From Pre-Revolutionary Study of Religion to Soviet Religious Studies: a Transformation of Scientific Method and Research Techniques and the Formation of the Soviet Way of Dealing with Religious Questions

Вестник Православного Свято-Тихоновского гуманитарного университета: Серия I. Богословие, философия

关键词: Soviet Religious Studies;    Doctrine of Religion;    History of Religious Studies;    History of Science;    Formation of Discourse;    Program of Scientific Research;    Ideology;    Interruption;    M. Foucault;    I. Lakatos;   

DOI  :  

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

The author attempts a step by step analysis of the way religion was studied during the Soviet period. Discussing the way Soviet techniques differed from those of the Tsarist period, the author insists that any idea of a normal progression of ideas must be rejected and that instead we are dealing with a transformation of basic principles and a definitive break with the past. In the first part of his article, the author reviews the transformation of the way religion was dealt with from 1910 until the beginning of the 1930's with the aid of some key concepts put forth by Michel Foucault in his Archeology of Knowledge. Following the suggestions of Imre Lakatos regarding a research programs, the author describes the contributions of the main directives of religious thought during this period: the programs dealing with the spiritual-academic, religious-philosophical, and anthropological sectors. The author concludes by describing the main phases of development, the characteristic aspects, and the particularities of the Soviet approach to religion. The forgoing analysis permits the author to conclude that the Soviet approach to religion represents in no way a development but rather a complete break with pre-revolutionary ways of looking at religion and must be treated as a specific phenomenon. Neither can the Soviet approach, judging by its basic principles, be considered to have anything in common with a normal scientific method of studying religion as this term is generally accepted today. Rather, it was a system conditioned by external factors which clearly took precedence over internal ones to the detriment of any objective study of religion.

【 授权许可】

Unknown