"Anthony Buckland" wrote in
news:OPCdncrvofQv7R3RnZ2dnUVZ_radnZ2d@giganews.com :
>
> "David Tenner" wrote in message
> news:Xns9DE7C37D9F330dtennerameritechnet@216.168.3.30...
>> Naraht wrote in
>> news:d55121b1-d0c6-4287-83f7-e4b3830d90d6@n3g2000yqb.googlegroups.com :
>>
>> [On Tasrist Russia;]
>>
>>>
>>> Could one convert from Christianity to Judaism and then from Judaism
>>> to Islam?
>>>
>>> (and yes, this doesn't qualify as post WWII, but 20th century still
>>> surprises me.
>>>
>>
>> Christians were not permitted to convert to Judaism. In fact, when
>> Hebrew
>> books about Jewish relgious law were printed in Russia, the rabbis were
>> always careful to add in the sections dealing with proselytes, "those
>> regulations apply to those countries only in which the law of the State
>> permits conversion."
>>
>> http://books.google.com/books?id=pGGrHYzvFbEC&pg=PA200
>>
>>
>> --
>> David Tenner
>> dtenner@ameritech.net
>
> Was one permitted to be none of Christian, Jew or Moslem?
> And if a member of "none of the above", could one then join
> any one of them?
>
I have read in various places that before 1905 it was illegal for one
baptized in the Orthodox Church to leave that church--period; I don't
think any "none of the above" status was permissible for anyone baptized
Orthodox, though I don't know that for sure. After 1905, one could leave
Orthodoxy, but only for another Christian church.
To show how complicated the laws could be: The philosopher Semyon Frank--
one of the *Vekhi* group of "conservative liberals" (see
http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/20f440a1ca1ab5cd
for a brief discussion of that group) had never been a religious Jew since
his adolescence, but he was still considered Jewish. Thus, when in 1908,
he married Tatiana Bartseva, she first converted from Orthodoxy to
Lutheranism (as was legal after 1905). Why? Because under Russian law,
even after 1905, members of the Orthodox Church were not allowed to marry
Jews, but it was OK for adherents of other Christian churches, like
Lutherans, to do so. Then, in 1912, Frank converted to the Orthodox
Church. This not only enabled him to get around regulations prohibiting
Jews from being professors at Russian universities, but allowed his wife
to return to her original faith... (I do not mean to imply that Frank,
who after abandoning his youthful radicalism and atheism became a serious
religious philosopher, converted solely for family and career reasons.)
http://books.google.com/books?id=qnHxLeB-msIC&pg=PA207
>> Then comes the issue of the Asian "Stan"s,
>> where Iume various Asian religions would leak in at the
>> edges, complicating the picture to the consternation of the
>> bureaucrats.
In Turkestan at least, there seems to have been relatively little contact
between Russians and "natives": "The Russian newcomers, like the other
Europeans who had followed in their wake, lived in separate quarters of
the city, and kept apart from the indigenous Moslem population, much as
the Western population did in other colonial areas of Asia and Africa."
Richard Pipes, *The Formation of the Soviet Union,* p. 87.
http://books.google.com/books?id=smDy35onbtAC&pg=PA87 And in the Kazakh-
Kirghiz steppe, the Russians were strongly resented by the local semi-
nomadic population: a nomadic or semi-nomadic way of life requires a
great deal of land, and the Russians were seen as colonists who were
taking that land away. So again, I don't think you would see much
contact, at least of a friendly nature.
Presumably in places like Kazan, which had been under Russian rule from
the time of Ivan the Terrible, and where the Volga Tatars were considered
the most "advanced" Muslims in Russia, there were more opportunities for
genuine Russian-Muslim interaction (I mean interaction not based solely on
force). But I really don't know much about that.
--
David Tenner
dtenner@ameritech.net |
