The ethics of persecutors: the provincial socium and anti-church practice (1918–1941)

Author(s):  I.I. Bulychev, Shuya Branch of Ivanovo State University, Shuya, Russia, iv_ shuya@mail.ru

Yu.A. Ivanov, Shuya Branch of Ivanovo State University, Shuya, Russia

Issue:  Volume 43, № 3

Rubric:  Religion Studies and Sociology of Culture

Annotation:  Manifestations of the Soviet "militant atheism" of the 1920–1930s are usually characterized as the disintegration of ethics, the abolition of ideas about good and evil and the total penetration of antireligious practices in everyday life. The reality was more complex and varied than ideological attitudes and sociological schemes. The specifics of the Russian province of that time explains a lot in the "scientific atheism" of the second half of the twentieth century, and the subsequent mass "churching" of the provincial inhabitant in the early XXI century. The article reveals the features of anti-church practice in the Russian province in 1918–1941. As an example, the situation in Shuya, Ivanovo region, is considered. Events in the city in 1922 marked the beginning of state persecution of the church in the twentieth century. The chronology of anti-church activities is studied, including the activities of the authorities, the reaction of the population and the ethical aspects of the problem

Keywords:  ethical problems, propaganda, anti-church legislation, provincial society, churches closing, religious and atheists

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