Nadezhda Alekseevna Beliakova,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Vera Pavlovna Kliueva,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, Tyumen Scientific Centre of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Tyumen, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Outcasts or Honest Workers: Diversity of Representations of Evangelical Believers in the Late USSR
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2022-6-14
The article analyzes the representations of believers in the USSR during the Brezhnev period, and the correlation of religious views with everyday life and Soviet ideology. Authors used field materials collected in religion communities of the former Soviet Union in the 2010s. The main method of data collection is the biographical narrative interview method. These narratives were supplemented and verified by documents of government authorities from central and regional archives and ego-documents of believers (testimonies, memoirs, and letters). The materials of oral history show the position of the believers themselves, who talk about their Soviet experience, and about various practices of exclusion and inclusion. Believers in the Soviet media were portrayed as a marginal and isolated group. The Evangelicals themselves, in their memoirs, describe “feats of faith” and ways of surviving in an anti-religious environment. Modern interviews show the versatility of Soviet society in the period of late socialism and the active involvement of evangelical believers in it. Latent discrimination contributed to the shaping of their identity. The value of their labor potential compensated for their social discrimination as “sectarians”. At the same time, believers learned and practiced Soviet values (ideals) and norms, which is reflected in their speech and behavior patterns. They, like the majority of Soviet people, demonstrated a performative shift in relation to Soviet rituals and practices. It is concluded that in the late USSR, evangelical believers were an organic part of the Soviet social diversity.
Publishing: 28/12/2022
The article has been received by the editor on 25/08/2022
How to cite: Beliakova N.A., Kliueva V.P. Outcasts or Honest Workers: Diversity of Representations of Evangelical Believers in the Late USSR // Historical Courier, 2022, No. 6 (26), pp. 180–194. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2022/ISTKURIER-2022-6-14.pdf]
Links: Issue 6 2022
Keywords: Soviet protestants; Pentecostals; Baptists; marginality; labor in the USSR; communistic morals; work ethic; Christian ethic; religious everyday life; social exclusion