Skip to main content

Nadieszda Kizenko

State University of New York, Albany, New York

Nadieszda Kizenko is Professor of History and Director of the Religious Studies Program at the University of Albany. She researches and teaches Russian history, with a focus on religion and culture. She explores the history of Orthodox Christianity, saints’ lives as a historical source, lived religion, political liturgy, women’s written confessions, and depictions of religion in film. Her first book, A Prodigal Saint: Father John of Kronstadt and the Russian People (Penn State University Press, 2000) examined the cult of a charismatic priest whose cult spanned the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A Russian edition appeared as Святой Нашего Времени: о. Иоанн Кронштадтский и русский народ (Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie, 2006). Her history of confession in Russia spanning four centuries, Good for the Souls: A History of Confession in the Russian Empire, was published with Oxford University Press in 2021. She has now begun a new project exploring the intersection of women, devotional practice, and writing.

View Articles:

The Battle of Poltava in Imperial Liturgy

Oxford Studies in Modern European History

Sacred Stories: Religion and Spirituality in Modern Russia