scholarly journals FEATURES OF EARLY SOVIET RELIGIOUS STUDIES ON THE BASIS OF ANALYSIS OF LIFE AND CREATIVE ACTIVITY A. T. LUKACHEVSKY

2021 ◽  
pp. 113-121
Author(s):  
V.S. Tikunov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
General Idea ◽  
Archival Data ◽  
Russian Science ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
History Of ◽  
Science Of Religion ◽  
Soviet Study

In the study of the history of early Soviet religious studies (1917–1931), one of the urgent problems is the question of the relationship between the science of religion and ideology, the competence of atheist authors and the scientific nature of their works. Studying the history of science is a fundamental process and religious studies are no exception. An attempt to reconstruct the way in which Soviet scientists carried out an approach to the study of religion in the USSR is of great scientific importance for the formation of modern religious studies. For modern Russian religious studies, the problem of studying its own history, the search for an original tradition in the Russian science of religion, the formation of a general idea of the place that it occupies in the humanities is very urgent. The main applied methods used in the writing of this article were comparative, systemic and structural-func-tional methods. The materials of archival data on the biography and work of the Soviet researcher of religion and an appeal to the current Russian discussion about the Soviet study of religion made it possible to determine in what way Soviet scientists carried out an approach to the study of religion. In the article, we turned to the well-known discussion between K. M. Antonov and M. M. Shakhnovich on the Soviet study of religion. The first position is K. M. Antonova, who expresses that the Soviet study of religion is not scientific in nature. The second position is that it is too early to draw any conclusions, since there is a lot of unexplored archival data that could present religious studies in the Soviet Union in a new light – refer to M. M. Shakhnovich. Taking both sides into account, we turn to the debut work “Essays on the History of Atheism” by one of the first Soviet researchers of religion – A. T. Lukachevsky, who was not only a scientist, but also known as the deputy chairman of the Union of Militant Atheists of the USSR, the International of Proletarian Freethink¬ers, deputy editor of the journal Anti-Religious. In modern religious studies, you can often find references to the works of Lukachevsky, but despite this fact, there are no special works devoted to the activities of the Soviet re¬searcher (or propagandist?), And the references did not go beyond formal statements. The purpose of our work is to find out whether Lukachevsky pursued religious studies in his work, or whether the work is predominantly propagandistic in nature. The analysis of the “Sketches ...” is supported by the recon-struction of the researcher’s biography, which for the first time in the history of Russian science is introduced into scientific circulation, thanks to the archival documents found in the Archives of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In this article, we turned directly to the representatives of scientific atheism, thanks to which, as we think, influ-enced the study of this phenomenon. This article contributes to modern religious studies discourse about whether the Soviet science of religion was a science in the full sense of the word.

The Role of the Mongolian People’s Republic in the Korean War

2018 ◽  
pp. 97-130
Author(s):  
Denzenlkham Ulambayar
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Korean War ◽  
World Order ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
The Korean War ◽  
History Of

Since the 1990s, when previously classified and top secret Russian archival documents on the Korean War became open and accessible, it has become clear for post-communist countries that Kim Il Sung, Stalin and Mao Zedong were the primary organizers of the war. It is now equally certain that tensions arising from Soviet and American struggle generated the origins of the Korean War, namely the Soviet Union’s occupation of the northern half of the Korean peninsula and the United States’ occupation of the southern half to the 38th parallel after 1945 as well as the emerging bipolar world order of international relations and Cold War. Newly available Russian archival documents produced much in the way of new energies and opportunities for international study and research into the Korean War.2 However, within this research few documents connected to Mongolia have so far been found, and little specific research has yet been done regarding why and how Mongolia participated in the Korean War. At the same time, it is becoming today more evident that both Soviet guidance and U.S. information reports (evaluated and unevaluated) regarding Mongolia were far different from the situation and developments of that period. New examples of this tendency are documents declassified in the early 2000s and released publicly from the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in December 2016 which contain inaccurate information. The original, uncorrupted sources about why, how and to what degree the Mongolian People’s Republic (MPR) became a participant in the Korean War are in fact in documents held within the Mongolian Central Archives of Foreign Affairs. These archives contain multiple documents in relation to North Korea. Prior to the 1990s Mongolian scholars Dr. B. Lkhamsuren,3 Dr. B. Ligden,4 Dr. Sh. Sandag,5 junior scholar J. Sukhee,6 and A. A. Osipov7 mention briefly in their writings the history of relations between the MPR and the DPRK during the Korean War. Since the 1990s the Korean War has also briefly been touched upon in the writings of B. Lkhamsuren,8 D. Ulambayar (the author of this paper),9 Ts. Batbayar,10 J. Battur,11 K. Demberel,12 Balảzs Szalontai,13 Sergey Radchenko14 and Li Narangoa.15 There have also been significant collections of documents about the two countries and a collection of memoirs published in 200716 and 2008.17 The author intends within this paper to discuss particularly about why, how and to what degree Mongolia participated in the Korean War, the rumors and realities of the war and its consequences for the MPR’s membership in the United Nations. The MPR was the second socialist country following the Soviet Union (the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics) to recognize the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) and establish diplomatic ties. That was part of the initial stage of socialist system formation comprising the Soviet Union, nations in Eastern Europe, the MPR, the PRC (People’s Republic of China) and the DPRK. Accordingly between the MPR and the DPRK fraternal friendship and a framework of cooperation based on the principles of proletarian and socialist internationalism had been developed.18 In light of and as part of this framework, The Korean War has left its deep traces in the history of the MPR’s external diplomatic environment and state sovereignty

RUSSIAN DIASPORA. SUMMATION AND RESEARCH PROSPECTS

2020 ◽  
pp. 130-143
Author(s):  
Irina V. Sabennikova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Third Stage ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Significant Phenomenon ◽  
History Of ◽  
Methodological Principles

The historiography of any historically significant phenomenon goes through several stages in its development. At the beginning − it is the reaction of contemporaries to the event they experienced, which is emotional in nature and is expressed in a journalistic form. The next stage can be called a retrospective understanding of the event by its actual participants or witnesses, and only at the third stage there does appear the objective scientific research bringing value-neutral assessments of the phenomenon under study and belonging to subsequent generations of researchers. The history of The Russian Diaspora and most notably of the Russian post-revolutionary emigration passed to the full through all the stages of the issue historiography. The third stage of its studying dates from the late 1980s and is characterized by a scientific, politically unbiased study of the phenomenon of the Russian emigration community, expanding the source base and scientific research methods. During the Soviet period in Russian historiography, owing to ideological reasons, researchers ‘ access to archival documents was limited, which is why scientific study of the history of the Russian Diaspora was not possible. Western researchers also could not fully develop that issue, since they were deprived of important sources kept in Russian archives. Political changes in the perestroika years and especially in the period after the collapse of the Soviet Union increased attention to the Russian Diaspora, which was facilitated by a change in scientific paradigms, methodological principles, the opening of archives and, as a result, the expansion of the source base necessary for studying that issue. The historiography of the Russian Diaspora, which has been formed for more than thirty years, needs to be understood. The article provides a brief analysis of the historiography, identifies the main directions of its development, the research problematics, and defines shortcomings and prospects.

scholarly journals The nature and peculiarities of the use of archival documents in studying the history of Soviet industrial enterprises (on the example of Sevastopol plant of shipboard lightning engineering “Mayak”)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-9
Author(s):  
Anna Vasil'evna Kuz'mina ◽  
Vadim Sergeevich Komogaev
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
City Planning ◽  
Large City ◽  
Annual Reports ◽  
Industrial Enterprises ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Traditional Industry

This article is dedicated to the peculiarities of the use of archival documents in studying the history of Soviet industrial enterprises based on the large, city-planning enterprise of the local traditional industry – Sevastopol plant of shipboard lighting engineering “Mayak”. The authors meticulously examine different types of archival documents and their informational potential for studying operation of the enterprise. The focus of attention is the acts of acceptance and transfer report, annual reports on the workforce, salaries and regulation, as well as the materials of the trade union, and other documents. The article is based on previously unpublished archival documents on the history of Sevastopol industry that have not been previously introduced into the scientific discourse. The author explore separate episodes of the history of the plant, its establishment, evolution, and key results. The main conclusions lies in determination of the types of archival documents, which were most informative in studying the history of the enterprise. The authors indicate that archival funds, and annual reports in particular, are well preserved and contribute to examination of operation of the enterprise. It is underlined that Sevastopol plant of shipboard lighting engineering “Mayak”, which virtually ceased to operate after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, was one of the most significant and dynamically developing industrial enterprises of the city in the 1960s – 1970s. It is worth noting that currently there are projects aimed at the revival of industrial potential of Sevastopol, one of which is the technology part on the territory of the former plant “Mayak”.

scholarly journals Exile and Discipline: The June 1948 Campaign Against Collective Farm Shirkers

2006 ◽  
pp. 73
Author(s):  
Jean Lévesque
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Collective Farm ◽  
Labor Discipline ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
History Of ◽  
Labor Requirements ◽  
The Right ◽  
Agrarian Crisis ◽  
Radical Solution

In February and June 1948, the Stalinist state issued two decrees aimed at a radical solution of the problem of labor discipline among Soviet collective farm peasants. Borne out of the initiative of the Ukrainian Communist Party Secretary N.S. Khrushchev, who found examples of community self-policing in tsarist legislation, the decrees granted collective farm general meetings the right to deport to distant parts of the Soviet Union peasants reluctant to fulfi ll the minimal labor requirements set by the state. Based on a wide array of formerly classifi ed Russian archival documents, this study draws the complete story of this little known page in the history of Stalinist repression. It demonstrates that despite the harshness of the measures employed, the decree did little to force peasants back to work on collective farms given the seriousness of the postwar agrarian crisis.

History of Relations between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union in Documents from Serbian and Russian Archives

2018 ◽  
pp. 630-639
Author(s):  
Irina A. Konoreva ◽  
◽  
Igor N. Selivanov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Far East ◽  
Contemporary History ◽  
Master Program ◽  
East European ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
The Usa ◽  
History Of

The review characterizes two collections of archival documents published in Belgrade and Moscow. They contain materials on the history of Yugoslavo-Soviet relations in 1964-1980s from the Archive of Yugoslavia and the Russian State Archive of Contemporary History. The reviewed collections continue the series of publications of the Archive of Yugoslavia (‘Documents on Yugoslavia Foreign Policy’) and of the International Fund ‘Democracy’ (‘Russia: The 20th century’). The collections contain over 100 documents, most of which are published for the first time. They address problems of international relations and domestic policy of the two countries. These problems were discussed by the leaders of Yugoslavia and the USSR at their one-on-one meetings. These discussions allow to trace the process of establishment of mutually beneficial relations. There are materials on general problems of international relations, as well as regional issues: estimation of the role of the USA in the international affaires; impact of the Non-Aligned Movement; European problems; political situation in the Near, Middle, and Far East, and in the Southeast Asia; etc. The chronological framework include events of the Second Indo-Chinese War. The 2-volume collection includes I. B. Tito’s and L. I. Brezhnev’s assessments of the operations in Vietnam and their characterization of the American policy in the region. Its name index and glossary of abbreviations simplify working with documents. The materials of these collections may be of interest to professional historians, Master Program students specializing in history and international relations, who may use them as an educational resource, and post-graduate students researching issues of World and East-European history.

scholarly journals Introduction: A New History of Russian Science

2002 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 177-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexei Kojevnikov
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Social History ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Soviet Science ◽  
Russian Science ◽  
Short Introduction ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Upheaval

Like almost everything in the Soviet Union, the discipline of history of science and technology altered dramatically during the social upheaval of Gorbachev’s perestroika, in some ways that were predictable, and in other ways that were not. One new direction of research that has since grown into a bourgeoning field – the social history of Russian and Soviet science – is represented by the articles in this volume. This short introduction cannot substitute for a real historiographical study, which will probably appear in due course (see also Gerovitch 1996, Gerovitch 1998, Graham 1993). This is rather a personal memoir about the origin and motivations behind the approach; as incomplete as a participant’s memoir can be, but with some benefits of retrospective hindsight. Ten years ago, at a time of great fluidity in minds and intellectual agendas, many developments were driven primarily by intuition and the sheer momentum of Zeitgeist; now, as things have become somewhat settled, there is time for more reflection.

scholarly journals Production of popular science films in Leningrad: late 1940s – 1960s

2021 ◽  
pp. 75-85
Author(s):  
Mariya Vladimirovna Kalenichenko
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Quantitative Methods ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Central State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Production Stages ◽  
History Of ◽  
History Of Culture ◽  
Definition Of

This article is dedicated to the history of the Soviet popular science cinematography on the example of the Leningrad film studio “Lentekhfilm” / “Lennauchfilm"” during the late 1940s – 1960s.The goal of this work consists in tracing the development and production stages of popular science films at the Leningrad film studio “Lennauchfilm”.  The author sets the following tasks: follow the work of the film studio “Lennauchfilm” based on the archival materials, as well as determine the main plotlines of popular science films of the period under review. The article employs archival documents stored in the fund No. 243 of the St. Petersburg Central State Archive of Literature and Art. Namely, based on the materials of the annual financial and production reports of the film studio, using the quantitative methods, the author carries out the sampling of films that were classified as popular science. The author also applies the problem-chronological method for studying the stages of operation of the film studio. The novelty of this research consists in determination of production volumes of popular science films at a particular film studio, as well as their main themes. As a result, the author highlights six main plotlines: natural sciences, geography of the country, industry and agriculture, education of children and adolescents, history of culture and art, historical-revolutionary. The conclusion is made that the Soviet popular science cinematography was aimed not only at popularization of scientific knowledge (as follows from the definition of the term “popular science film” given in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia), but also performed the important political and civic functions on youth education, distribution of technical knowledge, as well as illustration of the achievements of the Soviet Union in economic and social policy.

Displace of Documentary Heritage from the Soviet Union to Poland during the Third Decade of the XXth Century

2014 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
pp. 127-137
Author(s):  
Tatsiana Hiarnovich
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Agreements ◽  
Peace Treaty ◽  
Actual Process ◽  
Xxth Century ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
Selection Of

The paper explores the displace of Polish archives from the Soviet Union that was performed in 1920s according to the Riga Peace Treaty of 1921 and other international agreements. The aim of the research is to reconstruct the process of displace, based on the archival sources and literature. The object of the research is those documents that were preserved in the archives of Belarus and together with archives from other republics were displaced to Poland. The exploration leads to clarification of the selection of document fonds to be displaced, the actual process of movement and the explanation of the role that the archivists of Belarus performed in the history of cultural relationships between Poland and the Soviet Union. The articles of the Treaty of Riga had been formulated without taking into account the indivisibility of archive fonds that is one of the most important principles of restitution, which caused the failure of the treaty by the Soviet part.

A Sacred Space Is Never Empty

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Smolkin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Sacred Space ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
Sacred Spaces ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Ideology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Experiment

When the Bolsheviks set out to build a new world in the wake of the Russian Revolution, they expected religion to die off. Soviet power used a variety of tools—from education to propaganda to terror—to turn its vision of a Communist world without religion into reality. Yet even with its monopoly on ideology and power, the Soviet Communist Party never succeeded in overcoming religion and creating an atheist society. This book presents the first history of Soviet atheism from the 1917 revolution to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The book argues that to understand the Soviet experiment, we must make sense of Soviet atheism. It shows how atheism was reimagined as an alternative cosmology with its own set of positive beliefs, practices, and spiritual commitments. Through its engagements with religion, the Soviet leadership realized that removing religion from the “sacred spaces” of Soviet life was not enough. Then, in the final years of the Soviet experiment, Mikhail Gorbachev—in a stunning and unexpected reversal—abandoned atheism and reintroduced religion into Soviet public life. The book explores the meaning of atheism for religious life, for Communist ideology, and for Soviet politics.

Vanguard of the Revolution

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. James McAdams
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Party ◽  
Political Institutions ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Modern World ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Revolution

This book is a sweeping history of one of the most significant political institutions of the modern world. The communist party was a revolutionary idea long before its supporters came to power. The book argues that the rise and fall of communism can be understood only by taking into account the origins and evolution of this compelling idea. It shows how the leaders of parties in countries as diverse as the Soviet Union, China, Germany, Yugoslavia, Cuba, and North Korea adapted the original ideas of revolutionaries like Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin to profoundly different social and cultural settings. The book is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand world communism and the captivating idea that gave it life.

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