Problems of Translation. An Attempt at a Reading of One Interpretation of Religious Life: A Review of Jeanne Kormina, Palomniki: etnograficheskie ocherki pravoslavnogo nomadizma [Pilgrims: Ethnographic Sketches of Orthodox Nomadism]. Moscow: Higher School of Economics, 2019, 349 pp.

Аннотация

The book under review is the result of many years’ work by Jeanne Kormina among today’s Orthodox believers in Russia. Using the methodological approaches of the anthropology of pilgrimage, and on the basis of extensive field material, the author describes the mobile way of life of modern pilgrims in North-West Russia. Contextualising the accepted approaches of English-language literature, Jeanne Kormina reveals the phenomenon of Orthodox nomadism, which is a completely unique form of religions sociality, not previously described. It should nevertheless be noted that the author does not define the terms she uses entirely clearly, and therefore she often applies her conclusions not only to ‘holiday pilgrims’, but to all the Orthodox. The tone of a number of the author’s descriptions also raises questions, which allows us to continue the discussion of the peculiarities of the influence of a researcher’s identity on his / her interpretations in the field of the anthropology of religion. The reviewer concludes that the book is not about modern pilgrimage in all its diversity of forms and practices, but only a particular institutional sphere of religious tourism.