On Mark Adomanis in JRL #28 [re: Russian Religiosity, Pussy Riot

Church Domes with Crosses file photo

Subject: On Mark Adomanis in JRL #28
Date: Mon, 10 Feb 2014 12:48:37 -0600
From: David Stone <stone@ksu.edu>

Mark Adomanis’ piece from Forbes
(http://www.forbes.com/sites/markadomanis/2014/02/09/why-pussy-riot-failed-in-one-chart/) that you included in JRL 28 uses Russia’s increasing religiosity to explain Pussy Riot’s failure.

I don’t buy it.

Adomanis refers to a study from the Levada Center
(http://www.levada.ru/24-12-2013/rossiyane-o-religii)
which measures Russians’ REPORTED religiosity. As should go without
saying, there’s a big difference between people’s reported behavior and
their actual behavior. That’s even more true when official attitudes
towards religion and the Russian Orthodox Church in particular have
changed enormously since 1991. Put simply, there were all sorts of
reasons for people to underreport their religious views and practices in
1991 and to overreport them today.

When you look at actual data, the situation is much different. A study
by the SOVA Center measured actual attendance by Russians at Christmas
services in January 2013. In Moscow, 280,000 people attended Christmas
services, or 2-3% of the total population of the city. Compare that to
the Levada Center’s 31% of Russians reporting that they go to church at
least several times a year.

For the SOVA figures, see
http://www.sova-center.ru/religion/discussions/how-many/2013/01/d26162

There are lots of reasons why Pussy Riot hasn’t gotten much traction in
Russia. While Putin’s policies have a lot to do with that, the
movement’s own insistence on total ideological purity (witness the
recent open letter) and disdain for concrete organization might be
involved as well. Before we explain things by increasing religiosity,
though, let’s see some actual evidence of increasing religiosity.

Dr. David R. Stone
Pickett Professor of Military History
Director, Institute for Military History and 20th Century Studies
221 Eisenhower Hall
Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66506
Home: http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~stone/

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