Episode 17: Sex, Murder, and Orthodoxy. The Tale of Zinaida Troitskaia

On 1 December 1911, the priest's wife Zinaida Troitskaia was found murdered in the backwoods village of Alajõe in eastern Estland province. This episode charts the scandalous details found by the investigation and asks what they tell us about the private lives of the rural Russian Orthodox clergy. This episode is based on my article for the website Deep Baltic. This can be found at: https://deepbaltic.com/2023/01/27/murder-most-orthodox-in-estonia-the-death-of-zinaida-troitskaia/ Sources EAA.1898.1.64 EAA.105.1.11294 EAA.1655.2.2590 EAA.1655.2.2738 EAA.1655.2.2739 EAA.1655.2.161 EAA.1655.2.172 EAA.1898.1.70 EAA.1898.1.11 EAA.1898.1.60 EAA.1898.1.58 EAA.1898.1.11 J. M. White, “Russian Orthodox Monasticism in Riga Diocese, 1881-1917”, Canadian Slavonic Papers, vol. 62, no. 3-4 (2020), 377-379 Andrei Sõtšov, “Eesti õigeusu piiskopkonna halduskorraldus ja vaimulikkond aastail 1945–1953” (MA thesis: University of Tartu, 2004) K. Weber, “Religion and Law in the Russian Empire: Lutheran Pastors on Trial, 1860-1917” (PhD dissertation: New York University, 2013) A. Polunov, “Imperiia, pravoslavie i problema reform v Pribaltike: k istorii religiozno-politicheskii bor’by 1880-kh – pervoi poloviny 1890-kh gg.” In I. Paert, ed., Pravoslavie v Pribaltike: Religiia, politika, obrazovanie, 1840-e – 1930-e gg. (Tartu: Izdatel’stvo Tartuskogo Universiteta, 2018): 207-227 G. Freeze, “Profane Narratives about a Holy Sacrament: Marriage and Divorce in the Late Imperial Russia” in M. D. Steinberg and H. J. Coleman, eds., Sacred Stories: Religion and Spirituality in Modern Russia (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007)