Fonder et acheter, étudier et s’approprier, construire et reconfigurer

• Main Author: Elena Astafieva
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Association pour la Recherche sur le Moyen-Orient 2016-08-01
• Series: European Journal of Turkish Studies
• Subjects: Russian Empire; Ottoman Empire; Jerusalem; Holy-Sepulchre; “Domaine copte”; St. Alexander Nevsky church
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/ejts/5353

The article offers an overview of Russia’s activities in Jerusalem in the wake of the Crimean War. Specifically, it examines the case of the so-called “domaine copte” in the heart of Jerusalem near the Holy Sepulchre, which became an object of transformation by Russians. There were three distinct stages of transformation of this symbolically and politically important space, and in the article they are considered from within three distinct contexts: the establishment of Russian institutions "in the East" and the process of land acquisition in Jerusalem (1857-1864); archaeological excavations in the Holy City and the appropriation by the Russian Empire of the main archeological symbols of Christianity (1882-1884); and finally, the construction of the Russian Orthodox Church of St. Alexander Nevsky next to the Holy Sepulchre and the reconfiguration of the Middle Eastern Orthodoxy (1885-1896).