ABSTRACT

The proposed transfer of the St. Isaac’s Cathedral museum to the Russian Orthodox Church occasioned a major controversy in 2017. This essay considers the contestation between the museum and the Church as one conspicuous manifestation of competing heritage discourses and a useful lens through which to examine the religious renaissance of today. St. Isaac’s and the Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg, two major churches and popular tourist attractions, with much shared history yet rather dissimilar situations in the present, demonstrate the ambivalence of post-Soviet desecularization. During the Soviet era, both cathedrals functioned as antireligious museums. Today, one is a fully functioning church that welcomes occasional excursions for tourists; the other is a major museum with certain hours reserved for religious services. While the religious revival today is viewed conventionally as a reversal of twentieth-century secularizing trends, the St. Isaac’s controversy reveals a remarkable continuity with Soviet models of heritagization. The divergent fates of the two main cathedrals in St. Petersburg offer different templates for the current coexistence of “cult and culture” – now peaceful, now confrontational – and demonstrate the plurality of heritage discourses at work in post-Soviet public space.

摘要

将圣以撒大教堂博物馆转移到俄罗斯东正教教堂的提议在 2017 年引发了一场重大争议。 本文认为博物馆与教堂之间的争论是相互竞争的遗产话语的一个显着表现，也是一个有用的镜头，通过它可以检查今天的宗教复兴。圣以撒大教堂和圣彼得堡的喀山大教堂这两个主要教堂和热门旅游景点，有着许多共同的历史，但现在的情况却大相径庭，展示了后苏联非世俗化的矛盾心理。在苏联时代，两座大教堂都作为反宗教博物馆发挥作用。今天，一个是功能齐全的教堂，欢迎游客偶尔游览；另一个是大型博物馆，为宗教服务预留了某些时间。虽然今天的宗教复兴传统上被视为对 20 世纪世俗化趋势的逆转，但圣以撒的争议揭示了与苏联遗产化模式的显着连续性。圣彼得堡两座主要大教堂的不同命运为当前“邪教与文化”的共存——时而和平，时而对抗——提供了不同的模板，并展示了后苏联公共空间中发挥作用的遗产话语的多元化。