Gorbanenko, Jenia (Evgeniya);
(2025)
Which way to Heaven? Russian Orthodox icons and cosmonaut exemplars.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
Abstract
This is an ethnography of Russian Orthodox people and things in outer space, and of outer space in Russian Orthodoxy. It considers, on the one hand, how the Russian Orthodox participate in cosmonautics on Earth and in outer space and, on the other, how the Russian Orthodox relate with humans venturing off Earth in their religious practices on Earth. This thesis’ central ethnographic concern is the practice of sending icons to the International Space Station. Building on existing anthropological theory of Orthodox material culture (Carroll 2018 drawing on Gell 1998), this work argues that icons are model objects that instruct the Orthodox in how to grasp God in all created things around them and, accordingly, how to orient themselves in the creation towards communion with God. Whatever one does for a living, including technoscientific research and flying to outer space, icons serve a constant reminder for the Orthodox to always seek communion with God. Drawing primarily from ethnographic data collected in Russian Orthodox parishes with links to the technoscientific industry of cosmonautics, this thesis also describes how living cosmonauts practice Orthodoxy and how deceased cosmonauts are remembered as Orthodox exemplars. These and other interfaces between Russian Orthodoxy and cosmonautics described in this thesis bring into relief the multiplicity of, and sometimes incongruence between, the ideal visions for the relationship between religion and science enacted by the different parties engaged, including by the anthropologist of religion themselves. Secular anthropology of religion disentangles and segregates religion and science into independent phenomena by definition. By contrast, even though Russian Orthodox may participate in the normative secular conditions of cosmonautics, they do not agree with the separation of religion and science in accordance with secular principles. Anthropology of religion, this thesis concludes, has to be attentive to how anthropologists and the people they study are engaged in a cosmopolitics (Blaser and de la Cadena 2018) of delineating the permissible in the relationship between religion and science.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Which way to Heaven? Russian Orthodox icons and cosmonaut exemplars |
| Language: | English |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Anthropology |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10212033 |
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