The Marthas Know Things’ … Informal Power of the Orthodox Clergy Women in Late Imperial Russian Empire

• In Event: Looking for Women’s Voices in Masculine Spaces: Women’s Experiences of Philosophy, Law, and Religion in Modern Russia

Abstract

In this paper, I would like to explore the roles of the clergy wives, focusing on marriage, family networks, household, the role in the parish and the strategies of educating children. While official roles were denied to them, they have played unofficial roles, forming and breaking alliances, circulating the information, influencing their husbands. These forms of unofficial power often are neglected because often sources ignore it. In my paper, the evidence from the private correspondence between the members of the Orthodox clergy’s family from in the Baltic provinces will be analysed, that will allow to critically reconstruct the forms and strategies of informal power and assess its limitations

Author

• Irina K. Paert, U of Tartu (Estonia)