Religion, the Russian Nation and the State: Domestic and International Dimensions: an Introduction

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Acknowledgments

Earlier versions of the articles in this special issue were presented at the international workshop ‘Religion, Politics and Policy-Making in Russia: Domestic and International Dimensions’ organised by the Centre for EU-Russia Studies (CEURUS) at the University of Tartu, Estonia, 6–7 June 2012. The editors of this issue are grateful to CEURUS for sponsoring the workshop, to Piret Ehin, CEURUS director, to Siiri Maimets, Varje Kuut, and Britt Ressar for efficient administration of the workshop, and to all who submitted papers to this volume. We are also grateful to Alexander Agadjanian, Kaarina Aitamurto, Jelena Avanesova, Elina Kahla, Igor’ Kotin, Christopher Marsh, Victor Shnirelman, Marat Shterin, Meagan Todd and Aleksandr Verkhovsky, whose participation at the workshop greatly contributed to bringing this collective effort to completion. Jerry Pankhurst’s participation in the workshop and its preparation, and subsequent work on preparation of this introductory essay, took place while he was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Tartu in spring semester 2012. Finally, we are extremely grateful for the patient support, strong reviewing and clear editing of the contributions by Philip Walters and the anonymous reviewers. We deeply appreciate the opportunity to publish selected papers from the 2012 Tartu workshop in this issue of Religion, State & Society.

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Notes on contributors

Jerry G. Pankhurst

Jerry Pankhurst is a professor and chair of the Department of Sociology and director of the programme in Russian and Central Eurasian Studies at Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, USA. He has pursued a long-term interest in the sociology of Russia and the post-Soviet realm, with growing focus on the broader European context. He has co-edited scholarly collections on Eastern Orthodoxy in a Global Age (AltaMira/Rowman and Littlefield, 2005) and Family, Religion and Social Change in Diverse Societies (Oxford University Press, 2000), as well as two volumes on the sociology of Soviet society. His articles have appeared in Journal of Church and State, Journal of Family Issues, Sociological Inquiry and numerous edited collections.

Alar Kilp

Alar Kilp is a lecturer in comparative politics at the University of Tartu, Estonia. In 2012 he defended his doctoral thesis Church Authority in Society, Culture and Politics after Communism at the University of Tartu. His academic research deals with religion and politics, secularisation and church–state relations in postcommunist Europe. He has co-edited the volumes Extremism Within and Around Us (Tartu University Press, 2011) and Religion and Politics in Multicultural Europe (Tartu University Press, 2009). He has published articles in Kultura i Polityka, Forschungen zur Anthropologie und Religionsgeschichte (Ugarit Verlag), Studies in Church History (Annuals of the Lithuanian Catholic Academy of Science) and Proceedings of the Estonian National Defence College. Email: [email protected].