Singing the right way : Orthodox Christians and secular enchantment in Estonia / Jeffers Engelhardt.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Engelhardt, Jeffers.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Eesti Apostlik-Õigeusu Kirik.

Church music--Estonia.

Church music.

Church music--Orthodox Eastern Church.

Church music--Eesti Apostlik-Õigeusu Kirik.

Estonia.

Physical Description:

xix, 268 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, [2015]

Summary:

Singing the Right Way enters the world of Orthodox Christianity in Estonia to explore musical style in worship, cultural identity, and social imagination. Through both ethnographic and historical chapters, author Jeffers Engelhardt reveals how Orthodox Estonians give voice to the religious absolute in secular society. Based on a decade of fieldwork, Singing the Right Way traces the sound of Orthodoxy in Estonia through the Russian Empire, interwar national independence, the Soviet era, and post-Soviet integration into the European Union. Approaching Orthodoxy through local understandings of correct practice and correct belief, Engelhardt shows how religious knowledge, national identity, and social transformation illuminate how to "sing the right way" and thereby realize the fullness of Estonians Orthodox Christian faith in context of everyday, secular surroundings. Singing the Right Way is an innovative model of how the musical poetics of contemporary religious forms are rooted in both consistent sacred tradition and contingent secular experience. This landmark study is sure to be an essential text of scholars studying the ethnomusicology of religion. Book jacket.

Contents:

Part 1 Discourse in Style

1 Orthodoxy in Estonia, Estonian Orthodoxy 21

2 Right Singing: The Voice of Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy 34

3 "Today Is an Important Day Here, the Birthday of Our Own Religion": Festivity and the Secular Enchantments of Right Singing 55

Part 2 Nation in Genre

4 "Every Bird Has Its Own Song": Congregational Singing and the Making of Estonian Orthodoxy 85

5 Songs of Commemoration and Continuity 127

Part 3 Practice in Transition

6 "Life is so Simple to Live When the Corridor You Are to Walk Down Has Already Been Made": Byzantification and Conversion at the Cathedral of Saint Simeon and the Prophetess Hanna 161

7 "We Are People of the Country, but We Worship a Russian-Type God": Singing the Right Way in Setomaa 190.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780199332120

0199332126

9780199332137

0199332134

OCLC:

870439287