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Post by rdxltsheets on Feb 25, 2007 10:50:42 GMT -5
From what I have been able to discern, after the revolution, four main religions were still being practiced underground. They were primarliy the Russian Orthodox chruch(christian), Jewish Orthodox, Lutheran, and Muslim. There were also small groups of others but in all, none were stongly organised because of the repression of religion by the new government. Alot of the churches literatures were destroyed by the government, and what survived today was keep in secret, spread between the membership homes and moved around for fear of dicovery or being destroyed by the war destruction as well.
Today there has been a resurgence of religion and all groups are trying to piece back together the fragments of historical documents.
I know St. Peterburg (Lenningard) was before and is a very large hub of the Lutheran church in Russia. Like wise Muslims of course have a large section of the Baltic region such as Chechneya and the Georgian region.
I would be interested in more information if anyone can direct me tward sources.
Darrell
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Post by tarawajon on Feb 26, 2007 11:52:16 GMT -5
Religion in the Soviet Union is an interesting topic. You might be surprised to know that the Baptists/Evangelical Christians had an different status during the NEP years (1920s). They were considered least offensive or "reactionary" to the Bolsheviks and actually had a resurgence in the 1920s. I think this was largely because of the fact the Orthodox Church had persecuted them so harshly from 1890-1905 until the Tsar signed the edict of toleration on religion in 1905.
Not until the late 20s and 30s did the Baptists get hit really hard. Later in the 1930s they wre combined with the Evangelical Christians. I think they could be counted in the millions in the 1920s. Not huge but significant. They also had strong contacts with the western world which helped get their story out to some degree. Baptists were strong in Georgia, Ukraine, and some areas in Russia. The Evangelical Christians were for the most part located in the St. Petersburg area. Some Baptist strongholds could be found in Siberia as many were exiled there by Pebedonostev. Later the same was true during the Bolshevik times. I will suggest reading "A Song in Siberia" by Anita Dyneka. This has some interesting reading about Baptist families in the last 50 years. I had the privilege to meet some of them a few years ago.
The Lutherans were mainly within the Germanic community in Russia. They did not have much of an impact on the majority of the peoples in Imperial Russia and then the Soviet Union. They did have impact on education and many Lutherans were in governement service. The Batic states were the only place where Lutherans were in the majority.
The Orthodox were of course the dominant Church in Russia and even the Soviet Union. They were decimated by the Bolsheviks but not entirely eliminated. Thousands of their clergy were sent to a former monestery near the artic circle and never heard from again. Many perished building a useless canal in the north.
All in all, a sad tale but one in which the Christians of the Soviet Union never gave up. Today Christianity in Russian still suffers the most from the lack of training of clergy.
There really are many sources on Religion in Russia. I will have to consult a few sources. Do you have anything particular you are interested in reading more about?
TJ
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Post by velodya on Aug 11, 2009 17:39:00 GMT -5
I understand that religion, most especially the Russian Orthodox Church, experienced a major resurgence in the war. It was allowed to operate under supervision.
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Post by crazydima on Aug 13, 2009 14:20:53 GMT -5
Tovarisch,
You are correct. Things did change especially by 1943.
Stalin initially followed the party line of the Bolsheviks who had been trying to destroy the church since they came to power.
Now Stalin may have been a psycho and paranoid and all sorts of other problems but he was no fool. He had learned how to be a master manipulator of the people.
So when Stalin realized just how bad things were getting during the invasion he realized that he needed to use every resource available to him in order to save the day.
Bullets and beans are necessary to fight a war but he he realized it is just as important to have the will to fight. So keeping the morale of the people up is a lot easier with the aid of the church and hopes of divine intervention.
Not to mention financial support and material support from the church for such things as the St. Dimitry Donskoy Tank Column and the St. Alexander Nevsky Squadron.
None the less a tight leash was maintained.
Another indication of Stalin's ability to read the people and manipulate them was the change in uniforms in 1943 back to the Czarist style tunics.
He was very good at being very bad. LOL!
Sincerely,
Dima
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Post by dixieflyer on Aug 13, 2009 17:28:52 GMT -5
Yep, that was pretty much how it unfolded, etc. IIRC, Bessonov wrote in his memiors about Soviet soldiers fashioning crosses out of the metal from meat tins. However they told the politruk that it was a gift from an old "grandmother" who was giving them food, and that to refuse it would have been rude.
Yuri
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Post by vsahdneek on Aug 30, 2009 22:46:09 GMT -5
The party was full of aetheists, and this is what they pushed, but could you get into the party
as an agnostic?
Vlad
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Post by vsahdneek on Feb 7, 2010 23:55:00 GMT -5
Did the cult of personality for Stalin or any other leader in the USSR ever describe the Zvod or any other leader as any kind of divine agent like they do in North Korea with Kim Jung Il ?
Volodymyr
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Post by dixieflyer on Feb 10, 2010 16:39:51 GMT -5
Vlad, to the best of my knowledge, party membership required you to claim/affirm you were an atheist.
Yuri S.
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Post by ixemirigaz on May 5, 2019 18:54:43 GMT -5
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