Abstract
Soviet politics was very inconsistent, and the results were inconsistent as well. In this chapter, I will show how a promotion of “scientific atheism” unintentionally caused a revival of paganism. I will address the following themes: how exactly did Neo-paganism converge with Soviet ideology? How did it diverge from it? Were those divergences a further development of Soviet ideas, or were they a fundamental break from them? What was the authorities’ attitude towards neo-pagan activity? What place did the neo-pagans occupy within the Soviet system? What was the attitude of Soviet intellectuals towards Neo-paganism?
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© 2015 Victor A. Shnirelman
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Shnirelman, V.A. (2015). Perun vs Jesus Christ: Communism and the Emergence of Neo-paganism in the USSR. In: Ngo, T.T.T., Quijada, J.B. (eds) Atheist Secularism and its Discontents. Global Diversities. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137438386_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137438386_9
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-68370-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-43838-6
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