Liubov’ V. Mel’nikova: Armija i Pravoslavnaja Cerkov’ Rossijskoj Imperii v ėpochu napoleonovskich vojn. Moskva: Kučkovo pole, 2007. ISBN 978-5-901679-37-1

Liubov’ V. Mel’nikova: Armija i Pravoslavnaja Cerkov’ Rossijskoj Imperii v ėpochu napoleonovskich vojn. [Armee und orthodoxe Kirche des Russländischen Reiches zur Zeit der Napoleonischen Kriege.] Moskva: Kučkovo pole, 2007. 415 pp., ill. ISBN 978-5-901679-37-1.

This highly readable monograph represents a significant expansion of the author’s earlier monograph, “Russkaja pravoslavnaja cerkov’ v otečestvennoj vojne 1812 goda” (Moscow: Izdanie Sretenskogo Monastyrja, 2002), which appeared with the ‘blessing’ of Patriarch Aleksij. The present volume expands the chronological framework (to cover 1806‒1814, not just 1812), adds a chapter on Christian teachings about war, provides a more extensive description of the clergy’s service and contribution, and offers a new chapter on the commemoration of 1812 through the construction of forty-nine churches and chapels in later decades. The volume contains several tables (on clerical financial contributions to support militia, on the number of military volunteers from the clerical estate, a list of all 219 military chaplains who directly served at the front, and a comprehensive inventory of Moscow churches and the damage sustained) as well as a sampling of documents (mainly from contemporary printed sources).

To the existing and substantial historiography on the Russian Orthodox Church in 1812, this monograph makes a significant contribution in several areas. First, it draws extensively on unpublished documents from two central archives (Rossijskij gosudarstvennyj istoričeskij archiv and Rossijskij gosudarstvennyj voenno-istoričeskij archiv) and incorporates the rich material available in printed sources (contemporary and later). These sources allow the author to describe the activities of the Orthodox Church (Synodal declarations and sermons by ranking prelates) as it endeavored to mobilize resources and believers to repel the invaders. Mel’nikova also chronicles the role of courageous clergy in protecting church property, especially sacred objects, from theft and desecration. All this lays the groundwork for a meticulous accounting of the damage inflicted by the “French” army ‒ through fire, plundering, and wanton desecration (turning churches into warehouses, stables, and slaughterhouses). This careful compilation of data also shows the differentiated impact of 1812, with the destruction concentrated in seven dioceses and even here in a very uneven way.

At a more interpretive level, the author seeks to demonstrate the key role of the religious factor in 1812. On the one hand, the offense given to Orthodox sensibilities played a significant role in the “patriotic” movement of 1812, as believers reacted to the wanton destruction and desecration of churches and monasteries, the abuse of clergy (for concealing church valuables), and the abundant “anti-Napoleonic propaganda” that, especially after the occupation of Moscow, escalated to a campaign of vilification. Hence, in the author’s view, the patriotic movement in 1812 “to a large degree bore a religious character” (p. 77). On the other hand, anti-Orthodox attitudes played a contrary role, especially in the western areas ‒ recently acquired in the partitions ‒ where the population (specifically Poles) enthusiastically supported the Napoleonic forces. The evidence suggests, too, that the substantial Polish contingent in the Grand Army was especially wont to plunder and destroy Orthodox churches and monasteries (pp. 87‒91).

This impressive study nevertheless invites further research. Empirically, the next step is to go beyond the central archival materials and to tap the local repositories. This study has only a single reference to the Moscow city archive (Central’nyj istoričeskij archiv g. Moskvy), and in any case future historians should examine the provincial archives in the other six dioceses impacted by the Grand Army (Kaluga, Minsk, Mogilev, Pskov, Smolensk, and Volhynia-Zhitomir). Useful as the central archival materials may be, it is incumbent upon historians to go beyond the filtered, limited reports that found their way to central authorities and to use the raw, complex materials in local archives.

It is also essential to go beyond Russian documentation and tap the vast store of Western sources literature. Apart from a tiny fragment of sources in translations, this study makes no use of the vast reservoir of published (not to mention archival) sources in Western languages. Use of these materials is invaluable if one is to offer a more nuanced, critical use of the Russian sources and to produce a more sophisticated analysis. Nor does the author make any use of Western scholarship. However, this rich literature could complement the national historiography, offer a comparative perspective, and help the author to contextualize the rich data assembled here. The destruction, especially in Moscow and Smolensk, was enormous, but one wonders whether such marauding was all that unusual for this period. Did the Grand Army act differently, or significantly worse, in Russia than in its other campaigns? Similarly, one wonders how the role of the Russian Orthodox Church differed from its peers in Europe, whether in support of the Napoleonic forces or in opposition to them. Without this comparative perspective, however, it is impossible to judge what was commonplace ‒ and what was unique ‒ in the Russian case.

Future historians will also want not only to focus on the Church and clergy, but to give more attention to the laity. This monograph recounts what the Church and clergy said; it is no less important to know how believers reacted to this “anti-Napoleonic propaganda” (p. 80). Reception, after all, is critical: did the laity heed or even hear the Church’s exhortations? Sermons, at least before the mid-nineteenth century, were exceedingly rare and marginal to religious practice in Russian Orthodoxy (in contrast to contemporary Western churches); one should not assume that, outside urban cathedrals and churches, parishioners heard, let alone understood, these exhortations from on high. All this points to a more fundamental need to transcend the ecclesiastical bias in traditional ‘church history’: whereas the latter focuses on Church institutions and the clergy, it is imperative to understand the ‘Church’ in a broader sense and to include, even foreground, lay believers. It is naïve to assume that the Church (and clergy) ‘led’ and that the believers ‘followed’; one must not equate official rhetoric (even if predominant in ecclesiastical archives) with the response of the laity, as if the latter were mindless and obedient sheep. The present volume makes passing reference to the parishioners’ defense of their churches (pp. 156‒57, 183), but one wonders whether the main actor was the churchgoer, not the clergy. The author’s own thesis (about the “religious character” of the patriotic movement in 1812) suggests the former, but the research focuses narrowly on the latter.

The latter tasks are at once important and challenging. For the present, this monograph lays a solid foundation for future research on the role of the Russian Orthodoxy (and not just the Church) in the Napoleonic Wars.

Gregory L. Freeze, Waltham, MA