Historical Depictions Russia Mostly Christian Despite Equal Muslim %

[Pisces Axxxxx]

I've been reading Doctor Zhivago by Pasternak for the past few days. In addition to being much more historically accurate and politically themed than the movie directed by David Lean, what I've read so far reminded me of an overlooked fact about Russia. One of the major characters in the book is a Muslim (in fact during a battle scene in the Great War, he even yells "Ya Allah!" as the Russians went to attack German trenches). Mosques are described within the story and there are several other minor characters who are Muslim,

 

Reading this reminded me of a fact I learned years ago back in Freshman High School. As I was looking through the World History textbook, there was a page showing the percentage of what religions where in each major country.

 

For Russia it listed: Christian 35%, Muslim 35% and everything else Jewish, Animalistic Religion, local religion,and Other.

 

I admit this isn't the first time I attempted to read Doctor Zhivago-the last time was about 6 years ago and when I was reading it that time, I was quite wondering "why is there a Muslim as one of the protagonists?Russia is a Christian nation!!!". I never got to finish the book as far as I could to see that Russia has a strong Muslim influence on its culture but seeing that page on World Religion statistics on the section on Russia's percentage it began to make PERFECT SENSE.

 

I'm still have to read 3/5s of the book left but getting far as I did brought back this old issue I completely forgot about.

 

I notice portrayals of Russia in movies and even Video games portray the country as though its a predominately Christian nation. From the brief scene of FedEx workers in Russia receiving orders in Castaway to the animated film Anastasia to the stage of the Russian girl Millia Rage in Guilty Gear (which has an Eastern Orthodox Church in it) and the Russian character Hyoga from Saint Seiya (who is portrayed as wearing a necklace with an Eastern Orthodox Crucifix and even later revealed as being an Eastern Orthodox Christian), I notice Russia is stereotyped as being predominantly Christian.by not only by the Western media but even non-Western fiction (which would include two mentioned examples, Guilty Gear and Saint Seiya).

 

Even David Lean's movie adaptation,of Doctor Zhivago, which I watched 7 years ago and loved so much, altered the script not to include the main character who was Muslim. Only Orthodox Churches are portrayed, not a single Mosque (which are described in several chapters of the book) and NOT A SINGLE MUSLIM character from the book was even portrayed as a minor character. And David Lean's movie is the MOST FAMOUS incarnation of Pasternak's story.

 

Reading Pasternak's incarnation of the story opened my eyes to how diverse Russia is. It isn't a merely Christian Orthodox nation but a country diverse of various religious groups and additionally various ethnicities and races( (which they also neglect to show in the film and only portrayed Russians as exclusively European-looking).

 

As I dig deeper into lesser known Russian literature and art I see more and more Muslim influence as I search about specific regions.

 

I'd (sadly) say that even most "Historical" works about Russia I read in the West (particularly in America) portray Russia as predominantly Orthodox Christian prior to the Revolution (with the exception being that World History textbook I read years ago). No mention of major Muslim figures or even Jewish figures and pretty much all Christian characters represented in Western histories of Russia.

 

Why is this?

Edited December 26, 2012 by Pisces Adonis

[Virgil61]

The Russians themselves are overwhelmingly Christian (Orthodox). Non-Russian ethnic groups make up a large portion of the population which is where you find Islamic influence. Nineteenth-century Russia and the Soviet Union contained regions like Kazahkstan, Azerbijian, etc that are predominately Islamic [and are now independent nations]. Make no mistake about it, there were non-ethnic Russians in the Imperial army but it was officered and controlled in large part by Russians, to a lesser extent the same was true of the Red Army.

Edited February 22, 2013 by Virgil61