The Wandering Orthodox Nuns: Religion and Gender in the Nineteenth-Century Central Balkans

• Published in: Slavic review 2020-12, Vol.79 (4), p.731-754
• Main Author: Davidova, Evguenia
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: 19th century; Academic achievement; Community; Donations; Empires; Gender; Literacy; Medieval period; Mobility; Monks; Negotiation; Nuns; Personal development; Pilgrimages; Power; Religion; Religiosity; Religious orthodoxy; Schools; Secularism; Self concept; Siblings; Social development; Social interaction; Social networks; Spirituality; Traditions; Travel; Visibility; Wandering; Women; Women's education
• ISSN: 0037-6779; 2325-7784
• DOI: 10.1017/slr.2020.204

This article discusses a specific type of religious travel—not pious pilgrimage to the Holy Lands—but more mundane trips performed by Eastern Orthodox sisters to beg for donations within and between three multi-confessional empires. More specifically, it focuses on how nuns’ spatial movements put them on the bigger imperial and transnational maps of church, state, and society and contributed to negotiating space for gender. By combining mobility and gender as categories of analysis, I position the sisters’ acts within three broad themes: travel, women's education, and social networks. I suggest that nuns’ involvement in local communities and the establishment of schools for girls provides evidence for worldly as well as pious concerns. By encompassing rich social interactions, the sisters’ story presents gender imbalances in more palpable form and embodies larger experiences of nineteenth-century women who strove to achieve self-development and to assert social visibility.