Approaches To Understanding National Martyrdom: Theoretical And Empirical Essay[Подходы К Осмыслению Национального Мученичества: Теоретико-Эмпирический Очерк]

The paper presents several theoretical tools that can facilitate the study of national martyrdom – a significant yet under-investigated phenomenon of the global political culture of the 18th-21st centuries. The author begins by formulating a relativistic approach to the analysis of martyrdom in general, which suggests interpreting it not as an event, but rather as a special narrative. Following this assumption, the internal concepts of self-sacrifice and martyr’s cause are examined, which are key to the narrative. Next, martyrdom is viewed as a reputational project that is consciously shaped and promoted by the persons interested in this phenomenon – the reputational entrepreneurs. There are several types of such entrepreneurs: autobiographers, biographers, and the diffuse type. Starting from Rene Girard’s concept of constitutive murder, the author defines martyrdom as an alternative cultural paradigm that comes to replace the former in the course of history. Finally, the paper examines the relationship between martyrdom and militancy, that is, discourses and practices of active violence. Analyzing the material of early Christian martyrdom of the first centuries A.D., the author infers an inextricable link between victimhood and active violence.