Religious Policy in the Soviet Union

by Sabrina Petra Ramet

Overview

This book provides a sweeping and comprehensive analysis of the history of religion in the Soviet Union, tracing its fortunes through the chaos of the 1920s, and the anti-religious persecution of Stalinism, to the slow strangulation of Brezhnev, and the liberalization under Gorbachev. Bringing together fifteen of the West's leading scholars on this subject, the book examines the policy apparatus, atheist education, cults and sects, and recent changes in legislation and policy, presenting hitherto unknown material for the first time.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521022309
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	11/10/2005
Edition description:	Revised ed.
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.06(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.91(d)

Table of Contents

Preface Sabrina Petra Ramet; Part I. Introduction: 1. A survey of Soviet religious policy Philip Walters; 2. Religious policy in the era of Gorbachev Sabrina Petra Ramet;; Part II. Policy Apparatus: 3. The Council for Religious Affairs Otto Luchterhandt; 4. Some reflections about religious policy under Kharchev Jane Ellis; 5. The state, the church, and the oikumene: the Russian Orthodox Church and the World Council of Churches, 1948–85 J. A. Hebly; Part III. Education, Socialisation, and Values: 6. Fear no evil: schools and religion in Soviet Russia, 1917–41 Larry E. Holmes; 7. Soviet schools, atheism and religion John Dunstan; 8. The Ten Commandments as values in Soviet people's consciousness Sameul A. Kliger and Paul H. De Vries; 9. Out of the kitchen, out of the temple: religion, atheism and women in the Soviet Union John Anderson; Part IV. Cults and Sects: 10. Dilemmas of the spirit: religion and atheism in the Yakut-Sakha Republic Marjorie Mandelstam Balzer; 11. The spread of modern cults in the USSR Oxana Antic; Part V. The World of Christianity: 12. The Russian Orthodox Renovationist Movement and its Russian historiography during the Soviet period Anatolii Levitin-Krasnov; 13. The re-emergence of the Ukrainian (Greek) Catholic Church in the USSR Myroslaw Tataryn; 14. Protestantism in the USSR Walter Sawatsky; 15. Epilogue: religion after the collapse Sabrina Petra Ramet; Appendix; Index.

Editorial Reviews

"The book deserves to be in college and university libraries and on the book shelves of all who are interested in Soviet dealings with religion." Paul Mojzes, Slavic Review

"...opens a new stage in the study of religion in the USSR, no longer as a subject of political science but of historical research." Serhii Plokhy, Canadian Slavonic Papers

From the Publisher