Paper short abstract:

The desacralization of death in post-Soviet Russia

Paper long abstract:

Particularly in the more remote regions of the North the ancient cult of ancestors still plays a significant role in Russian village life, ensuring the continuity of family, kinship and community values and traditions. For Russians in general there is no aspect of religious (in its widest sense) belief and practice that is more important and more bound up with national identity and values than funeral and memorial ritual. The ritual focus of care for the deceased is in the cemetery -the territory and home of revered dead ancestors and a social space in which the living and the dead may communicate, through speech (lamenting), through touch (knocking on the grave-marker by way of greeting) or through the 'sharing' or offering of food. This paper will focus on the visual aspects of cemeteries, the changing role of symbols and devices and the messages they convey. The outward appearance of rural cemeteries has changed significantly since the early twentieth century when a simple Orthodox cross was their only visible symbol. The process of secularisation begun in Soviet times has accelerated in the post-Soviet era with the advent of funeral directors and consumer choice until many cemeteries resemble a battleground between the sacred and the profane. This paper is based on my own impressions and photographic record of cemeteries during fieldwork in Arkhangel'sk, Vologda, Pskov, Novgorod and Tver' provinces (oblasti) 2006-2016).