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Coleman, Heather

Dr Heather Coleman

(Canada Research Chair & Associate Professor)


Ph.D. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
M.A. Queen's University
B.A. Queen's University

2-129 Tory Building
University of Alberta
Edmonton AB T6G 2H4
Tel. (780) 492-3922

heather.coleman@ualberta.ca

Expertise & Research Interests

My first book made use of newly available archival material to examine the Baptists, the fastest-growing non-Orthodox religious group among Russians between 1905 and 1929, when Russians enjoyed greater religious freedom than anytime before 1991. This was a period of religious opportunity, of exploration of the possibilities of pluralism in Russian society and culture. The Baptists’ own experiences, and the widespread discussion that they generated, illuminate the emergence of new social and personal identities in early twentieth-century Russia, the creation of a public sphere and civic culture, debates over citizenship, and the way in which religious ideas were implicated in the modernization process.

My current research is centred on a book project, “Holy Kyiv: Priests, Communities, and Nationality in Imperial Russia, 1800-1917,” which investigates the relationship between the ethno-religious diversity of Kyiv diocese and the lively pastoral mission of the Orthodox clergy there.

 

Teaching

Russian history from 900 to the present, cultural history of Russia and Eastern Europe , religion in modern Europe , history of Russia as a multinational empire

Fall 2009 -- HIST 300 A1  "History, Memory, and the Fall of the Wall"

On the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, we will explore why the famous Czech writer, Milan Kundera, wrote that, "The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting."

Publication

 

Work in Progress

Book project: “Holy Kyiv: Priests, Communities, and Nationality in Imperial Russia, 1800-1917" (SSHRC grant)

“Pravoslavnoe dukhovenstvo, istoricheskaia pamiat’ i malorossiiskaia identichnost’ v Kieve XIX v.,” [The Orthodox Clergy, Historical Memory, and Little Russian Identity in 19th-Century Kyiv]  in Istoricheskaia pamiat’ i obshchestvo v Rossiiskoi imperii i Sovietskom soiuze (konets XIX-nachalo XX veka). St. Petersburg, forthcoming 2009.

"Orthodox Clergy and the Jews in Kyiv Diocese, 1860-1900," Journal of Ukrainian Studies (forthcoming)

Publications

Books:

Russian Baptists and Spiritual Revolution, 1905-1929 (Indiana University Press, 2005)

(with Mark Steinberg), ed. Sacred Stories:  Religion and Spirituality in Modern Russia (Indiana University Press, 2007)

Articles:

“Translating Canadian Models: International Partnerships and Public Policy Reform in  Russia,” Canadian Slavonic Papers 51, no. 1 (March 2009): 25-52.

“Baptist Beginnings in Russia and Ukraine,” Baptist History and Heritage 42, no. 1 (Winter 2007): 24-36.

“The 1908 Missionary Congress and the Problem of Cultural Power in Late Imperial Russia” in Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 52, no. 1 (2004): 70-91.

“Becoming a Russian Baptist: Conversion Narratives and Social Experience” Russian Review 61, no. 1 (January 2002): 94-112.

“Introduction” (with Alan Adelson), No One Awaiting Me: A Canadian Cattle Dealer’s Holocaust Memoir ( University of Calgary Press , 2001) (winner of the Jack Chisvin Family Award for a Holocaust Memorial at the 15th annual Canadian Jewish Book Awards, 2003).

“Atheism versus Secularization? Religion in Soviet Russia , 1917-1961" Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 1, no. 3 (Summer 2000): 547-58.

Journal Guest Editor:

Priests and Parishioners in Late Imperial Russia: Guest Editor's Introduction," Russian Studies in History 44, no. 4 (Spring 2006)

 
“The Old Faith and the New: Religion in Early Soviet Russia: Guest Editor’s Introduction,” Russian Studies in History 46, no. 2 (Fall 2007)

 

Links

 

HISTORY and ARCHIVES

Documents in Russian history On-line sourcebook
Alexander II and His Times
Stalin Era Research and Archives Project, University of Toronto
Internet Modern History Sourcebook
Cold War International History Project
Archives in Russia (ArchBiblioBase)
Tolstoy's Life and Works

MEDIA and CULTURE

Museums of Leningrad region
Tolstoy images gallery
Museums in Russia
The Empire that was Russia — photographic archives
Great songs from the Soviet past
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty — daily news reports
State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia
History of Russian Rock Music
Crime and Punishment by Fedor Dostoevsky — full text in English and Russian
Teach Your Computer to Read Russian
Russian Painting
Russian Life (News from Central and Eastern Europe)
Russian folklore expedition
Ukrainian Language, Culture and Travel Page
Ukrainian Village Project
The nationalism project
Dr. Seuss Went to War: A Catalog of Political Cartoons

ASSOCIATIONS and CENTRES

AWSS Association for Women in Slavic Studies
Canadian Association of Slavists
American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies
Canadian International Development Agency - Central and Eastern Europe

RELIGION

Religion News from Former Soviet Union
Keston Institute - Religion in Post-Communist Countries