Professor’s latest book examines religion's role in Ukrainian society

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — The war between Russia and Ukraine has profoundly altered the state of world affairs since its launch more than a year ago. Meanwhile, it’s also affected the work of scholars like Catherine Wanner, professor of history, anthropology, and religious studies in Penn State’s College of the Liberal Arts.

Religion is among the underlying factors at play in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, as well as the central topic of Wanner’s most recent book, “Everyday Religiosity and the Politics of Belonging in Ukraine” (Cornell University Press).

The book, which is available as a free open access e-book, explores how religion informs daily life in Ukraine, and how it’s become a significant political force in a society that has struggled to chart its own course in the face of ongoing Russian interference since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

According to Wanner, examples of everyday religiosity can be found in numerous public spaces and institutions in Ukraine, and are often used to advance political agendas, including in the current wartime environment. Its prominence, she said, makes for a unique feature in a pluralistic society that claims to be secular.

Wanner is among several Ukraine specialists at Penn State, and typically makes one to two research trips there each year. She spent years conducting interviews and collecting data for “Everyday Religiosity,” going all the way back to the 2014 Revolution of Dignity, when Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s pro-Russian president, was overthrown following violent protests in the capital city of Kyiv.

“Religion has become key to understanding how Ukrainian history is depicted, and in defining the Ukrainian nation as separate and distinct from Russia,” Wanner said. “The book gets into why religion has become something of a proxy war in Ukraine, one that mirrors what’s playing out now on the battlefield, and why political conflicts play out in terms of religion. There are now two Orthodox churches in Ukraine competing for dominance — the Orthodox Church of Ukraine and the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the latter of which is connected to the Russian Orthodox Church.

“Religion is very important to Ukrainians in terms of self and collective definition, even for many who would otherwise claim to be secular, or who don’t attend church, or who are very critical of religious organizations,” Wanner continued. “Orthodoxy as a confessional tradition has really shaped Ukraine’s history and identity, and it is what makes their architectural and aesthetic style so distinctive. So, they care about winning this war on the religious battlefield too. But these nuances, paradoxes and counterintuitive trends can only be captured by going there and talking to people there about why religion is worth fighting for when they claim to be so critical of religious institutions.”

Beyond her research, Wanner has spent the past year collaborating with faculty, students and staff in the College of the Liberal Arts and across the University to raise awareness of the war and its significant stakes through a series of regular campus events, including the monthly “Teach-In” series featuring Ukrainian scholars presenting their talks virtually from the war-torn nation.

Some of the more recent events include a screening of Ukrainian filmmaker Iryna Tsilyk’s award-winning 2020 documentary “The Earth is Blue as an Orange,” sponsored by the Screens of Defiance: Ukrainian Film Series, and a panel discussion geared around the war’s first anniversary hosted by the Pi Sigma Alpha National Political Science Honor Society.

Two more virtual Teach-In events are slated for the spring semester. On Thursday, April 13, Tetiana Kalenychenko of the European Center for Strategic Analytics will present “Reflections on Religion and Practices of Peacebuilding During War in Ukraine” at 1:30 p.m. (Zoom link). On Friday, April 21, Andriy Fert of Kyiv Mohyla Academy will present “How Atheist Propaganda Contradicted Patriotic Upbringing: Orthodox Churches in Late-Soviet Kyiv” at 1 p.m. (Zoom link).

The recent events have been well-attended by students, which is no surprise to Wanner, given Pennsylvania is home to the highest concentration of the Ukrainian diaspora, she said. Ukrainian and Russian graduate students are regular attendees, as are ROTC students “who realize their future service might involve Eastern Europe,” Wanner said.

“The Teach-In series offers a completely different kind of perspective on war, and the experience of war, and how we understand and respond to war,” Wanner said. “We had a speaker who talked about how Ukrainians are using humor and memes as a way to cope with the extraordinary stress of daily living. We also hosted a woman who’s recording the experiences of refugees who have been displaced from their homes, as part of an oral history of displacement. It was compelling and very moving hearing from someone recording the first draft of history, and about what war does to the average person’s life.

“The war has changed warfare itself and geopolitics more broadly — it has dominated the nightly news for the last year, so it’s great that the college has responded to it through public outreach,” Wanner added. “For me, these programs are a way to take longstanding scholarly inquiry and make it available for public use. And it’s a way to respond to people’s questions and let them vent their concerns, and to show them how events in another part of the world affects us here in the Penn State and State College communities.”

Moving forward, Wanner said it’s important to continue offering events so that the war stays at the forefront of people’s minds — and so they don’t become susceptible to disinformation campaigns aimed at altering their perceptions of the conflict’s global implications.

“There’s a lot at stake right now,” she said. “We need to be very clear-eyed about what is happening and why it’s happening.”