Good for the Souls

Contrary to the cliché, Nadieszda Kizenko shows that the History of Confession in the Russian Empire is not just the history of a state instrument of control, but a dynamic process that took different forms under different regents. At the same time, it is about an Orthodox practice that was also used by the population to create their own narratives (e.g. by elite women). Kizenko draws on an impressive wealth of textual sources that demonstrate the diverse aspects of the subject matter * Regula Zwahlen, Religion & Society in East and West *
This book represents a significant advance in our understanding of confession in the Russian Empire. It has no equivalent in either English or Russian and it opens up to the English-speaking world the hidden world of Russian confession, showing its peculiarities and its convergence with Western traditions. One of the many strengths of Kizenko's work is exposition of the level of interaction between the Western Churches and the Russian Orthodox Church, mediated through Kyiv. Magisterial new book...based on an impressive array of archival sources belonging to both the Church and the State, supplemented by diaries, letters and memoirs. * Shane O'Rourke, The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Cambridge University Press *
Nadieszda Kizenko's Good for the Souls: A History of Confession in the Russian Empire is arguably the most important contribution to this historiographical development since its inception, a development which was partially initiated by Kizenko's groundbreaking study of Ioann of Kronstadt (2000) and which has been sustained and broadened by Kizenko in an array of probing articles and essays about liturgy, gender, and confession, the subject of her new book. * Patrick Lally Michelson, Indiana University, The Russian Review *
This book offers a thorough, engagingly written history of confession in the Russian Empire. Drawing on impressively wide-ranging research in central and provincial Russian archives and engaging the historiography of Christianity beyond the Russian Empire, Kizenko traces the evolution of confession through the collapse of the empire in 1917. * M. A. Soderstrom, CHOICE *
Good for the Souls represents a key intervention in our understanding of Orthodoxy in the Russian Empire and of the sacrament of forgiveness in the Orthodox Church. Based on Kizenko's detailed consideration of confession over three centuries, it will undoubtedly become the standard work on this question. * Paul W. Werth, University of Nevada, United States, Journal of Orthodox Christian Studies *
Nadieszda Kizenko's masterful history of confession in Russia offers a pathway toward understanding the cultural ramifications of confession for that seventeenth-century divide and for the modern Russian Empire that followed. It is a must-read for students of cultural and religious studies, of early modern Europe, and of Russian history. * History: Review of New Books *
This reviewer cannot recommend Kizenko's book enough: it is simply a must for all academics (even, or perhaps especially, for those who do not usually engage with religious history) and interested general readers. * J. M. White, Baltic Orthodoxy *
This book is a scholarly tour de force... for exploring social and legal relationships in imperial Russia, and for glimpsing the devotional lives of its Orthodox inhabitants. * Heather J. Coleman, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada *
This book represents a significant advance in our understanding of confession in the Russian Empire. It has no equivalent in either English or Russian and it opens up to the English-speaking world the hidden world of Russian confession, showing its peculiarities and its convergence with Western traditions. * Shane O'Rourke, Journal of Ecclesiastical History *
The technical language and specialized concepts of reli- gious sources, including images as well as texts, mined not only as institutional history but also understood theologically and as they impacted the everyday beliefs and experiences of ordinary people requires an expertise few historians have and that cannot be gained through formal training. This is, in short, a book only Kizenko could write and the field is lucky to have it. Every historian of Russia has something to learn from it and it should be required on every future orals list. * Katherine Pickering Antonova, Canadian-American Slavic Studies *