Militarist Discourses in Russian Religious Thinkers of the First World War Period

• In Event: Orthodox Christianity and War: Religious Narratives of Violence, Memory, and (Self)Justification in Russia

Abstract

World War I generated an explosion of militarist discourses in Russia, including (and primarily) among thinkers operating within the religious paradigm of Orthodox Christianity. Militarist discourses, in this context, are understood as discourses that explain, in various ways, why war is preferable to peace and thus encourage the waging of war in a specific historical situation. This presentation will offer a classification of militarist discourses among Russian religious thinkers during the First World War and trace the prehistory of some of them. Contemporary analytic philosophy of war will serve as the framework for this research.

Author

• James Birk