Marianna Shakhnovich / Марианна Шахнович | Saint-Petersburg State University (original) (raw)

Papers by Marianna Shakhnovich / Марианна Шахнович

De Gruyter eBooks, Apr 8, 2024

Princess Olga (b. 893-920, d. 969) is an impressive character in the history of ancient Rus' and ... more Princess Olga (b. 893-920, d. 969) is an impressive character in the history of ancient Rus' and in the history of Orthodoxy, occupying a particular place in the collective memory of both Russia and Ukraine. 1 We know from the Russian Povest' vremennyh let (Primary Chronicle) that Princess Olga ruled in Kiev (Kyiv) as a regent on behalf of her son Sviatoslav (b. 920-942, d. 972) after the death of her husband Igor in 945. She became not only the first woman on the Kiev throne, but also the first Christian. The Povest' vremennyh let notes that Olga was christened in Constantinople with the name "Helena," after Saint Helena (b. 246-248, d. 330), the mother of Constantine the Great. Olga's grandson Vladimir the Great (958-1015) Christianized Rus'. In 1547, nearly six hundred years after her death, the Russian Orthodox Church canonized Olga as a saint, Equal-to-the-Apostles in rank, though her earliest veneration started long before, in the 13th century. 2 Although Princess Olga was canonized early on, there was no church officially dedicated to her for a very long time. Churches named for the Equal-to-the-Apostles Princess appeared only in the 19th century. In 1862, in the city of Novgorod in the northwest of Russia, Emperor Alexander II (1818-1881) decreed that a "Millennium of Russia" monument be erected in honour of the millennium of Russian statehood, which, according to the chronicles, had started with the summoning of the Varangians. This great monument, standing opposite the ancient Cathedral of St Sophia, includes representations of more than one hundred statesmen, military leaders, and heroes of Russian history, from the Varangian Prince Rurik (d. 879) to Nicholas I (1796-1855). Among  This paper was written with support from the Russian Science Foundation, Project No. 21-48-04402.

Doing Memory: Medieval Saints and Heroes and Their Afterlives in the Baltic Sea Region (19th–20th centuries)/ Ed. Cordelia Heß and Gustavs Strenga; Berlin/Boston: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, pp.146-157, 2024

Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta. Filosofia i Cinflictologia [Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Philosophy and Conflict Studies], vol. 39, issue 3, pp. 569–580, 2023

The article analyzes for the first time the features of the publication policy in the field of ph... more The article analyzes for the first time the features of the publication policy in the field of philosophy in university journals published in Russia in the second half of the 19th — early 20th centuries, using the example of publications on Ancient philosophy. The author shows that the materials presented in university journals reflected the results of research and educational activities in the field of Ancient philosophy, including not only conceptual and critical articles, but also dissertations, act speeches, lectures, historiographic reviews, source descriptions, and commented translations of ancient authors. While the professors of Saint Petersburg, Moscow, and Kharkov Universities preferred to publish their philosophical works in specialized jour-nals — Zhurnal Ministerstva narodnogo prosveshcheniya, Voprosy filosofii i psihologii, and Vera i razum, the professors of Kiev, Kazan, Novorossiysk, and Warsaw Universities published their works on Classical philosophy, first of all, in their university journals, maintaining the au-thority of a certain university academic school. The article highlights the works by Professors D. F. Belyaev, E. A. Bobrov, A. N. Gilyarov, Yu.A. Kulakovsky, F. G. Mishchenko, V. I. Modestov, Ass. Professor G. I. Yakubanis, who made a significant contribution not only to the study of Ancient philosophy, but also to the development of the studying antiquity in general, their research works became the foundation on which the modern study of the history of classical culture in Russia is developing.

Gosudarstvo, religiia, tserkov’ v Rossii i za rubezhom 41(1): 151–177, 2023

The article analyzes the Soviet scholarship about the veneration of Christian saints published in... more The article analyzes the Soviet scholarship about the veneration of
Christian saints published in the 1920s and early 1930s, when a campaign
to uncover relics was carried out and an active anti-religious
propaganda was conducted in the USSR. The author shows that these
publications were heterogeneous in their content and significance.
She distinguishes three groups of publications based on their goals,
objectives and academic content. First, these were anti-religious brochures
and articles exposing the cult of relics as “church deception”,
written in line with the state anti-religious policy. The second group
includes historical and journalistic texts that described the history of
the canonization of certain Christian saints on the basis of documentary
materials while criticizing folk and church stories about the miracles
around the saints and their relics. The authors of these writings
relied on a critical tradition that goes back to both Protestant and
free-thinking traditions of the 16th-19th centuries. The third group
was the work of ethnographers who studied the cult of saints as a
form of folk, everyday Orthodox religiosity.

Chelovek, 2023

В статье рассматриваются теоретические подходы к анализу антропологических аспектов религиозных м... more В статье рассматриваются теоретические подходы к анализу антропологических аспектов религиозных мест памяти, связанных с почитанием христианских святых. Этот вид религиозной практики представляет собой своеобразное преломление догматически
оформленной официальной религиозной системы, пропущенной сквозь призму традиционных верований архаического происхождения, в которой объектами поклонения являются
как официально закрепленные материальные объекты (иконы, скульптурные изображения святых или Богоматери, поклонные кресты), так и неофициальные локально почитаемые
святыни, в том числе родники, камни, деревья и даже ландшафты. Автор анализирует распространенные эссенциалистские и неэссенциалистские теории, используемые для интер-
претации локальных культов святых, связанных с почитанием природных объектов: теории двоеверия и православного анимизма, народной религии, проживаемой религии, вернакулярной религии, материальной религии. Наиболее удачным методологическим подхо-
дом для объяснения исторической и культурной выживаемости религиозных мест памяти, по мнению автора, является акторно-сетевая теория Б. Латура. Будучи неэссенциалистским подходом, акторно-сетевая теория
не делает отличий между разными типами акторов:
людьми, природными (естественными) и сверхъестественными акторами. Природные объекты создают сеть между сверхъестественными акторами и паломниками, проявляющуюся
в непосредственных практиках почитания, важным элементом которых являются соответствующие вотивные подношения. Природные акторы выполняют функцию медиации между
мирами, осуществляя связь человека со сверхъестественным актором, который постоянно незримо присутствует в священном месте, и таким образом выстраиваемая сеть, имеющая
для верующих важное психологическое значение, определяет социальную значимость религиозных мест памяти.

Based on archival materials, the article shows that in the mid-1950s. in the RSFSR, despite the a... more Based on archival materials, the article shows that in the mid-1950s. in the RSFSR, despite the anti-religious campaign of the late 1920s-1930s, there were more than 60 fairly well-known “holy” water sources, to which Orthodox believers regularly made mass pilgrimages. Most of these sources were associated with the cults of locally venerated Orthodox saints or revealed icons. The article discusses the prehistory of the resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU “On measures to stop the pilgrimage to the «holy places»”, it is shown that its adoption on November 28, 1958 was prepared almost simultaneously with the resolution “On the Note of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU in the Union republics «On the shortcomings of scientific and atheistic propaganda»” and it is proved that it should be considered in the context of the Propaganda and Agitation Department of the Central Committee of the CPSU preparations for the extraordinary XXI Congress of the CPSU (January 27 - February 5, 1959), at which it was stated that socialism in the USSR won a complete and final victory and that the Soviet country is entering a period of extensive construction of a communist society in which there is no place for religious remnants of the past.

The article analyzes the works devoted to the veneration of Christian saints published in the 192... more The article analyzes the works devoted to the veneration of Christian saints published in the 1920s and early 1930s, when a campaign to uncover relics was carried out and an active anti-religious propaganda was conducted in the USSR. The author shows that these publications were heterogeneous in their content and significance. She distinguishes three groups of publications based on their goals, objectives and academic content. First, these are anti-religious brochures and articles aimed at exposing the cult of relics and “church deception”, written in line with the ideological order that reflected the state policy in the field of religion. The second group includes historical and journalistic texts that described the history of the canonization of certain Christian saints on the basis of documentary materials, but criticized folk and church stories about the miracles of the saints themselves and their relics. The authors of these writings relied on a critical tradition that goes back to both Protestant writings and the writings of free-thinkers of the 16th-19th centuries. The third group is the work of ethnographers who studied the cult of saints in the framework of the study of folk religiosity, so called “Everyday Orthodoxy”.
Key words: cult of saints, anti-religious propaganda in the USSR, Soviet historical science in the 1920s-1930s, history of religion in the USSR, Marxism on religion

Научный атеизм: от науки к утопии. - 2-ое изд. дополн. СПб.: Государственный музей истории религии, 2023. 304 с. , 2023

Второе издание монографии, ранее выпущенной издательством «Нестор-История», дополнено Указателем ... more Второе издание монографии, ранее выпущенной издательством «Нестор-История», дополнено Указателем публикаций, вышедших в 1950–1989 гг. в сборниках «Вопросы истории религии и атеизма», «Ежегодник Музея истории религии и атеизма», «Вопросы научного атеизма»

Religiski-Filozofiski Raksti, 2021

The main goal of this article is to identify the socio-historical context of the emergence of the... more The main goal of this article is to identify the socio-historical context of the emergence of the ideologically loaded concept of 'scientific atheism', constructed in the USSR in the 1950s-1980s during the period of the announced transition from socialism to the construction of communism. The article uses the method of the historical sociology of concepts, which makes it possible to identify the connection between semantic contexts and institutional practices and to show how the conceptual category around which the corresponding discourse was formed became an instrument that produces socially significant meanings used in the practice of ideological production. The classics of Marxism did not consider atheism as a separate doctrine from materialism; despite this in the late 1970s, scientific atheism in the Soviet academic space turned into a separate science with its own subject of research. At the same time, scientific atheism was opposed to all other forms of atheism as the most consistent and the only true one.

”. St. Petersburg: “Nestor-History”, 2022. - 244 p., 2022

The main objective of the book is to study the consistent transformation of semantic contexts and... more The main objective of the book is to study the consistent transformation of semantic contexts and socio-historical meanings of the concept of “scientific atheism”, designed to solve the problems of the development of socialism in the USSR during the transition to communist construction in the 1950s-1980s, and to determine the place of this concept in the ideological discourse, as well as identifying the degree of its influence on various social institutions and practices. The aim of the book is to study the last two periods of ideological and political work in the field of religion and atheism in the USSR: the period of scientific and atheistic propaganda (since 1954) and the period of scientific and atheistic upbringing (since 1961), when the concept of “scientific atheism” was constructed, included in social theory and ideological and political practice, became an important factor in educational and cultural policy and an element of the Soviet way of life, and was even used as a rhetorical argument in the ideological confrontation with the West in the framework of the Cold War.

Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Philosophy and Conflict Studies

Антропологический форум, 2020

В 1932–1933 гг. в научной жизни Ленинграда произошли два события, сыгравшие важную роль в истории... more В 1932–1933 гг. в научной жизни Ленинграда произошли два события, сыгравшие важную роль в истории советской этнографии, музейного строительства и религиоведения: открытие Музея истории религии и реорганизация Музея антропологии и этнографии АН СССР. Именно в этот период в Академии наук считалось приоритетным создание на базе академических музеев научно-исследовательских институтов. Если небольшой коллектив нового Музея истории религии во главе с его директором В.Г. Богоразом приветствовал такое начинание, то реформирование Музея антропологии и этнографии, объединение его с Институтом по изучению народов СССР и создание на их основе Института этнографии АН СССР было болезненным и привело к увольнению и изменению статуса многих сотрудников МАЭ. В статье публикуются обнаруженные в фототеке Государственного музея истории религии, в Санкт-Петербургском филиале Архива РАН и в отделе рукописей Российской национальной библиотеки рисунки и тексты, отражающие эти события в сатирической форме. Автор представляет карикатуры из стенной газеты Музея истории религии (1932–1933), изображающие В.Г. Богораза, ироническую заметку самого Богораза об участии научных сотрудников в экспозиционной работе, а также стихотворение Е.Г. Кагарова «Перелицованная Илиада», сатирически описывающее кадровые преобразования в Музее антропологии и этнографии в 1933 г. Отмечается важность обнаруженных сатирических произведений как источника, который, подобно мемуарам и письмам, отражает субъективные впечатления и демонстрирует личное отношение к происходящему. Все материалы подробно комментируются, показывается их значение для изучения истории ленинградского сообщества этнографов и историков религии начала 1930-х гг.

Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta, Filosofiia i Konfliktologiia, 2021

The article describes the goals, principles and different forms of the presentation of the cult o... more The article describes the goals, principles and different forms of the presentation of the cult
of saints in the exhibitions of anti-religious and local history museums in the context of the
ideological and cultural tasks of museum construction in the early 1930s. The issue of the
presentation of icons and objects of church worship for anti-religious purposes was extremely
acute: on the one hand, it was impossible to create an exposition about religion without exhibiting
artifacts related to it, on the other, these artifacts were supposed to expose religion. After
the campaign to uncover the “relics”, they were often exhibited in museums for anti-religious
purposes, but this demonstration most often had the opposite effect. The article analyzes the
materials of the discussion on the possibility of using icons and religious objects in anti-religious
exhibitions. The author shows that during the period under study, the contradictions between
the “anti-religious”, who considered interest in religious art as “grave aestheticism” that
strengthened religion, and representatives of the so-called “culturalism” who tried to preserve
and exhibit items of religious culture in museums. Particular attention is paid to studying the
search for a “third way” in resolving the existing conflict between the classical principles of
exhibiting religious art and the new so-called an “anti-religious” approach, which was based
on the comparative study of religions and field anthropological research on popular religiosity.
The main principles of this “third way”, focused on the preservation and display of items
of religious culture, were the rejection of their pietistic interpretation, attention to formal art
analysis, as well as Marxist historical, cultural and sociological analysis.

Dialog so vremenem, Jun 13, 2017

Статья посвящена истории поступления библиотечного собрания Императорского Православного Палестин... more Статья посвящена истории поступления библиотечного собрания Императорского Православного Палестинского общества в научную библиотеку Государственного музея истории религии (1920-1954 гг.). Коллектив авторов сумел проследить судьбу библиотеки, собрав документы в академических архивах (из Архива РАН в Москве, Санкт-Петербургского филиала АРАН, архива Института истории материальной культуры, Архива востоковедов Института восточных рукописей РАН). Публикуемые документы позволяют реконструировать основные этапы истории передачи библиотеки, проследить динамику ее состава.

State Religion and Church in Russia and Worldwide

This article treats the main forms and principles, as well as theoretical and methodological appr... more This article treats the main forms and principles, as well as theoretical and methodological approaches to what is called "Religious Education" in modern Europe, and the basic principles of its implementation in the context of the contemporary policy of "Europeanization" of school education in general. In this connection documents and recommendations of international European organizations are considered. The author points out that the main approaches, principles and content of "religious education" in different countries are determined, first of all, by the legislation in the field of church and state relations and by the organization of the school educational system, cultural and historical factors, and also the political context. On the basis of this criterion, the article identifies four main types of "religious education" in the countries of modern Europe. The author draws attention to various methodological approaches in the teaching of religion, based on exclusivism, inclusivism and pluralism in assessing contemporary religious diversity in Europe. Particular attention is paid to the interpretative approach.

Study of Religion

The article deals with the history of the creation of a series of decorative panels “The Soviet w... more The article deals with the history of the creation of a series of decorative panels “The Soviet way of life” (1983–1986) from the collection of the State Museum of the History of Religion, created by artists from the village Mstyora. The discussion on the essence of atheism, unfolded in the Soviet social science literature of the period of “developed socialism”, was indirectly reflected in the concept of the new Museum exhibition on the atheism in contemporary society. Some authors searched for the “positive” content of atheism, developing the so-called “theory of scientific atheism”, others, relying on the traditions of European free-thinking, considered atheism only a negation of theism and a feature of the materialistic worldview, suggesting searching for “positive” content not in atheism, but in science, culture and new civil traditions.

Bylye Gody, Sep 1, 2017

The article was prepared on the basis of a study of the works on the history of Christianity, wri... more The article was prepared on the basis of a study of the works on the history of Christianity, written by Russian researchers in the second half of the XIX-early XX century. In the history of the study of Christianity in Russia in the period under review, two areas are distinguished: confessional and academic, which was less affected by the church dogmatic tradition and sought to use critical methods. One of the reasons for the relatively late registration of the academic (secular) history of Christianity in Russia was the lack of a tradition of the existence of theological faculties within the universities and the concentration of the study of Church history within the spiritual schools, in which, on the whole, there was only an exclusively canonical attitude toward sources, mainly limited to the Holy Scriptures and the writings of the Church Fathers. Changes in the Russian "Church history science" would be impossible without changing the system of secondary and higher education. After the introduction of the new University Statute in 1863, the level of university teaching of the history of Christianity increased significantly, and the apologetic nature of teaching ceased to prevail in the training courses and in the writings of the faculty. There was no serious research on the history of Russia without touching upon the history of the Russian church; Russian historians explored the historical and ecclesiastical problems in the context of the history of Russia and the history of Russian culture. The history of Western Christianity was studied in Russia before the beginning of the twentieth century, practically, exclusively within the framework of comparative or accusatory theology, which was mainly concerned with the critical examination of the so-called "heterodox" confessions from the standpoint of Orthodox dogma.

Religions

By the end of the 1920s, more than 100 anti-religious museums had been opened in the Soviet Union... more By the end of the 1920s, more than 100 anti-religious museums had been opened in the Soviet Union. In addition, anti-religious departments appeared in the exhibitions of many local historical museums. In Moscow, the Central Anti-Religious Museum was opened in the Cathedral of the Strastnoi Monastery. At that time, the first museum promoting a comparative and historical approach to the study and presentation of religious artifacts was opened in Petrograd in 1922. The formation of Museum of Comparative Religion was based on the conjunction of the activities of the Petrograd Excursion Institute, the Academy of Sciences, and the Ethnographic department of Petrograd University. In this paper, based on archival materials, we analyze the methodological principles of the formation of the exhibitions at the newly founded museum, along with its themes, structure, and selection of exhibits. The Museum of Comparative Religion had a very short life before it was transformed into the Leningrad an...

European Researcher, 2016

De Gruyter eBooks, Apr 8, 2024

Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta. Filosofia i Cinflictologia [Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Philosophy and Conflict Studies], vol. 39, issue 3, pp. 569–580, 2023

Gosudarstvo, religiia, tserkov’ v Rossii i za rubezhom 41(1): 151–177, 2023

Chelovek, 2023

Научный атеизм: от науки к утопии. - 2-ое изд. дополн. СПб.: Государственный музей истории религии, 2023. 304 с. , 2023

Religiski-Filozofiski Raksti, 2021

”. St. Petersburg: “Nestor-History”, 2022. - 244 p., 2022

Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Philosophy and Conflict Studies

Антропологический форум, 2020

Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta, Filosofiia i Konfliktologiia, 2021

Dialog so vremenem, Jun 13, 2017

State Religion and Church in Russia and Worldwide

Study of Religion

Bylye Gody, Sep 1, 2017

Religions

European Researcher, 2016

Богораз В. Г. Эволюция религиозных верований. Курс лекций (1927– 1928 гг.) / сост., подгот. М. М. Шахнович. — СПб.: Изд-во С.-Петерб. ун-та, 2019., 2019

The book presents the transcript of Vladimir Bogoraz (1865–1936) lecture course “The Evolution of... more The book presents the transcript of Vladimir Bogoraz (1865–1936) lecture course “The Evolution of Religious Beliefs”, read at the Ethnography Department of Leningrad University in 1927–1928. The book is provided with the necessary comments and a preface of the editor. The manuscript used for publication is stored in the St. Petersburg branch of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Учебник «Философия религии» подготовлен на основе многолетнего опыта преподавания данной дисципли... more Учебник «Философия религии» подготовлен на основе многолетнего опыта преподавания данной дисциплины, входящей в состав Федеральных государственных
образовательных стандартов по направлениям «Философия» и «Религиоведение».
На основе принципов историко-философского анализа авторы рассматривают классические учения философии религии. Данный учебник предназначен, прежде всего,
для студентов, получающих образование в области философии и религиоведения.
Вместе с тем он будет полезен студентам, изучающим другие направления гуманитарных и социальных наук, а также всем тем, кто интересуется историей философского
осмысления религии.
Соответствует актуальным требованиям Федерального государственного образовательного стандарта высшего образования.
Для студентов, аспирантов и преподавателей философских и религиоведческих факультетов гуманитарных вузов.

Marianna M. Shakhnovich The Garden of Epicurus. Epicurus' Philosophy of Religion and the Epicure... more Marianna M. Shakhnovich
The Garden of Epicurus. Epicurus' Philosophy of Religion and the Epicurean Tradition in the History of European Thought

Short Summary

This book contains the most comprehensive account of Epicurus' philosophy of religion and its reception and interpretation in European thought over more than two thousand years.
The author treats Epicurus' philosophy of religion as an implicit, immanent element of his philosophical system connected with his physics and epistemology. In the book it is proved that the main positions of Epicurus' philosophy of religion lie in the basis of its ethical doctrine. The essence of this doctrine was a theory of four truths, the knowledge of which specified a path to achieving happiness.
The author explicitly dissects particular features of Epicurus' theology. One section of the book is devoted to an analysis of Epicurus' understanding of piety, expressed in imitation of and dialogue with the gods. The specificity of the ancient understanding of atheism and the role of Epicureanism in ancient free-thinking is investigated. The author shows that Epicurus' views essentially differed from the concepts of ancient atheoi - the sophists, Diagoras, Theodorus, Euhemeros - as well as Democritus’ doctrine.
The book gives a comprehensive account of the ideas of the founder of the Garden and his followers, from the great Roman poets to Alexander Pushkin, from Walter Charleton to Mikhail Lomonosov, as well as of his critics, from Cicero and Plutarch to the Church fathers and Orthodox theologians. A significant portion of the book is devoted to the Western European tradition: Roman Epicureans; the medieval reception of Epicurean doctrine; Epicurus' philosophy of religion in an evaluation of the Renaissance thinkers; the philosophers of New time on the attitude of Epicurus to religion; the problem of comparing Epicureanism and Christianity.
The last chapter addresses the problem of the development of the Epicurean tradition in Russian culture. This chapter makes the book unique among other works on Epicurus' philosophy. It is the first book in world literature to discuss the influence of Epicureanism on Russian culture.
The book is of interest not only to a handful of specialists but also to members of the general public who would like to learn about the history of the transition of the classical tradition in European culture.

Contents
Preface. Epicurus and Modernity

Chapter I. The Ancient Philosophy of Religion and Epicurus
The Issues of the Ancient Philosophy of Religion
The Paradoxes of Ancient Atheism
Democritus' Philosophy of Religion and Epicurus
The Sophists' Philosophy of Religion
Diagoras on the Olympic Religion
Theodorus and Euhemeros on Gods

Chapter II. Epicurus' Philosophy of Religion
Epicurus' Physics and Religion
Epicurus on the Psychology of Religion
Epicurus' Canon and his Criticism of Superstitions
Epicurus' Theology
Pietas Epicurea or the Secularization of the Cult
Ethics in the Context of Epicurus' Philosophy of Religion

Chapter III. Epicurus' Philosophy of Religion in the History of the European Epicurean
Tradition
Roman Epicureans: Ethics and Philosophy of Religion
Epicureans in the Roman Provinces
Judaism and Epicureans
Ancient Christianity and Epicurus
The Medieval Reception of Epicurean Doctrine
Epicurean Philosophy and the Humanistic Thought of the Renaissance
Epicurus and Epicureans in the European Culture of the Seventeenth Century
Epicurus and the Enlightenment
The European Philosophers of the First Half of the Nineteenth Century on Epicurus

Chapter IV. Epicurus in Russia
Epicurus in Ancient Russia
Epicurus in the Russian Thought of the Fifteenth-Seventeenth Centuries
Russian Epicureans of the Eighteenth Century and the Criticism of Religion
The Dispute on the Epicurean Heritage in the Russian Literature of the First Quarter of the Nineteenth Century
Russian Positivism and Epicurean Atheism
The Problem of Epicurus' Atheism in Soviet Historiography

Conclusion
Literature

There are almost no works in modern historiography dedicated to a social history of religious stu... more There are almost no works in modern historiography dedicated to a social history of religious studies in Russia. The perception even persists that for almost seventy years of the twentieth century there was no study of religion in Russia, and that from 1917 onwards everything connected to religious studies was related entirely to antireligious propaganda and developments in the political situation. In recent decades the tragedies concerning ‘repressed ethnography’, ‘repressed linguistics’ and ‘the twilight of linguistics’ in Russia have come out into the open, whilst the no less dramatic history of the development of religious studies in the middle of the last century, still remains hidden. This is in spite of the fact that a great deal of interesting materials that bear witness to the existence and development of religious studies under the dominance of Soviet ideology can be found in the archives. This book is dedicated to just one of the aspects of the history of the study of religion and the attempts to preserve artefacts connected to religious culture during the Soviet cultural revolution of the 1930s and in later times through the periods of the II World war and Khrushchev’ reforms till the beginning of 1960s: the foundation and three decades of the Academy of Sciences’ Museum of the History of Religion (MHR).
Publication of the book ”The Academy of Sciences’ Museum of the History of Religion and Study of Religion in Russia (1932-1961)” fills a gap in the history of Russian science, opening its unknown pages. The book is based on the research in a large corpus of various archival materials, first introduced to the academic public: governmental documents, decisions of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences, transcripts of scientific meetings, memos, business and personal correspondence. Among the authors of the documents prepared for publication there are: Vladimir Bogoras-Tan, Nikolai Matorin , Yuri Frantsov , Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich, Vladimir Propp, Mark Azadovsky , Alexander Klibanov , Mikhail Shakhnovich and others.
Opening of the Museum of the History of Religion in Academy of Sciences in 1932 marked a new period in the history of the study of religion that has emerged in Russia in the late 19-early 20 century as an interdisciplinary research field based on the development of linguistics, ethnography, folklore study and history. The desire of scholars to study religion and preserve religious artefacts as cultural assets clashed with the views of the Party’s ideologists, which saw any research into religion as advocating its practice. The only way out was to explain the need to study religion in order to debunk it, and phrases about antireligious propaganda often became an ‘ideological justification’ for the scientific research. In the ‘Statute of the Museum of the History of Religion’, adopted at the general meeting of the Academy of Sciences in October 1931, it was stated that the museum should study the development of religion, from its origins to its contemporary state. The MHR was founded as a research institution for the multidimensional study of religion as a complex social and historical phenomenon. This included research into the evolution of religious ideas and faiths, the position of religion in the spiritual culture of various eras, the psychological aspect of religious belief, religious social movements, processes of secularisation, religious art and other topics.
The book examines the history of the formation and development of MHR in the first thirty years of its existence as an institution of the Academy of Sciences, the history of the struggle for the preservation of the institution that repeatedly for ideological reasons sought to close. For decades, museum employees, not only created the displays and exhibitions, not only stored (often saving them from destruction), many items of religious culture, but also waged a systematic research. Of great interest is the documentary story of rescue and restoration of the Kazan Cathedral (arh. Andrey Voronikhin) , in which museum was located in.
Some pages of the book are devoted to the activity of the research group “Panel for the Study of the Religions of the Peoples of the USSR” headed by Nikolay Matorin. The records of the Panel’s meetings found in St. Petersburg Branch of the RAS Archive are now presenting in this book. These unique materials show not only the different aspects of the research work of its members, but also demonstrate the creation by Matorin and his closest co-workers the holistic program of studying the religious practices in the USSR. Another piece of evidence for the serious work undertaken to study religion in the USSR is the “Systematic Index of Creeds (Religions) and Antireligious Groups”, compiled by workers at the MHR as preparatory material for the census of 1937. Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich’s letters to different persons, reflecting not only his organizational activities, but also theoretical problems concerning the study of religion are of great interest, as well as the documents reflecting the impact of governing orders of the Communist Party’s leaders of various levels upon research in the field of religion. A separate section of the book is devoted to research-work and exhibitions of MHR during the II World war.
The book consists of two parts: the first is the history of the Academy of Sciences’ Museum of the History of Religion till 1961, when the Museum became an institution under the Ministry of Culture; and the second part, representing the corpus of documents. The book is provided with an annotated index of names and illustrated with photographs from museum collection, most of which are first introduced in the print.

А. Муравьев: Дорогие коллеги! Почему мы решили поговорить о таких сложных и болезненных понятиях,... more А. Муравьев: Дорогие коллеги! Почему мы решили поговорить о таких сложных и болезненных понятиях, как «клерикализм», «клерикализация» и «антиклерикализм»? Мы не спорим о наличии наличие каких-то реалий в обществе, мы говорим о том, что находится в поле общественного обсуждения, что вброшено в него, что выброшено, что в головах у людей.

Shakhnovich, M. M.Vladimir Bogoraz on religion and Bolshevism VESTNIK SANKT-PETERBURGSKOGO UNIVER... more Shakhnovich, M. M.Vladimir Bogoraz on religion and Bolshevism VESTNIK SANKT-PETERBURGSKOGO UNIVERSITETA-FILOSOFIYA I KONFLIKTOLOGIYA Том: 34 Выпуск: 3 Стр.: 441-453 Опубликовано: 2018
In 2017, Yury Slezkine's new book, "The Government House. Saga of the Russian Revolution" was published. The American professor seeks to prove, using the material of several family histories of the Soviet party and state figures in the 1920s-1930s, that Marxism and its Russian form of Bolshevism represented a religious soteriological doctrine that was characterized by actual eschatology and the expectation of immediate salvation. He believes that Marxism as an ideology and Bolshevism as its practical implementation have the features characteristic to a new religious movement of chiliastic type: the presence of a charismatic leader and rallying around him, membership based on personal treatment, hatred of the world around full of vices, the cult of sacrifice. The author of the presented article believes that this point of view is by no means new and existed at the beginning of the 20th century. The article shows that even the revolutionary democrats brought together the evangelical and revolutionary doctrine. However, they were not interested in chiliastic aspirations in the New Testament, but they were interested in denouncing those in power, exposing injustice and lawlessness, protecting the poor and oppressed, and sacrificing themselves in order to overcome the suffering of others. The article briefly examines the positions of various figures of the Russian Social-Democracy regarding the conjugation of Christianity and socialism. The article shows that the well-known ethnographer and historian of religion Vladimir Bogoraz (Tan), who actively participated in the Russian revolutionary movement, not only used the reinterpreted New Testament images and ideas in his literary work but also considered the problem of the correlation of Bolshevism and religion in political and historical aspects. The author shows that one may see a certain similarity in some evaluations of Bolshevism as a religious doctrine in V. Bogoraz and N. Berdyaev. In conclusion, the text of the article by Bogoraz(Tan) "Bolshevism as a Religion" with comments is given.