HOW MANY MILES TO WARSAW? : POPULAR CATHOLICISM, WOMEN’S AGENCY AND EVERYDAY RESISTANCE IN THE BELARUSIAN SOVIET COUNTRYSIDE

Volha Bartash

doi:10.23858/ethp.2025.46.4070

Published: 2025-12-23

Vol. 46 (2025)

HOW MANY MILES TO WARSAW?

Volha Bartash

Ethnologia Polona

Section: Main topic of the issue

https://doi.org/10.23858/ethp.2025.46.4070

Abstract

This article draws on oral history interviews and ethnographic fieldwork with Catholic women in the Belarusian countryside. Using a gender lens, it offers a fresh perspective on how rural women under Soviet rule organised themselves into an underground religious community in Little Warsaw. Through their religious practices – family rituals, secret gatherings and Marian devotions – these women showed resilience and agency despite state pressure and anti-religious propaganda. The study highlights the unique leadership role women played in the underground community. It argues that female religious solidarity flourished in the countryside as male religious authority weakened and as rural women were marginalised within Soviet structures. Ultimately, this article demonstrates how these women’s quiet but determined efforts sustained religious life during Soviet times and paved the way for the religious revival of the 1990s.

Keywords:

popular religious practices, silent resistance, Belarusian Soviet countryside, underground church, women’s agency

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Bartash, V. (2025). HOW MANY MILES TO WARSAW? : POPULAR CATHOLICISM, WOMEN’S AGENCY AND EVERYDAY RESISTANCE IN THE BELARUSIAN SOVIET COUNTRYSIDE. Ethnologia Polona, 46. https://doi.org/10.23858/ethp.2025.46.4070

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