Russian Religious Life in the Soviet Era

2020 ◽  
pp. 59-75
Author(s):  
Zoe Knox
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Religious Communities ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Russian Orthodoxy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
State Relations ◽  
Russian Religious Thought

This chapter provides an overview of the history of Russian religious life from the October 1917 Russian Revolution, when the Bolsheviks seized power and imposed their radical secularist agenda, to 1991, when Soviet rule ended and, with it, the atheist campaign. It charts the major political developments that religious institutions, individual believers, and faith communities were forced to respond to and which underlay theological debates both in the Soviet Union and in the Russian diaspora. Recent scholarship has overturned the widely held view that in the communist period Russian Orthodoxy was out-dated, irrelevant, and marginal as a facet of identity, and in its place a scholarship has emerged which recognizes the variety of experiences within the Orthodox tradition and beyond it, of churches functioning openly and operating underground. Religious communities were forced to react to policy and practice emanating from the communist party, making a survey of Soviet religious policy critical for understanding Russian religious thought since 1917. The chapter also outlines key developments affecting believers in the years immediately after the collapse of the USSR and highlights the profound influence of the Soviet era on religious life and thought and on church–state relations in post-Soviet Russia.

Understanding Russia’s Low Rate of Acquittal: Pretrial Screening and the Problem of Accusatorial Bias

2015 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter H. Solomon
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The Netherlands ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Prosecutorial Discretion ◽  
Western Countries ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Low Rate

The Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia alike have had extremely low rates of acquittal in criminal cases, which conventional wisdom associates with an accusatorial bias. But other countries like Canada, Germany, The Netherlands, and France also have low rates of acquittal without the perception of bias. This article argues that the key difference lies in the presence or absence of pretrial screening—through the withdrawal of charges, diversion, and/or dispositions imposed by prosecutors. After a brief history of the low acquittal rate in Russia, the article documents the use of prosecutorial discretion to screen cases before trial in those four Western countries, especially through the exercise by prosecutors of quasi-judicial functions. The article goes on to demonstrate the absence of significant pretrial filtering of cases in Russia and to explore the implications for understanding the rate of acquittal.

scholarly journals Comparative Religion and Anti-Religious Museums of Soviet Russia in the 1920s

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Marianna Shakhnovich
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Comparative Religion ◽  
Short Life ◽  
Historical Museums ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Methodological Principles ◽  
Academy Of Sciences ◽  
Selection Of

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 anti-religious museum, but its principles were inherited by the Museum of the History of Religion, which was opened in 1932.

ISAAK RUBIN: HISTORIAN OF ECONOMIC THOUGHT DURING THE STALINIZATION OF SOCIAL SCIENCES IN SOVIET RUSSIA

2015 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Boldyrev ◽  
Martin Kragh
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Political System ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
History Of Economic Thought ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Fundamental Uncertainty ◽  
Soviet Russia

Research within the history of economic thought has focused only little on the development of economics under dictatorship. This paper attempts to show how a country with a relatively large and internationally established community of social scientists in the 1920s, the Soviet Union, was subjected to repression. We tell this story through the case of Isaak Il’ich Rubin, a prominent Russian economist and historian of economic thought, who in the late 1920s was denounced by rival scholars and repressed by the political system. By focusing not only on his life and work, but also on that of his opponents and institutional clashes, we show how the decline of a social science tradition in Russia and the USSR as well as the Stalinization of Soviet social sciences emerged as a process over time. We analyze the complex interplay of ideas, scholars, and their institutional context, and conclude that subsequent repression was arbitrary, suggesting that no clear survival or career strategy existed in the Stalinist system, due to a situation of fundamental uncertainty.

A Separate Moldovan Language? The Sociolinguistics of Moldova'sLimba de Stat

2006 ◽  
Vol 34 (5) ◽  
pp. 575-597 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew H. Ciscel
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Language Identity ◽  
The Past ◽  
Imperial Russia ◽  
Language And Power ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Soviet Russia

The politics of language identity have figured heavily in the history of the people of the Republic of Moldova. Indeed the region's status as a province of Russia, Romania, and then the Soviet Union over the past 200 years has consistently been justified and, at least partially, manipulated on the basis of language issues. At the center of these struggles over language and power has been the linguistic and cultural identity of the region's autochthonous ethnicity and current demographic majority, the Moldovans. In dispute is the degree to which these Moldovans are culturally, historically, and linguistically related to the other Moldovans and Romanians across the Prut River in Romania. Under imperial Russia from 1812 to 1918 and Soviet Russia from 1944 to 1991, a proto-Moldovan identity that eschewed connections to Romania and emphasized contact with Slavic peoples was promoted in the region. Meanwhile, experts from Romania and the West have regularly argued that the eastern Moldovans are indistinguishable, historically, culturally, and linguistically, from their Romanian cousins.

Eugenics in Russia and the Soviet Union

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nikolai Krementsov
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Relative Weight ◽  
Relative Role ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Local Traditions ◽  
Scholarly Attention

The history of eugenics in Russia has attracted relatively little scholarly attention. Eugenics garnered a warm reception among Russian hygienists and public health doctors. This article is concerned with the rise and fall of medical genetics in Soviet Russia and identifies three key components of eugenics. It further proceeds with the discussion of eugenics in revolutionary society and mentions that Russian eugenics' life span, institutional and disciplinary composition, patronage pattern, and research foci differed substantially from those in other countries. It discusses the relative weight of structures and historic contingencies in shaping the history of eugenics during the three distinct periods of its existence in Russia. It also mentions the relative role of international contacts and local traditions in molding Russian eugenics' institutions and activities.

scholarly journals A feminist becoming? Louise Thompson Patterson’s and Dorothy West’s sojourn in the Soviet Union

Feminismo/s ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 103
Author(s):  
Katharina Wiedlack
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
The United States ◽  
Racial Oppression ◽  
Life Trajectories ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
Travel Writings ◽  
Dorothy West ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Russia

This article follows the socialist activist Louise Thompson (later Patterson) and the writer Dorothy West on their infamous journey to Soviet Russia to shoot a film about North American anti-Black racism in 1932. The film about the US history of racial oppression was ultimately never made, but the women stayed in the Soviet Union for several months, travelling to the Soviet republics, meeting famous Soviets, and experiencing Soviet modernization. Looking at the travel writings, correspondence, and memoirs of Thompson and West through the lens of intersectionality, this article analyses the women’s distinctly gendered experiences and their experience of socialist women’s liberation movements. It argues that a close reading of the literary writing, travel notes, letters, and memoirs and their biographical trajectories after they returned to the United States reveals how their experiences in the Soviet Union created a feminist consciousness within the two women that crucially altered their political and personal views of Black women’s agency and significantly altered their life trajectories.

scholarly journals History and Socio-Political Conditions of Preparation of the Polish Constitutions from 1919 to 1997

2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 176
Author(s):  
Boris Kindyuk ◽  
Mykhailo Kelman ◽  
Vasyl Patlachuk ◽  
Olexander Patlachuk
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Practical Significance ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Article Type ◽  
History Of ◽  
European Standards ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Political Economic

The purpose of article deals with the study of history of preparation and the reasons for the adoption of the Polish Constitutions in the period from 1919 to 1997 years. Research methods: dialectical, chronological, comparative, system-structural. Main results. The article shows that the history of the preparation of the Polish Constitutions in the period from 1919 to 1997 years occurred under the conditions of constant changes of socio-political factors, which was reflected in the state system, political, economic and social relations, rights and freedoms of the population. It is proved that the history of Polish constitutionalism has evolved in a complex vector from the insignificant in volume and scientific level of the Little Constitution of 1919, which was adopted in conditions of armed confrontation with Soviet Russia, to the 1997 Constitution, which complies with European standards. The influence of the historical personality of Marshal Jozef Pilsudski was investigated, who became the sponsor of the rebirth of independent Poland on the history of the preparation and adoption of the Polish Constitutions of 1919, 1921 years and the Constitution of 1935 in which the President of the country was given dictatorial powers during the period of war. It is shown that the Constitution of 1952, which was written according to Soviet models and based on instructions received from Moscow, had to consolidate in Poland a socialist model in which the Polish United Workers Party had a leading role in society. It is shown that the collapse of the Soviet Union led to the elimination of the communist system in Poland, the rise to power of democratic forces, which resulted the adoption Constitution 1997. The peculiarity of the Constitutional process was the fact that for the first time in the history of Poland on 25th May 1997 a referendum was held regarding its adoption. The Constitution 1997 was adopted in the context of a transition from command-administrative to a democratic system of government, so its content is marked by a democratic nature that ensured the creation of private ownership of all means of production and free trade. The historical reasons of the drafting of the Polish Constitutions have undergone a complex dynamic, which is connected with political changes in the country, which is reflected in the content of the ideas, doctrinal views and Basic Laws. The practical significance of the study lies in the use of Polish historical experience in the development of event scenarios in Ukraine in order to prevent errors in modern state-making. Originality. A comprehensive study of the history of Polish constitutionalism, taking into account socio-political reasons. Article type: descriptive.

Michael Beizer (ed.), Toledot yehudei rusiyah, vol. 3, Mimapekhot 1917 ’ad nefilat brit hamo’atzot (History of the Jews in Russia: From the Revolutions of 1917 to the Fall of the Soviet Union). Jerusalem: The Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History, 2015. 161 pp.

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Jewish History ◽  
National Movement ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
Complete History ◽  
Market Towns

This chapter reviews the book Toledot yehudei rusiyah, vol. 3, Mimapekhot 1917 ’ad nefilat brit hamo’atzot (History of the Jews in Russia: From the Revolutions of 1917 to the Fall of the Soviet Union) (2015), edited by Michael Beizer. History of the Jews in Russia offers a complete history of the Jews in Russia from the revolutions of 1917 to the disintegration of the Soviet Union. The book consists of thirteen chapters covering topics such as Vladimir Levin’s fine portrait of “the Jewish street” before 1914; the Jewish national movement; the Jewish intelligentsia; Jewish urbanization and secularization; and the flood of migration from the market towns of the Pale of Settlement to the industrial and administrative metropolitan centers that sprang up in Soviet Russia during the interwar years.

scholarly journals Mythologization of the History of the 1920-30s Festivities

2020 ◽  
pp. 180-193
Author(s):  
Elena V. Barysheva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Committee ◽  
Spiritual Values ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
Revolutionary Movement ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Current Events ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Russia ◽  
The Revolution

The article discusses techniques and methods used by the Soviet government to formulate the historical myth of the revolutionary movement in Russia and of the 1917 revolution. Holidays in Soviet Russia and later in the Soviet Union were not just days of relaxation. They served educational function, formed new spiritual values, instilled a sense of engagement with the events of 1917. As one of the ways to influence the mass consciousness, the festive events of the first decades of the Soviet power formed public opinion and influenced perception of historical and current events by the population. Popularization of the emerging official history of the new socialist state, which had begun in 1917, was especially effective during celebrations owing to their inherent emotional component. The use of historical plots in various dramatizations, mass actions, political processions, carnivals, and demonstrations of workers created an appearance of the new government’s legitimacy, contributed to the formation of the collective memory of the revolutionary days within the frameworks of their official interpretation. The article uses archival materials of the Department of Agitation and Propaganda of the Central Committee of the RCP (B.), which testify to the importance that the party authorities attached to the scenarios of the festive events. Memoirs of the direct participants in the events played their role in creating heroic myth of the revolution. An obligatory element of the celebration of the anniversaries was meetings with workers revolutionaries and witnesses of the revolutionary events that were arranged at the enterprises. Participation in these “evenings of remembrance” became a way of “self-identification” of an individual in new, socialist society, for speakers, as well as listeners. During these festive meetings, appearance of belonging, not only to the heroic past, but also to the epic present, was created. Specifics and ideological implications of the 1920s–30s memoirs contributed to the use of the “memorial boom” in the forming official narrative of the revolution.

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