The Christian Bible was published in the Russian vernacular for the first time less than a century and a half ago (1876) and a full millennium after Christian civilization was established in the Russian geographical area. As the title of Batalden’s fascinating book signifies, that appearance of a Russian language version of sacred literature was attended by intense controversy.
Batalden’s excellent monograph focuses on the story of the creation of a Russian-language Bible in the years between 1816 and 1876. Within this period various forces—political, economic, academic, and, of course, ecclesiastical—played roles, many contentious, in the production of a Russian-language Bible.
Politically, the Russian translation of the Bible began with an imperial order for it to commence in 1816. The New Testament was completed by 1820, but an imperial order outlawed any further translation in 1826. Alexander II’s decree of 1858 overruled that ban, resulting in the 1876 publication of the full Bible. This “synodal version” remains to the present the approved text for the Moscow Patriarchate of the Russian Orthodox Church and most Protestant denominations. Various forces converged to produce such contradictory policies.
Nicholas I’s 1826 prohibition of the translation of the Bible into Russian did not cause it to stop, but merely led to its continuation underground with circulation of the text in manuscript, foreshadowing 20th-century Soviet-era samizdat. The prohibition against further translation work even led to intensified censorship and criminal prosecution of perpetrators, further manifestations of the dramatic “Bible wars.”
Yet more substantive than the question of whether autocrats prescribed or proscribed the Russian translation of the Bible was the scholarly issue of which text or texts should be the basis for a Russian translation. The candidates included the pre-Christian Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew scriptures, the medieval Jewish Masoretic text, the west European Renaissance textus receptus of Erasmus, texts from 19th-century German so-called lower and higher criticism, and Church Slavonic editions, some of doubtful reliability. To explicate this battle, Batalden had to skillfully delve into detailed esoterica of philology.
As to the economic dimension of Russian “Bible wars,” Batalden demonstrates that the translation and distribution of the Bible had to await an entirely new stage of the history of Russia. The Russian Bible Society introduced a new technology for printing books, called stereotyping, and an extensive network for market-based distribution of literature. In sum, the Russian Bible Society outdid the Russian Orthodox Church’s Holy Synod in pricing and marketing of the printed text. This was a battle that the established church fundamentally abhorred since it had no interest in mass distribution of sacred writ. In general, widespread Bible dissemination fostered many other ideas that challenged tradition.
Batalden also recounts how the gradual appearance of the Russian Bible engendered conflicts within the religious sphere. In the early years, during Alexander I’s reign (1801-25), Orthodoxy faced challenges from Freemasonry and other forms of free-thinking. Later, during Alexander II’s reign (1856-81), Orthodoxy faced the challenge of the beginnings of Protestantism among the empire’s Slavic population. The Evangelical Christian and Baptist denominations that emerged were only the most prominent of “sectarian” trends that splintered the Orthodox uniformity of the autocracy and could be blamed directly upon the translation of the Bible into the vernacular and its mass distribution.
Batalden provides a lengthy “Afterword” dealing with 20th-century Russian translations of the Bible, mostly in the diaspora. This chapter is both too much and too little, because much more could be said on this matter. In this regard, Batalden’s book is an introductory volume that deserves a sequel dealing especially with the post-Soviet period. Such a book would document ongoing conflict over questions Batalden raised in his volume: Who should prepare the Bible for use by Russian speakers? What language and linguistic style should be employed? And how and by whom should it be published and distributed?
Batalden’s meticulous research is also reflected in his extensive “Bibliography of the Russian Bible, 1794-1991,” 146 pages in length. Here we have a research handbook in its own right. Moreover, it conveys a somewhat different, and in its own right interesting, story from that of the substance of the monograph, namely, when, where, and in how many copies Christian scripture was produced in the Russian language.
This is a delightful book. One might question whether “wars” is the appropriate designation for nonviolent conflict in a scholarly monograph. Batalden tells his story so effectively that the drama and suspense seem to justify the word choice.
Paul D. Steeves, Stetson University, Deland, Florida