Demystifying the Sacred : Blasphemy and Violence From the French Revolution to Today

__Demystifying the Sacred: Blasphemy and Violence from the French Revolution to Today__ offers a much-needed analysis of a subject that historians have largely ignored, yet that has considerable relevance for today’s world: the powerful connection that exists between offences against the sacred and different forms of violence. Drawing on cases from revolutionary France to the Russia of Vladimir Putin, the international authors probe the nature and agency of local blasphemy accusations, the historical and legal framework in which they were expressed and the violence, both physical and symbolic, accompanying them. In doing so, the volume reveals how cultures of blasphemy, and related acts of heresy, apostasy and sacrilege, were a companion to or acted as a trigger for physical action but also a form of how violence was experienced. More generally, it shows the importance of religious sensibilities in modern society and the violent potential contained in criticism or ridicule of the sacred and secular alike. Acknowledgements 5 Table of Contents 7 List of Illustrations 1 Blasphemy and Violence: Crossing Social Norms and Religious Boundaries in the Modern World 9 1 Blasphemy and Violence: Crossing Social Norms and Religious Boundaries in the Modern World 11 Part I: Blasphemy as a Companion to Violence 43 2 Violence and the Sacred, or Blasphemy during the French Revolution 43 3 Blasphemy, Religious Adherence and Political Loyalty in the Papal States (1790s through 1810s) 67 4 Blasphemy, War and Revolution: Spain, 1936 93 Part II: Blasphemy as a Form of Experienced Violence 121 5 Conflicting Narratives of Blasphemy, Heresy and Religious Reform: The Jatho Affair in Wilhelmine Germany 121 6 The Imagined Violence of Blasphemy in England 149 7 Pokémon in the Church: The Case of Ruslan Sokolovskiy and the Limits of Religious Performance in Contemporary Russia 181 Part III: Violence as a Reaction to Blasphemy 207 8 Protecting Muslims’ Feelings, Protecting Public Order: Tunisian Blasphemy Cases from the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries 207 9 The Sound of Blasphemy in Early Twentieth-Century Spain: Vulgarity, Violence and the Crowd 229 10 The Politics of Religious Outrage: The Satanic Verses and the Ayatollah’s Licence to Kill 257 11 Conclusion 287 Notes on Authors 297 Abstracts 299 Index 305