Fall/Winter 2006 - University of Toronto Press Publishing

H I S T O R Y
Letters from Heaven
Popular Religion in Russia and Ukraine
Edited by John-Paul Himka and Andriy Zayarnyuk
Doing Medicine Together
Germany and Russia Between the Wars
Edited by Susan Gross Soloman
GERMAN AND EUROPEAN STUDIES
Letters from Heaven features an international group
of scholars investigating the place and function of
‘popular’ religion in Eastern Slavic cultures. The
contributors examine popular religious practices
in Russia and Ukraine from the middle ages to the
present, considering the cultural contexts of death
rituals, miracles, sin and virtue, cults of the saints,
and icons. The collection not only fills a void in
religious scholarship, but also responds to current
theoretical challenges.
Reflecting critically on the heuristic value of
popular religion and on the concept of popular
culture in general, Letters from Heaven is characterized
by a shift of focus from churches, institutions,
and theological discourse to the religious practices
themselves and their interconnections with the culture,
mentality, and social structures of the societies
in question. An important contribution to the
fields of religion and Eastern Slavic studies, this
volume challenges readers to rethink old pieties and
to reconsider the function of religion.
John-Paul Himka is a professor in the Department of
History and Classics at the University of Alberta.
Andriy Zayarnyuk is Academic Director of the
Institute for Urban History of East-Central Europe,
Harald Binder's Foundation, Lviv.
Of the many interwar connections between
Germany and Russia, one of the most unusual
– and least explored – is medicine and public
health. Between 1922 and 1932, with high-level
political support and government funding, Soviet
and German physicians and public health specialists
collaborated in joint research expeditions,
published joint articles, launched a bi-lingual journal,
and established joint research institutions.
Surprisingly, students of Soviet-German relations
have all but ignored this medical collaboration;
while historians of science have treated it as political
history, an exercise in cultural diplomacy designed
to mitigate the impact of the post-war exclusion of
both nations from the international science.
The contributors to this volume, who come from
Germany, Russia, Britain, the United States and
Canada, depart from the traditional approach to the
subject. Drawing on previously inaccessible archival
materials, the authors move beyond politics to
examine the impact of this collaboration on scientific
activity. Contributors analyze aspects of the German-
Russian collaboration often overlooked by students of
cross-national science, including the choice of ‘friends’
across borders, the activities of scientific entrepreneurs,
the tensions between bi-lateral and international
science, and the migration of scientists. Treating
Soviet-German medical relations as an instance of
trans-national science lays bare its unique features.
Ultimately, Doing Medicine Together raises new and
important questions about the vaunted ‘special’ relation
between Soviet Russia and Weimar Germany.
Susan Gross Soloman is a professor in the Department
of Political Science at the University of Toronto.
Approx. 304 pp / 6 x 9 / December 2006
21 illustrations
Cloth ISBN 0-8020-9148-2 / 978-0-8020-9148-2
£40.00 $60.00 E
Approx. 416 pp / 6 x 9 / December 2006
20 illustrations
Cloth ISBN 0-8020-9171-7 / 978-0-8020-9171-0
£42.00 $65.00 E
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