The State Museum of the History of Religion in an Atheistic Society: A Consideration of Religious Studies in Soviet Russia

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  • 無神論社会の中の宗教史博物館―ソヴィエト・ロシアにおける宗教研究についての一考察―
  • ムシンロン シャカイ ノ ナカ ノ シュウキョウシ ハクブツカン : ソヴィエト ・ ロシア ニ オケル シュウキョウ ケンキュウ ニ ツイテ ノ イチ コウサツ

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Abstract

Many scholars of religious studies have noticed that there are considerable differences between the concept of“ religion” and the theological approaches toward religion among various regions and countries. For a deconstruction of the concept of “religion, it is worth reviewing the history of religious studies in Soviet Russia, which experienced socialism as a specific type of modernization. Under socialism, religious organizations were prohibited from playing any social role, religious practices were strictly limited in public, and religion was considered to be nonexistent. Nonetheless Soviet scholars continued to research religion under these circumstances, not only in the disciplines of anthropology, ethnography, and oriental studies, but they also created the concept of the“ Study of Religion (nauka o religii),” and after WWII, Scientific Atheism” introduced as a specialized discipline for the religious and atheistic studies. In this paper I analyze the process of organization and development of the State Museum of History of Religion which was established in 1932. Today it is still considered to be the first and largest museum of religion in the world. In the first decades under socialism, Soviet scholars actively accepted the evolutional understanding of religions from their Western colleagues. Later they chose to only develop positivist and reductionist approaches. By the time the Soviet Union collapsed, Soviet religious scholars found an enormous gap between the Marxist-Leninist theory of religion and what empirical research showed

Journal

  • Religion and Society

    Religion and Society 20 (0), 47-60, 2014

    The Japanese Association for the Study of Religion and Society

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