The problem of the origin of religion in the Soviet historiography of 1920–30s

Authors

  • Olga V. Metel Dostoevsky Omsk State University, 55a Mira Avenue, Omsk 644077, Russia

Keywords:

the origin of religion, the animism, Marxism, the science of religions in USSR, The Communist Academy, V. K. Nikolsky, A. T. Lukachevsky
Supporting Agencies
The publication was prepared while working of the scientific project № 16-01-50040 «Laboratory of Marxist Thought: History of the Communist Academy in the Context of the Formation of Soviet Historical Science (1918–1936)». This project was supported by Russian Foundation for Basic Research

Abstract

The author examines the history of studying the problem of the origin of religion in the Soviet historiography of 1920–30s. She thinks that in the 1920s animistic theory was the basis of the Soviet Marxist approach to the study of religion, but in the early 1930s, this theory had been criticized and had to be replaced by a different approach, which was to be based on the ideas of K. Marx, F. Engels and V. I. Lenin. However, many authors simply changed the previous ideas: they replaced the source of religious beliefs and said the object of the original animation (now they became nature).

Author Biography

  • Olga V. Metel, Dostoevsky Omsk State University, 55a Mira Avenue, Omsk 644077, Russia

    PhD (history); senior lecturer at the department of universal history, faculty of history

References

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Published

2017-12-29

Issue

No. 4 (2017): Journal of the Belarusian State University. History

Section

To the 140th anniversary of the birth of N. M. NIkolsky and V. N. Pertsev

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How to Cite

[1]
Metel, O.V. 2017. The problem of the origin of religion in the Soviet historiography of 1920–30s. Journal of the Belarusian State University. History. 4 (Dec. 2017), 28–33.