estructura territorial del espacio confesional en rusia

8/12/2019 Estructura Territorial Del Espacio Confesional en Rusia

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ISSN 20799705, Regional Research of Russia, 2013, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 204210. Pleiades Publishing, Ltd., 2013.Original Russian Text S.G. Safronov, 2013.

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During the last two decades, the situation in thesphere of religion in the postSoviet space has beenmost often characterized as a religious revival.However, its actual content and results are assesseddifferently. Credible sociological studies most oftenpoint not so much to the noticeable growth in the religious activity of citizens as to increased interest in thetraditional culture. It was strengthened in manyrespects by the need to form the basis of a new civilidentity in the postSoviet states [13]. Perhaps, therapid growth in the institutional structures of differentconfessions has become the only indisputable evidence of a religious revival.

Liberalization that inclusively touched the religiousarea in the early 1990s led to rapid growth in the num

ber of religious organizations. It could not but frightenthe powers of almost all former Soviet Republics withits scale and uncontrollability. The legislative actsadopted in the second half of the 1990s2000s complicated the registration of religious organizationsalmost everywhere and entailed their repeated registration in Russia and Kazakhstan. The order of registering of grassroots communities has not been clearly

worked out for different reasons in the Transcaucasiancountries and is complicated in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan; therefore, many of them work without registration. In Turkmenistan, any religious activity is strictlyregulated and the number of registered religious com

munities is disproportionately small for a Muslimcountry.

The statistics regarding the number of registeredreligious organizations, which have registered statutes

of their statutes, as well as those that simply exist without registration, for example of their statutes, inUkraine, are not perfect. They cannot be interpreted

without taking into account the average size of religious communities in different confessions; degree ofstrictness of their membership; aspiration to registration of religious organizations themselves; and, lastly,

without taking into account the policy regulating thereligious area, which is pursued in different countries.Nevertheless, this is the only available indicator thatpermits the intensity and proportions of the processestaking place in the sphere of religion in the territory ofthe postSoviet states to be compared at least with reservations.

Dynamics and density of religious organizations.Atpresent, the rapid growth in the number of religiouscommunities, which was observed in the postSovietspace in the 1990s, has reduced in intensity. A certainsaturation of the space with religious infrastructure hastaken place, and the number of communities of someconfessions has even decreased, for example, that ofthe protestant communities in Russia. The regions,

where noticeable growth in the number of religiousorganizations also continued in the second half of the

GEOGRAPHICAL ATLASOF RUSSIA

Territorial Structure of the Confessional Space

in Russia and Other PostSoviet States

S. G. SafronovMoscow State University, Department of Geography

email: [email protected]

Received January 8, 2013

The most obvious result of two decades of religious revival in the former Soviet Union is the quantitativegrowth of organizational structures of major confessions. Confessional space of Russia and other former postSoviet states is represented on the base of data on religious organizations operating on their territory in 20112012, as well as the results of the last censuses of population. The factors that determine the geographical areasof traditional confessions are closely related to ethnic and cultural traditions of the most numerous ethnicgroups. Relatively new confessions appeal directly to the inner world of the person. The geography of Protestant organizations is reflected indepth. They stand out by social activity, especially in areas with welldeveloped settlement pattern with many large cities, as well as less developed regions of the Asian part of Russia.

Despite significant internal differences of different confessions, the overall density of religious communitiesand their dynamics in the 2000s enable to estimate the scale of crosscountry differences in the level of religiosity. Geographic profiles through Russia give an overview of the qualitative and quantitative characteristicsof the confessional space by regions from west to east and from north to south.

Keywords: postSoviet space, geography, geography of religion, population geography, cultural geography

DOI: 10.1134/S2079970513020093


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REGIONAL RESEARCH OF RUSSIA Vol. 3 No. 2 2013

TERRITORIAL STRUCTURE OF THE CONFESSIONAL SPACE IN RUSSIA 205

2000s, are either interior federal subjects in Russia,where institutional processes are all somewhatretarded for several reasons, or relatively urbanized

areas of Central Ukraine, where the creation andregistration of new communities is still continuing(Fig. 1).

The maximum density of communities may resultresults from both the high religiousness of the population, as well as high density of rural population. Sucha situation is typical of the western part for Ukraineand Belarus. The third most important factor of such ahigh density of religious communities is a high level ofcompetitiveness in this area: several large Orthodoxchurches, Greek Catholic, and Catholic churchesoperate in Ukraine; protestant denominations are also

very active.

The high density in the Baltic states is primarily dueto the historically formed dispersed types of rural settlemen and the ethniccultural traditions of theirinhabitants. The situation in Latvia is also greatlyaffected by the coexistence of different ethnic and cultural traditions, especially the Lutheran and Catholic,and therefore several religious communities. Mean

while, the level of religiousness may strongly differ. Forexample, Estonia is one of the most secularized countries and Lithuania is relatively religious. The situation

in two other areas with a high density of religious communitiesTranscaucasia and Central Asiais not soclear. The absence of comparable data and a signifi

cant part of nonregistered enable us to recognizegeneral trends only.

The structure of the confessional spacein the postSoviet states is composed of several groups of confessions. Their age and origin, time of appearance withinthe modern postSoviet states, and the social structureof adherents differ significantly. The first group isformed by the most numerous traditional confessions,

which are dominant in the greater part of the territoryof the former Soviet Union: different streams ofOrthodoxy (Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova,Georgia, and Armenia) and Lutheranism (Estoniaand Latvia), Catholicism (Lithuania) and Greek

Catholicism (some areas of Western Ukraine), Islam(states of Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, andsome regions of Russia), and Buddhism (some regionsof Russia). These confessions form the overwhelmingmajority of all religious groups: from 70% in Ukraineand Belarus to 85% in Kazakhstan (Fig. 2).

Despite all the differences, traditional religions areunited by an appeal to the ethnic and cultural traditions of the largest ethnic groups. The areas of theirprevalence are the most inertial part in the territorial

Fig. 1.Density of the operating religious organizations in postSoviet countries in 2012.


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Fig. 2.Structure of the current religious organizations in some countries of the postSoviet space.

Fig. 3.Orthodox religious organizations in postSoviet countries in 2012.


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structure of the confessional space and closely correlated with the settlement of the largest nations. Theshare of different parts of the prevalence areas for traditional religions is due to three factors: the number ofrepresentatives of some religious and cultural tradi

tions; population density in this territory; and the density of the historical and cultural heritage of a givenreligion, especially the number of extant religious

buildings.

Fig. 4.Confessional profile according to the structure of current religious organizations (the lines of the profile are presented inFig. 1).


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One of the most important borders in the prevalence of Orthodoxy is along the RussianUkrainian

border: most regions of Ukraine surpass several times

the analogous Russian regions in the number ofOrthodox communities (Fig. 3). This gap has onlygrown in recent years. In total, a little less than half ofall Orthodox and Old Believer communities are inUkraine; meanwhile, less than 40% of them are in theterritory of Russia.

The second border inside the Orthodox space isbetween formerly covered regions with a vast and,more important, diverse religious and cultural heritageand newly developed regions, particularly in the Asianpart of Russia, where its depth is very small and theintensity of religious life is significantly lower (Fig. 4).

Within Russia itself, the share of the regions, where

Orthodox tradition has rooted relatively recently (thesouth of the European part, Siberia, and the Far East)is gradually growing. In the first case, the territorialstructure of the leading confession is shifting after thepopulation with a certain time lag. In the second case,the emergence of the religious communities continuesin areas where there was the shortage until the early1990s.

The Islamicand Buddhistareas, which can be considered as the northern peripheries of the Muslim and

Buddhist worlds, are much less homogeneous compared to the Orthodox area (Fig. 5). This is due to thetime and way of their penetration into modern postSoviet states; local ethnic traditions, which have lefttheir imprint; and the role of these world religions inthe contemporary political life of countries.

Within Russia, two parts of the Muslim area aredistinguishedthe VolgaUral and North Caucasianparts, including both the territories of the nationalrepublics inhabited by ethnic groups that traditionallypractice Islam and a vast ethnic contact zone (Fig. 5).This area of prevalence of Islam has increased for thelast hundred years as a result of intense labor migrationto the oil and gas producing okrugs in Western Siberia, where Islam is practiced by representatives of the

Muslim diaspora, which is in turn very inhomogeneous from the ethnic and cultural viewpoint.

Judaismmust be added to the confessions considered above but with a reservation: the area of its expansion underwent fundamental changes during the 20thcentury. Its large part in the territory of Ukraine,Belarus, and the Baltic states was almost completelydestroyed during the Second World War and then was

blurred by intense ruralurban migration and Jewishemigration outside the Soviet Union.

Fig. 5.Muslim and Buddhist religious organizations in postSoviet countries in 2012.


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Thesecond groupincludes the Protestant denominations that were originally related to groups of ethnicimmigrants from Central and Western Europe, whicharrived in Russia at different times in the 17th19thcenturies, but later augmented the number of theiradherents at the expense of the Russianspeaking population. These are Baptists, Evangelical Christians,and SeventhDay Adventists, who have existed formore than 150 years in the territory of modern postSoviet states. Their traditional historically formed

areas of prevalence are the blacksoil area, North Caucasian and northwestern regions of Russia, andUkraine (Fig. 6). Later, together with the migration ofRussian Germans, which was first voluntary and thencompulsory, they actively spread in the south of Western Siberia.

The third group includes religious confessions,which are relatively new to the postSoviet space, primarily, the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements.These are the most flexible and adaptive denomina

Fig. 6.Protestant religious organizations in postSoviet countries in 2012.


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tions that address directly to a person, regardless of hisor her other ascriptive identities. The geography ofthese religious streams is the widest: their share amongreligious organizations stands out in Ukraine and Russias southwestern regions, from which Pentecostalism

began to expand to more urbanized regions of theEuropean North, Ural, and the Asian part of Russia inthe first half of the 1920s. Despite opposition from

political and religious authorities, the number of followers of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movementsis also rapidly growing in traditionally Muslim areas(the south of Kazakhstan and Central Asian states).

In total, Protestant denominations have coveredthe territory of the postSoviet space most uniformly,and, despite a relatively small number of followers andthanks to their activity and financial potential, play asignificant role in the religious life of regions, competing with traditional religions more and more actively.Their relative share is particularly large in the Asianpart of the country, where economic and social problems are serious and there is a lack of qualitative socialservices and a deficit of social capital (see Fig. 6). In

some regions, for example, Primorsky, Khabarovsk,and Krasnoyarsk krais and Sakhalin oblast, they havealready surpassed Orthodoxy in the number of organizations.

In the 1990s2000s, two major processes can bedistinguished in the religious space of postSovietstates. First, this is a change in the share of different

parts of areas of world religions in line with changes inthe settlement. The confessional structure of ethniccontact zones and large cities is adjusted according tothe changes in the ethnic composition as a result ofmigrations in the postSoviet period, regional properties of the religiousness of the population, and the levelof competitiveness of religious life.

Second, against the background of traditional

world religions, which are quantitatively dominant,the diverse activity of more adaptable denominationsis developing, especially that of Protestant denominations. They are the most competitive in two fundamentally different types of location: in large cities withdiverse population with different spiritual needs, as

well as depressive and resource extraction regions withweak social protection of the population and low levelsof human capital.

REFERENCES

1. Believe do not believe: The sociologists have completed the first atlas of religions in Russia, Ogonek,

2012, no. 34.2. Lunkin, R., Christian response to society of consumers,

Ekspert, 2013, no. 1 (833).

3. Starye tserkvi, novye veruyushchie: Religiya v massovomsoznanii postsovetskoi Rossii (Old Churches, NewBelievers: Religion in the Mass Consciousness of PostSoviet Russia), Moscow: Letnii Sad, 2000.

estructura territorial del espacio confesional en rusia

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