Food
Item set
Title
Food
Description
Descriptions and images of food frequently appear in secret police documentation on religious minorities and underground groups as incriminating evidence. In times of scarcity and limited resources, photographs of abundant food reserves confiscated from repressed religious groups or individuals were intended to show believers as treacherous spongers and criminal black-marketeers. In reality, it was economic hardship that often prompted religious communities to function as food banks. Religious networks redistributed food and other sources amongst their members when other formal or informal supports could non-longer ensure well-being, or in some extreme cases survival.
Creator
Tatiana Vagramenko
Publisher
This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme No. 677355
Bibliographic Citation
Date Created
2018
Items
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Commemoration of the dead by a family in Bessarabia
The photograph shows a family from Bessarabia in a cemetery of Chilia Nouă celebrating Paștele Blajinilor (in Romanian) or Radonitsa (in Russian), the day when the Orthodox Christian families commemorate their deceased relatives. Almsgiving has a central place in the commemoration of the dead in Orthodox Christian tradition. It is believed that by offering to each other bread, cookies, fruits, tableware items and drinks, the believers redeem the sins of their deceased relatives, and satiate the dead’s thirst and hunger. This is why the grave in the image is covered with various items that we -
Secret police photographs of Ioannite community Ukraine
The photographs come from a 1959 KGB criminal case against three members of an Ioannite community in Cherkasy region, Ukraine. The images were designed as a photo album pasted into the secret police file. They portray father Mitrofan, the priest of the community in his house, which had been turned into a clandestine chapel. The first photo collage shows father Mitrofan dressed in Orthodox vestments against a background of icons, performing a religious service and talking to women, seemingly his followers. The second photo collage records the ritual washing of feet, also performed in father Mit