Religion in Secular Archives: Soviet Atheism and Historical Knowledge (Oxford Series on History and Archives)

What can atheists tell us about religious life? Russian archives contain a wealth of information on religiosity during the Soviet era, but most of it is written from the hostile perspective of officials and scholars charged with promoting atheism. Based on archival research in locations as diverse as the multi-religious Volga region, Moscow, and Texas, Sonja Luehrmann argues that we can learn a great deal about Soviet religiosity when we focus not just on what documents say but also on what they did. Especially during the post-war decades (1950s-1970s), the puzzle of religious persistence under socialism challenged atheists to develop new approaches to studying and theorizing religion while also trying to control it. Taking into account the logic of filing systems as well as the content of documents, the book shows how documentary action made religious believers firmly a part of Soviet society while simultaneously casting them as ideologically alien. When juxtaposed with oral, printed, and samizdat sources, the records of institutions such as the Council of Religious Affairs and the Communist Party take on a dialogical quality. In distanced and carefully circumscribed form, they preserve traces of encounters with religious believers. By contrast, collections compiled by western supporters during the Cold War sometimes lack this ideological friction, recruiting Soviet believers into a deceptively simple binary of religion versus communism. Through careful readings and comparisons of different documentary genres and depositories, this book opens up a difficult set of sources to students of religion and secularism. What can atheists tell us about religious life? Russian archives contain a wealth of information on religiosity during the Soviet era, but most of it is written from the hostile perspective of officials and scholars charged with promoting atheism. Based on archival research in locations as diverse as the multi-religious Volga region, Moscow, and Texas, Sonja Luehrmann argues that we can learn a great deal about Soviet religiosity when we focus not just on what documents say but also on what they did. Especially during the post-war decades (1950s-1970s), the puzzle of religious persistence under socialism challenged atheists to develop new approaches to studying and theorizing religion while also trying to control it. Taking into account the logic of filing systems as well as the content of documents, the book shows how documentary action made religious believers firmly a part of Soviet society while simultaneously casting them as ideologically alien. When juxtaposed with oral, printed, and samizdat sources, the records of institutions such as the Council of Religious Affairs and the Communist Party take on a dialogical quality.0In distanced and carefully circumscribed form, they preserve traces of encounters with religious believers. By contrast, collections compiled by western supporters during the Cold War sometimes lack this ideological friction, recruiting Soviet believers into a deceptively simple binary of religion versus communism. Through careful readings and comparisons of different documentary genres and depositories, this book opens up a difficult set of sources to students of religion and secularism "What can atheists tell us about religious life? Russian archives contain abundant information on religiosity during the Soviet era, but most of it is filtered through the hostile perspective of militantly atheist institutions. Especially during the postwar decades (1950s-1970s), the persistence of religion under socialism puzzled Soviet officials, challenging them to develop new ways to study, theorize, and ultimately control religion. Sonja Luehrmann argues that we can learn a great deal about Soviet religiosity when we focus not just on what archival documents say but also what they did. By filing reports, forwarding letters of complaint, and administering surveys, religious affairs commissioners and scholars did not simply describe social life but also sought to change it. Through careful analysis of the content as well as the filing systems of archives in the Volga region, Moscow, and Texas, this book shows how Soviet archives made religious people firmly part of Soviet society while simultaneously casting them as ideologically alien. 'Religion in secular archives' opens up a new, complex set of sources to students of religion and secularism. More broadly, it suggests how to approach archives where the goals and sensibilities of the people who did the recording are substantially different from, and often at odds with, those of the people described." -- From the dustjacket Cover 1 Religion in Secular Archives 4 Copyright 5 Contents 6 Acknowledgments 8 Note on Transcription, Translation, and Archival Citation 12 Introduction: Secular Archives, Religious Trouble? 16 Chapter 1 Documentary Acts: Archival Genres in Anti-Religious Struggle 50 Chapter 2 Mirrored Fragments: Archives and Memory 86 Chapter 3 From Documents to Books, and Back: Atheist Sociology through an Archival Lens 116 Chapter 4 Counter-Archives: Sympathy on Record 149 Epilogue: Reversible History and Fragile Archives 177 Notes 184 Bibliography 222 Index 248