression in Orthodox Memory, 278-279, 283. Other scholars draw different conclusions. Stating that the ROC also wants its position to be one of reconciliation, refusing to take strong stances on controversial moments in Russia's 20^th century. Margarete Zimmermann, “Never Again! Remembering October 1917 in the Contemporary Russian Orthodox Church,” Scando-Slavica 64, no. 1 (January 2, 2018): 95-106, doi:10.1080/00806765.2018.1449435, 99. At times the ROC's memory politics even seem to take a cue from Putin's narrative of the 1000 year great state - by declaring that both 1917 and 1991 were tragedies of Russian history. M D Suslov, “`Holy Rus': The Geopolitical Imagination in the Contemporary Russian Orthodox Church,” Russian Politics & Law 52, no. 3 (May 2014): 67-86, doi:10.2753/RUP1061-1940520303, 73. This is exactly the kind of “compromise” that the Brotherhood so roundly condemns in the state's memory politics - and it condemns it here, too. Interview with Anna Lepekhina, Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. August 22, 2019.

The Brotherhood finds fault even in the ROC's “New Martyr” narrative. A narrative that on the surface appears to be quite similar to theirs. Initially, when the process of finding and canonizing Orthodox Christians killed in the Soviet Union began, the Brotherhood was quite supportive. Their tune has since changed. They recently released on an affiliated website a document that explains what, in their opinion, the ROC of today should repent from. One of its main theses reads: “Veneration of the New Martyrs… of the Russian Church is not associated with their [the New Martyr's] experience of love, freedom, loyalty to God and the Church even to death.” (emphasis added) “Tserkvi Nuzhno Ne Reformirovanie, a Vozrozhdenie.” It should be remembered, that as Agadjianian pointed out, on the whole, the Brotherhood rejects the veneration of the saints as it is practiced by mainstream Orthodoxy. Agadjanian, “Reform and Revival in Moscow Orthodox Communities”, 77. In my fieldwork when attending the Brotherhood's “Ethics after the Gulag” conference I did not notice any prominent position given to icons in their facilities - unique for the facilities of a ROC organization. Thus, this criticism should not surprise. Lepekhina put it like this: “The Church should know its saints” and their lives, “not just paint icons and read prayers” Interview with Anna Lepekhina, a Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. August 22, 2019.. One priest at that conference went so far as to call the “New Martyrs'” the “new idols” of the ROC. In Christian rhetoric, there can be few more damning descriptions. Thus, even in something that would seem to align with the Brotherhood's desire to remember the crimes of the Soviet past, they are not satisfied with the status quo that does not match their theological understanding of Christian veneration or their understanding of “authentic memory” that honors the lives, not just deaths, of Russia's “New Martyrs”.

The Brotherhood is not alone in having a strong stance on the Soviet history of the ROC and how it ought to be remembered now. Although understudied, the work of Jeanna Kormina and Sergei Shtyrkov - anthropologists working in St. Petersburg and who have dealt with topics relating to memory and religion extensively within the ROC - describe this phenomenon. They examine two small ROC memory initiatives of "working through" Russia's Soviet past. The initiatives are opposites in many ways - the authors describe one as "cultural-liberal" leaning instigated by this kind of priest, the other as "politicized" and "nationalistic," and instigated by ultranationalist ROC monarchists. Jeanne Kormina and Sergei Shtyrkov, “Pravoslavnye Versii Sovetskogo Proshlogo: Politiki Pamiati v Ritualakh Kommemoratsii,” in Antropologiia Sotsial'nykh Peremen, ed. E M Guchinova and G A Komarova, 2011, 389-413, 389. Importantly their work illustrates the importance of “working through” Russia's 20^th century and the ROC's Soviet past to ROC groups. The Brotherhood's initiatives and historical memory narratives are largely different than these groups in content just as they differ from the ROC hierarchy's proposed narratives. Painting a full picture of all these narratives and how they overlap and differentiate would not be possible nor fruitful. The main ideas illustrated by their work is: (1) that “working through” the Soviet past seems to be common to ROC groups; (2) that approach to the Soviet past defines some of the boundaries between ROC groups; (3) but also that though there is great diversity in approaches to the past, there is also much overlap in historical memory narratives of these ROC groups.

The Brotherhood does not just find fault with the “New Martyrs” narrative, however. They find fault in every page of Russia's Soviet history and narratives that do not agree with their narrative. Lepekhina uses her Facebook page - as one of the visible leaders of the St. Petersburg Brotherhood - to promote the Brotherhood's historical memory narratives. Her wall is full of posts about events hosted by the Brotherhood, or other blog posts and articles about Russia's 20^th Century that support their view of the past. One post from the 13 of January 2020 reads: “26^th of December 1919 the [Soviet state] signed the decree on "The liquidation of illiteracy in the RSFSR. All the population of Soviet Russia… was required to learn to read." Anna Lepekhina, “26 dekabria 1919 goda byl podpisan dekret «O likvidatsii bezgramotnosti v RSFSR».,” Wall Post, Facebook.com, January 13,2020,https://www.facebook.com/anna.lepekhina/posts/2704148716317434?__xts__[0]=68.ARA0Lo-kepjY-SHPHfKWHGhwyuv52NOmaqeXoQ73UvLS4voeRbi8CNGmoO4NnGhDjG6jV-BEbENHRpoqzIVIdhMoseA3nEn5R6e4Tb7mtLZHB5ObA6KYqeeyqwkIrwIZs3WINfSoPCraaoWID6Umeaw8TIs1_x6_RXLfM7bOp0Pb6D_QP-PjWo_FwXG1dERCBj6zfvAPA9Yx7MY9prAgkWWyh1qQkSxqapeyRoZzACha2XaZyVJovBzyjhmt0XeeFAGd0Ud8_Z8AAC2DzkLG_2LRSZe1Q6M2muXKrUnTViaJojGiDYjhu3euw-gtBC2XUrBMY_raKOR3YJyJAUkeV6x1Hyhy3I5lmgGDPA&__tn__=-R. The topic is clearly defined as the educational project of the early Soviet state. One of the things the Soviet Union is most praised for in popular perceptions of Russia's history. The post goes on to state that Tsarist Russia had done so much to fight illiteracy (it claims that 83% of conscripts in 1917 were literate) but that the Soviet Union "artificially sped [this process] up". The post ends with the following questions that frame this accomplishment as something sinister - "What aims did the Soviet government pursue in declaring war on illiteracy? What methods did they use? - What are the global consequences of this massive social experiment…?” This example points to the Brotherhood contending not just with the dominant memory actors, but with dominant narratives in Russia's public memory. Scholars concur that nostalgia for the Soviet past is an important aspect of Russia's Postcommunist public memory. Antony Kalashnikov, “Stalinist Crimes and the Ethics of Memory,” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 19, no. 3 (2018): 599-626, doi:10.1353/kri.2018.0031 666; Khazanov, “Whom to Mourn and Whom to Forget? (Re)Constructing Collective Memory in Contemporary Russia” 299; SERGUEI ALEX. Oushakine, “`We're Nostalgic but We're Not Crazy': Retrofitting the Past in Russia,” Russian Review 66, no. 3 (July 2007): 451-82, doi:10.1111/j.1467-9434.2007.00453.x, 452; Shafir, “Memory and History in Postcommunism: Preliminary Theoretical Remarks.” This nostalgia is often associated with the socialist aspects of life in the USSR, free high-quality education included. In this way, the Brotherhood's social media post is subverting this element of public memory and resisting proposed nostalgia.

Their form of memory is contentious. It questions almost every aspect of the different historical memory narratives that dominate and are promoted by Russia's most powerful memory actors. Whether through reframing Victory to be something that requires repentance or the battle against illiteracy as part of a terrible social experiment done by the Soviet state - they contest what is seen by much of society as obvious about the past. They reject these narratives. And they reject “compromises” surrounding these narratives as is seen by their rejection of how the Church hierarchy honors (or in their opinion does not properly honor) the New Martyrs.

2.2.2 An Alternative Past, Present & Future

The Brotherhoods proposes its own narratives to replace those it rejects. These historical memory narratives connect to their understanding of today. They create an "alternative present" that gives the Brotherhood hope through claiming the existence of contemporary elements in the Church and society that are not tainted by the past. On the basis of this “alternative” present they imagine an “alternative future” with a society that has repented of Russia's “dark past”.

“We should not forget the 2.5 million who rose in resistance against Soviet rule… in the 1930s!” declared Fr. Georgii at the “Ethics after the Gulag” conference. “Ethics after the Gulag” round table discussion speech by Fr. Georgii Mitrofanov, a ROC priest but not a member of the Brotherhood. St. Petersburg, Russia. May 06, 2019. Confused at first, eventually, I realized that this was a generalization for resistance to Stalin's collectivization process, one referenced often by Brotherhood leaders. In this same vein, Lepekhina later told me that Brotherhood's Institute in Moscow was creating and teaching the only course on Russia's anti-Bolshevik movements of the 20^th Century. Most importantly I realized that this narrative - one I had never heard or seen before in narrative form - was important to the Brotherhood as a way of proposing an alternative past. A past where not all of Russian society was complicit in the crimes of the Soviet state.

As a ROC organization perhaps then even more important to the Brotherhood is proposing an alternative to the official narratives of ROC history proposed by the ROC hierarchy. The ROC is large and diverse and thus it is difficult to pinpoint who speaks for the ROC and what memory narratives it promotes. For this research, I propose two ways. Firstly, an organization/ movement can be identified as a ROC organization if it self-identifies as such, and the official ROC hierarchy has never declared it to not be part of the ROC. Due to the highly hierarchical and ecclesiastic structure of the ROC, this usually means that it has a priest or priests as leaders or supporters of the organization/ movement. Thus, in this work that is what I mean by a ROC organization. But I must also define the ROC hierarchy, the top-level bishops, priests, and administrators of the Church, which despite its reputation, is almost as diverse as the Church as a whole. Zimmerman, one of the few, who has written on the memory politics of the ROC, analyzed statements and interviews by the "Church's top hierarchy, chiefly by Patriarch Kirill" as the "official voice" of the Church (Zimmermann, “Never Again! Remembering October 1917 in the Contemporary Russian Orthodox Church.”. I use this same approach. This they do readily. The Brotherhood proposed certain individuals, according to them, martyrs of the 20th century, that the ROC commission on canonization rejected. Lepekhina declared, in a matter of fact tone, that they were rejected because of their “inconvenience” to the contemporary ROC hierarchy. If these people were remembered, she said, the Church hierarchy would have to change how it lives and works. Interview with Anna Lepekhina, a Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. May 22, 2019. And even for the New Martyrs the Church has canonized, the Brotherhood says that their life and legacy are not truly remembered or honored. Pointing to the example of one of the first ROC martyrs of the Bolshevik regime - Bishop Veniamin, she said he was a "people's Bishop" elected by the laity (directly after the revolution the ROC instituted direct election of bishops) because he served and preached to the workers. But, according to Lepekhina, the Church does not want to remember his legacy. Again, because this would force the Church to change. Interview with Anna Lepekhina, a Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. August 22, 2019. The Brotherhood focuses on these people as alternative heroes in their alternative narrative of the past.

Central to this alternative narrative is focusing on the brotherhoods that formed in the 1920s when Patriarch Tikhon in 1918 - already seeing the harassment the ROC would face at the hands of the Bolsheviks - called upon Orthodox believers everywhere to come together in brotherhoods. “The Church survived [the Soviet period] through the communal-brotherhood life,” Lepekhina told me. Interview with Anna Lepekhina, a Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. May 22, 2019. I was told again and again that it was these brotherhoods - not the ROC hierarchy that kept the Church alive in the dark days of church history during the Soviet period. Interview with Anna Lepekhina, a Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. May 22, 2019. This is a radical statement within ROC circles. In essence, they claim that the ROC hierarchy of the Soviet period - the direct predecessor to the current hierarchy - compromised and betrayed the faith. “Tserkvi Nuzhno Ne Reformirovanie, a Vozrozhdenie.” The Brotherhood proposes the history of the brotherhoods of the early Soviet period, something they have invested lots of time into researching (Lepekhina herself is writing a second master's thesis on secret Orthodox brotherhoods that existed into the 1950s and 1960s) as an alternative and untainted and acceptable past.

Their alternative past connects directly to their alternative present and future. They proclaim this through their "authentic" memory politics. In discussing with Lepekhina the monuments in Russia - most of which honor heroes of the Soviet period - we turned to the idea that I had heard at their conference, namely, that the Russian Civil War, the Whites vs. the Reds continuous to this day. She explained it like this: "this War continues. There has not been a judgment of past crimes. And the crimes continue. If we did not judge the crimes, if we did not name the criminals, then essentially, we are on the side of the criminals. Meaning we are continuing to fight; the crimes are continuing." Interview with Anna Lepekhina, a Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. August 22, 2019. But the Brotherhood puts itself among the few who refuse to be complicit in the continuation of these crimes. Society, the ROC hierarchy, the state go one way, a way that makes them complicit in the crimes of the past and complicit in continuing them. But the Brotherhood refuses to be complicit, they stand as an "alternative" present which suggests an alternative past, too.

This they claim outright. According to them, they are the spiritual continuation of the Church's centuries-old tradition of having Brotherhood's who practiced "authentic" faith of love, service, and fellowship. Their theses of church revival state that the "fruit" of the 1918 Church council, particularly in how it led to the creation of spiritual unions, communities, and brotherhoods, should be made a reality today. And it seems clear that they see themselves as part of this alternative present. In 2017, at the behest of the Brotherhood in general, and the St. Petersburg Brotherhood in particular, the first-ever memorial monument was erected to members of Orthodox brotherhoods who were persecuted and executed at the hands of the Soviet regime. This is a monument the St. Petersburg Brotherhood is proud of - an image of it was printed on large postcards and prominently laid out at the entrance to their facilities for people to take with them as they left the "Ethics after the Gulag" conference. It acts as physical proof of their desire to connect themselves to Orthodox brotherhoods of the past. Thus, the Brotherhood, though it does not claim to be the only part of the present-day church that is connected to their proposed alternative past, stakes its claim to be connected to this alternative past and present. And of course, this ties into their proposed alternative future, too. As Lepekhina said, “hope for the revival of the Church is in the communal-brotherhood life” Interview with Anna Lepekhina, a Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. May 22, 2019.

2.2.3 The Present as Tainted by the Past

At my first Brotherhood event, their leadership's audacity and bitingness stood out to me. The conference emcee asked Fr. Georgii, “How can representatives of the church influence the spiritual and moral norms of today's society?” His answer began with an ironic hypophira: “What norms? That is like affirming that we have a law-based government and that we have a normal judiciary - No, we don't have any normal judiciary, and our government is not law-based.” “Ethics after the Gulag” round table discussion speech by Fr. Georgii Mitrofanov, a ROC priest but not a member of the Brotherhood. St. Petersburg, Russia. May 06, 2019. Initially, these answers led me to see the Brother in overtly political terms.

In one interview, Lepekhina spoke the Brotherhood's opinion that the Russia of today is “destroyed”. Interview with Anna Lepekhina, a Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. May 22, 2019. They see Russians and Russian society as dominated by “razdvoennost'” (bifurcation/ duality) and “bessovestnost'” (unscrupulousness/ dishonesty). Interview with Anna Lepekhina, a Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. May 22, 2019. Today when it is commonplace, especially in the ROC, to speak incessantly of how Russia and its Church have risen from its knees, the Brotherhood disagrees. For an example of such discourse: “Patriarkh Kirill Poblagodaril Vladimira Putina Za Pomoshch' v Vozrozhdenii Sviatyn' i Stroitel'stve Khramov - Pravoslavnyi Zhurnal `Foma,'” accessed April 17, 2020, https://foma.ru/patriarh-kirill-poblagodaril-vladimira-putina-za-pomoshh-v-vozrozhdenii-svyatyin-stroitelstve-hramov.html. According to them, Russia quite literally lays in ruins after the desolation of the Soviet period. In many ways, it seems, that they see the Russia of today as still being in the Soviet Union. At “Ethics after the Gulag” conference I first ran into the idea that for them there is no “post-Gulag” as Russia never left the Gulag. Later, while interviewing Lepekhina, unprompted she brought up this idea again. Interview with Anna Lepekhina, a Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. May 22, 2019. Agadjianian's research confirmed this negative view by the Brotherhood of both the late Soviet period and the current Putin era. Agadjanian, “Reform and Revival in Moscow Orthodox Communities”, 81. The Brotherhood - in what seems to be a political view - sees Russia's contemporary state negatively.

They see the ROC hierarchy similarly. In December 2018, not long before we met, Lepekhina posted on Facebook a re-post of a post by Father Georgii. In this post, Father Georgii explains why, when a believer listens to the ROC's Patriarch's sermons - "Amen" is not the only proper response, sometimes believers should say, in a sign of disagreement, "Forgive us, Lord." Anna Lepekhina, “Eshche v 80-e gody v Leningradskoi dukhovnoi akademii u menia sformulirovalsia sposob reaktsii na propovedi, kotorye my, akademisty, slyshali v khramakh.,” Wall Post, Facebook.com, December 21, 2018, https://www.facebook.com/anna.lepekhina/posts/2027531957312450. A bold statement for the leader of any ROC community to post on social media.

Initially, this information led me to the conclusion that the Brotherhood is overtly political. But my research subjects resisted. When I asked Lepekhina if their proposed memory politics undermined the authority of the state. “We are apolitical,” she replied. Interview with Anna Lepekhina, a Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. August 22, 2019. And she truly did find the word “political” itself, distasteful. And she was not alone, other Brotherhood members expressed similar ideas. Informal conversation with Natalya, a Brotherhood member, and volunteer at the "Prayer of Remembrance" event. St. Petersburg, Russia. October 30, 2019. A closer analysis led to understanding this criticism of the current state and ROC hierarchy as part and parcel of their historical memory narratives. They see these institutions as inauthentic and this problem leads to, in their opinion, much Russia's contemporary woes: injustice, corruption, duplicitousness, a cold, legalistic church, etc. Interview with Anna Lepekhina, Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. May 22, 2019. At one point in my interview, I charged the Brotherhood with being political and undermining the state's authority. Lepekhina rebutted, saying: “We do not undermine their authority, something else does.” And what is that, I asked. “Lies in the place of the truth of history.” Interview with Anna Lepekhina, Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. August 22, 2019. The state's past, and refusal to separate itself from it this past is what taints it. The Brotherhood sees these memory narratives as directly connecting to - and tainting - the present.

The same can be said for the Brotherhood's understanding of the Church hierarchy of today as largely illegitimate because it is tainted by the past. As Dmitry Gasak, one of the most prominent Brotherhood leaders and president of their Institute said at the conference, I attended, “The style of life the Church leads [the ROC today] was created under the influence… under the powerful influence of the Soviet state system, and all the flaws that exist [from that system], exist in the Church.” Summary remarks at “Ethics after the Gulag” conference by Dmitrii Gasak, a Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. May 06, 2019. And I heard this thought echoed more than once. Lepekhina claimed that “the Church [today's ROC] is still under the oppression of the state.” For the Brotherhood, today's Church is not the “authentic” ROC but rather the one warped and re-created by the Soviet government. Lepekhina described the Brotherhood and those like them as the Church (implying “authentic” Church) as opposed to the church's [evil] twin (implying “inauthentic” Church). Interview with Anna Lepekhina, a Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. August 22, 2019. And thus, for the Brotherhood it is the tentacles of the dark past, not so much political dislike, that leads it to take such strong politically slanted stances against the Russian government and the ROC hierarchy.

Ironically, they see these institutions and memory actors as committing a crime upon a crime. That crime is not acknowledging, repenting, or even remembering the first crime and instead "creating" what they call “a false past.” “Obrashchenie Initsiativnoi? Gruppy FNPiV_211119.Pdf.” This reverberates with Lepekhina's charge that the state undermines itself by promoting “lies in the place of the truth of history.” For them, their proposed historical memory narratives are the "truth of history."

2.3 Conclusion

This chapter examined the Brotherhood's historical memory narratives in the context of Russia's public memory of the Repressions and other memory actors' narratives. It revealed three parts to their historical memory narratives. Firstly, they refute society's dominant historical narratives. Secondly, they (re)construct an alternative past, present, and future with which they identify. Finally, they view the present as almost entirely tainted by the past. This taint is exacerbated, in their opinion, by state and church institutions that replace "true history" with "myths". This chapter showed, however, that the political aspect of this narrative is complicated. The Brotherhood's motivation as a religious and memory actor in the public sphere is so difficult to understand because, although its historical memory narratives have political implications, they do not have political aims.

In some ways, their approach to historical memory might resemble a form of revisionist history. And yet I find the term I proposed at the start of the chapter, Critical memory more suited. Though the term was coined in the literary field and a different cultural context, transferring critical memory to the sphere of memory studies and anthropology seems not only possible but beneficial to the field. It expands our ability to describe and understand an approach to the past that though held by marginal groups might not be as uncommon as first appears. The work of the Brotherhood is similar to what Baker meant when he talked about critical memory. Baker claims that critical memory is what is needed to prevent “historical revisionism” that “offers a false reading of the past”. H A Baker, “Critical Memory and the Black Public Sphere,” Public Culture 7, no. 1 (October 1, 1994): 3-33, doi:10.1215/08992363-7-1-3, 32. The Brotherhood, similar to African-Americans - perhaps from the weaker position, minority position - is striving to correct what they see as a false, revisionist narrative.

The Oxford research encyclopedia describes critical memory as a direction in memory where people “study history to try to remember past injustices and attempts to fight them.” Matthew Houdek and Kendall R. Phillips, Public Memory, vol. 1, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Communication (Oxford University Press, 2017), doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.181, 16. This is what the Brotherhood does. And it does so in many of the ways Baker described as critical memory. Firstly, it is, as stated above an attempt to correct what it sees as false revisionist narratives. Baker, “Critical Memory and the Black Public Sphere”, 3. Secondly, Baker described critical memory as the enemy of the “nostalgia” which he defines as a "purposive construction of a past filled with golden virtues, golden men, and sterling events." Baker, “Critical Memory and the Black Public Sphere”, 3. The Brotherhood constructs its historical memory narratives in opposition to a similar nostalgia it perceives in Russia's Postcommunist public memory. And Baker describes critical memory as opposed to nostalgia because "to be critical is never to be safely housed or allegorically free of the illness, transgression, and contamination of the past.” Baker, “Critical Memory and the Black Public Sphere”, 3. The Brotherhood, too, sees Russia's Soviet past as not just a contaminated past, but rather as something that contaminates the present. And finally, critical memory, according to Baker, “judges severely, censures righteously, renders hard ethical evaluations of the past that it never defines as well-passed.” Baker, “Critical Memory and the Black Public Sphere”, 3. So too, the Brotherhood's historical memory narrative offers harsh moral judgments of the past, even in areas of that past where much of society considers it heroic and highly decorated. The Brotherhood's historical memory narratives overlap with Baker's understanding of critical memory and should rightly be called critical historical memory narratives.

3. The Brotherhood's Memory Praxis

On the 30^th of October 2019, a sunny but cold day in St. Petersburg, people queued up in front of the Solovetskii Kamen' Memorial - a stone on a pedestal. This is no ordinary stone, however. It is a stone taken from Russia's first Gulag prison camp and placed there as a memorial to the millions of victims of the Soviet Repressions. The 10-hour event did not attract thousands but the line of people who read names and afterwards shouted “Never Again!” or “Eternal Memory!” never disappeared entirely. This is how the participants commemorate the “Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions” (an official Russian state memorial date). Others joined them, but at other sites - in 6 locations around St. Petersburg and tens of other churches, museums and sites of memory around Russia and the world. The Brotherhood estimated that over 1000 persons participated in this event in St. Petersburg that day. Personal communication via social media with Anna Lepekhina, Brotherhood leader. November 28, 2019. This event far eclipses the similar and far more well-known event hosted by the Memorial organization in Moscow each year. Though this initiative remains unknown to a larger public it is the largest and most successful annual, national, public memory initiative commemorating the Soviet Repression.

Organizing this event required hundreds of hours of volunteer labor from Brotherhood members. Many of the Brotherhood's leaders spend a large portion of their time and energy planning for only this event. This event takes even more time due to the social movement of memory the Brotherhood has initiated surrounding this event. Building this movement and keeping it going is a job unto itself. This chapter asks "Why?". Why does the Brotherhood use the "Prayer of Remembrance" and the social movement of memory surrounding it as its primary memory acting tool? Uncovering the answer to this question means looking at how the Brotherhood - as individuals and a collective - internalizes its historical consciousness, critical memory, and faith as a "social praxis" (to borrow from Palmie and Stewart's work, yet again). Palmié and Stewart, “Introduction: For an Anthropology of History”, 207. I contend that their social praxis dictates not only the propagation of their historical memory narratives but how they should propagate it. Namely, by building a social movement of memory (and repentance). By closely examining the interconnectedness of the concepts discussed in previous chapters combined with examining an aspect of their Christian faith I shed light on the answer to this question.

Before answering this question, another question should be answered shortly. Why does the Brotherhood care so much about memory and why does it work so hard to promote its historical memory narratives? At the "Prayer of Remembrance" event in St. Petersburg I ran into a young priest and member of the Brotherhood. I decided to ask him this question directly. He seemed genuinely surprised by the question but answered immediately, “Faith is connected to history, so this is natural, any authentic Christian will remember history, just as Paul constantly referred to the teaching of the Jews in his New Testament writing.” An informal interview with Fr. Aleksei, a Brotherhood member, and ordained ROC priest. St. Petersburg, Russia. October 30, 2019. Interestingly his answer parallels to work found in scholarly research. Sociologist Daniele Hervieu-Leger proposed the idea that religion is simply a “chain of memory”. Hervieu-leger, Religion As A Chain Of Memory. The father of memory studies, Maurice Halbwachs, also wrote about the importance of memory to the Christian faith, this idea is confirmed in the more recent work of Jan Assmann on the predecessor to Christianity - Judaism. Assmann, “Memory and Culture”, 339; Moris Khal'bvaks, Sotsial'nye Ramki Pamiati, trans. S N Zenkina (Novoe izdatel'stvo, 2007), 235. Doubtless, as a religious Christian organization, the Brotherhood takes on much of this tradition. But there is something more and different for the Brotherhood in their desire to propagate their memory narratives.

The difference appears to be in their patriotism. Something I noticed and asked Lepekhina about. She answered: “A Christian has two homelands - a heavenly one and an earthly one… but we must understand how to love, authentically love the earthly one, which will lead to a love of our heavenly one.” Interview with Anna Lepekhina, a Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. August 22, 2019. The priest who spoke at "Ethics after the Gulag" about their catechism process concluded his lecture by saying that it is a process that enables the individua's memory to be "restored" and to be able to "lift [the individual's] country up." Conference report at “Ethics after the Gulag” conference by Viktor Dunaev, a ROC priest and a Brotherhood member from Khabarovsk. St. Petersburg, Russia. May 06, 2019. They see their faith as enabling and requiring love for Russia. A love, Lepekhina was quick to point out, that would stand in contrast to "mainstream patriotism" by seeing things as they are and knowing how they were. A patriotism defined by their critical historical memory. Interview with Anna Lepekhina, a Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. May 22, 2019.

Illustratively the Brotherhood's critical memory could be seen as digging a pit. It's a pit that puts the Brotherhood and all of Russia in a place where it lacks both “authenticity” (explained more fully later) not only because of the crimes of the past but also because of what the Brotherhood refers to as the “bespamyatstvo” (“memorylessness”). “Ethics after the Gulag” round table discussion speech by Fr. Georgii Kochetkov, Brotherhood founder. St. Petersburg, Russia. May 06, 2019; Preobrazhenskoe bratstvo, “Forum Natsional'nogo Pokaianiia i Vozrozhdeniia,” Youtube, September 3, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4n3SP718sE&feature=youtu.be. For the Brotherhood this is a double crime, the latter being perhaps as bad as the first. If their faith teaches them to love and serve Russia, and their critical memory identifies Russia's problem, then their historical consciousness - their understanding of how the past and present are interconnected - allows for a way out of this conundrum. The answer is found in their concept of repentance. As explained in the first chapter, the Brotherhood believes that repentance restores, as a gift from God, memory. This is a repentance that all of Russia needs. This then points to why the Brotherhood values memory and memory acting. For them this is the key to saving Russia, something their faith tells them is imperative. But it also helps explain why they do this in the form of the “Prayer of Remembrance” and through initiating a social movement - they need both repentance and they need Russia as a whole to repent. Examining more closely how they act out this understanding will answer the primary research question of this chapter: “Why does the Brotherhood memory act using the tools it uses - primarily the “Prayer of Remembrance” and the surrounding social movement of memory it has initiated?”

3.1 How to “work through a hard past”

The Brotherhood models its memory narratives and memory acting on post-War Germany's memory politics of “working through hard past”. Examples from my fieldwork abound, but most illustrative are the following: firstly an article about the prospects of the ROC's chances at being “freed from its dark past” and secondly, a website launched by the Brotherhood to illustrate a recent sociological study they commissioned into the “readiness of Russian's to work through a hard past”: “«Trudnaia Pamiat'» v Tserkvi: Mozhet Li RPTs Osvobodit'sia Ot Sovetskogo Naslediia? | Preobrazhenskoe Bratstvo,” accessed April 17, 2020, https://psmb.ru/a/trudnaia-pamiat-v-tserkvi-mozhet-li-rpts-osvoboditsia-ot-sovetskogo-naslediia.html; “Preodolenie Trudnogo Proshlogo: Stsenarii Dlia Rossii,” Trudnaya-Pamyat.Ru, accessed May 18, 2020, http://trudnaya-pamyat.ru/?fbclid=IwAR1scsAydnuYcSW9S_pRgtGOzEcAth8RlrUW7LI9TPhbPlgZ8MWW6gsOWVM#rec131952096. We must look at this idea in the Brotherhood's individuals' and collective's practice to understand how the Brotherhood acts out “working through a hard past” as a memory actor. The term “working through a hard past” is borrowed from the German term Vergangenheitsbewältigung. It describes the process Germany society underwent in the late 20th Century as it recognized its complacency and guilt in Hitler's regime. The Brotherhood seeks to “work through a hard past” through an act. This act is a “ritual” or way of “acting out of [their] narrative”, using a term from the work of Michael Shafir, a scholar on Postcommunist memory. Shafir, “Memory and History in Postcommunism: Preliminary Theoretical Remarks.” This is a practice wherein the Brotherhood “touching the past” - a reality that for them touches the present. Palmié and Stewart, “Introduction”, 2. Their "ritual" of repentance is their acting out their historicity and critical memory. It is a projection of the interconnection of these factors.

The Brotherhood's "ritual" of "working through a hard past" can be seen as a battle for what they understand as "authenticity." This word, "podlinnyi" is a keyword in the Brotherhood's vocabulary. In interviews and conversations, they used this word to describe everything from the history of the Great Patriotic War, memory, history in general to the church, faith, Christianity, memory, history, and more. As an example: their historical memory narrative sees the Soviet state as illegitimate, and anti-Russian - a destroyer of authenticity. Interview with Anna Lepekhina, a Brotherhood leader. St. Petersburg, Russia. May 22, 2019. On the other hand, the Orthodox brotherhoods of the early Soviet period - whom their historical memory narratives frame positively are seen as “authentic” representatives of the ROC as opposed to the hierarchy of that time. Conversation with Dmitrii Volnenko, a Brotherhood member. St. Petersburg, Russia. August 22, 2019 In their rhetoric, this dichotomy of "authentic" vs. "inauthentic" carries into the present day. Thus their "ritual" of repentance can be construed as a struggle to (re)gain "authenticity" for themselves, the ROC, and Russia as a whole.

Halbwachs' writes about a similar struggle in his work on the early Christian Church. Essentially, his work points to two approaches those Christians took to claim an authentic connection to Christ. The first was dogmatic (“philological and external”) or having the true factual knowledge and understanding of Christ and His teachings. The other approach was mystic or affective (“psychological and internal”) and focused on being authentic Christians because of a mystical or affective connection to Christ. Palmié and Stewart, “Introduction”, 10. Though the Brotherhood's conditions differ greatly these categories prove useful in thinking about how the Brotherhood struggles for “authenticity” that comes, in their opinion, through repentance and memory. On one hand, the Brotherhood understands authenticity in connection to knowing historical truth (that they define as knowing and believing their critical historical memory narratives), which could be seen as the dogmatic approach. On the other hand, they see authenticity as achieved through an affective or mystical process, in Halbwach's terms, the “psychological and internal” process. This is how they believe the "ritual" of "working through the hard past" is done - through both knowledge and affective and spiritual process.

Dmitrii Volnenko, the literature teacher mentioned earlier in this thesis provides examples of how the Brotherhood understands this "ritual" for its members. At the Brotherhood's exhibit in the Dostoyevsky museum, he ended by sharing part of his own story. “For people like me who did not really understand, it's very important to come to a consciousness of this past [the evils of the Revolution and Russia's Soviet past], of what happened.” Here he points to the importance of knowledge and understanding in this process of becoming “conscious” of this past. I followed up by asking if the past could be overcome without this knowledge and consciousness. He replied, “No, I do not think so.” And continued, “[This change cannot happen] Without changing on the inside, which happens through knowledge and consciousness of these things.” Conversation with Dmitrii Volnenko, a Brotherhood member. St. Petersburg, Russia. August 22, 2019 For the Brotherhood the “ritual” of repentance and memory must involve the action of learning “historical truth”. Learning about the past is an action required for this process.

Volnenko's use of the word “consciousness” points to something beyond facts playing an important part in this process. For them knowing their historical memory narratives - which they equate with “historical truth” - is only equally as important as is the spiritual transformation such memory narratives ought to induce. The "authenticity" that the Brotherhood seeks cannot be attained without the interplay and acting out of both aspects. When Volnenko spoke at the "Ethics after the Gulag" conference he uncovered the "mystic" (or affective) side of this living out their understanding of "working through a hard past". He spoke of how one could be connected to "memory" (which he had just referred to as a source of virtue). “But we need an impulse to be connected to this [authentic] memory. And studying your family history can be this impulse… We should feel this memory, live it… go to the places of the repressions.” Summary remarks at "Ethics after the Gulag" conference by Dmitrii Volnenko, a Brotherhood member. St. Petersburg, Russia. May 06, 2019. Here he references studying history (one's personal history) but he adds the affective aspect. According to him, one can be connected to history through "feeling it" and "living it". How? He suggests visiting sites of memory - the place of the repressions. Elena suggested to me that she did this by sewing historical dresses. Informal conversation with Elena, a Brotherhood member. St. Petersburg, Russia. May 06, 2019. On an individual level, the Brotherhood encourages both the knowledge of the "historical truth" of the past but also of this affective and spiritual process of connecting to this past.