A Sacred Space Is Never Empty: A History of Soviet Atheism explores the meaning of atheism for religious life, ideology, and for politics. When the Bolsheviks set out to build a new world in the wake of the Russian Revolution, they expected religion to die off. Yet even with a monopoly on ideology and power, the Soviet power never succeeded in "overcoming" religion. Over the course of the Soviet period, atheism was reimagined as an alternative cosmology with its own set of positive beliefs, practices, and spiritual commitments.

This talk will focus on how Soviet atheism’s "spiritual turn" in the late Soviet period, and explore its genealogy, characteristics, and meaning. Finally, it will explore the tension in Soviet ideological work between conviction and attachment as two models of relating to the "Soviet," and how this tension informed the lived experience of late Soviet life. 

Dr. Victoria Smolkin is associate professor of history and Russian, East European, and Eurasian studies at Wesleyan University. A scholar of Russia and the former Soviet Union, her work focuses on Communism, the Cold War, and the intersections of politics with religion and ideology. 

Лекция пройдет на английском языке на платформе Zoom. Зарегистрированные участники получат ссылку на трансляцию на указанную при регистрации почту за час до мероприятия.