Podlesnaia M.A. Death and tradition. Review of the Russian Christian academy for the humanities. 2024. Vol. 25. No 3. Pp. 194-213. DOI 10.25991 ...

Abstract

The article is devoted to the issue of the tradition of death in three epistemological dimensions: soterialogical, religious studies, sociological. The goal is to study the tradition in relation to the specific phenomenon of death, and to establish what death is and what its tradition is. Before proceeding to the analysis of epistemes about death, the work provides an analysis of what modern science, in particular sociology, understands as tradition, what types of tradition are distinguished in it, what are the main properties of tradition, what place does tradition occupy in modern society. Based on the analysis of soterialogical, religious and sociological ideas about death, a conclusion is made about their dynamics and transformation from the Christian to the pre- Christian tradition (Fr. A. Schmeman), about the secularization of the soterialogical tradition itself, which subsequently only strengthens and consolidates the religious and sociological epistemes about death, viewing death and religion in a functionalinstrumentalist manner. As a result, an overview is given of how “death inverted” (F. riès) becomes not only an object of interest for special medical institutions and various commercial structures, but also for politics and the mass media.