In his newest book, Putin’s Holy War: Sacred Memory and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, Griffin investigates the memory politics of the contemporary Russian Orthodox Church. The study documents the complex relations between the Kremlin and the Moscow Patriarchate and uncovers their collaborative efforts to transform cultural memory in Russia and Ukraine, in the three decades since the disintegration of the USSR. The book also narrates how dissident artists and activists—such as Pussy Riot and Andrei Kuraev—have attempted to counter the ROC’s campaigns to “clericalize” post-Soviet memory and sacralize the Russian military invasion of Ukraine.

An article based on a chapter of the book—entitled ‘Revolution, Raskol, and Rock ‘n’ Roll: The 1020th Anniversary of the Baptism of Rus’—was awarded the Eve Levin Prize for the best article published in The Russian Review in 2021. Meanwhile, a second article, ‘Putin’s Holy War of the Fatherland: Sacred Memory and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine’ was recently published in a special edition of The Russian Review.

Funding for the project has been awarded by the ACLS/Luce Foundation, the Gerda Henkel Stiftung, and the Collegium for Advanced Studies at the University of Helsinki. The book will be published with Cornell University Press.