Irina Paert
Biographic Data
| ID | 827398 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Irina Paert |
| GIVEN NAMES | Irina |
| FAMILY NAME | Paert |
| SIGNATURE | PAERT I |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Tartu |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7238-2584 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 7 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Fictionalizing the Past in Estonia
This article analyzes the way in which traumatic memories of the Soviet past are communicated in Estonian- and Russian-language women’s literature published in Estonia. The representation of the past in these works does not support the claim that the collective memories of Russian and Estonian communities are antagonistic and incapable of “agreeing to disagree.” Focusing on women’s prose written in independent Estonia after 1991, this article exa…
Orthodox scholarship in times of war
Beyond ethnocentric identity
Orthodox believers in Estonia constitute the majority of self-identifying churchgoers (according to the 2011 census). They are, however, divided ethnically and institutionally. While religion is an important source of identity, Orthodoxy in particular has been often identified with nationalism . This article explores the complex identity and self-understanding of the Orthodox minority in Estonia. Contrary to studies examining conflict and irrecon…
Mission, Charity and Ecumenical Links in the Baltics
The Russian Student Christian Movement (RSKhD), one of the leading Christian movements of the twentieth century, became the basis for a new Orthodox identity in the religious revival of Russian emigration in the 1920s. Recent studies have given this movement a clearer shape, focusing on the personalities of its participants, their missionary and educational work, and their international support for Russian emigrants. Our article focuses on the RS…
Conciliarity in the Borderlands
The article focuses on a little-known expression of Orthodox conciliar practice in the Russian Empire, the Riga diocesan congress of 1905, and analyses the extent to which commitment to church renewal was spread in regions and provinces of the empire. The article draws attention to the self-presentation of this assembly as a true council, an embodiment of sobornost ’. The article interprets the bold reforms proposed by the congress as a product o…
Apostasy in the Baltic Provinces
There has been a rich body of scholarship in recent years that challenges the accepted idea of the spread of nationalist thinking in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by highlighting the flexible, ambiguous, opportunistic or instrumental ways in which the inhabitants of central and eastern Europe engaged with ideas about nationhood. However, so far these discussions of 'national indifference' have not extensively examined the cros…
Keep Your Mind in Hell and Despair Not”
The story of Estonian Orthodoxy, as often told through the narrative of collective trauma, is not homogeneous and uncontested. The co-existence of two Orthodox communities in present-day Estonia, each insisting on exclusive canonical legitimacy and holding different views of the past, the incomplete work of transitional justice, and the untold story of political collaboration appear as irreconcilable differences that challenge the ideals of Chris…
Letters of Orthodox Priests about the German Occupation of Estonia during the First World War
During the invasion of the Baltic provinces between 1915 and 1918, a large swathe of territory and its population fell under German control: this included Orthodox parishes and their priests. The clergy and laity thus had to face many new challenges: the behaviour of occupation forces, material deprivations, and the actions of Lutheran clerical and secular elites in the new context. This article focuses on the response to the advance of the Germa…
In search of lost tradition. Orthodox pedagogy and the desecularisation of education studies in Russia
Facing the liberalisation of religious policy at the dusk of the communist era, the Russian Orthodox Church actively engaged with religious education, boosting this previously stagnant field. This contribution complicates criticism of these Orthodox initiatives as a ‘clericalisation’ of education by shifting focus from the ecclesiastical hierarchy to lay educators building the subdiscipline of Orthodox pedagogy in the education faculties of state…
A family affair? Post-imperial Estonian Orthodoxy and its relationship with the Russian Mother Church, 1917–23
As the First World War shattered the old empires, Orthodox Christians in former imperial territories faced a dilemma. Should they remain loyal to their Russian “Mother Church,” from which they were separated by physical and ideological borders, or should they pursue autonomy and break away from their former canonical centre? This article deals with the evolution of the Estonian part of Riga diocese into an autonomous Orthodox Church, focusing on …
Reimagining the diocese
This work was supported by the University of Tartu [grant number PHVUS 18916 ]
The Tsar’s Foreign Faiths
The Russian Empire was a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional polity. Paul W. Werth’s study convincingly shows that religion and religious policy are no less central for the understanding of the workings of the Russian imperial state than nationality. The scope of the book is limited to the ‘foreign confessions’—that is, non-Orthodox religious groups across the spectrum. Rather than a social history of religion, this is a story of political manage…
Memory of socialism and the Russian Orthodox believers in Estonia
This article focuses on the mnemonic practices of Russian Orthodox believers in Estonia. Raising a general theoretical problem of confessional memory, the article proceeds to discuss of the representation of the past in autobiographical interviews with the older generation of Russians in Estonia, born between 1910 and 1930. The mnemonic practices of the ethnic minorities are shown to differ from the public narratives (both Russian and Estonian), …
Orthodox Education in the Baltic provinces of Imperial Russia and independent Estonia from 1840s till 1941
The article is dedicated to the educational activities of the Orthodox church in the Baltic provinces, focusing on the Estonian Orthodoxy. The network of elementary schools, the ecclesiastical seminary and the teaching of Orthodox religion in the secondary schools were the typical forms of Orthodox education before 1917. Despite the break-up of the Russian Empire and the nationalisation of education in Estonia, the Orthodox Church had continued i…
Barbara SKINNER. The Western Front of the Eastern Church
The use of a military metaphor in the title of this book is quite apt for a study of a region whose cultural identity was shaped by its borderland position between the realms of Eastern and Western Christianity, whose rivalry led to the emergence of the Uniate Church, which is Eastern in rite and Catholic in doctrine. Barbara Skinner fills a gap in the literature by focusing on the eighteenth century, the period when the Uniate Church emerged as …
A Woman's Kingdom
Penance and the Priestless Old Believers in Modern Russia, 1771– c .1850
The epidemic of bubonic plague that spread in Russia between 1770 and 1772, claiming about 100,000 lives, was perceived as a divine punishment by many ordinary Russians. In 1771, Moscow witnessed popular riots, which were partly caused by the unwillingness of ecclesiastical authorities to allow Muscovites to venerate the icon of the Mother of God placed above the St Barbara Gates in the Kremlin and which was believed to have miraculous powers aga…
Preparing God's Harvest
Regulating Old Believer Marriage
In this article, Irina Paert reexamines the relationship between Old Believers and officialdom. She focuses on the impact the criminalization of Old Believer marriages had on dissenting communities in Nicholas I's Russia (1825-55). Although Paert emphasizes the difference between Old Believer and official approaches to marriage, she also draws attention to endemic conflicts and contradictions within the local and central governments regarding the…
The Bathhouse at Midnight
Received
Regulating Old Believer Marriage
In this article, Irina Paert reexamines the relationship between Old Believers and officialdom. She focuses on the impact the criminalization of Old Believer marriages had on dissenting communities in Nicholas I's Russia (1825-55). Although Paert emphasizes the difference between Old Believer and official approaches to marriage, she also draws attention to endemic conflicts and contradictions within the local and central governments regarding the…
A family affair? Post-imperial Estonian Orthodoxy and its relationship with the Russian Mother Church, 1917–23
As the First World War shattered the old empires, Orthodox Christians in former imperial territories faced a dilemma. Should they remain loyal to their Russian “Mother Church,” from which they were separated by physical and ideological borders, or should they pursue autonomy and break away from their former canonical centre? This article deals with the evolution of the Estonian part of Riga diocese into an autonomous Orthodox Church, focusing on …
In search of lost tradition. Orthodox pedagogy and the desecularisation of education studies in Russia
Facing the liberalisation of religious policy at the dusk of the communist era, the Russian Orthodox Church actively engaged with religious education, boosting this previously stagnant field. This contribution complicates criticism of these Orthodox initiatives as a ‘clericalisation’ of education by shifting focus from the ecclesiastical hierarchy to lay educators building the subdiscipline of Orthodox pedagogy in the education faculties of state…
Memory of socialism and the Russian Orthodox believers in Estonia
This article focuses on the mnemonic practices of Russian Orthodox believers in Estonia. Raising a general theoretical problem of confessional memory, the article proceeds to discuss of the representation of the past in autobiographical interviews with the older generation of Russians in Estonia, born between 1910 and 1930. The mnemonic practices of the ethnic minorities are shown to differ from the public narratives (both Russian and Estonian), …
The Bathhouse at Midnight
Received
Penance and the Priestless Old Believers in Modern Russia, 1771– c .1850
The epidemic of bubonic plague that spread in Russia between 1770 and 1772, claiming about 100,000 lives, was perceived as a divine punishment by many ordinary Russians. In 1771, Moscow witnessed popular riots, which were partly caused by the unwillingness of ecclesiastical authorities to allow Muscovites to venerate the icon of the Mother of God placed above the St Barbara Gates in the Kremlin and which was believed to have miraculous powers aga…
Preparing God's Harvest
Regulating Old Believer Marriage
In this article, Irina Paert reexamines the relationship between Old Believers and officialdom. She focuses on the impact the criminalization of Old Believer marriages had on dissenting communities in Nicholas I's Russia (1825-55). Although Paert emphasizes the difference between Old Believer and official approaches to marriage, she also draws attention to endemic conflicts and contradictions within the local and central governments regarding the…
A Woman's Kingdom
Barbara SKINNER. The Western Front of the Eastern Church
The use of a military metaphor in the title of this book is quite apt for a study of a region whose cultural identity was shaped by its borderland position between the realms of Eastern and Western Christianity, whose rivalry led to the emergence of the Uniate Church, which is Eastern in rite and Catholic in doctrine. Barbara Skinner fills a gap in the literature by focusing on the eighteenth century, the period when the Uniate Church emerged as …
Orthodox Education in the Baltic provinces of Imperial Russia and independent Estonia from 1840s till 1941
The article is dedicated to the educational activities of the Orthodox church in the Baltic provinces, focusing on the Estonian Orthodoxy. The network of elementary schools, the ecclesiastical seminary and the teaching of Orthodox religion in the secondary schools were the typical forms of Orthodox education before 1917. Despite the break-up of the Russian Empire and the nationalisation of education in Estonia, the Orthodox Church had continued i…
Memory of socialism and the Russian Orthodox believers in Estonia
This article focuses on the mnemonic practices of Russian Orthodox believers in Estonia. Raising a general theoretical problem of confessional memory, the article proceeds to discuss of the representation of the past in autobiographical interviews with the older generation of Russians in Estonia, born between 1910 and 1930. The mnemonic practices of the ethnic minorities are shown to differ from the public narratives (both Russian and Estonian), …
The Tsar’s Foreign Faiths
The Russian Empire was a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional polity. Paul W. Werth’s study convincingly shows that religion and religious policy are no less central for the understanding of the workings of the Russian imperial state than nationality. The scope of the book is limited to the ‘foreign confessions’—that is, non-Orthodox religious groups across the spectrum. Rather than a social history of religion, this is a story of political manage…
Letters of Orthodox Priests about the German Occupation of Estonia during the First World War
During the invasion of the Baltic provinces between 1915 and 1918, a large swathe of territory and its population fell under German control: this included Orthodox parishes and their priests. The clergy and laity thus had to face many new challenges: the behaviour of occupation forces, material deprivations, and the actions of Lutheran clerical and secular elites in the new context. This article focuses on the response to the advance of the Germa…
In search of lost tradition. Orthodox pedagogy and the desecularisation of education studies in Russia
Facing the liberalisation of religious policy at the dusk of the communist era, the Russian Orthodox Church actively engaged with religious education, boosting this previously stagnant field. This contribution complicates criticism of these Orthodox initiatives as a ‘clericalisation’ of education by shifting focus from the ecclesiastical hierarchy to lay educators building the subdiscipline of Orthodox pedagogy in the education faculties of state…
A family affair? Post-imperial Estonian Orthodoxy and its relationship with the Russian Mother Church, 1917–23
As the First World War shattered the old empires, Orthodox Christians in former imperial territories faced a dilemma. Should they remain loyal to their Russian “Mother Church,” from which they were separated by physical and ideological borders, or should they pursue autonomy and break away from their former canonical centre? This article deals with the evolution of the Estonian part of Riga diocese into an autonomous Orthodox Church, focusing on …
Reimagining the diocese
This work was supported by the University of Tartu [grant number PHVUS 18916 ]
Keep Your Mind in Hell and Despair Not”
The story of Estonian Orthodoxy, as often told through the narrative of collective trauma, is not homogeneous and uncontested. The co-existence of two Orthodox communities in present-day Estonia, each insisting on exclusive canonical legitimacy and holding different views of the past, the incomplete work of transitional justice, and the untold story of political collaboration appear as irreconcilable differences that challenge the ideals of Chris…
Conciliarity in the Borderlands
The article focuses on a little-known expression of Orthodox conciliar practice in the Russian Empire, the Riga diocesan congress of 1905, and analyses the extent to which commitment to church renewal was spread in regions and provinces of the empire. The article draws attention to the self-presentation of this assembly as a true council, an embodiment of sobornost ’. The article interprets the bold reforms proposed by the congress as a product o…
Apostasy in the Baltic Provinces
There has been a rich body of scholarship in recent years that challenges the accepted idea of the spread of nationalist thinking in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by highlighting the flexible, ambiguous, opportunistic or instrumental ways in which the inhabitants of central and eastern Europe engaged with ideas about nationhood. However, so far these discussions of 'national indifference' have not extensively examined the cros…
Mission, Charity and Ecumenical Links in the Baltics
The Russian Student Christian Movement (RSKhD), one of the leading Christian movements of the twentieth century, became the basis for a new Orthodox identity in the religious revival of Russian emigration in the 1920s. Recent studies have given this movement a clearer shape, focusing on the personalities of its participants, their missionary and educational work, and their international support for Russian emigrants. Our article focuses on the RS…
Orthodox scholarship in times of war
Beyond ethnocentric identity
Orthodox believers in Estonia constitute the majority of self-identifying churchgoers (according to the 2011 census). They are, however, divided ethnically and institutionally. While religion is an important source of identity, Orthodoxy in particular has been often identified with nationalism . This article explores the complex identity and self-understanding of the Orthodox minority in Estonia. Contrary to studies examining conflict and irrecon…
Fictionalizing the Past in Estonia
This article analyzes the way in which traumatic memories of the Soviet past are communicated in Estonian- and Russian-language women’s literature published in Estonia. The representation of the past in these works does not support the claim that the collective memories of Russian and Estonian communities are antagonistic and incapable of “agreeing to disagree.” Focusing on women’s prose written in independent Estonia after 1991, this article exa…
Political science (18 works) · Law (16 works) · Sociology (15 works) · Philosophy (14 works) · History (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · History (9 works) · Politics (9 works) · Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics (8 works)