Ora et labora in the Dark Anthropology of Modern Orthodox Convents: A Review of Darya Dubovka, V monastyr s mirom: v poiskakh svetskikh korney sovremennoy dukhovnosti [To the Monastery in Peace: In Search of Secular Roots of Modern Spirituality]. St Petersburg: European University at St Petersburg Press, 2020, 208 pp.

Abstract

The book under review is the first systematic study of subjectivation practices in contemporary Russian Orthodox monasteries based on long-term participant observation. The monograph questions the idealized, timeless image of monastic convents and their inhabitants, as if elevated above earthly life with its socially unsightly aspects—the labour exploitation, everyday violence, and the orientation toward material gain. Monasteries thus appear in the book as derived from certain configurations of power and economic relations rooted in the secular past. The monograph is also distinguished by its theoretical innovations and bold anthropological interpretation. The proposal of a new, communicative, model for the study of charismatic authority—as well as the introduction of a new variable, temporality—in the study of agency and resistance in religious contexts should be recognized as important analytical findings; these can and should be applied in studies of other religious and spiritual practices. A cautious critique of the review focuses mainly on the chosen model of ethnographic representation and the misuse of the economic metaphor, often reducing the spiritual life of the convent inhabitants to rational choice, reciprocal exchange, and the search for economic benefits, albeit understood in spiritual terms.