All posts by Ana Siljak

Ana Siljak is a professor of Russian history at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. Her current research and publications focus on the intellectual and cultural history of nineteenth century Russia. She is currently writing a book on the personalism of Nikolai Berdiaev.

There is no materialist path to the promised land.

“Eden is that old-fashioned House We dwell in every day Without suspecting our abode Until we drive away.” ~Emily Dickinson “We shall never find / That lovely land / Of might-have-been” ~Ivor Novello “Literature is called artistic when it depicts...

/ November 7, 2022

Atheist Nones and the Problem of Soviet Atheism

Victoria Smolkin. A Sacred Space is Never Empty: A History of Soviet Atheism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018. $32.95, 360 pp. It is perhaps too easily forgotten that Soviet Communism began as a vibrant ideology, full of optimism for the...

/ November 5, 2021

Purity Culture

So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying, “I am innocent of this man’s blood.” (Matthew 27:24) Our contemporary culture has...

/ April 13, 2021

D. B. Hart’s Inquisitor

“It is hard to understand the psychology of pious Christians who calmly accept the fact that their neighbors, friends, and relatives will perhaps be damned. I cannot resign myself to the fact that the man with whom I am drinking...

/ July 1, 2020