Abstract
The work is theoretically based on the concept of symbolic historical anthropology of war and military in the tradition of Geertz - Darnton - Sahlins - Obeyesekere, the theory of emergency religion by Michael Snape and also the theory of military agency by Yuval Noah Harari. The work approaches war primarily as a hard and transformative personal experience of the people actively deployed during the conflict.
It therefore rejects ideological macro-narratives that label the Crimean War as a religiously motivated conflict of civilizations. The aim of the work is twofold.
On the one hand, it provides through an interpretive research of the preserved ego-documents, belonging to a total of 141 British and Russian participants a "thick description" (Geertz) of their experience. Through this effort, the work also seeks, secondly, to discover the broader cultural configurations and problems of the Crimean War, especially during the siege of Sevastopol (1854-1855) - and their interactions.
With the help of the theory of emergency religion (Michael Snape), it reveals the dominant cultural ethos of war on both sides ("despair and shame" on the British side and "fatalistic despair" on the Russian side) in many of its manifestations. The work thus rejects the current primary understanding of the Crimean War through the religious-civilizational rhetoric of political and military elites or the through effects of the first wave of military innovations created during the Industrial Revolution.
Rather, it looks at how a locally configured culture of war modulated an unexpectedly brutal and protracted combat experience for actors on both sides during the year-long siege of Sevastopol.