The Revival before the Revival : Popular and Institutionalized Religion in Ukraine on the Eve of the Collapse of Communism

Abstract

When present-day observers and historians refer to the phenomenon of “religious revival” in Ukraine and Russia, they usually mean the outburst of religion in the former Soviet Union after the collapse of communism. However, twentieth-century Ukraine witnessed a steady growth of interest in religion, which has not yet been comprehensively explored by scholars. The ongoing enthusiasm for religion challenged the very foundation of official ideology and was perceived by the authorities as a real threat that needed to be eliminated. Yet, by the 1970s and 1980s the failure of antireligious policies became obvious even to Party officials charged with realizing these goals. They could no longer ignore the rise of popular religiosity and religious seeking among Soviet intellectuals and professionals. Spiritual and mystical-religious aspirations engaged broad circles of intel-lectuals by the 1970s and found expression in poetry and the arts. 1 Despite the endless stream of reports on the consistent decline of popular religiosity, religion in everyday life became ever more present in the late Soviet period. Moreover, in spite of substantial resources invested in fighting “illegal sectarian activity,” the so-called religious underground persisted and became even more active. Using archival data, interviews with clergy Communist Party officials, and Soviet propagandists, as well as a variety of published sources, in this chapter I explore the peculiarities of the turn to religion in the 1970s and 1980s against the background of the regime’s continuing efforts to eliminate religion.