Communicating Religion and Atheism in Central and Eastern Europe 9783110547085, 9783110546378

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Communicating Religion and Atheism in Central and Eastern Europe

Religion and Its Others

Studies in Religion, Nonreligion and Secularity Edited by Stacey Gutkowski, Lois Lee and Johannes Quack

Volume 9

Communicating Religion and Atheism in Central and Eastern Europe Edited by Jenny Vorpahl and Dirk Schuster

ISBN 978-3-11-054637-8 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-054708-5 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-054655-2 ISSN 2330-6262 Library of Congress Control Number: 2020932497 Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2020 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com

Table of Contents Jenny Vorpahl, Dirk Schuster “This book is the book of truth” – Introduction

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Dirk Schuster The rise and fall of the ‘Marxist sociology of religion’ in the GDR

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Johannes Gleixner Beginnings of a Soviet sociology of religion and the (anti‐)religiosity of Muscovite workers (1925 – 1932) Creating the antireligious subject 41 Ksenia Kolkunova Rejected but not forgotten Scientific atheism’s concepts in contemporary Russia Daniela Schmidt Distancing, defamation, criminalization Religion-related vocabulary in GDR dictionaries

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Zdeněk R. Nešpor (Un)willing fellow or enemy? The public discourse on religion in Czechoslovakia in the first two decades of communist rule and the divergent responses of the churches 105 Johann Ev. Hafner From indoctrination to testimonials The book gifts for Jugendweihe in the GDR and reunified Germany Jenny Vorpahl “Proletarian culture does not fall from heaven” Patterns of legitimation in the reception of ritual traditions in the 145 GDR

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Manuela Möbius-Andre Christian heritage in the art policy of the German Democratic Republic 175 Alexandra Coțofană The importance of a meaningless 1989 Romanian political theologies and the religious left Anna Vancsó Religion in the public and private sphere Changes in religious knowledge in Hungary since 1945

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Ankica Marinović Transfer of knowledge about atheism and new religious movements Analysis of religious instruction textbooks in public schools in Croatia 237 Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić Science as an alternative symbolic universe among members and 257 organizations of nonreligious people and atheists in Croatia Marta Kołodziejska Religious knowledge as the common ground The case study of atheists on catholic online forums in Poland Jenny Vorpahl Central results List of Contributors Index

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“This book is the book of truth” – Introduction 1 Preliminary remarks

“Dieses Buch ist das Buch der Wahrheit.”¹ [“This book is the book of truth.”] With these words, Secretary General of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Walter Ulbricht, begins his foreword to Weltall Erde Mensch. The book has a programmatic character and was “meant to pass on the canonical knowledge of socialism.”² The dissemination of knowledge on the narrative of progress as an essential notion within the materialistic concept of history is one example of processes of knowledge transfer. The encyclopedic Weltall Erde Mensch was gifted to every participant of the Jugendweihe in GDR times, explaining social progress as follows: Because the development of society follows an objective set of patterns, linear progress in evolution, economics, science and ethics will automatically result in socialism. This concept of history and progress can also be found in party programs, speeches, scientific works, cultural policy publications, propaganda material, teaching materials and school textbooks. Integrating disparate phenomena into a linear storyline serves as a legitimation for a new interpretation of the world.³ How this storyline of progress is reproduced by nonreligious and religious agents during and after the socialist period varies from acceptance right up to rejection or ignorance. Our aim is to investigate the truth claims of worldviews within contexts shaped by the Soviet socialist system. We seek to extract characteristics of the legitimation processes and changes emerging in religion-related discourses actually operating in these societies before and after 1990.⁴ Although atheism is

 Walter Ulbricht, “Zum Geleit,” in Weltall Erde Mensch. Ein Sammelwerk zur Entwicklungsgeschichte von Natur und Gesellschaft. ed. Alfred Kosing, 15th ed. (Berlin: Neues Leben, 1967), 5.  See Johann Hafners article in this volume.  Peter L. Berger, and Thomas Luckmann, The social construction of reality. A treatise in the sociology of knowledge (London: Penguin Books, 1991 [= 1966]), 110 – 1.  See the central results to this volume as well as Berger, and Luckmann, Social Construction, 421– 3. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547085-001

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not the main issue in Marxist theory, it is an essential aspect of it.⁵ Against all odds, religion did not dissolve under socialist conditions to the extent that might have been expected. The relation between religious and nonreligious concepts has always been an issue. Encounters with colleagues at conferences in Zadar, Helsinki, Jerusalem and Tartu⁶ drew our attention to research projects focusing on nonreligious and religious organizations, practices, norms and values in countries that used to belong to the Eastern Bloc or were satellite states.⁷ Currently, innovative projects deal with secularity and nonreligion, with a focus on Western as well as Asian, African or Middle Eastern contexts.⁸ Publications presenting recent research results from different Central and East European countries reflecting on the relation between religion and nonreligion with regard to the socialist period are relatively rare. One project, which emphasized the key role of religion in Cold War times and led the way to discuss this factor more thoroughly, is a volume, edited by Dianne Kirby in 2003. It concentrates on church officials and policy-makers on both sides of the Iron Curtain and reveals the influence of religious ideas and language in propaganda and warfare.⁹ By including developments in the first years after the communist era, Sabrina Ramet also offers insights into relations between religious institutions, state and society in Central and Eastern Europe,

 See Ulrike Klötzing-Madest, Der Marxismus-Leninismus in der DDR – eine politische Religion? Eine Analyse anhand der Konzeptionen von Eric Voegelin, Raymond Aron und Emilio Gentile (Baden Baden: Nomos, 2017).  12th International Study of Religion in Eastern and Central Europe Association Conference & European Sociological Association RN34 Mid-Term Conference Religion and Non-Religion in Contemporary Societies, Zadar 2016; conference of the European Association for the Study of Religion, Helsinki 2016; conference 500 Years of Reformation. Jews and Protestants – Judaism and Protestantism, Jerusalem 2017; conference Old Religion and New Spirituality: Continuity and Changes in the Background of Secularization, Tartu 2015.  The exception is the former Yugoslavia, but due to the ideological similarities with regard to religion with the states of the Eastern Bloc, we also present two examples from the former Yugoslavia.  For example, the research projects ‘The Diversity of Nonreligion’ (University of Zurich), ‘Multiple Secularities – Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities’ (University of Leipzig); ‘Nonreligious Belief’ (University College London); ‘Understanding Unbelief’ (University of Kent); the ‘Nonreligion and Secularity Research Network’; the journals Secularism and Nonreligion (Ubiquity Press) and Secular Studies (Brill), as well as previous volumes of the series Religion and its Others. Studies in Religion, Nonreligion and Secularity (DeGruyter). See also the recent publication A Secular Age beyond the West. Religion, Law and the State in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, eds. John Madeley, Mirjam Künkler, and Shylashri Shankar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018).  See Dianne Kirby, ed. Religion and the Cold War (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillian, 2003).

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but without including the historiography of science.¹⁰ The volume Science, Religion and Communism in Cold War Europe examines the impact of the promotion of science and the official elimination of religion in countries of the so called ‘Soviet Bloc’ during the time of the Cold War. From a comparative perspective, the contributions show that clear boundaries between the (natural) sciences and religion can hardly be drawn in this context. Considering the cultural traditions and balances of power within these different states, this volume provides a more differentiated view on the adaptation of antireligious policy. By investigating the interpenetration of science and religion in education, the social sciences and cultural heritage, as well as individual beliefs and practice, the authors contribute to a reevaluation of the relation between secularism and religion.¹¹ Jan Tesař also chooses a comparative approach when investigating the relevance of scientific atheism as part of knowledge production about religion in the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia before 1991.¹² This book is primarily about the developments of scientific atheism as separate ‘thought system’ in the two states, which directly and indirectly affected the decisions of the power representatives. Tesař understands scientific atheism as “a parallel science, or parallel scholarship, because scientific atheism is not in fact an ‘exact science’ but rather an aggregate of social sciences and humanities. By the term parallel science is meant the notion of the separation of Western and Eastern knowledge on political, philosophical, and ideological grounds.”¹³ Tesař criticizes previous (Czech) works on this topic since the breakdown of the Iron Curtain, because they

 See Sabrina P. Ramet, Nihil obstat. Religion, Politics, and Social Change in East-Central Europe and Russia, (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998).  In the introduction, Stephen A. Smith criticizes the tendencies of previous scholarly literature to focus on state repression and propaganda, on the leadership of political and religious institutions and on the Soviet Union, while treating religion and science as distinct fields in the context of the Cold War. He lists the respective publications as well as a few works that feature new tendencies, interrupting the established practices in doing historiography. Cf. Stephen A. Smith, “Introduction,” in Science, Religion and Communism in Cold War Europe, eds. Paul Betts, and Stephen A Smith, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 1– 3. In addition, several volumes include some articles dealing with secularities in post-Communist and Eastern Europe, e. g. Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion, volume 7 (2016), Multiple Secularities beyond the West. Religion and Modernity in the Global Age, eds. Marian Burchardt, Monika WohlrabSahr, and Matthias Middell (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015) and Atheist Secularism and Its Discontents. A Comparative Study of Religion and Communism in Eurasia, eds. Tam T. T. Ngo, and Justine B. Quijada (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).  Tesař does not give even one explanation for why he chose just these two countries for his study. Jan Tesař, The History of Scientific Atheism. A Comparative Study of Czechoslovakia and Soviet Union (1954 – 1991) (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2019).  Tesař, The History, 11.

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[evaluate] the past development of the esoteric thought style not from the perspective of historical actors but from the current perspective of the dominant discourse, which in the Czech Republic is at least partially in its anti-communist phase.¹⁴

Interestingly enough, his book reflects exactly the still prevailing tendencies in scholarly works on religion, nonreligion and atheism in the Eastern Bloc between 1945 and 1991 that Smith criticized in his introduction:¹⁵ the exaggeration of religion and scientific atheism as distincted fields, the focus on developments on the political and organizational levels as well as the recurrent reference to the Soviet Union as the decisive framework for comparison in this field of research – if a comparative study is sought, it takes place in relation to the Soviet Union as policymaker for this region and benchmark for research. That is why we are using a different starting point for our project – taking up the approach of Betts and Smith: We focus on the technologies of knowledge transfer by analyzing discourses about religion, atheism and science in different media and from different viewpoints. Therefore, we assembled colleagues who investigate historical as well as recent phenomena in former socialist nations, testifying the transfer of knowledge regarding religion and atheism. The scope of this volume is thus defined by the historical watershed before and after socialism. On the methodological level, the sociology of knowledge approach to discourse as a combination of the sociology of knowledge and discourse analysis defines the frame for this project.¹⁶ Theoretical and empirical relationships between atheism and religion, negotiated in contexts where socialism and Marxism are influential factors are examined. We are aware that we cannot offer a satisfying discourse analysis, which is in any case incomplete. At least we aim to demonstrate the complexity of the discourse by including diverse voices on several organizational levels, communicated by various media, coming from different cultural contexts, shaped by different symbol systems and changing power structures. We thereby go beyond the level of everyday knowledge and behavior and their individual interpretations. Hermeneutic approaches to the sociology of knowledge neglect collective stocks of knowledge and the transfer of knowledge

 Tesař, The History, 26.  Smith, “Introduction,” 1– 3.  We will refer primarily to Berger, and Luckmann, The social construction; Reiner Keller, Hubert Knoblauch, and Jo Reichertz, eds., Kommunikativer Konstruktivismus. Theoretische und empirische Arbeiten zu einem neuen wissenssoziologischen Ansatz (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2013) and Reiner Keller, Wissenssoziologische Diskursanalyse. Grundlegung eines Forschungsprogramms. 3rd ed. (Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2011).

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on an institutional level.¹⁷ Reiner Keller argues that the investigation of knowledge production and institutionalization needs to consider not merely the social micro-level but also macro-social contexts, the institutional mechanisms of knowledge production and transmission.¹⁸ He takes up leads in Berger’s and Luckmann’s work that refer to the relation between ideas, institutions¹⁹ and social change. Especially in modern societies, theoretical ideas and expert-based interpretations of reality infiltrate into everyday knowledge. Therefore, the collective production, circulation and manifestation of knowledge, as well as their social basis in the form of institutions, has to be considered.²⁰ This approach explains the focal points of this volume: Agents and organizations, seen as responsible and competent in producing knowledge about atheism and religion, express ideological claims and regulate which ‘truths’ are published by which media. According to political and social changes, the roles of experts shift from scientists to clerics, from religious to nonreligious agents. Attempts to achieve homogenization meet with tendencies toward pluralization, questioning and withdrawing into the private sphere or internal distancing. The only constant is the necessity of adapting policies and methods of transmitting knowledge and reformulating ideas and principles according to the current balances of power and the reception of beliefs, norms and identity models by individuals. Religion offers theoretical as well as practical answers to existential questions. It provides a symbolic universe, which integrates and legitimizes every sector of the institutional order and all human experience in an all-embracing frame of reference.²¹ As such, it needs to be questioned whether alternative interpretations of the world also occur in a society. Conceptualizations for maintaining a symbolic universe entail continuity between the social and cosmic orders, as well as between all respective legitimations. Such conceptualizations can be mythological, theological, philosophical or scientific.²² A competitive situation between symbolic universes with their different bodies of knowledge generates a competition for power – which one will be accepted by (the main segments of) society as plausible  Thereby, we draw upon Reiner Keller, who criticizes this one-sidedness and emphasizes systematized and institutionalized forms of knowledge production. See Keller, Diskursanalyse, 180 – 5.  See ibid.  Institutions here are understood as temporary crystallized symbolic structures that regulate action. See Keller, Diskursanalyse, 190.  See Keller, Diskursanalyse, 180 – 5. Adding discourse analysis to the sociology of knowledge draws attention to the rules of communication, the allocation of meanings, opportunities for action and resources for the dissemination of knowledge.  See Berger, and Luckmann, Social Construction, 114.  Berger, and Luckmann, Social Construction, 128 – 30.

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and relevant for its coordination and development?²³ The establishment of socialist forms of government in the Soviet sphere of influence was not merely an issue of repression, but also of persuasion. An opposition between institutionalized religion and atheist ideology, between religious teachings and modern science was constructed.²⁴ In the light of the competition between two systems of knowledge, the state had to come up with counter-institutions. Institutions are granted power in order to establish their privileged actions as relevant for the social order.²⁵ The adherence to institutionalized norms, interpretations, values, roles, expressions, practices or symbols is supported by social control and can additionally be enforced by the imposition of sanctions.²⁶ Discourse structures are power structures, but the generated schemata for perception, interpretation and action are addressed to the individual, who is not powerless. Agents reproduce, update and change those patterns by using them within the socio-historical frame in which they live. Regarding social agents, the sociology of knowledge approach to discourse is primarily interested in their position and role in organizational settings, as well as their strategies for dealing with given stocks of knowledge and guidelines.²⁷ These theoretical reference points help concentrate the focus on the framework conditions, methods and mechanisms by which concepts of atheism and religion were constructed, transmitted, perceived and transformed. Therefore, the negotiation and construction of truths, patterns of action and interpretive frames are always re-bound to the cultural and institutional frame. To investigate

 Berger, and Luckmann, Social Construction, 126 – 7.  Such a dualistic construction was not only part of the former Soviet system. It is also shaping recent conflicts between religious and nonreligious people. See Anthony Carroll, and Richard Norman, eds. Religion and Atheism. Beyond the Divide (London: Routledge, 2017); Lori G. Beaman, and Steven Tomlins, eds. Atheist Identities – Spaces and Social Contexts (New York: Springer, 2015) ; Petra Klug, Anti-Atheism in the United States (PhD diss., Universität Bremen 2018). For the subjective acceptance and logics of forced secularization see Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, Uta Karstein, and Thomas Schmidt-Lux, Forcierte Säkularität. Religiöser Wandel und Generationendynamik im Osten Deutschlands (Frankfurt, Campus-Verlag 2009), 13 – 28.  See Hubert Knoblauch, “Über die kommunikative Konstruktion der Wirklichkeit,” in Zur kommunikativen Konstruktion von Räumen. Theoretische Konzepte und empirische Analysen, ed. Gabriela B. Christmann (Wiesbaden: Springer, 2016), 37– 8.  Berger, and Luckmann, Social Construction, 72– 3.  For the discussion around the concept of the subject in discourse analysis, see Keller, Diskursanalyse, 204– 23 and 253 – 5. Dealing with actions of social agents includes looking at different materials: In newspaper articles, promotional material, speeches, websites, schoolbooks, laws, artefacts, etc., discourse structures are realized, reproduced and adapted and have consequences. See Keller, Diskursanalyse, 236 – 7.

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examples of the respective religion-and-atheism discourse, we focus on the following questions: – What was/is said about religion and atheism and what should have been said according to the ideological claims?²⁸ – Where are the distinctions between religious and atheist worldviews, and are there compromises or blendings, combining different traditions? – Which educational norms and ideals are derived from the specific concepts of religion and atheism? – Which phenomena can be interpreted as the result of national or individual developments of a Marxist heritage? – Do atheists understand religion in primarily theistic terms?²⁹

2 A historical watershed – 100 years since the October Revolution With the takeover of power in Russia by the Bolsheviks in 1917, a state structure emerged for the first time in which Marxism, complemented by Leninism, became the decisive ideological framework for a nation.³⁰ As a result of the Second World War and the expansion of power in the Soviet sphere of influence, a system was established in large parts of Eastern and Central Europe, which placed Marxism-Leninism at the center of the social systems of nation states. Repressive actions accompanying the expansion of power also had a direct impact on the position and power of institutionalized religion, on the majority of the denominations, and on the possibilities and forms of religious practice.³¹ Fundamental for these dynamics in the religious field was the functionalist interpretation of religion by Karl Marx.³² According to his theory, institutional-

 Thereby, individual as well as collective agents are considered, because the construction, maintenance and transformation of symbolic universes did and does take place at the individual as well as institutional levels.  The last question is based on a suggestion by Lois Lee, “Research Note: Talking about a Revolution: Terminology for the New Field of Non-religion Studies,” Journal of Contemporary Religion 27, no. 1 (2012): 135.  See, for example, Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution (Oxford: University Press, 2017); China Miéville, October. The Story of the Russian Revolution (London: Verso, 2017); Manfred Hildermeier, Die Sowjetunion 1917 – 1991 (Munich: Oldenbourg, 2001).  See Nadezhda Beljakova, Thomas Bremer, and Katharina Kunter, “Es gibt keinen Gott!” Kirchen und Kommunismus. Eine Konfliktgeschichte (Freiburg/B.: Herder, 2016).  Marx’s interpretation of religion found further recognition in religion-related studies. One example is Bourdieu’s concept of the religious field which is based upon Marx’s concept. See

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ized religion served the exploitation and oppression of the poor by the ruling class. Its alleged central functions were the negation of human dignity and capabilities, as well as the creation of an illusory fantasy in order to keep people servile and amenable to accepting the status quo. This was characterized by suffering due to their alienation from the products of their labor and from themselves as human beings. With the propagated aim of abolishing class distinctions in socialism, religion would lose these functions and would disappear over the medium term in a process of erosion. Since religion did not immediately disappear with the takeover and consolidation of power by communist parties in Soviet-influenced states, the new rulers not only put pressure on institutionalized religions, but also relied on the dissemination of knowledge. Forms of atheistic propaganda were based on the assumption that religion is an anachronism, namely […] something that is still present at the present time, but actually comes from the past and has no future. […] Once science and, with it, the enlightenment of society as a whole has progressed far enough, there is no longer a need for that backwardness which is offered as religion.³³

Hence, a primary concern for the socialist rulers was imparting a scientific interpretation of the world.³⁴ Science was seen as the only rational possibility to explain all events and developments. In the socialist perception, Scientism was meant to be a totalitarian worldview, which, in “explicit competition with […] religion, raises the exclusive claim to manuals and world interpretations.”³⁵ One task of scientific atheism was the deconstruction of religion.³⁶

Bryan Turner, “Pierre Bourdieu and the Sociology of Religion,” in The Legacy of Pierre Bourdieu: Critical Essays, eds. Simon Susan, and Bryan Turner (London; New York: Anthem Press, 2011), 239 – 40.  André Kieserling, Selbstbeschreibung und Fremdbeschreibung. Beiträge zur Soziologie soziologischen Wissens (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 2004), 160 – 1. [translated into English by Alexandra Gentner].  Since the late 1940s, the interest in science in the Eastern Bloc increased sharply, especially since science was no longer understood only as a tool in the class struggle, but scientific results should also serve the general technical and social progress. Cf. Smith, “Introduction,” 13.  Thomas Schmidt-Lux, Wissenschaft als Religion. Szientismus im ostdeutschen Säkularisierungsprozess, (Würzburg: Ergon, 2008), 125 [translated into English by Alexandra Gentner].  Tesař denies such a general understanding of scientific atheism as “a form of scholarship, pseudo- or quasi-science or rather a form of ideological doctrine, completely detached from the scientific method of any scholarly discipline.” He wants to dissociate scientific atheism from these categorizations of Western and Eastern scholars and would like to understand scientific atheism instead as a ‘parallel science.’ However, apart from the reference to those catego-

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On the political level, Soviet prescriptions made it hard for national government policies in the Eastern Bloc to create individual concepts. However, especially in the field of religious policy, national representatives had a certain scope within which to establish their own concepts of religion and atheism, and to react to social developments in religious discourses and fields of action.³⁷ Two examples should be mentioned here: The communist rulers in Poland saw themselves compelled to make concessions to the Catholic Church in order to weaken social pressure on the basis of their anti-church policy. The historically conditioned close relationship between Polish national identity and the Catholic Church did not lead to a decline in vital religiosity during the second half of the 20th century.³⁸ By contrast, the distancing of Bohemian society from the church in the 19th and early 20th centuries in the context of the national movement, which was accompanied by anticlerical propaganda, was a decisive factor in the persistent nonreligiosity of large parts of the Czech population.³⁹ Klaus Buchenau has shown the heterogeneity of political approaches to religion and atheism within the Soviet satellite states, as well as in the former Yugoslavia, in his overview.⁴⁰ Therefore, this book has two main foci in terms of content: first, the theoretical and practical claims made by organizations, which tried to spread knowledge about religion and atheism in order to construct and maintain a takenfor-granted reality; and second, the organization, implementation and reception of those claims on a pragmatic level. This level can be further separated into two

rizations of scientific atheism which he rejects, it remains completely unclear on what his classification as a ‘parallel science’ should be based. The explanation of a ‘parallel science’ as “the notion of the separation of Western and Eastern knowledge on political, philosophical and ideological grounds” provides no answer for this. Tesař, History, 11.  Klaus Buchenau, “Socialist Secularities: The Diversity of a Universalist Model,” in Multiple secularities beyond the West. Religion and Modernity in the Global Age, eds. Marian Burchardt, Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, and Matthias Middell, (Berlin; Boston: DeGruyter, 2015), 269. The contributions of this volume can draw on the already accomplished research to which Buchenau refers in order to contextualize our empirical data from different countries. Other publications that can be used for this purpose are, for example, Beljakova, Bremer and Kunter, “Es gibt keinen Gott” and Ramet, Nihil obstat or John Anderson, Religion, State and Politics in the Soviet Union and Successor State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), who focus mainly on the party politics of the Soviet Union since the era of Khrushchev.  Regarding Poland and East Germany, see Detlef Pollack and Gergely Rosta, Religion in der Moderne. Ein internationaler Vergleich (Frankfurt/Main; New York: Campus, 2015), 289 – 312.  See f. e. Zdeněk R. Nešpor, “Der Wandel der tschechischen (Nicht‐)Religiosität im 20. Jahrhundert im Lichte soziologischer Forschungen,” Debatte und Kritik. Historisches Jahrbuch 129 (2009): 501– 32.  Buchenau, “Socialist Secularities”.

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realms of experience: the public and the private sphere. Thereby, both forms of discourse, specialized discourses (e. g. political, scientific, educational, economic) as well as public discourses (mass media, interaction) are investigated with regard to their regulations and effects.⁴¹ Institutions and/or single agents are identified as transmitters of the objectified knowledge. The evaluation of (some of) the research questions posed above (see Section 1) helps to pinpoint their philosophical and ideological position within the discourse, which negotiates the relation between religion and atheism and/or religion and science. Pieces of the discourse-puzzle include the role of atheists and their religious knowledge in Polish Catholic online forums, scientific atheism as an academic discipline in the Soviet Union and the GDR, Croatian textbooks for religious education in public schools, and GDR dictionaries dealing with religion-related vocabulary. The broad range of sources investigated in this anthology gives the reader an impression of the different communicative levels that were and are involved in the establishment or questioning of the institutionalized opposition between religion and atheism. This approach opens up the view to the repetitive and multidimensional nature of the transfer of knowledge on the two concepts, as well as to the negotiation involved in legitimations, which are partially accepted as given by recipients. The positions of the individual agents within the religion-atheism discourse show the plurality, complexity and sometimes ambiguity of their relationship to religious and nonreligious worldviews.⁴² Johannes Gleixner has shown in his research that there have been attempts to combine these worldviews.⁴³ Such blurred lines are also present in the contributions of Alexandra Coţofană, Zdeněk R. Nešpor and Ksenia Kolkunova to this volume. By contrast, the articles of Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić, Johann Ev. Hafner and Daniela

 On the demand by the sociology of knowledge approach to discourse for a connection between the perspective of institutional, specialized discourses and that of public discourses, see Keller, Diskursanalyse, 189 and 232.  As has been emphasized by Smith, the Bolsheviks never had a coherent plan for dealing with religions, or a unified strategy for antireligious propaganda – especially as the religious policy in the Soviet Union changed under the rule of the Secretary General. See Smith, “Introduction,” 6 – 9. Taking into account the fact that the individual states of the Eastern Bloc enjoyed relative autonomy in terms of their religious policies, it is indispensable to trace the respective discourses by investigating the empirical data which are relevant for the specific context. To interpret (anti‐)religious acts and worldviews for the entire sphere of Soviet influence only on the basis of Marxist-Leninist theory is misleading, as the book by Alfred Hoffmann illustrates: Alfred Hoffmann, “Mit Gott einfach fertig.” Untersuchungen zu Theorie und Praxis des Atheismus im Marxismus-Leninismus der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (Leipzig: St. Benno, 2000).  Johannes Gleixner, “Menschheitsreligionen”. T.G. Masaryk, A.V. Lunačarskij und die religiöse Herausforderung revolutionärer Staaten (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2017).

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Schmidt show typical examples of counter-narratives in which one worldview has been positioned to confront other worldviews, such as religion.

3 Religion-related terms To ensure transparency regarding the heterogenous material and contexts, a consistent set of definitions of the terms ‘nonreligion,’ ‘secular,’ ‘atheism,’ ‘religion’ and ‘worldview’ is essential. The approaches of Lois Lee and Monika Wohlrab-Sahr paved the way for our understanding of ‘nonreligion,’ ‘secular’ and ‘secularity.’ We will try to synthesize them by adding a distinction with regard to our topic, since they require elaboration and cannot simply be juxtaposed: According to Lee, ‘nonreligion’ is the master concept for studying different phenomena which are “primarily defined by a relationship of difference to religion.”⁴⁴ She emphasizes that not only negatively connoted, hostile or negatory orientations are included in this, but also positive ones, such as the appreciation of religion even though the individual does not accept religious belief systems for his or her own worldview.⁴⁵ Consequently, atheist, agnostic, antireligious and indifferent positions are examples of subcategories of nonreligiosity, while phenomena such as ‘rationalism’ or ‘humanism’ do not fit into this definition if they can be described without reference to religion.⁴⁶ Lee is mainly interested in investigating nonreligion at an individual or group level, reflecting the emic perspective. She refuses to incorporate ‘secular’ or ‘secularity’ in her model, understood as “everything, which is not religious or primarily religious.”⁴⁷ This broad definition is surely not useful for analyzing and differentiating phenomena. Such a blurry notion can mean (almost) anything. Yet, we aim to retrieve the notion of the ‘secular’ as a category, which is related to the religious field and is also a subcategory of nonreligion. It is a term for the results of the differentiation between the religious and other spheres outside the religious. It refers to socio-historical processes and can therefore be described as postreligious. ‘Secular’ is needed as the appropriate ascription not for describing attitudes of individuals, but for institutionalized action and interpre-

 Lee, “Research Note,” 131. For Lee’s vocabulary for the study of nonreligion, see: Lois Lee, Recognizing the Non-Religious. Reimagining the Secular (Oxford: University Press, 2015), 21– 48.  See Lee, “Research Note,” 132.  See Lee, “Research Note,” 131 and 133.  Lee, “Research Note,” 134. See also p. 136: “Non-religion is primarily defined here in reference to religion, whereas the secular is primarily defined by something other than religion.”

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tation patterns, for organizations, norms, and further issues which are shaped by secularization processes. Soviet communism promoted secularization processes in every aspect of social life. Religious motifs, practices and interpretations were selected, adapted, transformed and reinterpreted.⁴⁸ Such a state-enforced secularization had various effects on the individual. However, the institutional and public secularization created the frame for the secularization of consciousness. Therefore, the term ‘secular’ is especially necessary for describing phenomena within the context which is decisive in this book. This implies that we differentiate between different levels of secularization and its ‘products’, just as others have before. While Charles Taylor uses the terms ‘secular’ and ‘secularity’ quite synonymously, he distinguishes between three meanings of secularity: First, there is no longer any reference to an ultimate reality or religious beliefs in public spheres. The various areas of society are instead determined by their own rationality. The second meaning consists of the decline of religious belief and practice on the individual level. The third meaning refers to the conditions of belief: Taylor calls a society secular if belief (in God) no longer remains unchallenged, but becomes simply one embattled option among others.⁴⁹ ‘Secularity’ in the multiple-secularities concept of Wohlrab-Sahr and colleagues serves as an analytical framework on the institutional level, which can also be used for contextualizing individual statements. Their explanation of secularity partially echoes Lee′s definition of nonreligion: Secularity refers to the forms of differentiation or distinction between religion and other societal spheres and practices that define a relevant framework for religious and non-religious attitudes and behavior.⁵⁰

As a meaningful configuration that “shapes the relation between religion and non-religion”, for Wohlrab-Sahr secularity is a societal framework, while nonre-

 For examples, see the contributions of Jenny Vorpahl and Manuela Möbius-Andre in this book.  Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007), 3. Also for different levels of the secularization process and their interrelatedness, see Karel Dobbelaere, Secularization. An Analysis at Three Levels (Bruxelles: Lang, 2002); Steve Bruce, God is Dead. Secularization in the West (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002) and Steve Bruce, Secularization. In Defence of an Unfashionable Theory (Oxford: University Press, 2002).  Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, “Secularity, Non-religiosity, Atheism: Boundaries between Religion and Its Other,” in Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion 7 (2016): 251. See also p. 255: “When I use the term secularity, I mean the culturally – symbolically as well as institutionally – anchored forms and arrangements of differentiation between religion and other social spheres.”

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ligiosity is placed on the individual or collective level as an attitude or habit, realized within such a framework.⁵¹ It is hard to imagine a secularity which is not at least partially a result of secularization processes, although there are always different factors, interests and powers involved, depending on the specific cultural contexts. Furthermore, it is hard to imagine such a secularity which is not shaped by religion. Often, this goes along with a dispute about ideas, values and functions related to religion.⁵² Therefore, secularity and secular institutions and practices are part of nonreligion as a field of study. From this point of view, sports or consumption are neither secular nor nonreligious but merely not religious, if there are no relations to religion. But, civil marriage, for example, has to be seen as secular if this institution is explicitly constructed within a secularization framework of the struggle for power between state and church, between religious and nonreligious ideologies and/or as a compensation for a religious marriage ceremony. As a third relevant term, we will use ‘atheism’ for “indicating God-centred outlooks.”⁵³ A high sensibility to this term is essential regarding the sources and their specific historical and cultural contexts, shaped by socialism. That includes differentiating between the term ‘atheism,’ as it is used in the sources, and ‘atheism’ as an analytical tool. Atheism within the scope of this volume is an active denial of transcendent ideas, such as a God.⁵⁴ By always relating somehow to God, atheism remains dependent on a concept of God for its own ideological survival.⁵⁵ This constant transcendent point of reference qualifies atheism

 See Wohlrab-Sahr, “Secularity,” 251– 2.  See Wohlrab-Sahr, “Secularity,” 252.  Lee, “Research Note,” 130.  Michael Martin differentiates between the exclusive negative atheism, if a person does not believe in God, and the inclusive positive atheism, labeling somebody without a belief in God. Michael Martin, “Atheism and Religion,” in: The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, ed. Michael Martin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 217– 32. In our understanding, the latter orientation would not be atheism, but rather another subcategory of nonreligiosity like indifference. On the terminological differentiation between ‘atheism’ as an active negation of the existence of a God and ‘religious indifference’ as an attitude of indecision and disinterest regarding the question of the existence of a transcendent power, see Detlef Pollack, Monika WohlrabSahr, and Christel Gärtner, “Einleitung,” in Atheismus und religiöse Indifferenz, eds. Detlef Pollack, Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, and Christel Gärtner (Opladen: Leske & Budrich, 2003), 12– 3.  See Jon Elster, “Aktive und passive Negation. Essay zur ibanskischen Soziologie,” in Die erfundene Wirklichkeit. Wie wissen wir, was wir zu wissen glauben? Beiträge zum Konstruktivismus, ed. Paul Watzlawick, 5th ed. (Munich: Piper, 1988), 172.

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as an object of study in the field of nonreligion, while also including a sense of otherness separate from religious phenomena.⁵⁶ Its role in society also depends on the configuration of secularity, and – in an organized form – atheism itself can influence the dominant mode of drawing boundaries towards the religious.⁵⁷

There are possibilities for further characterization of ‘atheism’, such as ‘illusional’, ‘realistic’, ‘rational’ or ‘scientific’, but those attributions support dualisms, which exclude cases in which ‘atheism’ is an emotionally highly charged category or does not go hand in hand with a distinct support of scientific ideas.⁵⁸ Wohlrab-Sahr postulates a strong connection between “secularity for the sake of social integration/national development” and “guiding ideas of progress, enlightenment, and modernity – in which atheist convictions find the strongest support.”⁵⁹ According to Martin, there must be a reason for not believing in a deity in order to construct the atheist idea of the non-existence of transcendent worlds, beings or powers.⁶⁰ Therefore, some form of knowledge is required in order to prove this non-existence. This reasoning is part of the theory of Marxism-Leninism.⁶¹ It is this secularist ideology that served as the legitimization for the institutional separation of politics/the state and religion.⁶² As the categories ‘nonreligion’, ‘secular’, and ‘atheism’ are related to religion as their root concept, we also have to decide on a working definition of ‘religion’

 See the special issue “Sociology of Atheism” by the Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion 7 (2016).  Wohlrab-Sahr, “Secularity,” 252.  An example is the differentiation of atheism into scientific, philosophical, tragic and humanistic atheism by Olli-Pekka Vainio, and Aku Visala, “Varieties of Unbelief: A Taxonomy of Atheistic Positions,” Neue Zeitschrift für Systematische Theologie und Religionsphilosophie 57, no. 4 (2015), 483 – 500.  Wohlrab-Sahr, “Secularity,” 266.  Michael Martin, “General Introduction,” in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, ed. Michael Martin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 1– 2. See further Martin, “Atheism and Religion,” 217– 32 and Bill Cooke, Dictionary of Atheism, Skepticism and Humanism, (New York: Prometheus, 2006), 49 – 50.  The imparting of such knowledge was not meant to be a one-time act from the Marxist-Leninist perspective. Atheistic propaganda was intended to accompany people permanently in order to spread scientific, socialist ideology and to overcome the bourgeois culture which was seen as irrational, including its religious manifestations. See Olof Klohr, and Gottfried Handel, “Der atheistische Charakter der marxistisch-leninistischen Philosophie und Weltanschauung,” Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 22 (1974): 503.  See the definition of ‘secularism’ in Wohlrab-Sahr, “Secularity,” 255.

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for our project.⁶³ Therefore, we refer mainly to the approach of Detlef Pollack and Gergely Rosta, since it encompasses a variety of features which are constitutive of the identification of phenomena as religion. They combine substantial and functional perspectives, where the former is seen as indispensable, while the latter is variable.⁶⁴ Following the argument by Niklas Luhmann and others, they state that the main problem posed by religion is the problem of contingency – the negation of necessity and impossibility.⁶⁵ The awareness that every structure and occurrence is just one realized possibility among others and that the agency of the individual is quite limited can produce a feeling of insecurity. Religion is one kind of communication that tries to solve the problem of contingency by relating it to another reality. Yet, religious ideas can be doubted as being contingent themselves, and only represent one possibility among others of dealing with this issue. The difference in comparison to other solutions leads to the substantial part of the definition, referring to the differentiation between immanence and an unreachable, indisputable transcendence.⁶⁶ The approachability of the transcendent within the immanent is ensured by religions. This re-entry into the immanent produces a unity between religious

 While it is usually routine for scholars of religious studies to deal critically with understandings of ‘religion,’ Dianne Kirby criticizes the unreflected and one-sided usage of the term by many historians and political scientists, who “too often refer to religion as if everyone knows what it is. For many it is synonymous with ‘culture’. Discussion of religion and politics tends to be dominated by a Protestant model of religion as individual, chosen and believed, with little attention given to religion that is communal, given and enacted. […] Religion is as intricately intertwined with the political as it is with the social and the cultural.” Unfortunately, this important recognition of the problem is not followed by a clarification of her definition of religion. Dianne Kirby, “An Introduction,” in Religion and the Cold War, ed. Dianne Kirby (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 7.  Pollack, and Rosta, Religion, 62– 72. Although the scientific, metalinguistic term ‘religion’ is always under suspicion of being based on a European prototype, it is not necessarily a Eurocentric concept if scholars differentiate between object language and meta-language and are aware of culture-specific codes, ideas and norms. It is always an open working definition, which has to be seen as contingent and must be adjusted according to the sources investigated.  See also on this topic Detlef Pollack, “Was ist Religion? Probleme der Definition,” Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft 3 (1995): 184– 190.  Similarly, Christoph Kleine and other scholars of religious studies stick to the guiding difference transcendence/immanence. It allows a structuring of the world according to the ordering principle religious/secular, while it has to be detached from European/Western concepts and contents in order to open it up to non-European and premodern concepts. Decisive is that the boundary lines between transcendence and immanence, the terms used to describe it and the contents of these spheres of reality have to be investigated in the individual cases. Cf. Christoph Kleine, “Zur Universalität der Unterscheidung religiös/säkular. Eine systemtheoretische Betrachtung,” in Religionswissenschaft, ed. Michael Stausberg (Berlin: De Gruyter 2012), 65 – 80.

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symbol and signified reality. Different religious acts and objects serve as mediation between transcendence and immanence (for instance, rituals, scriptures, icons, shrines, preaching). Those forms are classified by Pollack and Rosta into three dimensions, based on Charles Glock and Rodney Stark, as well as Robert Kecskes and Christof Wolf: the dimension of identification (with a religious group or organization), the dimension of religious practice, and the dimension of religious belief in religious ideas as well as religious experience. The distribution of the dimensions and the relations between them differ according to the setting and the situation. What can be identified as transcendence and immanent forms and content, in contact with the transcendent, depends on the specific historical, cultural and individual context.⁶⁷ But, the adherence to the guiding difference transcendent/immanent allows the distinction to be made between religious and nonreligious phenomena. The term ‘Weltanschauung’ (worldview), as the Soviet-style socialism called itself, first of all describes (as does religion) all kinds of communication, “which [refer] to the totality (Weltganzes – whole of the world) of the human self and world relation.”⁶⁸ Worldviews claim to provide explanations and directions for action in all areas of society in the past, present and future. However, such a claim to absoluteness does not necessarily imply a totalitarian claim. In spite of the conviction that worldviews know the true interpretation of the world and how to implement this absolute truth, they can include tolerance and respect for other worldviews. But, if the sense of mission held by one’s own worldview is linked to “the unconditional will for the realization of what is recognized as right, and also against the will of those who must be helped to the right consciousness,” we can speak of absolutist worldviews.⁶⁹ Classical examples of such

 See Pollack, and Rosta, Religion, 63 – 72. In his presentation of different definitions, Klaus Hock also prefers a multidimensional approach in order to avoid the concentration on one criterion and too-abstract conceptions. He as well as Pollack and Rosta emphasize that such a definition is always a scientific construct, which has to be proven and corrected by empirical studies. See Pollack, and Rosta, Religion, 72 and Klaus Hock, Einführung in die Religionswissenschaft (Darmstadt: WBG, 2002), 19 – 21.  Johann Hafner, Helga Völkening, and Irene Becci, “Einleitung,” in Glaube in Potsdam. Band 1: Religiöse, spirituelle und weltanschauliche Gemeinschaften. Beschreibungen und Analysen, eds. Johann Hafner, Helga Völkening, and Irene Becci (Würzburg: Ergon, 2018), 17 [translated into English by Alexandra Gentner]. See also Eilert Herms, “Weltanschauung. I. Begriffsgeschichtlich,” in Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, 4th ed., vol. 8, (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005), 1401– 3.  Angelika Senge, Marxismus als atheistische Weltanschauung. Zum Stellenwert des Atheismus im Gefüge marxistischen Denkens (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 1983), 85 [translated into English by Alexandra Gentner].

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absolutist or totalitarian worldviews are Marxism-Leninism or socialism/communism, fascist ideologies such as National Socialism, and fundamentalist groups. Accordingly, it is necessary to distinguish the extent to which the claim of absoluteness is actually enforced against non-adherents of the worldview in question.⁷⁰

4 Overview First, Dirk Schuster sketches out the central principles of communicative constructivism, focusing on the role of experts in modern societies. He shows how researchers were dependent on the goodwill of the political elite in the GDR. Schuster makes clear that discrepancies between the interests of scientists and those of political patrons existed almost from the very beginning. Their original research program entailed empirical studies, which were supposed to be used for propaganda as well as to prove the thesis that religion would die out in a socialist society. Eventually, scientists of the Marxist Sociology of Religion lost their function and authorization to generate and spread knowledge. Schuster’s example explains a lot about the ambiguous attitude of a socialist state towards science – it demonstrates the ideologization of science as an infallible source of truth, but also the selectivity of appraising scientific work. Scientific Atheism and the study of religion at research institutions are also at the center of Johannes Gleixner’s and Ksenia Kolkunova’s contributions – both working with material from a Russian context. Gleixner emphasizes an anticlerical European tradition as an important basis for the religious policy of the Bolsheviks. Their focus on the fight against ecclesiastical institutions and their representatives provoked the emergence of other religious movements. This failed attempt to erase religion from the public sphere in the 1920s led to the question of what religion actually is. The resulting scientific approach to religion eventually turned out to be antireligious studies, a utilitarian discipline with the task of developing tools for overcoming religion. In the second part of his article, Gleixner sheds light on the underlying assumptions behind a survey of Moscow workers’ religiosity, conducted between 1928 and 1930. Gleixner mentions the sociological skills and expertise developed by Russian scholars in examining the religiosity of the population, noticeable in later projects which revealed that  Thomas Schmidt-Lux assumes that all worldviews represent “a totalizing view of the world.” Schmidt-Lux, Wissenschaft, 77 [translated into English by Alexandra Gentner]. In our opinion, however, a distinction must be made in this respect between a theoretical claim to absoluteness and an absolutist or totalitarian claim to enforce it by means of coercion.

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the majority were still believers. However, the results were left unpublished, just like works by their colleagues in the GDR. Starting with an overview of the history of Scientific Atheism in Soviet Russia, Ksenia Kolkunova presents examples which illustrate how patterns and terms developed by scholars of Scientific Atheism shaped recent discourses about religion in Russia. Based on Khrushchev’s antireligious campaign, Scientific Atheism was aimed at the extinction of all religious convictions. Kolkunova identifies two main approaches to understanding Scientific Atheism: Regard it as a pure, ideologically loaded atheism, not worthy of retaining or studying, or consider it as a ‘normal science’. According to Kolkunova, traces of continuity are especially evident in the reference to believers’ religious feelings and the image of Jehovah’s Witnesses in recent public discussions. Again, the work of a religion-related academic discipline testifies the strong connection between scholars and the socialist party apparatus, the ideological load of the research programs and its use in antireligious agitation as well as for legislative regulations. The transfer of stereotypes from the Soviet view to contemporary expressions of politicians and journalists show that a position developed in a nonreligious context is reproduced even by religious people later on. All of the contributors to this volume are aware of the power of words and the connotations and associations that are conveyed by a specific vocabulary. To investigate the connections between knowledge and language in a socialist context, Daniela Schmidt has chosen some quite obvious material: She follows traces of religion-related vocabulary from GDR dictionaries in other texts, which played a normative role in the discourse around the definition of religion. She works with different levels of contextualization in order to extract information about conceptual changes, agents and organizations. By comparing definitions from several dictionaries, Schmidt identifies interdependencies between the entries, different strategies for dealing with religion, as well as phases of intensification and relaxation. Schmidt’s work testifies to partiality as an integral part of scientific work and provability as indispensable for credibility. The selected religious vocabulary suggests that the concept of religion was shaped by Christian tradition. The political background becomes especially tangible in a dictionary for employees of the Ministry of State Security. The dictionaries are another instance of ranking knowledge above faith, but Schmidt emphasizes that this is not just a phenomenon within the socialist sphere. She also notes a gradual departure from the linguistic context of the churches due to a progressive secularization in West German works. Zdeněk Nešpor investigates the effects of the public discourse on religion during the first two decades of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia. For this, he analyzes opinion-leading newspapers and journals as mirrors of changes

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in the party’s ideology. Theological questions and the impact of religiosity were neglected, and churches were condemned for their interest in power. An exception was the period of political liberalization in the mid-1960s, when a quite open discussion of different forms of religion was possible. By highlighting the frequency and extent of articles published on religion, Nešpor reveals that there were also several periods when religious issues received little attention. He identifies this withholding of information as one cause of the religious illiteracy in Czech society. By examining the proportion of books published on topics related to religion, he notices a predominance of anti-clerical publications. He completes this appraisal by looking at the churches’ responses, which ranged from (forced) opportunism to the strong reinforcement of traditional elements, fostering mistrust in churches and their representatives. By noting the relevance of hidden forms of religiosity as well as the relevance of de-traditionalized religiosity, the author offers a nuanced perspective on the well-known phenomenon of Czech atheism, or religious illiteracy. The sources Johann Hafner consults for his investigation are associated with a well-known ritual act in East Germany – the Jugendweihe. He offers an exposition of all the books that were and are distributed to the participants as gifts. After laying out three positions concerning the Jugendweihe as a remnant of the socialist past, Hafner identifies two types of Jugendweihe after the transition: one based on reformed socialist structures and another returning to the free thinkers’ tradition. In his search for the continuation of socialist and humanist ideas, he chronologically introduces several books and considers their structure, style, success, revisions and ambitions, and identifies the different uses of Marxist-Leninist semantics, especially when it comes to religion and the meaning of life. While socialist examples present a history of progress and humanity’s ability to explain simply everything, the later ones distributed by humanist organizations deny that humanity can know all the answers to ultimate questions. Others simply ignore ethical and metaphysical questions altogether. It becomes clear that the nonreligious Jugendweihe ritual no longer has any transitional character or integrative function. Hafner therefore asks why it is still popular and accepted although its ideological foundation has already disintegrated. Jenny Vorpahl similarly ascertains a stability of ritual framing processes as opposed to a change in content regarding ritual traditions in the GDR. She analyzes brochures and leaflets presenting wedding ideals that were supported by the state. Remarkable parallels and differences between ceremonies shaped by Christian traditions and those of a socialist, nonreligious character are highlighted and questioned. Vorpahl embeds the publications within the scientific and political discourses around the evaluation and adaptation of traditions. She examines five levels of legitimation, making plausible the institutionalization of

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festive, nonreligious weddings. Her work demonstrates the society’s flexibility in dealing with cultural heritage. Secularization means here adapting the form of popular customs while exchanging or adjusting the interpretation of the actions according to the ruling ideology. The interweaving of scientific research, politics and cultural work is demonstrated by the reconstruction of a discourse coalition, which is traceable through chief elements in the texts as well as the careers of the agents. Lastly, the article reflects on the reception of socialist wedding ideals and identity models. Alexandra Möbius-Andre also considers the selective adaptation of heritage and tradition as part of the socialist propaganda program when she investigates the reception of religious motifs in the works of GDR artists. She stresses the educational functions of art in constructing a collective identity according to the state ideology. Art constituted an important addition to science at the time, because of its potential to affect and appeal more to all the senses. The recourse to specific traditions was allowed if they could be integrated into a storyline proclaiming the mission of the proletariat. It was therefore useful for the legitimation of the ‘workers’ and farmers’ state’ as rightful heir. Religious motifs were removed from their often Christian context and used as metaphors or allegories within the new ideology. Möbius-Andre also asserts that the recourse to familiar Christian iconography was necessary for the legibility of images. The compatibility of religiosity and Marxism/communism is considered by Alexandra Coțofană, who questions the binary thinking prevalent in the social sciences and humanities. The basis for Coțofană’s research is her examination of epistemological theories and the approach of political theology, helping her not only to analyze how religious identity and values shape politics in Romania, but also to encourage readers to see their own categories in a critical light. She points to the degradation of religious ways of seeing, dealing with and interpreting the world to become second-rate knowledge compared to scientifically based information in Western epistemic culture. Coțofană argues for the acceptance of equally legitimate institutions of knowledge. Her interviews with Romanian leftwing politicians employed before and after 1989 proved that socialist and religious identities are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Connections can be found in moral claims such as equality, social justice or helping the poor. In order to interpret this data, Coțofană looks at the leadership histories of the political left. Anna Vancsó illustrates the interpenetration of Christianity and politics in Hungary before and after 1989 by examining a blessing prayer for the Hungarian Prime Minister. She emphasizes that religion is generated by social, communicative actions and also legitimizes social institutions by relating them to an ultimate, sacred reality. This legitimating force was used on the public and political

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levels before 1945 and has been reinforced since 2011. Vancsó asks what happens when religious communities and institutions as transmitters of knowledge are destroyed, their legitimacy is marginalized and their possibilities to communicate about religious reality are reduced – such as happened in Hungary in socialist times. She sees this as one important factor in creating a kind of frozen religious knowledge. The image of the churches changed from a space for resistance to a collaborator with the ruling system, and consequently a less faith-centered discourse around religion emerged. Vancsó enquires about the long-term effects of the socialist period with regard to the influence of churches on questions of private morality, their legitimacy in defining norms and their involvement in political matters. The development towards pluralism encountered the homogenization of the public discourse on religion after the political turn in 2011. In recapitulating the changing role of religion in the Hungarian public and private spheres since the socialist system, Vancsó identifies different processes of secularization and modernization taking place successively and parallel at different levels. Ankica Marinović investigates the characteristics of knowledge transference about religion and atheism in Croatian schoolbooks used for religious education since the 1990s. She highlights the double reality in the former socialist country: Nonreligiosity has a normative character and dominates the public sphere, while churches offer space for counterculture and traditional religiosity is transmitted within families. Marinović shows the changes in education as an indicator for the de-secularization and homogenization of Croatian society. Analyzing legal documents and textbooks, she finds a contradictory attitude towards religion ranging from tolerance to defamation. Atheism is seen as a kind of hubris – glorifying the power of humans and uncritically accepting science. Religiosity is understood as the anthropological absolute and Catholic Christianity is promoted as the only genuine religion. Other religious and nonreligious concepts like superstition, idolatry, magic, blasphemy, atheism and indifference are colored with the same brush: Their adherents are depicted as immoral, abnormal, dangerous and misguided. This perspective offers legitimation for Catholic education. Another legitimating force is the reference to the Catholic Church as the preserver of national culture and values. Marinović’s thesis states that parallels exist between the socialist school subject of Marxism and the religious instruction in schools today. She thereby emphasizes Croatia’s double heritage of socialist ideology on the one hand and a Catholic-feudal past on the other – both shaping reactions to several radical changes within a few decades. Complementing Marinović’s article on Croatia’s religious homogenization, Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić tackles another aspect of Croatian society: its nonreligious minorities. Her method is a combination of content analysis and inter-

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views. Like Marinović, she draws attention to the discrepancy between the constitution, guaranteeing freedom of religion, and the repression of religion by the Communist party. A similar double reality occurred after the transition, when the separation of church and state was undermined. Hazdovac Bajić reflects on the different levels of identification by individuals. She estimates that Croatian Christian identity is not only important for the transmission of values and the need for consolidation, but also as a form of dissociation from communism. Because nonreligiosity is labeled as a suspicious remnant of the previous system, organizations now try to get rid of this stigma, for example by drawing connections to movements like New Atheism. The glorification of scientific discoveries and scientists embodying secular sacred values becomes visible in products of the public relations work of these organizations. By appropriating the aesthetics of familiar religious artifacts and connecting them with opposing content, the legitimation of the dominant culture is thereby questioned. Statements from interviewees reveal parallels to narratives of Marxism-Leninism and a kind of intuitive conviction of the incompatibility of science and religion, while biographical paths to nonreligiosity are described as an intellectual process. The opportunity to practice critical thinking and ask questions is not only of great value for members of Croatian nonreligious organizations, but also for participants of Polish Catholic online forums. Marta Kołodziejska starts by elucidating the institutional setting of the forums and the status of nonreligious people in Poland. While the forums are approved by the Catholic Church, it is remarkable that atheists are quite prominent in the discussions. Kołodziejska asks why atheist participants are able to gain their status as experts in religious knowledge within this context. They obviously have not lost their interest in debating about religion. Nonreligiosity here is not a matter of indifference, but often goes hand in hand with anticlericalism, materialism and a rational-scientific way of understanding the world. Religiosity is tolerated in privatized forms. In contrast, religious disputants see institutionalized forms as complementary to religious affects and define religion as reality sui generis. Different interpretations are often the basis for conflicts and the opposition thus created allows participants to identify with a particular group. The interviews reveal that they all appreciate the free engagement with different worldviews and respect the equality of all users. The most important motivation is curiosity and the dissemination of knowledge through the discussions. Kołodziejska notes that while the forums are not an idyllic space, they do allow heterogeneity and a democratic atmosphere.

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Acknowledgements We do not only owe the contributors our sincere thanks for their willingness to join our project. Bringing in their special expertise from different disciplines and schools, they have also demonstrated just how many facets this field of research contains and how fruitful interdisciplinary exchange can be. Publication processes like this often require patience, reliability and understanding. It was an enriching experience to collaborate in such a productive, appreciative and uncomplicated manner. Furthermore, we are especially thankful for the sound advice and strong support we received from our department and for the valuable feedback on the concept from Johann Hafner, Shani Tzoref and Bernadett Bigalke. The constructive critique by the unknown external reviewer helped us considerably to reflect on and rework the texts once more critically and to smooth its edges. This statement encouraged us in particular, emphasizing that our book offers insights into the mutually reinforcing and often reversible boundaries between religion and nonreligion, as well as the variable effects of the official endorsement of atheism. Given the number of researchers from various different countries, none of whom were native speakers of English, the diligent translation of quotes and phrases and correction of the texts by Alexandra Gentner and Anne Popiel was essential. Their work entailed not only a thorough proofreading of the English manuscript, but also reflections on the coherence and clarity of the content. The Potsdam Graduate School supported us generously in financing this copy editing process. Finally, it means a lot to us to publish this volume in such a well-received series that matches our research interests. We therefore thank the editors for approving our proposal and thereby encouraging us to realize our vision. We would also like to express our appreciation for the support of De Gruyter editors Sophie Wagenhofer and Katrin Mittmann in bringing the work to fruition. We hope that this volume will enjoy a broad readership, proving useful to scholars of religion and nonreligion, as well to historians and scholars of science.

Dirk Schuster

The rise and fall of the ‘Marxist sociology of religion’ in the GDR Introduction This paper sketches out the central principles of communicative constructivism, focusing on the role of experts in modern societies. It shows to what extent researchers as experts on knowledge about religion were dependent on the goodwill of the political elite in the GDR. The author makes clear that discrepancies between the interests of scientists and those of their political patrons existed almost from the very beginning. Their original research program entailed empirical studies which were supposed to be used for propaganda as well as to prove the thesis that religion would automatically die out in a socialist society. Yet, it seemed as though the political leadership was unwilling to face the results of surveys measuring the religiosity of the population. A retreat to theoretical work and the repetition of dogmatic paroles was demanded instead. Eventually, scientists working within the Marxist Sociology of Religion lost their function and authorization to generate and spread knowledge. This example explains a lot about the ambiguous attitude of the socialist state towards science – it demonstrates its ideologization of science as an infallible source of truth, but also its selectivity in appraising scientific work.

1 Theoretical background of knowledge construction Communicative constructivism, which arose from constructivism a few years ago, determines the function of communication in a general sense, not only as the “transmission (of information), but particularly [as] mediation (of social identity and social order).”¹ If one examines this mediation of knowledge in the context of modern societies shaped by labor division, one can ascertain,

 Jo Reichertz: “Grundzüge des kommunikativen Konstruktivismus,” in Kommunikativer Konstruktivismus. Theoretische und empirische Arbeiten zu einem neuen wissenssoziologischen Ansatz, eds. Reiner Keller, Hubert Knoblauch, and Jo Reichertz (Wiesbaden: Springer Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2013), 50. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547085-002

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along with Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, that the expert is responsible for spreading extraordinary and specialist knowledge in these modern societies precisely due to the existing division of labor. It is crucial that a society recognize and request the role of experts when specialist knowledge is required.² If religious support is needed due to a bereavement in the personal sphere, one usually calls a vicar and not a carpenter, because only the vicar is a specialist in religious support and only a vicar is recognized by society as such. Societal reality is constructed through the communication of a society itself. This reality establishes, among other things, power and inequality and also offers legitimation for existing structures.³ Legimitation thus not only ‘explains’ values,⁴ but also puts things in order by ‘explaining’ what the individual things actually are. The explanatory and defining function results in power through communication. In connection with this theoretical approach by Berger and Luckmann, it is possible to determine that knowledge is the basis for the legitimation of values,⁵ which will include power in what follows. Knowledge is hereby not to be understood as the ultimate and irrevocable truth of things. Truth or reality is initially the result of a subjective construction, which only becomes knowledge through reasoning (usually through empirical experiments and evidence)⁶ and the ensuing recognition by others, which ultimately makes it the truth.⁷ Knowledge and therefore truth are accordingly subjected to a continuous negotiation process revolving around societal acceptance in order to be recognized as truthful in the first place. Until a few centuries ago, it

 Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann, Die gesellschaftliche Konstruktion der Wirklichkeit. Eine Theorie der Wissenssoziologie (Frankfurt/Main: Fischer, 2013 [1969]), 82. Knowledge will be understood in these pages as “the common property of validated truths about reality” through societal objectification, in agreement with Berger/Luckmann. This, moreover, (often) results in social sanctioning in a variety of forms, if an individual denies this common property of truths. Berger and Luckmann, Gesellschaftliche Konstruktion, 70.  Reichertz, Grundzüge, 51.  Berger and Luckmann use the simple explanation that legitimation explains why certain actions should be carried out and others not. Berger and Luckmann, Gesellschaftliche Konstruktion, 100.  Berger and Luckmann, Gesellschaftliche Konstruktion, 100.  This means, in the simplest case, testing (via empirical experiment) what shall become truth in daily routines, which would make the experiment functional in this way. Hitting a nail with a hammer produces the knowledge that a nail can be practically applied to a surface with a hammer.  See Ernst von Glasersfeld, “Steps in the construction of ‘others’ and ‘reality,’” in Power, Autonomy, Utopias. New Approaches toward Complex Systems, ed. Robert Trappl (London: Perseus Publishing, 1986), 107– 16. Also, Ernst von Glasersfeld, “Konstruktion der Wirklichkeit und des Begriffs der Objektivität,” in Einführung in den Konstruktivismus (München: Piper, 2015), 9 – 39.

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was regarded as a blatantly false teaching that humans were the result of a natural evolutionary process and that the earth revolves around the sun as a sphere. Only through the recognition by a societal majority as a result of persuasion with the help of evidence is such knowledge able to grow into an ultimate truth, which, however, can be relativized at any time in light of newer findings. In modern societies, an expert is responsible for generating such knowledge, which creates a new truth through evidence. Only when the provided evidence, and therefore the results, are generally recognized does anything become the ultimate truth. Such recognition can commonly take place in one of two ways: Either the arguments prevail throughout society due to their strong validity, or else they are formulated in the interests of a ruler by a representative, whereupon the ruler supports the person or findings.⁸ For Jo Reichertz, therefore, results generated by scientists, the ‘knowledge about knowledge’ (or knowledge of a second order), are the preferred constructions of reality. According to him, scientists are bound to reason as well as to truth, and can offer statements about reality or are able to relativize contemporary realities through various different (recognized) methods.⁹ In this short theoretical overview, it becomes clear that science (based on an empirical foundation) is ascribed outstanding relevance in modern society due to its association with truthful statements about reality. In my opinion, these preliminary theoretical considerations regarding truth and science are useful for analyzing the examination of religion by representatives of the ‘Marxist Sociology of Religion.’ Marxist Sociology of Religion is hereby to be seen as part of a system, Scientific Atheism, within the sphere of Soviet influence, which examined the future role of religion in socialism. The area of conflict between religion and science has been discussed widely and will thus not be presented at this point.¹⁰ In general, one can say – as Kehrer pointed out – that science and religion come in conflict with one another when they each make contradictory statements about a particular topic. When cultural or social sciences make statements about religions without claiming to examine or be able to examine decidedly religious statements regarding their validity,

 Reichertz, Grundzüge, 64. The term ‘ruler’ is not necessarily understood as meaning only a ‘political leader.’  Reichertz, Grundzüge, 64. The issue of the ‘correct’ truth, to which scientists should feel bound, remains unanswered in Reichertz′ argumentation. Again, this is a construction.  For example, Ian G. Barbour, When Science Meets Religion: Enemies, Strangers, or Partners? (New York: Harper Collins 2000).

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there is usually no conflict.¹¹ Scientific Atheism of the Marxist orientation is an exception in this context. This humanities- and social science-oriented discipline claimed to be able to prove the superiority of science over religion through reference to scientific findings and thus deduced the necessary dominance of scientific knowledge in all areas of societal life.¹² Representatives of ‘Scientific’ or ‘Marxist Atheism’ thus influenced the domain of religion by issuing statements based on Marxist-Leninist ideology concerning the ‘meaning of human life.’¹³ Scientific Atheism defined itself as an integral part of Marxism-Leninism,¹⁴ which resulted in science taking on the character of an ideology itself and thus stepping into direct competition with religion.¹⁵ In the Soviet sphere, representatives of Scientific Atheism profited from existing power structures in two ways: First, they followed the Marxist-Leninist dogma and were therefore under the protection of the respective ruling party. Second, they profited from the state-controlled public communication channels, as is characteristic for totalitarian systems. In this specific case, this means that the recognition of an individual’s personal truth could not follow the usual negotiation process involving evidence or argumentation. Whereas representatives of Scientific Atheism were able to spread their denial of religion in (widely circulated) books, magazines, radio and TV broadcasts or even through the education system,¹⁶ representatives of religion did not have many of these possibilities. The assessment of religion was one-sided in the public sphere, and was dominated by representatives of Marxism-Leninism. The following will therefore not focus on a detailed analysis of Scientific Atheism during Soviet times. Rather, I will present how the acknowledgement or denial of ‘truth’ directly depends on the interests of political authorities, using the example of Marxist Sociology of Religion as part of the system of Scientific Atheism.

 Günter Kehrer: “Atheismus, Religion und Wissenschaft – Ein Problemfeld zu klärender Verhältnisse,” Erwägen Wissen Ethik 25, no. 1, (2014): 5.  Kehrer establishes this generally for organized atheism. Kehrer, “Atheismus,” 7.  Thomas Schmidt-Lux, Wissenschaft als Religion: Szientismus im ostdeutschen Säkularisierungsprozess (Würzburg: Ergon, 2008), 121.  The mistake should not be made at this point of ascribing Scientific Atheism too much importance in Marxist-Leninist ideology. This error, however, is made on multiple occasions by Alfred Hoffmann concerning the GDR, “Mit Gott einfach fertig”: Untersuchungen zu Theorie und Praxis des Atheismus im Marxismus-Leninismus der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (Leipzig: Benno-Verlag, 2000).  Schmidt-Lux, Wissenschaft, 122 – 4.  For a more detailed example from the GDR, see Schmidt-Lux, Wissenschaft, 209 – 87.

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The idea of representing the ‘truth’ was based on the above-mentioned ideologization of science as the only source of ‘correct’ knowledge. I will concentrate on the Marxist Sociology of Religion in the GDR up to 1970, after which it came to decisive changes concerning science, which were furthered by the change of leadership from Walter Ulbricht to Erich Honecker in May 1971. The SED determined at their 8th party conference in the summer of 1971 that the humanities should follow an (even) stronger political guidance as well as a stronger focus on theoretical (instead of empirical) research in their activities.¹⁷ As a consequence of the political re-orientation following the change in leadership, many of the research programs initiated since the 1960s, among them Scientific Atheism, fell victim to the Honecker’s social policy.¹⁸ Accounting for the Marxist Sociology of Religion in the GDR, as Scientific Atheism describes itself until the end of the 1960s due to its specific objectives, constitutes a desideratum even today.¹⁹ The historical accounting for this scientific discipline will explicitly not be pursued here. Rather, this study will look at how the construction of ‘truth’ in a totalitarian system had to serve the legitimation of political power and how science could be stripped of its primacy in generating ‘truth’.

2 On the historical starting point of scientific atheism in the GDR The division of Germany into four occupation zones initially put churches, as well as representatives of the occupational forces, in a situation which needed to be re-negotiated concerning how the other should be treated. It should be noted that there were hardly any conflicts between churches, especially the Protestant regional churches, and the Soviet Military Administration in Germany (SMAD) in the first few months – a situation which also applies to the other oc-

 Kurt Hager, Die entwickelte sozialistische Gesellschaft. Aufgaben der Gesellschaftswissenschaften nach dem VIII. Parteitag der SED. Referat auf der Tagung der Gesellschaftswissenschaftler am 14. Oktober 1971 in Berlin, (Berlin [East]: Dietz, 1971), 71– 3.  Andreas Malycha, and Peter Jochen Winters, Geschichte der SED: Von der Gründung bis zur Linkspartei (München: C.H. Beck, 2009), 176 – 7.  See Horst Groschopp, “Atheismus und Realsozialismus in der DDR,” humanismus aktuell 11 (2007): 62– 83. A reference to the Marxist Sociology of Religion in the GDR is missing in Detlef Pollack′s overview of the Sociology of Religion in Germany since 1945. Detlef Pollack, Religion und gesellschaftliche Differenzierung (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), 29 – 66.

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cupation zones.²⁰ Especially the interaction between SMAD and the churches in the year 1945/46 have been evaluated as positive by church historian Martin Onnasch. The churches received licenses for their own official journals, were officially represented in various state organizations and even had the possibility of broadcasting radio sermons starting July 1945 on Berlin Broadcasting.²¹ Dealings were accordingly influenced by a certain pragmatism during the first postwar years, in order to handle the daily problems efficiently and with as little conflict as possible. It was only from 1947 onwards and with the increasing East-West confrontation, in a period in which the Soviet-protected Socialist Unity Party of the GDR (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands – SED) transformed into a party of a ‘new kind,’ that a confrontational attitude began to develop within the SED towards the churches. As a consequence of this initially slow development, an increasing number of church representatives withdrew from state committees and party organizations.²² The hostile attitude within the SED towards the churches resulted not only from ideological differences. Especially representatives of Protestantism in Germany had fought a ‘culture war’ against communism between 1918 and 1933.²³ Furthermore, Catholic and Protestant representatives throughout Europe quite often expressed sympathy for fascist organizations, as their fight against communism offered ideological points of contact with the anti-communist attitude of the churches.²⁴ Accordingly, support for Hitler and his party was especially large in Germany among Protestant vicars. Additionally, large parts of Christian congregations in Germany were sympathetic towards the terror of the Nazis against communists and social democrats starting in 1933.²⁵ Because a large part of the leadership elite of the SED had experienced Nazi terror themselves, which had caused the death of many leading communists and social democrats, the hostile attitude of the SED and its representatives towards the churches after 1945 is understandable.²⁶  Martin Onnasch, “Die Situation der Kirchen in der sowjetischen Besatzungszone 1945 – 1949,” Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte 2, no. 1 (1989): 214.  Onnasch, “Die Situation,” 217– 8.  Onnasch, “Die Situation,” 218 – 9.  See Paul Hanebrink, “European Protestants Between Anti-Communism and Anti-Totalitarism: The Other Interwar Kulturkampf?,” Journal of Contemporary History 52 (2017): 3. [Article first published online 21/7/2017; doi:10.1177/0022009417704894]  Olaf Blaschke, Die Kirchen und der Nationalsozialismus (Stuttgart: Reclam, 2014), 15 – 41.  Blaschke, Die Kirchen, 111.  Of course, there were also members and church representatives who openly advocated socialist ideas and were close to social democrats and communists. However, in the first half of

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The onset of an extensive wave of propaganda and agitation against churches by the SED, however, needs to be seen in combination with developments in the Soviet Union. With the death of Stalin and the takeover of power by Nikita Khrushchev, a broad propaganda mission in aid of atheism began in the summer of 1954.²⁷ Only a short time later, the GDR followed with a first wave of (initially very dubious and partly clumsy) publications which proclaimed atheism as the new scientific ideology and simultaneously took an aggressive stance towards churches and religion.²⁸ At the same time, the GDR leadership reintroduced the so-called Jugendweihe (youth initiation ritual),²⁹ which led to the first important confrontation between church and state leadership.³⁰ A new, intensified anti-religion campaign in 1958 in the Soviet sphere, which aimed at the introduction of secular festive rituals as well as the stronger crackdown on religious communities and was essentially “atheist propaganda,”³¹ would also herald the start of scientific research into atheism in the GDR.³²

the twentieth century the churches, especially Protestant, were dominated by conservative, nationalist and Christian-völkisch forces. On the religious socialists, see Ulrich Peter: Der Bund der religiösen Sozialisten in Berlin von 1919 bis 1933 (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1995).  Atko Remmel, “(Anti)-Religious Aspects of the Cold War: Soviet Religious Policy as Applied in the Estonian SSR,” in Behind the Iron Curtain: Soviet Estonia in the Era of the Cold War, ed. Tõnu Tannberg (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 2015), 360 – 1. State action against alleged enemies of socialist ideology already began during Stalin′s lifetime in the GDR. See Malycha, and Winters, Geschichte, 55.  Regarding the latter, see especially the book first published in 1959 by Günter Heyden and Horst Ullrich, Im Namen Gottes (Berlin [East]: Neues Leben, 1959). Similarly to the way in which the National Socialists painted a permanently objectionable picture of Judaism in their propaganda using caricatures, insinuations and conspiracy theories for history and the present, the authors in this book created an image accordingly regarding Christianity and the Church.  The GDR leadership initially abolished the Jugendweihe in 1950, which had developed during the 19th century, in order to secure the collaboration with Christians regarding the establishment of a socialist German state.  Günter Wirth, “Zu dem Aufsatz von Hans Lutter ‘Zur Geschichte des Atheismus in der DDR,’” Beiträge zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung 44, no. 1 (2002): 109.  Remmel, “(Anti)-Religious Aspects,” 361.  In March 1958, the Central Committee of the SED forced the withdrawal of all party members from churches. Simultaneously, a stronger emphasis was to be placed on atheistic propaganda among party members. Hans Lutter, “Zur Geschichte des Atheismus in der DDR,” Beiträge zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung 43, no. 2 (2001): 73.

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3 The institutionalization of Marxist sociology of religion in the GDR until 1969 As in most areas of the GDR, the initiative for a scientific examination of atheism came from the Soviet Union.³³ Following this, first loosely connected research networks formed at various universities in the German state in the second half of the 1950s. At the 6th party conference of the SED in January 1963, the party introduced the goal of initiating a new consciousness in the actions of its people in addition to the implementation of socialism. Accompanied by this, a stronger debate in the area of socialist ideology including the scientifically reasoned atheist worldview was to be implemented. The population’s behavior under socialism should be influenced by the use of “qualified propaganda” with regard to materialism and atheism in such a way that “idealistic ideas are repressed and eradicated.”³⁴ Such a task should include three central elements: a scientific critique of religion with a high-level line of argumentation, popular science publications and training staff to implement the scientific-atheist mass propaganda.³⁵ For this purpose, an academic chair for Scientific Atheism was installed at the University of Jena on the 5th of December, 1963,³⁶ which was supposed to function as a kind of center that would cover all of these areas. The initial plan was to attempt to obtain data through empirical inquiries using the keyword ‘Marxist Sociology of Religion,’ which could later be used for atheistic propaganda.³⁷ In popular science, the aim was to implement a juxtaposition of (natural‐)scientific knowledge versus religious beliefs. A confrontational discussion with socialist ethical reasoning on the one side and Christian values on the other should also take

 A complete list of research conducted up until 1965 on atheism can be found in the Federal Archive Berlin (Bundesarchiv Berlin) [BArch] DR 3, 2960 [no pagination].  BArch DR 3, 2960 [no pagination] (Reasoning on 25th November 1963 for the establishment of the academic chair for Scientific Atheism in Jena).  BArch DR 3, 2960 [no pagination] (Reasoning on 25th November 1963 for the establishment of the academic chair for Scientific Atheism in Jena).  The academic chair was named ‘Scientific Atheism’ (‘Wissenschaftlicher Atheismus’); the methodological focus of scientific activities lay on the Sociology of Religion.  Even before the academic chair surveys were carried out by later members of staff in reference to the 6th party conference, in order to examine the ‘development of socialist consciousness’ among employees of companies in Jena. BArch DY 30/IV A 2/9.04/405 [no pagination]. The SED party conference in January 1963 can be seen as the kick-off for profound research into the transformation of an individual into a socialist human being – and therefore to an alleged atheist.

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place. Training for propagandists, however, was not the initial focus of the activities of this academic chair.³⁸ At this point, the impression should not arise that a scientific examination of atheism did not take place before the party conference resolution of 1963. However, the revised objective of the SED institutionalized this scientific examination. It also becomes clear that the entire research program directly depended on the good will of party politics, which was to have a marked impact only a few years after the foundation of this academic chair. The real reasons for eliminating the chair for Scientific Atheism in Jena in 1969 are still not transparent. What is clear is that differences were already increasing by 1964 concerning content and personality clashes between researchers and state representatives. In a file memo by the State Secretariat for Church Affairs on the 31st of January, 1967, it was remarked that the aforementioned academic chair in Jena had implemented a change in its profile. Henceforth, the “establishment of a mass atheistic consciousness” would be the focus of the institute’s activity.³⁹ This demonstrates that the staff were forced to give up their previous focus on an empirically functioning ‘Marxist Sociology of Religion.’ The closure of the academic chair, however, was not yet mentioned in the plan to reform the University of Jena study program in 1967.⁴⁰ The decision to close the chair would have been made by the responsible ministries and party representatives due to the conflicts of the previous years. In spring 1964, Jena scientists planned a survey composed of anonymous questionnaires given to pupils in the 11th grade in Leipzig asking about their ideological and political attitudes. Whereas the responsible authorities in Leipzig consented to such a survey, it was prohibited by the central State Secretariat for Higher and Technical Education on the 15th of April, 1966, after the questionnaires had already been printed and were just about to be distributed.⁴¹ Because no authorization for such a survey was given by any central state agency, the

 BArch DR 3, 2960 [no pagination] (Reasoning on 25th November 1963 for the establishment of the academic chair for Scientific Atheism in Jena).  BArch DO 4/628 [no pagination].  BArch DY 30/ IV A 2/ 9.04/429 [no pagination]. In the realignment of research into MarxismLeninism, debated since 1968, there is no longer any reference to religion. BArch DY 30/ IV A 2/ 9.04/124 [no pagination]. On top of the differences between staff of the academic chair and state agencies, it seems to have come to a realignment of interests. On the part of the state, an active scientific examination of atheism was not a priority, which would have additionally facilitated the decision to close the academic chair in 1969.  BArch DR 3/ 2960 (1. Schicht) [no pagination].

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chief scientist, Olaf Klohr,⁴² was summoned to explain himself in front of the State Secretariat in person, but he repeatedly ignored the requests.⁴³ Additionally, the Department of Sciences (Philosophy/History Section) of the Central Commission (ZK) of the SED sharply criticized work previously carried out by the academic chair. Marxist Sociology of Religion was explicitly condemned by the Department, which needs to be understood as a rejection of all further quantitative investigations.⁴⁴ Instead, the chair was supposed to examine only the ‘theoretical pervasion of atheism as a characteristic of Marxist philosophy.’ Furthermore, there was the scathing assessment which stated that previous work by the chair had lacked any clear line of inquiry.⁴⁵ A report by the Department of Sciences at the SED’s ZK from the 15th of July, 1966, concerning the manuscript of the book Marxist Sociology of Religion, which had been written by the significant protagonists of the chair in Jena, explicitly states that the previous theses on the sociology of religion by atheism researchers⁴⁶ were comprehensively rejected by the state.⁴⁷ This massive intervention by state authorities ended publically available scientific research on atheism in Jena. Although the staff at the chair could stay in Jena until 1969, there were no larger research projects carried out after that incident according to present knowledge. State authorities founded two new research institutes on atheism on the Baltic coast in 1970, far from the scientific gravitational centers. Scientific research carried out there was not meant for general public use. This meant that publically available research on atheism in the GDR ended in 1969.

 Olof Klohr (1927– 1994) was Head of Scientific Atheism between 1963 and 1969 in Jena. After its closure, Klohr took on the Chair of the new Institute for Dialectic and Historical Materialism at the School for Nautical Engineering Warnemünde (Ingenieurhochschule für Seefahrt Warnemünde). There, he managed the research group Scientific Atheism (Wissenschaftlicher Atheismus), which, however, never brought its findings to the public. See Günther Buch, Namen und Daten wichtiger Personen in der DDR, 4th edition (Berlin [Ost]: Dietz, 1984), 241; Entry ‘Olof Klohr’ in Catalogus Professorum Rostochiensium. http://purl.uni-rostock.de/cpr/00003106.  BArch DR 3/ 2960 (1. Schicht) [no pagination].  A state intervention, which stopped empirical research on the sociology of religion, can be established for the USSR already in the 1920s. Cf. the article by Johannes Gleixner in this volume.  BArch DR 3/ 2960 (1. Schicht) [no pagination].  The theses are not presented in the report. The author has not yet been able to locate the unpublished manuscript.  BArch DY 30/ IV A 2/ 9.04/202 [no pagination].

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4 The classification of religion by the Marxist sociology of religion in the GDR In the years up to 1969, a strictly functionalist interpretation of religion as coined by Karl Marx was significant for Scientific Atheism and therefore for Marxist Sociology of Religion as its component. Researchers interpreted the establishment of religion exclusively as a process of securing feudal and later bourgeois claims to power. As a consequence of a deliberate and focused contrasting of scientific theory against religious teachings – the researchers referred to almost only Christian teachings – the triumph of science over religion was supposed to be achieved. Such a triumph acted along the maxims of historical materialism, which attributed the function of legitimizing bourgeois sovereignty solely to religion. In compliance with the alleged transition to socialism, understood as a matter of course, an active overcoming of religion by a ‘scientific worldview’ had to take place. The alleged oppression of the ‘common man’ in capitalism kept the necessity of religion alive in the Western world. In socialism, however, where there was no such oppression – apparently – religion also lost its function as offering the consolation of a better life in the hereafter. In the imagination of atheism researchers in the GDR, in socialism people could concentrate completely on this life, in which they would never again experience oppression. Personal hardship, such as death, illness, etc., was explained with the help of scientific evidence,⁴⁸ so that, in the expectations of those atheism representatives, religion was completely devoid of its function.⁴⁹ Such an exclusively functionalist interpretation of religion in society as a legitimation and power-securing institution of the ruling class was (and still is), however, not uniquely found in socialist atheism researchers. In a similar manner, Pierre Bourdieu writes in his article Genèse et structure du champ religieux, published in 1971, that religion has a heightened legitimizing function in society

 One hoped to clarify to the population why people got ill or even died by explaining the function of germs. If they understood this function, then they would no longer identify as religious because all events on earth could be explained, thus rendering the operation of a transcendent power unnecessary.  See in detail Dirk Schuster, “Das Postulat vom baldigen Ende der Religion. Die DDR-Religionssoziologie über eine Zukunft ohne Gott,” in Zurück in die Zukunft? Die Bedeutung von Diskursen über “Zukunft” in der Wissenschaftsgeschichte, eds. Dominik Groß, and Klaus Freitag (Kassel: University Press, 2017), 91– 102.

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in favor of the privileged.⁵⁰ For Bourdieu, lay people do not only expect to receive answers to classic questions of theodicy from religion, such as the purpose of illness, death, etc. The French sociologist sees in the function of religion “also and especially justifications for existing in a certain societal position, and existing as they do, i. e. with all characteristics that cling to them in society.”⁵¹ From a sociological perspective, therefore, the “religious state of affairs” should be understood “as a legitimizing expression of a social position,” according to Bourdieu.⁵² The interpretation of religion according to Bourdieu as a basis for the legitimation of social position or the justification of social inequality is based on the adaptation of Karl Marx’s interpretation of religion, which shines through.⁵³ Whereas Bourdieu tried to offer an analysis of religion and thereby make religion explicable in society through his interpretation, the atheism researchers in the GDR increasingly aimed at an interpretation of the future. For them, the function of religion had already been distinctly proven by the theoretical classics of socialism. At the beginning of the 1960s, therefore, the aim was merely to empirically prove the Marxist ‘dogma’ that religion must die in socialism as a result of losing its function. A second characteristic of atheism research in the GDR – as of all science in the Soviet-dominated sphere – was that it took notice of research from the ‘West.’ Scientific publications were exchanged extensively, although there were hardly any close relationships between researchers of the two blocs of power.⁵⁴ However, Thomas Schott indicates in his study that the sciences in countries of the Eastern Bloc were influenced less by scientific findings from their socialist neighbors:  Pierre Bourdieu, “Genèse et structure du champ religieux,” Revue française de sociologie 12, no. 3 (1971): 295 – 334. I henceforth use the German translation of the texts from Pierre Bourdieu, Das religiöse Feld. Texte zur Ökonomie des Heilsgeschehens, ed. by Stephan Egger, Andreas Pfeuffer and Franz Schultheis (Konstanz: Universitätsverlag Konstanz, 2000), 39 – 111.  Bourdieu, Das religiöse Feld, 70.  Bourdieu, Das religiöse Feld, 71.  Frederik Elwert points out that Bourdieu’s theory of capital builds on Marx’s class theory. Frederik Elwert, “Das Kapital religiöser Gemeinschaften – Ideen zur Adaption neuerer Kapitaltheorien in der Religionswissenschaft,” Zeitschrift für junge Religionswissenschaft 2, no. 1 (2007), 33 – 56, http://www.zjr-online.net/journal/ii012007/pdf/ZjR_felwert2007.pdf. Also, Bourdieu‘s model of the religious field is based heavily on Karl Marx’s interpretation of religion. See Bryan Turner, “Pierre Bourdieu and the Sociology of Religion,” in The Legacy of Pierre Bourdieu: Critical Essays, eds. Simon Susan, and Bryan Turner (London/New York: Anthem Press, 2011), 239 – 40. At this time, it is not known whether representatives of Scientific Atheism in the GDR based their argumentation on Bourdieu, despite obvious closeness of thought.  Thomas Schott, “Soviet Science in the Scientific World System: Was It Autarchic, Self-Reliant, Distinctive, Isolated, Peripheral, Central?,” Science Communication 13 , no. 4 (1992): 413.

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American science was the world center of intellectual influence. All other places formed a periphery pervasively influenced by the center. Notably, research in every Eastern Bloc country was far more influenced by American science than by science in other Eastern Bloc countries. The Eastern Bloc was not an intellectually self-sufficient region but instead was part of the intellectual periphery around the American center of influence.⁵⁵

This becomes visible regarding the GDR in the fact that in the years analyzed by Schott, 1973 and 1986, GDR researchers published articles much more frequently in North American than in Soviet or other East European publications.⁵⁶ Although studies on Scientific Atheism emerged early on in the Soviet Union, GDR representatives of this discipline mainly oriented themselves around activities from the Western scientific arena. A letter on the future concept of the academic chair from 1966 – before the abovementioned controversies arose concerning its future orientation– described general contacts to researchers and research institutes from countries of the Eastern Bloc. However, it explains in detail with which circles West Germany maintained contact and with which scientific publications it had agreements to exchange literature.⁵⁷ Notice was taken in Jena of the developments in the West European and American Sociology of Religion, which was at its pinnacle at the time.⁵⁸ Scientific evaluations of new results in this field were mainly an assessment of West European or American research findings rather than results from Soviet areas of influence. The philosopher and historian Martin Robbe attempted to implicate the West German discipline of Religious Studies in supporting the church due to its theoretical character, such as in his 1963 article in the Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie (German Journal of Philosophy), the official voice on socialist philosophy in the GDR. A Marxist discipline of Religious Studies needed to be established, he said, which takes the theory of Marx and Engels as the basis for all research, in

 Schott, “Soviet Science,” 427.  Schott, “Soviet Science,” 426.  BArch DR 3/ 2960 (1. Schicht) [no pagination]. The journals received regularly in Jena included the International Yearbook for the Sociology of Religion (Internationale Jahrbuch für Religionssoziologie), Social Compass, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion and Archives of Sociology of Religion (Archives de Sociologie de Religion).  Cf. e. g. the examination of the classics of sociology of religion by Johann Klügl, which had been rediscovered at the time (Weber, Troeltsch, Durkheim), in which he also commented on the publications by Talcott Parsons. Johann Klügl, “Die bürgerliche Religionssoziologie und ihre Funktion im ideologischen System des staatsmonopolistischen Systems,” Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 15, no. 6 (1967), 671– 90.

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order to counteract such a ‘bourgeois-capitalist’ approach. The dogmatic reading of Marx and Engels becomes clearer when Robbe writes: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels have found [the answers to the relationship between religious apparitions and social life]. […] With historical materialism, they developed the methodological basis for appropriate activities in Religious Studies […].⁵⁹

The construction becomes especially clear with this example: Knowledge about religion no longer took place before the backdrop of an exchange of arguments. Rather, the ideology of Marx and Engels was dogmatized into an irrevocable truth and thus preempted the frame of the discourse. Breaches of such an interpretation caused an immediate accusation of ‘bourgeoisie’ mentality.

5 Conclusion The Soviet Military Administration’s previously liberal policy concerning religion was displaced by a restrictive and confrontational political line with the SED’s establishment of power at the end of the 1940s. At the end of the 1950s, a scientification of atheism and the critique of religion forcefully implemented by the state took place following an initial period of anti-church propaganda, which resulted in the development of Marxist Sociology of Religion in the GDR. Representatives of this discipline aimed to prove the Marxist dogma of the death of religion in socialism – which was not questioned at any point in time – with empirical data. Surveys among different professional groups and age categories of the GDR population were supposed to demonstrate the correlation between the increase in socialist consciousness and the simultaneous decrease in religious perception, and ultimately the validity of Marx’s paradigm. Taking Jo Reichertz’s concept of the generation of knowledge as a foundation, Marxist Sociology of Religion operated as any modern scientific approach up to this point in time: A theory based on observation and an corresponding interpretation of future developments (Marx’s concept of the death of religion in socialism) should be examined using empirical research (anonymous surveys on the meaning of religion). This was, however, not an open-ended examination. The result of the investigation (the validity of Marx’s theory) had been established right from the start. Additionally, this way of generating knowledge did not take place in open competition: Due to the totalitarian socialism of Soviet influence,  Martin Robbe, “Philosophische Probleme der Religionswissenschaft,” Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 11, no. 11 (1963): 1379.

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criticism or even rejection of Marx’s or Lenin′s teachings was impossible anyway.⁶⁰ Any study always had to end with the same result. It was possible to criticize ‘bourgeois’ Sociology of Religion, but only because it was not necessary to ground the discussion on a foundation of scientific discourse and reasoning. It was assumed that because the ‘bourgeois’ Sociology of Religion did not take Marx’s theory as the basis for all exploration, it would always end with incorrect results that ultimately merely served the ‘preservation of power’ of the churches. As a consequence of the outlined power-political developments in the GDR in the 1960s and early 70s, as well as the differences between the researchers in Jena and the state authorities, a change in the generation of knowledge concerning Marxist Sociology of Religion took place. The rulers (state and party) withdrew their protection of scientists, because they did not find the empirical demonstration of Marx’s theory opportune. It was not about the result – the validity of Marx. It was ultimately a matter of how evidence of the ‘truth’ should be produced. Because the people in power did not want these ‘truths’ proven by empirical research (i. e. by the Sociology of Religion),⁶¹ specialists (in the Sociology of Religion) lost the foundation for their task. No longer were they experts assigned with generating knowledge. Ultimately, the method of generating knowledge was decisive for determining who had state legitimation for this, or for the ‘truth.’ Its end result, however, had already been determined due to the totalitarian ideology. After the academic chair in Jena was closed down in 1969, researchers were still able to carry out studies in the Sociology of Religion. However, these examinations were no longer open to the public, but were rather used in state-internal analyses. The establishment and legitimation of Marx’s teachings and therefore the entire ideology on which the GDR was based would take place in public by means of a forced conflict between science and religion.⁶² On the scientific level, the Marxist Sociology of Religion was finally displaced completely in the 1970s by the orientation towards a philosophical approach to the topic of religion in socialism.

 See Schmidt-Lux, Wissenschaft, 111– 24.  Detailed ideological and power-political background information for this development was deliberately excluded here, because it still ultimately has to be determined.  Schmidt-Lux, Wissenschaft, 384.

Johannes Gleixner

Beginnings of a Soviet sociology of religion and the (anti‐)religiosity of Muscovite workers (1925 – 1932) Creating the antireligious subject

Introduction This article looks at the origins of the Soviet study of religion. By looking at its roots in the antireligious movement as well as certain academic circles, I will argue that at its core it was an attempt to create a reflexive science of Soviet society, aimed just as much at a – at times almost subconscious – reflection of atheism as it was at researching religious phenomena. The persistence of religion in the public sphere during the 1920s despite repressive actions against the Orthodox Church led to the question of the nature of religion in socialist society. The dynamics of these discussions, however, had repercussions for what non-belief amounted to: Soviet scholars tried to define a civil discourse within the borders of revolutionary society, creating an antireligious citizen without defining the actual content of socialist atheism. Soviet atheism, therefore, was a specific attempt to answer a more general question; namely, what place does religion have in modern society and how does it tie into the basic political framework? The emerging scientific approach to religion eventually turned out to be a field of antireligious studies, a utilitarian discipline with the task of developing tools for overcoming religion. In the second part of the article, these assumptions are illustrated on the basis of a survey of religiosity amongst Moscow workers, conducted between 1928 and 1930 and depicting workers converted to atheism as trouble-free, content members of society without any spiritual needs. At the same time, it became clear that such a nonreligious subject could be defined only by the absence of belief. The analysis of religiosity therefore relied on that which it tried to disprove. Finally, the article goes into the legacy of such research, leading to the sociological skills and expertise of Russian scholars in examining the religiosity of the population, noticeable in later projects. As a highly refined, all-Union census showed, the majority of Soviet citizens remained religious. However, such results were left unpublished, just like similar works in the GDR. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547085-003

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1 What was the Soviet science of religion and how did it begin? The Soviet Union is usually termed the first ‘atheist state’ in history, a fact it also prided itself on during its existence. But, what was the Soviet experiment around atheism and religion actually about? From its very inception, the revolutionary regime of the Bolsheviks seemed to concern itself with this question. The fight between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Soviet government became one of the enduring narratives of Soviet history, even more so after the fall of state socialism. It produced stories about modern martyrs, mass persecution of believers and finally the collapse of an atheist worldview. This narrative is not wrong in itself, but – as a growing body of research has shown – paints a very binary picture of what the Soviet perception of religion, its policy, and finally its scientific understanding of religion were all about.¹ Older historical representations of atheism in the Soviet Union thus usually follow a well-established trajectory: From the very beginning, the Soviet state and its ruling communist party followed a policy of combatting and eradicating religion in the population, sometimes through open repression and violence, other times through ideological campaigns aimed at the re-education of believers.² Others have pointed to the legal implications of Soviet religious policy, which was at times relatively modern and at least in form not too different from Western legal frameworks.³ A newer vector of inquiry targets the churches’ and believers’ reactions to Soviet religious policy and consequentially has revealed considerable agency on their part as well as a quite complicated relation-

 For a recent critique on such interpretative patterns regarding the role of the Orthodox Church, see: Scott M. Kenworthy: “Rethinking the Russian Orthodox Church and the Bolshevik Revolution,” Revolutionary Russia 31, no. 1 (2018): 1– 23.  See, for example: Dimitry V. Pospielovsky, Soviet Studies on the Church and the Believer’s Response to Atheism, 2 vols., A history of Soviet atheism in theory and practice, and the believer 3 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988); Anatolii Ė. Levitin-Krasnov and Vadim M. Shavrov, Ocherki po istorii russkoi cerkovnoi smuty (Moskva: Krutitskoe Patriarshee Podvor’e, 1996); Arto Luukkanen, The Party of Unbelief: The Religious Policy of the Bolshevik Party 1917 – 1929, (Helsinki: Suomen Historiallinen Seura, 1994); Natal’ia A. Krivova, Vlast’ i tserkov’ v 1922 – 1925 gg. politbiuro i GPU v bor’be za tserkovnye tsennosti i politicheskoe podchinenie dukhovenstva (Moskva: AIROXX, 1997).  See John Sheldon Curtiss, Die Kirche in der Sowjetunion (1917 – 1956) (München: Isar, 1957); Otto Luchterhand, Der Sowjetstaat und die Russisch-Orthodoxe Kirche: Eine rechtshistorische und rechtssystematische Untersuchung (Köln: Verlag Wissenschaft und Politik, 1976).

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ship between state and church during socialism.⁴ Lately, the focus has shifted to the role of religious minorities and late Soviet antireligious policy during the Khrushhev and Breshnev years.⁵ All these representations have enhanced our knowledge of Soviet everyday religion and uncovered new motives of the regime’s religious policy. Still, we are mostly lacking a sense of what the Bolsheviks themselves actually thought about religion, how they defined it, how these definitions evolved and what they actually deemed problematic about it. The opening of Soviet archives has brought a lot of hitherto secret information to the fore, but has not fundamentally altered our understanding of Bolshevik thought about religion.⁶ However, it has raised serious doubts whether a coordinated antireligious/atheist policy took place from the very start.⁷ The question of what the early Soviet ‘science of religion’ actually was still remains unanswered.⁸ It has been argued that its core consisted of its peculiar

 For some newer examples, see Gregory L. Freeze, “Subversive Atheism: Soviet Antireligious Campaigns and the Religious Revival in Ukraine in the 1920s,” in State Secularism and Lived Religion in Soviet Russia and Ukraine, ed. Catherine Wanner (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012); Michael V. Shkarovskiy, “Soviet State and Soviet Church,” in Redefining the Sacred: Religion in the French and Russian Revolutions, ed. Daniel Schönpflug and Martin Schulze Wessel (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 2012); Martin Schulze Wessel, Revolution und religiöser Dissens: Der römisch-katholische und der russisch-orthodoxe Klerus als Träger religiösen Wandels in den böhmischen Ländern und in Russland 1848 – 1922 (München: Oldenbourg, 2011).  Recently, especially: Victoria Smolkin, A Sacred Space is never empty. A History of Soviet Atheism (Princeton; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2018). Also: Catherine Wanner, ed. State Secularism and Lived Religion in Soviet Russia and Ukraine (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).  It mostly revealed the often conflicting agencies of different groups within the party structure, also with regard to religious policy: See Terry Martin, “Interpreting the new archival signals: Nationalities policy and the nature of the Soviet bureaucracy,” Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique 40, no. 1/2 (1999): 114– 7.  There are several important editions of Soviet sources on religious policy: Ludwig Steindorff, ed., Partei und Kirchen im frühen Sowjetstaat: Die Protokolle der Antireligiösen Kommission beim Zentralkomitee der Russischen Kommunistischen Partei (Bol’ševiki), 1922 – 1929 (Münster: LIT, 2007); Nikolai N. Pokrovskii and S. G. Petrov, eds., Politbiuro i tserkov’ 1922 – 1925 gg., Arkhivy Kremlia 1 (Moskva, Novosibirsk: Rosspen, Sibirskii Khronograf, 1997); Evgenii M. Luchshev, ed., Sovetskoe gosudarstvo i religiia 1918 – 1938 gg. Dokumenty iz Arkhiva Gosudarstvennogo Muzeia Istorii Religii (Sankt-Peterburg: Kalamos, 2012); Marianna M. Shachnovich and Tat’iana V. Chumakova, eds., Muzei istorii religii akademii nauk SSSR i rossiiskoe religiovedenie (1932 – 1961) (Sankt-Peterburg: Nauka, 2014).  James Thrower, who has written the most comprehensive work so far on Soviet Scientific Atheism, notes that the study of religion “began in earnest” only after 1945 and especially after Stalin’s death. Still, there were several valuable and serious studies. See James Thrower, Marxist-

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utilitarian character and outright hostility towards its subject.⁹ While that is certainly true, most proponents of a sociology of science would probably argue that an ideological bias is not a defect, but rather a feature of any scientific worldview. A Soviet science of religion, therefore, should be considered not only as an antireligious tool but also as a specific inquiry into the place of religion in modern socialist society and its political framework. Although this inquiry was shut down soon enough by the Stalinist leadership after 1937, when it tried to align the concept of ‘Socialism in one state’ with more national Russian traditions,¹⁰ it never disappeared, and was picked up again in 1950 during late Stalinism. Nikita Khrushhev’s endeavor to renew the Leninist legacy of the early years led to an ‘antireligious comeback,’ which can be traced up to the dissolution of the Soviet Union. This discussion on the nature of Soviet ‘religiovedenie’ (study of religion) is still ongoing in contemporary Russian discourse.¹¹ The peculiarities of a science of religion that at the same time tried to eliminate its subject therefore allow a valuable insight into Soviet modernity.

2 Early Bolshevik thoughts on religion Antireligious policy was not a pressing matter immediately after the October Revolution. Although the party proclaimed an atheist worldview, it nonetheless did not have a clear vision of the role religion should play in revolutionary society. There simply was no ideological blueprint for religious policy, and leading Marxists had themselves in pre-war times advocated the adoption of Bourgeois theories regarding religion and clericalism. Following Friedrich Engels and the leading pre-war Marxist in Russia, Georgii V. Plekhanov, most Bolsheviks relied on anticlerical pamphlets by either French materialists of the late 18th century or

Leninist ‘Scientific Atheism’ and the study of religion and atheism in the USSR (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1983), 135– 8.  William C. Fletcher, “Soviet Sociology of Religion: An Appraisal,” The Russian Review 35, no. 2 (1976): 173; for a contemporary and comprehensive Russian perspective, see: Konstantin M. Antonov, ed., “Nauka o religii”, “Nauchnyi ateizm”, “Religiovedenie”: aktual’nye problemy nauchnogo izucheniia religii v Rossii XX – nachala XXI v. (Moskva: Izdatel’stvo PSTGU, 2014). This volume by Antonov has, however, been criticized for underestimating and even ignoring Soviet religious science. Cf. Marianna M. Shachnovich, “Ėtos istorii nauki: o rekonstruktsii rossiiskogo religiovedeniia sovetskogo period,” Gosudarstvo, religiia, tserkov’ v Rossii i za rubezhom 33, no. 1 (2015): 187– 90. The ensuing debate shows the current relevance of this question.  On this change, see David Brandenberger, Propaganda state in crisis. Soviet Ideology, Indoctrination, and Terror under Stalin, 1927 – 1941 (New Haven, London: Yale University Press, 2011).  See footnote 8.

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writings from German Social Democracy.¹² The first steps of the young Soviet government were decrees on the freedom of conscience and separation of church and state, as well as the nationalization of church valuables. Most early conflicts between the church and the Soviet state up until 1922 can be traced back to the interpretation and execution of these decrees. In line with this anticlerical European tradition, state and party concentrated their attack on the hierarchy of the former state church. High-ranking church officials were persecuted and quite often accused of not living up to the values of true Christianity, not of being believers as such. The party and its leadership thus mainly focused on their political enemies. While the Russian Orthodox Church did indeed represent such an enemy, the Bolsheviks were initially only marginally interested in fighting belief as such. Indeed, they saw believers and religious minorities as allies in the struggle against the old hierarchy.¹³ Drawing on an older Russian revolutionary tradition, they took quite a positive stance towards heretofore suppressed religious minorities, such as the so-called ‘sects’ and ‘Old Believers.’ Most of them had been persecuted in Czarist Russia. Like most Russian revolutionaries before them, the Bolsheviks saw those groups as natural allies in their fight against the former state church.¹⁴

 See, for example, a textbook on antireligious methodology from 1926, which relied mostly on translations of German social democrats such as Kautsky, Cunow and French enlightenment philosophers like d’Holbach: V. A. Desnickii, ed., O religii. Osnovye voprosy metodologii istorii religii i antireligioznoi politiki rabochego klassa: Stat’i i otryvki iz proizvedenii K. Marksa, F. Engel’sa, N. Lenina, G. Plekhanova, K. Kautskogo, P. Lafarga i G. Kunova. Sostavil V. A. Desnickii (Mosvka, Leningrad: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo, 1926). For further details, see Johannes Gleixner, “Menschheitsreligionen”: T. G. Masaryk, A. V. Lunačarskij und die religiöse Herausforderung revolutionärer Staaten (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016), 151– 9.  The 8th Party Congress in 1919 was the first to take up the issue of “antireligious propaganda,” advocating the abolishment of “religious prejudices.” But, at the same time, it warned all Communists not to offend believers. See Protokoly i stenograficheskie otchety s’’ezdov i konferentsii kommunisticheskoi partii sovetskogo soiuza: Vos’moi s’’ezd RKP(b). Mart 1919 goda, p. 401– 2.  The so-called ‘sektanstvo’ (very broadly: Russian Orthodox schismatic denominations) was for some time seen as a progressive element in rural Russia, helping to further collectivization. See Eberhard Müller, “Opportunismus oder Utopie? V. D. Bonč-Bruevič und die russischen Sekten vor und nach der Revolution,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 35, no. 4 (1987): 515 – 7; Thrower, Scientific Atheism, 433. On other minorities, see: Tat’iana Nikol’skaia, Russkii protestantizm i gosudarstvennaia vlast’ v 1905 – 1991 godach (Sankt-Peterburg: Evropeiskii universitet v Sankt-Peterburge, 2009); Heather J. Coleman: Russian Baptists and spiritual revolution, 1905 – 1929 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2005), 154– 79.

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3 Two approaches within the Leninist framework With religion not disappearing but rather evolving and finding different ways of asserting itself, an authoritative method for studying such phenomena became a pressing matter. Marxist analysis of religion was “running idle” (“na kholostom khodu”), as Mikhail N. Pokrovskii put it in 1923.¹⁵ Consequently, expanded definitions of religion were needed. Throughout the 1920s, two concepts could claim to represent a Marxist approach to studying religion. They could be – very roughly – termed an anthropological and a sociological approach, both interacting with the simultaneously evolving Marxist-Leninist ideological framework. One of Lenin’s last publications during his lifetime, from 1922, dealt with, among other issues, religion and ‘clericalism.’¹⁶ In it, he declared all idealist philosophy and religion virtually identical. This had some long-term consequences for Soviet philosophy in general.¹⁷ Furthermore, it also heavily influenced the approach of how to handle religion scientifically: Defining ‘idealism’ or ‘philosophy’ in general as a bourgeois ideology based on prejudices, everything outside a very narrow scientific worldview could be cast as a religious superstructure. In turn, Bolshevik scholars found it difficult to find other methods for empirically measuring practiced religion other than asking whether or not a subject believed in god or the supernatural. As long as religion was tantamount to church attendance and Orthodoxy, this could be a working definition. However, as antireligious activists soon discovered, closing churches would not necessarily make believers disappear.¹⁸

 Michail N. Pokrovskii, “Istoriia religii na kholostom khodu (Nechto v rode reziume),” Pod znamenem marksizma, 2– 3 (1923): 202– 10.  Vladimir I. Lenin, “O znachenii voinstvuiushchego materializma,” Pod znamenem marksizma 1, no. 3 (1922): 5 – 12.  Its most immediate impact was a philosophical struggle between so-called ‘Mechanists’ and ‘Dialecticians’ throughout the 1920s. For an overview, see: Oskar Negt, Nikolaj Bucharin and Abram Deborin, eds., Kontroversen über dialektischen und mechanistischen Materialismus (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1969).  For an overview of early antireligious policy and its evolution see also: William B. Husband, Godless Communists: Atheism and Society in Soviet Russia 1917 – 1932 (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2000), 45 – 67.

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4 Discovering religion outside of church and village Interest in a genuine science of religion came with the sobering realization that the persecution of the clergy and the church hierarchy did not equal the disappearance of religion in general. Quite the opposite: The attack on the Russian Orthodox Church unleashed a wave of religious activity which was heretofore either part of its ecclesial institutions or suppressed by them.¹⁹ From a tactical point of view, this development was at first welcomed by the political leadership. “The separation of state and church […] does not mean indifference to that which is happening within the church,” declared Lev Trockii.²⁰ This development, which included the emergence of a schismatic Orthodox Church,²¹ however, brought with it some unintended and – from an atheist point of view – very unwelcome consequences. In 1922, one antireligious activist could still boast that the “replacing of religion with communism” was not even a question anymore for most workers and a growing number of farmers, referring to the notion of a general backward and therefore religious countryside.²² Just two years later, this perception changed markedly. As Emel’ian Iaroslavskii, probably the most influential antireligious official, noted in 1924, there had been a religious shift within the population after the October Revolution, which led to the establishment of new churches and new sects. It was the task of the party to analyze and understand these “reformations.”²³ The newly published ‘theoretical’ antireligious journal, Antireligioznik, likewise described its task in its first issue: Antireligious work had entered a new phase, for which simple anticlericalism did not provide the right tools. A more systematic and scientific approach was needed.

 Considerable activity often originated in either local parishes or the lower clergy. Gregory L. Freeze, “Subversive Atheism: Soviet Antireligious Campaigns and the Religious Revival in Ukraine in the 1920s,” in State Secularism and Lived Religion in Soviet Russia and Ukraine, ed. Catherine Wanner (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 28 – 30; Schulze Wessel, Revolution und Dissens, 182– 96.  Pochto-telegramma L. D. Trockogo chlenam Politbiuro CK RKP(b) o vozzvanii gruppy “progressivnogo dukhovenstva” i zadachach pressy. Printed in Pokrovskii and Petrov, Politbiuro i tserkov’, 311.  To date there is a lot of research on this schismatic movement, the ‘living church.’ Cf. Edward E. Roslof, Red Priests: Renovationism, Russian Orthodoxy, and revolution, 1905 – 1946 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002); Shkarovskiy, “Soviet State.”  Sergej K. Minin, “Kommunizm i filosofiia,” Pod znamenem marksizma, 11– 12 (1922): 184.  Emel’ian Iaroslavskii, “Marksizm i anarkhizm v antireligioznoi propagande. Po povodu stat’i t. Polidorova v No. 2– 3 “Sputnika Kommun.” Bol’shevik, 7– 8 (1924): 61.

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Again, the journal called upon its readership to better understand the nature of ‘sects.’²⁴ Over and over again, antireligious activists stressed this new face of religion that was taking shape within Soviet society: The weakening of the Orthodox Church did not lead to a decrease in believers, but rather made public what could be called the Russian version of Nipperdey’s ‘vague religiosity’ (‘vagierende Religiosität’).²⁵ Not only did this religiosity happen outside of the boundaries of traditional church institutions and was therefore difficult to assess, it also moved along unexpected paths, mainly appearing not in the – supposedly backward – countryside, but in big cities. Some of its adherents created a whole new problem by insinuating that they fulfilled communism′s role as a replacement for traditional religion. Soviet research on religion was therefore not so much an exercise in fighting Orthodox Christianity than a reaction to the socio-religious differentiation of Soviet society, which could not be explained within the modernizing paradigm of progress.

5 Discussing the nature of religion Throughout the 1920s, there were several public discussions on what religion actually was. As is often the case, they can be taken as a proxy for struggles within the party and its organizations. Nonetheless, they moved their subject further along. Not coincidentally, many discussants were Old Bolsheviks, who were well-read and trained in philosophical debates from pre-war times. Among the antireligious activists, open discussion on how to combat religion broke out in 1924. One group took a moderate stance, advocating the continuation of enlightening the populace to science, but at the same time finding out more about the different variants of religion. Without really formulating a solution, they were searching for a ‘small’ definition of religion devoid of further ideological ramifications. Likewise, they were carefully expanding such a definition to include religion outside traditional institutions. In order to do so, they relied on anthropological concepts asking what religion could mean for an individual human being. Furthermore, they advocated the study of religion’s origins to better understand its fundamental anthropological workings. Several expedi Redaktsiia, “Nashi zadachi,” Antireligioznik 1, no. 1 (1926): 6.  This is slightly reductionist, as such a development already started after the turn of the century in Czarist Russia. For the purpose of reconstructing the Soviet perception it should, however, suffice.

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tions into Central Asia studied the traditions (the ‘superstructures’) of nomadic and other ‘primitive’ peoples, who were thought to be closer to some universal anthropological origin of religion.²⁶ This approach met with criticism. In 1922, Ivan I. Skvortsov-Stepanov, one of the Old Bolsheviks with an interest in religion and an influential official, criticized one of his colleagues, Mikhail N. Pokrovskii, himself an Old Bolshevik and the eminent Soviet historian of his time. Equating religion with a primordial fear of death was, according to Stepanov, in its essence an idealist position, as it saw an unchanging and irreducible quality in religious ideas. He proposed looking at ritual acts as an example of social action within an alienating superstructure instead. Pokrovskii retaliated, accusing Stepanov of a quasi-sociological reductionism which painted religion with too broad a brush, such that he therefore could not analyze anything nor see the palatable differences within the religious field. However, methods for overcoming religion had to adapt to the specific worldview of the different believers. This discussion proved to be influential.²⁷ A similar discussion among the political antireligious activists began shortly afterwards in 1924. Several antireligious activists from Moscow challenged the people in charge of campaigning and accused them of waging inefficient propaganda.²⁸ As they saw it, the campaigners were too scientific in their attempts to eradicate religion. To propagate a scientific worldview as an antidote to religion simply amounted to the replacement of one idealistic idea with another. Substituting religion for communism made the latter a quasi-religion in itself. The growth of sects and other charismatic groups was not the prerequisite but the result of such a misguided concept. While being ostensibly a polemic on how to deal with churches and believers, this discussion was clearly influenced by what could academically be said about religion.

 A lot of material on such expeditions can be found in the Archive of the Russian Academy of Science (Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Akademia Nauk, further ARAN), archival fond of the Commission on the History of Religion of the Communist Academy: f. 355, op. 1a, d. 70. Further material can be found in the State Archive of the Russian Federation (Gosudarstvennii arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii, in the following GARF), archival fond of the Russian Association of Research Institutes for the Humanities (RANION): f. A-4655, op. 1, d. 192.  See Gleixner, Menschheitsreligionen, 173 – 5. See also Thrower, Scientific Atheism, 136 – 7. For a very detailed but slightly problematic account, see Konstantin M. Antonov, “Psichologiia “strakha smerti” vs sotsiologiia “kontrevoliutsionnoi ideologii”: polemika M. N. Pokrovskogo i I. I. Skvortsova-Stepanova (1922– 1923) i puti izucheniia religii v SSSR,” Vestnik PSTGU. Seriia I: Bogoslovie. Filosofiia. Religiovedenie, 5 (67) (2016): 84– 93.  This struggle was as much about policy as it was about politics and personal animosities. See: Daniel Peris, Storming the heavens: The Soviet League of the militant godless (Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press, 1998), 48 – 53.

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Echoing Stepanov’s challenge, the Moscow activists declared that antireligious policy had to analyze the ideological (i. e. socio-structural) character of religion and fight all of its appearances, whether loyal to the state or not.²⁹ The leadership was able to fend off these allegations, and its moderate approach prevailed for the time being.³⁰ But, although Stepanov and the radical Moscow activists almost negated any scientific value of analyzing religion from a Marxist point of view, they grasped a crucial point: Facing religious pluralism, the Bolsheviks had to decide whether they were content with eradicating institutionalized religion or whether they wanted to continue the fight against informal everyday religion.³¹ Not only were they lacking a clear concept for this kind of ‘invisible’ religion (to use a modern term), they also encountered enormous difficulties drawing the line between this kind of religion, bordering on everyday culture, and their own ideology. And again, the motivation to better analyze religion was not so much rooted in the fight against the church but in a reaction to religious pluralism outside of the boundaries of traditional religion. While the turning point in religious policy coincided with the beginning of Stalinism, the turning point in Bolshevik thinking about religion happened much earlier, therefore, around 1922– 24.

6 ‘Antireligious studies’ and its locations For all these reasons, it would be anachronistic to speak of ‘Scientific Atheism’ in the early years of the Soviet Union. Nonetheless, in the aforementioned discussions, a discernible scientific approach to religion emerged, which could be called ‘antireligious studies.’ There are two reasons for this: First, the purpose and character of scientific approaches to religion were mostly utilitarian in that their ultimate end was to produce tools to overcome religion. Second – and maybe more importantly – the origins of a scientific approach to religion within the Soviet Union owe a great deal to the League of the Militant Godless

 See Sandra Dahlke, “Kampagnen für Gottlosigkeit: Zum Zusammenhang zwischen Legitimation, Mobilisierung und Partizipation in der Sowjetunion der zwanziger Jahre,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 50, no. 2 (2002): 53 – 4.  With the onset of Stalinism, the moderate leadership took over these radical concepts quite quickly, however. See Daniel Peris, “The 1929 Congress of the Godless,” Soviet Studies 43, no. 4 (1991): 711– 32.  S. Plaggenborg actually already highlighted this in his work on revolutionary culture: Stefan Plaggenborg, Revolutionskultur: Menschenbilder und kulturelle Praxis in Sowjetrussland zwischen Oktoberrevolution und Stalinismus (Köln: Böhlau, 1996), 332– 3.

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(soiuz voinstvuiushchikh bezbozhnikov, SVB), the organization at the forefront of the Bolshevik’s struggle with religion, founded in 1924. Academic institutions did play an important role as well: Up to 1936, the most influential was the newly founded Socialist (from 1924 on: Communist) Academy. Still, by looking at the actual individuals involved in antireligious research, the influence of the Godless movement is striking. The most relevant academic body for the purpose of this article, however, is the Commission for Religious Ideology (from 1928: Commission for the History of Religion), founded in 1926 as part of the Communist Academy.³² Almost every single one of the 17 members of the commission in 1928 was closely associated with the SVB. The commission also included its upper leadership, Emel’ian Iaroslavskii, Anatolii T. Lukachevskii and Fedor M. Putintsev.³³ Other members were well-known scholars of religious topics, such as the first chair of the commission, jurist Mikhail A. Reisner, the aforementioned historian Mikhail N. Pokrovskii, the philosopher and economist Vladimir N. Sarab’ianov, the publicist Valentin S. Rozhitsyn and several more. The profile of this commission provides us with a better picture of a certain class of experts on religion and the topics they discussed.³⁴ The results of their research were often channeled into the antireligious press (primarily the monthly Antireligioznik), which was in dire need of competent authors. The commission’s founding was directly related to the poor state of Soviet antireligious studies. Reisner, the founding chair, complained that in the whole country there was no academic institution which could provide antireli-

 The Communist Academy (founded in 1918 as the Socialist Academy and renamed in 1924), was intended as a counterweight to bourgeois science and scientists. It had an almost exclusive focus on the social sciences and the humanities, both of which it interpreted through a Marxist framwork. See Michael David-Fox, Revolution of the Mind: Higher Learning among the Bolsheviks 1918 – 1929 (Ithaca; London: Cornell University Press, 1997), 19 – 21, 201– 19.  Iaroslavskii was even supposed to chair the Commission, which he did only temporarily. He was, after all, a very busy man, directing several other commissions and leading the SVB. See ARAN, f. 355, op. 1a, d. 21, l. 1. Recently, the Commission’s work has been attracting the interests of Russian historians, providing us with further details. See: Ol’ga V. Metel’, “Izuchenie religioznoi problematiki v stenach Kommunisticheskoi akademii: ot kabineta religioznoi ideologii k antireligioznoi sektsii,” Vestnik PSTGU. Seriia I: Bogoslovie. Filosofiia. Religiovedenie, no. 69 (2017): 74. Unfortunately, some important research was not accessible to me: Marianna M. Shachnovich, “Diskussii v Kommunisticheskoi akademii i nauka o religii v SSSR (konets 1920-kh – nachalo 1930-ch gg.),” Religiovedenie 4 (2015).  This becomes clearer if we look at other bodies charged with overseeing religious activities: The so-called ‘antireligious commission’ included several of these experts, but differed in that it included the security agencies and discussed matters of administrative control and/or coercion.

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gious propaganda with scientific research.³⁵ Next to ethnographic studies of primitive religion, it tasked itself with the “social-psychological research of religious ideology,” constructing a qualified antireligious bibliography, schooling antireligious personnel and creating a unified curriculum on antireligious education.³⁶ Apart from that, it hosted discussions between its regular members on a series of topics concerning the scientific study of religion, continuing a tradition of the Communist Academy.³⁷ Arguably, these discussions could be called its main achievement, as it kept an ongoing academic discourse on religion alive. Most of its other goals apparently fell flat. In the course of the Stalinist intensification of antireligious propaganda after 1929, it was reorganized. In 1930, it was transformed into the Antireligious Section of the Institute for Philosophy at the Communist Academy, which meant a push for propaganda publications and lectures at the expense of academic work.³⁸

7 Researching antireligion: a 1929 survey of Moscow workers Yet, there was one achievement which claimed the majority of the Commission’s manpower and time during the years 1928 – 1930. It extensively prepared and conducted a survey of the religiosity of Moscow workers. The total number of workers surveyed cannot be ascertained exactly. The original plan envisaged a questionnaire for 10,000 workers employed at several factories, of all ages and from different backgrounds. Furthermore, it prescribed scientific discussion at the workplaces, extensive ‘testing’ of believing and non-believing workers (each with a different set of questions) and, lastly, a ‘monography’ (i. e. a kind of in-depth interview at home) of believers.³⁹ The whole endeavor was astonishingly sophisticated. The questionnaires as well as the ‘tests’ were revised several times. The commission also went to great lengths to conceal the antireligious impetus behind the survey. Officially, it was to be conducted by the Scientific Institute of Methods in School Education (nauchnyi institut shkol’noi raboty). The interviewers were thoroughly instructed

 ARAN, f. 355, op. 1a, d. 8, l. 1– 5.  Ibid.  Plan regarding scientific work and research by the Commission for the History of Religion for the year 1928 – 1929. ARAN, f 355, op. 1a, d. 22.  Metel’, “Izuchenie religioznoi problematiki,” 77– 9.  ARAN, f. 355, op. 1a, d. 64.

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to refer to this institution and provide a corresponding badge, when asked.⁴⁰ Researchers were advised to gain the trust of the workers first when organizing discussions, before involving the local cell of antireligious activists. Lastly, the extensive interviews with believers should take place over several sessions, preferably at the worker’s home, to get an impression of their private (‘socio-psychological’) environment. The field manual on these interviews consisted of a staggering 91 questions, divided into six categories.⁴¹ The direction of the questions tells us something about the underlying assumptions of the survey: Religious people were presumed to be of a lower education level, with strong ties to the countryside. Echoing anticlerical conceptions from the 19th century, the men’s wives were seen as the source and the drive behind their religious life at home. The tests, too, show the antireligious researchers’ awareness of contemporary Soviet life. They tried to portray everyday discussions on religious topics, such as the atheist education of children, public discussions on religion,⁴² the introduction of uninterrupted work weeks (preventing believers from attending church on Sunday) and the closing of churches.⁴³ Each scenario allowed for three answers, one of them indifferent, one clearly atheist and one religious. The extent of the realization of the survey or of the worker’s feedback is not entirely clear, but it seems to have led to some results.⁴⁴ Available reports mostly refer to a test run in 1929, involving around 160 workers. There were a significant number of completed questionnaires, and in 1930 several field researchers reported on their work inside the factories.⁴⁵ Furthermore, in 1930 there seems to have been a broader survey on the religiosity of approximately 2,600 Moscow workers, probably based on the test run.⁴⁶ Official announcements and justifications of these surveys left no doubt as to their motivation:

 Instructions for interviewers, ARAN, f. 355, op. 1a, d. 64, l. 19.  Instructions for interviewers, ARAN, f. 355, op. 1a, d. 64, l. 29 – 30.  Public discussions of religion were a common occurrence in Soviet Russia during the 1920s. They often raised the question of the relation between communism and religion and whether they meant the same thing. See Johannes Gleixner, “Soviet power as enabler of revolutionary religion 1917– 1929,” in The Culture of the Russian Revolution and Its Global Impact [forthcoming].  ARAN, f. 355, op. 1a, d. 64, l. 26.  A simultaneous survey on the popularity of antireligious literature returned 270 questionnaires (not all of them filled out) out of several thousand. See ARAN, f. 355, op 1a, d. 66, l. 1– 7.  ARAN, f. 355, op. 1a, d. 65 – 66.  See the picture below. As other institutions ran their own surveys, the origin of such numbers is always murky, although they usually seem to be precise.

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According to the comprehensive evidence, provided by both our godless and the general press, preachers of all colors and directions have lately been displaying their calamitous activities.⁴⁷

Here, the purpose of this avenue of research was again defined as a means to detect a general pattern of religious worldviews regardless of a single church. One of the more striking results of the documented test runs is the low influence this kind of ‘modern belief’ actually had. Most religious workers simply clung to their Orthodox faith without necessarily attending church. Although in general around 80 % of the workers claimed to be non-believers, in some factories there was a distinct persistent adherence to religious customs. The researchers actually developed quite a suitable formula for this, asking for the presence of Orthodox icons in the household and the character of said household. The results varied considerably, but were difficult to assess. While the possession of icons roughly correlated with the numbers of believers and non-believers, one factory had a significantly higher percentage of icon-holding households than the others (around 46.5 %). Even more surprising, it was workers in common dormitories rather than single households who continued this tradition. The broad results, however, were not very surprising: Elder workers were more likely to believe than young ones, educated workers from a working-class background were more likely to be non-believers. Members of the Communist Party and its youth organization, the Komsomol, were more likely to be active propagandists of godlessness. For the antireligious researchers, these results had to be both encouraging and disappointing: The overall percentage of believers was low, but considering that the surveyed group consisted of the most ‘communist’ stratum of society (workers in the capital), it was still quite high. The more profound problem of the survey was, however, a different one: Its sophistication notwithstanding, it did not illuminate the issue of religiosity. Although known among antireligious activists, the results for the wider public were published rather cautiously.⁴⁸ A close reading of the questionnaires and guidelines for interviews and tests shows just how deeply the researchers were interested in the believers. Most atheist workers simply had to cross out most of their questionnaire. Other than stating their atheism and the date of their ‘conversion’ from belief, they

 S. M. Rives, “Rabochie o religii,” Kul’turnyi front 17 (probably 1929): 44.  See B. N. Konovalov: “Sojuz voinstuvuiushchikh bezbozhnikov,” in Voprosy religii i religiovedeniia. Vypusk 1: Antologiia otechestvennogo religiovedeniia. Chast 3: Institut nauchnogo ateizma – Institut religiovedeniia AON pri TsK KPSS, eds. Iu. P. Zuev, and V. V. Shmidt (Mocow: MediaProm, 2009), 297– 8.

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Fig. 1: Survey, The religiosity of workers in conjunction with their age. The columns show several age groups and their respective degree of religiosity. The number below indicates the number of participants in each group. Altogether, 88.8 % are counted as non-believers and 11.2 % as believers (left figure; Bezbozhnik 7, no. 5 (1931), 15).

could not do much. They did, however, repeat antireligious rhetoric when asked for comments, stating that “religion is opium/a narcotic for the people” (“religiia opium dlia naroda; religiia – durman naroda”). Religious workers, on the other hand, did apparently openly admit their religiosity, but had a strong tendency to boycott all further questions on its character, often ignoring the suggested categories and writing in criticism of the Soviet government instead. Others simply commented that their personal belief was not the business of the researchers.⁴⁹

 ARAN, f. 355, op. 1a, d. 68.

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8 Searching for religion and creating the antireligious subject Although the whole undertaking was quite impressive and unprecedented in its scientific standard, in a way the antireligious researchers were trapped in their own perceptions of religion. By extensively researching the social background of their test subjects, they again reduced religion to a structural dysfunction in socialist society. And, while they were keenly aware of religions changing shape in modern society (such as another test of modern, ‘secular’ miracles shows), at the same time they tried to scientifically disprove it altogether instead of identifying and defining a secular ‘Weltanschauung’ opposed to a religious one. This was not only the fault of a narrow idea of societies’ superstructure and all its parts. By asking Moscow workers, the (anti)religious scientists picked a core segment of the Bolshevik’s constituency. Most probably this was influenced by a perception of resurgent religion even within urban Soviet society. However, it still presents a sample of a stratum most susceptible to antireligious propaganda and most eager to strip off traditional rural values: Young, highly mobile, male workers, overwhelmingly part of either the Communist Party or the Komsomol. This ‘antireligious study’ showed several things: Antireligious propaganda actually worked to a certain degree: a significant percentage of those workers questioned declared themselves atheists and religion as a harmful thing. At the same time, the survey in itself proved how an atheist subject was created: It expected atheists to ‘convert’ from religion, but did not really ask why people became atheist or what they associated with it in comparison to religion, which at least was full of – if negative – associations. It is striking how much thought the researchers put into pinpointing the beliefs of the believer and how little they cared about the atheist. This was partly due to the nature of the survey, which was apparently mostly aimed at believers and their reasons for not ‘converting’ to atheism. The plethora of questions was aimed at the social conditions in which the believer was living, thus staying true to a ‘socio-economic’ (i. e. sociological) approach. Nevertheless, it showed the atheist in a dialectical relationship with the believer, one representing the past and the other the future. The atheist worker, however, did not appear to have similar spiritual needs; in fact, his atheism almost guaranteed that he was a trouble-free member of society. Most strikingly, the antireligious researchers apparently did not expect people to simply stop believing but instead implied a conscious commitment to atheism. In light of later developments, this shows

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one of the origins of ‘Scientific Atheism’ as a legitimizing science of socialism that had to argue from its own negative. The ideal Soviet citoyen paradoxically did not ‘believe’ in atheism, but consciously stopped believing in religion. Atheism did not make much progress immediately after that: Although the Stalinist regime increased its attack on common believers (as opposed to the church hierarchy), it interrupted and then abolished the Godless movement shortly afterwards. Its antireligious mission notwithstanding, it had been one of the driving forces behind empirical studies of religion. Antireligious research proved its competence in the 1937 union-wide census. Its questionnaires displayed considerable skill in asking about the religiosity of the populace. The statisticians involved even contacted the Commission for the History of Religion shortly before it was completely abolished. Not only did they have an accurate picture of the many religious groups within the country at their command, they also managed to interview people who, for obvious reasons, were in fear of repression should they answer truthfully. Furthermore, they also realized that they could only map a formal affiliation to churches and not the actual conscience and conviction of believers.⁵⁰ Soviet scholars thus had developed expertise in discerning the religiosity of the Soviet populace. Unfortunately, this time the result was as accurate as unwelcome: The majority of Soviet citizens were still believers. These results were never published, and public discussion on how to research religion and antireligion ceased for some time. ‘Scientific Atheism’ and its inquiries into a Soviet science of religion were picked up during the 1950s, first in late Stalinism and then under Khrushchev. It never again became the dynamic field of science it had been during the 1920s, as its focus remained on the narrow propagation of a scientistic worldview, advocating the natural sciences but avoiding questions on the nature of religion – but, as later dealings with religious minorities showed, it continued to serve as a dialectical opponent to religion.⁵¹ As others have already pointed out, in the end the Soviet state depended on believers for proof of its own progressiveness, and research on religion had to stay within this framework.⁵²

 Tat’iana V. Chumakova, “”Karta religii” dlia neudavsheisia Vsesoiuznoi perepisi 1937 g.: zabytaia stranitsa sovetskogo religiovedenie,” Gosudarstvo – Religiia – Cerkov’ 30, no. 3/4 (2012): 110 – 1.  See the fascinating account of Jehova’s Witnesses during the 1950s and 1960s: Zoe Knox, “Preaching the Kingdom Message: The Jehova’s Witnesses and Soviet Secularization,” in State Secularism and Lived Religion in Soviet Russia and Ukraine, ed. Catherine Wanner (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 252.  See Miriam Dobson, “The Social Scientist Meets the ‘Believer’: Discussions of God, the Afterlife, and Communism in the Mid-1960s,” Slavic Review 74 no. 1 (2015): 81– 6.

Ksenia Kolkunova

Rejected but not forgotten Scientific atheism’s concepts in contemporary Russia

Introduction Despite a generally accepted rejection of Soviet scientific heritage, especially when it comes to the humanities, we can see some influential trends revealing the presence of scientific atheistic concepts in today’s Russia. As a means of cultural production, the system of scientific atheism was institutionalized during Khrushchev’s antireligious campaign, in which the particularly active use of education, media and fiction was aimed at extinguishing any and all remaining religious convictions. Before that, however, particularly in the 1920s, we can find instances of what would become a pattern persisting until the present day. With the example of such notions as ‘believers’ feelings’ and ‘dangerous ‘sects,’’ we can claim that scientific atheism still shapes how people think about religion. These notions, dating back to Lenin’s pre-1917 writings, were a part of legislative, academic and popular public discourse during Soviet times, and are now coming back into post-Soviet Russian public discourse through language used by political authorities, church leaders and journalists. This new generation uses the scientific atheistic conceptual framework without reflecting on its origin and sometimes even inverting its initial meaning. Soviet scientific atheism as a research program or ideological endeavor is widely criticized in today’s Russian context. You can find it on Facebook (“There is nothing scientific about it! At the core, it’s just about ‘I haven’t read the Bible, but I condemn it!’”)¹ or hear it from an Orthodox priest (“A typical teacher of scientific atheism was a cynic, not believing in anything, sitting pretty”),² or even from a government official (“infamous scientific atheism” is to be blamed for the lack of spiritual values among Russian youth and for the growth

 Quoting Belorussian philosopher and public speaker Vladimir Matskevich on his personal blog on Facebook, October 8, 2017, https://www.facebook.com/worvik/posts/102146050247853 48.  Quoting Alexei Uminsky on his teacher of Scientific Atheism during Soviet times, “Nashi ucheniki – ne deti iz getto” – “Our pupils are not ghetto children,” Pravmir, October 2, 2017, http://www.pravmir.ru/nashi-ucheniki-ne-deti-iz-getto/. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547085-004

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of “dangerous destructive cults”).³ Determining the place of Soviet scientific atheism in the history of the study of religion is well beyond the scope of this paper. I claim that it contributes much to the way Russians speak of religion today. As in any area of research, Soviet scientific atheism was constructing its own subject, i. e. creating new versions of reality as well as means of dealing with it. I will briefly describe the history of scientific atheism and its various forms before I turn to the peculiarities of this discursive formation, its foundations and modes of manifestation. Subsequently, I will consider how recent Russian discussions reproduce scientific atheist discourse based on several cases.

1 Scientific atheism as cultural production It was Vladimir Lenin who wrote in 1922 that “untiring atheist propaganda and an untiring atheist fight”⁴ should become a nationwide task. How to carry out this mission was, however, a disputable question. The major actors of discourse formation changed throughout time. The notion of ‘scientific atheism’ appeared only in the late 1950s in combination with the respective departments and periodicals, e. g. Science and Religion, the Institute of Scientific Atheism and the Knowledge Society. However, it grew out of and therefore succeeded military atheism in many ways, which also had its periodicals, such as Godless and the League of the Godless (renamed later to the League of the Militant Godless, Союз воинствующих безбожников). The first attempts to wage battle against religion on a scientific basis took place in the 1920s. Party schools provided Marxist courses on the origin and class essence of religion, which illuminated Soviet policy in relation to religion and the church. In 1930, an antireligious section was established in the Society of Militant Dialectic Materialists; the same sections appeared in various scientific institutions. Media also included the weekly magazine Godless (Bezbozhnik), which appeared in 1922, and the Union of Militant Atheists of the USSR, affiliated with the state, which was established three years later. The formation of scientific atheism between 1950 and 1960 is in many ways interconnected with the antireligious campaign of Nikita Khrushchev. One can

 Quoting Ilya Anosov, deputy public relations officer in the Chelyabinsk regional government, “Zhitelej Miassa pytalis’ vovlech’ v sektu samoubijc,” September 7, 2017, Chel TV, https://www. cheltv.ru/zhitelej-miassa-pytalis-vovlech-v-sektu-samoubijc/.  Vladimir Lenin, “On the Significance of Militant Materialism,” in Collected Works, Volume 33 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1972), 227– 36, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/ 1922/mar/12.htm.

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often read about the termination of a vividly antireligious policy after Khrushchev. Although there are no resolutions on religious issues in the collections of the Soviet communist party CPSU documents between 1960 and 1970, scientific atheism as a system developed during that time. The formation and growth of the system of views, as well as the development and implementation of the state educational standards for the academic discipline of Scientific Atheism, took place in the 1970s. Exemplary of this process is the almanac The Questions of Scientific Atheism, published between 1966 and 1989, which undoubtedly became the central periodical for this discipline and the standard for conducting research. The two perspectives on scientific atheism mentioned above correspond to two sides of most methodological discussions that took place around developing Soviet atheism. First, in 1922 Aleksander Vvedensky, neo-Kantian philosopher and an exemplary pre-Soviet intellectual, presented the paper “The destiny of belief in God while fighting atheism,” which was later published in the magazine Mysl (Thought). Here, Vvedensky provides a rational critique of atheist propaganda and proposes a research program for the psychological study of religious faith. The scholar who answered this call was Vagarshak Ter-Vaganyan, editor of the newly founded journal Under the Marxism banner, with his paper “Jugglery – against atheism.” He left the field of rational scientific polemics for theses such as “we don’t care about hypocrites, epileptics and illiterates.”⁵ Like many scholars who followed, Ter-Vaganyan portrays religious believers not only as members of certain marginal groups, but moreover as crazy, sick, outdated freaks. During this period, certain areas responsible for atheist state policy were not differentiated from one another. Thus, Aleksander Lukachevsky was simultaneously known for his system of Marxist philosophy of religion⁶ as well as his field research program, aiming to understand with the current religiosity and what was preventing the materialistic worldview from spreading. While researching, Lukachevsky was also deputy chair of the Militant Godless Union, actively publishing papers for the periodical press. Furthermore, he gave speeches on the fight against religion. He proposed a trifold foundation for this battle: antireligious propaganda, antireligious agitation and antireligious work in daily life.

 Elena Motovnikova, “‘Pod znamenem marksizma’ – ‘Mysl’: germenevticheskaja kollizija 1922” [“‘Under the Banner of Marxism’” – “‘Thought’: Hermeneutical Conflict of 1922”], Voprosy filosofii 11 (2013): 127.  E. g. Marksizm-leninizm kak voinstvujushii ateizm [Marxism-Leninism as Militant Atheism] (Moscow: Ogiz – Gosudarstvennoe Antireligioznoe Izdatel’stvo, 1933).

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This distinction between agitation and propaganda was already proposed by Georgi Plekhanov (Большая советская энциклопедия): Agitation is bringing a certain idea to many people at once, while propaganda is mediating a few ideas to one or several people. Antireligious work in daily life aimed to liquidate religious practices and involved creating a new Soviet ritual system.⁷ Internal political changes during the late 1930s, followed by the Second World War and a new stage in church-state relations, brought this period of antireligious policy to an end. Many periodicals and organizations shifted their name and focus or even disappeared. It was only with Nikita Khrushchev as the general secretary of the Central Committee that the Soviet state returned to anticlerical and antireligious activities. An article in the official communist party newspaper Pravda, “Widening scientific-atheistic propaganda,” signaled a new step in late July, 1954. This is regarded as the beginning of Khrushchev’s antireligious campaign, as well as of scientific atheism as a new discipline, which was institutionalized within several years: New departments for scientific atheism in Moscow and Kiev were opened in the late 1950s, followed by another in Leningrad. The panel for scientific atheism was set up at the Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences. Central and probably the most important of all, the Institute of Scientific Atheism was founded as part of the Academy of Social Sciences by the Communist Party Central Committee (1964). Courses on scientific atheism became obligatory for all students in higher education. Among the executive authorities, it was the Council for Religious Affairs⁸ that was responsible for religious policy. In 1947, the Militant Godless group was transformed into the Knowledge Society.⁹ With the support of municipalities, its members provided most of the local events with lectures on political, scientific and antireligious subjects. The 1950s and 60s saw the establishment of a system regulating scientific atheist discourse in the form of legal acts by the Central Committee, appointment of academic staff, elaboration of theories and acquisition of empirical data, as well as a voluntary sector including the Knowledge Society, for example, which popularized a scientific worldview. For supporters, these three levels were closely interconnected. Thus, the Central Committee basically controlled the unity of the discourse as a whole.

 See Christel Lane, The Rites of Rulers: Ritual in Industrial Society: The Soviet Case (Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981); Natalya Sadomskaya, “Soviet anthropology and contemporary rituals,” Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique 31, no. 2 (1990): 245 – 55.  This council existed from 1965 to 1991; prior to 1965, there were two structures – one responsible for the Russian Orthodox Church and the second for all other organizations and groups.  Under this name, the organization outlived the Soviet Union and dissolved itself in June 2016.

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Scientific atheism was a self-sufficient system despite the lack of legislative support: While the Communist Party barely addressed the antireligious agenda in its legislation¹⁰ during the late 1960s and 70s, this did not affect new research, as we can see from the numerous volumes of Questions of Scientific Atheism (published between 1966 and 1989). From a scholarly perspective, two major approaches can be identified with regard to the study of religion during the Soviet era: The first, popular among believers, is that scientific atheism was just a name for plain atheism, so that there was nothing to keep or study, only something to eradicate. Due to its heavy ideological load, it cannot be regarded as proper scientific research. The second approach regards scientific atheism as a normal science in Kuhn’s sense,¹¹ explaining certain exceptions involving individual excesses, ideology or bureaucratic interventions. When coming from this perspective, certain formal features of a developed scholarly enterprise are visible, such as the educational and organizational systems. However, these features also include the generation of token-companies and a group of scholars with either a mediocre reputation or a questionable existence. Most of the scholars studying religion carried out highlevel research and coped with ideological demands. We can find a short formula for this approach from Marianna Shakhnovich: On the basis of the best traditions of progressive Russian philosophical thought and advanced historical science, Soviet scholars have achieved a lot in their exploration of the complex problems of such an important area of spiritual culture as religion.¹²

Both of these perspectives can be regarded as too bold and corresponding to certain political issues. Nevertheless, the Soviet study of religion can in no way be considered a ‘normal’ science. In many cases, the political agenda was not only an important external influence on the discipline, but a mold for shaping internal views and personal practices.

 See Voprosy ideologicheskoj bor’by KPSS. Sbornik vazhneshih reshenij KPSS (1965 – 1972) [Questions of ideological struggle. Major decisions by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1965 – 1972] (Moscow: Izdatels’tvo politicheskoj literatury, 1972).  Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).  Mary Ann M. Shakhnovich, “The Study of Religion in the Soviet Union,” Numen 40, no. 1 (1993): 77.

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2 Believers’ feelings The discourse transmission discussed above can be illustrated using several examples, mostly from the notions that found their way into contemporary Russian public discourse. Their sources included everything from Soviet atheistic legislation, propaganda and fiction, to scientific atheism itself. Now, these notions constitute the active vocabulary of believers and authorities. One of the most notorious examples is the stock phrase ‘religious feelings’ or ‘believers’ religious feelings.’ In 1909, Lenin wrote about the party’s attitude towards workers with religious beliefs in his article “The Attitude of the Workers’ Party to Religion”: “[W]e are absolutely opposed to giving the slightest offence to their religious convictions.”¹³ After the revolution, this thesis was further developed in 1919 when the Eighth Communist Party Congress formulated the “Decree on the separation of church from state and school from church” (1918) and outlined the propaganda program with a particular focus on the temporary nature of religion, which they believed would diminish in the classless future. Antireligious propaganda was regarded as a tool for freeing the working masses from religious propaganda, but this was to be done “carefully, avoiding any insult to believers’ religious feelings, which could only lead to a strengthening of religious fanaticism.”¹⁴ This can partly be explained as an attempt to avoid international criticism: “Meticulously avoid anything allowing some nationality to think and our enemies to proclaim that we persecute people for their beliefs.”¹⁵ In the 1920s, it was still a contested term, as the decree on the liquidation of relics (1920) also addressed the topic of insulting religious conscience.¹⁶ This legislative practice was validated by a scientific atheistic system and was explained as part of the research on religious consciousness, which was studied in comparison with theological approaches to religious feelings (such as those of Friedrich Schleiermacher and Rudolf Otto). But, as Dmitri Ugrinovich, a prominent Soviet scholar, put it, from a Marxist perspective this religious feeling is not of natural origin or a unique object, but rather “any emotions imme Vladimir Lenin, “The Attitude of the Workers’ Party to Religion,” in Collected Works, Volume 15, (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1973), 402– 13, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/ 1922/mar/12.htm.  Kommunisticheskaja partija i Sovetskoe pravitel’stvo o religii i cerkvi [The Communist Party and the Soviet government on religion and church] (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe izdatel’stvo politicheskoj literatury, 1961), 51.  Kommunisticheskaja partija i Sovetskoe pravitel’stvo o religii i cerkvi, 61.  Kommunisticheskaja partija i Sovetskoe pravitel’stvo o religii i cerkvi, 56.

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diately connected to religious beliefs” can be regarded as religious feelings. Accordingly, any feeling like anger, fear or affection can be religious.¹⁷ In the Atheist’s Table Book (Nastol’naya kniga ateista), this scheme is elaborated on to address more empirical matters. In particular, the authors blame believers for allowing their feelings (‘religious,’ i. e. set on illusive objects) to prevent them from being proper citizens who serve society and others (“religious feelings withdraw a person from reality”).¹⁸ As Konstantin Antonov puts it, “we can suppose that religious consciousness adopts this [scientific atheistic] pattern and in many cases works as scientific atheists described it.”¹⁹ As of 2013, insulting a person’s religious feelings is a criminal offence.²⁰ The starting point for this legal change was a Pussy Riot case.²¹ Criminal Code clause 148 now describes the “Violation of the right to freedom of conscience and confessions” and claims that “public activities that express evident disrespect towards society and aimed at insulting believers’ religious feelings” are punishable. It is difficult to answer why this Soviet expression found its way back into legislation. However, the discussion of religious feelings gathered all major actors of the public sphere: Back in 2012, it was the legal advisor of the Moscow Patriarchate nun Kseniya Chernega who called for the criminalization of blasphemy. Mikhail Shakhov, professor at the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration and at Sretenskaya Theological Seminary points out the necessity of protecting the majority by contraposing Russia to the US and Europe as ‘post-Christian’ civilizations, where the ‘white Christian person’ is defenseless. Addressing the issue of defending atheists’ feelings, Shakhov claims that “if we look at Scientific Atheism textbooks, as well as textbooks

 Voprosy nauchnogo atheisma 1 (1966): 50.  S. Skazkin ed. Nastol’naja kniga ateista [Atheist’s Table Book] (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo politicheskoj literatury, 1985), 355. Moreover, scientific atheism claims that religious feelings are transmitted by suggestion. Nastol’naja kniga ateista, 356.  Konstantin Antonov, “‘Nauchnyj ateizm’ i religija v SSSR: issledovanie i/ili konstruirovanie” [‘Scientific atheism’ and religion in the USSR: studying and/or construction], Gefter, October 28, 2015, http://gefter.ru/archive/16405 28.10. 2015.  It had been a part of administrative law since 2002 as, according to the Code of the Russian Federation on Administrative Offenses’ clause 5.26 part 2, “Insulting citizens’ religious feelings or desecrating worshipped items, signs and symbols of a worldview” is punishable with a fine.  On February 21, 2012, five women from the Russian punk band Pussy Riot entered the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow. They put on balaclavas and walked to the altar, where they jumped around for less than a minute. Later on, the footage of this act became part of their Youtube video clip entitled Mother of God, Drive Putin Away (described as ‘punk moleben,’ that is, paraklesis or supplicatory service).

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for Religious Studies written later on, the foundation of atheistic ones, we’ll see that the specific nature of religious feelings is proved there”.²² According to him, therefore, atheists asking for defense contradict their own foundations. Obviously, this position is quite the opposite of the scientific atheistic approach to religious feelings. Thus, proponents of defending religious feelings tend to ontologize it. This is partly due to the necessity of distinguishing it from speculations and fantasies (as Shakhov calles it, “passing caprice”).²³ Soviet ambiguous views of religion can also be seen as a source for the social dispute around the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris in January 2015. Despite the fact that it also concerned freedom of speech and certain anti-Islamic issues, the major reason for the tragedy was, according to Russian respondents of a survey, journalists insulting religious feelings.²⁴ Patriarch Kirill himself claimed that insults to religious feelings were connected with extremist actions, stressing its destructive nature toward society: “Insulting religious feelings is one of the forms of extremism, it’s something that rocks the foundation of social being, something that provokes inner conflicts.”²⁵ Similar concerns were expressed by the Russian Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky concerning the Novosibirsk Opera Theater Tannhäuser production: If we neglect believers’ feelings, there’ll be hell to pay. It’s our multinational, multi-confessional country – first it’s quiet, and suddenly it explodes somewhere worse than Charlie [Hebdo]. It should be dealt with at the fetus stage.²⁶

Despite fundamentally different political systems, the examples show that political authorities, legislation, and ideological authority (i. e. the Patriarch) use a Soviet construct in a number of quite different cases: the Charlie Hebdo shooting in Paris 2015, artists using religious symbols (the Tannhäuser production in 2014 depicting a cross and crucifixion in an ‘inappropriate’ context), and performers misbehaving in churches (Pussy Riot 2012 and Ruslan Sokolovsky, a videoblogger who played Pokémon Go in the Ekaterinburg cathedral in 2016).

 “‘Chuvstva verujushhih’ kak predmet zakonodatel’’nogo regulirovanija,” Pravoslaviye.ru, October 4, 2012, http://www.pravoslavie.ru/56480.html.  “‘Chuvstva verujushhih’ kak predmet zakonodatel’’nogo regulirovanija.”  “Press vypusk” [Press Release], VCIOM (Russian Public Opinion Research Center), January 26, 2015, https://wciom.ru/index.php?id=236&uid=622/.  “Patriarh Kirill priravnjal oskorblenie chuvstv verujushhih k jekstremizmu,” Interfax, September 29, 2017, http://www.interfax.ru/russia/581139.  “Medinskij poobeshhal nakazyvat’ za oskorbljajushhie verujushhih postanovki,” Interfax, April 2, 2015, http://www.interfax.ru/culture/433881.

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In October 2017, State Duma Deputy Oleg Smolin, member of the Communist party, proposed changes in the clause to settle the context: He suggested that insults to religious feelings should be defined as only taking place in the time and space of religious rituals,²⁷ for example during gatherings and ceremonies. This call brings us back to the scientific atheistic usage of the term, setting aside the problem of misplaced usage as well as ontologization of religious feeling.

3 Dangerous ‘sects’ The second example I will examine is the study of religious minorities. Of course, we cannot say that the term ‘sect’ was invented during Soviet times. Scientific atheistic research approaches were based on pre-revolutionary studies. Sect studies (‘sectovedenie’) were a relatively new area of theological research: In 1914, two books were published which summed up the theoretical achievements of the discipline, one in Kazan seminary²⁸ and one in Kiev.²⁹ This area of study proposes that ‘sect’ means ‘anti-church.’ The major goal for sect studies is not only to study but also to expose its object. We can conclude that several aspects were crucial for the pre-revolutionary usage of the term ‘sect.’ First, a sect is to be viewed as separate from the dominant church (leading to certain negative connotations). Second, a sectarian community is expected to be closely interconnected and secluded. This perspective is quite similar to the one that was developed by the sociology of religion (e. g. Max Weber: “a sect is not an institution (‘Anstalt’) like a church, but a community of the religiously qualified. All the members of the sect are called to salvation”).³⁰ For obvious reasons, sect studies were transferred to the domain of social studies and not theology after the Socialist revolution. The most influential trends in this transfer were outlined by Vladimir Lenin and Vladimir BonchBruyevich in their writings (mostly between 1890 and the 1900s).

 “Proekt federal’nogo zakona O vnesenii izmenenija v chast’ 1 stat’i 148 Ugolovnogo kodeksa Rossijskoj Federacii,” accessed January 25, 2018, http://asozd2c.duma.gov.ru/addwork/scans. nsf/ID/7C8D2EA46B7FD725432581B00040477B/$FILE/278432– 7_05102017_278432– 7.PDF?Open Element.  Varsonofij (Luzin), Problema sektovedenija kak nauki [Problems of Sectology as a Science] (Kazan, 1914).  Nikolaj Fetisov, Opyt ujasnenija osnovnyh voprosov nauki sektovedenija [The experience of understanding the basic questions of the science of sectology] (Kiev, 1914).  Ferdinand Toennies, Georg Simmel, Ernst Troeltsch, and Max Weber, “Max Weber on Church, Sect, and Mysticism,” Sociological Analysis 34, no. 2 (1973): 141.

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Implicitly, the basics for studying religious sects were established in Lenin’s works What Is to Be Done? ³¹ (1901/1902), The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats ³² (1897), A Draft of Our Party Program ³³ (1899), and several others. Two of his major theses are the following: Sectarianism is a type of class struggle and the communist party must use this resource for its own purposes. This sets the foundation for an ambiguous attitude toward the sects in the early years of the Soviet Union: As a religious phenomenon, sects are to be vanquished, but as struggling anti-capitalist groups they could be an ally in the fight.³⁴ An explicitly theoretical framework which included categories for discussing sects was developed by Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich. In his article “Schism and sectarianism in Russia”³⁵ (1903), he provides a new typology of sects and argues with theological researchers about the limits of the concept. For Bonch-Bruyevich, two major tools of sect studies involve the elaboration of the social and psychological roots of this phenomenon and seeing religious views as part of a superstructure,³⁶ so that they do not have any explanatory power. These would remain widely used by Soviet scholars later on. Most of the scholars researching sects took part in developing numerous legislative regulations alongside the party apparatus.³⁷ Some of these texts, espe Vladimir Lenin, “What Is To Be Done?,” in Collected Works, Volume 5, (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1961), 347– 530, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/.  Vladimir Lenin, “The Tasks of the Russian Social-Democrats,” in Collected Works, Volume 2, (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1972), 323 – 52, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/ 1897/dec/31b.htm .  Vladimir Lenin, “A Draft of Our Party Program,” in Collected Works, Volume 4, (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1964), 227– 54, https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1899/dec/ draft.htm.  This revolutionary potency was realized, for example, when in 1921 the Doukhobors’ community came back from Canada to partake in the communism building in Russia. They got attention from both Lenin and Bonch-Bruyevich (c.f. Voprosy nauchnogo atheism 8 (1969), 312– 6), but during Stalin’s repression these migrants were abolished.  Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich, Raskol i sektantstvo v Rossii [Schism and sectarianism in Russia] (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Mysl’, 1973), 173 – 213.  In Marxist terms, the part of society that is not the base, i. e. production forces and relations. Superstructure includes all culture, social institutes and relations, power structures, state, etc.  E. g. Arrangement of antireligious propaganda, developed by Yemelyan Yaroslavsky’s (leader of League of the Militant Godless) report at the Communist Party Central Commitee’s plenary assembly (1921), On the arrangement of antireligious propaganda (1922), On the arrangement of antireligious agitation and propaganda – the resolution of the 12th Congress of the Communist Party (1923), and the theses adopted at the Communist Party Central Commitee’s Antireligious conference (1926) (see Roman Safronov, “Izuchenie sekt v sovetskom religiovedenii: terminologija i podhody”[Studying sects in the Soviet study of religion: terminology and approaches], Vestnik PSTGU, Serija 1, 49, no. 5 (2013), 96 – 112).

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cially The Theses, written partly by Fyodor Putintsev, renowned atheist, proposed analyses of the growth and roots of sectarianism. It was regarded as a consequence of War Communism (economic and political policy of Soviet Russia from 1918 to 1921), as well as New Economic Policy (economic policy 1921– 1928, involving privatization and market revival). These periods were regarded as partially misleading, creating dysfunctional economic relations which led to certain social ramifications. From the scholarly and political perspectives, geography and economics were regarded as determinants of social changes in rural Soviet areas, which were seen as a main stage for sectarian movements. So, dealing with sectarian movements was interconnected with solving economic and social problems among peasants. Fyodor Putintsev created a quantitative research program³⁸ which was realized between 1926 and 1930 in many regions of the Soviet Union in order to study the religious views of the rural population. However, besides such research projects we can see numerous works of an ideological nature bashing religious minorities and viewing them as not even worth studying: Monsters, centers of sectarian obscurantism, or Wolves in sheep’s clothing, or the class face of a sectarian. ³⁹ Putintsev went as far as abandoning the term ‘sect’ itself as technical and senseless,⁴⁰ because ‘sect’ lost its religious meaning. His entire typology was based on economic criteria, with sectarianism divided into urban and rural bourgeoisie (kulaks), middle-class peasants, and poor peasants. Definitions and theoretical reflections on religious sects only reappeared in Soviet literature during the era of Scientific Atheism – in the 1920s, 30s, and 40s, studies were based on Lenin’s ideas. The 1959 definition of a sect addressed the same features as in pre-revolutionary research: separation from a ‘dominant church’ and a close-knit community.⁴¹ Neither functional nor substantial definitions were used to define a sect, because from the Soviet Marxist perspective a sect has neither substance nor social function. Authors pointed out several features of sects like exclusiveness, intolerance toward others, rivalry, passionate

 Fyodor Putincev, “Voprosnik i metodicheskie ukazanija po sobiraniju svedenij o sektah” [Questionnaire and methodological guideline for gathering information on sects], Antireligioznik 6 (1927), 78 – 83.  E. Gorskij, Izuvery [Monsters] (Moscow, 1930); Po ochagam sektantskogo mrakobesija [Centers of sectarian obscurantism] (Moscow, 1931); M. Kasatskij, Volki v ovech’ej shkure ili klassovoe lico sektanta [Wolves in sheep’s clothing, or the class face of a sectarian] (Izhevsk, 1929).  Fyodor Putincev, Sektantstvo i antireligioznaja propaganda: metodicheskoe posobie [Sectarianism and antireligious propaganda: a methodological manual] (Moscow, 1928), 19.  “Religious association of believers who are separated from the church” in Sputnik ateista [Atheist’s Companion], ed. Sergej I. Kovalev (Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1959), 146.

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polemics and self-affirmation by denying everything outside the accepted circle of thought and activity. Furthermore, a sect was seen to have been engendered by the struggle with the religious institutions of the ruling class⁴² and as an expression of the protest of social groups, dissatisfied with their position in the class-based society. A tendency toward isolation, the concept of being chosen and a desire for the spiritual rebirth of its members were also attributed to sects. All that led to extreme fanaticism and extremism toward sects.⁴³ The most studied ‘sects’ were the Evangelical Christian Baptist Union, Seventh-Day Adventists, Pentecostals, Jehovah’s Witnesses,⁴⁴ True Orthodoxy,⁴⁵ Molokans and Old Believers.⁴⁶ These studies were used for antireligious work and influenced forms of agitation, like fiction, specially addressed to religion. They were published as novels, intended for both schools and adult readers or as part of antireligious periodicals (like the monthly journal Science and Religion). Some were even brought to the screen (the film Miracle-working by Vladimir Skuibin, 1962). In many of the publications from the 1950s, we can find a similar storyline. The authors used a set of patterns to build a standardized antireligious entity. This set included findings from scientific atheistic research, such as a description of the True Orthodox community’s daily life in the Tambov region by Klibanov, which is quite similar to the skrytniki-community ((‘hiding ones’) in the novelette The Web by Aleksandr Makarov.⁴⁷ Most of the fiction is written in the first-person perspective (sometimes the victim, or more commonly a person representing Soviet society – e. g. an investigator, teacher or party official). The setting is either a village or a small town – corresponding to Putintsev’s theory of sectarianism’s class nature or Lenin’s ideas of peasants’ revolutionary potential as expressed in sectarian movements. Writers usually describe sectarians as villains, morally unstable criminals, violent, killing babies, etc. (‘izuver’ – ‘fanatic’ – is the most widely used term for a member of such a religious group). Quite common are references to a pro-German orientation during the Second World War (sectarians as fascists). All this  Aleksandr Klibanov, Religioznoe sektantstvo v proshlom i nastojashhem [Religious Sectarianism in the past and present] (Moscow: Nauka, 1973).  M. Novikov ed. Karmannyj slovar’ ateista [Atheist’s pocket book] (Moscow.: Politizdat, 1975), 218.  Voprosy nauchnogo atheism 21 (1977).  Voprosy istorii religii i ateizma 9 (1958); A.I. Klibanov ed. Sovremennoe sektantstvo i ego preodolenie (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Akademii nauk, 1961).  Voprosy nauchnogo atheisma 2 (1966).  Voprosy istorii religii i ateizma 9 (1958); Sovremennoe sektantstvo i ego preodolenie, 144– 80; Aleksandr Makarov, Pautina [Web] (1963), accessed January 25, 2018, http://profilib.com/chte nie/139255/aleksandr-makarov-pautina.php.

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was aimed at persuading readers to connect religiosity with the criminal world and view it as a symptom of general social and moral ‘ill-being.’ Concerning the psychological depiction of sectarians, here is a description of Pentecostals after their gathering: “The eyes are glassy, terrible, and they themselves are sluggish, as if beaten, if you raise their hand – it falls.”⁴⁸ Psychological traumas are a typical reason for joining the sect.⁴⁹ Muddy, callous and unhealthy are the most typical epithets for religious people. Mostly young women with certain family problems or who were influenced by an older generation and made a poor life choice are described as victims of the sects. The responsibility is shared between the leaders of the group (criminals, etc.), the victim (for choosing poorly) and society (for its indifference).⁵⁰ The groups addressed most frequently in fiction are the Pentecostals and True Orthodox, probably because they are considered to be the most charismatic and isolated. Scientific atheist Anatoly Belov pointed out this tendency as a fault of antireligious fiction. Other sects, like Baptists or Adventists, cannot be considered less dangerous, but rarely make it to the pages of fiction as their description is less picturesque.⁵¹ Concerning the Russian Orthodox Church, fiction typically describes marginalized believers who oppose the official hierarchy. Apparently, the authors would not criticize an officially registered organization. They focused more on antisocial elements. Protagonists were not prosecuted for their beliefs, which are defended by Soviet law, but for illegal activities like the lack of registration, propaganda, child abuse, etc. Obviously, Christian organizations dominate in the discourse around sects (within fiction and beyond). The situation only changed in the 1980s when, due to Perestroika and the widening of contacts with the West, new contacts were established who brought new trends – both in academia as well as entirely new movements themselves (International Society for Krishna Consciousness is one of the most notable examples). Due to this, we can see that during the 1980s

 V. Shaposhnikova, “Vyrvalas’,” [Getting out] Nauka i religija 1 (1959), 45 – 53.  Vladimir Pomerancev, Oboroten’ [Shapeshifter] (1963), accessed January 25, 2018. http:// www.imwerden.info/belousenko/wr_Pomerantsev.htm.  The same is regarded as a typical scenario for Russian Orthodox priests: “Clerics tend to look into a person’s spiritual world, especially with people unstable in their faith of unbelief, and find there hitches for further religious cultivation of a person’s mind” (Osnovy nauchnogo ateizma [Scientific atheism: the basics], ed. I. Ogryzko (Leningrad: Leningradsky gosudarstvenny pedagogichessky institut imeni A. I. Gercena, 1970), 83.  Anatoly Belov, “Hudozhestvennaja literatura i ateisticheskoj propaganda,” [Fiction and atheistic propaganda], Voprosy nauchnogo atheism 9 (1970): 293.

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scientific atheists tried to move away from the term ‘sect’ in favor of more neutral, ‘non-traditional religiosity’ (or “religions of the new era,” as Lev Mitrokhin calls it).⁵² The term ‘cult’ was used as well, probably under the influence of the American sociology of religion from the same period.⁵³ Nevertheless, journalists stuck to the good old term ‘sect,’ ignoring new trends.⁵⁴ One of the most obvious examples of the discursive continuity is the case of Jehovah’s Witnesses, who were widely studied by scientific atheists as a sect and now are one of the most notorious examples of a persecuted religious minority in Russia. On the 20th of April, 2017, the Russian Supreme Court labeled Jehovah’s Witnesses an extremist organization, liquidated 395 branches in Russia and banned its activities in the country; the organization’s assets were confiscated. As a representative of the Ministry of Justice put it, “[t]he religious organization Jehovah’s Witnesses shows signs of extremist activity. They pose a threat to citizens’ rights, public order and public safety.”⁵⁵ Let us now see how this view corresponds to the Soviet view of Jehovah’s Witnesses: Jehovah’s Witnesses is an exceptionally reactionist anti-Soviet organization. There is an insufficient number of ‘witnesses’ in the Soviet Union, but they have been acting under the banner of religion against the Soviet state. During the period of collectivization, they propagated against the kolhoz [collective farms]. Now, they are sabotaging all the economic and political measures taken by the party and government in every possible way, boycotting the elections to the Soviet bodies, refusing to serve in the Soviet Army. The anti-Soviet character of this sect is quite obvious. The center of this organization is in New York. Jehovah’s Witnesses adapt Christian religious books to protect the interests of the imperialists.⁵⁶

Major features promoted here are anti-Soviet state policy, banning various collective activities and serving enemies’ secret services. In the post-Soviet era, the blood infusion ban became one of most important controversies. The reason for such change is subject to speculation. Leader of the public organization First Youth Aid and member of the Public Council under the Presidential Envoy for the Rights of the Child Anton Androsov shares his view of the extremist essence of the group:

 Lev Mitrohin, “Social’no-psihologicheskaja priroda ‘religij novogo veka,’” [Social and psychological nature of the ‘religions of the new era’] Voprosy nauchnogo atheism 32 (1985).  Voprosy nauchnogo atheisma, 32 (1985).  Kirill Privalov, Sekty: dos’e straha [Sects: Fear Dossier] (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo politicheskoj literatury, 1987).  “Sud priznal zakonnoj priostanovku dejatel’nosti “Svidetelej Iegovy” v Rossii,” Vedomosti, April 24, 2017, https://www.vedomosti.ru/politics/news/2017/04/24/687155-sud.  Osnovnye voprosy nauchnogo ateizma [Major questions of the scientific atheism], ed. I. Pantskhava (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo social’no-jekonomicheskoj literatury, 1962), 147.

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Influence methods of the sect that spread around the world in the first half of the 20th century could not be overlooked by the US special services, which actively promoted the activities of Jehovah’s Witnesses and contributed to the dissemination of their materials. Using this sect, the CIA has replenished the ranks of agents of its influence […]. The second is a blood transfusion. […] Even with the threat of death, they refuse to do a blood transfusion. […] Imagine they go to hospitals and tell doctors that if you make a blood transfusion, if you save people, we will sue you. If this is not extremism, what is? This is pure extremism. Third, it is a ban on military service and a ban on taking part in elections. That is, they do not vote. Let’s imagine that tomorrow 51 % of the population of our country are Jehovah’s Witnesses. This means that we will have to give up the army, which means that we will have to abandon the state as such.⁵⁷

Even more explicitly, this ‘imperialist’ and ‘CIA-funded’ stereotype is transmitted by Roman Silantyev, director of the human rights center for the World Russian People’s Council and prolific writer on religion, especially Islam and non-traditional minorities, in Russia: In Russia they specialize in inciting hatred towards the religious majority, that is, the Orthodox. The sect is of American origin, that’s why they conduct anti-Russian activities. More than two hundred of their functionaries were brought to administrative and criminal persecution. Dozens of times the judiciary was forced to authorize the provision of medical care when parents refused to get blood transfusions for their children. In some cases, after the death of the child, criminal proceedings were instituted against the mother. They directly call the Pope and Catholics Satanists. This sect considers itself to be the only true one, and the rest – impostors.⁵⁸

This depiction of sectarians as dangerous criminals is a tool taken from the antireligious agitator’s toolbox. The tendency toward isolation and the concept of being chosen as major features of a sect are regarded as extremist themselves from a scientific atheistic perspective today: Jehovah’s Witnesses is a dubious organization that many researchers call simply a sect. They emphasize too much the exclusiveness of themselves, their organization. ‘Only Jehovah’s Witnesses can be saved,’ and all the others are almost serving the devil. In fact, it is this exclusivity that is a manifestation of extremism, because if we declare that only we

 “”Svideteli Iegovy”: jekstremizm pod vidom ljubvi k Bogu,” Tsargrad, March 16, 2017, https://tsargrad.tv/articles/svideteli-iegovy-jekstremizm-pod-vidom-ljubvi-k-bogu_53704.  “Odna neskonchaemaja proverka Verhovnyj sud RF zapretil ‘svidetelej Iegovy,’” Meduza, April 21, 2017, https://meduza.io/feature/2017/04/21/odna-neskonchaemaya-proverka.

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have the truth, only we will be saved, and all the rest are people who need to be treated with suspicion, then we are extremists.⁵⁹

The problems with the legislative definition of extremism (or the lack of such) are beyond the scope of this paper, but we see that most of the conceptual framework and arguments that are on the table these days used by politicians, religious organizations and journalists have a scientific atheistic background. Unlike religious feelings, the Soviet concept of a sect has not yet found its way back into legislation. However, it recently became part of the agenda. Many politicians are developing legislation regulating ‘destructive sects’ and providing a definition for this controversial term.⁶⁰

4 Conclusion The above examples do not exhaust the influence scientific atheism had on public discourse and religious understanding in contemporary Russia. We can find traces of such continuity in the discussion of missionary activity, religious coercion, spirituality and religion’s role in history and culture. Religious dynamics show that many Russians have internalized scientific atheistic theories,⁶¹ but in most cases contemporary believers do not perceive this continuity and blame the atheists of the past, as the examples provided at the beginning of this chapter illustrate. It is clear that the changes in the ideological hegemony taking place in the late 1980s until the early 1990s did not result in a discursive change. The agitation, propaganda and work in daily life, represented by the legislative and executive branches of the power, scientific atheists as researchers and theorists, and propagandists (lectors, antireligious writers, and so on), built a core for scientific atheism as encompassing societal transformation. During the post-Soviet period, the disposition changed and discursive control was withdrawn from the Communist Party Central Committee. Can we see a newly established distribution of authority and discursive control scheme? The examples provided here show that

 The quote belongs to Aleksander Neveev, described as a ‘religious cult expert’: “Jekspert rasskazal, za chto Verhovnyj sud priznal ‘Svidetelej Iegovy’ jekstremistami,” Zvezda, April 20, 2017, https://tvzvezda.ru/news/vstrane_i_mire/content/201704201954– 4bv8.htm.  E. Mizulina anonsirovala razrabotku paketa ‘antisektantskih’ zakonov, Sovet Federacii Federal’nogo Sobranija Rossijskoj Federacii, accessed January 25, 2018, http://www.council.gov.ru/ events/news/73820/.  Antonov, “‘Nauchnyj ateizm’ i religija v SSSR: issledovanie i/ili konstruirovanie.”

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scientific atheistic concepts are finding their way back into legislation. Fiction and nonfiction still use patterns set by Soviet antireligious standards, such as Ex-novitiate’s confession. ⁶² Agitation and systematic ideological elaboration, for which scientific atheists formally claimed responsibility, have formally or informally become the domain of the Russian Orthodox Church.⁶³ This new generation of agitators use scientific atheistic conceptual frameworks without reflecting on its origin, and sometimes with major changes. Thus, religious feelings are now regarded as ontologically different from other feelings and sects are opposed to ‘traditional’ religious organizations and not a religion-less socialist society. If we place the above examples within the context of secularization theory, we can conclude that the Soviet secularization project was unsuccessful, since religion survived.⁶⁴ This constitutes a substantial misunderstanding: Secularization was so successful, it created a new way of seeing and describing religion that even religious people continue to use in today’s Russia.

 Marija Kikot’, Ispoved’ byvshej poslushnicy [Ex-novitiate’s confession] (Moscow: EKSMO, 2017).  See, for example: Mark Woods, How the Russian Orthodox Church is backing Vladimir Putin’s new world order. Christian Today, 3 March 2016, https://www.christiantoday.com/article/ how-the-russian-orthodox-church-is-backing-vladimir-putins-new-world-order/81108.htm.  Paul Froese, The Plot to Kill God: Findings from the Soviet Experiment in Secularization (Berkley, CA: University of California Press, 2008).

Daniela Schmidt

Distancing, defamation, criminalization Religion-related vocabulary in GDR dictionaries¹

Introduction The following essay examines the political perspective of dictionaries in East Germany as shown in their treatment of religion-related vocabulary. Selected entries are compared, with the aim of reconstructing the underlying formative behaviors and attitudes of the society at the time of entry. Through a comparison with definitions from a philosophical encyclopedic dictionary, the political perspective becomes clear. Over time fluctuations can be seen in the intensity of the authors’ bias, as well as influences up to the textual level. A further comparison with West German dictionaries serves to provide a broader context. Some degree of distancing from religious perspectives also occurred even in West German works due to a process of progressive secularization. The political background becomes especially tangible in entries from a dictionary for employees of the Ministry of State Security, characterizing religion as an oppressive instrument of capitalism. While religion is depicted as an emotional category, an illusionary concept or even a dangerous force based on social conditions, atheism is promoted as a conscious rejection of this outdated concept and therefore valued as progress.

1 Preliminary remarks The term ‘dictionary’ is versatile. Usually, additions in the title, e. g., ‘English,’ or ‘etymological,’ ‘biological’ or ‘theological,’ explain the nature of the dictionary, be it a linguistic or a technical dictionary. A common feature of all types is that they are usually alphabetically ordered collections of words, for which the re-

 For publication in this volume, all citations of dictionary excerpts were translated into English. This was done to ensure readability. The analysis refers to the German original. I limited myself to presenting only the examples that are also comprehensible in English. I expressly invite the reader to review the results of this work on the originals and to point out any errors. For their very thorough reading of the German manuscript and content-related advice, I am very grateful to Dr. Sibylle Ohly and Mr. Armin Wolf (Berlin-Weissensee). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547085-005

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sults of lexicographical work are presented to convey an intended meaning.² Technical or encyclopedic dictionaries provide concise information and definitions of terms, which are important for specific areas of knowledge. The focus of linguistic dictionaries, on the other hand, is on the meaning and usage of words. The definition of knowledge – except knowledge about language – is not their intention. Nevertheless, the concept of a linguistic dictionary creates a focal point of language that corresponds to a partial discourse.³ Furthermore, for presentation in an entry, the available evidential documents have been viewed, selected and ordered. The language within them is categorized and annotated and reveals different perspectives.⁴

 Cf. Burkhard Schaeder, Germanistische Lexikographie (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1987), 101.  Albert Busch, “Der Diskurs: ein linguistischer Proteus und seine Erfassung – Methodologie und empirische Gütekriterien für die sprachwissenschaftliche Erfassung von Diskursen und ihrer lexikalischen Inventare,” in Diskurslinguistik nach Foucault. Theorie und Gegenstände, ed. Ingo H. Warnke (Berlin; New York: De Gruyter, 2007), 141– 63. Busch calls for methodological criteria for linguistic discourse research. In summary, discourse analysis has to be redefined and methodologically developed, as one method of analysis cannot exist for all. The restriction to a particular part of the discourse is essential, because only in this case can traceability be ensured. If the criteria laid down by Busch for discourse research are applied to scientific linguistic dictionaries, it becomes clear that these are representatives of the kind of discourse analysis that occurred before these criteria were formulated: As a rule, they have a clearly defined and traceable body and offer key words for the linguistics typical of the partial discourse. They thus also fulfil the criterion of the ‘general in the particular’ (p. 153). To what extent the theme is typical is revealed by comparison with the encyclopedic dictionaries.  According to the linguist Jochen A. Bär and his co-authors, dictionaries provide their authors with an instrument with which they can convey their view of cultural history: They select cultural-historical data and facts in a certain way, arrange them and comment upon them. Jochen A. Bär et al., “Das Frühneuhochdeutsche Wörterbuch als Instrument der Kulturgeschichtsschreibung: Vom kulturhistorischen Sinn lexikographischer arbeit,” in Sprachgeschichte als Kulturgeschichte, eds. Andreas Gardt, Ulrike Haß-Zumkehr, and Thomas Roelcke (Berlin/New York: De Gruyter 1999), 286. The vulnerability of this view of the lexicographers of the ideology is the subject of Germanist discussions since the 1960s. The reproach by publicist Eckehard Boehlich that the Deutsches Wörterbuch would clash with right-wing thinking triggered a fierce debate and rejection of the criticism. Cf. Ulrike Haß-Zumkehr, Deutsche Wörterbücher: Brennpunkt von Sprachund Kulturgeschichte (Berlin; New York: De Gruyter 2001), 139 – 40. Since then, numerous essays and studies on this subject have been published. As a rule, they are not directed against the individual lexicographer, but against structural constraints of the dictionary work. Cf. e. g. Ulrike Haß-Zumkehr, “Propagandainstrument Wörterbuch. Zur lexikografischen Methodik im Nationalsozialismus,” in Wörterbücher in der Diskussion IV. Vorträge aus dem Heidelberger Lexikographischen Kolloquium, ed. Herbert E. Wiegand (Tübingen: Niemeyer 2000), 135– 153; Senya Müller, Sprachwörterbücher im Nationalsozialismus: Die ideologische Beeinflussung von Duden, SprachBrockhaus und anderen Nachschlagewerken während des “Dritten Reichs” (Stuttgart: M und P Verlag für Wissenschaft und Forschung, 1994). The Wörterbuch der deutschen Gegenwartssprache

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This essay deals with the religion-related vocabulary appearing in different versions of the dictionary genre published in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The following sources are the basis of this investigation: 1. Wörterbuch der deutschen Gegenwartssprache (in the following also WDG)⁵ 2. Philosophisches Wörterbuch (in the following also PhWB)⁶ 3. Wörterbuch der politisch-operativen Arbeit (in the following also Stasi-WB)⁷ Religion-related vocabulary is not to be equated with religious vocabulary. The latter is just one part of religion-related vocabulary and is represented in the language dictionary WDG by entries such as ‘pray’ (beten), ‘sacred’ (heilig) and ‘sacrament’ (Sakrament).⁸ Religion-related vocabulary, on the other hand, also includes abstract terms such as e. g. ‘atheism’ or ‘religion,’ which may also

discussed in this essay has also been examined several times in view of its ideological content. Cf. Lech Zieliński, Ideologie und Lexikographie: Die Ideologisierung des “Wörterbuchs der deutschen Gegenwartssprache” von Ruth Klappenbach und Wolfgang Steinitz (Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 2010). For an overview of the state of the research, cf. Zieliński, Ideologie, 15 – 25. Zieliński examines, above all, ideology-bound vocabulary and its occurrence as a component of entries in the WDG and comes to the conclusion that a significant increase can be observed from the fourth volume (1974) (p. 152).  Ruth Klappenbach and Wolfgang Steinitz, eds. Wörterbuch der deutschen Gegenwartssprache, Vol. 1– 6 (Berlin [East]: Akademie-Verlag, 1964– 1976). Vol. 1 (A-Deutsch) 1964, Vol. 2 (DeutschGlauben) 1967, Vol. 3 (Glauben-Lyzeum) 1969, Vol. 4 (M-Schinken) 1974, Vol. 5 (Schinken-Vater) 1976, Vol. 6 (väterlich-Zytologie) 1977. The corresponding headwords are displayed in the text in italics after the English translation, unless they are in the original. They are not provided with source references, page or volume information. This applies to all linguistic dictionaries, which is why the volume information is initially more detailed.  Unless stated otherwise, this edition is quoted: Georg Klaus and Manfred Buhr, eds. Philosophisches Wörterbuch. Vol. 1– 2 (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 10th edition, 1974). Vol. 1 (A bis Kybernetik), Vol. 2 (Lamaismus bis Zweckmäßigkeit). One-volume first edition from 1964. A three-volume licensed edition from West Germany under the title Marxistisch-Leninistisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie. Vol. 1– 3 (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 1972). It is based on the 7th edition from 1970.  Der Bundesbeauftragte für die Unterlagen des Staatssicherheitsdienstes der ehemaligen Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, ed., Das Wörterbuch der Staatssicherheit: Definitionen des MfS zur ‚politisch-operativen Arbeit,‘ (Berlin: 1993). This edition contains a facsimile of the 2nd edition of the dictionary from 1985. A text edition of the 2nd edition with a detailed introduction and appendices on the changes between the two editions is found in Siegfried Suckut, Das Wörterbuch der Staatssicherheit: Definitionen zur “politisch-operativen Arbeit” (Berlin: Links, 1996).  The investigated entries are: Vol. 1: Atheismus, beten, Bischof, Bußsakrament, Bußtag, Bußübung; Vol. 2: fromm, Gebet, geistlich, Geistliche, Glaube; Vol. 3: Gott, heilig, Kirche; Vol. 4: Priester, Religion, religiös, Sakrament; Vol. 5: Taufe; Vol. 6: Weihe, Weltreligion. Respective composites (gott-/Gott-, gottes-/Gottes-, heilig-/Heilig-, Religions‐) were considered.

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include a perspective from a nonreligious point of view. These are considered in encyclopedic dictionaries, where religious vocabulary is not found.⁹ The methodological background is the contextualization: Works within a discourse reflect only a share of the total discourse. Contextualization in this case is taken to mean looking at a work in the context of other works that are relevant to the overall discourse.¹⁰ Important representatives of the context are works that have proven to be normative. This includes the Philosophisches Wörterbuch from the GDR. The entries on ‘Atheism’ and ‘Religion’ with their short definitions and language from the 1974 edition of the PhWB shall be briefly presented and compared with their descriptions in the WDG. ¹¹ The Wörterbuch der politisch-operativen Arbeit of the State Security Academy in Potsdam was not available to the public and offered only one entry which in the broader sense counted as religion-related vocabulary: ‘Churches, abuse of’ (Kirchen, Mißbrauch der). The aim of the approach is to examine the questions formulated by the editors of this volume, more precisely: Which conceptual definitions are given? From which perspective they are formulated? Do the entries contain evaluations? Can literary dependencies be determined? At the beginning, the keywords were selected and the material was read for the entries in the WDG. The first three of these key questions were initially answered using the online edition¹² and later editions of the WDG. The comparison

 Religious concepts are seen in the public discourse of the GDR as a phenomenon to be overcome. However, a dictionary devoted to contemporary language also contains sources with religious words that require religious knowledge. Since the authors use these words, they cannot be omitted. Only through commentary and the selection of examples with a secular context, as will be shown later, can a distancing from religious usage occur. On the other hand, vocabulary that requires detailed religious knowledge or is common in these contexts is not the focus for a lexicon of Marxist-Leninist philosophy.  It is influenced by Foucault’s concept of dispositions, but mainly refers to textual sources.  Unfortunately, the entire vocabulary cannot be presented in more detail. Also worth consideration are: ‘Aberglaube,’ ‘Religiöser Glaube’ and ‘Fideismus.’ The first edition of the PhWB also contains further entries: ‘Klerikalismus, politischer,’ ‘Klerus’ and ‘Kirche,’ which are missing in the 10th edition from 1974. The contents are also present in other entries. For example, the entry ‘Religiöser Glaube’ offers a section on political clericalism and the abuse of religion, indeed already in the first edition. The federal edition still contains, under the heading ‘Religion,’ the reference to ‘Klerikalismus, politischer.’ However, an equivalent entry is not found.  On the webpage of the Digitales Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache (https://www.dwds.de), one can access the digital output of the WDG, which is one of the most important sources of the DWDS; https://www.dwds.de/wb [both links last accessed on 7.10. 2017]. The issue is based on the first edition of the volumes, apart from first volume, whose 3rd edition was the

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with other language dictionaries formed the second step. These were the following: the two-volume concise edition based on the WDG, the Handwörterbuch der Deutschen Gegenwartssprache (HWG)¹³ from 1984, and two dictionaries from West German publishers, the Deutsches Wörterbuch in sechs Bänden by Wahrig (Brockhaus-Wahrig)¹⁴ and Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in sechs Bänden (DUDEN)¹⁵ from the Duden editors in Mannheim, West Germany. The comparison of definitions from the WDG and the PhWB complete this. Thanks to the work of linguist Klaus-Dieter Ludwig,¹⁶ I stumbled upon the Wörterbuch der politisch-operativen Arbeit. This illustrates the juridical reality of churches in the GDR and testifies to the excesses of atheism.

2 The dictionaries 2.1 Distancing in the Wörterbuch der deutschen Gegenwartssprache For several reasons, the WDG forms the starting point and center of this analysis. In terms of vocabulary, this dictionary is the richest. The entries investigated here originate from different editing stages of the WDG, and range from ‘Atheism’ (Atheismus), Vol. 1, to ‘World Religion’ (Weltreligion), Vol. 6.¹⁷ They are consid-

basis. With regard to the dictionary entries presented here, no differences from the first edition were found.  Günter Kempcke, ed., Handwörterbuch der deutschen Gegenwartssprache in zwei Bänden (Berlin [East]: Akademie-Verlag, 1984) Vol. 1 (A–K), Vol. 2 (L–Z).  Gerhard Wahrig, ed., Deutsches Wörterbuch in sechs Bänden (Wiesbaden: Brockhaus, 1980 – 1984) Vol. 1 (A–Bt) 1980, Vol. 2 (Bu–Fz) 1981, Vol. 3 (G–Jz) 1981, Vol. 4 (K–Oz) 1982, Vol. 5 (P–Std) 1983, Vol. 6 (Ste–Zz) 1984.  Günther Drosdowski, ed., Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in sechs Bänden (Mannheim/Wien/Zürich: Dudenverlag, 1976 – 1981) Vol. 1. (A–Ci), Vol. 2 (Cl–F) 1976, Vol. 3 (G– Kal) 1977, Vol. 4 (Kam–N) 1978, Vol. 5 (O–So) 1980, Vol. 6 (Sp–Z) 1981.  Klaus-Dieter Ludwig, “Das Wörterbuch der politisch-operativen Arbeit – ein manipulierendes Wörterbuch – und das Wörterbuch der deutschen Gegenwartssprache – ein teilweise manipuliertes Wörterbuch,” in Verschlüsseln, verbergen, verdecken in öffentlicher und institutioneller Kommunikation, eds. Steffen Pappert, Melani Schröter, and Ulla Fix (Berlin: Schmidt, 2008), 273 – 89.  For this essay, only entries with religion-related vocabulary as headings were analyzed, and not their occurrence in other entries. The choice is subjective, and does not claim to be exhaustive. The goal was to obtain a representative set of both the first three volumes and the last three volumes.

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ered in terms of meaning, examples and quotations, and compared with other dictionaries. The WDG is a linguistic dictionary compiled from 1952 to 1977 in the Deutsche Akademie der Wissenschaften (German Academy of Sciences; since 1972: Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR [Academy of Sciences of the GDR]). It began in 1951 as a project of scientists from the GDR, West Germany and Berlin-West. For the fourth volume in 1970,¹⁸ a new preface was needed to document the changes to the basic conceptual foundations.¹⁹ From then on, the contemporary German language was presented “consistently on the basis of the MarxistLeninist world view.”²⁰ It is very likely that editor Ruth Klappenbach did not assume responsibility for the text, but simply authorized it.²¹ She retired in 1970 at the age of 60, because she did not have the personal knowledge required for the new tasks, according to her own specifications, as she wrote in a letter to the leadership.²² Her editorship continued until the end of the project. The new ideological orientation was guaranteed through the establishment of an advisory board. Interestingly, it was one of the editors of the Philosophisches Wörterbuch, Manfred Buhr, who appointed a representative for the philosophical department in the advisory board of the WDG. ²³ Thus, the lexicographical product is not only a mirror of lexicographical review, selection and order, but also one of ideological adaptation; the view it presents is not its own, but the required one.²⁴ This targeted influencing of the dictionary project is a result of academic reform at the end of the 1960s and is equivalent to a form of ideological control

 The 4th volume was published in 1974, but the first delivery, with preface, was already published in 1970.  On the history of the influence, see also Günter Kempcke, “Das Wörterbuch der deutschen Gegenwartssprache. Lexikographische Arbeit in einer schwierigen Zeit,” Mitteldeutsches Jahrbuch für Kultur und Geschichte 12 (2005): 117– 34. In 1969, the closure of the department was demanded due to the ‘ideological inadequacy of the staff’ and the German concept as a whole. Kempcke, “Lexikographische Arbeit in einer schwierigen Zeit,” 129.  WDG, Preface Vol. 4, 2412.  Zieliński, Ideologisierung, 50, Note 8.  Kempcke, “Lexikographische Arbeit in einer schwierigen Zeit,” 130.  This was the director of the Central Institute for Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences. Cf. Zieliński, Ideologisierung, 54.  This also applies to the revised editions of the first three volumes. For example, in the entry ‘pray’ (beten) of the 10th edition of the first volume from 1980, the section “proverbially / pray and work!; Necessity teaches praying” was deleted. The gap was filled by “the priest prayed with the community, the faithful, the Lord’s Prayer.” A proverb with religious content was no longer the standard. The focus is not on personal prayer but rather on the activity of a priest.

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over science.²⁵ If the socialist reality creates a ‘new people,’ this must be visible in the language, and has to take into account the ‘contemporary language’ of the title. Socialist readers should also, in the scientific view of language, find the worldview from which they should orient themselves in general.²⁶ The ‘red line’ (in the double sense) of socialist education must never be broken. Through language, reality is created – and through its influence on language, reality is changed. This was well known in the GDR; nothing else had motivated the conceptual change. In 1978, the readability of the ideological standpoint in dictionaries was discussed in the Forum, the journal of the socialist youth organization FDJ.²⁷ The authors titled their comparison between the WDG and the West German DUDEN ‘Klassenkampf im Wörterbuch’ (Class Struggle in the Dictionary).²⁸ The ideological impact came from their perspective of the ‘reactionary-bourgeois attitude’ of the Dictionary of West German Provenance in entries such as work, employers, etc., while the WDG contained a more progressive attitude to these subjects. They observe that one cannot create a neutral explanatory dictionary, and that language not only conveys information but also influences and directs it.²⁹ In this way, the West German dictionary manipulates its users “for the purpose of the ruling class,” in particular the way that the editors “waive the need for precisely specified, scientifically correct definitions” for ideology-bound words.³⁰ What exactly they mean here by ‘scientifically correct’ they leave

 In 1968 a decision was made by the Council of Ministers of the GDR on the basic concept and structure of the German Academy of Sciences in Berlin. The main goal was the control over science by SED officials, as reflected in the Presidium as well as in the SED membership of the heads of the research areas. The reform of the academy resulted in the foundation of central institutes, and the closing of the former institutes and management structures. Cf. Zieliński, Ideologisierung, 44– 50.  “With its lexicographical means it aims to strengthen the socialist consciousness of the people in the GDR, but also to help the progressive forces in other countries to better understand the language of the socialist state of the German nation.” WDG, Preface Vol. 4, 2412.  Heidemarie Kögler and Annette Röhrig, “Klassenkampf im Wörterbuch?,” Forum 2. Januarheft (1978), 7– 9.  The term ‘class struggle’ was already in a West German review on the conceptual change of 1971. Claus Braun, “Verschenkte Objektivität. Klassenkampf bei der Edition eines deutschen Wörterbuches,” in Das “Wörterbuch der deutschen Gegenwartssprache.” Bericht, Dokumentation und Diskussion, eds. Helene Malige-Klappenbach and Franz Josef Hausmann (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1986), 161– 5 (first published in 1971). Braun criticized the task of the ‘impeccable interpretative practice’ of East and West German differences in the dictionary. For example, there was the comment ’in the non-socialist economic system,’ which contained polemics. Braun, “Verschenkte Objektivität,” 163.  Cf. Kögler and Röhrig, “Klassenkampf,” 8.  Kögler and Röhrig, “Klassenkampf,” 9.

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open; however, their example of ‘exploit’ and the reference to Friedrich Engels’ quotation that is given in the WDG suggests that science here is equated with Marxism-Leninism.³¹ In the review by Claus Braun published in West Germany, language manipulation is not controversial, but rather a one-sided tool of the capitalist system.³² He attaches this one-sidedness to such examples as ‘morality,’ ‘mankind’ and ‘incarnation of mankind,’ where, for all the words, he is able to draw an explanation from the history-oriented, science-favoring Marxist-Leninist perspective, to the detriment of the individuality of the human.³³ An inspection of religion-related vocabulary in the WDG has not yet been performed.³⁴ In doing so, one can show particularly which perspective or bias was in use.³⁵ This applies to East and West, which is why the analysis will include comparisons with works from West Germany.

2.1.1 Descriptions of meanings in East and West While in the WDG (Vol. 2, 1967) the first meaning of ‘devout’ (fromm) still has a generally valid character and the philosophical denial of the existence of God is not expressed – “Completely surrendered to God, God-fearing” – the 1984 HWG describes the religious area functionally. The explanation is here: “1.1. believing in God and following the prescriptions of faith […] 1.2. testifying to the faith in God.” Is this development due to the more powerful atheistic background? For comparison, Brockhaus-Wahrig, Volume 2 from 1981, will be used. Here too, the

 Ibid.  Braun, “Verschenkte Objektivität,” 163.  Braun, “Verschenkte Objektivität,” 164.  A similar study is available for Russian dictionaries: Renate Lipinsky, Die Darstellung des christlichen Wortschatzes in allgemeinsprachlichen russischen Wörterbüchern des 20. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt/Main: Lang, 2010). The results are largely similar in terms of distancing. However, Lipinsky judges some issues as a devaluation, which I do not follow for the WDG. For example, the use of ‘religious’ in the entry ‘faith’ is understood as a devaluation, because in the later entry ‘religious’ the word is explained from an atheistic perspective and deprecated as ’fantastic’ (p. 211). This takeover may coincide with the intended reading of Russian dictionaries. However, the language of the description is not always a compendium of later explanations. The question is also what alternative language would have been offered to describe ‘faith.’  Regarding the question of religion’s representation in the normative literature of the GDR as a topic of religious science, see also: Anja Kirsch, Weltanschauung als Erzählkultur. Zur Konstruktion von Religion und Sozialismus in Staatsbürgerkundeschulbüchern der DDR. (Göttingen; Bristol: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2016).

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primary meaning is religious and given as “God-fearing, faithful.” In West Germany, ‘God-fearing’ was still legitimate in 1981. However, the West German DUDEN rewrote it already in 1976 in a more distancing manner: “1.a) suffused with belief in God; in his mind, in his nature shaped by faith in God; faithful, religious.” The differences are largely due to the fact that the WDG and Brockhaus-Wahrig offer synonyms, whereas the HWG and DUDEN formulate meaning explanations. With regard to the description of meanings, the word ‘sacrament’ (Sakrament), which is almost exclusively used in Christian contexts, is particularly interesting.³⁶ This affiliation to a group language is marked with ‘Rel[igion]’ or ‘christl[iche] Rel[igion]’ and in the WDG, HWG and DUDEN with denominational references. WDG 

HWG 

Brockhaus-Wahrig 

DUDEN 

. Rel. cath. ev. A certain form of traditionally performed ceremony, in which the believers receive, according to their view, divine grace. . Rel. catholic sth. which, according to the opinion of the faithful, is a visible sign of the invisible divine grace.

in the view of the believers, a visible sign used by Christ, which is mediated by the cleric, through which the believer hopes to attain divine grace.

. Christ. Rel. . ceremonial act (of Christian worship) performed by Christ, in which the sacred power of divine grace is communicated to the believer. . The means of grace with which the sacrament (.) is donated, e. g. the host.

. (Christ., esp. cath. church) a) the signified action taken by Jesus Christ, which is carried out in traditional forms and, according to Christian faith, transmits the grace of God in a sensory way to the people. b) The means (for example, the host) with which the sacrament (a) is given.

In all of these dictionaries, the description is rather in encyclopedic form. Textual parallels are striking. That divine grace is almost always mentioned is a result of the theological definition.³⁷ However, the fact that in the DUDEN ‘sacrament’ is characterized as executed in ‘traditional forms’ is striking, considering the wording in the WDG. Furthermore, it is noteworthy that the HWG, without reference to the WDG, uses the phrase ‘used by Christ.’ This speaks for the adoption of formulations

 Excluded is only the 2nd referenced use of ‘sacrament’ as an “exclamation of outrage” in Brockhaus-Wahrig and DUDEN.  Gunther Wenz, “Sakramente I: Kirchengeschichtlich,” in Theologische Realenzyklopädie, Vol. 29 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1998), 663 – 84, esp. 668 – 9.

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from West to East, even if the restriction ‘in the view of the believers’ relativizes their content. To look more closely at the relative proportions of the definitions, the following table presents each of them from three perspectives: 1. Scope of the statement, 2. Person/group for which the statement applies, and 3. Action of the statement. The third point thus poses the question: Is the description formulated as a real event, or is its reality content restricted? Statement WDG 

HWG 

Scope

according to their (the in the view of the believers) view believers

Person/ group

the believers

Action

(divine grace) received (divine grace) to hope to attain

the believers

Brockhaus-Wahrig DUDEN   according to the Christian faith the believers (divine grace) is communicated

the people (divine grace) transmit

With the exception of Brockhaus-Wahrig, all dictionaries restrict the statement to a limited area of applicability. In both GDR dictionaries, this is specified by the statement ‘according to their belief status.’ The DUDEN limits the statement to the scope of the Christian faith. The people (group) concerned with the action are referred to in the GDR dictionary and Brockhaus-Wahrig as ‘believers.’ As the DUDEN places the statement as a whole within the scope of the Christian faith, ‘people’ here is to be seen as parallel to ‘believers.’ Remarkable is the difference in the factuality of what is described. While the WDG and the Western dictionaries classify the action as a fact – ‘the faithful receive grace’ – the HWG moves away from reality into the hoped-for. To ‘hope to attain’ means that no statement about the fulfillment of that hope must be made. It may equally well be that the believers hope in vain. Moreover, it is emphasized that the mediation of the sacrament takes place by the priest. Thus, the perspective of the WDG, HWG and DUDEN is non-Christian, whereas the Brockhaus-Wahrig formulates it in a Christian manner, and neither the action nor the scope of the statement is restricted. In the WDG, the entry ‘Sacrament’ refers to the ‘sacrament of penance’ (Bußsakrament). Since this entry is in the first volume, whose draft was published before the conceptual change took place, it is followed up in the table below using the same categories. In the HWG there is no entry for ‘sacrament of penance,’ so this column is omitted here.

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WDG 

Brockhaus-Wahrig 

DUDEN 

Sacrament, through which with repentance, confession and penance, absolution of the sins occurs

Sacrament, through whose reception with the absolution of the priest in the authority of Jesus Christ all sins committed after baptism are forgiven, if the sinner repents and confesses

Sacrament, through which the forgiveness of sins is possible, if the believer shows repentance

Statement WDG 

Brockhaus-Wahrig 

Duden 

Scope

If the sinner repents them and confesses

if the believer shows repentance

the sinner

the believer

(Sins) are forgiven

(forgiveness) is possible

in repentance, confession and penance

Person/ group Action

(Absolution) occurs

In the WDG there is only the theological limitation that repentance, confession and penance are the prerequisites for absolution. This corresponds to the limitations of the scope of West German dictionaries, which also express the necessity of repentance. The restrictive formulations thus correspond here to the conditions of ecclesiastical doctrine and not to distancing by the entry editor. Restriction to an applicable person or group does not occur in the WDG. However, Brockhaus-Wahrig and DUDEN specify the sinner and the believer. The information on the action is remarkable: In the WDG the statement is given as fact: Absolution has occurred. However, it is not stated that this is associated with the eradication of sins, as is more clearly formulated in Brockhaus-Wahrig. The DUDEN, on the other hand, limits factuality to the possibility of the forgiveness of sins, and thus lies within the ecclesiastical-theological definition. The perspective in all entries is Christian; a disaffiliation does not take place. In 1964, this was still a perspective that the WDG could take. The entry ‘Faith’ (Glaube) in the dictionaries is somewhat different. This is because faith also occurs in general language. The religious usage is always offered as a second point.

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WDG 

HWG 

Brockhaus-Wahrig 

DUDEN 

. the acceptance as true of things, phenomena, which are objectively not proven.

.. predominantly emotionally pronounced, supported opinion, unprovable conviction that sth. actually exists, can be realized, will occur or is important.

. intrinsic certainty, which is independent of proof, emotional conviction, unshakable trust, confidence.

. intrinsic security, which requires no proof; a feeling of attachment to an authority, trust in someone or something.

. Confession, Denomination

.. religious belief in the existence and the work of a God . the Christian, Jewish (confession)

. […] due to revealed truths or one’s own inner experience, the intrinsic certainty about the personal relationship with God

. a) intrinsic certainty of God, religious beliefs b) Religion, Confession

The definition in Brockhaus-Wahrig is clearly due to the encyclopaedic tradition of the Brockhaus publishing house. Remarkable here is the agreement between DUDEN and the HWG in the second meaning as religious belief, but equally clear is the difference in the statement referring to God. Disaffiliation in the HWG is revealed by the presence of the indefinite article (‘a God’), which indicates an indefinite God.³⁸ In the DUDEN and Brockhaus-Wahrig, ‘God’ is written without an article; his existence appears to be presupposed. For the philosophical definition of ‘Religious Faith’ (Religiöser Glaube) in the PhWB, only the first meaning of faith was chosen: its unprovableness and its dependence on emotion, which are used as arguments against faith. For its use in general language, the works from West Germany formulate the missing evidence for faith positively: faith requires no proof; it is independent of evidence. The HWG, however, negates provability (‘unprovable conviction’), and thus takes a clear position on a common word that is also used to refer to religious conviction.

 In the entry ‘God’ in WDG and HWG, an attribute of the meanings for God (Gott) is that ‘conceived’ (gedacht) is always used. In the WDG: “the highest and most venerable being conceived of outside the real world”; in the HWG: “Being conceived of as supernatural and omnipotent and worshiped as a cult being”/ “conceived of as supernatural and gifted with supernatural power and power.” Brockhaus-Wahrig does not have this specification. The DUDEN, only under point 2: “(In polytheism) cultically worshiped superhuman being conceived of as personal natural force, moral power.” The differentiation between mono- and polytheism is found in HWG, BrockhausWahrig and DUDEN.

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2.1.2 Examples and quotations in the WDG The example represents frequent connections and properties in order to illustrate word usage. Also, distancing efforts can be identified in this part of the entry. An early instance is the entry ‘Proof of the existence of God’ (Gottesbeweis), which gives as a usage example: “Kant already refuted the proofs of God.” The evidential document follows directly from the description of “Proof of the existence of God,” and thus caricatures its content and shows God’s proofs as outdated. Brockhaus-Wahrig offers no evidence, but describes it more cautiously: “Attempt to prove the existence of God through reason and rational argument.” Parallel to this, the DUDEN: “Attempt to conclude the existence of God by rational argument (according to certain proof-principles),” likewise without examples. Regarding the quotations used,³⁹ the following may be considered conservatively due to the narrow base of the evidential material: Religiously compliant behavior and statements of faith are not represented by contemporary evidence. Quotes that are congruent with religious meaning come mostly from the period before 1945, i. e. works from the 18th/19th century, which were received during the GDR period and therefore included in the WDG although they do not correspond to the definitions of the contemporary language.⁴⁰ It is not religious literature, but rather texts of belles-lettres. In part, secularization as a distancing from the religious is reflected already in these texts. The religiously disaffiliated context of the evidential documents is also striking.⁴¹ The WDG identifies this as a metaphorical usage. The only quoted document for the entry ‘Baptism’ formulates the metaphoral meaning of to ‘Lift something out of the baptism font,’ in relation to a musical work. Quotes from the GDR era, which have a nonreligious character – “He snores even during wor-

 Here, there is no comparison with other works, since there are no quotations in the HWG or in the West German works.  Two entry examples in the WDG: entry ‘God’ (Gott): “God is merciful to sinners”/“Gott ist den Sündern gnädig [Hermann Sudermann: Reise nach Tilsit, 1917].” Entry ‘ordination’ (Weihe): “It is a pity that you do not have the ordinations yet and you cannot hear confession yet.”/“Es ist schade, daß du die Weihen noch nicht hast und noch nicht Beichte hören kannst [Hermann Hesse: Narziß und Goldmund, 1930].”  WDG entry ‘creed’ (Glaubensbekenntnis): “This is my political creed”/“Das ist mein politisches Glaubensbekenntnis [Franz Werfel: Die vierzig Tage des Musa Dagh, 1933].” Entry ‘belief sentence’ (Glaubenssatz): “Nonetheless, it is dead belief sentences that continue to act against knowledge”/“Gleichwohl sind es tote Glaubenssätze, die weiterhandeln, gegen das Wissen [Heinrich Mann: Ein Zeitalter wird besichtigt, 1946].”

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ship”⁴² – and quotations that convey a conformist message – “The ruling class wanted to set up their establishment as willed by God [gottgewollt], as quite simply ‘holy’” – complement this.⁴³ Due to the underlying collection of sources, the findings are not surprising, but they do support the image of religion as a phenomenon of the past.

2.2 Defamation in the Philosophisches Wörterbuch / Marxistisch-Leninistisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie The influential Philosophisches Wörterbuch is relevant for the identification of the guidelines. As of 1972 it was even published under the title Marxistisch-Leninistisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie in the Rowohlt publishing house in West Germany.⁴⁴ This is a dictionary of terminology, which counts as an encyclopedic dictionary. Unlike the WDG, there are no headwords like ‘pray’ or ‘holy’ because the intention is not to represent the whole of the linguistic reality, but rather to define selected terms. According to the introduction in the single-volume first edition of 1964, it was “the first of its kind, based on a Marxist-Leninist foundation.”⁴⁵ Later on, this foundation became the only quality criterion used in research lexicography. A handbook on principles and criteria of lexica from 1979⁴⁶ makes reference to this. The partiality in the sense of Marxism-Leninism is required there as a standard for the development of encyclopedias as a whole. The PhWB is cited for term definitions – also an example of the historic impact of the dictionary: The concept of partiality can have different meanings. On the basis of the predicted, the following is applicable to all the socialist countries involved in the substantive development of lexicons: (See Philosophisches Wörterbuch. 10. ed. Leipzig 1974, p. 912): ‘In Marxist-Leninist philosophy and science, partisanship is a consciously applied theoretical and methodological principle, which clarifies the objective content of truth, the militant revolutionary nature and the consequent open-mindedness of Marxism-Leninism for the cause of the working class, socialism and communism, and for the progress of mankind.’ This consistent advocacy includes, at the same time, the fight against disguised ‘objectivity’ repre-

 Entry ‘Gottesdienst’: “Der schnarcht sogar im Gottesdienst [Helmut Baierl: Frau Flinz, 1961].”  Entry ‘gottgewollt’: “Die herrschende Klasse wollte ihre Ordnung als gottgewollt, als schlechthin ‘heilig’ hinstellen [Journal Natur und Heimat, 1959].”  The different titles show clearly that the basis of the philosophy in the GDR was MarxismLeninism, while the book trade of West Germany required the specification ‘Marxist-Leninist.’  PhWB, 1st ed., preface by Georg Klaus and Manfred Buhr, V.  Hans Riedel, and Margit Wille, Über die Erarbeitung von Lexika: Grundsätze und Kriterien. (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, 1979).

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sented by the methodological principles of Objectivism in bourgeois ideologies. Therefore, scientific objectivity and partisanship are incompatible.⁴⁷

The authors Hans Riedel and Margot Wille each dedicate their own sub-chapters to the topic of the position they adopt and its relationship to science. These are assigned to the respective specialist topics. In Chapter 4, where principle questions regarding the entries are given, partiality is made equal to scientific integrity as a criterion for “substantive scientific reliability of the lexicon entries.”⁴⁸ Partiality is not a supplement, but an integral part and condition of the scientific work.⁴⁹ Two entries are considered for the analysis of the PhWB: ‘Atheism’ (Atheismus) and ‘Religion.’ The entries are examined here regarding their content and stylistic features in order to trace the strategies used in the defamation of religion. The entry ‘Atheism’ is unchanged in later editions, unlike the entry ‘Religion.’⁵⁰

2.2.1 Atheism The entry ‘Atheism’ covers more than seven columns. It begins with a short definition, like every entry in the PhWB: Atheism [greek] – orig: Godlessness, denial of the existence of God, a divine principle. Name for a class of worldviews that justifies, radically and consciously, the rejection of

 Riedel, and Wille, Erarbeitung, 35.  “4.2 Criteria of the content-scientific reliability of the lexicon articles; 4.2.1 Partiality; 4.2.2 Scientificity; 4.2.3 Timeliness; 4.2.4 Completeness; 4.3 Article Types and Their Structure,” Riedel and Wille, Erarbeitung, 3.  In their remarks, they also refer to Erich Honecker’s request to the mass media at the 13th Conference of the central committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED), in December 1974. Riedel and Wille transfer this demand to scientific literature, which achieves mass effectiveness overall. Riedel, and Wille, Erarbeitung, 35.  In general, for differences from the 10th edition from 1974, see Michael W. Fischer, “Die Rolle der Philosophie in der DDR: Bemerkungen zur Auflage des ‘Philosophischen Wörterbuches,’” Schweizer Monatshefte: Zeitschrift für Politik, Wirtschaft, Kultur 55 (1975/76): 201– 15. 64 Headers had been newly added, and system-constituting headers were reworked (Fischer, “Die Rolle der Philosophie,” 205); all quotations from Walter Ulbricht were erased (Fischer, “Die Rolle der Philosophie,” 203). Fischer emphasizes the didactic conceptualization and judges the work as traditionalism arrested. Originality could at best be expressed in criticisms of the ‘unpopular new,’ and never turned against its own system (Fischer, “Die Rolle der Philosophie,” 215).

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any kind of concept of God, which includes the rejection of every type of religious doctrine.⁵¹

This is joined by a conceptual history as well as the representation of the genesis of atheistic positions in association with socio-political developments. The interpretation of development is presented as progress, owing to the evolutionary point of view. This makes up the actual content of the entry. The entry is less concerned with the illumination of the philosophical alternatives to the existence of God, but rather with the historical account of the supposedly gradual progress towards scientific atheism, which has overcome faith in God. The only longer sentence quoted comes from Vladimir I. Lenin: The social oppression of the working masses, their seemingly total impotence against the blind forces of prevailing capitalism, which cause ordinary working people, daily and hourly, a thousand times more terrible suffering and inhumane torment than any exceptional events such as wars, earthquakes, etc. – therein lies the deepest root of religion today [cited as: LENIN Werke 1961 ff, 15, 408].⁵²

Herein, and in the following, religion is understood as an oppressive instrument of capitalism and feudalism. If the social conditions of class society change, religion is no longer required; generally, the main reason for the persistence of the “illusionary happiness (Marx)” of religion is “social oppression and controlling the majority of society.”⁵³ The influence of capitalism is expressed here and in other entries in the combination of “political clericalism,” “abuse of religion” and “influence on the churches of the exploiting classes.”⁵⁴ At the end of the entry, the need for atheistic propaganda “in the struggle for the new human so-

 PhWB (10th edition), “Atheismus,” 144.  PhWB (10th edition), “Atheismus,” 147.  Ibid.  Ibid. In more detail, the entry ‘Religious Faith’ refers to this balancing act. In the various editions, the verdict is that political clericalism exploits religious beliefs for the reactionary political purposes of imperialism. In the first edition, 1964, however, it is stated that “faith is a private concern for the citizens.” PhWB (1st edition), “Religiöser Glaube,” 225. This is missing in the 10th edition of 1974. The “intertwining of the state and the church” in capitalist countries is discussed with the conclusion that freedom of belief and conscience are not realized there. Whereas in the GDR the freedom of belief and conscience is a constitutionally guaranteed fundamental right including the unrestricted freedom of all citizens “to profess as they wish to a nonreligious or religious outlook.” At the same time, there is an insistence on political clericalism, namely the relativization that “more and more adherents of religious confessions, especially from democratic convictions,” would turn against clericalism. PhWB (10th edition), “Religiöser Glaube,” 1053.

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ciety” is emphasized, which should not, however, question the unhindered practice of religion.⁵⁵ A stylistic peculiarity, which the atheism entry has in common with the Wörterbuch der politsch-operativen Arbeit, is the hyphenated adjective. In the latter, this is already present in the title. In the entry ‘Atheism’ in the PhWB, the joy of word combination is shown in the following variations, according to the order of entry: ’bourgeois-Christian,’ ’feudal absolutist,’ ’philological-historical,’ ’plebeian-democratic,’ ’bourgeoisdemocratic,’ ’philosophical-materialistic,’ ’rural-democratic,’ ’Marxist-Leninist’ (two times) and ’scientific-atheistic.’ It is also possible to use the hyphenated adjectives to show the orientation and the informative intention of the entry. The development progresses from bourgeois-Christian to scientific-atheistic. In the following, the definition elements of the entry ‘Atheism’ in the PhWB are compared with the entries in the WDG, HWG and DUDEN. WDG 

HWG 

PhWB /

DUDEN 

Worldview that negates the existence of God

conscious and justified rejection of the belief in a God or in several gods, in a world beyond, or in supernatural powers

orig: Godlessness, denial of the existence of God, of a divine principle. Characteristic of a class of worldviews which explain the world by their own terms and therefore consciously reject any concept of God, including the rejection of all doctrines of any religion.

Worldview that denies the existence of God

The explanation in the HWG is clearly influenced by the definition in the PhWB. In particular, the designation of rejection as ‘a conscious’ (PhWB and HWG) and reasoned decision indicates a reference. It marks atheism as positive, since every assumption of the faith of God is suggested as unconscious and unfounded. The WDG and Mannheimer DUDEN limit themselves to a short definition, which differs only in the verb. ‘Deny’ (leugnen) in the West German DUDEN is clearly the evaluating expression, because it carries the connotation ‘against better knowledge of something that is universally recognized.’ Here, the word ‘negate’ (verneinen) used in the 1964 WDG is less biased.

 PhWB (10th edition), “Atheismus,” 147.

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2.2.2 Religion The hallmarks of this entry in the PhWB are two adjectives, already used in the short definition from the 1964 first edition: ‘fantastical’ and ‘illusionary.’ orig: Worship, holy promise, cult. Form of social consciousness with a worldview in which the phenomena of nature and society are reflected fantastically, in that supernatural causes and purposes are attributed to them to which people feel themselves compelled to behave in a certain way. Religion is in this way an illusionary practice, which is always bound to some kind of ‘objective powers’ (such as prayer, sacrifice, cult, rite, etc.).⁵⁶

In the 10th edition of 1974, this definition has been amended as follows: orig: Worship, holy promise, cult. Form of social consciousness with a worldview, the distinctive feature of which is a distorted, inverted reflection of nature and society in the consciousness of the people, such that the phenomena of nature and society are presented as supernatural processes, to which the people stand in a direct relationship of dependence, and with respect to which feel compelled to perform certain actions (such as prayer, sacrifice, cult, ritual, etc.) for the sake of their well-being.⁵⁷

The first short definition focuses on ‘fantastic,’ the second on ‘reflection.’ The combination ‘fantastical reflection’ is included in the quotation from Friedrich Engels a few pages later, and is also the first quotation in the WDG, although here it is quoted from the work edition in much more detail: Now all religion is nothing more than the fantastical reflection in the minds of people of those external powers which govern their everyday existence, a reflection in which earthly powers assume the form of the supernatural […] [cited as: Marx/Engels, Werke, 20, 294 f].⁵⁸

In this entry too, the evolutionary view of religion is revealed as the process of its overcoming. What is meant is the cognitive-psychological development of human thinking ability.⁵⁹ Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels are cited, who demonstrated that the root of religion was ‘religious self-alienation,’ an actual alienation of

 PhWB, (1st edition), “Religion,” 475.  PhWB (10th edition), “Religion,” 1046.  PhWB (10th edition), “Religion,” 1048.  PhWB (10th edition), “Religion,” 1047. The ability to abstract and generalize developing gentile communities is seen as a condition for the formation of religion, but at the same time thereby justifies how imagination took the place of the investigation of actual observations.

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people caused by exploitation.⁶⁰ If the social conditions were changed, imagination and illusion would no longer be necessary; religion would lose, “objectively, its social foundations.”⁶¹ It is noted that this is an ongoing process: The power of tradition means that remnants of religious consciousness remain alive for quite some time after the establishment of the classless society. They are overcome by atheistic propaganda, by the inclusion of all people in the communist structure and in the direct administration of the country, and by exploiting the achievements of the society’s material and spiritual culture over time.⁶²

In the end, as in the entries for ‘atheism’ and ‘religious belief’ (Religiöser Glaube), reference is made to the freedom of belief and conscience guaranteed by the constitution. The problem of the “remnants of religious consciousness” in the population of the GDR apparently required these indications. The “atheist propaganda,” also known as “scientific-atheist educational work,” was expanded upon, the aim of which was “to help the citizens of the German Democratic Republic, in particular the youth, through the use of the scientific worldview, to be fully aware of their historical mission.”⁶³ This should take place “as intellectual debate, in forms that do not violate the religious people.”⁶⁴ This statement was not part of the entry in the first issue, not even in the license issue for West Germany. In the tenth edition a defusing of the defamation can be observed. This is also supported by the removal of judgmental entries, such as ‘political clericalism’ (Klerikalismus, politischer). In comparison, the definition elements of linguistic dictionaries and the dependence on the PhWB can be identified at the level of terminology and in the selection of examples. WDG 

HWG 

PhWB 

DUDEN ()

. Belief in allegedly supernatural powers, beings, especially gods or a God as the creator and guide of the world and of men, as well as the corre-

. Worldview, which is based on beliefs in the supernatural, gods, a single God, to whom ritual worship is offered . specific, through teaching, statutes laid

orig. Worship, holy promise, ritual. Form of social consciousness with a worldview, the distinctive feature of which is a distorted, inverted reflection of

. (generally accepted by a larger community), determined, by teaching and statutes of established faiths and confessions […] . Faithful, reverential worship of a religious

    

PhWB (10th edition), “Religion,” 1051. PhWB (10th edition), “Religion,” 1052. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

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Continued WDG 

HWG 

PhWB 

DUDEN ()

sponding ritual worship . certain, defined by doctrine and statutes faith, creed

down  [i. e. worldview]

nature and society in the consciousness of the people, such that the phenomena of nature and society are presented as supernatural processes, to which the people stand in a direct relationship of dependence, and with respect to which feel compelled to perform certain actions (such as prayer, sacrifice, cult, ritual, etc.) for the sake of their well-being

worldview of a divine power which determines all things; religious worldview

‘Supernatural’ (überirdisch) is defined as the reference base for religion. The WDG and the HWG use the same term as the PhWB: ‘supernatural.’ The statement of the faith content is limited in the WDG with ‘allegedly.’ The PhWB explains in a more judgmental manner that supernatural powers and the perception of their work are products of human imagination. It is noteworthy that the PhWB manages the short definition of religion without the word ‘god’ or ‘gods.’ The DUDEN, however, still formulates it from a perspective that considers religion and faith as possible concepts. The first examples in the WDG read thus: “speak, argue about R[eligion]; the R[eligion] did not satisfy him, this is why he moved to exact science; the position of the R[eligion] in social life.” These are supplemented by quotes from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The same passage is cited, even if substantially more extensively, in the ‘Religion’ entry in the PhWB, in addition to the prominent description of religion as the ‘opium of the people’ by Karl Marx, which was introduced here. It can be assumed that the ‘Religion’ entry in the WDG was adjusted according to the PhWB. Thus, it goes beyond the strategy of distancing and is downright defamatory in its evidence. Religion is portrayed as an outdated attitude and practice.

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2.3 Criminalization in the Wörterbuch der politisch-operativen Arbeit The Wörterbuch der politisch-operativen Arbeit (Dictionary of Political-Operational Work – in the following also Stasi-WB) circulated only as an unpublished manuscript in several editions, marked as ‘classified material,’ at the Hochschule der Staatssicherheit der DDR (Academy of State Security of the GDR) in Potsdam.⁶⁵ It was also an encyclopedic dictionary and attempted to define the terms of the observing system. It was completed for the first time in 1970, with a new edition in 1985.⁶⁶ The manuscript was designed from beginning to end as a loose-leaf collection. It is a testimony to a secret discourse of state security, and shaped the language of trained employees of the Ministry for State Security (MfS).⁶⁷ The consideration of this dictionary here is not intended for contextualization by textual influences to other works, since it was only accessible to a limited circle of readers. However, it shows the effects of totalitarianism on state-legitimized church surveillance and was part of the reality of the GDR. Here, there is only one entry which, in the broad sense, contains an example of the selection analyzed here: ‘Churches, abuse of’ (Kirchen, Mißbrauch der).⁶⁸ The entry assumes the free practice of religion as was enshrined in the constitution of the GDR, but criminalizes the political action of the ‘enemy’ in the context of ecclesiastical relations. In the short definition of ‘Abuse’ at the beginning, one sees this already: The enemy activity is not caused within the GDR, but in capitalist countries abroad. A manifestation of the enemy’s activity, which is directed towards the inspiration, organization and execution of political underground activity as well as the creation of internal anti-socialist opposition movements.⁶⁹

 Suckut, Definitionen, 7.  Ibid.  The Ministry for State Security (MfS) had its purpose in the fight against enemies of the GDR. Cf. Christian Bergmann, Die Sprache der Stasi: Ein Beitrag zur Sprachkritik. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999), 46.  Stasi-WB (2nd edition), 215 – 215/2. This is indicated in the header of the manuscript as a replacement sheet, the two following pages as supplementary sheets, as it was not part of the dictionary before the revision for the 1985 2nd edition. According to Siegfried Suckut, it was added on April 16, 1984, when a total of nine supplementary sheets were added to the almost finished new edition. Cf. Suckut, Definitionen, 14 as well as Appendix 1.  Stasi-WB (2nd edition), 215.

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The entry itself fills about two manuscript pages and refers in two places to ‘underground activity.’⁷⁰ The purpose of the underground activities was “to expand or rather exceed the legally secured liberties of the churches in the GDR, and to abuse the legal possibilities of church action for anti-socialist purposes.”⁷¹ In terms of content, the entry delineates the constitutionally protected religious practice of activities that are politically and state-hostile. In particular, the “close links to the churches in West Germany, West Berlin and other capitalist states”⁷² were a thorn in the side of the authors. However, the most important feature of the Church’s proximity to hostile forces was that the enemy and negative hostile forces try […] to exploit the upright, ideological positions of the churches, which are contrary to Marxism-Leninism, for the realization and camouflage of their antisocialist activities.⁷³

This was helped by the material independence of the churches, the existing ecclesiastical structures with special material and technological possibilities, and their “well-trained personnel, practiced in the ideological propaganda.”⁷⁴ The characteristics of the so-called abuse practices are cited in full here: 1. They do not represent exclusively religious activity in the sense of the constitutional right to free religious instruction (‘Religionsausbildung’).⁷⁵ 2. They violate the principles and objectives of the GDR constitution.

 At the beginning, third line, 215, as well as at the end of page 215/2.  Stasi-WB (2nd edition), 215 – 215/1. This content reference has its correspondence in the structure of the MfS. The Hauptabteilung XX (main department 20), which was responsible for monitoring the church and culture was at the same time responsible for the political ‘underground.’ Cf. Bergmann, Sprache der Stasi, 78.  Stasi-WB (2nd edition), 215/1.  Ibid.  Ibid.  In the more comprehensive constitution of the GDR of 1949, the substantive term ‘religious practice’ (‘Religionsausübung’) is used: “Article 41 (1) Every citizen enjoys full freedom of belief and conscience. The undisturbed practice of religion is protected by the Republic.” Horst Hildebrandt, ed., Die deutschen Verfassungen des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (Paderborn: Schöningh, 14th edition, 1992), 208. Online: http://www.documentarchiv.de/ddr/verfddr1949.html. The question is why the dictionary replaces the term ‘religious practice’ (‘Religionsausübung’) from the 1949 constitution – and the verbal expression ‘practicing of religion’ (‘Religion ausüben’) from the later constitutions – with ‘religious instruction.’ The term ‘Religionsausbildung’ is unusual in German. There is no entry in the WDG nor in the DUDEN. Provided that no prescription or erroneous citation is present, and only the propagation of religious content is intended, the entry reduces ‘religious practice’ to the right to give religious instruction.

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3. They breach, as a rule, concrete legal duties from other statutory regulations of the GDR. 4. They originate from forces or are carried out by forces that deal with hostile goals.⁷⁶

At the time of writing and adding the entry to the dictionary, the revised constitution of 1974 was valid. In it, the provisions governing the relationship between church and state compared to the 1949 constitution are reduced to one entry.⁷⁷ Although the Constitution of 1949 was no longer valid, the entry ‘Churches, abuse of’ is based on the diction of the old constitution, because therein the prohibition of unconstitutionality and party politics is formulated with the verb ‘abuse’: Entry 41 (2) Institutions of religious communities, religious activities and religious practice may not be abused for unconstitutional or political purposes. However, the right of religious communities to comment from their point of view on the vital issues of the people remains undisputed.⁷⁸

The accepted legal offence of abuse in the entry ‘Churches, abuse of’ from the Stasi-WB is also found in the entry ‘Religious faith’ (Religiöser Glaube) from the PhWB of 1974. However, the latter refers to the abuse of religion in general: Today, political clericalism […] exploits religious beliefs for the reactionary political purposes of imperialism. It ranks knowledge below faith, and thereby attempts to counteract the growing social consciousness of the masses. […] The right to freedom of belief and conscience, which is partially unrealized or only formally acknowledged in capitalist States, mainly because of the interweaving of state and church, is one of the fundamental rights and demands for which the working class in alliance with all other democratic forces has always fought in the capitalist countries. Under the conditions of socialist society, which exclude the political abuse of religion […], freedom of belief and conscience is a constitutionally guaranteed fundamental right, which includes the unrestricted freedom of all citizens to commit themselves, according to their own free will, to a nonreligious or religious worldview.⁷⁹

The term ‘clericalism’ is used in the Marxist-Leninist sense,⁸⁰ and forms the background of church abuse, even though the term itself is not mentioned directly in  Stasi-WB (2nd edition), 215/1.  Cf. Hildebrandt, Verfassungen, Entry 39, 252. Freedom of conscience and belief is found in Entry 20 (1), 245 – 6.  Hildebrandt, Verfassungen, 208.  PhWB (10th edition), “Religiöser Glaube,” 1053.  Ulrich Weißgerber, ed., Giftige Worte der SED-Diktatur: Sprache als Instrument von Machtausübung und Ausgrenzung in der SBZ und der DDR (Berlin: LIT, 2010), 167– 72.

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the entry.⁸¹ The WDG sees ‘clericalism’ (Klerikalismus) as a predominantly Catholic phenomenon, and marks the use of the word itself as derogatory.⁸² Ideologically speaking, however, the combined term ‘political clericalism’ is used against the evangelical church, as the name of a diploma thesis published at the State Security College in 1980 reveals.⁸³ The wording used in the entry shows a mixture of bureaucratic and condemning language.⁸⁴ Hubertus Knabe, director of the memorial center in Berlin-Hohenschönhausen, a former GDR state security prison, in his preface to the 1993 edition had already written about the ‘bureaucratically confused language world of state security’ and emphasized its preference for nominal constructions.⁸⁵ Adjectives are particularly suitable for the analysis of evaluative language, as their function is to more accurately characterize the noun they refer to. They are exclusively associated with nouns that do not have a valuation per se or are uncommon.⁸⁶ The negative adjectives, according to their occurrence, are as follows: ‘antisocialist’ (five times), ‘hostile’ (three times), ‘oppositional’⁸⁷

 In the 1993 facsimile edition of the Stasi-WB, “clerical forces” (klerikale Kräfte) is written over the heading line on the following page of the entry. Stasi-WB (2nd edition), 216. An entry for this term is absent. It may be that the entry was initially so defined, since the listing of terms that were not transferred from the 1st to the 2nd edition provides no evidence for an entry for ‘clerical forces.’ Cf. Appendix 2 in Suckut, Definitionen, 452– 6.  “abw[ertend] Bestreben der (katholischen) Kirche, sich Einfluß auf das politische und kulturelle Leben der menschlichen Gesellschaft zu verschaffen: [der] innere Widerspruch des politischen Klerikalismus zeigt sich auch in den Gegensätzen im hohen Klerus selbst Urania 1962.” The source is the magazine Urania Monatsschrift über Natur und Gesellschaft, which Zieliński ranks as one of the ideologically most significant sources of the WDG. Zieliński, Ideologisierung, 158.  Klaus Conrad, Die Notwendigkeit sowie Mittel und Methoden der offensiven Bekämpfung von Erscheinungsformen des politischen Klerikalismus der evangelischen Kirche unter kirchlich gebundenen Jugendlichen und Jungerwachsenen im Verantwortungsbereich [Archive of the former State Security], BV Leipzig, 25.6.1980, JHS MF VVS 001– 279/80, K 424, listed in Weißgerber, Giftige Worte, 169, Note 1. Listed online: http://www.desa-berlin.de/documents/dipl-mfs_ht.pdf.  On the condemning language, cf. Bergmann, Sprache, 78, where he summarizes that the evaluative language of state security is always condemning.  Stasi-WB (2nd edition), Preface by Hubertus Knabe [from 1993], VII.  Bergmann, Sprache, 53. There are, of course, also a large number of compositions with negative meanings, such as ‘enemy activity’ or ‘social danger,’ which do not require an attribute.  Unusual here is that ‘oppositional’ has a negative meaning in this as well as in other entries in the dictionary of state security, because it bears the connotation of a union against the socialist state and society. Such a union would in itself constitute an underground activity. Usually this means an intermediate zone between enemies and loyalists, but they are particularly susceptible to the efforts of the opponent. Opposition in the GDR originates from the perception of state security, not as that which it is, but as a seduction and pretense mediated by an external enemy.

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(twice), ‘capitalist,’ ‘misguided,’ ‘pseudo-legal’ and ‘antisocial.’ In addition, there is ‘negative hostile,’ which is used four times and contains an unnecessary duplication. This composition is mostly associated with the noun ‘forces’; once, it occurs as ‘negative hostile behavior.’ Characteristics of the ‘Stasi-language’ – like their product, the dictionary – are a mixture of general language and specific linguistic peculiarities, which are identified in secondary connotations: Not creatively forming new words, but “assigning new meanings to existing word bodies.”⁸⁸ In the entry ‘Churches, abuse of,’ hardly any changes in language are noticeable. The differences are in the intention of the message and the condemning manner of expression. Negative formulations account for about a third of all words, and include negative nouns and verbs, such as ‘exploit,’ ‘break’ and ‘injure,’ in addition to the above-mentioned adjectives. The judgement achieved by the language is designed to identify religious circles as potential enemies of the State. The “timely recognition of abusive practices and their separation from acts which do not constitute an enemy activity”⁸⁹ ultimately require monitoring and analysis.

3 Evaluation and conclusion Between the first and last volumes of the WDG, a tendency toward further distancing can be observed. Stronger still is the difference between the WDG and the later pocket edition, the HWG, especially the differences in the religious vocabulary of the first three WDG volumes up to 1970. In particular, the agents of religious actions and attitudes are explicitly and linguistically separated. Thus, religious practice appears as the behavior of a disparate special group. Nevertheless, this result should not be overestimated, as distancing differences are also visible between DUDEN and Brockhaus-Wahrig, the latter being more traditional. All in all, a gradual departure from the linguistic context of the church(es) can be demonstrated in both German states, as this corresponds to the progressive secularization.⁹⁰ The differences between the first three and the last three volumes

Cf. Bergmann, Sprache, 54– 5. It is remarkable that the word ‘ideological’ does not bear any negative connotation. It is used without judgement for interpretation of the religious world as well as the state-supporting Marxist-Leninist interpretation of reality. Bergmann, Sprache, 54.  Bergmann, Sprache, 10.  Stasi-WB (2nd edition), 215/2.  The fact that Brockhaus-Wahrig was published later seems to contradict this. However, the more traditional orientation of Brockhaus-Wahrig towards DUDEN has been described elsewhere, namely in terms of gender hierarchies. Cf. Damaris Nübling, “Zur lexikografischen Inszenierung

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of the WDG have turned out to be less pronounced than expected, as demonstrated, for example, in the ideological vocabulary ‘class struggle.’ If this is not a result of the sampling character of the present study, it can be assumed that the conceptual changes were not internally acknowledged. Regarding the document examples and citations from the WDG, it appears that it was the material basis, above all, that from 1969 conceptually favored texts from the GDR. A ‘socialist’ German, corresponding to the second preface, would have produced more profound differences, if it had been a concept supported by all employees and editors. In the entry ‘Religion’ in the WDG, the efforts at distancing beyond contentrelated proximity to the PhWB become visible through identical citations. This entry has certainly come under special scrutiny, and has produced a defamatory quality of terms describing religion and religious activity. According to it, religion belongs to the past and is a power to be overcome. With its limitation to the philosophy of Marxism-Leninism, the PhWB initially represented the concept of a partial discourse. The restriction is not reflected in the title of the GDR issues. This shows that philosophy was synonymous with Marxist-Leninist philosophy. Next to or beyond that, there could be no philosophy. The explanations of the entries for religion-related vocabulary present the development towards atheism as evolutionary and necessary. Through the absoluteness of Marxist-Leninist philosophy in the context of society as a whole, the PhWB became a one-dimensional knowledge carrier along this route, as demonstrated by its adoption. In comparison with the increasing distancing and devaluation in the WDG, a contrary development is observable for the PhWB. Compared to the first edition, the tone is defused, for example, in the entry ‘Religion.’ The headword ‘political clericalism’ is no longer treated separately. The prescribed reception of Marxism-Leninism seems to be more sluggish than the explication of Marxism-Leninism itself. The Stasi-WB is a testimony to the state-preserving reception and exercise of one-dimensional Marxism-Leninism. Churches presented themselves to the GDR regime as a power removed from ideological grasp. In church circles, ‘scientificatheist educational work’ did not take place as in the other areas of private and public life, such as in schools, in the professional world, in the household, or in the media. Freedom in political thinking required a legal scope for monitoring and combatting. This was justified by the alleged abuse of religion by so-called clerical forces. Even the constitution of churches beyond the borders of the GDR caused the criminalization of an ideologically different attitude and potential

von Geschlecht: Ein Streifzug durch die Einträ ge von Frau und Mann in neueren Wö rterbü chern,” Zeitschrift für germanistische Linguistik 37 (2009): 618.

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constitutional hostility. This criminalization was also achieved through judgemental language. This served the training of new employees, who were encouraged to adopt the view that the so-called enemy is everywhere, and should be convicted as a criminal. If this perspective was adopted, the monitoring of potential criminals would not constitute an offence for those responsible. The atheism of the GDR, including its state- and scientifically demanded partiality, created first and foremost a one-dimensionality. This was also suitable for the development of enemy images. The socialist citizen had to be protected, above all, from the fact that others lived or believed in a different reality – the religious citizen had to be shown the outdatedness and the folly of his or her convictions. The means used to achieve this goal were the distancing and defamation of religion and religiosity in all areas of social life.⁹¹ By interpreting “political clericalism” as an assistant to capitalism behind the GDR wall, the churches became an object of criminalization. Ecclesiastical life was recognized and observed as an enemy.

 Here, once again, reference is made to the work of Anja Kirsch, who examined the favored interpretation of the world in textbooks on civic education. She also demonstrated for this medium that the word ‘superstition’ had been added to the lexical field of ‘Religion.’ Kirsch, Weltanschauung, 157– 71, esp. 169. On the separation of school and church and the elimination of religious teachings, which had already been described by the church in 1953, cf. Thomas Boese, Die Entwicklung des Staatskirchenrechts in der DDR von 1945 bis 1989 unter besonderer Berücksichtigung des Verhältnisses von Staat, Schule und Kirche, (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1994), 238.

Zdeněk R. Nešpor

(Un)willing fellow or enemy? The public discourse on religion in Czechoslovakia in the first two decades of communist rule and the divergent responses of the churches¹

Introduction This chapter will devote attention to the media and public discourse around religion – and its artificial restrictions – in Czechoslovakia during the first two decades of the Communist regime, which had a strong formative effect on later years and even influenced the present. Despite the formative character of the epoch, the regime’s relationship towards religion was neither uniform nor developed linearly. Religion and churches were sometimes worst enemies, sometimes collaborators and occasionally even friends or teachers for the Communists, although it was often better to remain silent about such a complicated subject. If the party’s attitude towards religion was not unified, religion itself was not either. Various churches and their representatives pursued different goals, driven by both path dependency and current power interests.

1 Historical background Contemporary Czech society is well known for its widespread ‘atheism,’ and has been labelled one of the least religious societies in the world, if not, indeed, the least religious.² Whereas one might doubt the nature of ‘Czech atheism’ and speak rather of a mistrust of churches combined with religious illiteracy,³ it is safe to say that most Czechs have no great liking for (organized) religion and re The writing of this chapter would not have been possible without funding provided by the Czech Science Foundation (GA ČR, project no. 17– 02917S); the funding is gratefully acknowledged.  E. g. Tom W. Smith, “Beliefs about God across Time and Countries,” in ISSP Data Report. Religious Attitudes and Religious Change, eds. Insa Bechert, and Markus Quandt (Köln: GESIS, 2013), 13 – 28.  See Dana Hamplová, and Zdeněk R. Nešpor, “Invisible Religion in a ‘Non-believing’ Country. The Case of the Czech Republic,” Social Compass 56, no. 4 (2009): 581– 97. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547085-006

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fuse to accept any type of ‘outside’ authority in this field. They instead satisfy their religious needs through purely privatized and de-traditionalized religious or spiritual thoughts and forms.⁴ Current attitudes are the result of both historical and contemporary factors which have tended towards mutual reinforcement.⁵ Although Catholicism remained the dominant confession, many Czechs lost their ties to this church in the late 19th and early 20th centuries for national and modernist reasons. They began to claim the legacy of the ancient Czech Reformation, but did not become members of Protestant churches. Rather, they tried (and are trying to) develop a kind of privatized personal religion. After the creation of independent Czechoslovakia in 1918, one and a half million Czechs, almost one-fifth of population of the Czech lands, left the Roman Catholic Church, half of them remaining without any formal religion. Various restrictions on both the operation of churches and the public discourse around religion imposed by the Communists since the late 1940s thus do not tell the whole story of Czech irreligiosity. It was not just the Communist anticlericalism that led to out-churching and atheism, and initially the Communist regime even had to cooperate with the various (legal) churches and (remaining) Christians. In order to establish itself, the regime attempted to engage with at least some religious organizations and believers, rather than restricting them entirely. Naturally, these religious ‘collaborators’ became the only visible religious figures, which effectively served to strengthen the anticlerical attitudes of the majority. Other religious figures were left with no alternative but to adopt a defense strategy involving passive resistance usually reinforced by a strong traditionalist element, which is well documented in the case of the Roman Catholic Church,⁶ by far the largest in the region. However, the relatively successful defense strategy against the government did not increase the attractiveness of religion for the majority society, and the inherent traditionalism of the established Czech churches undoubtedly became an obstacle to the widening of religious knowledge and the spread of religion as such. The above-mentioned processes will be investigated empirically in the following pages of this study. We will analyze how the Communist ‘speaking trum-

 The term ‘religion’ refers to religiosity connected with (Christian) churches, while ‘spirituality’ is reserved for beliefs and practices of the New-Age movement in this chapter.  See Zdeněk R. Nešpor, “Der Wandel der tschechischen (Nicht‐)Religiosität im 20. Jahrhundert im Lichte soziologischer Forschungen,” Historisches Jahrbuch 129 (2009): 501– 32; Zdeněk R. Nešpor, “L‘amnésie de la remémoration dans la société tchèque,” Archive de Sciences Sociales des Religions 149, no. 1, (2010): 109 – 28.  See, for example, Stanislav Balík and Jiří Hanuš, Katolická církev v Československu 1945 – 1989 (Brno: Centrum pro studium demokracie a kultury, 2007).

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pets,’ namely the party’s official newspaper Rudé právo, ⁷ its main ideological journal Nová mysl ⁸ and other publications changed in terms of the way they portrayed religion from the late 1940s to the 1960s. The analysis of the content, which will provide a general description of the (permitted) public discourse on religion, will be supplemented with an overview of the divergent responses of the Czech and Slovak churches to the various developments. The reason for concentrating solely on the first two decades of Communist rule in Czechoslovakia relates to the fact that these years constituted the only era of real ideological struggle (between Communism and religion and their respective protagonists). Following the violent suppression of the Prague Spring in 1968, Czechoslovakian Communism was clearly no longer an ideological phenomenon, but rather a pragmatic one. Repressions against the “socialism with a human face” united both (hidden) anti-Communists and earlier reformers, as nobody ‘believed’ in Communism as an ideology anymore; the majority simply conformed to the existing power settings up to the time an alternative presented itself and the system was no longer personally profitable.⁹

2 Churches and religion in the (permitted) media¹⁰ During the whole Communist era, the official ideology of the Czechoslovakian Communist Party was presented by the partisan journal Nová mysl, which also served, to a certain degree, as a discussion forum between various power groups and ideological streams within the party. Nová mysl thus reflected important changes in the party’s ideology and their real political impact. However, this was only partially the case with regard to religious affairs, especially during the period immediately prior to the Communist takeover (1948) and in the first

 Rudé právo was established together with the Czechoslovakian Communist Party in 1920; during the Communist era, it enjoyed the highest circulation of any Czech/Slovak newspaper, with the number of copies exceeding 2 million (Czechoslovakia had 12 to 15 million inhabitants).  Nová mysl was established in 1947 to replace the most important Czech philosophical journal of the time, Česká mysl, which happened the following year.  See Ivo Možný, Proč tak snadno? Některé rodinné důvody sametové revoluce (Praha: Sociologické nakladatelství, 1991); Michal Pullmann, Konec experimentu. Přestavba a pád komunismu v Československu (Praha: Scriptorium, 2011).  This part of the chapter summarizes the content of an analysis published in Czech by Zdeněk R. Nešpor as “Ideologické nástroje ateizace české společnosti v letech 1948 – 1989,” Církevní dějiny 1, no. 1 (2008): 36 – 63.

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years of Communist rule. Indeed, the evident silence in this respect is significant. Between its establishment in 1947 and 1951, Nová mysl published no article or review on the subject of religion, and subsequently a mere two or three religion-related texts appeared in the journal per year. It might be supposed that the leading ideologists of the time were reluctant to create unease amongst believers before the Communist takeover. However, this was certainly not the case later. From the late 1940s, show trials of leading church figures were held, Roman Catholic orders were banned, and religious life was severely suppressed. All of this was visible to the wider society and was fully covered by the newspapers (see below). At the same time, the party declared its willingness to cooperate with ‘progressive’ church officials. Curiously, Nová mysl made no mention of these developments. Perhaps leading Czechoslovakian Communist ideologists were unable to formulate refutations of religion (or attitudes toward it) which went any deeper than traditional Marxist axioms, published again and again in the popular media and literature.¹¹ Perhaps, they were simply ‘waiting’ to see how the situation developed with respect to pressure from Moscow. Only in 1952 did Nová mysl begin to address the topic of religion, by which time the Communist party officially declared the unacceptability of believers within its ranks and, paradoxically, the anticlerical fight had weakened. The fight was concluded, churches were suppressed to the maximum extent and the architects of state religious policy simply supposed that religion would, as a result of historical progress, simply disappear in the near future. The new situation opened up space for discussions around the societal roles of religion in the past and (later) in contemporary society. Despite the ‘safer’ treatise of historical religion evaluating the 15th–17th centuries’ Hussite/Utraquist movement, in many respects the aforementioned significant silence continued. Medieval church reformers were presented as social rebels who used religion merely as a veil for their ‘real’ motives or as the only way to mobilize the cognitively weak masses of the feudal era. The editors of Nová mysl were so convinced of the rectitude of their approach that they even allowed the publication of differing interpretations written by church historians (albeit with the editors having the final say). Moreover, the discussion resulted in the official Communist re-in-

 Most of the literature simply repeated the classics (i. e. the founding fathers of Marxism-Leninism) and/or formulated uncomplicated critiques of religion; the literature is overviewed in Zdeněk R. Nešpor, Ne/náboženské naděje intelektuálů. Vývoj české sociologie náboženství v mezinárodním a interdisciplinárním kontextu (Praha: Scriptorium, 2008), 261– 74. However, deeper analyses of the views of Marx and Engels on religion also existed, e. g. Ludvík Svoboda, Marxismus a náboženství (Praha: Život a práce, 1947); Ivan Sviták, Klasikové marxismu-leninismu o boji s náboženstvím (Praha: Orbis, 1955).

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terpretation of the Czech Reformation, which significantly reduced the role of religion. Furthermore, the marginalization of the cultural and societal impact of religiosity became even more evident in the journal’s approach to more recent history. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Nová mysl occasionally published articles and reviews on various religious historical topics in which the role of religion was reduced, the churches were severely criticized for their power interests and “obsolescence,” and “modern religion” was refuted as such.¹² While the journal clearly adapted to state religious policy for several years, a dramatic change occurred towards the mid-1960s. Due to a general liberalization of Czechoslovakian socialism, resulting later in the so-called Prague Spring,¹³ the editors began to allow the discussion of contemporary religion. Despite all the authors being confirmed Marxists, some of them started to question the antireligious hostility of previous years and even assessed religion in a more positive light. Erika Kadlecová, an employee of the Czechoslovakian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Philosophy, conducted sociological research on religion in 1963 (the only research independent of ideological pressure to be carried out during the whole of the Communist era) and demonstrated that religion was in fact not disappearing automatically nor as the result of violent suppression, and that it could be socially useful.¹⁴ She stated, “if the Christians are persuaded that they can stop a desperate decision for suicide, they should have the opportunity; if they have a mind to reeducate hooligans, they should try; competitiveness in such activities will not be amiss.”¹⁵ At the same time, other authors began to change their attitudes, for example Jakub Netopilík, who, although strongly denouncing the Second Vatican Council in 1963, evaluated the results of the Council in a positive light five years later and strongly recommended dialogue be-

 E. g. I. Stanek, “O některých problémech slovenského luďáckého klerofašismu,” Nová mysl 12 (1958): 1012– 26; L. Vébr, “Úloha církve v politických dějinách předmnichovského Československa,” Nová mysl 12 (1958): 1157– 60; Jan Kyselý, “Ateistická propaganda – součást ideologické práce strany,” Nová mysl 13, no. 9 (1959): 926 – 39; among shorter texts and reviews (Nová mysl 13, no. 2 (1959): 217– 24; 14, no. 1 (1960): 105 – 8; 14, no. 4 (1960), 443 – 6; 16, no. 5 (1962): 634– 5).  The most recent analysis pays attention to the religious situation too: Martin Schulze Wessel, Der Prager Frühling. Aufbruch in eine neue Welt (Ditzingen: Reclam, 2018), especially 134– 7, 208 – 16.  Erika Kadlecová, “Ateismus bojovný a trpělivý,” Nová mysl 16, no. 10 (1962): 1254– 62; “Sociologický výzkum religiozity,” Nová mysl 18, no. 10 (1964): 1202– 9.  Erika Kadlecová, “Společnost a náboženství,” Rudé právo, 18.05.1968: 3.

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tween Marxists and Christian church representatives.¹⁶,¹⁷ Permission for such discussion, and the eventual change in how religion was presented in Nová mysl, both hardly possible in the Soviet Union and most of its satellites, demonstrates the beginning of attempts by Communist reformers to establish “socialism with a human face.” This process had a real political impact in July 1968, when the party’s Central Committee officially condemned the state′s (anti‐)religious policy of previous decades, announced that it would support ideological pluralism (albeit with the Communist party in the prominent position) and declared its willingness to cooperate with certain Christian streams across the denominational spectrum.¹⁸ Kadlecová was designated head of the church department at the Ministry of Culture and charged with putting the changes into effect. History shows, however, that the reformists had very little time in which to implement the new policy. The Prague Spring was suppressed following the invasion by Warsaw Pact armies in September 1968, and the old party and state religious policy, as well as the ideological justification for it, was quickly reinstated. While the main Communist ideological journal devoted attention to religion only occasionally, the leading party newspaper Rudé právo, which served as opinion leader for all Czechoslovakian newspapers and journals, wrote about religion incessantly at the end of the 1940s and early 1950s, and strictly followed the official party line at all times. However, it devoted significantly less attention to the subject in later years. The following table presents the frequency and extent of articles on religion published in Rudé právo from 1945 to 1969:     articles pages







.

.

.



 

       













. . .

.

.

.

.

.

.

 Jakub Netopilík, “Proměny sociálního učení katolické církve,” Nová mysl 22, no. 4 (1968): 504– 11; respectively Jakub Netopilík, “Ekumenický koncil a ‘sociální program’ Vatikánu,” Nová mysl 17, no. 1 (1963): 89 – 96.  Czechoslovakia in the second half of the 1960s was the only Eastern European country in which such dialogue took place and at least resembled the Western model; see also Paul Mojzes, Christian-Marxist Dialogue in Eastern Europe (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1981), 111– 28; Ivan Landa, Jan Mervart et al., Proměny marxisticko-křesťanského dialogu v Československu (Praha: Filosofia, 2017).  National Archive, Prague, fond no. 02/1 Praesidium of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, vol. 76, inv. no. 106. Reprinted in Občanská společnost 1967 – 1970, vol. II/2, eds. Jindřich Pecka, Josef Belda, and Jiří Hope, (Praha – Brno: Institute for Contemporary History CAS and Doplněk, 1998), 212– 31.

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             

























.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Prior to the Communist takeover in 1948, Rudé právo wrote about religion only very occasionally and usually in a relatively neutral or restricted way – commenting on the failures of the churches in the recent past, especially during the Second World War. Between 1948 and 1951, however, religion became one of the most frequently mentioned topics, often occupying the front page of the newspaper. General anticlerical attitudes, taken both from Marxism and earlier Czech anticlericalism, were supplemented with reports from courtrooms and police investigations and long articles on international policy in which “religionists” were described as traitors, foreign spies and fraudsters who used religion to divert attention from their dishonest practices. However, this criticism was oriented primarily against (Christian) churches as institutions gaining (and abusing) power; religion as such was not overly criticized; it was described as an imperfect way of understanding at best. The overall rejection of churches and clergy had an important exception: the so-called “patriotic clergy,” who sympathized with the people and were, sometimes, even members of the Communist party. Nevertheless, this approach lasted only for a few years. After 1952, it was no longer possible to be a member of both a church and the Communist party; the term “patriotic clergy” disappeared from the newspaper altogether¹⁹ and religious topics received much less attention. This was partly due to the abandonment of (anticlerical) show trials and the relative concealment of the oppressive state church policy. Thus, there was no longer a need to monitor current religious affairs in the broader sense.

 There were two significant (personal) exceptions: a (suspended) Roman Catholic priest Josef Plojhar, who served as Minister of Health, and internationally-recognized theologian Josef L. Hromádka, dean of the Protestant Theological Faculty, who played the role of ‘peace-and-socialism apostle,’ strengthening the regime’s reputation abroad; the two ‘church representatives’ were interviewed and/or monitored by Rudé právo during the entirety of the 1950s and 1960s. No relevant biographical study of Plojhar has yet been written (basic information can be found e. g. in Handbuch der Religions- und Kirchengeschichte der böhmischen Länder und Tschechiens im 20. Jahrhundert, eds. Martin Schulze Wessel and Martin Zückert [München: Oldenbourg, 2009]), Hromádka and his political attitudes were addressed by Peter Morée and Jiří Piškula, Nejpokrokovější církevní pracovník. Protestantské církve a Josef Lukl Hromádka v letech 1945 – 1969 (Benešov: EMAN, 2015); see also Dorothea Kuhrau-Neumärker, Josef L. Hromádka. Theologie und Politik im Kontext des Zeitgeschehens (München: Kaiser, 1974).

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The decade between 1952 and 1963 was characterized by a reduction in the amount of attention devoted to religion (with a distinct ‘anticlerical relapse’ in 1958 – 59), which can be attributed to the assumed automatic extinction described above. Even purely negative references to religion and the churches (no other references were tolerated) were restricted. The newspaper reduced its coverage to very short pieces on the most important developments on the topic (e. g. papal elections) and sporadic longer disapproving articles on religion in general, not only the churches and clergy, and not just the Christian religion. Nevertheless, whenever (negative) examples were needed, they were taken from the Roman Catholic Church and its history. However, the churches and priests and religion as such were no longer denounced for espionage and political crimes, rather they tended to be criticized for enduring obscurantism, a hunger for power and money, and for having blood on their hands for historical reasons. Considerably later than the introduction of ideological discussions in Nová mysl, a certain relaxation also occurred with respect to Rudé právo. The frequency of articles on religion gradually increased from 1963 and, at first, such articles consisted exclusively of negative evaluations and allowed no room for discussion. Readers had to wait until 1965 before being allowed access to non-evaluative (i. e. non-rejecting) information on current foreign religious affairs (usually connected with international politics, Christian in the West and Islamic in the Middle East). Relatively positive assessments of popular religiosity (including foreign religiosity presented in travelogues) and religious traditions (e. g. Christmas customs) were not published until 1967. Only during the Prague Spring of 1968 did Rudé právo begin to write in an entirely neutral or generally positive way about religion and religious believers while struggling to maintain its market position also through ‘yellow journalism’: the party newspaper even wrote about the religiousness of the Beatles!²⁰ Five years after Kadlecová conducted her survey, readers were allowed to obtain the results; moreover, they were also allowed access to the work of earlier reformists and to Marxist-Christian discussions, including the various political and sociocultural outcomes. However, this relative openness was destined to last only for a matter of months. In 1969, the editorial board of Rudé právo was changed and the newspaper once more began to present the party’s hard-line doctrine.

 “Beatles na cestě ke spasení,” Rudé právo, 3.01.1968: 6.

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3 Public discourse Whereas the party’s main mouthpiece Rudé právo started with a fierce anticlerical campaign followed by a general silence concerning religious issues, replaced by a relative openness for a short time during the Prague Spring, other sources of public discourse provide a slightly different picture. As a result of the compilation of a comprehensive bibliography, all the academic and other non-fictional books dealing with philosophical issues (in the broader sense) published between 1945 and 1970 are available for examination.²¹ Prior to the Communist takeover in 1945 – 48, an average of 12.5 books dealing with religion were published annually; the number was limited mainly by a lack of paper. Four-fifths of these publications were religious books published by churches, or at least books that portrayed religion in a positive light, while 14 percent expressed antireligious and anticlerical attitudes (not only Communist publications) and 6 percent contained the neutral results of academic religious studies. During the period 1949 – 1970, the situation was markedly different. While the number of religion-related books decreased only slightly (10.3 published books per year), the structure thereof differed almost entirely. Regardless of the continuing legal existence of churches and their publishing houses (which were forcibly integrated into the Central Church Publishing House – Ústřední církevní nakladatelství), only 28 percent of production comprised religious books. Addressing religion in a positive light in published books was almost entirely banned. The proportion of academic religious studies rose to 9 percent, but they were far from viewing religion neutrally, and the remaining 63 percent of published books consisted of various manifestations of antireligious propaganda. The predominance of anticlerical ideological content would be even higher if the number of copies were taken into account. Both church editions and academic pieces were relatively limited in terms of their scope, and most were subject to limitations with respect to distribution. The situation regarding the religious book market did not change considerably during the 1960s due to the long period of time required to complete authorization (censorship) and production processes. While it was expected that the majority of people reading Rudé právo would simply ‘forget religion,’ those with a deeper interest in the issue were well supplied with critiques and ‘scientific explanations’ of the false nature of religion. Historical books portrayed the abuse of religious feelings due to greed on the part of the churches and prominent church officials, and their present-day suc See Bibliografie knižní filosofické literatury, 1945 – 1970 (Praha: VŠP ÚV KSČ, 1972).

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cessors were portrayed as being enemies equal to Western ‘imperialists,’ capitalists and ‘plutocrats’ (especially in the context of international politics). While some books were translated from Russian, most were written by Czech authors, usually those held in high social and academic esteem.²² The same authors were mobilized to give public lectures and to prepare popular exhibitions.²³ Less academic readers were also provided with an ‘anticlerical catechism,’ i. e. a wellwritten collection of questions and answers which dealt with religious issues surrounding daily life and worldviews (e. g. why the Code of Communist Morals is not a new Ten Commandments). These explained the cognitive inadequacy of ‘past’ religion and the superiority and progressiveness of modern atheism.²⁴ Certain Communist ideologists went even further and attempted to erase religiosity from popular fictional books written in ‘olden’ times or by earlier authors.²⁵ However, this rather extreme approach was relatively rare. Fiction publishing policy generally accorded preference to ‘progressive’ authors (e. g. Anatole France), and employed ‘necessary explanatory’ prefaces or postscripts by prominent ideologists and ‘screened’ intellectuals²⁶ in order to confront religiously positive publications and even religious classics from Augustine to Chesterton. It is not easy to evaluate to what extent this combination of outward antireligiosity and the lack of information on churches and religion succeeded. In the long run, it undoubtedly reduced both – the level of knowledge about religion and the overall religiousness of Czechoslovakian society, while its immediate effect was probably not so evident. People tended to hide their religious beliefs and adopt privatized forms of religion rather than fully abandoning religion, as revealed by Kadlecová’s survey. In 1963, 15 years after the Communist takeover and the introduction of the associated anticlerical state policy, only 30 percent of

 See Z. R. Nešpor, Ne/náboženské naděje intelektuálů, 261– 313.  See Doubravka Olšáková, Věda jde k lidu! Československá společnost pro šíření politických a vědeckých znalostí a popularizace věd v Československu ve 20. století (Praha: Academia, 2014).  See Sto otázek věřících nevěřícím o věcech na zemi i na nebi neboli také o tom, jaký mít názor na svět a jaké je naše místo v něm (Praha: NPL, 1962).  A particularly good example in this context is Arnošt Kolman’s attempt to ‘modernize’ the fairy-tale classic Broučci, written by a Calvinist minister and full of references to obedience to God; Kolman skipped all the religious content and left only the references to obedience. However, this ‘adaptation’ was applied only to the Russian translation of the book, which was used as a language teaching aid in Czech schools, while printing of the Czech original was prohibited at the time. This case was analyzed in detail by Věra Brožová, Karafiátovi Broučci v české kultuře (Praha: ARSCI, 2011): 82– 90.  One can presume that the ‘explanations’ were ordered by the censoring authorities, if not proceeding from self-protection tendencies of the publishing houses. However, research on state censorship (and self-censorship) in Communist Czechoslovakia is just commencing.

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respondents described themselves as non-believers, the same proportion described themselves as convinced church members and the rest were somewhere in between; almost 60 percent remained church members.²⁷ In her interpretation of the survey outcomes, Kadlecová emphasized the rapid and effective destruction of the socially integrative function of religion, while pointing out the continuation of its compensatory and other roles.²⁸ Similarly, a public opinion poll held in 1969 revealed that almost four-fifths of respondents supported the radio broadcasting of church services²⁹ – an easy way to take part in the service without being seen. It appears that the majority of older cohorts, exposed to the obligatory atheism, refused to accept the arguments of the regime. They placated the authorities while hiding and privatizing their religiousness and passing very little on to their children. Naturally, this attitude had a very destructive impact on the religiousness of younger cohorts.

4 Church responses How did the (established) churches respond to the situation? Did they accept the role of the enemy which would, according to Marxist doctrine, die “automatically” in the near future, or did they become – willingly or not – bed-fellows of the Communist regime? On the face of it, there was no real choice in the matter. The churches and their representatives were practically forced to submit to the regime, celebrate the ‘achievements of socialism’ and withdraw into the limited space allowed for their activities. However, there were significant differences between the various churches and influential figures/groups within the churches in this respect. State policy specifically restricted the activities of the Roman Catholic Church (and some smaller denominations labelled as sects). Almost all the higher clergy were arrested and replaced with loyal vicar-generals who de facto served as state clerks. In addition, the educational institutions of the church, especially the theological faculties, were ‘re-organised,’ which meant in fact the dismissal of professors who refused to comply with the demands of the regime. An organization was created consisting of ‘progressive priests,’ known as Catholic Action and, subsequently, the Peace Movement of Catholic Clergy, as the only partner with which the state authorities would deal and the only church  See Erika Kadlecová, Sociologický výzkum religiozity Severomoravského kraje (Praha: Academia, 1967), 13 – 20.  Kadlecová, Sociologický výzkum religiozity, 157.  See Josef Bečvář, Ústav pro výzkum veřejného mínění ČSAV 1967 – 1972 (Praha: ÚSD AV ČR, 1996), 113 – 4.

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body allowed to speak publicly. These ‘representatives’ were allowed only to confirm the ‘rightness’ of state church policy, were forbidden to hold higher theological aspirations and still less to advance ideas on the future of religion. The biographies of patriarchs of the Czechoslovak Church published since then paint a similar picture.³⁰ For the outchurched public, this development only served to prove the opportunism of the churches (which did nothing to attract support); for those (remaining) ‘non-corrupted’ church officials, it was a reason for shame. The full loyalty – if not subordination – of the official church authorities and structures to the Communist regime was anathema to most believers. While underground church structures that strongly opposed the regime did exist (established in the years of the most serious persecution of churches and believers), they remained relatively small and unknown, mainly due to the strict secrecy surrounding them.³¹ Such underground groups did not present an option for regular believers and churchgoers, who tended to associate the Communist anticlerical campaign and the compromises made by their church representatives with earlier ‘enlightened’ and ‘modern’ anticlerical crusades, worldly temptation and evil. If they were not able to believe the church’s authorities, they put their trust in tradition. Strong religious conservatism became a self-preservation strategy for many, while ‘progress’ or modernization of any kind was seen in purely negative terms.³² One of the most visible consequences of this attitude consisted of the negative reaction to the Second Vatican Council, with the exception of a small number of issues such as the performance of mass in the national language and the recognition of cremation. Czech Catholics became suspicious of their own church, its modern development and the credibility of its leading representatives – an attitude that often continues up to the present day. Most of the smaller churches (Adventists, Baptists, Methodists, etc.) also failed to defy the authorities, largely due to their non-worldly orientation and strong eschatological expectations.³³ However, the regime found one of the larger established churches not so easy to suppress, i. e. the Protestant Church of the Czech Brethren. This was built on Presbyterian principles and had a long tradi-

 See Jaroslav Hrdlička, Život a dílo prof. Františka Kováře (Brno: L. Marek, 2007); Jaroslav Hrdlička, Patriarcha dr. Miroslav Novák (Brno: L. Marek, 2010).  See Ondřej Liška, Církev v podzemí a společenství Koinótés (Tišnov: Sursum, 1999).  See Jiří Hanuš, Tradice českého katolicismu ve 20. století (Brno: Centrum pro studium demokracie a kultury, 2005); see also Balík – Hanuš, Katolická církev, 257– 8.  One of the smaller religious organizations, the Orthodox Church even supported the Communist regime. This attitude was caused by the many benefits the church was accorded, including autocephality, and the Russian origin of all the church’s hierarchy.

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tion of internal democracy, extensive experience with resistance to hostile political regimes (e. g. to the Habsburg monarchy) and recent memories of its substantial sociocultural influence in the interwar period. Moreover, the Protestant church represented the visible religious successor to the medieval Czech Reformation, to which the Communist party also professed a certain allegiance. Indeed, the mutual ties were further complicated due to the fact that many Protestants were Party members, national committee members and the founding fathers of the cooperative movement. While the Protestant church was progressivist by nature, at the same time it and its members strongly resisted attempts at subjugated from the outside.³⁴ Despite concerted efforts by the authorities, the Protestant church in fact never bowed to them. At the same time, the Communist regime realized that the almost absolute and highly-visible docility of ‘selected’ church representatives, while effective in terms of establishing control over the various churches, was not enough to convince believers and foreign observers. The Communists needed credible church officials to serve as loyal witnesses to the achievements of socialism. As previously mentioned, the only two figures seen as suitable to assume this role were Roman Catholic priest Josef Plojhar, who served as Minister of Health, and Protestant Theological Faculty dean Josef Lukl Hromádka. Plojhar, probably the longest-serving minister in Czechoslovakian history, provided a perfect example of the way a church official could build a political career under Communism – a very personal demonstration of the (current) state’s ‘generosity’ toward believers. He repaid this generosity by making political speeches full of praise for the regime³⁵ and, what was even more important, promised nothing for the future. It was generally understood that the benevolent attitude toward those “living with religious prejudices,” an attitude that was limited and generally false in the best of times, could very quickly turn into merciless persecution and the forbidding of religious practices in the future. The case of Hromádka was somewhat more complicated. Unlike Plojhar, he did not accept a public position, and his public appearances were somewhat equivocal both in Czechoslovakia and abroad. As a convinced socialist, he welcomed the Communist takeover in 1948 and helped the Communists significantly in terms of legitimizing the Russian invasion aimed at quashing the Hungarian “counter-revolution” of 1956 (for which he received the Lenin Peace Prize two  See Ondřej Matějka, ‘Jsou to berani, ale můžeme je využít’. Čeští evangelíci a komunistický režim v 50. letech, Soudobé dějiny 14, no. 2– 3 (2007): 305 – 40.  See Josef Plojhar, Dva roky s lidem (Praha: Vyšehrad, 1950); Josef Plojhar, Budujeme socialismus (Praha: Vyšehrad, 1952); Josef Plojhar, Křesťané a socialismus (Praha: Lidová demokracie, 1961).

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years later). At the same time, he personally supported Christians in Czechoslovakia and other Eastern European countries and opined that anticlericalism and atheism were socialist “teething problems” which would be outgrown over time and result in the equal evaluation of Jesus’ incarnation and Lenin’s Russian revolution as the two most important events in history. Hromádka’s attempts to theologically justify socialism found an audience among third-world (especially African) Christians, and the Christian Peace Conference, which he co-founded in 1958, was not only a veil for Soviet power interests.³⁶ If the Communist policymakers were faced with problems regarding the Protestant Church of the Czech Brethren, Hromádka, one of its most prominent members, made them even worse. However, he was simply ‘too visible’ and ‘too necessary’ to be removed. Moreover, he and, to a greater extent, his younger followers were publicly critical of the ‘reality’ of socialism and they even successfully mobilized opposition to the new family legislation of 1963 (one of the proposals, which was not adopted, urged parents to raise their children as atheists). Hromádka’s attitudes attracted broader attention in the Christian-Marxist discourses of the 1960s, which led to several conversions to Christianity by a number of prominent Communists.³⁷ In 1968, he and his church strongly condemned the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia and, following Hromádka’s death in 1969, the Hromádka-inspired theological movement Nová Orientace became the most victimized religious “enemy of socialism” and was relentlessly pursued by the Communist secret service.³⁸ This was perhaps not surprising when one considers that many of his followers were actively involved in the anti-Communist underground movement in the 1970s and 1980s, despite which they never abandoned a certain socialist emphasis in terms of their theology and church activities.

 About the Christian Peace Conference, see Bohuslav Pospíšil, Die Prager Christliche Friedenskonferenz (Berlin: Otto Nuschke, 1959), critically Gerhard Lindemann, “‘Sauerteig im Kreis der gesamtchristlichen Ökumene.’ Das Verhältnis zwischen der Christlichen Friedenskonferenz und dem Ökumenischen Rat der Kirchen,” in Nationaler Protestantismus und Ökumenische Bewegung. Kirchliches Handeln im Kalten Krieg (1945 – 1990) (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1999): 653 – 932; Jiří Piškula, “Založení Křesťanské mírové konference v kontextu zahraniční politiky KSČ,” Církevní dějiny 3, no. 6 (2010): 53 – 71.  Erika Kadlecová, “Nejistoty života a jistota víry,” Svědectví 20, no. 78 (1986): 352– 60; see also I. Landa, J. Mervart et al., Proměny marxisticko-křesťanského dialogu.  See Peter Dinuš, Českobratrská církev evangelická v agenturním rozpracování StB (Praha: ÚDV, 2004).

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5 Conclusion The way in which the Czechoslovakian Communists dealt with atheism and (state) church policy varied fundamentally over time and among different intellectual groups, as did the churches’ responses to the situation. In addition to the general anticlerical oppression, at least from time to time certain ‘escape routes’ were opened for religious adherents and official representatives of churches. Occasionally, serious attempts at mutual understanding, respect and even cooperation between Marxists and religious believers emerged. Such attempts were initiated by both sides and, despite such attempts being ultimately unsuccessful in terms of avoiding suppression, they often resulted in important intellectual achievements which had a real social impact. Marxist-Christian exchanges determined ideological dialogue and even Czechoslovakian state religious policy for a limited time period at the end of the ‘free 1960s.’ Protestant theologians who were positively oriented towards socialism, while critical of its manifestation in reality, represented an important stream of political opposition to the Communist regime in later years. However, all the various efforts merely served to ‘convince the already convinced.’ Scrupulous Communists disappeared following the end of the Prague Spring, and the Christian churches, which were publicly acknowledged as enemies of the regime, no longer attracted much attention. Modern and pro-socialist theologies were unable to halt the gradual advance of the out-churching movement, which commenced well before the Communist takeover and was merely strengthened by the regime’s battle against the churches.³⁹ Although the Communist anticlerical propaganda was not wholly successful in its fight against religion and the churches, despite it often taking advantage of previously-established anticlerical tendencies in society, in one respect it succeeded almost totally, i. e. in the dissemination of religious illiteracy. While prior to the Communist takeover almost all Czechoslovaks were educated as children in basic Christian principles and rules and (willingly or not) confronted with the social impact of the Christian churches at an early age, the Communist ban on the public expression of Christianity was essentially absolute. The (facultative) teaching of religion in schools was almost completely eliminated and all positive references to religion were carefully removed from the teaching of other subjects, as well as from literature, the media and the public space in general. Moreover, the private intergenerational transfer of religiousness within families was often ineffective. This information and educational policy led to whole  See Nešpor, “Wandel der tschechischen (Nicht‐)Religiosität,” 507– 13.

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generations growing up with no knowledge of (church) religion, with the notable exception of vocal criticism by the anticlerical regime. Thus, even those who opposed the Communist ideology were unable to avoid internalizing anticlerical attitudes while, moreover, being denied the opportunity to learn about churches and religion in any significant detail. Not surprisingly, these cohorts exhibited a substantially lower level of religiosity than did their forebears.⁴⁰ The results of the Communist religious policy remain visible in Czech church organizations up to the present day. The churches were not able to cope fully with their representatives’ collaboration with the regime, in some cases even serving the state secret police, and they are today not seen as trustworthy organizations either by the public or indeed many of their members. Popular Roman Catholic conservatism is hampering the much-needed modernization of the church and has resulted in, at best, indifference on the part of the unchurched public, while the ‘progressive’ Protestant theologies of the past are seen as obsolete by younger pastors and believers.⁴¹ At the same time, no widely accepted substitute has emerged. With notable exceptions, church religion is on the decline in contemporary Czech society and is being gradually replaced not with atheism, but with privatized and de-traditionalized ‘spiritual’ – esoteric and New-Age – forms, thoughts and activities.⁴² The Czechoslovakian Communist ideologues and policymakers were in fact not particularly successful in terms of spreading atheism. Indeed, ironically, in suppressing churches – not religiosity in general – they prepared the ground for today’s spiritual revolution in which “religion is giving way to spirituality”⁴³ in Czech society.

 See Dana Hamplová, “Institucionalizované a neinstitucionalizované náboženství v českém poválečném vývoji,” Soudobé dějiny 8, no. 2– 3 (2001): 294– 311; Siniša Zrinščak, “Generations and Atheism. Patterns of Response to Communist Rule among Different Generations and Countries,” Social Compass 51, no. 2 (2004): 221– 34.  E. g. Sváťa Karásek, Víno Tvé výborné (Praha: Kalich, 2000): 59 – 60.  See Dana Hamplová, “Čemu Češi věří: dimenze soudobé české religiosity,” Sociologický časopis/Czech Sociological Review 44, no. 4 (2008): 271– 94; RomanVido, David Václavík, and Antonín Paleček, “Czech Republic: The Promised Land for Atheists?” in Sociology of Atheism, eds. Roberto Cipriani, and Franco Garelli (Leiden: Brill, 2016): 201– 32.  See Paul Heelas, Linda Woodhead et al., The Spiritual Revolution. Why Religion Is Giving Way to Spirituality (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005).

Johann Ev. Hafner

From indoctrination to testimonials

The book gifts for Jugendweihe in the GDR and reunified Germany

Introduction The following text will explore the surprising persistence of the Jugendweihe during and after GDR times. How could this ritual, which was a central instrument for the transmission of scientific atheism, survive the fundamental system change in 1989? The point of reference for this analysis will be the book gifts. These contain not only canonical knowledge for the reader, but also the intention of the organizers. The performative act of gifting a book to the recipient seems to have been the most stable part of the ritual over time. Looking closer, we observe a constant revision of these books. Nearly every year their content is changed, adapted, extended. The stability of the ritual camouflages the fluidity of the content. In order to detect some trajectories, we will describe the changes between the revised and new editions and compare them according to the role of the individual, the social function of the ritual, and the ultimate god-term. ‘Jugendweihe’/’Jugendfeier’¹ literally means ‘consecration of the youth/feast of the youth.’ It takes place at the age of around 14 (Grade 8) and is preceded by preparatory classes which lead up to a public and solemn celebration with family and friends, sometimes with the teachers. If your children attend a public school in the former East Germany today, it is quite possible that professional organizers of Jugendweihen join in a parent-teacher conference and start to plan the celebration. In many schools, it belongs to the annual cycle of events. In some cases the entire class signs up. The fact that this ritual did not die out

 In the German language, ‘Weihe’ carries an eminent religious connotation. It is mainly used in Catholic language for the ordination of a clergyman or the blessing of an object that will permanently be used in liturgical contexts (bells, altars, church buildings). After 1989, some organizers changed the term to ‘Jugendfeier’ (‘celebration of the youth’) in order to avoid religious semantics and dissociate it from the socialist tradition. For reasons of readability, we use ‘Jugendweihe’ throughout the text. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547085-007

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after the peaceful revolution² in 1989 draws a lot of attention. Why is this tradition so persistent? Is it something similar now, or completely new? Did elements of the socialist ideology survive?

1 A remnant of GDR times? In the early 1990s – the years after reunification – the German public debated whether the Jugendweihe should be acknowledged and subsidized as one of many other institutions of formation,³ or whether in fact it represented a continuation of the socialist past. Three different opinions clashed on that issue: The first group considered the Jugendweihe as a last remnant of atheistic socialism. The tone of texts and speeches often had an anti-capitalistic, even antireunification drive.⁴ In fact, it was a great surprise to see that this ritual still found broad reception in East Germany,⁵ notably in the mid-1990s. Especially church groups in the East, who resisted taking part in the Jugendweihe and who had suffered disadvantages such as restricted access to universities, criticized the ‘continuation’ of this tradition. Moreover, the providing organization Jugendweihe Deutschland continued as the direct successor of the former party organization Zentraler Ausschuß für Jugendweihe.⁶ This central committee for Jugendweihen in the GDR – founded in 1954 – had been the official organ of the Communist Party to implement Jugendweihen all over the country.⁷ And,

 The term ‘Peaceful Revolution’ acknowledges the courageous contribution of the East German people in the late eighties towards the system change, better known as the ‘reunification’ or ‘Wende.’  The last government of the GDR under the Lothar de Maizière administration ended state funding of Jugendweihen in April 1990. Joachim Chowanski, and Rolf Dreier, Die Jugendweihe. Eine Kulturgeschichte seit 1852 (Berlin: Edition Ost, 2000), 147.  Andreas Fincke, “Anmerkungen zur Jugendweihe aus kirchlicher Sicht,” in Jugendweihe und Jugendfeier in Deutschland. Geschichte, Bedeutung, Aktualität, ed. Manfred Isemeyer (Marburg: Tectum, 2014), 114.  In 1992 only 800 teenagers participated in Protestant confirmation in East Berlin, but 6,500 in a Jugendweihe. Heiner Barz, “Jugend und Religion in den neuen Bundesländern,” Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte 44, no. 38 (1994): 21– 31.  Andreas Meier, Jugendweihe – JugendFEIER. Ein deutsches nostalgisches Fest vor und nach 1990 (München: dtv, 1998), 21– 2.  The implementation took the East Germans by surprise. In 1952 it was still forbidden as a ‘sectarian’ and bourgeois tradition; in 1953 – after the uprising of June 17th – the SED decided to strengthen the loyalty of the population. It was far more than an invitation to a voluntary commitment. It was a clear expectation of devotion to the socialist cause. In a famous speech in September 1957 in Sonneberg, Walter Ulbricht explicitly called all teenagers to participate. From

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many still remembered how the Jugendweihe was introduced as a copy of the Christian confirmation: At the age of 14, in the same month, under a similar name (Weihe). This is why even today children of devout Christian families shun Jugendweihen, and likewise ‘Jugendweihlinge’ rarely participate in confirmation.⁸ Schools that are run by one of the churches naturally offer confirmations and criticize Jugendweihen. The two rituals still exclude each other. The second group defended the Jugendweihe as a tradition which looked back on a long history even before its ‘abuse’ by the socialist party during the GDR decades. This group intended to revitalize the free-religious, humanistic ritual which was oppressed first under the National Socialists and then hijacked by the Communists. They stressed that a unified Germany – to support freedom of religion – badly needed a ritual for the nonreligious population, breaking the monopoly of the two state-privileged mainline denominations, Catholicism and Protestantism. The main theme was ‘tolerance.’ This kind of Jugendweihe was organized by the Humanistischer Verband Deutschland (HVD) or the Stiftung Geistesfreiheit, with strong headquarters in Berlin and Hamburg. Although the HVD immediately changed the name of their celebration to ‘Jugendfeier’ (ceremony of the youth), most people today still use the previous term ‘Jugendweihe’ and do not notice the difference. The third group kept the tradition which they – following the narratives of their parents – experienced as a pleasant family celebration. For them, the Jugendweihe was and still is a part of the identity of East Germans (the derogatory term is ‘Ost-algie’ – a German play on the words for ‘East’ and ‘nostalgia’). The former organizers reformed the ritual (no more pledges) but kept the main structures, while the staff was reduced to 25 %. Their main theme was ‘life orientation.’ In interviews, some organizers⁹ said that most parents who register their children only have a faint idea of what the ritual is all about. The process of diffusing content already started during the last years of the GDR, when the Jugendweihe had become a more and more state-backed but meaningless ceremony. Since up to 96 % of the age group participated, it was routine, also to avoid dis-

1956– 59 the Jugendweihe was state-organized and practiced nationwide, with a skyrocketing participation rate from 12 % to 80 %, whereas the confirmations dropped from three-quarters to one-third. Detlef Pollack and Gergely Rosta, Religion in der Moderne. Ein internationaler Vergleich (Frankfurt/Main: Campus, 2015), 277.  Albrecht Döhnert, “Jugendweihe nach 1990 oder: Die Wandlungen eines Klassikers,” in Jugendweihe – ein Ritual im Wandel der politischen Systeme, ed. Institut für vergleichende StaatKirche-Forschung (Berlin: Gesellschaft zur Förderung vergleichender Staat-Kirche-Forschung, 2004), 62.  Interview between the author and organizers of the Jugendweihe in Potsdam, May 23 2015.

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crimination. Only few interpreted or understood it as a real initiation into the socialist worldview. “I don’t think it was possible to touch the hearts or strike a chord with the girls and boys anymore. Overblown demands concerning the youth lessons and the pledge didn’t match real life. There were also numerous whitewashing speeches at the ceremonies.”¹⁰ Therefore, we currently have to discern between two types of ceremonies or celebrations in East Germany: the Jugendweihe of the Interessenvereinigung Jugendarbeit und Jugendweihe e.V. (since 2001: Jugendweihe Deutschland e.V.)¹¹ in reformed socialist structures amounting to around 90 % of celebrations,¹² and the Jugendfeier of the Humanistischer Verband in the free-religious tradition for the remaining 10 %. The two organizations are competitors and often accuse the other of implementing a superficial ritual.¹³ However, their rituals do not differ as much as it seems. Both organizations explicitly condemn the repressions under which the Jugendweihe took place in the GDR,¹⁴ both view their ritual as a contribution to an education aimed at developing mature responsibility, and both cater to the public demand for a ritual of adolescence.

 Chowanski, Dreier, Die Jugendweihe, 138. All the following German quotes translated by Johann Ev. Hafner.  The Jugendweihe Deutschland e. V. was founded immediately after the Zentraler Ausschuss für Jugendweihe, the official GDR organization, was suspended (June, 9th 1990) and many of its members laid off. The fact that the new association was established only in the states of the former GDR shows that it was more a continuation of GDR traditions than a complete new start. The Jugendweihe Deutschland e.V. still opts for a positive assessment of the Jugendweihen that were performed in the GDR: “But who condemns the Jugendweihe of the GDR sweepingly disregards the honest work of hundreds of thousands of people. Because libertine, atheistic humanists connected in order to continue the tradition of the Jugendweihe as a dignified transition from childto adulthood, the Jugendweihe survives the demise of the GDR.” Landesverband Sachsen-Anhalt der Interessenvereinigung Jugendweihe e.V., “Geschichte der Jugendweihe,” last modified August 12, 2015. http://www.jugendweihe.info/geschichte.3.html. For the renaming of the GDR committees in ‘Interessenvereinigungen’ in the reunified Germany, see: Meier, Jugendweihe, 23 – 4, 32– 3.  Albrecht Döhnert, Jugendweihe zwischen Familie, Politik und Religion. Studien zum Fortbestand der Jugendweihe nach 1989 und der Konfirmationspraxis der Kirchen (Leipzig: Evangelische Verlagsanstalt, 2000), 168.  Interview between the author and representatives of Jugendweihe e.V. and Humanistischer Verband.  Werner Hütter, “Fragen zur Jugendweihe,” in Übergangsrituale im Jugendalter. Jugendweihe, Konfirmation, Firmung und Alternativen. Positionen und Perspektiven am ‘runden Tisch,’ ed. Hartmut Griese (Münster: LIT, 2000), 123.

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2 The continuation of Jugendweihen after 1989 After suppressing free-religious and humanistic Jugendweihen for several years, the SED decided on November 9th, 1954, to found the “Society for the propagation of scientific knowledge” (Gesellschaft zur Verbreitung wissenschaftlicher Kenntnisse¹⁵) and to introduce Jugendweihen in the GDR nationwide. This happened with the clear intention to take control over the youth and reduce the influence of the churches. The SED was convinced that scientific knowledge would dissolve religious attitudes. Thus, the Jugendweihe was meant as an ersatz for the Christian confirmation, and was recognized as such by the people. The Protestant Church tried to defy the provocation and forbade its members to participate, but lost the struggle. The number of confirmees dropped from approx. 75 % in 1956 to 30 % in 1959, whereas the participation in Jugendweihen skyrocketed from 12 % to 80 %.¹⁶ The peak of the anti-Christian thrust was before 1961; after that, the fight against the churches was won. The state-organized¹⁷ Jugendweihe started with 52,000 participants in 1955, which increased to 285,000 in 1978. Numbers then fell gradually to 219,000 in 1985. During the last years of the GDR, they dropped to 169,000 in 1989, yet in the five years before reunification, still nine out of ten pupils attended the ritual.¹⁸ After reunification, the Jugendweihe continued on a lower, though stable, level, with between 62,000 (in 1992) and 96,000 (in 2000) participants in East and West Germany. The decrease 2003 – 2006 is also due to lower birth rates in East Germany after reunification. After 2005, participation slumped to 37,000 (in 2006) and 25,000 (in 2009).¹⁹ In recent years, the Jugendweihe has shared a similar decrease with Catholic and Protestant confirmations. In 2016, the umbrella organization Bundesverband Jugendweihe Deutschland e. V. hosted 37,000 events.

 The organisation is better known under its later name ‘Urania.’  Detlef Pollack, Kirche in der Organisationsgesellschaft. Zum Wandel der gesellschaftlichen Lage der evanglischen Kirchen in der DDR (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1994), 384, 415.  By 1989 the organisational infrastructure consisted of 2.500 local committees, who received annually 20 Million Mark from the central bank. Andreas Meier, Struktur und Geschichte der Jugendweihen/Jugendfeiern (Arbeitspapier Nr. 8/2001) ed. Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (Sankt Augustin, 2001), 34.  Percentage of Jugendweihen in respective the age group: 1955: 18 %, 1956: 24 %, 1957: 26 %, 1958: 44 %, 1959: 80 %, 1960: 88 %, 1965: 89 %, 1970: 92 %, 1975: 97 %, 1980: 98 %, 1985: 97 %, 1990: 87 %. Chowanski, and Dreier, Die Jugendweihe, 271– 2.  https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/158420/umfrage/teilnehmer-bei-jugendweihen-in-deutschland-seit-1991 (accessed 15/12/2018).

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Today around 10 % of the age group receive the Jugendweihe: 7,500 teenagers in Berlin and Brandenburg in 2016, in some places such as Halle/S. in Saxony-Anhalt around 30 %.²⁰ There are some suggestions as to why the Jugendweihe regained popularity after the downturn in 1990 – 1992. One hypothesis holds: There is a basic need for initiation rites in every society. The East Germans – predominantly cut off from the Christian traditions – had replaced the religious confirmation with the Jugendweihe. But, aside from the problematic assumption that there is a universal social demand for initiations, the Jugendweihe is not a rite of passage at all.²¹ At the age of 14 no German child enters a new phase of life nor aquires new opportunities. Graduation or the driver’s license come years later. Instead, the Jugendweihe has been a rite closely linked with continuous education in school and state. We have to look for further reasons. Was its extinction prevented by the fact that the tradition had already been well established before the formation of the GDR? If tradition were the stabilizing factor, though, then confirmation, which has an even longer history, should have had great success after reunification. The tradition of the Jugendweihe was contaminated in such a way that it could only survive through a total relaunch. By introducing new topics, by renaming the organization, and above all by disassociating it from its former ‘abuse’ by the National Socialists and Communists as a rite of submission, the Jugendweihe/Jugendfeier gained new legitimacy. In most texts (see below), it is depicted as the ritual of freedom from any state or church paternalism. Thus, it is rather ideological discontinuity than continuity that explains the success of the Jugendweihe/Jugendfeier. The real continuity lies in the family traditions. The Jugendweihe was an established practice of East German family culture, handed down to today’s children.²² It was possible to revitalize it with reference to its anti-institutional his-

 “Today, around 30 percent of an age group in grade 8 still celebrate the Jugendweihe in Halle. This amounted to 735 adolescents last year. A further 20 percent are spread across confirmation and the Jugendweihe of the Humanists.” Sandy Schmied, “Wer feiert heute noch Jugendweihe?” Mitteldeutsche Zeitung, April 10, 2015.  Christian Schmidt-Wellenburg, “Die Jugendweihe. Bedeutung und Funktion eines biographischen Übergangsrituals,” Berliner Journal für Soziologie 14, no. 2 (2014): 362. This study tries to depict the Jugendweihe as an initiation into adulthood, although major ‘initiations’ like the driver’s license, the right to consume alcohol in public or graduation from secondary school come later. The only innovation at the age of 14 is the legal possibility to go out without an adult chaperone until 10 p.m. and – sometimes – to be addressed in the formal ‘Sie’ instead of ‘Du.’  This is the thesis of Schmidt-Wellenburg, Die Jugendweihe, 363: “Ostdeutsche Identitätskonstruktion” (justification of the parents’ participation by making the children take part in a harmless ritual). He rejects a “necessity of a uniform East German remembrance or narrative commu-

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tory. Even as early as the 1980s, the official party line for the Jugendweihe as the time when a youth becomes a responsible member of the working class faded. The population increasingly saw it as a family celebration.²³ Although the speakers still employed a socialist rhetoric, this was merely an empty shell. This shell could be filled with new contents. If one were to ask organizers of Jugendweihen, they would unanimously point out that in most cases it is the parents who register their child for the ritual. Obviously, the function of familial initiation into adolescence (in sociological terms: primary social integration) takes precedence over the function of social initiation into responsible citizenship (secondary social integration).

3 The book gifts for Jugendweihen in the GDR As part of a city-mapping project of the University of Potsdam, we visited several Jugendweihen, focusing on the providing organizations.²⁴ Many scholars ²⁵ compare the Jugendweihe to its functional equivalents, the Catholic and Protestant confirmation, by applying the category ‘initiation’ or ‘rite de passage.’ The similarities are obvious: a preparatory phase, a performative act, a new phase of life, a high tone during the celebration. The ritual basically consists of seven elements: 1. preparation courses, formerly ‘Jugendstunden’ (optional), 2. gathering in a public building, 3. music and shows,

nity,” but views the Jugendweihe as a space for non-discursive continuation and for dealing with the situation as strangers in one’s own country.  Albrecht Döhnert has shown in his study how social motives of group identity (family celebration traditions, peer group dynamics, sibling dynamics, the standards of a post-Christian majority, and an anti-institutional affect, which is projected on the established churches) led to the permanence of Jugendweihen. Cf. Döhnert, Jugendweihe nach 1990, 51– 65.  Johann Hafner, and Johanna Bohnsack-Fach, “Humanistischer Regionalverband Potsdam/ Potsdam-Mittelmark,” in Glaube in Potsdam. Bd. I: Religiöse, spirituelle und weltanschauliche Gemeinschaften, eds. Johann Hafner, Helga Völkening, and Irene Becci (Baden-Baden: Ergon 2018), 645 – 58.  See Wilma Kauke-Keçeci, Sinnsuche – die semiotische Analyse eines komplexen Ritualtextes am Beispiel der ostdeutschen Jugendweihe nach 1989 (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang 2002); Birgit Weyel, “Konfirmation und Jugendweihe. Eine Verhältnisbestimmung aus praktisch-theologischer Sicht,” in Zeitschrift für Theologie und Kirche 102 no. 4 (2005), 488 – 503, 495. Hartmut G. Griese, ed., Übergangsrituale im Jugendalter. Jugendweihe, Konfirmation, Firmung und Alternativen – Positionen und Perspektiven am “runden Tisch” (Münster: LIT, 2000).

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a speech, an individual stage-call: pledge and congratulation, gifts (certificate,²⁶ flower, book²⁷) and a private celebration afterwards.

In GDR times, the texts were meant to pass on the canonical knowledge of socialism. If we want to find out about the continuation of socialist ideas, it is more promising to look through the long chain of book gifts before and after 1989 than to compare the rituals.²⁸ So, the following text focuses solely on one specific part of the ritual: the books. Books are “not merely an issue of repression, but also of persuasion²⁹”, and the Jugendweihe books specifically tried to include the youth into socialist society by imparting the official worldview through illustrated articles. The question that arises here is whether remnants of this worldview continued after the reunification, or how they were substituted. Admittedly, the analysis of books alone is fragmentary, and most youths probably did not read these volumes. Moreover, to the conclusions drawn here would ideally be confirmed through empirical research on the recipients’ side. However, there are several reasons to focus on the gifted books: – They were used by the organizers of Jugendweihen as reference points for the program of the preparatory courses, for the content of the speeches and for the design of the celebration. – It may seem that the pledge would serve as a more stable tertium comparationis. It was changed only twice during the 35 GDR years,³⁰ whereas the gift  The certificate was issued by the central committee for Jugendweihen in the GDR (Zentraler Ausschuss für Jugendweihe in der DDR).  Book gifts were an element from the very beginning of Jugendweihen in the 19th century. The first proletarian Jugendweihe on April 14th, 1889, in Berlin already contained a pledge, a book and a certificate. Cf. Landesvorstand der Interessenvereinigung Jugendweihe Mecklenburg-Vorpommern e.V., ed. Aufbruch ins Morgen (1991), 22.  For early assessments, see Ralf Rytlewski, “Politische Rituale in der Sowjetunion und der DDR,” in Der unvollkommene Block, eds. Hannelore Horn, Wladimir Knobelsdorf, and Michal Reiman (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 1988), 203 – 25; Matthias Hartmann, “Ein pervertiertes Ritual lebt weiter. Jugendweihe in Ostberlin” (1992), in Deutschland-Archiv. Zeitschrift für das vereinigte Deutschland 25, no. 6 (1992): 563 – 5.  See the introduction of this volume, page 6.  In the 1960s, the ceremony had its climax in a solemn pledge. The earliest version from 1955 (1. commitment to a happy life for all working people and to progress in economy, science and arts, 2. to a unified, independent Germany, 3. to defend peace in the spirit of friendship) did not yet include “the great idea of socialism.” The later version which became obligatory from 1968 until 1989 added “true patriots” and “defense against imperialist attacks.” “Gelöbnis zur Jugendweihe 1967,” in Meine Jugendweihe. Teilnehmerheft 1989/90, ed. Zentraler Ausschuß für Jugend-

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books underwent constant revision (seven completely new editions before 1989; replaced by several, very different books since 1989). However, the pledge was abolished after reunification, and the gift books have survived until today. The socialist gift books were designed as condensations of canonical knowledge. They contain the essence of socialism. But, instead of teaching boring or abstract party programs, they offer interesting stories about physics, biology and history, in order to demonstrate that the laws of evolution apply to molecules as well as to societies. Similar to the cosmological proof of God, the gift books should proove a scientistic³¹ worldview. We will see how this normative approach was changed after the Peaceful Revolution, when compact worldviews were lost. Speeches and classes rely on personal presence; books can be taken home. In sociological terms, language is fragile interaction, texts are stabilized communication. Books are objects, which can be handed over solemnly. Like in the performative act of swearing on the Bible, the receiver symbolically accepts its content. The gifted books represent the implicit knowledge which is handed down to the next generation.

The texts themselves shall now be considered below.

weihe in der DDR (Berlin [East]: 1988), 4. Whereas the social function of the socialist Jugendweihen was the membership in the workforce, the individual function was the pledge to actively commit oneself to the cause of socialism. However, the pledge was not meant to be a religious oath, nor a philosophical creed, but a vow to the goals of mankind (“Bekenntnis zu den Zielen, für die die gesamte Menschheit kämpft,” see Chowanski, and Dreier, Die Jugendweihe, 114). Yet, the ritual element of a stage-call and the performative speech-act (“Yes, so we pledge!”) became a quasi-religious event.  The German word ‘Szientismus’ denotes the attempt of communist regimes to introduce “dialectical and historical materialism” as the real consciousness. It does not come as a surprise that the term ‘wissenschaftliche Weltanschauung’ (scientific worldview) was introduced in 1951, three years before the SED decided to use the Jugendweihe as a major means of indoctrination. Thomas Schmidt-Lux, Wissenschaft als Religion. Szientismus im ostdeutschen Säkularisierungsprozess (Würzburg: Ergon, 2008).

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3.1 Weltall Erde Mensch ³² (22 editions, 1954 – 1972) Weltall Erde Mensch. Ein Sammelwerk zur Entwicklungsgeschichte von Natur und Gesellschaft (Space Earth Man. A compilation on the evolution of nature and society – henceforth WEM) was inspired by an exhibition “Die Entwicklung des Weltalls, der Erde und des Menschen” (The Evolution of Space, Earth and Man) in Czeckoslovakia, CSSR.³³ It was printed by “Verlag Neues Leben,” a publishing house in East Berlin, which was founded by four prominent communists (among them Erich Honecker) and which concentrated on literature for the youth. Although the book was meant for “unsere Jungen und Mädchen”³⁴ (for our boys and girls), its abundantly illustrated descriptions of scientific findings made it popular among adults as well. As handwritten dedications in copies show, it was also given as a present to diligent workers and reliable unionists. The first edition, 1954– 1957, was a great success and was printed in large numbers. First intended as an encyclopedia for the communist youth in general,³⁵ it rapidly became a favorite gift for the Jugendweihe.³⁶ The 1958 – 1960 WEM was published in a second, revised version. From then on, it was made the official present for Jugendweihen with the intention of controling the youth and reducing the influence of the churches.³⁷ Starting with the 10th edition, the WEM con-

 Weltall Erde Mensch. Ein Sammelwerk zur Entwicklungsgeschichte von Natur und Gesellschaft (Berlin [East]: Verlag Neues Leben, 1954).  The exhibition became prominent in the GDR, as it was displayed in public libraries. Neues Deutschland vom 7.09.1954: 4. Later, the adult education center ‘Urania’ organized similar exhibitions in Berlin and Leipzig. Schmidt-Lux, Wissenschaft als Religion (2008), 263 – 7.  Walter Ulbricht, “Vorwort,” in WEM (31955), 2. Ulbricht was deeply convinced that knowledge of the natural sciences would inevitably diminish religious worldviews.  The book Gott Mensch Universum (God Man Universe) (1956) can be viewed as a Christian counterpart to Welt Erde Mensch. It was a translation from Essai sur Dieu, l’homme et l’univers (1950) and was printed until 1964 in seven editions. Even the structure is similar: It rebukes the antireligious polemics of communist theories, shows the historical contingency of atheism and materialism and suggests the compatibility of evolutionary theory and Christianity. The closing articles deal with the problem of evil/suffering and contrast Christian eschatology against communist utopia. It seems that the genre of encyclopedic volumes had a renaissance during the early Cold War.  WEM was distributed among 16 % of the East German youth in 1955, 24 % in 1956, 29 % in 1957, 40 % in 1959, 80 % in 1960, 85 % in 1965, 90 % in 1960 and 95 % in 1973. Torsten Morche, Weltall ohne Gott. Erde ohne Kirche. Mensch ohne Glaube (Leipzig; Berlin: Kirchhof & Franke 2006), 49, 54– 5, 62– 3.  This intention reflects the decision of the 13th Komsomol (youth organization in the Soviet Union) congress in 1958 to launch an antireligious campaign by introducing ‘red rituals.’ The party acknowledged that religion – especially its recruitment via rituals – had persisted in

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tained the dedication “Zur Erinnerung an die Jugendweihe gewidmet vom Zentralen Ausschuss für Jugendweihe in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik” (In remembrance of the Jugendweihe dedicated by the Central Committee for Jugendweihe in the GDR). After an attempt to introduce another book, the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) decided to retain the WEM. In total, the WEM went through 22 editions in 20 years.³⁸ Allegedly, this book was the most printed publication in East Germany. However, under the same book format and the same title, it was continually revised: With the exception of 1961 (see below), another revised edition was published every year. It was completely rewritten in 1962 (10th edition),³⁹ 1966 (14th edition) and 1972 (20th edition). The ideological claim of the book grew with the number of editions until the early 1960s, as the first sentence in the 14th edition documents: “This book is the book of truth.”⁴⁰ The success of this book was interrupted only twice: In 1957 Unser Deutschland (Our Germany)⁴¹ tried to temper the aggressive tone of the WEM and used a more patriotic perspective, praising the achievements of the GDR. Due to the loss of ambition and the lack of evolutionary materialism, general secretary Walter Ulbricht ordered the edition to be shredded. The editor of Unser Deutschland spite of atheistic propaganda, administrative measures and scientific education. A survey in Leningrad had shown that religious weddings declined from 25 % to 0.24 % as soon as alternative rituals were offered. Victoria Smolkin, A Sacred Space is Never Empty. A History of Soviet Atheism (Princeton: Princeton University Press 2018), 179. So, the party decided to initiate a system of secular rituals that would impart the scientific atheistic worldview. Besides the registration of newborns and weddings, a ‘passport ceremony’ (at the age of 16) was developed. This was the blueprint for the Jugendweihe which was propagated in East Germany.  For a concise documentation of the changes between the editions, see Morche, Weltall ohne Gott. Erde ohne Kirche. Mensch ohne Glaube, 63 – 160.  All editions after 1962 were directed by Alfred Kosing as the main editor. He was associate professor at the Institute for Philosophy in Berlin at that time, later to become one of the leading figures of socialist theory especially in his function as philosopher in the IfG (Institut für Gesellschaftswissenschaften beim Zentralkomitee der SED) and as co-author of canonical works: Kleines Wörterbuch der marxistisch-leninistischen Philosophie (Berlin [East]: Dietz, 1966 – 84); Marxistische Philosophie. Lehrbuch (Berlin [East]: Dietz, 1967).  Walter Ulbricht, “Vorwort”, WEM (141966), 5. As a member of the free-religious milieu in Leipzig Ulbricht underwent 1907 the free-religious Jugendweihe as a substitute of the Lutheran confirmation. According to his biograph he was intrigued by non-elitist, popular books on the evolution of species and societies, that explained the world in a socio-darwinist manner. Igor J. Polianski, “Das Rätsel der DDR und die ʽWelträtselʼ. Wissenschaftlich-atheistische Aufklärung als propagandistisches Leitkonzept der SED”, in Potsdamer Bulletin für Zeithistorische Studien 36/37 (2006), 15 – 23, 18.  Unser Deutschland. Ein Buch für alle, die es lieben (Our Germany. A Book for All who Love it), ed. Zentraler Ausschuß für Jugendweihe (Berlin [East]: Verlag Neues Leben 1957).

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was dismissed and assigned a diplomatic role in China. In 1961 Unsere Welt von morgen (Our World of Tomorrow) ⁴² came out as a kind of future vision for the coming 25 years of socialism, promising an abundant variety of goods, immediate customer service, cities full of gastronomy, tourism to every country of the world, wealth for everyone, etc. Ironically, it was somehow the description of the situation of West Germany, not East Germany. Whereas Unser Deutschland was too irenic and nationalistic, Unsere Welt von morgen was refuted as too daring and consumeristic. The contents of WEM are quite disparate: Most of its articles present history and the latest findings in astronomy, biology, anthropology, social history, with few Marxist-Leninist semantics. One can read it as an interesting, sometimes even entertaining encyclopedia, and this is exactly how it was used. Many East Germans still have the WEM on the bookshelves of their parents or grandparents. Nearly everyone in East Germany knows this book. Since nearly everyone received it on the occasion of their Jugendweihen, it did not sell in the bookstores, although it was displayed everywhere. The two prefaces (by Walter Ulbricht and Erich Honecker), the introduction (by Robert Havemann⁴³) and a chapter on capitalism and communism are the only sections that employ a gross propagandistic tone. These passages repeatedly explain the Marxist cosmology: Everything consists of moving and evolving matter; matter is real and eternal; workers are designing matter for their own good; there is no supernatural cause like gods or spirits; the mind of man itself is a function of matter; ‘idealist’ worldviews are illusionary; and history consists of a sequence of necessary changes from hunters and gatherers to slaveholder and feudal societies, climaxing in the most subtle, but extreme, oppression in capitalism. The reader will not find a utopia of a paradisiac world to come. Instead, the text refers to scientific and agricultural achievements, especially of the USSR, although it abstains from promising castles in the air. WEM still expresses the pathos of socialist post-Second World War anti-fascism: the condemnation of war and inhumanity as well as the praise of the suffering poor throughout history.

 Karl Böhm, and Rolf Dörge, Unsere Welt von morgen (Berlin [East]: Verlag Neues Leben, 1959). The 4th edition (1961) was used as a book-gift for Jugendweihe.  The first chapter by Robert Havemann is a brilliant fusion of philosophical ideas and scientific insights. Havemann wrote it in his Stalinist years. He was a prominent member of the German resistance to Nazism, was sentenced to death but received amnesty because of his importance in chemical research. He became the director of an East-German institute and a collaborator of the secret service, before he lost his position in 1964 due to his straight pacifist standpoints.

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There is no everyday life yet, everything is exceptional and extreme. The unbroken optimism regarding a new era of peace and justice colludes with the condemnation of the crimes committed by capitalists. The later edition, called the Neufassung 1972 (New Edition 1972), carries the same title but is a completely new book. According to the decisions of the SED’s 6th Party Congress in 1963, it shifted the topic from ‘What is the world?’ to ‘What is history?’ The volume grew from 404 to 517 pages, especially because it then contained many more Marxist dogmas. The chapter Wie sehen wir unsere Welt? (How do we see our world?) reads like a catechism of dialectic materialism, rendering definitions of matter and mind that cannot be questioned because Marx, Engels and Lenin formulated these truths, which reality then proves. The revision added articles about physics, chemistry, technology (especially space travel) and medicine, now with definitive evidence that the West was using science for war, the East for the good of mankind. The polemics against religious ideas received less attention: The biblical account of creation is equated with fairytales of nomads. There is no mystery in this world; the ability of mankind to explain everything is infinite. By adding lengthy articles on the biography of Marx, Engels, Lenin, the early German communists and the GDR (down to the details of five-year plans and setting the correct price of a product), WEM gradually became a history book. It culminates in the vision of communist existence in which the individual is no longer a private but a political being. It presupposes that the strongest longing of humanity is to live life as workers. Work is depicted as the fulfillment of human life. The self-confidence of the later versions must be viewed in their historical context: After the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961, after winning the fight with the churches over the alternative Jugendweihe/confirmation and after the introduction of civic education (Staatsbürgerkunde) as a compulsory subject, 95 % of the youth (by the early 1970s) participated in Jugendweihen. It had become a mass ritual, and WEM was the expression of this victory.

3.2 Der Sozialismus – deine Welt ⁴⁴ (1975 – 1982) Der Sozialismus – deine Welt (Socialism – Your World – henceforth SDW) took a different approach. Instead of explaining the world or history, it offered a lot of short biopics and testimonials by 88 authors (WEM was written by 12 authors,

 Zentraler Ausschuß für Jugendweihe in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, ed. Der Sozialismus – deine Welt (Berlin [East]: Verlag Neues Leben, 1975).

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the WEM revised edition by 18). In it, the GDR speaks with all its self-confidence.⁴⁵ The language and design is very much youth-oriented. No more lengthy tractates, the sections about science are shorter but much more ideological: Religion and church are described as natural enemies of science (fought against Aristotle, Bacon, Siger, Bruno and Galileo, up until the German monist leader Ernst Haeckel). This version turns the history of science into a history of scientists in their social contexts. There is not one topic from geology to philosophy, biology to art⁴⁶ that is not deeply entrenched with Marxist-Leninist tendencies. Even the chapter on quantum physics is turned into a debate against the idealistic notion that reality may not be objective. The book does not function as an encyclopedia of interesting findings but as an ideological compass. No discipline is innocent.⁴⁷ The antagonism between socialist countries and the imperialist culture is brought to an extreme. SDW dedicates 220 pages (the chapter Unser Jahrhundert – das Jahrhundert des Sozialismus/ Our Century – the Century of Socialism) to showing the success of socialist economics. The class enemy is employed as a pattern of negative examples.⁴⁸ The last third of the book is dedicated to Dein Platz im Sozialismus (Your Place in Socialism), and tries to address the individual. But, there is no individual. Each person is class-bound. The very last text is a fervent plea to the reader: You are young, you have to make decisions, you need a com-

 Preface from Erich Honecker: Testimonial about his anti-fascist life, victory of socialism in the world, GDR as a “state of true freedom and democracy, peace and humanity.” SDW, 6.  Whereas real art allegedly was part of the fight for a better future and the change of social conditions, under imperialism art was abused to make inhumanity seem normal. SDW, 126 – 7.  The ‘laws’ of Engels and Lenin affirm the material unity of the world, the infinity of matter and matter as a priori over mathematics. SDW, 111– 21. Thus, every theory which is only an ideal model of reality has to be rejected. Scientists from the US are shown in one line with the inhuman experiments in National Socialists concentration camps.  SDW, 328 – 30, mentions the usual list: chasing after profits, monopolies, pornography, exploitation, imperialistic wars (Guatemala, Lebanon, Cuba, Angola, Congo, Vietnam), etc. – manipulation on all fields of life. Except for one section about a naughty student who gets his ‘correction’ in school, there is no mentioning of shortcomings in socialist society: The environment, economy and civil freedoms are all in the best shape. With regard to the continuously quoted law of dialectics, the only dialectic is the antagonism between the imperialists in other countries and the socialists in the reader’s own country. This is in a way consistent, because according to Marxism-Leninism you cannot compare individuals but only social systems. Even the achievements are not only shown off, but contrasted against the shortcomings of Western systems.

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pass! Marxism-Leninism is your compass! Socialism does need you and your commitment!⁴⁹ SDW is the product of party strategists who wanted to raise new socialist personalities. It substitutes the informative aspects and revolutionary utopia found in WEM with a staunch ideology. The ideal is no more the committed anti-fascist, but the disciplined party member. The division between Marxist-Leninist articles and scientific articles is blurred, because every section – from world economy to dating⁵⁰ – is formatted according to the same scheme: Matter is eternal, theories are a kind of practice, the true practice is the collective action of the party and any true party must be Marxist-Leninist. The main contrast between the earlier imperialist era and the current communist era is replaced by the contrast between the imperialist countries outside and ‘our’ socialist society. In general, the utopian goals are reduced sharply. Instead of a grand vision, the SDW describes a blast furnace and the plans to improve working conditions. 1975 was the time when the East started to realize that it had lost the economic race. Yet, it was also the time when protest movements in the West against ecological devastation and NATO weapons and the solidarity movements for Nicaragua or the Philippine communist insurgency fanned the hope that the West would give birth to its own opposition. Whereas in the 1970s the Jugendweihe was exploited to educate the youth from the worldview of the working-class, the Jugendweihe in the 1980s attempted to integrate private needs and stabilize personal biographies. The party edited a magazine including ecological projects (planting trees) and supplied the public with a lot of literature to prepare for the Jugendweihe courses – and ceremonies.⁵¹

 The imperatives are backed by best-practice examples e. g. about committed volunteers of the party youth organization, FDJ. These texts are obviously streamlined in a politically correct, bureaucratic style.  Friendship and sexuality are addressed as unavoidable human behaviors. SDW, 454– 61. Only in a collective with others do people have the instruments to develop their capacities in every sense. Personal freedom is possible only in a community, and only in socialism is marriage free, i. e. not dependent on social status and money.  Zentraler Ausschuss für Jugendweihe in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, ed. Handbuch zur Jugendweihe (Dresden: Verlag Volk und Wissen, 1974), 11, 19, 21, 37. This is the function of the pledge ‘Gelöbnis,’ which motivates the whole book. It defines how the leaders of the preparatory courses (Jugendstunden), the teachers in school, the FDJ representatives and the professionals of the committees (allegedly 100,000 participants!) have to cooperate. It is interesting that the Handbuch does not mention the gift book at all. Obviously, the specific celebrations start to diverge from the official line in the book gifts. See also Fred Helbig, Jugendweihe feiern in Familie und Gesellschaft (Leipzig: Zentralhauspublikation, 1987). This guidebook starts with an

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3.3 Vom Sinn unseres Lebens ⁵² (1983 – 1989) The third and final Jugendweihe gift in GDR times was Vom Sinn unseres Lebens (Of the Meaning of Our Life – henceforth SUL). It was distributed between 1983 and 1989. With its annual edition of 200,000 copies it was the most frequently printed book during these years. The book was especially designed for Jugendweihen⁵³ and starts out with a greeting by Erich Honecker. It is structured from the universal to the individual. The questions in the ideological introduction serve as a first rough table of contents: the evolution of the cosmos – the evolution of mankind – Marxism and its enemies – the meaning of life – the duties of the individual. The book aims at teaching a young person to face reality as it is and to make correct judgements in the interest of socialism. You need not become a socialist, you only have to understand what the world is made of and how its parts interact. It seems as though the party assumes a kind of anonymous Marxism in every human being, a slight shift towards a hidden inclusivism. Of course, SUL repeats the same Marxist-Leninist tractates as its predecessors,⁵⁴ but it spends a great deal of effort to explain what it means to be a responsible and happy personality (not: ‘person’).⁵⁵ Happiness entails ‘successful activity’ in the party, in the factory, in the military defending peace against colonial powers, in summer camps (instead of meaningless vacations) and good entertainment through TV and sports. Especially art will help one to bear ‘unbearable pain,’ which will be present even in communist classless society: tragedy and comedy. These are the only ten lines in which the book deals with depression, but it avoids mentioning death. Although art is presented as a clear functional substitute for religion, the book never displays artwork showing a suffering person (instead, heroic workers and farmers). SUL is a doctrinal text, illustrated by some short biographies and artworks. It contains no grand utopia, stays very sober and concentrates on everyday life in orthodox introduction about the difference between the proletarian Jugendweihe and the bourgeois Jugendweihe of the free-thinkers. But, the rest of the booklet unfolds a quite bourgeois handbook for planning the party at home. What to read, say, cook, bake, etc. This documents that the Jugendweihe had become a family ceremony.  Zentraler Ausschuß für Jugendweihe in der DDR, ed. Vom Sinn unseres Leben (Berlin [East]: Verlag Neues Leben, 1987).  The book seems to be the result of a thoroughly planned writing process. The collective of authors gives credit to the Department of Marxism-Leninism and the Academy for Social Sciences of the Central Committee of the SED.  Cf. the chapter Wer treibt die Geschichte voran? (Who promotes history?). SUL, 77– 140.  Cf. the chapter Du und der Sozialismus (You and Socialism). SUL, 209 – 61.

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the GDR. The main message is: Communism may be far away, but we keep on going. This book reflects – contrary to its own intentions – a step towards individualization. It tries to focus on the reality of the youth, but it is written in a redundant, boring, administrative party language. It seems that the rise of individual needs and expectations have forced the party to deal with this topic. That is why the life of young people receives much attention, yet from a negative perspective: Private life is seen critically as a road to intimacy and to in-groups instead of taking part in collective life. Ideals can never consist of idealistic dreams, because the latter are not rooted in social reality. Since the best society that humanity has ever reached is Soviet and East German socialism (freedom, education, welfare and peace), all ideals must be an extension of this society. Everything beyond or below this role model is criticized as a fantasy or a lie. Since the mid-80s, the SED’s Central Committee planned a new edition,⁵⁶ but the 1989/90 the Peaceful Revolution overrode this process.

4 Book gifts after the 1990 Peaceful Revolution Of course, no organizer of Jugendweihen after the Peaceful Revolution dared to use the GDR books. Yet, the ritual continued and it required a book gift. So, in the first phase, the organizers chose generally interesting books that were not directly related to the ritual, mostly travel guides to Germany, Europe and the rest of the world. They can be characterized by an obvious abstinence from any ideological position. They all focus on descriptive geographical information with the intention of broadening the minds of the German youth and making them aware of the plurality of lifestyles in other countries, thus fostering tolerance. The driving motives are neither ethical nor metaphysical questions, but rather curiosity about foreign cultures. Since most East Germans could only travel freely to socialist countries, these books seemed to meet suppressed needs. The books served as souvenirs, not as programmatic texts. Among many others,⁵⁷ the earliest shall be presented first.

 Chowanski, and Dreier, Die Jugendweihe, 111– 2.  See Deutschland – so schön ist unser Land [Germany – Our Beautiful Country] (Berlin: Reiseund Verkehrsverlag, 1993) – a mixture of tour guide and travel recommendations; Konrad Reich, ed., Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Ein Porträt für die Jugend [Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. A Portrait for Adolescents] (Rostock: Reich, 1995) – a touristic and historical portrait of the federal state of Mecklenburg; Interessensvereinigung Jugendweihe e.V., ed., Europa. Ein Kontinent und seine Staaten [Europe. A Continent and its Countries] (Berlin: Bertelsmann, 1995) – an overview of European cultures; Werner Riedel, ed., Die Welt, in der wir leben. Völker – Staaten – Lebensräume

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4.1 Aufbruch ins Morgen ⁵⁸ (1991) The book Aufbruch ins Morgen (Departure into Tomorrow – henceforth AIM) contains a history of the Jugendweihe since 1846 (in free-religious circles in Hamburg), excerpts from earlier speeches, portraits of famous Mecklenburger countrymates, and a list of proverbs from great thinkers (Gorki, Goethe, Fontane, Zetkin, Tolstoi, Mühsam, etc.), proverbs in the local dialect (Plattdeutsch), and a pathetic sermon against consumerism and reckless competition.⁵⁹ AIM is a typical ‘Wende-product’. The organizers in the association Interessenvereinigung Jugendarbeit und Jugendweihe e.V. still included some of the old cadres of the communist party, but their gift book took up a completely new tradition: The free-religious⁶⁰ ritual of liberals in Hamburg and Berlin in the 19th century, and later in West German cities. The main message now was: no dogma, no paternalism by religions or state, strive for happiness, work together, don’t waste resources!

4.2 Zwischen nicht mehr und noch nicht ⁶¹ (1994 – 2008) Zwischen nicht mehr und noch nicht (Between no-more and not-yet – henceforth ZMN) was first produced in 1994 as a Jugendweihe gift and was printed in ten editions until 2008. Even today it is used for Jugendweihen organized by the Humanistischer Verband. This book is the first to take up the free-thinkers’ tradition. Unlike its socialist predecessors, it comes in a fancy outfit: a red envelope

[The World in Which We Live. Peoples-Countries-Habitats] (Stuttgart: Falken, 1998) – an introduction to cultures of various countries.  Landesvorstand der Interessenvereinigung, Aufbruch ins Morgen.  Note: The book takes up topics of the early ecological discourse in West Germany at this time: population growth, the greenhouse effect and AIDS. The problems of the ‘imperialist’ West are now the problems of everyone.  Freireligiöse Gemeinden were founded in revolutionary times around 1850 in order to form Christian congregations without denominational borders. Freedom of religion only later became freedom from religion when the non-denominational Jugendweihen fused with proletarian ceremonies of school graduation/entering the workforce in 1990s. The Jugendweihen in West Germany under the Libertine (Freidenker) organizations had an explicitly atheistic touch. For the history, especially the origins, see Meier, Jugendweihe, 96 – 159.  Patricia Block, ed., Zwischen nicht mehr und noch nicht (Berlin: Humanistischer Verband Deutschland, 1994,21995,31996,51997,61999,72000,92004). Here, I refer to the latest edition.

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with stickers.⁶² It contains short texts predominantly by German poets (Hesse, Kästner, Kahlau, Kunze), some cartoons, some lyrics and comments from students in the humanistic classes of Lebenskunde (‘life skills’) in Berlin.⁶³ The selection is brilliant, focusing on problems of adolescence: falling in love with the teacher, dating a boy, spending a year abroad, chatting and teasing on the internet, living without a father, etc.⁶⁴ Only at the end does it render a very short history of the Jugendweihe as a story of victimization and a short outline of humanistic thought: Humanism is depicted as the world of individual free choice. Since man is prone to deception, one should doubt rather than just believe. Fairytales, occultism, religions and myths are expressions of human dreams of a better world. But, they result from the inability to accept that humanity does not know the answers to the ultimate questions of matter, time and the universe. Humanists are presented as less impatient and more humble than the religious.⁶⁵ ZMN refuses to be a programmatic book. It offers everyday situations such as that of a father entering his daughter’s messy room. The parents’ perspective is complemented by the youngster’s perspective, for example being forced to spend her vacation with her parents. The contributions in this book are helpful material for further discussions about responsibility, fidelity, happiness, etc. They are written with great honesty and a deep sympathy for the ambiguities of growing up, as indicated by the title Between no-more and not-yet. The overall message – don’t follow an authority or your own feelings blindly – differs quite significantly from books used in religious education, where the basic tone is trust and fidelity. ZMN emphasizes doubt and rationality. The Jugendfeier explicitly takes up anti-authoritarian thought: Traditional institutions like school and family are necessary but tend to be deceptive, selective and sometimes oppressive. This is a U-turn compared to the socialist Jugendweihe, where the individual was a dangerous entity which had to be integrated. All of the examples are taken from the context of individual morals (school,

 At first glance they look like collector pins from contemporary youth culture: reggae colors, a peace dove, a teddy bear, etc. They make reference to specific stories in the book.  The preface by the main editor describes the intention of the book: The adolescent reader should understand that she/he is not alone at this difficult age. ZMN, 11.  Most of the stories feature existential crises and dilemmas: A girl is dating the most attractive boy in school but does not want the love or the stress (ZMN, 24– 7). A 15-year-old girl has cancer and has two different lives, before and after the illness (ZMN, 110 – 4). A boy makes his first steps to find a gay partner, goes dating in clubs, makes contacts in parks (ZMN, 124– 7). A boy’s mother erases every trace of his father and depicts latter as a liar to her son. During a Jugendweihe, the boy wonders about the advice of the speaker, opting not to place too much trust in hearsay (ZMN, 143 – 5).  ZMN, 150 – 3.

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peers and family); the wider range of social ethics (the state, humanity, the planet) is omitted.

4.3 Lebenswege, Geraden, Kreuzungen, Umwege ⁶⁶ (2012 – 2017) The latest gift book Lebenswege (Ways of Life) – the product of a workshop process initiated by the HVD⁶⁷– features some adults who ‘made it.’ They are interviewed by teenagers who are just beginning of their life journeys. The book wants to help the reader “to develop your own criteria.”⁶⁸ Nine dialogues are transcribed: between a girl from an orphanage and a retired worker, between a daughter living without her father and a mother living without her husband, between a young immigrant from Azerbaijan and a diplomat from Africa. There is no more programmatic or historical text at all, but only the more or less fragmented biographies of ordinary people. Compared to other gift books, AIM, ZMN and Ways of Life shift towards shorter texts by multiple authors. The architecture becomes less systematic, the overarching worldview is lost. Instead of transporting knowledge, the texts orbit around the question of how to live in a complex world.

4.4 Weltanschauung ⁶⁹ (2009 – 2017) Weltanschauung (worldview) serves as the official book gift today for Jugendweihen that are organized by Jugendweihe Deutschland e.V. Immediately after the Peaceful Revolution, the authors created a book gift that can be viewed as a pre-

 Patricia Block, ed., Lebenswege. Geraden, Kreuzungen, Umwege (Berlin: Humanistischer Verband Deutschlands, 2012).  Again, it is Patricia Block who designed and published this collection of dialogues between an adult and a teenager. Patricia Block also authored Einmal im Leben. Ein Elternratgeber zur Jugendfeier/Jugendweihe (Berlin: Humanistischer Verband Deutschlands, 2001) and Humanismus ist die Zukunft. Festschrift Hundert Jahre Humanistischer Verband Berlin (Berlin: Humanistischer Verband Deutschlands, 2006). She seems to be the main author in the area of humanistic education.  Block, Lebenswege, 9.  Jugendweihe Deutschland e. V., ed., Weltanschauung. Jugend verändert die Welt – Das Buch zur humanistischen Jugendweihe (Berlin: Duden Paetec, 2009,22010,32012).

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cursor.⁷⁰ Weltanschauung features certain parallels with Weltall Erde Mensch in format and content. The texts are written in a scientific style comparable to the genre of German youth encyclopedia (Jugendlexika), complemented by testimonials and personal opinions of teens. Like a school textbook,⁷¹ Weltanschauung inserts questions for further discussion, tests and crossword puzzles, and illustrates its articles with tables and pictures. The introductory chapter dates its own Jugendweihe tradition back to German free-thinker and free-religious movements in the second half of the 19th century, the proletarian Jugendweihen in the 1920s and the socialist Jugendweihen in the GDR. Although an aside mentions overambitious party members who used the ritual to ban dissident pupils from higher education, the text downplays the highly politicized function.⁷² The first section describes the history of adolescence and its social status in modern society between volunteer work and commerce, before it answers typical questions about sexuality, drugs, mobbing and employability. The second section explains the basics of democracy and European integration. The third section features scientific knowledge about the big bang, genetics and biological evolution, including its critics from Intelligent Design arguments. The fourth section deals with problems of the global population and climate change, computer science and information technology. Section Five deals with religion and takes a strong standpoint: Religions are made by men, gods are wishful thinking.⁷³ The major religions are featured in general terms: Whereas Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism are described by their teachings, Christianity is depicted along with its history – especially the violent phases (persecution in the Roman Empire, forced conversions/missionaries, crusades). The message is clear: religions may be helpful to foster humanitarian ethics (one example is

 Konny G. Neumann, Kurt Neumann, and Jens Wohlert, Was ist der Mensch, was soll der Mensch? 105 Jahre Jugendweihe – 50 Jahre Jugendweihe in Hamburg nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg – 5 Jahre Zusammenarbeit der Jugendweihe Hamburg mit der Partnerstadt Dresden. Ein historischer Überblick inklusive Anhang. Als Gedenkbuch allen Kursus-TeilnehmerInnen der Jugendweihe Hamburg überreicht (Hamburg: Heinevetter 21995). The book is a result of the cooperation of the West German foundation Geistesfreiheit in Hamburg and the East German association Interessenvereinigung Jugendweihe in Sachsen.  Consequently, Weltanschauung is published by the distinguished publishing house Duden Schulbuchverlag. The main author is Konny Neumann, headmaster of a high school and vicepresident of Jugendweihe Deutschland e.V.  It is true that the local celebrations were largely de-ideologized (cf. Weltanschauung, 17), but this refers only to the later decades of the GDR.  Cf. Weltanschauung, 134– 5, 151, 158.

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the project “World Ethos” by Hans Küng), but ultimately they consist of human self-sedation. This standpoint is backed by the following Section Six on “philosophy and questions of meaning”: Religions are attempts to fill the gap of the inexplicable. The meaning of life “is three-fold from today′s vantage point”⁷⁴: the preservation of the human species, the tradition of cultural achievements and human progress in science and ethics. Ethical progress should lead to responsibility for the common good, although mankind is mainly determined by self-preservation and egoism. Section Seven discusses the importance of values, among which the universal ones (like human rights) should be preferred. The humanist tradition (medieval humanism – French Revolution – Enlightenment – New Humanism in the 20th century) is credited with defending these values against fascists and religious fundamentalists. The last section unfolds contemporary challenges such as migration, hunger, global injustice and military conflicts. Unlike the other ‘post-Wende books’, which focus on topics of individual lifeorientation, Weltanschauung consists mainly of scientific and political topics. It tries to be a compendium of what one should know or think about, thus taking up the tradition of the early book gifts. Of course, it does not convey socialist ideology, but it does take on a certain doctrinal style.

5 Conclusion a) Rituals can change their content. The high stability of the Jugendweihe is due to the perseverance of interactions (rituals) over communication (content). The layer of meaning and distinctions may vary, while the layer of doing and exchanging (celebrating, giving presents, gathering) remains the same. A clear sign for the endurance of the ritual is the fact that the liturgical pledge was changed only twice, whereas the book gifts were subject to constant alteration. Yet, unlike the pledge, the book gifts survived past 1989. b) From the collective to the individual. During its 60-year history, the Jugendweihe made a U-turn from a ceremony preventing individualism to a celebration of the individual. One can easily observe party language vs. private testimonials, a programmatic vs. narrative format, collective vs. individual culture. This took place during communism in the 1970s, as documented by the book gifts and by the increasing attention to the family celebration (overshadowing the school event). “The Jugendweihe became increasingly biographized during

 Cf. Weltanschauung, 153.

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the GDR, moving from an instrument of education for the state towards a celebration of the socialist personalities.”⁷⁵ After a phase of great visions, the party wanted to mold the individual into the socialist project, stressing not so much the goals themselves but the individual responsibility to reach the common goals. So, individualization started not after but before 1990. The phase of the travel guides was a brief intermission, during which new formats were sought. c) From initiation to self-affirmation. The more the Jugendweihe had become a mass ritual, the more it lost its integrative function: You don’t need to make a decision for a cause anymore, it is done for you. People opted out and transformed the Jugendweihe into family festivities. In the late GDR, the primary integration (into family and adulthood) had outpaced the secondary integration (into party and state). The process of individualization expanded after the German reunification, when the Jugendweihe first became a transition into the world to explore (travel guides), and then became a ritual of self-determination. Dissenting from the original Libertine tradition, which was a quasi-religious movement for brotherhood and equality, with the exception of Weltanschauung the latest books of Jugendweihe abstain from any universal ideal or ideals of solidarity. Your own biography is an ego-project. The Jugendweihe became a ritual of attention to Me. d) From matter to biography. What are the god-terms of the different versions of Jugendweihe? In socialist books, the origin of everything – nature, history and consciousness – is matter. For epistemic reasons, it cannot be described accurately because consciousness is both a complex form of matter and its ‘reflection’ at the same time. In order to conceptualize matter, thought is trapped in an epistemic cage. Matter thus is the horizon of transcendence; it is everywhere but escapes objectivization. Matter is the unsurpassable, endless pool of possibilities. This will be substituted by the ‘post-Wende god-term’ ‘biography.’ The future is no longer a necessary evolution but an unpredictable, dangerous meandering of events. Nobody can guarantee consistency; growing up is an fluid develop-

 Wilma Kauke-Keçeci, Sinnsuche – die semiotische Analyse eines komplexen Ritualtextes am Beispiel der ostdeutschen Jugendweihe nach 1989 (Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 2002), 276. This individualization was highly disputed in the Soviet Union as well. Party cadres complained that the post-war generation had grown up in wealth, but had only a superficial atheistic consciousness: The young were nonreligious such that they are indifferent to any worldview. Instead, they are left “with the mistaken view that the most important goal in a person’s life is professional advancement and nothing else,” cited in Smolkin, A Sacred Space is Never Empty, 208.

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ment, consisting of setbacks and frustrations.⁷⁶ Each person has to cope with these interruptions in his/her private and professional life. The task is to create one’s own identity by linking the changes into a consistent biography. This is why the ‘post-Wende books’ render narratives, not programs. The freedom to give meaning to one’s own life (within the intimate context of family and peers) transcends positive and negative experiences.

 Crisis, diseases and death find their place in Jugendweihe books only after the German reunification, where fragility is seen as an individual destiny which has to be integrated and accepted. Most challenges arise from diverse family constellations (no father, no mother, no husband, no kids), which are not shown as broken relationships but as reality. Whereas the ‘preWende books’ emphasize diligently contemplating whether one wants to marry this or that boy or girl, the ‘post-Wende books’ suggest a relatively detached acceptance of every way of life.

Jenny Vorpahl

“Proletarian culture does not fall from heaven” Patterns of legitimation in the reception of ritual traditions in the GDR

Introduction Since 1876, the civil marriage is the only legally valid marriage in Germany.¹ Therefore, in Germany every bridal couple has to pass through the registrar’s office. They can also opt for a religious ceremony, which was common practice until the end of the 1950s for the majority of the German population. Grand efforts were made during the political, social and cultural reorganization of postwar East Germany to install alternative concepts for ritual customs concerning lifecycle changes. According to a survey conducted by GDR researchers, the percentage of weddings taking place in church had fallen to 4.8 % by 1984.² The examination of legitimization processes in this article is meant to be a contribution to explaining the rapid and enduring establishment of civil marriage as the only type of wedding ceremony in a socialist society. The design  See § 1 and 41 of the Gesetz über die Beurkundung des Personenstandes und die Eheschließung. Deutsches Reichsgesetzblatt 1875, 23. For the GDR, see § 24 of the Civil Status Act [Personenstandsgesetz, short PStG] of 1957 and § 12 PStG of 1981. The introduction of registrar offices and the obligatory civil marriage was one of the measures introduced in opposition to the church within the context of the Kulturkampf and a result of the separation of church and state. See Thomas Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte 1866 – 1918. Machtstaat vor der Demokratie, (München: C.H. Beck, 1995), 367– 8, 375.  Cf. Federal Archive Berlin [BArch] SAPMO – Olof Klohr et al., Kirchen und Religionsgemeinschaften in den drei Nordbezirken der DDR. Kirchenstudie 1986 (Rostock-Warnemünde, 1986), 374– 5. Christopher Binns also notes a drastic decline in church weddings down to 0.5 % in 1971 in the Soviet Union, but concedes that it is unclear how many secular weddings are performed in a ceremonial way or just as simple registration. Cf. Christopher Binns, “Sowjetische Feste und Rituale (II),” in Osteuropa 2 (1979): 118. Concrete numbers are only available for the most ‘successful’ areas like the Baltic republics and the Ukraine, which acquired a forerunner role in establishing alternatives to religious rites since the late 1950s. For the Ukraine the secular celebration of weddings rose to 82.9 percent in 1982. Cf. John Anderson, Religion, State and Politics in the Soviet Union and Successor States, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 46 – 7, 120. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547085-008

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of the weddings and the selective transfer of ritual elements from a religious to a secular setting raises the question of how religion and a Marxist-Leninist worldview were negotiated in this context. The advisory brochure Doing Weddings (Hochzeit Machen), published by the GDR Central Institute for Cultural Work (Zentralhaus für Kulturarbeit der DDR – ZfK in the following),³ will be used as an opening into a discourse which is focused on providing answers to the following questions: What was, or should have been, communicated according to ideological claims about traditions and nonreligious weddings within the East German context, who legitimately had something to say on the issue, and to what effect?

1 Context The loss of significance of church weddings and the enduring establishment of civil ceremonies as the regular model for weddings in East Germany has to be embedded within various aspects of secularization in this region: An already distanced relationship of many Protestant church members since the 19th century as well as a lack of connection between national and religious identity for the majority of society were decisive in this development.⁴ A further crucial factor in the de-churching process was the social and economic dislocation of churchgoing classes, such as the property-owning bourgeoisie, the educated middle classes, farmers and craftsmen. Added to that were factors such as increased prosperity and the expansion of secular leisure, festive and entertainment facilities. Moreover, the churches were fighting various image problems.⁵ In addition to antireligious politics in the GDR, individual forms of dealing with religion also need to be taken into account. Positions that were generated or supported by the antireligious policy gained individual internal plausibility through various frames of

 GDR Central Institute for Cultural Work [ZfK], ed. Hochzeit machen. Material für die Fest- und Feiergestaltung (Leipzig: 1972).  Therefore, the repressive measures of the GDR government encountered little resistance from the predominantly Protestant church members. Regarding cultural path dependence in the development of religious vitality, see Gert Pickel, “Ostdeutschland im europäischen Vergleich – Immer noch ein Sonderfall oder ein Sonderweg?,” in Religion und Religiosität im vereinigten Deutschland. Zwanzig Jahre nach dem Umbruch, eds. Gert Pickel, and Kornelia Sammet (Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2011), 165 – 90.  On the factors involved in religious change in East Germany, see Pollack and Rosta, Moderne, 274– 88.

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interpretation and remained sustainable over a longer period of time.⁶ Socialist ideology was able to tie into ideological foundations of the Enlightenment, which juxtaposed religion and rationality in a relationship of tension, thereby augmenting this tension in itself. The belief in a comprehensive scientific explanation was viable independently of political objectives. The number of church members decreased, especially in the 1950s and 1960s. This meant that in the 1970s and 1980s, only a baptized minority actually had access to church weddings, and there were increasingly more couples in which only one of the two had a confessional commitment.⁷ The social environment was increasingly nondenominational, so that couples came under pressure to justify their church weddings.

2 How to do weddings in a socialist, nonreligious society An advisory brochure as a medium of interdiscourse includes elements of various specialist discourses. It translates these discourses into everyday language, making them intelligible for the majority of society.⁸ Fields of practice involved

 Cf. Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, “Forcierte Säkularität oder Logiken der Aneignung repressiver Säkularisierung,” in Religion und Religiosität im vereinigten Deutschland. Zwanzig Jahre nach dem Umbruch, eds. Gert Pickel, and Kornelia Sammet (Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2011), 145 – 63. She names registration for a civil wedding as a typical context for leaving the church. Cf. Wohlrab-Sahr, “Forcierte Säkularität,” 154.  The divorce rate was very high in the GDR and divorcees were not likely to re-marry in a church. See Rüdiger Peuckert, Familienformen im sozialen Wandel, 2nd ed. (Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien, 1996), 144.  Instead of ‘interdiscourse’ the term ‘public discourse’ is also commonly used, referring to debates in which civil society takes part in discussing problems relevant to that society. See Reiner Keller, Wissenssoziologische Diskursanalyse. Grundlegung eines Forschungsprogramms, 3rd ed. (Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2011), 229. Typical examples for connecting elements are polysemantic collective symbols, which link various areas of knowledge simultaneously, as well as arsenals of figures, and schemas of argumentation or narration. The cultural function of interdiscourses is the re-integration of knowledge dispersed by specialist discourses, as well as the facilitation of general communication within society. Collective, shared general knowledge can be found, among others, in popularized text forms, which include advisory brochures. See Jürgen Link, and Ursula Link-Heer, “Diskurs/Interdiskurs und Literaturanalyse,” Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 20 (1990): 88 – 100; Jürgen Link, “Literaturanalyse als Interdiskursanalyse. Am Beispiel des Ursprungs literarischer Symbolik in der Kollektivsymbolik,” in Diskurstheorien und Literaturwissenschaft, eds. Jürgen Fohrmann, and Harro Müller (Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1988), 284– 307.

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in this are the political-ideological, including economic, social, cultural and administrative policy; the legal, focusing on family, marriage and legal personal status; and the scientific, chiefly involving cultural studies.⁹ The following article will address the context in which wedding traditions characterized by bourgeois, Christian traditions were legitimized, and how this legitimation process was dealt with in cultural-political and scientific publications, as well as in the aforementioned brochures and leaflets addressed to the public.¹⁰ The wedding brochure was issued four times between 1972 and 1980 and covers the following dimensions of marriage:¹¹ 1. Festive form: The brochure presents marriage as a legal act and acknowledges the civil ceremony as the only ritual form available.¹² In addition to formal-legal information, it specifically includes suggestions concerning the form of the marriage act. The appropriateness of content regarding the socialist understanding of matrimony, the treatment of working life and the omission “of any mystic and unrealistic accessory”¹³ are introduced as selection criteria for performances. Musical acts and recitations of poetry are supposed to support the establishment of an emotional and festive atmosphere and should underline

 The economic field is relevant insofar as companies and workers’ collectives are addressees. Economic prerequisites for the implementation of the suggestions are also important. Furthermore, areas of the arts from which suggested materials for ceremonies and celebrations stem, such as music, poetry, rhetoric and literature, need to be mentioned.  Although differently charged with theological meaning, wedding celebrations were marked by Christian church features for centuries concerning actors, settings, rituals and interpretations – on both the Catholic and Protestant sides. In Western churches, the marriage blessing can be traced back to the 4th Century. In the following centuries, the church wedding ritual was developed. The Council of Trent enforced the sacrament of marriage and the sole legal responsibility of the church for a valid marriage. In the Lutheran tradition, marriage is seen as a consecrated status desired by God, but not as a sacrament. See Luke Timothy Johnson, and Mark D. Jordan, “Christianity,” in Sex, marriage and family in world religions, eds. Don S. Browning, M. Christian Green, and John Witte (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 77– 149. The introduction of an obligatory civil marriage in 1876 in the German Kaiserreich did not change the fact that the church wedding remained the dominant marriage ceremony in Germany well into the 1950s. This was the standard assumed by the majority of society and was carried on as normality. See Thomas Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte 1866 – 1918, vol. 2 (München: C.H. Beck, 1993), 367– 8, 375.  The following aspects of the brochure will not be discussed in detail here: State promotion of marriage and family using legal and social measures (see Art. 38 of the Constitution of the German Democratic Republic of 6. April 1968 and § 1– 12 of the Family Legal Code of the German Democratic Republic of 20. December 1965), bestowal of a family register and a copy of the Family Legal Code, marriage and family counseling, and engagement. Cf. ZfK, Hochzeit, 12– 6, 30.  Cf. ZfK, Hochzeit, 14.  ZfK, Hochzeit, 22.

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the notions in the registrar′s speech.¹⁴ Further ritual framing processes mentioned are flower arrangement, wedding fashion and photos accompanying the key ritual elements of festive speeches, wedding vows, registry signing and ring swapping.¹⁵ 2. Emotional experience: The need for a festive background to a marriage ceremony is taken for granted and described as happy, meaningful, dignified and sublime. The celebration is supposed to have a socialist character and be remembered by the guests as an unforgettable event for a long time. This is subject to the assumption that people who find themselves at a turning point in life are more impressionable due to their emotional state of mind.¹⁶ 3. Foundations of marriage: Reciprocal love, faithfulness, respect and support are stated as the foundation for a socialist marriage – in contrast to financial or social interests, which supposedly dominate family relationships in capitalist societies. The ‘dowry’ is perceived as including skills, attitudes and conduct passed on by parents rather than any material goods.¹⁷

 Where the loss of civil norms and values as well as religious commandments and rituals resulted in a void within the context of social upheaval, art, film and literature were expected to cover topics of vital importance. Examples of these topics are the position and development of individuals within socialist society, interpersonal relationships, work, love, responsibility, the right to happiness and the meaning of life. See Kurt Hager, “Ansprache zum 30. Jahrestag der Akademie der Künste am 26. März 1980,” in Beiträge zur Kulturpolitik. Reden und Aufsätze 1972 – 1981 (Berlin [East]: Dietz, 1981), 172 and Hans Koch, Zur Theorie der sozialistischen Kultur (Berlin [East]: Dietz, 1982), 312.  Cf. ZfK, Hochzeit, 16 – 21, 28 – 31, 40 – 51. See also Rat des Stadtbezirks Berlin-Köpenick, ed. Ratgeber zur Vorbereitung auf die Eheschließung im historischen Rathaus Berlin-Köpenick (Berlin [East]: 1985).  Cf. ZfK, Hochzeit, 4– 5, 18 – 9, 28, 30.  “A clear ideological bearing, a sense of responsibility and frugality, the love for work, independence, respect for one’s partner and, last but not least, the love for one′s child are virtues, instilled in the family home, which should be among the most valuable components of the dowries of young marriage candidates within our socialist society.” Ibid., 10. Such statements correspond to the justification of the focus on “ceremonies and celebrations for personal reasons” in the ZfK. Because behavior is shaped within families, and habits as well as traditions passed on for many generations within a family, “greater influence must be had on the customs formed within the family.” Eva Lehmann, “Aufgaben des Zentralhauses für Kulturarbeit der DDR auf dem Gebiet der Feier- und Festgestaltung,” in Fest- und Feiergestaltung als Bestandteil sozialistischer Lebensweise, Sozialistische Kulturpolitik – Theorie und Praxis I.15 (Berlin [East]: Institut für Weiterbildung des Ministeriums für Kultur an der Kunsthochschule Berlin, 1981), 13. Jenny and Karl Marx served as a model of a loving and supportive couple, as remembered by their daughter Eleanor. She describes Marx as a humorous and kind father, who instilled virtues in his children using world literature, thus inspiring their thinking. Cf. ZfK, Hochzeit, 2– 3. The

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4. Connection between family and society: The postulated close connection between personal and societal interests, which is thus expressed in a socialist ceremony, is pivotal for this aspect.¹⁸ The interconnected responsibility between spouses and members of the socialist society is equally important. The married couple is meant to serve the society’s development by practicing equality, raising their children as socialist personalities and through their work efforts. The wedding vows, therefore, not only constitute the marital union, but also become an obligation to society.¹⁹ The social environment is emphatically urged to join in the preparations and provide support throughout the couple’s life journey. Colleagues are thought to strengthen the couple’s attachment to the company and are therefore particularly addressed. Thus, suggested activities include speeches by company representatives at the registrar’s office, conveying congratulations and gifts in the name of the entire workforce, and organizing a receiving line or designing a wedding announcement flyer.²⁰ 5. Wedding traditions: Lastly, various wedding traditions are identified as a “mirror image of an ancient popular belief.”²¹ The statement “many cannot be explained anymore and some cannot be taken seriously. Many have lost their meaning, […]” is followed by the suggestion of “giving some of the nice wedding traditions a new content and meaning, which matches our outlook on life.”²² The different blockades and obstacles a bridal couple has to overcome originally referred to ghosts and spirits, in which no one has believed for a long time. In the meantime, they have come to strongly symbolize “the collective work and joint overcoming of obstacles”²³ and support conviviality. Newly ritualized acts in same example is also used by the cultural scientist Hans Koch, Kulturfortschritt im Sozialismus (Berlin [East]: Dietz, 1988), 436 – 40.  The form of the celebrations “can only be effective if it is linked to the lifestyle of the respective collective and society as a whole.” Lehmann, “Aufgaben,” 14. See also ZfK, Hochzeit, 4, 6 and Hager, “30. Jahrestag,” 172.  Cf. ZfK, Hochzeit, 6 – 7, 28.  Cf. ZfK, Hochzeit, 14, 20 – 3, 25 – 6, 30 – 1, 34.  ZfK, Hochzeit, 32.  Ibid.  Ibid. The noise-making and sweeping activities traditionally performed at a party the night before the wedding (Polterabend) is one example used – originally a repellent against evil spirits, now the expression of joy about the couple’s happiness and their start into the joint project of married life. Cf. ZfK, Hochzeit, 24. Compatibility with the prevailing ideology was also achieved when the act of handing over bread and salt should symbolizing that no marriage or family would be burdened with hunger or misery under socialism. Cf. ZfK, Hochzeit, 32. Other authors also use examples which are linked by interpretation to these joint, equal tasks in marriage (throwing money, sawing wood, eating soup, planting trees, overcoming hurdles). See Wolfgang Jacobeit, “Liebe und Hochzeit – ein volkskundliches Ausstellungsthema,” Kultur

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the former Soviet Union additionally served as a model, such as the visit to the Memorial of the Unknown Soldier or the Lenin Mausoleum after the wedding ceremony.²⁴

3 Content-based levels of legitimation Efforts to establish ideologically determined substitute rituals for socialist wedding celebrations in the 1950s and 1960s ultimately failed.²⁵ In the early years, the state distanced itself from life-cycle celebrations, interpreting them as individual-bourgeois, too irrelevant for ideological purposes and too provocative as anti-church initiatives.²⁶ In the mid-1950s, individual and district council initiaund Lebensweise 1 (1978): 93 – 9 and Lehmann, “Aufgaben,” 19. Cultural anthropology, especially folkore studies, brought up the notion that “formerly religious and pagan celebrations” undertook a shift in meaning and their “traditional character […] has been repressed.” Now, they served the promotion of social life, entertainment and the preservation of regional and national traditions. Ute Scheffler, and Peter Warnecke, “Kulturelle Bedürfnisse und Nutzung künstlerischer Angebote,” Zur Rolle der Kultur bei der weiteren Ausprägung der sozialistischen Lebensweise. Lebensniveau und Entwicklung kultureller Bedürfnisse, Sozialistische Kulturpolitik – Theorie und Praxis I.2/3 (Berlin [East]: Institut für Weiterbildung des Ministeriums für Kultur, 1985), 67.  Cf. ZfK, Hochzeit, 34 as well as Rat des Stadtbezirks Berlin-Köpenick, Ratgeber, 2. According to Ines Lange, these suggestions were poorly received. Cf. Ines Lange, “Von der Wiege bis zur Bahre. Zur Geschichte Sozialistischer Feiern zu Geburt, Ehe und Tod in der DDR,” in Kulturation. Online-Journal für Kultur, Wissenschaft und Politik 1 (2004), http://www.kulturation.de/ki_1_thema.php?id=57.  The theory of socialist cultural revolution was postulated in 1958. Questions concerning culture, ethics and nurture came increasingly under focus. Nothing should stay private. Rather, everything should take place within the collective. See Lange, “Geschichte.”  Rituals concerning private life also had low priority in the early Soviet Union and were promoted as decadent and religious. Until the 50s, the political leadership refused to deal with requests for such ceremonies – only bureaucratic acts of registration were possible. In light of the persistence of religious life and the demands for considering lifestyle interests of the population, the development of socialist rituals became an important propaganda instrument ever since the end of the Krushchev era. As a method of atheistic and ideological education, they were part of a religious-secular competition between state and church. Similarly, later in the GDR the expansion and development of a ritual and holiday system was a compromise, bringing together ideological goals and needs of the population. An ideological framework was constructed in order to legitimate socialist rituals, which included traditional, bourgeois elements combined with socialist values. Discourse strategies of Soviet scholars like Bromlej and Ugrinovich were received by GDR scholars. Wedding palaces opened and festive socialist weddings were propagated and discussed in mass media. The more elaborate the socialist rituals became, the more the sacraments of marriage and birth declined – Binns estimates the proportion of church weddings at 0.5 % of all weddings in 1972. He admits that there are no numbers for ceremonial non-church

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tives emerged concerning name giving, marriages and funerals. These were aimed at providing a cultural alternative to the church’s offerings. Western and church-based counter reactions then prompted the political powers to get involved in the implementation of such celebrations. They attempted to unify societal and political initiatives. Companies and mass organizations were supposed to host these celebrations, for which guidelines were issued. Uncertainties in the organizational structure, bureaucratic difficulties, financial sinkholes and reservations of the Party led to a decrease in celebrations at the beginning of the 1960s.²⁷ In 1962, the percentage of socialist weddings was weddings in relation to simple registrations. Often, old religious traditions were still practiced at home in addition to the main ceremony or registration. Cf. Binns, “Rituale (II),” 118 and Victoria Smolkin, A sacred space is never empty. A history of Soviet Atheism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2018), 165 – 93. The Soviet Union was the praised role model for GDR politics, teachings and practices. It “was Leningrad that took the lead in the development of new wedding rituals. […] After considerable discussion a new wedding rite was created and in 1959 Leningrad became the first Soviet city to open a special wedding palace.” Anderson, Religion, 47. There were even trips organized by the Society for German-Soviet Friendship to Leningrad and Moscow, where the participants could observe festive examples of civil weddings in order to learn socialist ritual design. See pictures at the database of the German History Museum, f. e. https://www.dhm.de/datenbank/ dhm.php?seite=5&fld_0=BA406673. For the discussions about new family rituals, like the socalled ‘red weddings’ in the 1920s and the new stage of developing socialist rituals since the late 50s in order to satisfy needs previously met by the churches, see Dmitrij M. Ugrinowitsch, “Das Wesen und die sozialen Funktionen von Brauchtum und Ritual in der sozialistischen Gesellschaft,” in Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 25, no. 1 (1977): 20; as well as Anderson, Religion and Stephen A Smith, “Introduction,” in eds., Science, Religion and Communism in Cold War Europe, eds. Paul Betts, and Stephen A. Smith (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016),, “Introduction,” 24– 9.  In preparation for a conference discussing these issues, a memorandum from the Ministry of Internal Affairs presents some ideal examples as well as problematic cases and gives suggestions for improvement. Causes for the struggles with the socialist lifecycle celebrations were seen in the lack of orientation and instruction from above, the unresolved responsibilities between the state apparatus and social organizations, a lack of commitment to the project and insufficient collaboration by enterprises and clubhouses, as well as uncertainty as to the content and intention of the rituals. In this paper, the missionary-like intention of this project becomes tangible – to spread socialist teachings and foster socialist personalities. Cf. BArch, DO 1/7500 – “Memorandum des MdI an den Kulturbund vom 20. 5.1961,” 1– 8. The unprofessionalism in organizing and performing a socialist wedding was framed as a script for a satirical cabaret show called “Socialist wedding with obstacles. Tragedy in three acts,” found in Bundesminister für Gesamtdeutsche Fragen (ed.), Pseudosakrale Staatsakte in der Sowjetzone. Namensweihe, Jugendweihe, sozialistische Eheschließung, sozialistisches Begräbnis (Bonn: 1962). In the same publication, the socialist wedding following the usual bureaucratic civil act is compared with efforts by the Nazi regime to establish new customs in order to control

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very low, at only 9.6 %. Also, the new family law of 1966 stated that only registrar’s office marriages were official. Furthermore, there was little demand for such celebrations, which put aside the individual relationships and private celebrations in favor of the ‘collective’. In the end, these separate celebrations were given up. A survey by the Zentralinstitut für Jugendforschung (Central Institute for Youth Research) in 1973 found that there was still substantial support for church weddings among those interviewed.²⁸ Thus, in the 1970s civil ceremonies and the corresponding civil status regulations were reorganized. It was the political attempt to define all civil ceremonies as socialist weddings, thereby including familiar matrimonial elements in order to make church rituals superfluous. This process proved itself to be the far more successful model: The new rituals seemed to fulfill a social need. With civil weddings much of the traditional symbolism – wedding gowns, flowers and so forth – was retained, but the couple was reminded of their obligations to Socialist society and to stable family life. […] Civil weddings became so popular by the 1970s that in some major cities it was difficult to book a slot in the local palace of weddings.²⁹

The brochures published by the ZfK were designed during this time of new cultural-political impulses. The 8th Party Conference of the SED in 1971, which introduced the Honecker era, was a decisive event for the discourse on form in matrimonial protocol in the GDR. It was here that the promotion of the socialist cultural revolution was announced, with the aim of overcoming “the bourgeois

every aspect of life. For the author, the character of substitute rituals is obvious in their attempt to imitate sacraments. Cf. Ibid., 9. – I thank Heléna Thóth for pointing me to this publication. Thóth points out similar problems in constructing and establishing naming ceremonies in the GDR. The negotiation of the meaning and name of this ritual was far more problematic than it was for weddings. Thóth shows the inconsistency and insecurity of the socialist state as a ritual agent and ritual designer. Although the ritual act appears as an alternative to baptism in order to replace the church ritual, it was not officially declared as a replacement. Antireligious polemics should be avoided, but actually took place in practice and the ritual was framed by an atheism campaign. Accordingly, local brochures and initiatives for designing socialist lifecycle rituals were seen as antireligious measures by Western media and churches. Cf. Heléna Thóth, “Zwischen Gott und dem freien Gewissen ist für eine Staatsreligion kein Platz,” in Geschichte und Gesellschaft 45 (2019): 37– 69.  Around 35 % of the 767 interviewees supported church weddings. The majority of these stated that the celebratory framing of the wedding motivated their support. Church ceremonies were opposed by 52 % and assessed indifferently by 13 % of those questioned. Cf. BArch, DC/4/2112 – Zentralinstitut für Jugendforschung, Zu politisch-ideologischen Einstellungen von Jugendweiheteilnehmern und Teilnehmern an Konfirmation/Kommunion (Leipzig: 1973), 11.  Smith, “Introduction,” 25.

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culture and lifestyle” and creating a “socialist culture and way of life”³⁰ by “further increasing the material and cultural living standard of the people.”³¹ Cultural politics was supposed to take into account “the cultural interests and demands of the workers consistently and consequently.”³² The ideological content of celebrations and ceremonies was to be strengthened and conveyed by emotional elements, which included local and family traditions.³³ Scientists approach the theoretical and practical substantiation of ideology by engaging with the adaptation of cultural legacy and celebratory culture, and by reflecting on the functions of passing down traditions. Such discussions highlight obviously necessary legitimation processes, because the adopted traditions partially originated in religious and bourgeois contexts. It was therefore not possible to include these customs into the propagated ideology easily. Advisory brochures and leaflets are products of these negotiation processes, and examples of adapting ritual taxonomy from the religious to the secular context. The examples presented in the brochures published for couples planning to get married resemble ritual elements familiar from a church context. However, explicitly religious elements cannot be found. Furthermore, they do not contain many new ritual elements for wedding ceremonies, but rather feature pre-existing, secularized customs. The family-oriented, emotional festive ceremony was continued, because it was accepted as the natural wedding institution based on shared knowledge and common expectations. Five content-based levels of legitimation supporting the institutionalization of ceremonial nonreligious weddings can be identified. These were (re‐)produced mainly by agents in cultural studies, cultural politics and cultural work:

 Smith, “Introduction,” 5. A connection between scientific-technological, economic, cultural and ethical progress is assumed here.  Helmut Hanke, and Gerd Rossow, Sozialistische Kulturrevolution, Sozialismus und Kultur (Berlin [East]: Dietz 1977), 195.  Ibid. See Horst Haase et al., Die SED und das kulturelle Erbe (Berlin [East]: Dietz, 1986), 366 – 7.  Characteristic features of celebratory culture, such as its emotional effect (transported by symbols and symbolic acts), and its functions on an individual and social level came into focus. As part of the way of life, these were seen as having a significant influence on the developments within society as a whole. SAPMO-BArch, DY 27/8414 – Eberhard Fuhrmann, “Grundlage für die Problemdiskussion über die Entwicklung der sozialistischen Fest- und Feiergestaltung in der DDR,” 16. 5.1979. Similarly, in the time of a reactivation of Soviet ritual culture at the beginning of the 60s, studies and discussions focused on establishing alternative rituals and festivities, which was seen as more effective than rational arguments or force in the fight against religion. Cf. Christopher Binns, “Sowjetische Feste und Rituale (Teil I),” in Osteuropa 1 (1979): 20.

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1. The storyline of progress ³⁴: The underlying narrative structure is a discourse of continual progress in terms of an historic materialism. Central to this is the belief in the historic superiority of socialist culture compared to other cultural phases influenced by exploitation and repression. Socialist culture is therefore the highest level of all cultural development of humanity. Understood as a scientifically proven truth, Marxist-Leninist ideology is considered to have revealed fundamental normative principles of advancement in nature, society, human thought and historical development. It is therefore the backbone of all culture and the bedrock of any appropriation of reality.³⁵ The social, economic and political foundations of socialist society ensure that Humanism does not merely remain an idea. The changing socioeconomic conditions are ascribed an important influence on the people’s way of life, and therefore on the meaning, form and social relevance of longstanding customs and rituals.³⁶ For solving the problem of harmonizing socialist ideals with the given conditions and demands regarding ceremonies and celebrations, the interpretive patterns of the dialectics of stability and dynamics are of central relevance in this storyline.³⁷ Thought and behavioral patterns that do not conform to current conditions are also passed down, however, because traditions include elements of both, continuity and discontinuity.³⁸ Classifications of the agents of the discourse about socialist culture differentiate between two sets of traditions: nega-

 Within the frame of a narration, storylines connect patterns of interpretation and action, processes of classification and also dimensions of the discourse problem, which are available in the collective stock of knowledge. See Keller, Diskursanalyse, 240 – 51.  Cf. Koch, Kulturfortschritt, 13 – 4, 153 – 7.  Cf. Jürgen Hofmann, “Zur Bedeutung volkskundlicher Untersuchungen für die Erforschung der gesellschaftlichen Prozesse bei der Herausbildung und weiteren Entwicklung der sozialistischen Nation in der DDR,” in Fest- und Feiergestaltung als Bestandteil sozialistischer Lebensweise, Sozialistische Kulturpolitik – Theorie und Praxis I.15 (Berlin [East]: Institut für Weiterbildung des Ministeriums für Kultur an der Kunsthochschule Berlin, 1981), 10, as well as Koch, Theorie, 319 – 21, Horst Keßler et al., Kultur in unserer Zeit. Zur Theorie und Praxis der sozialistischen Kulturrevolution in der DDR (Berlin [East]: Dietz 1965), 20 – 7 or Kurt Hager, Ergebnisse und Aufgaben unserer sozialistischen Kulturpolitik (Berlin [East]: Dietz, 1975), 10.  Concerning the dialectics of continuity and change, see Helmut Hanke, “Veränderungen in der Lebensweise und Entwicklung kultureller Bedürfnisse” in Zur Rolle der Kultur bei der weiteren Ausprägung der sozialistischen Lebensweise. Lebensniveau und Entwicklung kultureller Bedürfnisse Sozialistische Kulturpolitik – Theorie und Praxis I.2/3 (Berlin [East]: Institut für Weiterbildung des Ministeriums für Kultur 1985), 20. Variations in the vocabulary are e. g. “historical dialectic,” “dialectic of continuity and discontinuity in societal development” or “dialectic of traditions and modernity.” Haase, Erbe, 281 and Koch, Kulturfortschritt, 334.  Cf. Lehmann, “Aufgaben,” 17 and Koch, Theorie, 48 – 9, 319.

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tive ones, seen as outdated, bourgeois, capitalist, reactionist, harmful and regressive, and positive ones, described as progressive, useful, stable and novel.³⁹ Referencing ‘socialist classics’ such as Marx,⁴⁰ Engels and especially Lenin belonged to the patterns of legitimate commentary within this discourse – for example, when the latter said “that only through an exact knowledge of the entire development of manmade culture, only by its adaptation, can a proletarian culture be created […].”⁴¹ The repeating motto was the preservation, appropriation and further processing of everything valuable created in the history of humankind.⁴² Cultural politician Kurt Hager even called socialist society “the only right-

 Cf. f. e. Julian V. Bromlej, Ethnos und Ethnographie, trans. Wolfgang König (Berlin [East]: Akademie-Verlag, 1977), 65, Ugrinowitsch, “Brauchtum,” 23, Keßler, Theorie und Praxis, 345, Thomas Koch, Kulturarbeit und Regionalität. Literatur und Kommentar zum Umgang mit dem Erbe regionaler und lokaler Kultur in der DDR (Berlin [East]: Wissenschaftsbereich Kultur der Sektion Ästhetik und Kunstwissenschaft der Humboldt-Universität, 1986), 57. Creation of difference is essential to the construction of reality. Among other aspects, discourse works through the exclusion of other possibilities of interpretation or the depreciation of rival positions. See Keller, Diskursanalyse, 265 and Link and Link-Heer, “Interdiskurs,” 90. This takes place within the GDR discourse on matrimony through depreciation of the capitalist image of marriage and family, as well as through the exclusion of church weddings.  Marx alongside Engels thereby serves as the ideal of a comprehensively educated communist, who gained knowledge of the human experience and sharpened his conscience through reading. If one wants to evolve as a communist and think, feel and act like a revolutionist, one has to appropriate the cultural heritage. Cf. Koch, Kulturfortschritt, 436 – 52. Marx set an example as to the role literary and artistic education could play “as a weapon in the fight for mental and political autonomy of the proletarian movement, for the union of the workers’ movement and scientific socialism.” Koch, Kulturfortschritt, 445.  Lenin, “Jugendverbände,” 276.  This rule is linked above all to the direct or indirect reference to a quote from Lenin: “Not inventing a new proletarian culture, but developing the best role models, traditions and results of the existing culture, starting from Marxist ideology and the living and fighting conditions of the proletariat at the time of the dictatorship.” Vladimir I. Lenin, “Entwurf einer Resolution über proletarische Kultur” in Werke, supplement vol. 1917– 1923 (Berlin [East]: Dietz, 1971), 211. Many later statements are repeating this claim, e. g. in Hanke and Rossow, Kulturrevolution, 49, Wolfgang Jacobeit and Ute Mohrmann, “Einleitung,” in Kultur und Lebensweise des Proletariats. Kulturhistorisch-volkskundliche Studien und Materialien, eds. Wolfgang Jacobeit, and Ute Mohrmann (Berlin [East]: Akademie-Verlag, 1973), 12, Keßler, Theorie und Praxis, 246, 349, Koch, Kulturfortschritt, 155, 157, 349, 353. The conscious selection of traditions becomes clear when Hans Koch states that celebrations in which occurrences in farming life were combined with religious ceremonies are secularized and changed in character, in order to fit the current lifestyle. If this adaptability is not given, they would not count as worthy of preservation. On the other hand, he highlights as positive the closer link between family and public life in rural areas. The promotion of local customs should support historical awareness and local patriotism. He declares an exploratory spirit, scientific thoroughness, expertise, humanist ethos and cultivated manners

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ful heir of all progressive historical accomplishments and traditions, of all aspiration towards a humane mode of life.”⁴³ Cultural theorists explained “that elements of culture adapt to new conditions when transferred from one generation to the next, rather than remaining exactly the same.”⁴⁴ These theoretical approaches can also be found reflected in the wedding brochure from the ZfK: Ritual content often changed more quickly, was deemed relevant for shorter periods than formal procedures, because it was continuously replaced by new, contemporary explanations and interpretations.⁴⁵

The path was thereby paved for the adaptation and transformation of traditions. 2. Guidelines for cultural research and activities: Cultural history, ethnography and folklore studies thus had the following tasks: They were responsible for researching the living conditions of the different classes, particularly specific traits and the cultural achievements of the German working class, but also the humanist progressive and revolutionary cultural elements in various social classes. Patriotism and a national identity were to be strengthened by the familiarity with and continuation of traditions, customs and celebrations. In the end, the aim was not only to conserve cultural heritage, but also to adapt it creatively.⁴⁶ The social and revolutionary character of many customs, rituals and celebrations, formerly overridden by ‘exploiter regimes,’ as well as the positive values of the humanist cultural heritage were supposed to be uncovered.⁴⁷ For the appro-

as the heritage of intelligence, which should be preserved. Respect towards others, equality, love for children, care for the elderly, politeness, friendliness and tolerance are named as behavioral norms spanning across class borders. Cf. Koch, Theorie, 321– 6.  Kurt Hager, “Referat auf der 6. Tagung des ZK der SED, 6. Juli 1972,” in Beiträge zur Kulturpolitik. Reden und Aufsätze 1972 – 1981 (Berlin [East]: Dietz, 1981), 56. In contrast to this, capitalist-imperialist societies are seen to abuse or falsify cultural heritage. See f. e. Koch, Kulturfortschritt, 157. Kurt Hager and other agents are introduced briefly on pages 13 – 4.  Bromlej, Ethnographie, 65.  ZfK, Hochzeit, 32.  Cf. Jacobeit, and Mohrmann, “Einleitung,” 9, as well as Wolfgang Jacobeit, “Zur Aufgabenstellung des Zentralen Fachausschusses Kulturgeschichte/Volkskunde im Kulturbund der DDR,” Kultur und Lebensweise 1 (1977): 15 – 26 and Hofmann, “Bedeutung volkskundlicher Untersuchungen,” 9. Similar tasks were assigned to folklorists and ethnographers in the Soviet Union in their research about socialist rituals. Cf. Smolkin, sacred space, 176 and Binns, “Rituale (I),” 21.  Binns, “Rituale (I),” 10. An example of ethnological work in this sense is the detection of progressive tendencies in folk songs, such as criticism by the common people concerning class differences or the role of money in marriages. Cf. Kurt Thomas, “Liebe, Hochzeit und Ehestand im Volkslied. Eine volkskundliche Betrachtung zur Rolle des Volksliedes in Verbindung

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priation of cultural heritage, the following analytical and procedural steps were necessary: the classification of traditions within their historical context; the ascertainment of how far their statements and forms contained elements corresponding to socialist humanism and the interests of the working class; the deduction of how much they need to be re-designed or changed; and lastly, the integration into socialist reality through inclusion in celebratory acts.⁴⁸ Religion was not given a significant role in Marxist-Leninist ideology by scholars of cultural studies in as much as religious beliefs and corresponding claims to truth were declared as the “product of underdeveloped conditions” and defamed as imprinting “fantastic reflections in peoples’ minds.”⁴⁹ The failure to accept metaphors as methods for understanding rather than as literal statements is seen as characteristic for mythological and religious thought. By embedding religious culture into the storyline of changing conditions in the world, it became possible to depict it as a historical means of understanding the world. By defining religious culture as a stage in the development of humankind, it was given an innate value. It therefore made it possible to allow it to remain in human consciousness in the form of art and scientific-historical research, albeit “with the loss of […] specific mythological-religious functions.”⁵⁰ This approach legitimized the perception of values contained in religious tradition outside of the actual religion. It also justified the scientific interest in religiously influenced works, customs and celebrations.⁵¹ Klaus Gysi, Minister of Culture, emphasized “the integrating power of the socialist cultural life in relation to the cultural achievements of other classes, as well as to the ‘real ethical

mit Hochzeitsbrauch und Eheproblemen,” Kultur und Lebensweise 1 (1978): 38 – 57. A further example of the critical-creative handling of cultural heritage is the acknowledgement of the Reformation as an era of revolutionary folk movements, and the development of the humanist tradition. This focus during the 1960s was extended in the 1980s by further contextualization of Martin Luther’s activities and the recognition of his theology as a revolutionary ideology of his time. Anniversary celebrations were supposed to motivate religious people to engage in joint interests, socialism and peace. See Haase, Erbe, 512– 8.  Cf. Lehmann, “Aufgaben,” 18 and Haase, Erbe, 63.  Koch, Theorie, 62.  Koch, Theorie, 63. Interviews with East German family members of various generations show that religious scripts are appreciated as cultural heritage and considered quite natural as fairy tales and myths. This testifies how a skeptical-secular view was passed down within East German families. Cf. Wohlrab-Sahr, “Forcierte Säkularität,” 151– 2.  Cf. Koch, Theorie, 64– 5, Haase, Erbe, 66 and Hofmann, “Bedeutung volkskundlicher Untersuchungen,” 10.

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and cultural values of Christianity’”⁵² at the 13th Meeting of the GDR Council of State (Staatsrat) in October 1968. This view was extended to celebrations of personal occasions by a resolution of the Central Committee of the SED (Zentralkommittee – in the following ZK) in 1977 on the tasks of agitation and propaganda. The question as to which new symbolic acts could be of importance for celebrations was provoked by the emphasis put on the emotional element in celebrations and ceremonies. Especially elements that were traditionally established in families were supposed to be controlled.⁵³ Traditions of the working class, folk culture and family traditions at the Jugendweihe (a youth initiation ceremony) and weddings, birthdays and other celebrations and ceremonies of social or private occasions have been and are changed. Former religious holidays, such as Easter, Pentecost and Christmas, were ‘secularized’ in the GDR. […] It is obvious that all these traditions are very valuable and that their continuation contributes to the development of stable forms of social relationships in the socialist way of life.⁵⁴

It was pointed out that throughout history many festive and commemorative days of various origins had been adapted to the dominant religion of the time. Religions had in the past proven to be flexible when dealing with enduring folk traditions. The majority of celebratory culture used to be under the charge of the church before the socialist revolution. It was therefore deemed necessary to be equally flexible while respecting real religious faith, and to highlight and apply the humanist content of these occasions.⁵⁵ Wedding rituals should be reinterpreted in such a way as to clarify the role marriage plays in the socialist state, thereby increasing identification with socialist values and a community spirit. 3. Stages on the way to a communist society: At the beginning of a cultural development, as it was stated then, antiquated traditions had to be eradicated and new forms of action had to be established throughout linear history along the way toward communist society. Basic features of the socialist lifestyle could only be established slowly during the first phase of the socialist revolution, the creation of the antifascist-democratic constitution. Replacing ‘antiquated opinions and customs’ such as magic, superstition or other practices with new ones was seen as a lengthy cultural process. Long-lasting traditions were thought to be particularly persistent and to live on for generations, even after    

Haase, Erbe, 345. Cf. Koch, Theorie, 321– 6 and Bromlej, Ethnographie, 65. Koch, Theorie, 323. Cf. SAPMO-BArch DY 27/8414 – Fuhrmann, “Problemdiskussion,” 3.

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their foundations had been erased. New traditions could only be established when the new way of life had become stable and its norms had been reproduced over several generations.⁵⁶ Because socio-economic progress cannot be ascribed a decisive influence on awareness and behavior, an “enormous ideological effort”⁵⁷ is necessary to overcome the given stereotypes, religious reservations and behavioral patterns, according to folklorist Siegmund Musiat. The implementation of socialist notions in all areas of life was further thought to have been hindered by the dominance of the bourgeois lifestyle during the initial phase of the GDR, and moreover by the “model effect of the late-capitalist way of life, especially that of the Federal Republic of Germany.”⁵⁸ “The imperialist strategy unscrupulously exploits religious institutions, real religious motives, as well as existing customs of the people for their purposes.”⁵⁹ This line of thought helped justify compromises in the GDR to counteract the longevity of traditions and the presence of western competition, for example by continuing to use popular forms of celebration albeit reinterpreted, refined or substituted according to the socialist system of ideas. 4. Expansion of the term ‘culture’: The use of the term ‘culture’ was expanded in order to enable the adaptation of a variety of traditions. This offered the flex-

 Cf. Koch, Theorie, 328 – 9. See also Koch, Kulturfortschritt, 333 – 5 and Siegmund Musiat, “Feier und Festgestaltung als Bestandteil der sozialistischen Lebensweise. Methodische Hinweise,” Kultur und Lebensweise 1 (1977): 27. Also on this: Haase, Erbe, 267– 8. Ethnographer Ute Mohrmann called rituals and customs “ethnic traits,” which can demonstrate large continuity and independence even from changing economic systems within a society. At the same time, changes within these phenomena can be identified again and again, which explains the coexistence of traditions and innovations. Ute Mohrmann, “Sitten und Bräuche im Lebenszyklus der DDR-Bürger – eine volkskundliche Forschungsaufgabe,” in Zur Formierung der sozialistischen deutschen Nation. Forschungsbeiträge, Thematische Information und Dokumentation, Reihe A, 42 (1984): 110 – 8.  Musiat, “Hinweise,” 28 – 30.  Musiat, “Hinweise,” 27– 8. Allegedly, the ‘class opponent’ specifically used modern mass media to distribute bourgeois culture, which then provoked unwanted demands, habits and aims. The enforced offensive of bourgeois ideology was supposed to be counteracted with the socialist lifestyle. The more intense examination of celebratory and festive culture was part of this effort. This was backed by the resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the SED concerning political mass campaigns on May 18, 1977, as well as the presentation by the Minister of Culture in front of members of the Culture Councils of districts and boroughs in December 1978 in Magdeburg. Cf. Lehmann, “Aufgaben,” 14, Jacobeit and Mohrmann, “Einleitung,” 11 and SAPMO-BArch, DY 27/8542 – Hofmann, Michael: “Das soziale Funktionsspektrum der Festkultur. Ein Problemaufriß.” See also Hager′s remarks on the clash between socialism and imperialism in the area of culture. Hager, “6. Tagung”, 63 – 7.  SAPMO-BArch DY 27/8414 – Fuhrmann, “Problemdiskussion,” 2.

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ibility of not being limited to elements of either proletarian or intellectual culture. Significant for this was a speech by Kurt Hager at the 6th ZK Conference of 1972: The socialist culture includes all intellectual, moral, aesthetic and emotional human levels of development, all collective knowledge, every skill, talent, behavior, attitude and conviction, any social habits and all forms of pleasure.⁶⁰

Work culture, human relationships and personal lifestyle were more strongly included in both the term and cultural policy. This development led to a transfer of traditions that had previously been strongly connected to class-specific lifestyles.⁶¹ Scholars of cultural studies such as Hans Koch criticized the restriction of culture to the bourgeois idea of culture as intellectually valuable products, and the juxtaposition of material and intellectual products.⁶² It was because the new phase within the socialist cultural revolution should concern all areas of life, so that also celebrations of personal events experienced a renaissance.⁶³ 5. Functions of traditions: In cultural studies,⁶⁴ ethnography and folklore studies, culture was reflected as a socially inherited program performing essential functions for coexistence within society, the regulation of individual behavior, and effective communication.⁶⁵ Hans Koch characterized traditions as consolidated cultural phenomena, which influence everyday human life and are  Hager, “6. Tagung,” 14. See also Koch, Theorie, 8 – 9 and Koch, Kulturfortschritt, 11– 2, 340. Alfred Kurella had already come up with an equally broad term for culture by drawing on ideas from Marx, Engels and Lenin. According to Kurella, humanity needs to build on the achievements of previous generations in its development from lower to higher forms of life. Cf. Haase, Erbe, 278 – 9. Despite the theoretical reasoning concerning the appropriation of cultural heritage in its entirety by Kurella, the authors’ collective around Horst Haase stated that in the 1960s, traditions originating in the arts and science were still dominant. See Haase, Erbe, 280.  See Haase, Erbe, 367, 371, 483.  Cf. Koch, Theorie, 5 and Koch, Kulturfortschritt, 11– 2, 340. Concerning the dialectic-materialistic understanding of culture, see Keßler, Theorie und Praxis, 5 – 28.  Cf. Lange, “Geschichte.”  Starting in 1963/64, it was possible to study cultural studies in Leipzig or Berlin. The offered study program was an East German specialty area with almost no parallels in other countries (except Hungary and Czechoslovakia). It was established for the education of culture officials, cultural polititians, city councilors and managers of cultural work who were to implement the directives of the state leadership. The program entailed academic training in Marxism-Leninism, socialist aestethics and cultural politics, as well as training in theater studies, musicology, literature or art. There was no obvious connection to religious studies. Cf. Thomas Höpel, “Das Berufsbild des Kulturwissenschaftlers. Die Professionalisierung der Kulturfunktionäre in der DDR,” Themenportal Europäische Geschichte (2012), www.europa.clio-online.de/essay/id/fdae-1581.  Cf. Bromlej, Ethnographie, 65 und Koch, Theorie, 317– 8.

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part of the societal psychology of members of different social groupings. As stable practices, norms and rules, they construct an order and initiate certain demands along with the forms of their fulfillment, which are seen as understandable and sensible within the given society.⁶⁶ Accordingly, Eva Lehmann spoke of the “objective human demand to celebrate highlights in life together,”⁶⁷ while content and form represent elements of the lifestyle of that particular social grouping. In accordance with the new cultural policy, celebrations and ceremonies were ascribed functions on a political, ideological, ethical, social and psychological level, which were deemed useful for the development of society.⁶⁸ Obviously, the potential of celebratory culture was recognized. It was used to stimulate mechanisms of social integration, using emotion to accompany festivities, as well as their aesthetic implementation. Furthermore, historical forms of celebrations were thereby consciously established. The celebrations were thought to offer compensation for the one-sided burdens and strict norms of everyday life. This atmosphere also supported the establishment of new relationships within society. The use of these traditions seemed sensible when calling on sociological and psychological concepts in order to support the construction of a reality based on socialist ideology. Because the socialist cultural-political orientation arose “from its assignment to the system of production, distribution and reception of socialist ideology,” it was seen as “completely legitimate to use the historical customs and celebratory forms within this new frame of reference”⁶⁹ and to continue the use of traditions by focusing on their socialist content.

 Cf. Koch, Theorie, 47– 9, 308, 317– 8.  Lehmann, “Aufgaben,” 13 – 4.  Cf. SAPMO-BArch, DY 27/8414 – Fuhrmann, “Problemdiskussion,” 2. The specifically stated goal of influencing citizens was pursued through the implementation of ceremonies and celebrations. Through the conveyance of joie de vivre, appreciation for work achievements, the creation of a sense of success, participation in the formation of collectives, patriotism and historical awareness, knowledge about and possible adoption of customs of neighboring peoples or an orientation towards political events was supposed to strengthen the individual-collective relationship and synchronize individual dispositions. Cf. SAPMO-BArch, DY 27/8414 – “Überlegungen zu einer Konzeption der Fest- und Feiergestaltung” on 5.12.1977.  SAPMO-BArch DY 27 85/42 – Hofmann, Michael, “Das soziale Funktionsspektrum der Festkultur. Ein Problemaufriß.”

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4 Agents and chief elements of the discourse on culture and tradition It is not unusual to come across selectivity and creativity concerning the integration of different traditions in enculturation processes. However, the degree of obvious intentionality and the pedagogical approach in legitimizing adaptations was notable in the GDR context. When looking through numerous publications in cultural politics, cultural studies and cultural work, it becomes obvious that the discourses within culture were significantly influenced by state decisions and assignments in the GDR. Interdependencies become apparent on organizational, personnel and linguistic levels, which are repeatedly guided back into political-ideological practice. Scientific institutions steered by the political system were used to research and distribute a scientific worldview, in order to implement socialist ideas in cultural life.⁷⁰ Their task was not only the drafting of theoretical debates, but also the development of manuals with examples of the form, symbols, language, repertoire and program as well as surface design of celebrations, thereby taking political-ideological necessities into account. Scientific analysis was supposed to occur alongside consideration of practicability aspects regarding cultural activities. The publication of research results for merely scientific reasons was secondary. The organizational management of celebrations, on the other hand, lay in the hands of state organs, school management, companies, cooperatives and social organizations.⁷¹ On the level of the agents, speaker positions were noticeably filled with individuals who were active in various culture-related organizations. In publications, they repeatedly quote one another, thereby reproducing the same principle

 Seminars on issues of cultural politics offered during the training and qualification period of state functionaries, functionaries of mass organizations as well as club or cultural institution managers were often carried out by cultural science institutions. See Hans Koch, Kulturpolitik in der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik (Berlin [East]: Dietz, 1976), 24– 5, 88 – 9. Hager appealed to the Ministry of Culture to cooperate more closely with organizations such as the Culture Association of the GDR (Kulturbund) or the Society for the Dissemination of Scientific Knowledge (also named Urania), in order to secure the material basis for cultural life. He demanded higher scientific standards and expert knowledge in the management of culture. Cf. Hager, “6. Tagung,” 70 – 7.  Cf. SAPMO-BArch, DY 27/8414 – “Aus der Rede des Ministers für Kultur,” Magdeburg, December 1978 and SAPMO-BArch, DY 27/8414 – “Überlegungen.” Anderson states that there were commissions being responsible for formulating rituals suitable for socialist society “at all levels from republic to district”, composed of party propagandists, academics, cultural workers and teachers. Anderson, Religion, 120.

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assumptions, linguistic terms and argumentative and emotional strategies. Therefore, the cultural discourse in the GDR, or rather the sub-discourse around celebrations, shows a high degree of coherence. In addition to referencing authorities of their ideology, such as Marx or Lenin, these scientists themselves serve as their own testaments. Kurt Hager is obviously one of the main agents authorized to give instructions to various scientific, political and social organizations. Because of his long term in office at the Central Committee as the Secretary of the Department of Science, Education and Culture from 1955 to 1989, as well as at the Politburo as head of the Culture Commission from 1971 to 1989, he became very well known.⁷² The Academy for Social Sciences (Akademie für Gesellschaftswissenschaften – AfG), for example, was assigned to the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (Sozialistische Einheitspartei Deutschlands – SED). The directors of the associated department for MarxistLeninist Arts and Cultural Sciences were Hans Koch from 1977– 1986 and Horst Haase from 1986. Helmut Hanke was Professor for Cultural Theory there from 1977– 1986. All three were authors and editors of numerous scientific publications on culture. Hans Koch had been working as a lecturer for the aforementioned institute since 1963, was a delegate to the Peoples Parliament (Volkskammer), research assistant at the Ministry of Culture, as of 1981 a member of the Central Committee, and a member in the Culture Association of the GDR from 1982. His professional biography and publications are an example of the intermingling of cultural politics and sciences in the GDR. The Central Committee was also authorized to issue instructions for the Ministry of Culture. Johannes R. Becher was Culture Minister from 1954 until 1958, and was also the first president of the Culture Association of the GDR, a mass organization supporting the implementation of a socialist culture. He was not only a politician, but also a poet. His poems were recommended for readings at wedding ceremonies in the brochures issued by the ZfK.⁷³ The Culture Association of the GDR,

 From 1952– 1955 he was head of the Department of Science, and from 1949 – 1952 head of Propaganda at the Central Committee. He therefore played a leading role in politics during the entire existence of the GDR. Parallel to this, he headed the Culture Commission from 1971– 1989, and the Commission for Ideology from 1960 – 1967 as well as the Commission of the Leaders of Societal Institutes in the Politburo from 1976 – 1989. This demonstrates a strong link between the two political organs. Furthermore, he was Professor of Dialectics and Historical Materialism at the Humboldt University in Berlin in 1949. His predecessor heading the Culture Commission was Alfred Kurella from 1957– 1963. He is often referred to in other texts. Biographical details concerning the authors were taken from the biographical database of the Bundesstiftung Aufarbeitung (https://www.bundesstiftung-aufarbeitung.de/wer-war-wer-in-der-ddr-% 2363 %3B-1424.html), as well as from details given in the publications themselves.  ZfK, Hochzeit, 40, 42.

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and also the Department of Ethnography at the Humboldt University of Berlin, were leading institutions specifically conducting research on wedding rituals and the development of guidelines for the planning and implementation of celebrations and ceremonies. The characteristic doubling of functions is obvious here, too: Wolfgang Jacobeit was not only Professor for Ethnography, but also director of the Central Committee of Cultural History and Folklore Studies of the Culture Association of the GDR.⁷⁴ The Central Institution for Cultural Work was an institution associated with the Ministry of Culture and responsible for the implementation of instructions issued by culture policy decision makers. Concepts, information packs, methodological instructions and repertoire material were supposed to be developed here in cooperation with scientists, artists and cultural officials for district and regional managers, as well as for employees of club and culture locations. Since 1974, the department ’Geistig-kulturelles Leben’ had been committed to working on private ceremonies and celebrations. As of 1979, a division called ’Fest- und Feiergestaltung’ became responsible for this. This department was supported by a working group as a voluntary advisory body. Participants in the discourse represented their organizations′ interests by intervening in discourse processes and using various resources and strategies for discourse production. They produce factual knowledge, argue, dramatize, moralize, mobilize everyday myths, clichés, symbols, as well as pictures to their own ends, and develop a story in which the roles of good and bad are distributed and the problems of action are named.⁷⁵

A discourse coalition was developed through recourse to a common storyline. The cooperation of different organizations explains the relatively high level of homogeneity in the statements on culture, tradition and lifestyle. The publications are characterized by an enormous redundancy in their choice of wording, sources and structure. At the same time, the amount of specialist terminology is limited, which meant there was no need for a high transfer capacity between scientific publications and those addressed to the general public, such as bro-

 The Culture Association of the GDR repeatedly encouraged the participation of citizens, in order to influence their free time activities and convictions, as well as additionally using their volunteer work as a resource for fulfilling the association’s own duties. Cf. N. N.: “Konzeption des ZFA Kulturgeschichte/Volkskunde der Zentralen Kommission ‘Natur und Heimat’ des Kulturbundes der DDR,” Kultur und Lebensweise 1 (1977): 12– 4.  Keller, Diskursanalyse, 253 – 4.

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chures or advice leaflets. The compilation of specific suggestions based on the addressed demands was their primary accomplishment. Chief elements of the discourse on culture and traditions and thereby of the sub-discourse on ceremony and celebratory forms of weddings, were the following: cultural needs and the interests of workers; development of the socialist personality and lifestyle; the dialectic of stability and dynamics within the regular course of historical development; the lively, creative and critical adoption of cultural heritage; and the defamation of capitalist society and imperialist ideology.⁷⁶ When examining culture-related publications, it is the gaps which are striking: The term ‘ritual’⁷⁷ as well as the terms ‘religion’ and ‘atheism’ do not occur very frequently. Christian or church traditions play a rather insignificant role on the level of language – even as an antonym with a negative connotation to socialist culture. The enemy images are so-called reactionary forces, the bourgeoisie, the capitalist, imperialist social order and anti-communism. Although culture and traditions are reflected, the explanation or reinterpretation of ritual elements only occurs very selectively. An example for this is the white dress and veil, which could be found in pictures in various media products.⁷⁸ However,

 These central elements include entire semantic fields whose components cannot be listed here due to spatial limitations.  An exception can be found in the reference in Lehmann, “Aufgaben,” 19, to Ugrinowitsch, “Brauchtum,” 19. The Soviet scholar assures readers that there were always nonreligious rituals in history, and socialism is about the negation of a culture of exploitation, although negation does not mean annihilation, which would be anarchistic. He explains customs and rituals as the main forms of acculturation, being conservative and stereotypical acts, but also as an important human need influencing the individual personality by means of emotion and aesthetics. Cf. Ugrinowitsch, “Brauchtum,” 16 – 9, 24. Although Lehmann agrees with the content of his interpretation of the term ‘ritual,’ she prefers to use “symbolic acts.” A clue to the reasoning behind this distance from the term ‘ritual’ is given in a key paper of the Department of Clubs and Cultural Locations in the Ministry of Culture. In this, only religious symbolic acts are mentioned. Cf. SAPMO-BArch DY 27/8414 – Fuhrmann, “Problemdiskussion,” 2. Mohrmann uses “customs in the life cycle” and “rituals” synonymously and gives examples of both religious and nonreligious phenomena. Mohrmann, “Sitten und Bräuche,” 114– 5. Binns explains that the term ‘rite’ was also avoided in the Soviet Union until the 60s, because it was associated with religion, pre-socialist lifestyles and with Trotzkij, who wanted to replace religious with secular rites. Instead, phrases like ‘new, socialist traditions and customs’ were used. Cf. Binns, “Rituale (I),” 19.  Many photos of brides and grooms in the GDR in festive clothing, or brides in white dresses with veils can be seen in Rat des Stadtbezirks Berlin-Köpenick, Ratgeber; Central Institution for Cultural Work of the GDR, Hochzeit machen, Kultur und Lebensweise 1 (1978); in the special issue Wedding of the magazine Sibylle of 1969 (http://www.kybernaut.de/modern/02– 1997/mottenhochzeit.html) as well as in the exhibition catalog Lebensstationen in Deutschland 1900 – 1993. Eine Ausstellung des Deutschen Historischen Museums Berlin, (http://www.dhm.de/ar-

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its cultural context, which originated in the bourgeoisie of the 19th Century,⁷⁹ is not considered. These elements of wedding ceremonies can be subject to religious interpretation, gender-specific roles or the expression of wealth and status. All of these factors could have been questionable within the context of the GDR. They were, however, left uncommented on in the publications inspected for this study.⁸⁰ Structural and aesthetic similarities between civil and church weddings are broached rarely and, if at all, not in great depth.⁸¹

5 Selective appropriation of propagated ideals Using symbolic, economic, social and cultural capital, strategic concepts were developed by the state apparatus to appeal to its people. Identity models were presented for entire collectives, in which the interests of the individual conformed to the demands of the state. It is questionable in how far these subject positions and the produced cognitive, ethical and aesthetic standards were accepted for the evaluation of a successful wedding by the individual addressees. Degrees of freedom existed in the actual realization of marriage ceremonies compared to discourse-generated model practices.⁸² Especially outside of the registry office, political and scientific agents had hardly any influence or enforcing mea-

chiv/ausstellungen/lebensstationen/ddr_12.htm) and in the object database of the German Historical Museum (http://www.dhm.de/datenbank/dhm.php?seite=13).  See Philippe Ariès et al, eds. Geschichte des privaten Lebens, vol. 4 (Augsburg: Weltbild-Verlag, 1999), 248 – 50. For mid-20th century interpretations of the white dress, see Helga Hager, Hochzeitskleidung. Biographie – Körper – Geschlecht (Tübingen: Tübinger Vereinigung für Volkskunde, 1999). Concerning the critical reflection of the continuing demand for white wedding dresses as symbols of gender production, role models and uniformity, see Simone Fopp, Trauung – Spannungsfelder und Segensräume. Empirisch-theologischer Entwurf eines Rituals im Übergang (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 2007), 356 – 61.  The tradition of white wedding dresses only features in one special edition on weddings of the popular magazine Sibylle. Die Zeitschrift für Mode und Kultur, aimed at women in the GDR. The female reader is challenged to reflect on which kind of wedding attire suits her style, as she is not giving up her personality or independence by getting married. See Sibylle’s Special Edition Hochzeit from 1969, cited according to: http://www.kybernaut.de/modern/02– 1997/mottenhochzeit.html.  Jacobeit only speaks of similarities of exterior attributes of the wedding ceremony or of traditional props. According to him, these parallels do not override the specific discrepancy between late-bourgeois and socialist society. Cf. Jacobeit, “Liebe und Hochzeit,” 93.  Cf. Keller, Diskursanalyse, 256 – 7.

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sures. They had to rely on the powers of persuasion, role models and admonition.⁸³ As demonstrated by a survey on the changes in wedding traditions against the backdrop of economic and social change since the foundation of the GDR, there were nevertheless attempts to review the implemented measures.⁸⁴ A 1978 pilot study interviewed 21 married couples from different social classes who had married in three different periods (1919 – 1929, late 1940s and 1950s, 1970s).⁸⁵ The questionnaire included 119 questions that did not all refer to wedding traditions. It also included questions on the choice of partner, preparation for marriage, material aspects, the location, form and process of the marriage, as well as guests.⁸⁶ In a subsequent summary, the author Carla Bethge did not go into the individual answers given by interviewees, but rather presented some of the results.⁸⁷ She confirmed that in bourgeois society, class membership and economic factors had an important influence on the choice of partner and preconceptions about marriage. However, in the working-class “tendencies and essential features of a socialist married life”⁸⁸ (choosing a partner based on love,⁸⁹ marriages freed of patriarchy) were already detectable in the 1920s.

 “Content and form of these celebrations [birthdays and weddings] are strongly dependent on the intellectual-cultural level and dominant traditions in the respective families and collectives. They can only be influenced by us through repertoire selection and methodological tips in publications and mass media,” Lehmann, “Aufgaben,” 16 – 7. According to Michael Hofmann, the effect of these propositions depends on how broadly they are adopted in everyday communication within various social groupings. Therefore, he suggests establishing respective group structures in order to promote celebratory customs in the districts. Cf. SAPMO-BArch, DY 27/8542 – Hofmann, “Funktionsspektrum.”  Questions regarding the analysis were aimed, for example, at the observation of whether wedding customs were conditioned by class, whether matrimony had been changed by socialism, whether new customs had been developed or in how far societal institutions influenced the processes. Cf. Carla Bethge, “Erste Ergebnisse zu den Veränderungen im Hochzeitsbrauchtum auf der Grundlage eines Fragebogens,” Kultur und Lebensweise 1 (1978): 59. Question 53 asked whether wedding preparations had been undertaken following the guidelines given in Doing Weddings from the ZfK or other material. Cf. Bethge, “Ergebnisse,” 76. Unfortunately, the individual answers are not available.  Perhaps registrars, friends and family of those interviewed should also be questioned. Cf. SAPMO-BArch, DY 27/8541 – “Vorbemerkungen zur Durchführung von Befragungen im Rahmen der Studien zu Veränderungen der Feier- und Festgestaltung im familiären Bereich am Beispiel der Hochzeit” (Berlin [East], 1977), 1– 4.  The questionnaire can be found in Bethge, “Ergebnisse,” 71– 84.  Cf Bethge, “Ergebnisse,” 65 – 8.  Bethge, “Ergebnisse,” 65.  Katharina Kreschel found in her survey that marriage was based on real affection among industrial workers. No specific attention was paid to material aspects, mainly because the partners

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The wedding facilities always depended strongly on the individual’s economic situation, which was also linked to the social standing of the partner.⁹⁰ Because the income opportunities within the working class were quite good in socialist society, however, weddings in the 1970s did not show essential differences. Until the end of the 1950s, the majority of those interviewed were married in a church. However, due to efforts by the state,⁹¹ the frequency of purely civil ceremonies increased. Whereas hardly any traditional customs could be recorded for city marriages, country weddings characteristically showed numerous ritual acts. The author claims to have herself observed that these customs had lost their original meaning along the way, but stayed in place, as “the custom as a celebratory ceremony provides the respective emotional frame.”⁹² She stated that, although new types of customs were sometimes observed, it was not foreseeable at the time whether these should be counted as mere temporary fashions.⁹³ At the end of the 1970s, it was brought forward that no specific concepts for celebrations in local communities had been set up, responsibilities were still unaccounted for, and there was a shortage of material opportunities. Although fairs, the Jugendweihe youth ceremony and the start of school showed commend-

had nothing much more than their own ability to work. Both were equally responsible for the attainment of the necessary means, which led to a certain equality. There was often no money for celebrations, presents, festive clothing, etc. Cf. Katharina Kreschel, “Ist die Arbeiterehe eine Liebesehe? Bemerkungen zu proletarischen Eheschließungen in Brandenburg (Havel) in der Zeit der Weimarer Republik,” Kultur und Lebensweise 1 (1978): 20 – 9.  Cf. Bethge, “Ergebnisse,” 61– 4, 71– 84.  Bethge mentions the reforms in family law in 1956, the new Family Code of 1965, social policies to support young marriages, improved facilities in registrars′ offices as well as the ceremonial implementation of civil weddings. Cf. Bethge, “Ergebnisse,” 67.  Bethge, “Ergebnisse,” 68. Traditional blockades, the wedding march, the gifting of bread and salt as well as dancing off the veil were mentioned most often by those interviewed. See ibid. and note 18.  Because the pilot study could only make statements regarding the couples who were interviewed, it was really carried out in order to prepare a broader survey of 1,800 people. An application for this was submitted to the Central Administration for Statistics. Readers of the magazine Kultur und Lebensweise were given a questionnaire and guidelines on how to carry out the interview in order to instruct lay interviewers in various districts. Cf. SAPMO-BArch, DY 27/8414 – “Antrag auf Bestätigung einer Bevölkerungsfrage” from 25.1.1978 as well as Carla Bethge, “Zur Untersuchung über Veränderungen im Hochzeitsbrauchtum der Gegenwart,” Kultur und Lebensweise 1 (1977), 38 – 40 and Bethge, “Ergebnisse,” 59 – 84. The explanations by Mohrmann regarding research tasks in folklore studies imply that the project was never carried out. At least until 1984 there were no cohesive, monographic works on customs of life transitions. Cf. Mohrmann, “Sitten und Bräuche,” 112– 5.

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able levels of quality and stability in terms of organization and implementation, celebrations and ceremonies concerning the work and private spheres did not. Despite good examples, they obviously did not meet the standards concerning their ideological content.⁹⁴ Folklorist Siegmund Musiat declared in 1976 that “previous attempts to give the socialist marriage a sustainable model have not yet been a lasting success.” Whether or not the brochure series could be adapted better to the people’s needs depended on the efforts of the Culture Association’s Central Committee for Cultural History and Folklore Studies.⁹⁵ Eva Lehmann also stated in 1981 that the socialist culture of celebration had not yet found sufficient quantitative distribution, and that the emotional content, and therefore its effect on social awareness, was still too small. Most celebrations were similar; speeches were too general and interchangeable. Addressees, therefore, did not feel that these particularly concerned them. In some cases, the overall impression of the celebration was influenced by unsuitable locations and by the lax appearance of those responsible.⁹⁶ The criticism expressed in these years regarding the facilities of the registry offices⁹⁷ and the unenthusiastic reception of ideolog-

 Accordingly, the drafting of a resolution for the Central Committee and a concept for the development of celebrations and customs were set as tasks under the responsibility of the state institutions for culture. The specifics of each celebration were supposed to be presented by researchers from the respective scientific disciplines. This included the profiling of the series of guideline brochures issued by the ZfK, as well as the publishing of repertoire materials. Further measures outlined included the qualification of cadres, targeted PR activities and the implementation of performance structures for celebrations and festivities in Frankurt/Oder and Potsdam. Furthermore, it included public commissions in towns and boroughs, as well as citizen committees which were responsible for the enforcement of mandatory local concepts. Cf. SAPMO-BArch DY 27/8414 – Fuhrmann, “Problemdiskussion,” 4– 8.  Musiat, “Hinweise,” 28. The Minister of Culture called for a more effective distribution and use of the ZfK guidelines. Cf. SAPMO-BArch, DY 27/8414 – “Aus der Rede des Ministers für Kultur,” Magdeburg, Dezember 1978.  Cf. Lehmann, “Aufgaben,” 16 – 7. Also in the Soviet Union, critical voices grew louder in the 70s, expressing scepticism regarding the emotional and impersonal character of socialist rituals, as well as their lack of aesthetic power and consumerist elements. Cf. Binns, “Rituale (II),” 118 f. and Smolkin, sacred space, 192. Anderson mentions beside “critics pointing to the relatively crude and unsophisticated nature of the new rituals” even laughter as reaction by participants in view of “the dressing up of a new ritual in pseudo-religious forms”. Anderson, Religion, 120.  In the 153rd meeting of the Presidium of the Council of Ministers in 1975, a resolution was made concerning the situation and function of registry offices. An inspection of 264 registry offices had previously examined whether weddings were carried out according to the increased requirements. The facilities and size of the locations, staff shortages, absence of records as well as insufficient opportunities for the qualification of registrars able to carry out wedding ceremonies were frequently criticized. Popular registry offices were overloaded with requests and had to refuse some couples. All these difficulties reinforced an attitude among citizens that

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ical demands on marriage has to be evaluated with the fact in mind that the SED was not able to keep its promises of growth and consumer affluence over the long term. The people’s willingness to identify with the socialist project had decreased noticeably by the end of the 1970s.⁹⁸ Nonetheless, a universal wedding style was established among the majority of GDR citizens, according to surveys by Carla Bethge and Ute Mohrmann. This included family members as guests at the registrar’s office, traditional celebratory attire and popular pieces of music. The increase in services offered in addition to the original registering function of registry offices led to an enhancement of the civil ceremony in the consciousness of the people, and a decrease in church weddings. This tendency, especially noticeable in towns and cities, manifested itself predominantly in the adoption of “details of the former church customs – white wedding dress with veil, partaking of all wedding guests in the official ceremony, flower children, bridesmaids and various receiving lines for the couple.”⁹⁹ If the civil wedding was followed by a church ceremony, this was only apparent in a mild form, however. Such observations rather indicate a selective appropriation of available patterns and propagated ideals. The possibility of a ceremonial implementation of civil weddings was attractive for recipients, although ideologically charged interpretations of events were often neglected.

all invited guests could be better accommodated at church weddings, which were also seen as more festive. Improvement measures were decided upon in collaboration with local councils as a consequence of these inspection results. Cf. BArch, DC 20 I/4, 3407 – 153. Sitzung des Präsidiums des Ministerrates vom 28. 8.1975, Anlage zu Pkt. II/9: Beschluß zur Information über die Situation und Arbeitsweise der Standesämter, 62– 70.  Cf. Pollack, and Rosta, Religion, 280.  Bethge, “Ergebnisse,” 67– 8 and Ute Mohrmann, “Gegenwärtige Großstadt als volkskundliches Forschungsfeld? Eine Frage im wissenschaftsgeschichtlichen Kontext,” Jahrbuch für Volkskunde und Kulturgeschichte 14 (1986): 77– 8. In the mid-1980s, the Department of Ethnography in East Berlin began to engage with surveys concerning “customs and rituals in the life cycles of GDR citizens.” One of the foci was on wedding practices in Berlin, which showed more variation than throughout the rest of the republic. As an example, Mohrmann uses music requests in the pop music genre for civil weddings as well as casual dress at the weddings. See ibid. as well as Mohrmann, “Sitten und Bräuche,” 110 – 8. Christopher Binns describes three types of weddings in the Soviet Union of the 70s: strongly politicized Komsomol weddings in clubhouses with many guests, valuable gifts and speeches; the ‘normal wedding ceremony,’ taking place in wedding palaces or special rooms at the registry office with a similar procedure as at civil ceremonies in the GDR with the addition of local customs and/or a visit to a memorial; and lastly, a modernized version of the folklore wedding which was common in rural areas, lasting several days and including various customs that varied according to the regional or national tradition – in this complex of rites, the signing at the registrar’s office had a quite marginal role. Cf. Binns, “Rituale (II),” 112– 3.

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Ines Lange voiced the assumption in her work on socialist celebrations that the private desire to celebrate was so very much individual- or consumer-oriented that content, whether political or religious in nature, was neglected in practice, and Christian forms were only superficially adopted for socialist celebrations.¹⁰⁰ The success of these approaches since the 1970s meant that a process of deChristianization can be detected in lifecycle celebrations. The research group Scientific Atheism around Olof Klohr found a significant reduction in church weddings between 1981 and 1986 in their surveys.¹⁰¹ One factor used in the attempt to explain the sustainability of nonreligiosity among the East German population, and the subsequent continuing decrease in the demand for church weddings,¹⁰² is the more urgent problem citizens faced of securing their material and work-related existence after 1989. This pushed issues of ideology and religion to the back of social consciousness in the first years after reunification. The alienation from religiosity and the church had been so strong

 Cf. Lange, “Geschichte.” Christopher Binns marvels at the remarkable ability of Soviet citizens to shut out the propaganda flood, such that it is hard to say how far antireligious and procommunist ideology and attempts to control the people’s private lives were successful. He assumes that festivities within the regime in particular served the non-propagandistic function of allowing groups and individuals to express themselves and enjoy freetime, distraction and luxury goods. Cf. Binns, “Rituale (II),” 119.  In 1981, the average share in the GDR was estimated at 9 – 10 %. Cf. SAPMO-BArch, – Olof Klohr, Wolfgang Kaul, and Klaus Kurth, Über Wirkungsfelder und Wirksamkeit kirchlicher Institutionen in der DDR. Kirchenstudie 1981 (Rostock-Warnemünde, 1981), 31– 2. However, it was also recorded that this declining development was accelerated in towns compared to the countryside. In Rostock, the percentage of church weddings had stabilized at around 2– 3 % in the 1970s, whereas in the rural parish of Malchin the share was 17.4 % in 1971 and 8.3 % in 1979. Cf. Kaul, and Kurth, Wirkungsfelder, 35 – 6. Because not all regions provided complete sets of data, the research group concentrated on the regional church of Mecklenburg. The percentage of weddings taking place in church had decreased to 4.8 % by 1984. Cf. SAPMO-BArch – Olof Klohr et al., Kirchen und Religionsgemeinschaften in den drei Nordbezirken der DDR. Kirchenstudie 1986 (Rostock-Warnemünde, 1986), 374– 5.  The data available for the period after German reunification includes the entire country and cannot be separated into information only applicable to the former GDR. Whereas 46 % of couples (probably predominantly West German) followed up their civil marriage with a church ceremony in 1991, only 23 % did so in 2014. On the other hand, the number of registry office weddings remained stable over the last 15 years. Cf. Sekretariat der Deutschen Bischofskonferenz, ed. Katholische Kirche in Deutschland. Zahlen und Fakten 2014/15, Arbeitshilfen 275 (Bonn, 2015), 37– 8. Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland, ed. Zahlen und Fakten zum kirchlichen Leben (Hannover, 2015), 12. Statistisches Bundesamt, Bevölkerung und Erwerbstätigkeit. Zusammenfassende Übersichten Eheschließungen, Geborene und Gestorbene 1946 – 2014 (Wiesbaden, 2015), 2. http://www.ibka.org/statistiken/kath-kirche.html, http://www.ibka.org/statistiken/evkirche.html.

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that a (re‐)entry did not penetrate social consciousness again.¹⁰³ Religious indifference was and is so widespread in East Germany that religious endeavors often have no effect. Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, Uta Karstein and Thomas Schmidt-Lux emphasize in their study the role processes of subjective appropriation played in the long-term successful secularization. Following the generation that decided against church membership in a loyalty conflict, nonreligiosity and often the belief in the incompatibility of science and religion was passed on within families.¹⁰⁴ For most of the approximately 75 % of East Germans without a confession,¹⁰⁵ a church wedding is probably still not an option, whereas the civil ceremony remains the norm.

6 Conclusion The tactics of the GDR government did not lie in a ban or aggressive discrediting of church weddings and related interpretations, but rather in the establishment of alternatives in combination with the propagation of a secular worldview. One reason for this choice of method was surely the insufficient opportunities to exert pressure on couples wanting to get married. Whereas adolescents faced negative repercussions in school and further education if they did not take part in the Jugendweihe (‘consecration of the youth’), this leverage did not exist for marriages. Because all couples had to go to the registry office first, they all had access to social funding and support measures connected to marriage. The repertoire of interpretation that unfolded in various fragments of discussion was supposed to make the institution of the festive, nonreligious wedding at the registry office a plausible one, and interpret it according to the prevailing ideology. Typical statements as well as content- and form-related patterns show that the examined texts are part of the same discourse. The infiltration of theoretical ideas and models into real politics, culture and administrative areas¹⁰⁶ is demonstrated through the example of the ZfK wedding brochure. Sci-

 Cf. Pollack and Rosta, Moderne, 287.  Cf. Wohlrab-Sahr, “Forcierte Säkularität,” 145 – 63. Concerning the reproduction of secularity and the relevance of a secular majority culture for the persistence of religious indifference, see Olaf Müller, Gert Pickel, and Detlef Pollack, “Religiös-konfessionelle Kultur und individuelle Religiosität. Ein Vergleich zwischen West- und Ostdeutschland,” Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 65, no. 1 (2013): 123 – 48.  Cf. Müller, Pickel, and Pollack, “Kultur,” 134.  See Keller, Diskursanalyse, 184.

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entific knowledge was combined with general knowledge, in order to pass on operative and interpretive models. Discourse concerning the implementation of civil ceremonies mobilized agency potential as well as material resources for the development and distribution of these models.¹⁰⁷ Power effects were generated by this discourse in as much as the facilities of the registry offices were critically examined and upgraded.¹⁰⁸ Some registry offices designed brochures for couples wanting to marry. Additionally, further training regarding the appropriate form of weddings was offered to registrars. Surveys were carried out and exhibitions organized.¹⁰⁹ Photos portrayed recommended practices for wedding customs and traditional wedding attire.¹¹⁰ Over time, the percentage of church weddings out of the total number of marriages decreased notably and permanently.¹¹¹ However, the voluntary nature of how the facilities on offer were used resulted in a selectivity regarding the ideological content of the event. Using a language familiar to the audience integrated in a secular ritual influenced the bureaucratic act of registration and, vice versa, the traditional ways of getting married.

 See Keller, Diskursanalyse,, 208. The dispositif involves the measures and attempts at a discourse through which it intervenes in the world, with the aim of creating that world and its reality according to its own model. A discourse is (re‐) produced and effects are generated through the totality of the material, practical, staff-related, cognitive and normative infrastructure. See Keller, Diskursanalyse, 259. In the case of wedding celebrations in the GDR family policies, seminars for culture officials, regulations such as the family law system, personal status law or guidelines for club and cultural location management, objects such as wedding attire, organizations and committees such as the bodies and establishments and respective research institutes introduced above belong to the elements of the dispositif.  See note 88.  The ethnographers of the Berlin Museum for Folklore Studies had designed a contribution to UNESCO’s international ethnological exhibition in 1975. The topic was marriage in socialist society. Cf. Jacobeit, “Liebe und Hochzeit,” 92– 5. An exhibition in the Palace of the Republic documented the results of student research on weddings in Berlin for a broader audience. Cf. Mohrmann, “Sitten und Bräuche,” 115.  See note 69.  See notes 92 and 96.

Manuela Möbius-Andre

Christian heritage in the art policy of the German Democratic Republic Introduction There are many official artworks from the GDR that draw on Christian themes. This may raise the question of why Christian themes are to be found in the official art of an atheistic state. In GDR cultural policy, art was understood as decidedly political. While art was initially dominated by Socialist Realism, influenced by the Soviet Union, there was later a growing acceptance towards a return to Christian motifs. This active utilization of Christian themes in art was based on the concept of heritage and tradition. Heritage was understood as the reception of national examples, seen through the lens of the “revolutionary tradition of the class struggle,” which was supposed to lead to an intelligibility or readability of art by means of the already familiar. The use of heritage in this way became a political program. However, only historical events that supported the political line of argumentation were selected. Art of past eras was appropriated in the context of an imaginary line of socialist tradition. In so doing, art was supposed to convey history according to the prevailing line of tradition in order to contribute to the formation of the “new socialist man.” The concept of heritage and tradition then offered artists a broad range of legitimate artistic expressions. This article traces these developments by examining primary sources that discuss the concept of heritage and tradition.

1 Heritage and tradition as a part of GDR policy One of the most famous paintings created in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR) is the monumental painting Peasants’ War by the East German painter Werner Tübke. It shows the most important battles of the Peasants’ War in Germany in 1525 as an historical background.¹ In this composition are  See online at http://www.panorama-museum.de/de/monumentalbild_neu.html. The monumental picture Early Bourgeois Revolution in Germany, also known as the Peasants’ War Panorama, is designated today as Sixtina of the North. See online at http://www.panorama- museum.de/de/panorama-museum-2.html. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547085-009

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found a variety of allegories and biblical themes. The painting was commissioned by the Ministry of Culture of East Germany in 1976. This example leads to the question of why religious motifs are to be found in art created in an ‘atheist state’. The establishment and authoritative continuation of the GDR system depended on its permanent self-commitment, as well as its justification by symbolic historical derivation. Due to the differences between the officially communicated memory and the people’s actual cultural memory, the GDR leadership was forced to work out a comprehensive system for the shaping of collective memory. Myths played an important role in the legitimation of the new state and the construction of a national identity. They became the political sphere in which to mediate political content.² On the one hand, national legends such as the Hero of Labor and martyrs of the socialist movement or the Russian Revolution of 1917 were created in the GDR. On the other hand, this process of political mediation employing myths was implemented by using terminology and artworks referring to ancient and Christian mythology in the sense of heritage interpretation. Art played a central role in the formation of political consciousness in the GDR’s educational system. Early on, political leaders in the GDR had begun to use the visual arts for their mission. The pictures were heavily influenced in their composition by the underlying specific cultural policy objectives. Above all, the public space of the GDR was permeated by images as symbols. In everyday life, they served to convey the self-understanding of the state. History was a construct of faith in the GDR. This can be traced predominantly back to the developmental philosophy of Marxism, assuming a linear, lawful development of history. The Marxist understanding of history starts from a linear historical development and follows an eschatological principle. According to Marx, the state of the society depends on the “relations of production.” Linking faith, legacy, resurrection and immortality with selectively chosen historical contexts and political content in the parlance of the GDR points to a degree of irrational excessiveness.³ A key program in the propaganda of the GDR was based on the concept of heritage (Erbe) and tradition (Tradition). Indeed, the arguments put forward with regard to heritage and tradition can be found in all spheres, and in each case are based on the premise of creating a ‘new socialist human being’. In the early 1970s, after the claims arising from Socialist Realism and the debate surrounding

 Cf. Raina Zimmering, Mythen in der Politik der DDR. Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung politischer Mythen, (Opladen: Leske & Budrich, 2000), 17– 35.  Cf. Karl Marx, Zur Kritik der der politischen Ökonomie, (Berlin [East]: Dietz Verlag 1981).

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Formalism, the direction of cultural policy in the GDR shifted to a marked degree. The doctrine of Socialist Realism had been conceived as an aesthetic agenda in the sense of political education and as a guideline for behavior; in the end, however, the severe limitations placed on artists’ creative possibilities and the lack of any effective means of reception joined with an obstinate resistance by literary figures and artists caused Socialist Realism to fail in its absolute form. As a result, a new policy of cultural “breadth and diversity” (Weite und Vielfalt)⁴ was announced at the 8th Party Congress of the SED⁵ from the 15th to the 19th of June, 1971. The substantive and creative reorientation introduced at that meeting made reference to specific traditions, whereby the idea behind it was to manifest the legitimacy of the GDR using heritage and succession as an argument. Within this concept, certain lines of tradition came to be normalized, one example being the relationship between the ‘revolution’ of socialism and the ‘early bourgeois revolutions’. Horst Bartel, historian in the GDR, saw “early bourgeois revolutions”⁶ – and especially the Great Peasants’ War of 1524/25 – as the beginning of a continuous line of revolutions that ended with the victory of the ‘socialist revolution’ in the GDR. He declared the Great Peasants’ War as the beginning of a tradition of revolutions that helped lead ‘historical laws’ – in the sense of dialectic material thinking – to their breakthrough, such as the ‘bourgeois-democratic revolution’ of 1848/49, the German November Revolution of 1918, and the victory of the socialist revolution in the GDR.⁷ General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany and Chairman of the State Council of the German Democratic Republic, Erich Honecker, also pointed this connection out. For him, the GDR upheld the tradition of the ideals of the Peasant Wars, especially regarding the person of

 See e . g . Protokoll der Verhandlungen des VIII. Parteitages der Sozialistischen Einheitspartei Deutschlands, 1. bis 3. Beratungstag (Berlin [East]: Dietz Verlag, 1971).  The SED had established its claim to leadership in the Constitution and had de facto absolute power in the GDR.  In the interpretation of history in the GDR, the ‘early bourgeois revolution’ was described as the takeover of the bourgeoisie (Bürgertum) and the introduction of capitalist production relations. It did not give the popular masses an ‘exploitation-free society,’ but in contrast to the physicality of feudalism, more favorable conditions in the ‘struggle for further social progress.’ Cf. Geschichte in Übersichten, Wissensspeicher für den Unterricht (Berlin [East]: Volk und Wissen, 1984), 28 – 9, 146 – 50.  Cf. Horst Bartel, “Die revolutionäre Arbeiterbewegung – Wahrer und Fortsetzer der Traditionen des Bauernkrieges,” Einheit 30, no. 1 (1975): 19 – 29.

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Thomas Müntzer as a theologian of the early Reformation, and included this legacy in its ideological construct.⁸ In other words, the development of the GDR was portrayed as historically analogous to the ‘early bourgeois awakening’ that took place around 1500. The ideal of the Renaissance human being was proclaimed to be exemplary for the new socialist human being. The appropriation of this tradition in the formulation of a ‘cultural and humanistic heritage’ reflected a political agenda which took into account only the traditions that were deemed relevant to the current political outlook. In this manner, a select group of cultural achievements of past eras was incorporated into the context of an imaginary socialist tradition.

2 On the scientific understanding of heritage and tradition in the GDR The concepts of heritage and tradition are discussed in a specific context in the scientific discourses of the GDR. At an interdisciplinary colloquium organized by the social science research department at the GDR’s Academy of Sciences (Akademie der Wissenschaften), tradition and heritage were described as closely related terms which were hard to differentiate. According to the colloquium, heritage and tradition referred to the historical-cultural achievements of certain epochs and the history of their aftermaths and reinterpretations. Tradition and the understanding of heritage were determined by the way in which specific classes and social circles duly legitimized their interests. What mattered was who appropriated the legacy that the world-historical arsenal of tradition offered and to which purpose it was reactivated. It was the task of the ideologists to ‘objectify the unreflected legacy of the past,’ the abundance of material and spiritual goods in their tradition, to examine and appraise it.⁹ The historian Bartel argues that tradition is the part of heritage that is incorporated and cultivated.¹⁰ The incorporation of heritage should always take place in the form of a “critical appropriation” that relates to the mission of the prole Cf. Erich Honecker, Siegesbewußt auf sozialistischem Weg: Rede auf d. Festveranstaltung zum 25. Jahrestag d. Gründung d. DDR, Berlin, 6. Okt. 1974 ( Berlin [East]: Dietz Verlag, 1974), 8 – 9.  Cf. Dieter Schiller, “Die Klassiker des Marxismus, Leninismus über Tradition, kulturelles Erbe und Erberezeption,” in Dialog über Tradition und Erbe. Ein interdisziplinäres Kolloquium des Forschungsbereichs Gesellschaftswissenschaften der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR im März 1973, eds. Dieter Schiller, and Helmut Bock (Berlin [East]: Akademie-Verlag, 1976), 12– 3.  Horst Bartel, and Walter Schmidt, “Historisches Erbe und Traditionen – Bilanz, Probleme, Konsequenzen,” Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft 9 (1982): 821.

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tariat and through the “differentiation of Marxism and the revolutionary workers movement from all other world views, ideologies and class movements.”¹¹ The motivation behind a concrete form of research into heritage and tradition can be summarized as follows: Heritage research should contribute to opening up ‘the wealth’ of the historical and cultural heritage of the working class. It should provide the working people with the means to develop a socialist consciousness and personality. The interests of the working class should determine what is to be selected as valuable heritage.¹² The concept of heritage refers to the entire stockpile of historical events, while tradition stands for the appropriated heritage that has been rendered serviceable. Within the socialist debate on heritage in the GDR, the construction of an historical continuity and an interweaving of all areas took place. This called for insights into notions of universality and larger dimensions of world history. In the discussion among GDR historians about the state’s approach to understanding its own tradition, the entirety of historical inheritance was now considered.¹³ The argument in favor of a continuous line of tradition by means of an historical heritage was based on the assertion of a legitimate historical process that drew on Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Indeed, dialectical and historical materialism served as the ideological basis and simultaneously the means by which to evaluate and rationalize the contradictions of history.¹⁴ At a scientific colloquium in 1975 focusing on the subject of the cultural heritage of socialist society, the attendees determined the following with regard to the appraisal of contradictory historical interconnections:

 Helmut Bock, “Historische Tradition und Erbe-Rezeption bei Marx und Engels. Zum Verhältnis zwischen sozialistischen und bürgerlich-progressivem Erbe,” in Dialog über Tradition und Erbe. Ein interdisziplinäres Kolloquium des Forschungsbereichs Gesellschaftswissenschaften der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR im März 1973, e d s . Dieter Schiller, and Helmut Bock (Berlin [East]: Akademie- Verlag: Berlin, 1976), 47.  Werner Kalweit, “Schlußwort zum Kolloquium,” in Dialog über Tradition und Erbe. Ein interdisziplinäres Kolloquium des Forschungsbereichs Gesellschaftswissenschaften der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR im März 1973, eds. Dieter Schiller, and Helmut Bock (Berlin [East]: Akademie- Verlag, 1976), 213 – 4.  See also Helmut Meier, and Walter Schmidt, “Einleitung,” in Erbe und Tradition in der DDR: d. Diskussion d. Historiker, eds. Helmut Meier and Walter Schmidt (Köln: Pahl-Rugenstein,1989), 11.  The dialectic and historical materialism was not just the theoretical basis of the policy, but also fundamental for the specific sciences. It was considered a belief among the progressive people, in which case the socialist human being was meant. See also Gerhard König, ed., Kleines politisches Wörterbuch (Berlin [East]: Dietz Verlag, 1967), especially the lemma Materialismus, 403.

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All elements of cultural heritage can contribute to entering further into this legitimate process, provided they are imparted accordingly: From the historically transmitted productive forces to the wealth of artworks carefully stored and preserved by us. A rich socialist worldview is not conceivable without the connection to heritage. The wealth of heritage is one of the greatest potentials and sources available to us for ideological education and upbringing, if understood and used to its full abundance.¹⁵

A new human was supposed to be created, a socialist human who took control of worldly affairs. It was necessary to construct a political and historical legitimacy for this transformation process. The role assigned to art within this process was to communicate history in accordance with the dominant line of tradition, thereby contributing to the shaping of the image of the ‘new socialist human’. An example of what such a ‘new human’ could look like can be seen in the painting Der sozialistische Mensch unter den Bedingungen der wissenschaftlich-technischen Revolution ¹⁶ (‘The socialist man under the conditions of the scientific-technical revolution’) by José Renau.¹⁷ His motif is reminiscent of that of the Christ Pantocrator. In Renau’s composition, it is not Jesus who is enthroned as the ‘ruler of the world,’ but the man sitting at the controls of creation. It is nature and science which he has made his own and taken command of. With reference to Marx, Engels and Lenin, the GDR historians argued that an appropriation of cultural heritage was necessary by means of an historically concrete analysis of the dialectic. As the cultural scientist Hans Koch explained in 1976, only if the problematic of continuity and discontinuity is treated historically-materialistically out of the class struggles of the respective epoch can the real dialectics be grasped in the process of the reception of the heritage.¹⁸ The replacement of Walter Ulbricht by Erich Honecker and the 8th Party Congress of the SED in 1971 is regarded as the starting point for a more open political agenda concerning art and culture. After years of conflict, in particular with regard to those dogmatic calls for a ‘new’ art – i. e. one oriented towards the USSR and Socialist Realism – the scope of cultural heritage was now broadened. The GDR was encouraged to develop and expand its literary and artistic heritage to

 Hans Koch, “Grundfragen der Aneignung des kulturellen Erbes bei der weiteren Gestaltung der entwickelten sozialistischen Gesellschaft in der DDR,” in Das kulturelle Erbe in unserer sozialistischen Gesellschaft. Wissenschaftliches Kolloquium 21.–23. Oktober 1975 in Weimar, ed. Akademie für Weiterbildung (Berlin [East]: Akademie für Weiterbildung, 1976), 11.  See http://www.ddr-comics.de/froesi84.htm (edition 10/84).  Josep Renau Berenguer was an artist and communist revolutionary notable for his propaganda work during the Spanish Civil War, who lived temporarily in the GDR.  Koch, “Grundfragen,” 21.

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include the entire range of its diversity.¹⁹ Honecker’s statement concerning a broader cultural policy ushered in a relaxation of cultural policy. He emphasized that there should be no taboos in terms of content and style design elements in literature and art.²⁰ At the same time, official GDR policy set its sights on the development of a socialist national culture (Sozialistische Nationalkultur)²¹ which was proclaimed to be the rightful heir to German history and culture. The socialist national culture of the German Democratic Republic includes the careful preservation and appropriation of all humanist and progressive cultural achievements of the past. The socialist culture of the German Democratic Republic is committed to the rich heritage created throughout the history of the German people. Everything great and noble, humanist and revolutionary will be kept in honor and carried forward in the German Democratic Republic by placing it in a living relation to present-day tasks. The revolutionary cultural traditions of the German labor movement and the rich cultural heritage which is a testimony to the growth of the German Democratic Republic are among the sources of patriotic pride in our socialist fatherland.²²

The SED defined the creation of a socialist society as the ‘fundamental legacy’ of Karl Marx. It argued that the pre-eminence of SED policy was manifested in the

 Cf. Erich Honecker, Die Kulturpolitik unserer Partei erfolgreich verwirklicht (Berlin [East]: Dietz Verlag, 1982), 53.  Cf. Erich Honecker, “Zu aktuellen Fragen bei der Verwirklichung der Beschlüsse des VIII. Parteitages,” Neues Deutschland. Organ des Zentralkomitees der Sozialistischen Einheitspartei Deutschlands, Berlin [East], December 18, 1971: 3.  Since the Berlin wall was built in 1961, the focus on an independent “socialist national culture” primarily served as a distinction from the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany). This course was codified in Article 18 of the new GDR constitution in 1968. It states: “The socialist national culture is one of the foundations of socialist society. The German Democratic Republic supports/ fosters and protects the socialist culture that serves peace, humanism and the development of the socialist community. It combats the imperialistic culture that serves psychological warfare and the degradation of man. The socialist society promotes the cultured life of the working people, maintains all humanistic values of national cultural heritage and world culture, and develops the socialist national culture as a matter of all people.” Verfassung der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik vom 06.04.1968, documentArchiv.de, http://www.documentArchiv.de/ddr/ verfddr1968.html. See also Wolfgang Schulz, “Ulbricht treibt den Keil tiefer,” DIE ZEIT, 1968, 50, 13. Dezember 1968, online at https://www.zeit.de/1968/50/ulbricht-treibt-den-keil-tiefer.  “Programm der SED. Entwicklung der sozialistischen Nationalkultur,” in Kritik in der Zeit. Literaturkritik der DDR 1945 – 1975, eds. Klaus Jarmatz, Christel Berger, and Renate Drenkow (Halle/ S. et. al.: Mitteldeutscher Verlag, 1978), 439.

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deeper understanding “of the demands placed on patriotic and internationalist action in line with the heritage of Karl Marx in the present.”²³ With regard to the heritage of bourgeois classics that many artists referenced in their work, the discussion focused on the works’ historical motives and the differentiation of their interpretation in the contemporary context. For example, the following was stated: The revolutionary working class and the socialist society found and still find many points of contact to the art of that era, their own struggle, and their efforts to connect with previous experience transported in the art of that earlier time. Therefore there is a change in the interest of and the attitude towards perception from one phase to another.²⁴

The programmatic concept of an historical heritage sought to create a causal relationship among all temporal reference points in the past and to extend this all the way to a future-oriented ideal state. In this process, the ‘historic mission of the proletariat’ served as the guiding principle. The GDR’s Cultural Association (Kulturbund) was assigned with implementing resolutions regarding the country’s historical heritage in fulfillment of the SED’s political agenda. It was decided that the GDR’s artistic heritage would be propagated both in “activities for the purpose of its scientific evaluation” as well as in the “forms of its presentation and dissemination.”²⁵

3 Heritage in art Art in the GDR was positioned on an equal level with science owing to its ability to reveal specific aspects of objective reality and people’s ‘inner world’ in a pictorially vivid and tangible manner, which science was not able to address in this way. An especially important role was played by the conjunction of the emotionality generated by works of art and the historicizing function of these artistic representations; indeed, this connection was seen as having tremendous potential

 Erwin Stüber et.al, Das patriotische und internationalistische Erbe von Karl Marx in der Politik der SED (Berlin [East]: Humboldt-Universität Berlin, 1984), 7.  Authors′ Collective Academy for Societies at the ZK of the SED, Institute for Marxist-Leninist Cultural and Art Sciences, Künstlerisches Erbe und sozialistische Gegenwartskunst (Berlin [East]: Dietz Verlag, 1977), 40.  Federal Archive Berlin [BArch] DY27/5725, fol. 226, pag. 1– 6, Protocol of the decision to implement the Heritage Decisions by the Kulturbund of 16/5/1980.

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in terms of implementing long-term political education goals. The artist took on the role of a conscious, “active campaigner for peace and social progress.”²⁶ The GDR art historian Peter Arlt illustrated the importance of appropriating and processing earlier artistic cultures for the purposes of socialist art. Arlt noted that in comparison to the sciences, art transferred its ‘thought material’ in a sensitively materialized form. Socialist culture should thus not be reinvented. It arose from the “development of the best models, traditions and results of existing culture.”²⁷ Starting in the early 1970s – and formally with the 8th SED Party Congress – official GDR policy on art and culture pursued a ‘breadth and diversity’ of artistic traditions. In order to satisfy the diverse needs of different groups in the population, it was stated that not only the breadth and diversity of genres, contents and forms in contemporary art should be exploited – as requested at the 6th session of the Central Committee of the SED in 1972 – but also the wealth of national and international art.²⁸ The ‘opening’ of art to old themes and motifs²⁹ was reinterpreted as programmatic relationships to tradition. Vice President of the Association of Visual Artists of the GDR Hermann Raum wrote: Instigated by art production and from within, the science of art began examining art motifs more closely and evaluating their alterations in the 1970s. Research found that many ancient symbols, visual metaphors, parabola, allegories and their mutation of meaning, combinations thereof, etc., continued to emerge and become more apparent as the analysis deepened. The growing symbolism and allegorical deceit was reprimanded by a part of the criticism, but less frequently examined with respect to its social and artistic causes. The criticism is useful because of the partially fashionable exaggeration of icon images (which even reached the state of private mythologies). The tendency, however, will remain, I believe, because it is grounded in new functions and tasks of art and in its social driving force.³⁰

 Hans Steußloff, ed., Dialektischer und historischer Materialismus. Lehrbuch für das marxistisch- leninistische Grundlagenstudium (Berlin [East]: Dietz Verlag, 1988), 446 – 7.  Peter Arlt, Antikerezeption in der bildenden Kunst der DDR. Zu den Entwicklungsprozessen der antik- mythologischen Ikonographie in Malerei, Grafik und Plastik von 1945 bis 1985 und der ikonographisch- ikonologischen Methode in der Kunstwissenschaft der DDR (Erfurt: Pädagogische Hochschule Erfurt, 1987), 60.  Authors’ Collective Academy for Societies at the ZK of the SED, Institute for Marxist-Leninist Cultural and Art Sciences, Die SED und das kulturelle Erbe. Orientierungen, Errungenschaften, Probleme (Berlin [East]: Dietz Verlag, 1986), 371.  It was an official recourse to the motifs of biblical history or mythical images.  Herrmann Raum, “Weite und Vielfalt. Zur DDR‐Kunst der siebziger Jahre,” in Weggefährten, Zeitgenossen: bildende Kunst aus drei Jahrzehnten, Ausstellung zum 30. Jahrestag der Gründung

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The inclusion of ‘bourgeois artistic heritage’ was legitimized on the basis of the supposed humanist motivation behind these works of art and thus by means of a direct line of tradition connecting them to Socialist Realist art.³¹ Many artists devoted themselves in particular to the heritage of the Renaissance coupled with humanism. As a result, increased recourse was taken to antique motifs. The motifs and rhetoric of the ‘old masters’ were reinterpreted for the present day.³² One of the most popular motifs was Icarus, such as in the Icarus paintings by Bernhard Heisig. This particular motif was interesting, because it could be interpreted as an ascending and at the same time a critically crashing Icarus.³³ A number of programs and agendas – such as the 500th anniversary of Albrecht Dürer’s birth in 1971, the Luther jubilees and various anniversaries commemorating the German Peasant Revolt – demonstrate the importance of these temporal references.³⁴ The Renaissance played a prominent role as a ‘bridge’ to antiquity, to German classicism and to the ‘new Renaissance’ in the guise of socialist culture.³⁵ In 1983, an exhibition on “Artists of the GDR in Dialogue with Renaissance Masters” emphasized that works by German artists created during the epoch of the early bourgeois revolution, at the time of the Reformation and the Great German Peasants’ War, yielded the most valuable heritage.³⁶ The selection of pictures for this exhibition was dominated above all by the motif of the crucifixion as a symbol for tortured humanity.³⁷ The artis-

der Deutschen Demokratischen Republik Berlin Altes Museum 3. Oktober bis 31. Dezember 1979 (Berlin [East]: Zentrum für Kunstausstellungen der DDR, 1979), 77.  Cf. Authors’ Collective, Die SED, 502.  Cf. Anita Beloubek, [untitled], in Die Kunst zu erben. Künstler der DDR im Dialog mit Meistern der Renaissance. 35. Studioausstellung der Nationalgalerie im Alten Museum 31. August bis 13. November 1983 (Berlin [East]: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Hauptstadt der DDR, 1983), 3.  See e.g. https://www.artefakt-berlin.de/en/current-projects/museum-barberini-behind-themask.  One example is the “Recommendations for the preparation and realization of events on the occasion of the 500th birthday of Albrecht Dürer.” Dürer’s work and his “humanistic interaction” should be interpreted from the standpoint of dialectical and historical materialism. Cf. BArch DY27/5975, 1– 9.  Cf. Authors’ Collective, Die SED, 27. In particular, reference is made here to the statements of Clara Zetkins on the “great cultural and historical relationship between the Renaissance and the classical bourgeois art.”  “Rede des Ministers für Kultur Klaus Gysi anläßlich der Konstituierung des Dürer‐Komitees der DDR am 1.2.1971 in Berlin,” Bildende Kunst (BK) 5 (1971), 227– 8.  See exhibition catalog Die Kunst zu erben. Künstler der DDR im Dialog mit Meistern der Renaissance. 35. Studioausstellung der Nationalgalerie im Alten Museum 31. August bis 13. November 1983 (Berlin [East]: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Hauptstadt der DDR, 1983), 5.

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tic controversy highlighted Cranach, Dürer and Grünewald.³⁸ Motifs were removed from Christian iconography and transformed into the design language of contemporary ideology. References to ‘Old Masters’ were utilized primarily in the examination of basic existential questions, which were then altered to fit the new ‘zeitgeist.’ For example, art historian Anita Beloubek argued that artists such as Sitte, Cremer and Zettl³⁹ sought links […] to traditional global topics on existential fundamental questions of humanity such as life and death, crucifixion and resurrection, temptation and aberration. These are discharged from Christian iconography by new motifs taken from the conflicts of our contemporary life, and translated into the design language of the 20th century […].⁴⁰

One popular artist in the GDR was the painter Werner Tübke mentioned above. His oeuvre is characterized by references to the art of the 16th century, which can be found early on in his works. An example of its diverse reception is the cycle Lebenserinnerungen des Dr. jur. Schulze. The pinnacle of Tübke’s creative talent as a commissioned artist became an object of prestige: the monumental painting Early Bourgeois Revolution in Germany, also known as the Peasants’ War Panorama (Bauernkriegspanorama).⁴¹ Both its content and form bear strong references to heritage. This demonstrates Tübke’s affinity for both national and international history.⁴² According to him, all fundamental conflicts among the people in the Old Testament could be found and displayed as visual ideas⁴³ at any period in history. Another art historian in the GDR, Irma Emmrich, who wrote a study on the reception of Christian imagery in the work of Tübke in 1976, pointed out that the Christian iconography in this case has no sacred connotation. It is rather of a deep universal importance for mankind and especially for humanism. The portrayals were removed from their traditional meaning and generalized to visualize universally valid feelings and principals in order to shift them towards a socialistic interpretation.⁴⁴

 Lucas Cranach, Albrecht Dürer, and Matthias Grünewald were famous Renaissance painters.  Willi Sitte, Fritz Cremer, and Baldwin Zettl were popular GDR artists.  Beloubek, [untitled], 4– 5.  See e . g . Gerd Lindner, Vision und Wirklichkeit: das Frankenhausener Geschichtspanorama von Werner Tübke (Bad Frankenhausen: Panorama Museum, 2006).  Cf. Annika Michalski, “Ich spiele mich, wie ich bin.” Selbstdarstellungen Werner Tübkes von 1940 bis 2004 (Köln et. al.: Böhlau, 2014), 89.  E. g. the motif of the crucified Christ as a symbol of tormented humanity.  Cf. Irma Emmrich, Werner Tübke: Schöpfertum u. Erbe: eine Studie zur Rezeption christlicher Bildvorstellungen im Werk des Künstlers (Berlin [East]: Union Verlag, 1976), 27– 30.

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The art of a culture influenced by Western Christianity cannot deny its roots. The recourse to Christian iconography seemed obviously necessary for the legibility of images. The expressive power of Christian motifs or formats, such as the sacred forcefulness of a triptych, was motivation enough to revisit it. An example in which the representation of individual symbolic figures in their mystification was modeled on Christian cycles is Rolf Kuhrt’s Thälmann’s Death and Resurrection from 1986.⁴⁵ The depiction of the suffering of Ernst Thälmann⁴⁶ followed the motifs of Christian iconography. In addition to a personal commitment to the Christian religion, the artist’s own experiences played a role in the extensive selection of topics from the Bible, at least in the early works following the Second World War. Later recourse to biblical narrative motifs then revealed artists’ political statements and interpretations, however, which produced certain ambiguities. An example of this is Wolfgang Mattheuer’s Cain and Abel depiction from 1965.⁴⁷ Its meaning is highly ambiguous, as are all of Mattheuer’s paintings. The development of a new ideological belief in the state can be seen in state-oriented references to sacrificial representations, in which the allegory of the Christ’s sacrifice was deliberately included. This is particularly evident in the design of monuments.⁴⁸ With the concept of inheritance, the legacy of antiquity was promoted above all in the sense of a strict class struggle, all the way to the completed socialist society.⁴⁹ Mythical figures became symbols of meaning within literary and artistic compositions, which were received positively in affirmative art and literature, as well as negatively in critical literature and art.

 See Martin Schönfeld, “Die Konstruktion eines Idols – Darstellungen Ernst Thälmanns in der Kunst der SBZ/DDR,” in Ernst Thälmann: Mensch und Mythos, ed. Peter Monteath (Amsterdam et.al: Rodopi, 2000), 147– 78.  Ernst Thälmann was the leader of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) during the Weimar Republic. He was arrested by the Secret State Police (Gestapo) in 1933 and held in solitary confinement for eleven years, before being shot in Concentration Camp Buchenwald on Adolf Hitler’s orders in 1944. In the GDR Thälmann was widely honored and many schools, streets and factories were named after him. The East German youth organization was named the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organization in his memory.  See e. g. http://www.kunsthallerostock.de/de/ausstellungen/ausstellung/2017/wolfgangmattheuer.  See also e. g. Susanne Lanwerd, “Sakralisierende Tendenzen in der staatssozialistischen Kunst. Das Beispiel der Mahn- und Gedenkstätte Ravensbrück,” in Kunst und Religion des 20. Jh., eds. Richard Faber, and Volkhard Krech (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2001), 51– 66.  Cf. Karl-Siegbert Rehberg, “‘Klassik’ und Statuarik. Antike Motive in den Künsten der DDR.” in Antike als Konzept: Lesarten in Kunst, Kultur und Politik, ed. Gernot Kamecke (Berlin: LukasVerlag, 2009), 261– 79.

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The religious aesthetics offer a concept with which to grasp the rendering of religious themes and motifs into originally nonreligious social contexts. Susanne Lanwerd highlights the processes of transforming religion into art in her discourse Religionsästhetik. Studien zum Verhältnis von Symbol und Sinnlichkeit. ⁵⁰ She follows Wilhelm von Humboldt by saying that art should take over the social function of religion. Hereby, the aesthetic in its sensuality can serve as a substitute for religion.

4 Conclusion The SED claimed to act on an historic foundation. History was defined in the context of Marxism and adapted to the needs of socialist interpretations. What actually qualified as political heritage was decided according to these ideological needs and remained under the influence of the time.⁵¹ The socialist ambition was, above all, a life-long task. It was integrated into the education of the people. This attempt at historical legitimacy then needed to be supported by the heritage program. For the development of the GDR’s own traditional canon, art was assigned the task of aesthetic mediation. For artists in the GDR, it was the formal language of the Renaissance that was, above all else, a tried and tested means of portraying contemporary themes in a multifaceted and appropriately encrypted manner. Indeed, several metaphors remained concealed in their ambiguity and allowed for multilayered interpretations. In this process, artists were able to transcend canonized connections to traditions time and time again. The increased interest in exploring religious themes by the SED and state leadership coincided with the call for wider artistic ‘breadth and diversity.’ The concept of heritage and tradition, as it was, legitimized artists’ reception of Christian and mythic themes and motifs.

 See Susanne Lanwerd, Religionsästhetik. Studien zum Verhältnis von Symbol und Sinnlichkeit (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2002), 123.  As an example, Raina Zimmering shows the fluctuation of political myths in the GDR. See Raina Zimmering, Mythen in der Politik der DDR. Ein Beitrag zur Erforschung politischer Mythen, (Opladen: Leske & Budrich, 2000).

Alexandra Coțofană

The importance of a meaningless 1989 Romanian political theologies and the religious left

Introduction Between 1947 and 1989 Romania was governed by various regimes that claimed direct or indirect legitimacy from Marxist ideology. Much like in many of its neighboring countries, the government limited institutionalized religious activity. This led to overwhelming portrayals of politicians in these regimes as atheists, in the global imaginary of the time and of the decades that followed. However, many of these politicians were involved in religious rituals, sometimes publicly. The ties between religion and pre -1989 politicians at an institutional and an individual level represent one of the two main foci of this article. Of particular interest here is the role played by the overlap between national identity and Christian Orthodoxy – a given for overwhelming majorities in Eastern Europe and Russia. This examination of political and religious continuities in Romania before and after 1989 hopes to nuance academic discourses on what was called – and treated as – the Eastern ‘Bloc’. Therefore, this paper analyzes data I gathered between 2011– 2017 on religious and political identities in Romania with the focus on a series of 2017 interviews with Romanian politicians that reveal cross-generational continuity in political theologies. Eastern Europe has been systematically defined in academia as a topos of economic and political ruptures (socialism/post-socialism, communism/neoliberalism), as well as an example for spiritual or ideological dichotomies (religious/secular). Relying on ethnographic data, coupled with Roland Boer’s extensive work in the field of political theology, and the argument that Carl Schmitt’s theopolitics are not universalizable, I argue that some political spaces in this imagined Bloc can be defined through continuities rather than ruptures. Furthermore, my investigation draws attention to several transformations of the political class since the perceived rupture point represented by December 1989. The televised execution of the Ceaușescu couple on Christmas Day of 1989 makes the Romanian revolution one of the bloodiest changes of regimes in recent decades. At the same time, many of the party members of the Romanian Communist Party (PCR) went on to form the new political right and left, as the title of the article suggests. With this reality in mind, I critically analyze what we https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547085-010

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call left and right today and use the Romanian case to challenge several binaries we take for granted in academia.

1 Religious traditions and national identity in Romania Romania’s 1989 revolution has been a very unusual event for my entire generation – those of us who were too young to understand what was happening have a peculiar memory of one of the bloodiest changes of regime in recent decades. Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu were shot on December 25th, 1989. Ever since, every year on Christmas Day, the Romanian national television channel (TVR1) ritually shows scenes of the couple’s execution, a Christmas tradition that I trust most countries do not have. Blood sacrifices on Christmas are not a new topic in Romania – sacrificing pigs is one case that, despite infringing on EU welfare rules,¹ has been allowed to continue after arduous claims that the ‘ancient Romanian’ tradition² is part of the Christian Orthodox and national identity. Whether or not this is the case, these rituals, new and old, reflect on a certain aspect of Romanian national identity – a particular interpretation of Christian Orthodoxy.³ After all, Ceaușescu himself made sure his mother’s funeral in 1977 benefitted from a Christian Orthodox ceremony.⁴ The same was true for the funeral of his father, Andruță Ceaușescu, in 1969.⁵ Before all this, Petru Groza, the first Romanian Communist primeminister, was also buried according to the Christian Orthodox tradition in 1959.⁶ These choices made by political leaders will not surprise those concerned with Eastern European history. Ceaușescu’s predecessor, Gheorghe Gheorghiu Cf. Charlemagne, “A dissertation on Romanian pork,” The Economist, November 15, 2007, http://www.economist.com/node/10131771  Cf. Mihaela Lica Butler, “Pig Slaughtering in Romania”, Argophilia, December 15, 2011, http:// www.argophilia.com/news/pig-slaughtering-in-romania/24405/  Religious funerals were one of the most common form of residual religiosity, as Gail Kligman’s Wedding of the Dead suggests.  Cf. Simina Bădică, “‘I will die Orthodox’: religion and belonging in life stories of the Socialist era in Romania and Bulgaria,” in Ageing, Ritual and Social Change: Comparing the Secular and Religious in Eastern and Western Europe, eds. Peter Coleman, Daniela Koleva, and Joanna Bornat (Farnham: Ashgate, 2013), 43 – 65.  Cf. Lucian N. Leuștean, “Between Moscow and London: Romanian Orthodoxy and National Communism, 1960 – 1965,” The Slavonic and East European Review 85, no. 3 (2007): 491– 521.  Lavinia Stan, and Lucian Turcescu, Religion and Politics in Post-Communist Romania (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

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Dej had already made strong political moves towards the autarchy that would later be seen as one of Ceaușescu’s priorities, and had sketched a particular understanding of national identity for the Romanian Popular Republic, that moved away from the political priorities of the Soviet Union.⁷ This, in part, meant that the political regime and the Romanian Orthodox Church (BOR) developed a relationship that gave BOR a series of privileges over the other denominations.⁸ Essential to this relationship is the fact that National Communism gained legitimacy from the presence of the Romanian Orthodox Church in the public sphere (however marginal in terms of political agency), while the Church would achieve its goals easier thanks to the nationalist politics of the dictator.⁹ In short, the understanding that to be Romanian meant to be Christian Orthodox, supported by a series of highlighted historical events, became the norm. The decision to keep the administrative headquarters of the Romanian Orthodox Patriarch just feet away from the Palace of the Parliament, the megalomaniac administrative building erected by Ceaușescu from 1977 on, is proof of the relationship between BOR and PCR. Furthermore, these theopolitical moves made before 1989 to privilege Christian Orthodoxy are part of a consistent discourse that is present in Romanian politics still today, and that should be understood in terms of continuities before and after 1989. Without this context, it might seem controversial and odd that the Orthodox Cathedral for National Salvation, is being built today in the backyard of the Palace of the Parliament.

2 Schmitt’s theopolitics complicated by Spivak’s political aesthetics The unique political continuity of Romania after 1989 has not created enough ideological friction between a traditional left and a traditional right, meaning that today the political left enacts neoliberal policies, while the political right is often liberal. As such, when discussing the interviewed politicians, the use of ‘left’ and ‘right’ will refer to the way that their political parties imagine themselves, as it is beyond the scope and space of this article to analyze the many departures from the traditional left and right values that these parties have created.

 Leuștean, “Between Moscow”.  Cf. Stan, and Turcescu, Religion and Politics.  Cf. Lavinia Stan, and Lucian Turcescu, “Politics, National Symbols and the Romanian Orthodox Cathedral,” Europe-Asia Studies 58, no. 7 (2006): 1119 – 39.

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To further complicate things, Carl Schmitt’s term ‘political theology’ proves insufficient to help analyze these local complexities. The term ‘political theology’ is classically associated with Carl Schmitt, who defines it as the way in which “all significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts.”¹⁰ Issues with Schmitt’s definition begin when he starts lamenting the loss of conflict in the making of the political, with the dawn of modernity and liberalism. His interest in hostility and in the possibility to kill political enemies makes his larger theoretical project unadoptable today. It is of course important to understand Schmitt in the context of his chronotope and to acknowledge the subsequent limitations of his theory. While important for centers of Catholic thought and theory, where imagining and fighting evil with conservative tools was central, and where Schmitt was a household name, his definition does not fully satisfy the needs of researchers working within other contexts. In this sense, a useful critical tool is Gayatri Spivak’s focus on decentralizing alterity through the aesthetic, which helps build an alternative form to political ethics. In short, what Spivak suggests, is a deconstruction of the theopolitical to the ends of identifying and analyzing instances of masculinist leadership characterized by moral judgment and calls to action against a racial or gendered Other, usually seen as an enemy.¹¹ In this sense, Gayatri Spivak’s reinterpretation of Derrida for a challenge to masculinist conceptions of leadership will be the lens through which ‘political theology’ is understood.¹² While the term ‘political theology’ has a complicated history and deserves far more space than is available here, what is important to note is that this article uses the term not in a prescriptive way, but in a descriptive sense, as a means to analyze how religious identity and values shape politics in Romania, by looking at two aspects: The first refers to the fact that the political left and the realm of the religious are not necessarily divergent. As an example, the Christian Orthodox national identity in Romania was one of the discourses employed in the making of national communism and became the cement for its autarchic imaginary. New and old generations of politicians still identify both as religious and as left wing and explain the ways these two identities work together. The second issue refers to the fact that the December 1989 revolution did not mean an epistemological and ontological break-through, as the people in positions of power

 Carl Schmitt, Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty, ([1922]; reprint, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 36.  Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, “Terror: A Speech after 9.11,” boundary 2 31, no. 2 (2004): 81– 111.  Erin Runions, “Detranscendentalizing Decisionism: Political Theology after Gayatri Spivak,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 25, no. 2 (2009): 67– 85.

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were simply reassigned roles. In this sense I will analyze as briefly as possible the leadership histories of the political left and its contenders in order to explain that to this day many left-wing politicians in Romania also identify as religious, and what their rationale for this epistemological link is.

3 Aspects of political theology in Romania’s continuity Eastern European countries have not formed their socialist identities organically, but followed soviet blueprints, a characteristic that is worth developing more to understand the topic at hand in Romania. As a country that survived mostly from agriculture and was not at the forefront of capitalist development, interbelic Romania did not have the same sorts of class wars proposed by Marxism, nor the polarity of the bourgeois versus the proletariat, even if this was later added to the Party’s discourse.¹³ As a result of this disconnect between Soviet Marxism and the Romanian onsite realities, some of the internal class enemies were imagined in the social class of wealthy peasants (‘chiaburi’). On May 20th 1990 Ion Iliescu and his newly-formed National Salvation Front (FSN) were winning the elections with 85 % (presidential elections) and 66 % (government).¹⁴ Iliescu’s political message as a presidential candidate was a “President for our Peace of Mind”, symbolizing a change from the political and economic turmoil of the last decade. These were the first post-communist elections in Romania, and democracy was a strange epistemic category for voters and politicians alike. While democracy was the goal and democratic institutions were quickly being formed, the political class had little experience with what governing as democrats might entail. However, a large majority of them had governing knowledge and expertise in knowing how to act politically, which they had accumulated as members of the Romanian Communist Party. In another interesting Romanian continuity, Iliescu’s FSN, the political body best known for having numerous PCR members in its leadership, was for a long time the largest political party in the country to win elections without needing political alliances. This occurred since its formation in May 1990, and even after it changed its name to the current Social Democrat Party (PSD), with two previous denominations – FDSN and PDSR. This continuity preserved the gov-

 Cf. Dan Pavel, Democrația bine temperată (Bucharest: Polirom, 2010), 37. Another problem was that during this time the Communist Party of Romania was very small and chaste.  Pavel, Democrația, 15.

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erning epistemics of the pre-1989 era by establishing an unbalance between a large ruling party and a number of smaller, opposition parties. From FSN’s leadership, many have emerged with governing strategies that have privileged and centered BOR. While in some European countries the post-1989 trust in democratic institutions kept growing organically, Romania’s case experienced an epistemological hiatus between the type of governing experience that the political class had, and the enormous expectations of the electorate towards the quick and efficient construction of a democratic state. In other words, Romania’s pursuit for democracy started with a crisis. Similar to Andreas Glaeser’s analysis of East Germany’s socialism, what occurred in Romania in the early 90s was a political epistemic crisis due to the failure of the administrative and ideological elites to produce understandings of the ideology that would have been adequate for the maintenance of its institutions – in this case, however, this failure came from the novelty of the new ideology for all the actors involved. To speak of the crisis of democracy thus meant something very different in Romania than what it means in countries with consolidated democracies. Of the few things that spoke to voters and politicians alike, the background existence of BOR in Romanian society survived. In Romania’s political affairs it was not until 2008 that a set of elections for the Senate and Chamber of Deputies represented new social, political and electoral tendencies.¹⁵ Prior to this, many of the tendencies of the political parties mirrored functions of the Communist Party, where the politicians had accumulated their governing expertise complete with the presence of an absolute leader, Ion Iliescu. As mentioned before, most left-wing parties (PSD and PD-L) had sprouted from the National Salvation Front, which in turn was started by members of the Romanian Communist Party. The 2004 presidential elections presented a new PSD candidate, Adrian Năstase, while the main opposition party, PD/ PD-L (later the Truth and Justice Alliance) had Traian Băsescu as a candidate. The most memorable quote from the 2004 presidential election campaign comes from Băsescu who famously said to his contender: “Adrian, what type of curse is plaguing this nation that they now have to pick between two ex- communists?”. In the summer of 2017, I conducted interviews with 21 politicians, aged 26 to 67; three of them are well-known high-level politicians who have been part of the Romanian Communist Party and then FSN, 16 of them self-identified as left wing politicians, 14 of them identified as religious, specifically Christian Orthodox.

 Cf. Pavel, Democrația, 29.

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Out of all of them, I would like to briefly discuss the twelve politicians who selfidentify both as religious and as left wing. All twelve of them¹⁶ have told me unequivocally that being a left-wing politician and being a religious person works hand in hand, as both ontologies focus on various forms of equality, social justice and helping the poor. The most experienced left-wing politicians I have interviewed are GM (59), HV (64), AE (69) and NA (67). They were all involved with the Romanian Communist Party and then transitioned to FSN, under Ion Iliescu. As career politicians, the four have been, according to my subsequent interviews, responsible for training and have had central roles in the lives of all the junior politicians I interviewed. My reason for highlighting this is the importance that the four have at a national level, and their central role in shaping the religious and political values of young politicians. The way these politicians have reflected on their own personal identity, as well as the way Romania has enacted political processes, helps to further understand regional complexities. While self-identifying as religious and left-wing, GM stated that “the leftright divide in the way that the West understands it, is superficial, legitimated contextually, and not necessarily representative for Romania”. As the member of a young, educated elite involved in the political life before and after 1989, but also a self-declared religious person, GM reflected on the fact that in Romania, the ideological rupture was not between left and right in the classical French sense, but between East-West affinities. He recalled being ideologically conflicted between whether or not he sided with the ‘pro-Occidental’ revolutionaries of December 1989. Long-term president of PSD, former President of the Romanian Senate, and former acting ambassador of Romania to the US, GM explained the specificity of Romanian politics, and the ways that they might not align to Western definitions of the terms: The Romanian left and PSD are seduced by the theory of the new center: once in power, they develop liberal politics – the Romanian left mimics doing politics. At the same time, when the Romanian right governs, they develop socialist politics.

Echoing GM’s view that PSD has been adopting liberal policies, HV believed most politicians adopt a discourse of religiosity for electoral reasons, but claimed he is sincerely religious, and sees the social logic of Christian Orthodoxy working hand in hand with left wing politics. HV had been politically involved before and after 1989 and had been Ion Iliescu’s 1992 and GM’s 2009 campaign  Unless otherwise specified, all quotes are from interviews I conducted with the politicians in the summer of 2017.

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manager, when each ran for president. One of HV’s personal projects was that of legislating state salaries for the clergy, a project he is most proud of. Our interview at a cigar café in Bucharest was interrupted by a young protégé of HV, who had just returned from Mount Athos in Greece and brought HV a large Orthodox icon – HV gave me this as a gift from him, at the end of the interview; he said it should serve as protection and guidance in my academic life. Yet the divine protection would have best served HV: soon after our interview, he was sentenced to two years in prison for corruption, a common situation that PSD politicians found themselves in after Traian Băsescu’s presidency and the founding of the Anti-Corruption Department (DNA). Similarly affected by corruption investigations, NA had one of the most tragic arrests in recent years, resulting in a self-inflicted gunshot wound, in 2012. In our interview held at his lavish countryside house in August 2017, he reflected on religion as being very important to his political career, as it has guided his moral values. He recalled being particularly close with the head of the Roman Catholic Church in Romania, Ioan Robu, who would often visit him in prison during the years he served for corruption (2012– 2014). NA saw himself as an important element in the transition to democracy that Romania underwent in the 1990s and 2000s, being one of the first FSN members, and one of the founding members of PSD. With a PhD in Law and a parallel academic career, NA has been prime minister and ran for president in 2004, as the PSD nominee. Although rare, I have encountered cases where an academic career and a political career co-exist. In such cases, politicians seem to understand their proclivity for left-wing policies to be something that also governs their academic life. As one of the few women in positions of power in PSD, and Romanian politics as a whole, AE has also been one of the few women I interviewed. AE was added to the parliamentary lists in 1996, when she was serving as Dean of the Chemistry Department of the Bucharest Polytechnic University. Although initially reluctant to take on a political position as an academic, she soon decided that left-wing politics worked well with her identity as a scholar working for a public university, and her Christian Orthodox identity. She served as Minister of Education twice, and takes pride in never having succumbed to a life of luxury and corruption that so many politicians in Romania are accused of, with the use of a simple argument: “I never had a chauffeur, and I never changed my old car”. These four career politicians have seen the country transition through the 1989 political moment. Their reflections on their individual and institutional choices give the readers the opportunity to reflect more in depth on particular interpretations and imaginaries of politics that might not neatly fit with the ways we understand Eastern Europe or left-wing politicians in general. Furthermore, each of them has guided and trained younger politicians who I inter-

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viewed. Inter-generational comparisons have the potential of further sketching a new model of political theology. One of the younger politicians I interviewed, VI (41), has been a member of PSD for 16 years and had started his political career by working closely with Ion Iliescu. The most interesting aspect of this relationship is the fact that he became Iliescu’s counselor after as a Theology graduate, while Iliescu had been notoriously accused in the mid-90s of being a ‘free-thinker’, which to the media meant nonreligious. Similarly, CA (30), a political science graduate, started working as a student with the PSD press office and advanced in her political career by being a personal councilor to GM in the presidential race of 2009. CA grew up with a brother who serves as a Christian Orthodox priest and she identifies as religious. She also identifies as a feminist and an activist for gender and racial equality, which she backs up with posters that she brought back from the US Democrat conventions, in support of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns. She sees Christian Orthodoxy and politics as having a great potential to work together for social causes and believes they are congruent in the life and actions of politicians. She is however critical of the lack of involvement of the Romanian Orthodox Church in social matters in the last 27 years. The fact that the national identity and the Christian Orthodox imaginary often overlap in Romania was visible especially on matters of what in the West are seen as left-wing policies, but my interviews reveal aspects that offend the religious proclivities of some of these politicians. For example, a male politician, CT, member of the PSD and a minister in the new cabinet, has criticized another one of his colleagues, who I also interviewed, as being the only member of the party who voted against the Romanian constitution being changed to favor heterosexual families. Gay rights are an issue that has long been on the agendas of Western left-wing political parties yet are rejected by a majority of the left-wing politicians who I interviewed. Out of the sixteen left wing politicians interviewed, four see themselves as atheists. BO (36) and CG (52), both women, are feminist activists and active members in academia and in political parties. While CG has been a member of PSD since its early days, BO is one of the founders of the Demos platform, an initiative group turned and started by a group of academics, political scientists, anthropologists and journalists, all standing for a secular left, that aligns to values respecting gender and racial equality. The other two left-wing politicians who see themselves as atheists are GD (32) and MF (35), both male. GD is a citizen of The Republic of Moldova and has received his doctorate in Sociology with a thesis on Romanian soccer hooligans. He stands for class inequality, as well as the other values supported by Demos, the platform he is part of. MF is Roma and stands for racial inequality, and is also the only PSD member, according to my interview

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with CT, who has voted against the change of the Romanian constitution. While these four members are incredibly invested in civil society and policies, they are the only ones of all my interviewees (left and right-wing) who have declared they are atheist. Everyone else embraces a religious identity. The interviews with the religious left-wing politicians have been diverse but also cohered in a number of key points. MA (37) has been a member of PSD since his first year as a university student. He has a BA in History (as do many of the junior politicians I interviewed) and said he has never seen incongruence in being left wing and being a devout Christian Orthodox. MA goes to church every Sunday with his wife and parents and believes left wing politics and Christian Orthodoxy work hand in hand because they are both about equality and giving. MA and MF are colleagues and friends, despite their divergences in terms of political theology. The junior members of PSD were an interesting group to interview, as they see their religiosity informing their politics while admitting to an inheritance from the Romanian Communist Party. PG (35), a minister in the new government, got involved in politics in 2003, while pursuing a BA in IT. He fought for the rights and freedoms of students and slowly got involved in organizing the PSD youth. He learned politics by working with experienced politicians, who had also been active as members of the Communist Party, decades ago. PG said the people he was able to learn from in PSD inspired his beliefs that we are not born with equal opportunities and that politics should help create equality. The experienced politicians, especially GM and AE, supported and trusted him, while at the same time, infused his cosmology with a religious drive to help others. He strongly believed in the role of the Romanian Orthodox Church to improve the social lives of people, and said he is personally driven by an authentic sentiment (although he is aware that some politicians use a religious discourse to simply advance a political agenda). Such an example might be RL (47), an economist and entrepreneur, who had recently been named Minister of Culture. The appointment of the new government had been thoroughly contested as being political in nature and not merit-based, by fellow politicians and the media. The new minister was named after months of violent protests in January and February of 2017, which led to the decision of renaming ministers. Smoking a thick cigar in his ministerial office, RL told me how he started his political career as a student on January 20, 1990. While he condemned excesses related to the political use of the Church, he said that as a patriot, religion is central to him: “in thinking about your country and its becoming, it’s impossible not to also think about God”. He often switched between highlighting the importance of religious discourse for the electorate and suggesting ways I could repay him for the

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time he was spending giving me an interview. His time as Minister of Culture was short lived. CT (49), LA (46) and CI (53) are three of the political figures who saw a different side of religiosity driving their political agenda – the fight against gay marriage. CT, now a minister in the new government, believed the Romanian Orthodox Church has always been driven by policies of social solidarity, which are congruent with his political agenda. He believed that the Bible’s moral norms need to be reflected in the bodies of law of a country like Romania, as they are essential to good governing. Although he saw PSD, the party that he has been active in for the last 23 years, as a legitimate member of the European social democrats, he believed Romania should not subscribe to the pro-LGBT policies promoted by Western social democrats. As someone supported and inspired by senior PSD members in his early years, CT believed it is essential for a politician to express his political identity – and he certainly does so in his position as a minister. LA is trained as an engineer and a theologian and has served as a state secretary for the Ministry of Culture for four years. He saw himself as leftwing, even though he had consistently refused to join a political party. He devoted most of his life to theoretical physics and advanced mathematics, but realized the high-level questions of natural sciences and metaphysics, can only be answered through theology. He received his Th.D. in 2002 and started his political career in 2005, while also pursuing an academic career and teaching in higher education. He expressed discontent with secularizing policies and believed pro-LGBT policies express the “satanic spirit of Marxism”. The same line of thought was pursued by CI, who saw himself as an independent politician, and who started his political career informally, as a student involved in the 1989 Romanian revolution. CI believed pro-LGBT policies are what he called “sexo-marxism”, a term he strongly supported to have invented himself, and believed PSD does not represent what the left should stand for, which is conservative values, but is “a neoliberal party, representing the economic and political right formed in 1990”.

4 Fragments of political theologies While it may sound strange that communism – something we usually think of as godless, based on reason – and religion work together, we have to deconstruct the concepts of knowledge and belief in order to understand where our own bias towards these epistemologies comes from. Traditionally, we think of knowledge as equated to reason and religion as equated to belief, but in practice, we often believe in science (with no personal proof) while others know religious

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facts (perhaps through bodily experience or through the reason of some principles). In this sense, Jaques Derrida’s concept of logocentrism can help. Derrida uses logocentrism as a concept meant to criticize the Western metaphysical tradition of taking ‘logos’ (reason) as the locus of truth and meaning. Derrida points to the logical inconsistencies of logocentrism that more often than not pass unexamined and are reabsorbed by ultimate forms of truth, which in turn reproduce and maintain the authority of logos intact.¹⁷ Similarly, Berger and Luckmann discuss the constructed, symbolic aspect of theology and science, revealing that they interpret, rather than describe the world, often with the goal of legitimizing institutions.¹⁸ Bruno Latour defines religion and science as regimes of enunciation that are equally epistemologically valid. Thus, from a Latourian perspective, associating the religious to belief and science to information is inadequate. Latour finds the cause of this false epistemic categorization in the identity of modern Western industrialized society and the fact that it is established on an epistemology of ‘mediation’ and ‘purification’, meaning that it is full of descriptive inconsistencies that have obstructed both natural and social scientists¹⁹. It is by now a well-known fact that the famous “religion is the opium of the people”, which has constructed the belief and discourse of many individuals and institutions alike that Marxism is antireligious, is merely a decontextualized phrase. The full quote from Karl Marx’s A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right is: The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless

 Cf. Jacques Derrida, and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Of Grammatology (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1976), 85.  Cf. Peter L. Berger, and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (New York: Penguin Books, 1966).  Bruno Latour, We have Never Been Modern (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991), 55.

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conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.²⁰

As becomes obvious from the above, Marx′s take on religion is far more nuanced than we have been led to believe. This in turn means that a left-wing politician being religious may indeed be far from an ontological crisis, as a member of one of the various regimes that claimed direct or indirect legitimacy from Marxist ideology. That being said, the issue at hand, based on the little we have discussed from Latour and Derrida’s views on the matter, is much deeper. The issue is not simply that a large majority of scholars or other agents of the discourse on Marxism have decontextualized Karl Marx’s words, but that the way we perceive truth and meaning is often linked to deeply flawed takes on epistemology. Many tend to erroneously lump together the history and geography of communism, and to associate it with secularism²¹ and secularization.²² Not only Marx and Engels, but many other important names in the scholarly and political life of communism have been interested in religion, in materializing theology and theologizing materiality.²³ Marx, for example, postulated that atheism is the last step of theism, creating God through negative recognition, admitting that someone cannot be an atheist before first having a God to lock up. For Marx²⁴, socialism goes beyond this negation, as man’s positive self-consciousness is no longer mediated through the abolition of religion. In order to offer more context for such interest in religion, a few examples are in order. In discussing fundamental rights, Marx and Engels responded to and criticized the Bible.²⁵ Vladimir I. Lenin, in his early years in England,

 Karl Marx, “A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right”, in Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher (1844), [reprinted in Dimitrios Roussopoulos, ed., Faith and the Faithless: An Anthology of Atheism (Montreal: Black Rose Books, 2007), 141].  Cf. Roland Boer, Criticism of Heaven: On Marxism and Theology (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 35.  Cf. Gert Pickel, and Kornelia Sammet, Transformations of Religiosity: Religion and Religiosity in Eastern Europe 1989 – 2010 (Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2012).  Cf. Roland Boer, In the Vale of Tears: On Marxism and Theology V (Leiden: Brill, 2014), 14.  Cf. Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 ([1844] Reprint Mineola: Dover Publications, 1961).  Cf. Boer, Vale of Tears, 52.

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used to be a frequent churchgoer²⁶, since he could meet and talk to the workers at the end of mass. An even more interesting communist account of religion comes from Rosa Luxembourg, who advanced the idea that early Christianity was communist, and that Marxism will advance Christian communism to its next natural step²⁷. For most of the political regimes that claimed, legitimately or not, a Marxist development model in the second half of the 20th century, religion was perceived as a competing narrative to the party prerogatives and was suppressed in various degrees across their territories.²⁸ Joseph Stalin was amongst the first leaders to implement strict changes in how the public space functioned, by turning churches into gyms, libraries, or museums of atheism. However, religion still had an important role in the private life for some citizens. This became visible in the 1980s – arising even within the heterogeneous religious landscape and different denominations, each had their own level of power and own role within a certain society. A distinct case from the 1980s can be seen in Poland, where people started social movements as they identified more with the Catholic Church than the socialist state.²⁹ However, if we define the base of secularism as a system of thought and action that draws its terms purely from this world and this age (a so-called ‘modernity’), then the regimes that claimed direct or indirect legitimacy from Marxist ideology can be both secular and anti-secular, argues Roland Boer.³⁰ Beyond all the policy discussions surrounding secularism (church-state separation, antireligious, etc.), if we think of it as a system that draws its terms exclusively from this spatiotemporal present, then it cannot draw its reference point from anything outside this spatiotemporal present, be it God or a better future society. Thus, Marxism is neither secular (even though it contains Marx’s study of capitalism), nor anti-secular (even though it aspires to a society which does not yet exist), but rather lies between these two possibilities.

 Cf. Roland Boer, “The Sacred Economy: An Outline,” Political Theology Today, March 14, 2013.  Cf. Roland Boer, Criticism of Religion: On Marxism and Theology II, (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 45.  See Julia Gerlach, and Jochen Töpfer, The Role of Religion in Eastern Europe Today (Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2015).  Cf. Gerlach, and Töpfer, The Role of Religion.  Cf. Boer, Criticism, of Religion, 47.

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5 Requiem for epistemology – what are knowledge and belief? Is religion a proper epistemic source, or in other words, a way of knowing? If we think it is not, where does this belief come from? In the context of this current analysis, is it legitimate for politicians to govern through their religious convictions rather than in their absence? It is important to have scholarship that looks at different ways of knowing, thereby giving special attention to indigenous discourses, and finding a way of shedding some critical light on Western categories. Religion is certainly a way of knowing, in this sense.³¹ Much like Bruno Latour, Otavio Velho criticizes the way that science has completely claimed the concept of information as its own, which unbalances the plurality of different regimes of enunciation. Scientific production of information is rarely unbiased, undistorted, direct and superior to other ways of knowing. In other words, if religion is placed in a subordinate position in relation to information, this only allows it to identify with belief, which, based on Western epistemic categories, is considered to be a second-rate sort of knowledge. The main distinction in scholarship seems to be between believing in something (belief) and believing that something is true (knowledge). Yet, we believe that many things are true, and this is often simply faith or trust. In simple terms, knowledge requires belief that, not belief in – for example, a dictator may not believe in democracy, but he may believe that some principles of democracy are true ³²– in this particular example, the latter may actually motivate the former. Latour’s regimes of enunciation (or epistemic cultures) help explain how we know what we know, they create and warrant knowledge. The main institution of knowledge today seems to be science.³³ Especially in the Christian West, contemporary societies are becoming knowledge societies, run by experts and expert processes. As important and respected as empirical knowledge may be, we often fail to understand how the hard sciences form and distribute it, and what their mechanisms are. Our bias becomes clear when comparing cultures to science – while we think of cultures as many, diverse, incongruent, we often imagine the sciences to hold a unitary and universal truth. The verb imag-

 Cf. Otavio Velho, “Is Religion a Way of Knowing?” in Anthropological Approaches to Crafting Experience and Knowledge, ed. Mark Harris (New York: Berghahn Books, 2007), 64– 91.  Cf. Kevin McCain, The Nature of Scientific Knowledge. An Explanatory Approach (Berlin: Springer International Publishing, 2016), 26.  Cf. Karin Knorr Cetina. Epistemic Cultures: How the Sciences Make Knowledge (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999), 29.

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ine is extremely important here – the point of anthropology today should be to deconstruct epistemological imaginaries, in other words, what we think we know about the world and ourselves and why we think this is a more valid ontology than others. Analyzing the construction of knowledge is just as important as analyzing the construction of the mechanisms of the construction of knowledge.³⁴ A negatively biased view of religion affects politics that then support and follow the same sort of view, and is present in social life, science, modernity and ways of building democracy. However, Latour does not believe religion is about the transmission of information, but that there is a need to map the “felicity conditions” (activities capable of evoking the truth) of religion and other regimes of enunciation.³⁵ This strategy, Latour hopes, will rescue both politics and religion from the scientific paradigm and allow some balance to be regained in the relationship of the different regimes of enunciation. Instead of developing under the biased paradigm of information, politics and religion create knowledge through the formation of groups and through transformation and conversion of the way individuals think. However, Velho criticizes the narrow lens that Latour uses at this point of his analysis, arguing that the Latourian perspective relies far too heavily on the Pauline (Catholic) model of producing religious knowledge, which rarely works outside of the Christian West.³⁶ The change of perspective in the epistemic paradigm that Velho suggests is useful for discussing the Christian Orthodox example this article analyzes – Velho claims that in other parts of the world we can imagine the relationship between modernity and religion not as a rupture, but as a mixture containing elements of continuity.³⁷ Much like the equally legitimate regimes of enunciation that Latour proposes, Velho suggests that we can see the world as a plurality of equally legitimate sets of alternative modernities, instead of comparing everything to a decisively flawed model of Occidentalism.³⁸ While Velho’s idea seems sound in essence, he later suggests that underdeveloped geographies could be a good way of building alternative models. The way he employs the term ‘underdevelopment’ may show a lack of deep commitment to a true ontological turn towards an equitable use of ‘alternative modernities’: “Yet in this era of second thoughts concerning modernity, perhaps underdevelopment will indeed have

 Cf. Knorr Cetina. Epistemic Cultures, 243.  Bruno Latour, Jubiler, ou les Tourments de la Parole Religieuse (Paris: Les Empêcheurs de Penser en Rond, 2002), 302– 3.  Cf. Velho, “Is Religion a Way,” 72.  Cf. Velho, “Is Religion a Way,” 69.  Cf. Velho, “Is Religion a Way,” 65.

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its advantages: the exploration of alternative modernities”.³⁹ Another important question would perhaps be to what extent these perceived underdeveloped Others agree to the terminology used to define them – and also, how much this modernization represents a goal to them. Fredrik Barth further develops the idea that there are different traditions of knowledge around the world, as well as different criteria of validity for the knowledge generated.⁴⁰ Barth defines knowledge as the set of criteria that a person employs to interpret and act on the world. A person’s stock of knowledge (which varies greatly from one person to another) structures their understanding of the world and the ways they cope with it. Religion as one such tradition of knowledge could be based on rationality, since religious belief does not violate any intellectual duties.⁴¹ Yet, the use of the term ‘intellectual’ could be problematic in this epistemic exercise. At least since the Enlightenment we tend to understand knowledge as purely an intellectual capacity, a flawed and limited view on the topic.⁴² A religious epistemology would assume religious experiences that are less clearly identifiable as obvious, or as specifically religious,⁴³ but that present themselves as moments of ordinary experience, some examples being natural beauty or the awareness of a moral demand upon us. In order to receive this religious epistemology, we do not need any special religious faculty or sense apparatus – they are natural intimations of the transcendent. According to John Cottingham to expose oneself to these experiences, one needs to be receptive and willing to change – this again comes as a Pauline bias or the fact that religious epistemologies need conversion, much like what Velho criticized in Latour’s theoretical stance. Cottingham’s reformed epistemology resulted from a dissatisfaction towards fundamentalist epistemology, which holds that religious belief lacks evidence and good arguments and is thus irrational. Reformed epistemology argues that classical epistemology is self-referentially incoherent and leads to skepticism about beliefs that we normally take to

 Velho, “Is Religion a Way,” 69.  Cf. Fredrik Barth, “An Anthropology of Knowledge,” Current Anthropology 43, no. 1 (2002): 13 – 4.  Alvin Plantinga, Knowledge and Christian Belief (Grand Rapids: William. B. Eerdmans, 2015), 43.  Cf. Fredrik Barth, “Other Knowledge and Other Ways of Knowing,” Journal of Anthropological Research 51, no. 1 (1995): 65 – 8.  Cf. John Cottingham, “Confronting the Cosmos: Scientific Rationality and Human Understanding,” Proceedings of the ACPA (Philosophy Documentation Center) 85 (2011): 27– 42.

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be rational, even though they are not formed inferentially – perceptual beliefs, memory beliefs, beliefs about other minds.⁴⁴ Reformed epistemologists such as Cottingham manage to extend the range of reliable sources of belief to religion by suggesting that belief in God can be formed without the internal initiation by the Holy Ghost, which they claim means that if the belief in other minds is not irrational, then nor is the belief in God. Andreas Glaeser suggests that socialist political epistemics are based particularly on such forms of errors, and proposes that the rise and fall of political institutions during socialism is in part due to the failure of the administrative and ideological elites to produce understandings of socialism that would have been adequate to the maintenance of its institutions.⁴⁵ The several political and industrial projects of the East, which claimed legitimacy from Marxism, were offsprings of the Enlightenment. Although they produced remarkable results ideologically and materially – and had tremendous success, compared to western political projects, removing religion from the public sphere – they are not considered Enlightenment projects, nor scientifically valuable, while everything produced in the West is applauded as such. While it is generally considered true that the regimes of Eastern Europe and the USSR counterposed religion and science, more and more ethnographies reveal an often surprising interplay of ‘science’ (including the social sciences), state-backed atheism and religious belief, seeking, for example, to show how between the 1940s and the 1980s religion and atheism were subject to a continuous process of reconstitution as objects of social science.⁴⁶

Glaeser looks at the nature of the ideology in order to claim that as an utterly modernist phenomenon the very success of socialism was predicated on its superior reflexivity of social and economic conditions, which in turn was meant to offer superior guidance for political action, leading to a humane social order. One example of why there was no epistemic consistency in Eastern Europe’s party formations is represented by the fact that their birth goes against the very principle invoked by Marx that social formations happen naturally, as East-

 Cf. Andrew Moore, “God, Mind and Knowledge in Contemporary Philosophy of Religion,” in God, Mind and Knowledge, ed. Andrew Moore (London: Ashgate, 2014), 1– 17.  Cf. Andreas Glaeser, Political Epistemics. The Secret Police, the Opposition, and the End of East German Socialism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011), 58.  Stephen A Smith, “Introduction,” in Science, Religion and Communism in Cold War Europe, eds. Paul Betts, and Stephen A. Smith (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 3.

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ern European socialisms were mostly formed by following Soviet blueprints, thus being the results of politics in its purest form. Politics is the silent third in a coupling of epistemic traditions. While we often debate the formation of knowledge and its legitimacy in the field of science or religion, we often forget that politics is an equally important field where knowledge is born. When it comes to politicians and politics, matters of knowledge are particularly sensitive. Some important questions related to knowing and governing must be asked here: What does it do to the world to know it? What does it do to politics and the government to know them? Epistemology has a very important role in challenging the accepted boundaries between knowing and governing. In this sense, Foucault’s concept of governmentality⁴⁷ seeks to discover and understand the epistemic aspects involved in governing. The making of knowledge, especially when the governing aspect is involved, has been criticized for creating social order rather than discovering and mirroring it.⁴⁸ As Richard Freeman and Jan-Peter Voß explain it, there may be an ontological dimension to knowing governance, not only an epistemological one. In other words, the epistemic practices that describe a certain order of governance may actually bring it into existence instead of mirroring a political order that is already in place. If epistemic practices are involved in the construction of political order, it means that knowledge loses its moral dimension that made it so central to the epistemic traditions we have just discussed. Knowledge acting as a tool for creating and institutionalizing particular versions of political order changes its nature into pure politics, where it acts to change collective realities and becomes an infrastructure for doing politics. How do politicians know how to govern, how do they understand how to act politically? In theory, experience should be one of the key answers here, as it comes with a certain form of legitimacy. However, in the case of the perceived points of political rupture taking place in Central and Eastern Europe in 1989, the international community has argued for completely changing the political elites and the figures of authority that have remained in the public eye as state administrators through the transition have been systematically criticized.

 The term ‘party governmentality’ is formulated by Michel Foucault in the lectures Naissance de la biopolitique, lecture of 7 March 1979, 196 – 7; also in Michel Focault, The Birth of Biopolitics, (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 190 – 1.  Cf. Richard Freeman, and Jan-Peter Voß, “Introduction: knowing governance,” in Knowing Governance. The epistemic construction of political order, eds. Jan-Peter Voß and Richard Freeman (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 1– 33.

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Yet lack of practice, direct observation and expertise often leads to error⁴⁹ – why would it be a preferred tool for governing? Error, as related to memory, testimony and perception is considered to be a reliable form of gaining knowledge in modern contemporary epistemology.⁵⁰ Ernest Sosa suggests that the Cartesian skepticism in analyzing epistemologies is a project of understanding which are the beliefs that no one ever seriously doubts (habitual opinions) which are much more reasonably believed than denied. The Cartesian metaphor of the basket of apples⁵¹ did not suggest remaining without beliefs and then rebuilding from nothing – this in itself would be impossible: which would our pointers be for what is a valid belief and what is not? Sosa suggests instead that the Cartesian discarding of a belief means declining to endorse it epistemologically, whether it had this endorsement previously or not.⁵² However, in terms of how we become acquainted with the world, the epistemic source of the world and ourselves is linguistic.⁵³ In other words, in becoming proficient in a language, we do not acquire a set of tools for expressing the truth so much as we become familiar with the truth as expressed in that language. To take this a step further, if the ‘language’ we speak is political ideology, then this too shapes the way we see the world and the way we come to understand epistemic matters. Ideology is a very controversial term in relationship to epistemology, but one that needs further attention. Rightfully so, many scholars have had epistemological concerns about ideology – people often equate it to true or false cognition, illusion, mystification (understood as concealing the truth), but also with the function of ideas.⁵⁴ For the topic of this article, all of the above are equally important, as they reside in different strands of Marxist ideology.

 Cf. Andrew Stirling, “Knowing Doing Governing: Realizing Heterodyne Democracies,” in Knowing Governance. The epistemic construction of political order, eds. Jan-Peter Voß, and Richard Freeman (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 259 – 87.  Cf. Ernest Sosa, Epistemology (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), 6.  In a dialogue between Gassendi and Descartes in Meditations on First Philosophy, the debate is if we are to consider the totality of someone’s beliefs as a basket of apples, and if one were to remove the rotten ones, one cannot remove all the apples for the rotten ones, nor should we, since ideas cannot contaminate each other. This is Gassendi’s idea. Descartes says bad ideas can create other bad ideas.  Cf. Sosa, Epistemology, 27.  Cf. Darren R. Walhof, “Exposure and Disclosure: The Risk of Hermeneutical Truth in Democratic Politics,” in Truth Matters. Knowledge, Politics, Ethics, Religion, eds. Lambert Zuidervaart, Allyson Carr, Matthew Klaassen, and Ronnie Shuker (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2013), 103 – 22.  Cf. Michal Morris, Knowledge and Ideology. The Epistemology of Social and Political Critique (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 74.

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While the good and the bad views about ideology are not mutually exclusive, they have been historically divergent. Whereas for Friedrich Engels ideology means false consciousness,⁵⁵ for Lenin it represents the political crusade of socialism,⁵⁶ while Marx credits it as being cognitively distorted, and an intellectual weapon for the upper class.⁵⁷

Conclusion The investigation presented so far has attempted to point to some of the assumptions we have about the meaning of the political left, especially when we refer to the ex-Soviet Bloc and its area of influence. The Romanian politicians interviewed in the summer of 2017 reveal a complex epistemic continuity regarding religious identity. The symbolism of 1989 is unique in the case of Romania, as despite the televised execution of the Ceaușescu couple, the political class has continued its governing in the post-1989 era. This particularity has the potential to question the disciplinary assumptions we have formed about Eastern Europe as a homogenous bloc, as well as rethink the ways we understand temporal boundaries, such as revolutions. Using the cases analyzed in this article further reveals that the transfer and knowledge in religion, atheism and political practice is not a black and white picture, but rather a spectrum that deserves closer scholarly attention.

 Cf. Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology (International Publishers Co, 1972), 39.  Cf. Louis Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2001), 14.  Cf. Marx and Engels, German Ideology, 81.

Anna Vancsó

Religion in the public and private sphere Changes in religious knowledge in Hungary since 1945

Introduction This paper describes the process of change in religious knowledge in Hungary during the socialist system and after the political transition of 1989. It argues that with the transformation of communities based on religious belief and the relegation of religious practice and knowledge to the private sphere during the socialist system caused an interruption in the transmission of religious knowledge. Thus, the lack of religious knowledge in the overall society possibly has contributed to a redefinition of Christianity – a more cultural and identitybased concept rather than belief-based – in the political sphere.

1 Conceptualization of religion On 31 October 2016, a call by a Catholic priest for a prayer chain to help the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán appeared on an online Slovakian news site, ujszo.com, and received much publicity in the following few days in the Hungarian media. The prayer is based on an ancient blessing from the 4th century attributed to St. Patrick, and reads thus: May the Lord be beside you To guide you to the right way, May the Lord be before you To hold you in his arms and shelter you May the Lord be behind you To preserve you from the Evil’s perfidiousness May the Lord be beneath you To catch you when you fall and pull you out of the snare May the Lord be within you to console you when sadness weighs on you May the Lord be around you to guard you when the enemy attacks you, May the Lord be above you to bless you! So be blessed by the Benign God! We are praying for you Prime Minister, many of us. May God help You!¹

 http://nepszava.hu/articles/article.php?id=508949. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547085-011

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The same blessing prayer appeared in January 2012 on the webpage of the Csepel district in Budapest, whose mayor is Szilárd Németh, vice-president of Fidesz, which is currently the ruling party in Hungary since 2010 as well as between 1998 and 2002. Németh claimed that the initiator of the calling was a local priest. The prayer appeared on the webpage with the following introduction: The opposition again launched a brutal attack against Viktor Orbán. Everyone is fighting with their own resources. Let’s take up the fight! Let’s say this blessing prayer from the Old Testament as often as we can for Viktor Orbán!

The first event caused reactions by some journalists, politicians and theologians, but was not highlighted by the media. The second did not trigger any response from experts, but we do not know anything about the number of people who started praying for the Hungarian prime minister. In this paper, I aim to describe how this act can be interpreted in the publicprivate dichotomy framework with a special focus on the political sphere. Why does Christianity have this importance in the Hungarian public sphere, yet rather as culture and not as religion? Understanding my approach to this question requires basic knowledge about the changes that have taken place in the role religion plays in the Hungarian public and private spheres since the socialist system and even up to the present, as well as a conceptualization of religion within this context. My concept of religion includes narrow and broad approaches, but refers back to my quotation on the first page of this paper: An actual and current definition of religion is contextual and constructed under certain circumstances and, as such, denies the ideal of a generalizable concept of religion.² Thus, in this paper, religion is the communicative sphere of shared meanings, becoming visible with stable borders through a social action which evokes those shared meanings on a transcendent basis.³ It is therefore not only a set of shared meanings and knowledge, since it comes to life through the social action in a given context. In the context under consideration here, the shared meaning and

 See Talal Asad, Genealogies of religion: Discipline and reasons of power in Christianity and Islam (Baltimore; London: John Hopkins University Press, 2009); Martin Riesebrodt, The promise of salvation: A theory of religion.(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010) or Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, “The Reconstruction of Religious Arenas in the Framework of Multiple Modernities,” Millennium 29, no. 3 (2000): 591– 611.  This is a communicative approach of religion based on the participation theory of communication.

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knowledge become real as the basis or reference point for the social action – this is why I state that religion is not equal to ideology or culture, nor to discourse or knowledge. This concept also includes the functionalist view of religion as constructing a well-ordered worldview and social structure in which the order of social actions is also set, but with a transcendent/theistic basis which also makes it different from culture or ideology. However, the question of legitimation is still there – how and why is religion so effective in legitimating not only religious but also social realities? According to Peter Berger, religion legitimates social institutions by bestowing upon them an ultimately valid ontological status, that is, by locating them within a sacred and cosmic frame of reference. Religious legitimation purports to relate the humanly defined reality to ultimate, universal and sacred reality.⁴

In simple terms, religion gives the process of human world-construction a sacred meaning, which is externalized, then objectified and thus seen as independent from social constructions. Thus, no changes or alternatives can emerge through human and social actions; this is what Berger calls the ‘legitimation of the nomos.’ Legitimation itself provides the ‘explanations’ and justifications of the salient elements of the institutional tradition. [It] ‘explains’ the institutional order by ascribing cognitive validity to its objectivated meanings and […] justifies the institutional order by giving a normative dignity to its practical imperatives.⁵

Religion has a role in maintaining and legitimating a structured worldview as well as making sure this reality is perceived as a given for the members of the society. Passing on this already objectivated knowledge⁶ is one of the main functions of religious institutions, which are crystallized and objectivated action patterns.⁷ This knowledge also has its own symbolic horizon, which differentiates

 Peter L. Berger, The sacred canopy: Elements of a sociological theory of religion (New York: Open Road Media, 2011), 33.  Peter L. Berger, and Thomas Luckmann, The social construction of reality (New York: Anchor 1967), 111.  Cf. Berger, and Luckmann, The social construction, 287.  Cf. Michaela Pfadenhauer, The New Sociology of Knowledge: The Life and Work of Peter L. Berger. (New Brunswick; London: Transaction Publishers, 2013), 103.

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the various social worlds from one another.⁸ Religious knowledge with its own symbolic universe is one of these social worlds, and symbols serve as a framework for rituals. Rituals have key importance, since they evoke religious knowledge and remind us of the order of the world by reinforcing the objectivated knowledge. But, something else is also needed for this process of constructing and actually ‘practicing’ knowledge: a sphere where people share their experiences and thoughts in order to communicate, the possibility to create communities which day by day create and maintain this knowledge. What happens, then, when these communities are destroyed, when this knowledge becomes unavailable, when religious communities as well as religious institutions and their legitimacy of creating and maintaining worldviews become marginalized? In my analysis I will try to describe how, the role of religion changed under the socialist system by looking at the development of religion and religious institutions in the public and private spheres, their authority, legitimacy and control over the society. Subsequently, I try to connect those changes with the contemporary situation of religion and religious institutions in Hungary.

2 Relevant theories of religious change Before turning my attention to the Hungarian case concerning religious change during and after the socialist system, I would like to very briefly introduce the most important theories of secularization for my analysis: autonomization and privatization (public and private dichotomy and the habermasian idea of the separation between system and life-world); loss of control, pluralization (and generalization) and individualization (patchwork or bricolage religiosity). These phenomena appear at different levels of society and all are intertwined, although we cannot talk about a direct, causal relationship between them. Under the umbrella of secularization theory, several forms of social change are highlighted: functional differentiation and the autonomization of the different subsystems; functional rationality and, as a consequence, the disenchantment of the world and societalization. The control over people is no longer based on religion and its morals, but rather on impersonal routines and mechanisms.⁹ Berger and Luckmann have focused on another result, the privatization of religion: The legitimacy of religious norms and values are valid only in the  Cf. Reiner Keller, “The sociology of knowledge approach to discourse (SKAD),” Human Studies 34, no. 1 (2011): 43.  See Bryan Wilson, Contemporary Transformations of Religion (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976).

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sphere to which they ‘belong,’¹⁰ the sphere of private life, whereas rational order and institutional mechanisms should belong to the public sphere, the sphere of politics or economics. The clear separation between the religious-private and secular-public was highly debated¹¹ as something which is more an ideological conceptualization of society than an existing structural part of it.¹² In the 90s, José Casanova started to deal with the growing – or rather never disappearing – role of religion in the public sphere, such as the role of religion in political change or in social movements promoting change; he called this process the de-privatization of religion.¹³ This approach points out the problematic definition of the notion ‘public’ concerning religion and tries to separate the different levels of the public (state, politics, civil society or media) in order to detect at which level and in which way religion appears, and with what kind of impact.¹⁴ Others prefer to use the concept of system and life-world by Jürgen Habermas,¹⁵ or the field theory of Pierre Bourdieu,¹⁶ which shows that the presence of religion is quite visible in the different spheres or fields in various forms. The concept of civil religion¹⁷ enhances the need for a generalization of religion and religious teaching due to the high level of religious pluralization.¹⁸ Civil religion overarches conventional religions while legitimating the current system. It seems attractive and, in some sense, fit to the Hungarian situation;

 Cf. Berger, The Sacred Canopy, 133.  See Karel Dobbelaere, “Secularization theories and sociological paradigms: A reformulation of the private-public dichotomy and the problem of societal integration,” Sociological Analysis 46, no. 4 (1985): 377– 87.  See Karel Dobbealere, “Towards an integrated perspective of the processes related to the descriptive concept of secularization,” Sociology of Religion 60, no. 3 (1999): 234.  See José Casanova, Public religions in the modern world. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.)  See Jose Casanova, “Private and public religions,” Social Research 59, no. 1 (1992): 17– 57.  See Jürgen Habermas, The theory of communicative action (Volume 2) (Boston: Beacon, 1987.), 113 – 53; Jürgen Habermas, “‘The Political’: The Rational Meaning of a Questionable Inheritance of Political Theology,” in The power of religion in the public sphere, eds. Eduardo Mendieta, and Jonathan Vanantwerpen (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011), 15 – 33.  See Terry Rey, “Marketing the goods of salvation: Bourdieu on religion,” Religion 34, no. 4 (2004): 331– 43.  Cf. Robert Bellah, “Civil Religion in America,” Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 96, no. 1 (1967): 1– 21.  See Talcott Parsons, “1965 Harlan Paul Douglass Lectures: Religion in a Modern Pluralistic Society,” Review of Religious Research 7, no. 3 (1966): 125 – 46 or Stephen Warner, “Work in progress toward a new paradigm for the sociological study of religion in the United States,” American Journal of Sociology 98, no. 5 (1993): 1044– 93.

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however, the basis still should be religious belief and not only cultural preferences.¹⁹ The individualization thesis²⁰ states that religiosity is not disappearing, but is rather taking other forms in society; religiosity has become detached from the churches and their teaching, thereby becoming less institutionalized and more syncretic and individually chosen. Davie emphasizes that ‘believing without belonging’ does not equal a decrease in religiosity, but rather a change in the participation in organized religious life.²¹ This brief description of these theories was necessary, since they were all used in explaining the religious change happening during and after the socialist system between 1945 and 1989; however, this occurred in a rather retrospective way due to the lack of data for that period.

3 Religious change from 1945 until the transition Before 1945, religion played a very important role in Hungarian society. People’s everyday lives were affected and organized also by religious institutions. Religion – historical churches,²² at that time mainly the Catholic Church – had a significant role in creating general values and answering moral questions about human life. As public education was also highly influenced by religion (schools were maintained by religious institutions), and the ruling political parties were also supportive of the churches, religion and religious knowledge (again highlighting that religion meant mainly Christianity then) was available to and taken for granted by the majority of society. These factors show that religion appeared in both public and private spheres at the time. Therefore, it is not an exaggeration to say that before the socialist system Hungary was considered a ‘religious society.’²³ However, it is also important to mention that religious institutions and organizations were mainly systems of control in society, whereas we do not know that much about personal belief in the private sphere. This

 Cf. Robert N. Bellah, “American civil religion in the 1970s,” in American Civil Religion, eds. Russell B. Richey, and Donald G. Jones (New York: Harper and Row, 1974), 255 – 72.  See the work of Grace Davie, Thomas Luckmann, Daniele Hervieu-Léger and others.  Cf. Grace Davie, “Believing without belonging: is this the future of religion in Britain?,” Social Compass 37, no. 4 (1990): 455 – 69.  ‘Historical church’ is more a sociological or political concept than a legal one, referring to the churches that had a legal basis in Hungary as of 1895.  See Gyáni Gábor, and György Kövér, Magyarország társadalomtörténete a reformkortól a második világháborúig (Budapest: Osiris, 2006).

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image of a religious Hungarian society refers more to the overarching role of religious institutions in the public sphere than to the religious belief of individuals in the society. From the beginning of the socialist system, religious organizations – mainly the Roman Catholic Church as the biggest and most influential religious institution – were one of the main ideological enemies of the regime. By 1948, most of the religious schools were taken over by the state, Catholic religious orders were dissolved and the State Office for Church Affairs, a politically guided institution, was created in order to control religious organizations and minimize their impact on Hungarian society. These reforms were later abolished in 1989. During the almost 40 years in between, the relation between the socialist system and religious organizations was constantly changing, affecting the religiosity of the society. In the next section, I will briefly describe the changes to religiosity taking place in Hungarian society, starting a few years after the transition and concentrating on both the situation of religious belief and practice as well as the role of religious institutions. Researchers divide the socialist regime into four periods based on religiosity and institutional circumstances: (1) the period of confrontation (1945 – 1956), (2) the period of isolation (1956–mid-1960s), (3) the period of dialogue (mid-1960s– 1980) and (4) the period of decomposition of the system and the religious revival (from 1980). During the first period of the socialist system, all forms of religiosity (on both the public and private levels – institution, practice, belief) were suppressed. Despite these circumstances, the Catholic Church reported an intensification of religious life and their prestige was even higher than before, because religions served as a tool for resistance. This trend was explained as a reaction to the oppression of religion (also oppression in general), but can also be interpreted as a general trend in Europe after World War II.²⁴ Although, it must be emphasized that as an effect of this process, the gap between atheist and religious ideologies became visible and was attached to political preferences, atheism as the lack of resistance. In the second period, in which the state realized its inability to eradicate religion, it proclaimed religious freedom but only in the private sphere, while practicing absolute control over religious institutions in public. Thus, religion was excluded from public issues: politics, culture, any form of social movements, as  See Miklós Tomka, “Secularization or anomy? Interpreting religious change in communist societies,” Social Compass 38, no. 1 (1991): 93 – 102; Miklós Tomka, “Coping with persecution: Religious change in communism and in post-communist reconstruction in central Europe,” International Sociology 13, no. 2 (1998): 229 – 48.

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well as from the material culture by banning religious books, magazines, at least all forms of religious publications. Religions were not to be perceived in public, thus they remained inside the walls of the churches and in families. In this period, religiosity started to decrease, which could be explained as the result of a secular state and the privatization and individualization of religion; contextually, however, the disapproval of the church due to its collaboration on a certain level with the state or the lack of religious socialization outside the private sphere were also effective factors. The political strategy changed to “For he who is not against us is for us” (Mark 9:40); the system separated the religious worldview from the clerics, and defined its goal in marginalizing the reactionist clerics while reaching consensus with the major churches and being more permissive with the religious worldview. This relation was quite controversial and variable based on the actual attitude of the system, but the regime realized that since the churches would be part of the socialist system for a longer period of time, a cooperation between the different churches and the socialist state was necessary.²⁵ As a result of this more theoretical than real cooperation between the churches and the state – among many other factors – religiosity decreased until the end of the 1970s and the religious institutions lost their prestige and authority. The churches became split into two factions – those cooperating with the system against those who still tried to do their work despite the regime. In the third period, due to the permissive approach toward individual production as well as consumption, but with a failure to strengthen civil society and democracy, the individualization and atomization of the society started to grow stronger. The proliferation of small religious movements became visible, showing some need for a common practice of religion. Hegedűs calls it the fragmentation of the church.²⁶ During the 1980s, due to the consequences of the weakening socialist system, religious communities and movements continued to grow in number, involving more and more people, within but rather independent of the official churches, yet in cooperation with each other.²⁷ This process has been explained as the effect of the pluralization and individualization, but also de-privatization of religion. This independence was not only due to the negative associations with

 Margit Balogh and Jenő Gergely. Állam, egyházak, vallásgyakorlás Magyarországon, 1790 – 2005: dokumentumok, vol. 2 (Budapest: História, 2005); Völgyesi, Zoltán. “A kommunista egyházpolitika szakaszai Magyarországon 1948-tól 1964-ig,” Mediárium 5 (2011): 25 – 34.  Cf. Rita Hegedűs, “A vallásosság alakulása Magyarországon a kilencvenes évek kutatásainak tükrében,” (PhD Thesis, BCE, 2000), http://phd.lib.uni-corvinus.hu/81/1/hegedus_rita.pdf  Cf. Zoltán Rajki, “Az állam és az egyház kapcsolatának jellemző vonásai a Kádár-rendszerben,” http://www.uni-miskolc.hu/~egyhtort/cikkek/rajki-kadar.htm

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the still functioning establishment of the State Office for Church Affairs, but also because of the decreasing number of clergy or religious representatives with the relevant knowledge. Publications, books, religious education started proliferating; the intensification of religious practice became visible not only in private but also in public, when non-clerics also started to talk about its social role outside of the churches and religious communities. With the dissolution of the State Office for Church Affairs in June 1989 and the changes to the Law on Freedom of Conscience, the Right of Free Exercise of Religion, and Church Affairs ensuring legal equality of churches and believers before the law, legally and institutionally the socialist system had ended. However, the effect of the socialist system on the religiosity of the society was still considerable. I will try to present this from a sociology of knowledge perspective in the next section.

4 Approach to religious change from a sociology of knowledge perspective Studies examining the effect of religious socialization on religiosity focus on its three main agents: family, peers and church, ultimately concluding that family is the key agent in this process.²⁸ The role of religious socialization is to develop a worldview, which is basically built upon discussion and other forms of communication with others (parents, peers, etc.), yet “if such conversation is disrupted, the world begins to totter, to lose its subjective plausibility.”²⁹ The subjective reality of this world hangs from a “thin thread of conversation.”³⁰ On the disruption, Berger also mentions the ‘leaving of a social milieu,’ which from another perspective can be a change in the social milieu, the loss of a habitual and accepted worldview. I argue that, during the socialist system, the process of transmitting religious knowledge through socialization was radically changed by erasing religion from the public sphere, abolishing religious organizations and existing communities which were – besides family – the common and fundamental spheres of religious knowledge transmission.

 James W. Fowler, Becoming adult, becoming Christian: Adult development and Christian faith. (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1984); Marie Cornwall, “The influence of three agents of religious socialization: Family, church, and peers,” The religion and family connection: Social science perspectives 16, no. 2 (1988): 207– 31.  Berger, The sacred canopy, 17.  Ibid.

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Similarly to what was meant by the expression “Whoever is not with us is against us,” which in the first period of the system served to describe the attitude of the system toward anyone who did not want to be part of it, religious institutions functioning outside of the private sphere were now considered the enemy. This hostility toward any and all forms of public religiosity did not result in the disappearance of religion from the public sphere. It was there, in a hidden form, hand in hand with the political resistance, while it was also part of the private sphere just as before. Besides the political aspect of strengthening religiosity, religious socialization still had a significant effect on social resistance to the undermining of religion, since the majority of society was socialized before the socialist system was put in place. Thus, in this period, confining religion to the private sphere could happen only in theory. Later, with the agreement between the religious organizations³¹ and the state,³² the role of religion as a stronghold of political resistance disappeared, and the disillusionment in the churches resulted in a decrease in religious practice. This agreement between the churches and the state existed until the end of the regime – albeit in a changing form – making it very difficult to separate the religious from the political. The lack of trust in the churches also affected the decreasing church socialization. Religious socialization stayed inside the family. By successfully confining religion to the private sphere since the beginning of the 1960s, the shared and discursively constructed religious knowledge was destroyed, creating a fossilized, inflexible form of institutional knowledge which existed separately from the religiosity practiced and experienced privately within the family. This also affected the time devoted to religious practice as people did not spend very much time at home, due mainly to the compulsory active participation in socialist movements as well as the growing role of the so-called ‘sec-

 In order to keep the churches in the socialist block alive, Pope Paul VI and the Vatican did not reinforce the resistance against the socialist governments, which in the case of Hungary included a partial agreement with the Kádár regime by accepting their rights, e. g.: to appoint bishops. The official institution was the ÁEH – State Office of Church Affairs, which became the main actor in religious issues starting in the mid-60s, which served to connect the state and the churches. However, in order to function with some degree of freedom, religious organizations had to cooperate with the state in building and maintaining the system. Until the middle of the 70s, there was a group of church representatives supporting the system.  Cf. Máté Gárdonyi, “Túlélés–együttműködés–ellenállás. A katolikus egyház stratégiái a ‘népi demokráciákban’” in Csapdában. Tanulmányok a katolikus egyház történetéből. Állambiztonsági Szolgálatok Történelmi Levéltára, eds. Bánkuti Gábor, and Gyarmati György (Budapest; H’armattan Kiadó, 2010.) 31– 42, Völgyesi, “A kommunista egyházpolitika,” 31– 2.

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ond economy.’³³ This change in the socialization also points to an important macro-level factor: changes to the social structure and networks that began to develop and crystalize. That in turn also influenced the agents’ role in socialization. Already existing communities, structures and hierarchies were destroyed and substituted with a new socialist ideology containing an ideal regarding the convenient structure of a society. This ideal society was put into practice through socialist movements such as Uttörőmozgalom, KISZ, or Munkásőrség,³⁴ in which the socialist ideology appeared not as an alternative, but as the only legitimate worldview. The function of integration was not to belong to religious organizations anymore; the socialist regime tried to substitute this function with the socialist ideology through the creation of a new social structure based primarily on artificially created communities. Besides the changing position of the churches, the basic motivations for gathering people, most importantly young people, had changed. Young people of various social backgrounds were put together, which changed the composition of peer groups regarding social position, knowledge, beliefs and worldview. This process also played a significant role in changing religious knowledge, and it evidently affected all spheres of society. With the softening of the regime, the socialist state was more permissive; in cases where religious organizations did not participate in politics, they were quite free to act publically. The ideology demanding that religion stay in the private sphere was still applicable, but in this period it actually meant: As long as it does not interfere with politics, we do not really care. However, religious knowledge had already changed due to the interrupted communal religious practice. Thus, in many cases, new forms and understandings of religion started to spread. Their basis was no longer only the similarities in religious socialization and knowledge, but was also an effect of participation in youth movements outside the family and school, which tended to highlight the socialist ideologies. The social construction of reality depends on the symbolic references provided by family, friends and associates³⁵ and takes the form of ‘conversations’³⁶ or

 Many families, mainly parents but sometimes the older children as well, worked in the ‘second economy,’ working in their own small enterprises or on small plots of land in addition to having an official job accepted by the system.  Pioneer movement, Hungarian Young Communist League, Workers’ Militia.  Cf. Clifford Geertz, “Religion as a cultural system,” in The interpretation of cultures: selected essays, Clifford Geertz (London: Fontana Press, 1993.), 87– 125.  Cf. Berger, The sacred canopy, 2011.

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discourses in which religious experiences are articulated.³⁷ If the sphere of transmission changes, the members of the conversation also vary, which evidently affects the constructed knowledge. In the pre-socialist system, the churches had a massive impact on society in all social spheres from education through social care to politics, thus it was not easy to actually avoid religious teaching in everyday life. Riesebrodt in his study proposes what he calls a multi-vocal constellation of approaching religion by enhancing the plurality of perspectives on religion, each affected by the position in the social structure, which can be more enacted than easily articulated.³⁸ This means that religious knowledge is shaped by different needs based on individuals’ social status or position. Looking at the changes discussed above from the perspective of religious knowledge, religious representatives (clerics and other members of religious organizations) are considered to be the holders of theological knowledge, which is transmitted to the society via religious practitioners through religious rituals. Therefore, its interpretation highly depends on these representatives. The separation between theological and practical, ritual-based knowledge can result in theologically ‘empty’ rituals – rituals can lose their theological content. They can be refilled with other forms of knowledge, intensifying the transmission of a certain form of knowledge, in many cases individually or family-based, mostly in the private sphere. In socialist Hungary, public religious rituals (‘rites de passage’) such as christenings, weddings, funerals, etc. were refilled with the socialist ideology: instead of a religious christening, a profane naming ceremony; instead of church weddings, state or KISZ weddings; instead of religious funerals, institutional funerals. We can see that public rituals received profane meaning, but what about rituals that were carried out on a private level, such as praying or reading and discussing the Bible? I suppose that by separating the public from the private, theological knowledge from ritual and everyday practice, the social control of religious organizations in everyday life affairs decreased and belief, the personal religiosity, also drastically changed. This process was reinforced by the growing importance of the individual, highlighting identity as well as the search for tradition and belief, which was emerging since the mid-70s. This process was strongly emphasized from the mid-80s onward, brought about by a generational change. This change shows that besides nonreligiosity and church-related religiosity,

 Cf. Marie Cornwall, “The influence of three agents of religious socialization: Family, church, and peers,” in The religion and family connection: Social science perspectives, ed. Darwin L. Thomas (Provo: Religious Studies Center, 1988), 207– 31.  Cf. Martin Riesebrodt, “Religion: Just Another Modern Western Construction,” Religion and Culture Web Forum (2003). https://divinity.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/imce/pdfs/webfo rum/122003/riesebrodtessay.pdf.

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an individualistic, personal concept of God was emerging, separated from the socalled ‘cultural Christianity,’ which was also typical during the 1950s and 60s.³⁹ From an institutional point of view, institutional religious knowledge was also ‘liberated’ from social effects (social pressure or actual needs), which also meant the loss of control over the production and transmission of this knowledge. Such a change can also produce a shut-off from society. In the end, we can see religious institutions torn apart from social realities, belonging to neither the public nor private spheres, while various forms and interpretations of religious knowledge may proliferate in the private or even civil spheres. According to Casanova, although religion lost its role in the political field or the state, which he defines as political secularism,⁴⁰ it did not mean that the public became secular too. Religion plays an important role in building ‘ethical communities,’ defining moral codes and shaping public opinions, thus religion and religious organizations are still significant elements of civil society. Since the middle of the 1970s due to the softening of the regime on controlling all dimensions of the public sphere,⁴¹ small communities around charismatic leaders as well as religious education and publishers started to emerge. They were weakly connected to each other and to the historical churches,⁴² which was also due to the still stronger control over the institutional forms of religious life. Although the intensification of interest in religious communities increased, a survey showed the lowest level of religiosity in 1978. Additionally, the number of christenings or religious weddings also decreased.⁴³ The traditional forms of religiosity and religious practice could not recover their previous place in society, such that new forms of religiosity and religious knowledge that were separated from politics and the state could proliferate. This process showed the strengthening of civil society along with the contribution of religious communities, not as control or authority systems, but rather as grass-roots movements based on the freedom to create worldviews. Those communities were basically Christian but with a critical approach to the existing institution of churches and to the political system – such as Regnum

 Cf. Földvári Mónika, “A vallásosság típusai a mai magyar társadalom generációiban,” Szociológiai Szemle 4 (2003): 22– 33.  Cf. José Casanova, “The secular and secularisms,” Social Research 76, no. 4 (2009): 1049 – 66.  Evidently not only religious but also civil activities were proliferating, in publishing and in forming communities as well.  Cf. Tomka, “Secularization or anomy?”  Cf. Hegedűs, A vallásosság alakulása.

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Marianum,⁴⁴ Bokor community,⁴⁵ Focolare⁴⁶ and other generally local congregations around a charismatic figure who became part of the civil society.⁴⁷ The Pentecostal-charismatic movements also started growing, such as the Faith Church. In those communities a new form of religious knowledge was born, based on traditional religious teaching by priests who survived the system, but who in some cases were also outside the umbrella of the historical churches. This process was accelerated and became more widespread during the 1980s, with the appearance of the ‘second public sphere,’ an independent sphere of social movements, media, cultural activity, etc. Political control over society as a whole was impossible and, by the end of the 1980s, the system had collapsed. The ways in which religious authority and legitimacy drastically changed during the socialist system will be outlined in the following section.

5 Decline of religious authority and legitimacy To whatever extent religious authority was supervised and controlled by political institutions during the socialist regime, other social changes also had an effect. Experts in secularization theory put special emphasis on the declining religious authority as one of the main phenomena involved in religious change in the 20th century.⁴⁸ Max Weber defined religious authority similarly to political authority – an organization that enforces its order through coercion by distributing or denying religious benefits.⁴⁹ In contrast to political organizations, however, this coercion is not an actual physical coercion, since their claims are legitimated by a language of the supernatural.⁵⁰ I argue, on the other hand, that although the

 The Regnum Marianum community was founded in 1902 with the aim of strenghtening religious eduaction for youths between 10 and 18 led by priests, and was banned in 1950. Between 1950 and 1989, mainly the laity kept the community together, helping the priests who were restricted or imprisoned.  In contrast to Regnum Marianum, Bokor was founded with the direct purpose of preserving the Catholic faith and religious activity during the socialist dictatorship.  An international movement which entered Hungary at the end of the 60s.  https://vigilia.hu/regihonlap/1998/5/9805tom.html Following Miklós Tomka’s thoughts, I claim that religious communities are an important part of civil society.  See Steve Bruce, God is dead: Secularization in the West (Oxford: Blackwell, 2002); Mark Chaves, “Secularization as declining religious authority,” Social forces 72, no. 3 (1994): 749 – 74; Dobbealere, Towards an integrated perspective: 229 – 47.  Cf. Max Weber, Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology. Vol. 1, eds. Guenther Roth, and Claus Wittich (Berkeley; Los Angeles; London: University of California Press, 1978) 54.  Cf. Chaves, “Secularization,” 755 – 6.

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role of the supernatural is evidently crucial, it is only one type of legitimate force. How, then, is religious authority created, maintained and made to be accepted? According to Weber,⁵¹ there are three types of legitimizing leadership (authority): charismatic, traditional and legal (bureaucratic). He emphasized the role of charismatic legitimacy with respect to religious authority. Looking at the institutionalization and economic structure of religious organizations, the others must also be taken into consideration. Religious authority structure is a particular kind of social structure which control the access to desired goods and its legitimation derives from some supernatural component.⁵²

The legitimacy of religious authority in the case of Hungary, where religious institutions were embedded into the cultural, political and social structure throughout the country’s history, is basically built upon memory and traditions – the knowledge that is common and shared by their members and followers through generations. Religious authority is built on traditions and the institutional system, supported by the belief that clerics have knowledge about the transcendent and how the people may connect to it. This belief derives from the people’s experiences that religious organizations – both the clerics and the institutions themselves – have the right to represent the transcendent. During the first period of the socialist system, politics strongly controlled religious authority and its worldview by defining its role in maintaining an unequal social and power structure by ‘using’ the supernatural. However, politics did not have a huge effect on the legitimacy of defining a particular Christian worldview, meanings and values, because religious organizations still had power as a system of control. For the first time, however, this did not hold true for the whole society, since other possibilities had emerged for the nonreligious minority. The majority of the society still possessed personal religious knowledge, which could not have been overwritten that easily. Political control and the suppression of religious organizations and religious practice had a negative impact in the long term, which first became visible at the end of the 1960s – when the control was weakening just like religiosity was. This softening allowed the emergence of small religious movements, although not as a system of control over the whole society. Traditional churches, on the other hand, were not so easily accepted as offering a legitimate worldview anymore, mainly due to their forced cooperation with the state.  Cf. Weber, Economy, 215 – 6.  Chaves, “Secularization,” 755 – 6.

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This context was special in Hungary due to the various forms of social control. Additionally, the effect of the secularization process has to be considered regarding its influence on the declining traditional legitimacy and authority. Institutional secularization, “the elimination of mystical, sacerdotal elements from the religious system,”⁵³ played a decisive role in this process. Another factor is the co-existence of several forms of religious legitimation due to pluralization, which evidently would have had less impact before the socialist system, when Christian organizations had a monopoly on the religious field. However, the pre-socialist role of religious institutions in society was also a reference point for the historical churches after the transition as well.

6 Religiosity, religious knowledge and the churches’ role after the transition The political transition destroyed the barriers created against religious institutions, which were again free to act visibly in society. While politics at that time was not always in favor of the clergy, the accepted consensus among political parties was that “religion and the churches are functional elements in a healthy civil society.”⁵⁴ The law on religious freedom was based on the idea of the French ‘laïcité.’ On the political level, Hungary became a secular country with a neutral worldview.⁵⁵ The historical churches and religious communities mainly followed two routes in attempting to cope with the new situation: One involved reverting to their pre-war status in society, as Kamarás called the “ruling state-church, popular church”⁵⁶ era, in which their significant role in civil society as well as the public and political spheres was indisputable. In many cases, religious leaders ruled instead of served the local communities. The other approach followed a new spirit called ‘aggiornamento’ emerging from the Second Vatican Council, in which churches turned their attention from the state to civil society to build new communities, and kept up with the rapid changes taking place in the democratic society. Several Catholic spiritual movements were born during the ‘soft regime,’  Bryan R. Wilson, “Aspects of Secularization in the West,” Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 3, no. 4, (1976): 261.  Zsolt Enyedi, “The Contested Politics of Positive Neutrality in Hungary,” in Church and state in contemporary Europe: the chimera of neutrality, eds. John T. S. Madeley, and Zsolt Enyedi (New York: Routledge, 2003), 161.  Neutral in this context means no direct connection with any religious or political tradition.  István Kamarás, “Civil Society and Religion in Post-Communist Hungary,” Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 13, no. 1/2 (2001): 121.

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which proliferated after the transition with varying degrees of connection to the official church (Focolare Movement, Regnum Marianum, Bokor, etc.), and created a stronger bond between the Catholic Church and civil society than the actual church-related organizations could.⁵⁷ Thus, religious movements played an important role in civil society, with or without the recognition of official churches, from social and health services to education and even publishing. Although the monopoly of the historical churches was reinstalled on the institutional level, their legitimacy in defining norms, values, a well-ordered worldview and social structure was no longer taken for granted. There was a need for discourse within the society, which according to researchers did not quite happen.⁵⁸ This does not mean that the revival could have clearly been successful in the case of better communication, since the high number of small religious communities and spiritual movements served as alternatives to the rather traditional religious participation and practice. The increasing trend of official church-related religiosity stopped at the end of the 1990s. The increase was explained by the possibility of practicing religion as well as the growing existential insecurity following the transition.⁵⁹ The individualized form of religiosity is still thriving today.⁶⁰ At the macro–level, the idea of a secular state separating church from state was still accepted, up until recently when it became quite questionable.⁶¹ Individualization and privatization⁶² as parts of the secularization process have also been proven in Hungary.⁶³ Studies have shown that from the beginning of the 1980s, new, individually created and

 Cf. Zsuzsanna Bögre, “Békepapság az üldözött egyházban” in Studia religiosa: tanulmányok András Imre 70. születésnapjára, eds. Máté-Tóth András, and Jahn Mária (Szeged: Bába, 1998), 61– 72.  See Miklós Tomka, “Egyház és kommunikáció – Milyen rétegekkel kommunikál a magyar egyház?” Európai Szemmel 4 (1996): 53 – 66.  See Ronald Inglehart, and Pippa Norris, Sacred and secular. Religion and Politics Worldwide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).  See Gergely Rosta, “Church and religion in Hungary: between religious individualization and secularization,” The Social Significance of Religion in the Enlarged Europe: Secularization, Individualization and Pluralization, eds. Detlef Pollack, Olaf Müller, and Gert Pickel (London; New York: Routledge, 2012), 187– 205.  See Charles Taylor, “A secular age” (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2007); Habermas, “The Political.”  See Thomas Luckmann, The invisible religion. The Problem of Religion in Modern Society (New York: Macmillian, 1967); Grace Davie, “Europe: the exception that proves the rule?” in The desecularization of the world: Resurgent religion and world politics, ed. Peter L. Berger (Washington D.C.: Erdmans, 1999), 65 – 83; Daniele Hervieu-Léger, Religion as a Chain of Memory. (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2000).  E. g. Rosta, “Church.”

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selective forms of religious beliefs and practices appeared, in which the role of God shifted to the sacralization of the self, while traditional religious dogmas no longer provided points of reference. However, the aforementioned spiritual movements and communities were also represented in high numbers after the transition, thus the idea of believing without belonging⁶⁴ is questioned from that perspective. This brief description shows that different concepts of religious change exist in parallel in Hungarian society. This supports the idea of a ‘multiple secularization,’ different processes of secularization that can happen at the same time at a given place.

7 Religion in the private and public spheres At the institutional level, the role of religious organizations in public was extended and its clear separation from politics and from the state was supported. Religious organizations were given a place in education, healthcare and social services, but did not really communicate outside its walls. Right after the transition, the debate on the position of religious organizations was more about their legal status, institutional structure and function, thus the institution and its status within the power structure was the focus of redefinitions at the expense of questions of religiosity and belief.⁶⁵ The Aufbruch Studies’⁶⁶ results from 1998 showed that the Hungarian society at a certain level accepted or even expected the involvement of the churches in the public sphere. Churches could appear in public on matters of social issues such as poverty, unemployment, abortion, etc., but were not to intervene in politics and policy creation or actively participate in the media.⁶⁷ On the private level, society was less tolerant about the intervention of churches on questions of private morality, and stated that religion was not necessary for a happy life. What seems quite clear is that religious institutions were expected to be active in the public sphere and shape the democratic institutions, but all within a given legal framework to ensure the separation between actual politics and religion. In terms of the religiosity of the country, a crucial

 See Davie, “Believing.”  Mária Vásárhelyi, “Az intézményrendszer presztízséről,” Jel-Kép 2 (1995): 3 – 12.  Aufbruch Studies was the largest international research project on religion in the CEE coordinated by Prof. Paul M. Zulehner (University of Vienna) and Prof. Miklós Tomka (Pázmány Péter Catholic University). It was conducted during the first wave (1998) with ten participating countries, expanding in the second wave (2008) to 14.  Cf. Miklós Tomka, and Paul Michael Zulehner, eds. Religion in den Reformländern Ost(Mittel) Europas (Ostfildern: Schwabenverlag, 1999).

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recognition was that in the cities people were less tolerant with the idea of a Christian-based dominant political ideology due to the prevailing cultural and religious pluralism. In contrast, in the countryside the classical forms of religious practice and belief were still quite strong and ‘traditional’ believers were in the relative majority. Rural believers thought that the majority principle of democracy should be in favor of the politically promoted Christianity. According to Miklós Tomka, “the ‘Christian Hungary’ catchword is deeply rooted in this social context.”⁶⁸ Another important factor affecting the role of churches in the public sphere is the emergence of civil society. In the socialist system, there was less possibility to build organizations, as the regime was afraid of any form of gathering outside the socialist system and thus outside their observation. That erased the people’s basic ‘ability’ to build a healthy and strong civil society after the socialist system, resulting in their inability to self-organize or self-advocate. As a result, the number of civil organizations quickly rose, but their legal and functional framework was quite questionable.⁶⁹ The very strong territorial fragmentation of the country was also visible in the territorial distribution of civil activity, and the lagging regions were less active in building communities.⁷⁰ The landscape of the civil sphere was quite fragmented, in which religious organizations also tried to find their place by gathering people together, but without the practical knowledge about how to compete for the people’s trust. Religious organizations have to compete not only with each other, but also with the ‘profane’ forms of organizations. The locally functioning, smaller religious communities, in many cases connected to the churches, had more success building communities than the large religious institutions. The intensification of functioning religious organizations in the civil sphere caused a religious revival in the country, but by the middle of the 1990s church-related religiosity was decreasing while the ‘I am religious in my own way’ format started to increase, which was explained as an effect of individualization.⁷¹ Clearly, the growing number of possibilities for civil participation and the increase in religious organizations outside of the official churches strongly affected religious pluralism in the country and religious

 Miklós Tomka, Vallás és társadalom Magyarországon (Budapest: Piliscsaba, 2006), 54.  Cf. László Kákai, Kik is vagyunk mi?: Civil szervezetek Magyarországon. (IDResearch Kft./Publikon Kioadó, 2009) http://www.tankonyvtar.hu/en/tartalom/tamop425/0050_09_kakai/index.html.  Cf. András Körösényi, Csaba Tóth, and Gábor Török, A magyar politikai rendszer (Budapest: Osiris Kiadó, 2003).  Cf. Tárkányi Ákos, “A gyermekszám és a vallásosság kapcsolata,” Demográfia 49, no. 1 (2006): 68 – 84.

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knowledge became more fragmented.⁷² Although the position of the historical churches was formally reinstated, they were not able to increase the number of their members after the end of the 1990s. This situation formally changed in 2011, with a new political turn toward the historical churches.

8 The political interpretation of Christianity “In Europe even the atheists are Christian.”⁷³

Although this quotation comes from Viktor Orbán, he is referring here to József Antall, the first democratically elected prime minister of Hungary, who made the above statement after the fall of the socialist system. It shows that various Hungarian – non-socialist – governments have emphasized the importance of Christianity to different degrees since the transition, but with particular emphasis on its cultural and historical aspects rather than religious or institutional ones, bearing in mind the idea of the secular state and the neutrality of its worldview. It does not say ‘in Hungary’ but rather ‘in Europe,’ which puts this idea into a European context; even in secular Europe Christianity plays a crucial role. This neutrality has been challenged since 2010/11 with the elections won by the Fidesz-KDNP coalition, which institutionally and discursively changed the role of religion in the country. The current Hungarian government defines itself as a civilian, Christian and national government. In coalition with the Christian Democratic Party, the emphasis on Christianity is not a surprise. Christianity appears even in the new Constitution (National Avowal), stating that “[w]e recognize the role of Christianity in preserving nationhood. We value the various religious traditions of our country.” There is also a legal aspect: [O]ur Fundamental Law shall be the basis of our legal order; it shall be an alliance among Hungarians of the past, present and future. It is a living framework which expresses the nation’s will and the form in which we want to live.

 Cf. Peter L. Berger, The many altars of modernity: Toward a paradigm for religion in a pluralist age (Boston: De Gruyter, 2014.)  Statement by Viktor Orbán on the school year opening ceremony of the Piarist Secondary School of Budapest, referring to a saying by József Antall, the first democratically elected Prime Minister of Hungary, 2nd of September, 2011.

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In 2011, a new Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religion was created, based on the desire to reduce the number of so-called ‘business churches,’ i. e. communities that allegedly exist solely for the purpose of collecting state support without providing any form of religious service. The new law, which entered into force in 2011, initially defined only 14 official churches, essentially the historical churches of Hungary plus the Faith Church,⁷⁴ but finally a total of 31 officially established churches, including major religious traditions with small minorities in the country. The decision was criticized for being positively discriminatory toward the Christian churches while negatively discriminating against smaller communities even with historical roots in the country. The changes affected the maintenance of the churches, since the official status as an established church enables a community to receive tax relief and financial support from the state or the EU for maintaining institutions and providing social care and education. Meanwhile, the number of church-owned schools also increased due to the maintenance difficulties of state-run schools,⁷⁵ thus the number of students in compulsory religious education increased as well. This process was supported by the new section of the National Curriculum, which introduced compulsory ethics education in private schools based on the teachings of Christianity. Criticism from the side of the Christian churches also targeted the content, which was considered to be a sort of ‘profane’ religious education, since the course ran parallel to religious education classes. Besides the official and institutional changes, Christianity appeared strongly in political communications as well. This phenomenon is clearly visible in the speeches given by the prime ministers on national holidays, commemorations or in the inaugural speeches, where they define their legitimacy to govern the country on a symbolic level. We can see several forms, both explicit and implicit references to Christianity as a cultural retaining force, as an identity and connection between the past and the present, or as a structural element taking part in the creation of the current ‘mythology’ of the country. In a sense, Christianity serves more as a conservative than a progressive and changing force, both in normative (defining morals and values) and functional ways (maintaining the social order based on the already defined morals and values). This concept of religion

 Faith Church is a Pentecostal-Charismatic Christian denomination founded in Hungary in 1979 by Sándor Németh, who remains its leader until today. Faith Church, based on the 2011 census, is the fourth largest denomination in Hungary and represented in six other countries.  Cf. Anna Vancsó, “The importance of religion at different societal levels in Hungary,” last modified December 17, 2014, https://www.boell.de/en/2014/12/17/importance-religion-differentsocietal-levels-contemporary-hungary.

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is also supported by the lack of references to churches as religious institutions, which shows that Christianity in the Hungarian context is understood more as a historical, culturally valuable element which is an integral part of the whole society rather than as a guide to religious practice and religious belief for religious people. This process may suggest that a certain form of civil religion is emerging in the Hungarian public sphere, although I doubt its validity, since civil religion should also be based on the civil sphere, which is not proven in Hungary. Christianity is part of political communications, but religious organizations do not explicitly take a stand next to the actual government. “Religion represents a social and political value system, and as its representative can legitimate politics.”⁷⁶ Indeed, when on a discursive level the image of social norms and values is similar between the actual political mainstream and the dominant and more visible religious organizations, the connection between them seems and can become much stronger. I state that, on a discursive level, the political and religious standpoints regarding the accepted value system and identity are quite similar and are shaped by Christian tradition. Although their separation still exists on a legal and institutional level, this separation is much more questionable when it comes to public and political discourse. This discourse emphasizes culture and identity over religion or religious belief. Thus, Christian organizations enter the public sphere by enhancing their cultural and value-creation aspects while belief and practice remain out of sight in the private sphere, in many cases even without their contribution.

9 The prayer chain – again By analyzing an act such as the prayer chain mentioned above, its form, content and context must all be taken into consideration. There are two aspects of the prayer that are relevant to this study: the content and the form of the action. The act of praying can be approached from different aspects, as a) praying alone at home is evidently an individual act taking place in the private sphere and b) praying in the church with others guided by a priest is a social act, taking place in a public sphere; yet c) a prayer chain can take place in solitude, but with the awareness that many others are simultaneously doing the same. This creates a sort of ‘imagined community’ among people who are certain to agree on this one issue, to share these five minutes in total understanding, in a kind of individual but at the same time shared effervescence. This action can be both indi-

 Tomka, Vallás és társadalom, 97.

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vidual and social, public and private at the same time. We can also assume that the people who pray are Christian and that the people who are affected by this call are most probably religious. The action is the saying of a prayer, which I consider to be sui generis religious, while the content itself involves the legitimation of political power through religion. However, the last two sentences put a twist to this understanding: “We are praying for you Prime Minister, many of us. May God help You!” Praying for leaders and governors in general is called for in the Bible,⁷⁷ and something definitely religious. But does it make a difference to pray for someone who is explicitly named? I think it does, since it gives sacred legitimation not only to the governor of the country, but to a particular individual, and also opens the door to the creation of a personal cult. Regarding the context of the prayer, as mentioned earlier, the January 2012 prayer appeared on the official website of the Csepel district with an introduction by the mayor and vice-president of Fidesz. It was not clarified, however, whether the introduction was formulated by the local Roman Catholic priest, or whether it was added by Szilárd Németh. Interestingly, neither the prayer nor its initiator was initially debated, but rather its ‘introduction,’ in terms of both form and content. It appeared on the website framed by the national colors, where calls to vote in the elections or the new National Cooperation Statement would normally be publicized. Thus, the appearance was clearly political. The statement that the “opposition launched a brutal attack against the prime minister” is also unquestionably political, but the next sentence, “[e]veryone is fighting with their own resources,” followed by “let’s pray…” suggests that Viktor Orbán’s supporters are Christians, fighting with sacred tools – such as prayer – against the brutal and evil attack of the ‘opponents.’ This introduction not only equates Christian believers with a group of people with certain political convictions, but excludes the non-Orbán supporters from the ‘imagined community’ of religious people. Religious people are defined as Christians and practitioners of religion but without any reference to belief or any direct connection to religious institutions. As for the prayer from October 31st, 2016, in this case the date itself is also significant, since the anniversary of the reformation has recently become an important date in Hungary, when the representatives of the Reformed Church and the Prime Minister meet and share their ideas on the same platform about the role of religious institutions in the society. Some of the circumstances around  The most well-known is 1 Timothy, 2: 1– 4: “First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.”

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this call to prayer are quite unclear, but what is certain is that a priest from Ipolybalog – an ethnic Hungarian village – Ferenc György ‘started,’ or rather continued it, answering the call of a Hungarian priest living in Austria. Praying for the Hungarian Prime Minister from a minority position in Slovakia, in a village where the church spire is topped by the Hungarian saint’s crown instead of the cross, brings a nationalistic profile to this action. In this case, the prayer chain did not appear in written form – except through the online media – and started to spread instead by way of the oral tradition, which also decreased its level of formality and its sense of obligation.⁷⁸ There was also no added information about the aim of the prayer. The purpose was embedded in the prayer itself. In this case, the political aspect was visible, but it did not serve to support a specific political party or leader – nothing like this was added to the prayer. The message related instead to the Christian Hungarian nation in a European context.

10 Conclusion I conceptualize religion here as the communicative sphere of shared meanings that become visible with stable borders through a social action that evokes those shared meanings. The social action of the prayer chain engages the communicative sphere of shared meaning and creates an imagined community of Christians in the country. The question of public and private beliefs and religious practice is no longer important; the possible differences are overwritten by the common goal of the prayer. In Hungary, religiosity and religious practice are a private matter, so private that in many cases even the religious organizations have no right to interfere, but the role of Christianity is public and national. Religious knowledge about practices and private religious rituals is pluralized, and free to be fragmented, but on the public level – and here I refer mostly to the state and political levels, not the civic level – the knowledge about Christianity must be homogeneous, based mostly on the historical and cultural context, which is highly supported not only on the political level but on an institutional level as well. I see the role of Christianity in the country as two-fold and quite contradictory. Christianity put into a political context gives politics the legitimacy to define a well-ordered worldview, social structure, culture and identity on a transcen-

 Concerning the 2012 case, the colored frame refers to the elections, and voting is the obligation of every citizen!

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dent basis. Meanwhile, Christian organizations have less and less legitimacy to define or even affect people’s everyday lives and religiosity. While on an institutional level Christianity has less legitimacy, on a symbolic level it is the basis of the country. I think that this contradiction is not only a result of socialization, but also of the impact of the socialist regime on religious organizations, which succeeding in disconnecting the different forms of religious knowledge.

Ankica Marinović

Transfer of knowledge about atheism and new religious movements Analysis of religious instruction textbooks in public schools in Croatia

Introduction This paper explores how the social context of Croatia influenced the prevailing relationship to religion by taking into account the backdrop of its socialist past. Furthermore, it examines whether processes of revitalizing religion and desecularizing Croatian society after 1990 remain relevant today. In order to detect the specificities of the transfer of knowledge regarding religion and atheism in postsocialist Croatia, legal documents from the 90s which were the basis for the implementation of religious education and religious textbooks for primary school published after the 90s are analyzed here. The results underline the controversy that becomes noticeable when comparing provisions in the constitution with the respective provisions in the Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Education and Culture, signed between the Croatian Government and the Holy See. The latter favors Christian ethical values over ethical values of other religious and irreligious worldviews, and moreover paves the way to possible and real discrimination, especially among primary and secondary school students. Religious instruction in public schools in Croatia tends to pervade entire school programs and educational processes with the Christian worldview. The thesis is that the discourse around religious instruction in Croatia today, in some aspects and to some extent, is similar to that of the former Yugoslavian school subject of Marxism, especially when it comes to the promotion of a specific worldview, albeit in the reverse direction. In the broader context, this article claims, one could speak of a double heritage of pre-modernity in Croatia: its Catholic-feudal and communist past (and the war, which every society views as pre-modern). In simplified terms, the first phase produced conservative, authoritarian, Catholic anti-atheism, while the second produced an authoritarian, communist anti-theism. Both of them were (and are) associated with the ruling political authorities and influenced or at least attempted to influence politics and all aspects of societal action. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547085-012

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1 The Croatian social and religious situation Croatia as part of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was one of the former communist Eastern and Central European countries in which, in 45 years of their history, religion and the church were systematically suppressed. However, Yugoslavia was outside of the Soviet-influenced countries and the ‘Iron Curtain.’ That fact was the origin of a specific path Yugoslavia took in general, including its relationship to religion and the church, especially from the middle of the 1960s onwards. As with many other social spheres, religions (covering here both the religious communities and religious people) lived in a double reality: the one that guaranteed the religious freedom and autonomy of religious communities, and another that favored the nonreligious worldview.¹

An ideological struggle against religion and the church was fought in different areas of social life. Nonetheless, religion and traditional churches did not disappear from people’s personal and family lives in Yugoslavia, especially in Croatia and Slovenia, which were the most religious republics of the former state. Religion was, as two authors wrote, “widely spread in traditional forms across all segments of society, being constituent of a traditional rural as well as ‘modern’ urban ambient.”² People were going to church and receiving sacraments, children attended catechism. Studies showed that the prevailing form of religiosity in Croatia was (and still is) a traditional, church-oriented, collectivistic one, mediated by family socialization and firmly associated with the nation. Borowik explains that religious people in Eastern and Central Europe guarded earlier forms and elements of religiosity in a ‘frozen,’ unchanged form in order to protect themselves against official expectations.³

 Siniša Zrinščak, Dinka Marinović Jerolimov, Ankica Marinović, and Branko Ančić, “Church and State in Croatia: Legal framework, religious instruction, and social expectations,” in Religion and Politics in Central and South-Eastern Europe: Challenges Since 1989, ed. Sabrina P. Ramet (New York; Basinstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 133.  Ankica Marinović Bobinac, and Dinka Marinović Jerolimov, “Catholic Religious Education in Public Schools in Croatia: Attitudes towards Other Religions in Primary School Textbooks,” in Education and Church in Central and Eastern Europe at First Glance, ed. Gabriella Pusztai (Debrecen: University of Debrecen – Center for Higher Education, Research and Development; Hungarian Academy of Sciences & Religion and Values: Central and Eastern European Research Network, 2008), 180.  Miklos Tomka, Expanding Religion: Religious Revival in Post-communist Central and Eastern Europe (Berlin; New York: De Gruyter, 2011), 16.

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The last decades of socialism were characterized by the continuous struggle between the ruling ideology and social actors tending toward the new type of social and political system. The church and religion were important social factors in the struggle for self-determination and social autonomy. The Catholic Church was an important source of counterculture during the communist era, a prominent keeper and transporter of national culture and basic values: the culturalhistorical significance of religion was particularly highlighted.⁴ Unlike the stable trend of a general decrease in church religiosity and in the church’s influence within society in the countries of Western Europe,⁵ socio-religious research has pointed out that the opposite process has been taking place in most of the former socialist countries (post-Soviet, Eastern-Bloc and post-Yugoslavian ones⁶) since the 90s.⁷ Instead of weakening a general religious framework organizationally expressed as a universal church, such a framework, whose role was taken on by the dominant churches (Catholic, Orthodox), was strengthening.⁸ Vrcan spoke on the processes of revitalization and deprivatiza-

 Cf. Irena Borowik, “The Roman Catholic Church in the process of Democratic Transformation: Case of Poland.” Social Compass 49, no. 2 (2002): 239 – 52; Miklos Tomka, “The Changing Social Role of Religion in Eastern and Central Europe: Religion’s Revival and its Contradictions.” Social Compass 42, no. 1 (1995): 17– 26.  Cf. Peter Berger, The Desecularization of the World. Resurgent Religion and World Politics (Washington D.C.: William B. Erdmans Publishing Company, 1999), 135; Grace Davie, Religija u suvremenoj Europi: Mutacija sjećanja (Zagreb: Golden marketing – Tehnička knjiga, 2005), 286; Danielle Hervieu–Leger Religion as a Chain of Memory (New Brunswick; New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2000), 204.  Terms are used by Tomka, Expanding Religion, 255.  Cf. Paul Froese, “Hungary for Religion: A Supply-Side Interpretation of the Hungarian Religious Revival,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 40, no. 2 (2001): 251– 68; Andrew Greeley, “A Religious Revival in Russia?” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 33, no. 3 (1994): 253 – 72; Miklos Tomka, “Is Conventional Sociology of Religion Able to Deal with Differences between Eastern and Western European Developments?” Social Compass 53, no. 2 (2006): 251– 65; Gordan Črpić, and Siniša Zrinščak, “Između identiteta i i svakodnevnog života.” in U potrazi za identitetom, ed. Josip Baloban (Zagreb: Golden marketing–Tehnička knjiga, 2005), 45 – 84; Gordan Črpić, and Siniša Zrinščak, “Religija, društvo, politika: komparativna perspektiva,” in Vrednote u Hrvatskoj i u Europi, eds. Josip Baloban, Krunoslav Nikodem, and Siniša Zrinščak, (Zagreb: Kršćanska sadašnjost i Katolički bogoslovni fakultet, 2014); Dinka Marinović Jerolimov, “Religijske promjene u tranzicijskim uvjetima u Hrvatskoj: promjene u dimenzijama religijske identifikacije i prakse,” Sociologija sela 38, no.1/2 (2000): 43; Dinka Marinović Jerolimov, “Tradicionalna religioznost u Hrvatskoj 2004: između kolektivnoga i individualnoga,” Sociologija sela 43, no.2 (2005): 303 – 38.  Aleš Črnič, “New Religions in ‘New Europe,’” Journal of Church and State 49, no. 3 (2007): 517– 51; Ani Sarkissian, “Religious Reestablishment in Post-Communist Polities,” Journal of Church and State 51, no. 3 (2009): 472– 501.

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tion of religion in Croatia through a regathering around the church institutions.⁹ Similar situations developed in some other former socialist countries.¹⁰ As owners of significant ‘symbolical and cultural capital,’ religion and religious institutions declare themselves as owners of universal knowledge and values, as owners of generally accepted human morality and common sense and as a factor in original national being.¹¹

In addition, they built Berger’s protective ‘sacred canopy.’¹² These changes, in addition to the reaffirmation of the significance of religion and tradition, including a stronger connection between religion and the nation and the reaffirmation of the presence of religion in social life also affected the role of religion and religious institutions in global, state, political and even civil society.¹³ Borowik regards such a revival of church membership as a return to tradition and the need to reconstruct one’s own history.¹⁴

2 Yugoslavia in relation to the ‘Soviet satellite states’ concerning its relationship to religious issues We can start with the general fact that in the all former socialist countries Marxism was the decisive ideological framework. The relationship to religion was one of the aspects of a Marxist scientific interpretation of the world. The system introduced a form of ‘scientific atheism’ as the new socialist ideology, as a kind of ‘imparted knowledge,’ which was mediated through all the spheres of social life, especially through education. The new atheist ideology developed into the only recognized and powerful way to explain the world and to cope with the ‘ultimate questions.’ Religion was considered a sign of backwardness and ignorance, an

 Srđan Vrcan, Vjera u vrtlozima tranzicije (Split: Glas Dalmacije, Revija Dalmatinske akcije, 2001).  Cf. Irena Borowik, “Between Orthodoxy and Eclecticism: On the Religious Trasformation of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine,” Social Compass 49, no. 4 (2002): 497– 508; Sarkissian, “Religious Reestablishment.”  Srđan, Vrcan, “O suvremenim religijskim promjenama u optici političke sociologije religije,” Politička misao 33, no.4 (1996): 191.  Cf. Vrcan, “O suvremenim,” 191.  Cf. Vrcan, “O suvremenim,” 194.  Cf. Borowik, “Between Orthodoxy”.

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illusion, an alienation and opium for the people. And, the future of religion was certain –extinction. Considering the situation in East Germany, Wohlrab-Sahr, Schmidt-Lux and Karstein speak about the introduction of an interpretational frame that constructs reconcilable conflict between politics and religion and religion and science worldview was introduced as a functional equivalent to religion, competing with a Christian worldview. It becomes official ideology – scientific atheism and attendant ‘scientist ideology’. It was the all-encompassing worldview which opposes the idea of functional differentiation: that religion, science and politics are autonomous spheres in society which – despite competition – may co-exist and refer, as Luhman says, to different functional problems in society.¹⁵

A form of the ‘scientific’ interpretation of the world was taught before the 90s in Croatia specifically through the two subjects of Marxism and the Theory and Practice of Socialist Self-Management in secondary schools. Related manuals, as well as all the other school subjects at all levels, were pervaded by the same ideological spirit. In the first decades of communist domination, the church was persecuted in a similar way in Croatia as in all communist countries: deprived of personnel, economically sacked, socially excommunicated, institutionally destroyed, politically defamed.¹⁶ Concerning this matter, Tomka states: The communist regime persecuted religion for decades […]. Political violence was fiercely employed to impose restrictions on the operability of churches. Anyone who expressed religious convictions was in danger to be punished by social disadvantages. For the centralized Party-state, believers were foreign bodies. Exile, long years of imprisonment or even death was the price that many people paid for practising their religious beliefs. Others were ‘merely’ expelled from their studies or deprived of their hopes for social advancement.¹⁷

Not all communist countries implemented that relation in the same way, although the relationship towards religion and the church was mostly based on similar theoretical postulates. In most of the Eastern Bloc countries, politics put pressure on the majority of religious groups, especially religious institutions.

 Monika Wohlrab-Sahr, Thomas Schmidt-Lux, and Uta Karstein, “Secularization as Conflict,” Social Compass 55, no. 2 (2008), 128 – 30.  Špiro Marasović, “Crkva i država u komunističkim društvima,” in Crkva i država u društvima u tranziciji, ed. Ivan Grubišić (Split: Hrvatska akademska udruga, 1997), 31.  Tomka, Expanding Religion, 1.

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However, a heterogeneity of political approaches did exist.¹⁸ Marasović underlined three different policies of the communist state towards religion: the most radical one was the Albanian path, where religion and churches were abolished by the constitution. The second was the politics of Eastern Bloc countries, where the church existed at the level of catacombs. The third was in Yugoslavia, a country outside the ‘Iron Curtain,’ with a more liberal policy towards religion and the church (especially from the 60s on). Marasović stressed that the church’s experience with the state in Croatia during communism ranged from unbearable to quite bearable. He explained: In spite of theoretical ambushes and practical harassments, the Catholic Church in Yugoslavia was largely free (bishops’ appointments, pastors’ ordinance, free acting of the church schools and monk communities, gradual freedom of religious press, permission to study at foreign universities, permission to organize religious events, etc.).¹⁹

Writing on the church in socialist society in 1972, Bajsić underlines the difference in its position and status between the Yugoslavian and other socialist countries. Besides this, the Catholic Church in Yugoslavia was less a ‘church of silence.’²⁰ However, all of the above relates to the post-Vatican II period.²¹ Very important was the fact that the spirit of the Second Vatican Council in the late 60s and 70s, encouraged by a few theologians, resulted in a sequence of dialogues between Marxist and Catholic theologians. One such dialogue between two famous professors – Branko Bošnjak, philosopher, and Mijo Škvorc, theologian, attracted more than 1,000 people. Mardešić wrote: Dialogue with non-believers was successful and it was taken as an example even abroad. We were invited from abroad to witness that miraculous harmony of former political opponents in front of Western Catholics.²²

 Some countries developed particular political practices to diminish social pressure, especially those with a firm connection between national identity and the confession. See Borowik, “The Roman Catholic Church”.  Marasović. “Crkva i država u komunističkim društvima,” 33.  Pope John XXIII, Ecclesiam suam, (Zagreb: Kršćanska sadašnjost, 1966).  See Nikola Skledar, Dijalog marksista i kršćana (Beograd: NIRO Mladost, 1984); Tomislav Šagi Bunić, Vrijeme suodgovornosti I (Zagreb: Kršćanska sadašnjost, 1981); Tomo Vereš, Pružene ruke (Zagreb: FTI DI, 1989); Vjekoslav Bajsić, Na rubovima crkve i civilizacije (Zagreb: Kršćanska sadašnjost, 1972); Frane Franić, Putevi dijaloga (Split: Crkva u svijetu, 1972).  Željko Mardešić, Rascjep u Svetome (Zagreb: Kršćanska sadašnjost, 2007), 28.

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3 Atheist policies before the 90s and their reversal in post-war education Croatia, as a part of Yugoslavia, shared with other parts, to paraphrase Berger, a systemic atheistic canopy. At the institutional, ideological and therefore cultural levels, as well as at the level of values, irreligiosity and atheism were desirable attitudes. According to the Constitution, religion belonged to the private sphere and religious communities did not have the possibility to act within society. An ideological, anti-theistic worldview became the basis of socio-cultural identification, especially desirable in political and other social activities, above all those leading to social ascent. Some professions, like the police and the armed forces or education, were exposed to particular sanctions for religious involvement, such as losing employment. They were subject to surveillance in order to determine whether they celebrated religious holidays, practiced religious ‘rites of passage’ or attended church regularly. In the former Yugoslavia, religion and religious people were, in some way, on the margins of society – often discriminated, sued, punished and harassed – at their workplace, in the army, among friends, even within the family. As Jukić explains, in these parts of Europe secularization came late. Mostly it was caused by economic and political changes. Civic contents and all the other features of modernity – population migrations, the increased influence of mass media, the strengthening of a consumer’s mentality and individualism and the laws of the market economy gradually weakened elements of collectivism inside society as well as the church. The consequence of these processes was a decrease of religiosity and atheistic ideology as well, especially from the 60s onwards.²³ Signs of larger changes started appearing in the 80s: a slowing down of secularization trends, certain signs of demarginalizing belief as a human need, signs of a revitalization of religion and a partial de-ideologization of political and social relations to religion and the church, especially in the traditionally most religious parts of Yugoslavia – Croatia and Slovenia.²⁴ After the 90s, these processes became more visible: negative connotations concerning religion and religious people started to disappear. War, independence, the building of a

 Cf. Jakov Jukić, “Teorije ideologizacije i sekularizacije,” in Religija i sloboda, ed. Ivan Grubišić (Split: IPDI 1993), 11– 65.  Cf. Dinka Marinović Jerolimov, “Nereligioznost u Hrvatskoj 1968 – 1990,” in Prilozi izučavanju nereligioznosti i ateizma, ed. Štefica Bahtijarević (Zagreb: Institut za društvena istraživanja, 1993), 87– 136; Zdenko Roter, “Revitalizacija religije i desekularizacija društva u Sloveniji,” Sociologija, 2/3 (1988): 403 – 27.

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new state and the influence and actions of the Catholic Church and Pope John Paul II in these processes changed the relationship to religion and the church and their position within society (possibility of acting in the media, religious education in public schools).²⁵ The process of social changes (at the institutional level) was followed by a process of changes in the system of ideas, beliefs and values. The main framework of these social and religious changes in transitional (and wartime) circumstances was the opening up of leading political structures and society in general towards religion and the church: new institutional solutions to the relationship between church and state, the acting of the church in the pre-war, war and post-war periods and the subsequent national and religious homogenization.²⁶ The increase in social significance and the influence of religion and the church was followed by a significant increase in the confessional and religious identification of Croatian citizens. One of the indicators of desecularization²⁷ of society, particularly significant for this paper, is the changes in the field of education. Europe is characterized by four dominant types of religious instruction in public schools: strictly confessional, loosely confessional, non-confessional and a variant without religious instruction. In the post-communist era, the majority of transitional countries and therefore Croatia opted for confessional religious instruction with elements of traditional catechism in public schools (which represented a continuation of the kind of religious education that existed before 1945). Their aim was to highlight their affiliation to Christian Europe, where in the meantime opposite trends had become a reality. In the majority of Western European countries, in accordance with social and religious changes, confessional religious instruction in public schools lost elements of catechism and acquired elements of the non-confessional approach.²⁸

 Cf. Marinović Jerolimov, “Nereligioznost”.  Cf. Marinović Jerolimov, “Tradicionalna religioznost”.  Vrcan spoke about the transition from the secularization of social life to the desecularization of social life, and about the return of the sacred and the renewal of religion in Croatia. He highlighted two contemporary trends, recognized by Roland Robertson (1989): a trend towards politization of religion and a trend towards religization of politics. Those two trends are the most obvious indicators of the desecularization of society.  Cf. Ankica Marinović Bobinac, “Comparative Analysis of Curricula for Religious Education: Examples of Four Catholic Countries,” Metodika 8, no. 15 (2007): 425 – 43; Zdenko Kodelja and Terrice Bassler, Religija i školovanje u otvorenom društvu: okvir za informirani dijalog (Ljubljana, 2004), https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/y_bosnian_0.pdf

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4 Theoretical and methodological starting points The general starting point of this research is the thesis that certain configurations of ‘reality’ and ‘knowledge’ belong to certain social contexts and that such connections have to be an essential aspect of sociological analysis. As stated by Berger and Luckmann, something that is real to a Tibetan monk will not be real to an American business man.²⁹ There is no human thinking, they said, that is immune to the ideologizing influence of authorities within the related social context. This paper examines how this worked in Croatia inside the frame of former socialist states, that is, how the social context of Croatia influenced the people’s relationship to religion and vice versa. Also, it should be stressed that the abovementioned conclusion about the domination of processes revitalizing religion and desecularizing Croatian society since the 90s remains relevant up to the present day. This paper will consider aspects of the thesis of Srđan Vrcan,³⁰ that confessional belonging and religious self-identification in Croatia became almost a general phenomenon and an indicator of social authenticity in the state, political society, civil society and the public, while confessional and religious non-belonging (and belonging to New Religious Movements – shortened here to NRM) becomes an indicator of social abnormality. The thesis of Željko Mardešić³¹ about the supremacy of political Catholicism based on dualism³² over post-Vatican II Christianity in Croatia and its influence on some aspects of society will also be considered, using the example of the treatment of atheism in textbooks for religious education in primary schools in Croatia. The chosen method entails an analysis of legal documents that formed the basis for the implementation of religious education since the 90s, as well as an analysis of religious education textbooks for primary school.

 Cf. Peter Berger and Thomas Luckmann, Socijalna konstrukcija zbilje (Zagreb: Naprijed, 1992), 14.  Cf. Vrcan, Vjera u vrtlozima tranzicije, 60.  Cf. Mardešić, Rascjep u Svetome, 878.  Mardešić defined religious dualism as a belief in the existence of two clashing gods: a good one and an evil one. He thought that a dualism of this kind influenced the appearance of contemporary secular ideological dualisms. He recognized in Croatia such dualisms, whose essence is the attitude that “we are always good, and our political opponents are always evil.” Mardešić, Rascjep u Svetome, 878.

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5 Research questions In order to examine the characteristics of the transfer of knowledge about religion and atheism in Croatia in religious education textbooks today, a microanalytical perspective will be used to take into account the specific local and historical circumstances in Croatia. Thereby, it must be considered how the relationship between the ruling authorities in the socialist past and the Catholic Church influenced the treatment of religious-atheist issues in religious education textbooks starting in the 90s. After the analysis of related legal documents and textbooks, the following questions will be approached: 1. What is written about religion and atheism in these textbooks, and what is stipulated in the provisions of the Croatian constitution? 2. Which educational norms and ideals are derived from the specific concept of religion and atheism present in the textbooks? 3. Does the existing approach have or want to have a broader influence in public schools? 4. Is the catechism discourse in Croatia today similar to the discourse around the Former Yugoslavian school subject of Marxism when it comes to religious/atheist and worldview issues? 5. Which phenomena could be interpreted as the result of national or individual development of Marxist heritage?

6 Results of the analysis 6.1 Elements of the legal framework: the basis for the introduction of religious education The legal position of the religious communities in Croatia is regulated by the Constitution, the four agreements of joint interest signed between the Government of the Republic of Croatia and the Holy See,³³ and the Religious Communities Act. The Constitution, the Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Educa-

 After establishing the diplomatic relationship between the Government of the Republic of Croatia and the Holy See in 1992, regulations concerning the Catholic church were completed by signing the four agreements of mutual interest with the Holy See in the period from 1996 to 1998 (agreements on Legal Issues, on Spiritual Care in the Military and Police Forces, on Cooperation in the Field of Education and on Economic Issues). The Government made similar contracts with some other religious communities.

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tion and Culture (one of the signed agreements) and the Program of Catholic Instruction in Primary School are significant for this analysis. The Constitution of the Republic of Croatia³⁴ guarantees all citizens rights and freedoms regardless of race, color, gender, language, religion, political or other conviction, national or social origin, property, birth, education, social status or other characteristics – equality for all persons before the law (Article 14), freedom of thought and expression (Article 38), freedom of conscience and religion, and freedom to demonstrate religious and other convictions (Article 40). The Constitution postulates general principles addressing the relation between church and state: equality before the law, separation of church and state (Article 41). With the international Agreement on Cooperation in the field of education and culture,³⁵ signed between the Republic of Croatia and the Holy See in 1996, the Croatian state assumed responsibility for implementing Catholic instruction in preschools and primary and secondary schools. The following three items were highlighted in the Agreement (Article 1)³⁶: 1. the “irreplaceable historical and present role of the Catholic Church in Croatia in the cultural and moral education of the nation and its role in the fields of education and culture”; 2. the fact that “the majority of Croatian citizens belong to the Catholic Church”; and 3. that “the educational system in public preschools and schools including higher education institutions will take into account Christian ethics values.” According to the decision of the Ministry of Education and Culture of the Republic of Croatia, confessional religious instruction was introduced in public schools as an elective subject in 1991/92. Religious communities were given a mandate to define the method of teaching and textbook content, as well as to provide the necessary number of instructors and train them. As a follow-up, the Contract on Catholic Instruction in State Schools and Religious Education in Public Preschool Institutions was signed by the Croatian Bishop’s Conference and the Government of the Republic of Croatia. Catholic religious instruction, following the

 Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, Narodne novine (Official Gazette) 41, May 7 and June 15, 2001.  Agreement between the Holy See and the Republic of Croatia on Cooperation in Education and Culture. Narodne novine (Official Gazette of the Republic of Croatia – International Contracts), 2, 1997.  Cf. Agreement between the Holy See and the Republic of Croatia on Cooperation in Education and Culture.

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Program,³⁷ emphasized the holistic education of man, bearing in mind the religious dimension and the promotion of personal, social, universal and religious values. The confessional characteristic of religious instruction was based on the universal educational and cultural meaning of religious facts for the individual, culture and society. The principles on which religious instruction were to be based were the following: faith in God and man, ecumenical openness, open dialogue and correlation in catechetic education (cross-curricular teaching in accordance with the principles of full education, which means the correlation of religious instruction with the all other subjects³⁸) and an inter-cultural approach. It was decided that Catholic religious instruction would be part of the national curriculum, a compulsory subject (when selected) for two hours every week, under the same conditions as other compulsory subjects (especially considering the position within the timetable). According to the Program, religious instruction could only be taught by a person to whom the diocesan bishop has issued a document known as the canonical mandate (missio canonica). The possibility to organize additional religious activities in the school was also guaranteed. All the programs, textbook content and didactic materials would be made by the Croatian Conference of Bishops and submitted to the responsible authorities (Ministry) to be included into the curriculum. All expenses from publishing textbooks was covered by the Republic of Croatia as it did for all other school textbooks. Both the Church and the State authorities were in charge of monitoring the quality of religious instruction and its accordance with Church and State laws.³⁹ The right of choice is guaranteed for all parents and students and excludes any possibility of discrimination in school activities. The possibility to withdraw from religious instruction was also declared – written withdrawal had to be submitted to the school principal at the beginning of the schoolyear.

6.2 Textbooks A generally tolerant attitude towards all people (fully in accordance with the Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) regardless of

 Programme for Catholic Religious Instruction in Primary Schools. Narodne novine (Official Gazette), 156 (3 October 2003, 3 – 7).  That aspect provoked a lot of protest by different actors, mostly those from civil society, because of the intention to infiltrate the entire public education with Catholic values.  The State authorities were often criticized by the actors of civil society for neglecting the monitoring of content and for the quality of religious instruction.

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race, nation and religion is present in the textbooks analyzed for this study. In a 6th grade textbook, a quotation from the UN Declaration, that “[e]veryone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion […],”⁴⁰ corresponds to quotations from non-Christian religious books and religious persons, that “support Christians in a struggle against evil” (Confucius, Buddha, Bhagavadgita, Kur’an, etc.) and to the words of famous writers and philosophers (M. Selimović, G. Flaubert, R. Tagore, T. Ujević, A. Huxley, B. Pascal, …).⁴¹ The general attitude in the practical task section features a declaration that the task of building a better world includes “not individuals only, but the inhabitants of all world countries, members of all races and religions, religious people and atheists and people of all professions. Nobody is excluded.”⁴² There is thus a generally open and tolerant attitude towards “all people of good will,” and a context of ecumenical and interreligious openness towards several other religions to some extent. However, in the thematic lessons, atheism and the new religious movements are taken out as completely unacceptable. In this particular textbook, the lessons on atheism and the new religious movements were put in the chapter titled “Humans’ search for the living God.” In the first part of the chapter, the authors conclude: “By nature, every human being is turned to God […]. Development of religiosity depends on the influence of the society, which can even deny God’s existence.”⁴³ The second part of the chapter answers the question: Why do people turn their back on God? The answer is: Because of incorrect conceptions about God. It explains that even some Christians have the wrong perception of God: God as Deus Absconditus, God as a strict judge, God as a transactional partner– quid pro quo – and, instead of having faith in God, they believe in superstition and magic. In the third part of the chapter, the authors discuss atheism as well as religious indifference, and the last part discusses the search for God in new religious movements. An 8th grade textbook teaches atheism with the headlines: “Every human seeks God. Religiosity exists in each human. Every human is by nature turned to God.”⁴⁴ Considering atheism, the authors state: Religious indifference is the only origin of atheism. An irreligious person “is born and raised in a reli-

 Pozvani na slobodu /Invited to freedom/ (textbook for the 6th grade) (Zagreb: Kršćanska sadašnjost, 2003, 10 – 1).  Ibid.  Pozvani na slobodu, 15.  S Kristom u život /With Christ in life/ (textbook for the 8th grade) (Zagreb: Kršćanska sadašnjost, 2005), 32.  S Kristom u život, 30 – 3.

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gious desert.”⁴⁵ Atheism is not an authentic worldview among others with authentic values. As a worldview, it is influenced by science and technology (if they are uncritically accepted), success and fame, humanism without God and customary religiosity. As a worldview, atheism “intends to push out from the person any religiosity and any connection with God.”⁴⁶ As a way of life, atheism was introduced by the new ideologies and worldviews, glorifying the man and his power. All people, according to the analyzed textbooks, are inherently religious; however, religious upbringing is necessary in order to recognize God. Atheism is situated in the context of negatively connotated social phenomena. A 7th grade textbook labels it so: “The biggest sins against the first of God′s commandments (‘You shall have no other gods before Me’) are: superstition, idolatry, horoscopes and astrology, augury and magic, blasphemy and simony, atheism and indifferentism.”⁴⁷ To connect their statements with a state of emptiness and hopelessness of people ‘trapped’ by atheism and similar ideologies, the authors of these textbooks use prints of Munch’s Scream, Munch’s Fear and Friedrich’s Wreck of Hope alongside the text. They also insert quotations from some globally eminent personalities, such as Goethe (“Whoever does not know to draw from the three thousand years’ deep source lives from today until tomorrow).”⁴⁸ The authors chose one quotation from Pope John Paul II to portray the negativity of atheism: Atheism is upbringing without God. Some people claim that atheism is an expression of prosperity. From the experiences of the newest events we know that it is not possible to raise noble people without God or against God. On the contrary, people such as those who created Ošviencim were raised without God.⁴⁹

In so doing, the authors chose one of Pope John Paul II’s quotations which completely opposes the spirit of the relationship towards atheism (and especially the atheists) of the Second Vatican Council. It proclaims tolerance and dialogue with non-believers and also opposes Pope Frances’ attitude towards atheists. Unlike the sentence from the textbook, Pope Frances is noted as having stated: “The church is not a custom, it must not be a barrier to anyone because irregular peo-

 S Kristom u život, 38.  S Kristom u život, 40.  Zajedno u ljubavi /Together in Love/ (textbook for the 7th grade) (Zagreb: Kršćanska sadašnjost, 2003), 28.  S Kristom u život, 38 – 40.  S Kristom u život, 39.

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ple do not exist.” He also said, “the Lord redeemed all the people, not only Catholics, but also those who do not believe.”⁵⁰ The lesson on atheism in the 8th grade textbook provoked a lot of controversies and polemics in the public: Parents, scholars, media, civil associations and even the Ombudsman for children reacted.⁵¹ Reactions intensified particularly after an open letter to the Ombudsman for children in 2014. The letter was sent by a mother who described herself as an atheist. In the letter, she protested against the discrimination against atheist children in public schools. The following question was asked in the public sphere: how is it possible that, in a secular state where public schools are financed by the state budget, by tax money paid by all employed citizens (atheists and agnostics as well), has such intolerant, discriminatory speech been tolerated?⁵² According to the textbooks’ authors,⁵³ the way of life of the contemporary world is the basis for the development of new religious movements and sects. These are especially attractive to young people, who join these groups in reaction to rapid social changes and deficiencies in their private lives: their family situation, failure at school, disappointment in love. Although some of the Catholic theologians find reasons for young people joining NRMs in some deficiencies within the Catholic Church, there are no such self-reflections in the textbooks. The authors bring in only negative examples of NRMs. Speaking about the founder of Transcendental Meditation Maharishi Maheshi Yogi, the authors write: “In India, where lots of similar prophets could be found, the ‘new saint’ was not broadly accepted. That is the reason he decided to offer his experiences to the West.”⁵⁴ Another example mentions Swami Prabhupada: His divine grace Swami Prabhupada came to New York in 1965 in his 70s with only 7 dollars in his pocket and a worn-out suitcase. At the moment of his death twelve years later, he left

 Silvije Tomašević, Papa Franjo (Zagreb: Profil, 2014).  The use of the textbooks is compulsory; teachers use some additional materials (daily preparations, teaching materials for assessment, guide for confirmands, movies), which are usually in accordance with the Program as well.  Cf. Ankica Marinović, “Analysis of Catholic Religious Instruction Textbooks in Croatian Primary Schools: How Do They Teach Atheism?” in Education in Post-Conflict Transition, The Politicization of Religion in School Textbooks, eds. Gorana Ognjenović, and Jasna Jozelić (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 129 – 53.  The authors of the textbooks (and the Program) are theologians – priests or laymen who are religious education teachers. All of them are appointed and educated directly by the Church.  S Kristom u život, 43.

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an organization with several thousands of believers and with a multimillion dollar property.⁵⁵

The part about Christian NRMs is titled “Delusion about the end of the world and paradise on Earth.” Jehova’s Witnesses, Mormons, Adventists, Children of God and Moonies are mentioned in that context. They are described as sects, interpreting Sacred Scripture in a distorted way. Jehova’s Witnesses, Mormons, Children of God and the Unification Church are listed as big systems of deceit. The New Age movement is presented as a syncretic movement completely detached from traditional beliefs and social life, and connected with elements of spiritism, occultism and magic, which are labelled as sins within the Catholic worldview. The authors quote the Catholic author Vernette,⁵⁶ who writes: Those new believers are attracted by the strength of their convictions, sincerity of their enthusiasm and simplicity of their teachings […] but they prefer material to spiritual goals causing disruption in their families or committing collective suicides as, for example, 912 followers of the sects People’s Temple in Guyana (1978), 78 Davidians in Waco, SAD (1993) […].⁵⁷

One could ask why the authors present similar attitudes towards New Religious Movements as they do towards atheism. The overall intention of the textbooks, and religious education as a whole, is to (re‐)produce a clear distance between the Catholic worldview, with its exclusive claims to truth, and other worldviews which have their own answers to the same questions and needs that Catholic teachings and practices strive to answer. Therefore it is a question of competition and the Catholic Church is privileged regarding their options for propagating their convictions, norms and lifestyle.

7 Post-analysis evaluation My first question was: What is written on religion, atheism and new religious movements in the selected textbooks, and how is the content regulated by the Constitution and other legal documents? There are some disagreements between the Constitution’s provisions and the Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Education and Culture. The Constitution postulates freedom of thought and ex-

 S Kristom u život, 49.  French Catholic writer (1927– 2002).  S Kristom u život, 44.

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pression, freedom of conscience and religion and so on, as well as the separation of church and state. The Agreement, on the other hand, postulates the promotion of Catholic values at all levels of education and corresponding interference in lesson contents. Such a provision favors Christian ethical values over the ethical values of other religious and irreligious worldviews, and moreover paves the way to possible and real discrimination, especially among the most sensitive category of the population: primary and secondary school students. For example, one of the general goals of the Program is “to accept an attitude of tolerance towards nonbelievers,”⁵⁸ but tolerance is presented in the textbook as tolerance with an intention to convert. The second question I wanted to analyze was: Which norms and ideals of education are derived from the specific concept of religion and atheism present in the textbooks? By putting an emphasis on the formative nature of the Christian (Catholic) values in education, the Program and the textbooks emphasize building the Catholic identity as the most important goal of religious instruction. Unlike most curricula of religious education in Western Europe, the textbooks analyzed in this study present the Catholic religion not as one of the existing religions (worldviews), but as the only genuine religion.⁵⁹ More concrete instructions for students’ behavior do not exist, probably due to the lower possibility of having children from such communities in classrooms in Croatia, except Jehova’s Witnesses (the largest religious minority in Croatia). Textbooks do not develop the spirit of tolerance towards atheism and atheists postulated by the Second Vatican Council, but offer students a confusing image of the world, in which nonbelievers (living with their parents among ‘believers’) become ‘people with mistakes’ and ‘objects of urgent correction.’ ⁶⁰ At this point, I came to my third question: Does the current approach have or want to have a broader influence in public schools? Religious instruction in public schools in Croatia tends to pervade entire school programs and the educational process with the Christian worldview. The Program explicitly relates educational content to catechetic, pastoral and evangelical goals.⁶¹ Among the set of principles for religious instruction (faith in God and man, ecumenical openness, open dialogue, correlation in catechetic education, inter-cultural approach), cross-curricular teaching in accordance with the principles of complete education is particularly emphasized. This tends to value connections between religious instruction and all other school subjects.    

Program for Catholic Religious Instruction in Primary Schools. Cf. Marinović, “Analysis.” Ibid. Cf. Marinović Bobinac, “Comparative Analysis”.

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Such a concept has its basis in the international Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Education and Culture. This agreement contains an item which stipulates that “the educational system in public preschools and schools including higher education institutions will take into account Christian ethics values.”⁶² That implies not only the program for religious instruction, but the entire school curricula. The next question was: Is the discourse of catechism in Croatia today (positive towards religion, negative towards atheism) similar to the discourse of the former Yugoslavian school subject of Marxism (positive towards atheism, negative towards religion) when it comes to religious/atheist and worldview issues? The discourse of religious instruction in Croatia today, in some characteristics and to some extent, is similar to that of the former Yugoslavian school subject of Marxism (which was taught in secondary schools), especially when it comes to the promotion of a worldview, of course, in the reverse direction. Just like religion was completely unacceptable as an authentic worldview then, today’s religious instruction textbooks do not find any acceptable content or values in the atheistic worldview. The communist ideology tried to pervade the entire educational process with atheistic ideology. Today’s creators of religious instruction programs and textbooks also try to interfere in educational content at all levels by promoting the Catholic worldview. Despite these parallels, there are differences between the Catholic Church today and the former Communist state regarding the possibilities at their disposal to assert their interests. Today, in times of globalization, rapid development of new technologies and numerous possibilities for easy access to a plurality of information, the Church has more opportunities for a more subtle promotion of its attitudes and values through using social networks, different official and unofficial websites, radio and TV broadcasts and other channels. However, it is thereby also exposed to more competition and has to react to this, which it obviously does in a quite intolerant, defaming and suppressive way – at least as far as it concerns school education. Finally, I posed the last question: Which phenomena could be interpreted as the result of national or individual developments of the Marxist heritage? In a broader context than that of this article, it is not possible to only speak about a Marxist heritage, but rather a double heritage from pre-modernity in Croatia: Catholic-feudal and communist (and the war, which every society views as pre-modern).⁶³ The first produced conservative, authoritarian, Catholic anti-athe-

 Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Education and Culture, Article 1.  Mardešić, Rascjep u Svetome, 879.

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ism and the second produced authoritarian, communist anti-theism. Both of them were (and are) associated with the ruling political authorities and influenced or wanted to influence politics and all aspects of societal action. Mardešić said “that feudalism in these parts of Europe lasted almost until yesterday and modernity abundantly came late.”⁶⁴ Political aspects of the approaching modernity came into focus barely after the fall of the Berlin Wall and started to influence economic and political areas, where, due to historical delay, they generated a great uproar and post-modern intolerance. That unexpected stagnation turned into a rigid backwardness – especially in mindset.⁶⁵ Srđan Vrcan considered that the post-Vatican II Catholic Church in Croatia maintained a pre-Council mentality, i. e. “some synthesis of a traditional spirit of ecclesia militans i ecclesia triumphans, also the spirit which is inherent in ‘church – fortress under siege,’ from ‘non-Christians’ at first, then from ‘chismatics’ and at the end – ‘from Marxist atheists.’”⁶⁶ Tomka also considered that the establishment of democracy inside the state and civil society offered a political opportunity for the restoration of pre-World War II forms of church structures and that the majority of the clergy was inclined towards this restoration. He underlined: But social conditions after 1989 are radically different from those before the communist era. […] Some forms that could be protected during the years of persecution may now prove to be obsolete.⁶⁷

8 Conclusion In all communist countries, the relationship towards religion and the church was based on similar theoretical postulates, but had different heritages and local and historical contexts influencing different practices concerning religion. The specific heritage of the Croatian communist experience before the 1990s and the context of desecularization of Croatian society after that time affect the transfer of knowledge about religion and atheism today. The textbook analysis indicates an ambition of the church (with the support of the state authorities) to pervade the entire school curricula at all levels with the Catholic values and worldview and to achieve specific educational goals: cat-

 Mardešić, Rascjep u Svetome, 850.  Mardešić, Rascjep u Svetome, 864.  Srđan Vrcan, “Koncil i Katolička crkva u iskušenjima suvremenog doba,” Pogledi 15, no. 3 (1985): 19 – 30.  Tomka, Expanding Religion, 16.

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echetic, pastoral and evangelical. The Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Education and Culture legally provided that opportunity. Grace Davie said that European approaches to teaching religious content could be placed within a comprehensive spectrum of religious instruction – from the almost undiluted confessional message to the conscious preparation of children for living in a world where a wide range of religious ideas makes up a significant part of cultural exchange.⁶⁸

This analysis indicates that the Croatian transfer of knowledge regarding religion and atheism inside public schools is closer to ‘the undiluted confessional message.’ The thesis of Srđan Vrcan (although it was not given a broader consideration in this paper) that confessional belonging and religious self-identification in Croatia became an indicator of social authenticity while confessional and religious non-belonging became an indicator of social abnormality is acknowledged by the analysis of one educational aspect – the treatment of atheism and new religious movements in religious instruction textbooks. The thesis of Željko Mardešić was confirmed as well: The textbook analysis indicates that the promotion of post-Vatican II Christian values were overcome by the values of political Catholicism based on the dualism that Vrcan mentioned. Additionally, even in a broader sense, there are indicators that, as Vrcan and Mardešić wrote, traditionalistic church and political Catholicism hold superiority over the Council in Croatia today.

 Davie, Religija, 123.

Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić

Science as an alternative symbolic universe among members and organizations of nonreligious people and atheists in Croatia Introduction The current, complex religious–nonreligious dynamic in Croatia was shaped by a specific socio-historical context which included the socialist and post-socialist periods. The fall of communism effected a change in the social roles of religiosity, nonreligiosity and atheism. In other words, knowledge propagated about objectified (non)religious meanings, as well as the plausibility and legitimation of institutionalized actions and roles which stemmed from it, transformed along with the changes taking place in the political and social system. Based on the theoretical perspective of the sociology of knowledge,¹ this chapter will focus on the rather new phenomenon of organizing nonreligious people and atheists in Croatia and the role of the (natural) sciences on the group (collective) and individual levels. The chapter starts with a short overview of the socio-historical context followed by an analysis of the contemporary institutional level, especially the legislation regulating the current social position and role of religion in Croatia. This serves as a contextual framework within which nonreligious practices, ideas, identities, relations, values, etc. are realized. To analyze processes through which science is brought forward as an alternative symbolic universe at the group and individual levels of organized forms of nonreligiosity and atheism, different methods have been employed: a content analysis of documents and websites of these organizations, as well as 22 semi-structured interviews with their members. The results show that science is used for different purposes at the group and individual levels: to discredit religious claims and interpretations of the social reality, as a source of legitimation for values and moral settings, for rooting individual nonreligious and atheistic identities in scientific-intellectual cognitive pathways, to depoliticize notions of nonreligiosity and atheism, as a means of gaining knowledge about the world and as a method for understanding reality, among others.

 Peter L. Berger; and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge (London: Penguin Books, 1991). https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547085-013

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1 Terminology The subject of my interest is organized nonreligiosity and atheism in Croatia. In this specific context, although nonreligiosity is understood in the broad sense as “any position, prospect or practice which is primarily defined in relation to religion, but that is considered different from the religious,”² it refers more (but not only) to the “behaviors (feelings, attitudes, actions and beliefs) that express simply hostility to and rejection” of religious expression and belonging.³ Furthermore, nonreligiosity in organized forms with a formal or informal structure (in direct form or online) is a dynamic, relational and reactional response to religion, primarily the culturally relevant one(s). This is in the Croatian case Catholicism, i. e. the traditional, ecclesiastical form of Catholicism, which is represented “as adopted elements of personal religious identity and practice” resulting from family tradition as well as social traditions and customs.⁴ On the other hand, atheism is the active denial of the concept of God as the core notion of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. In the Croatian social context, atheism is one of the most common forms of non-religiosity (although these two terms are not synonyms,⁵ nor is the nonreligiosity term superior to atheism⁶) and represents the most widespread term of self-identification among respondents and organizations.⁷ For this reason, the terms ‘nonreligiosity’ and ‘atheism’ are paired syntagmatically throughout the text.

 Lois Lee, “Research Note: Talking about a Revolution: Terminology for the New Field of Nonreligion Studies,” Journal of Contemporary Religion 27, no. 1 (2012): 121.  Colin Campbell, Toward a Sociology of Irreligion (New York: Herder and Herder, 1971), 43.  Dinka Marinović Jerolimov, “Tradicionalna religioznost u Hrvatskoj 2004: Između kolektivnog i individualnog,” Sociologija sela 168, no. 2 (2005): 305.  Nonreligiosity cannot be reduced only on the level of belief (atheism), but it can include all the aspects of religiosity (actions, attitudes, emotions, experience).  A certain part of the concept of atheism does not fit into the semantic range of nonreligiosity. Apart from the fact that some religions are atheistic in their nature, it is also possible to imagine individuals in the Western monotheistic context that reject the belief in the traditional idea of a personal God and are therefore atheists, but nevertheless consider themselves religious in the sense of believing in the spiritual salvation that some religions preach, keeping religious regulations or rituals, and belonging to tradition and community. In other words, the exclusion of belief in God is not necessarily incompatible with the approval and/or respect of other aspects of religion, so the person with an atheistic worldview can express acceptance of and interest in religion e. g. on an aesthetic or ritual level, in terms of moral principles or identification with the community.  Hazdovac Bajić found out that despite the negative connotations the term carries, 49 % of members of atheistic and nonreligious organizations in Croatia choose atheism as their primary

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2 Socio-historical context Throughout the region’s long history of changing state borders, Catholicism served as a demarcating Croatian characteristic in relation to other ethno-national communities, and in socialism as a means of resistance against the dominant ideology of the communist party. In the period of socialism in Croatia, the prevailing ideological form was directed against religion and religious communities, while nonreligiosity/atheism was advocated in the public domain as different institutional conformist patterns. At the formal-legal level, there were different attitudes toward religion and the church: those of the official state on the one hand and those represented by the Communist Party on the other.⁸ On the state level, the Constitution guaranteed religious rights and freedoms and emphasized the separation of church and state. At the same time, the Communist Party had actively worked on the suppression of religion and the propagation of atheism. Religion was suppressed in the sphere of private life, invisible and irrelevant in public, while nonreligiosity and atheism as the official stances of the ruling party were propagated through the media, the educational system, etc. However, religion continued to exist in traditional forms across all segments of society. In the context of confessional differences, Croatia was, together with Slovenia, the most religious (dominantly Catholic) part of former Yugoslavia.⁹ Therefore, religion existed in a “double reality”¹⁰; there were two parallel systems of symbolic value which ex-

self-identification term in regard to religion. Respondents defined atheism in a variety of ways and some pointed out its negative aspects. However, they accept it as their own identification for various reasons: it has a tradition, it is associated with New Atheism, it shows a clear attitude towards (the dominant) religion in Croatia, it is the etiquette that serves to distance oneself from religion and the Church. For some respondents, atheism is an attitude derived from a deeper personal philosophical system of thought (naturalism, humanism, rationalism). Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić, “Nereligioznost u Hrvatskoj: Sociološki aspekti organiziranja nereligioznih i ateista,” PhD. diss. doctoral dissertation, University of Zagreb: Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, 2017 (unpublished).  Robert R. King, “Religion and Communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe,” Brigham Young University Studies 15, no. 3 (1975): 326.  Dinka Marinović Jerolimov, “Religijske promjene u Hrvatskoj od 1989. do 1996. godine,” in Religija i integracija, eds. Ivan Grubišić, and Siniša Zrinščak (Zagreb: Institut društvenih znanosti Ivo Pilar), (1999), 191; Zdenko Roter, “Yugoslavia at the Crossroads: A Sociological Discourse,” Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe 8, no. 2 (1988): 20 – 1.  Siniša Zrinščak et al. “Church and State in Croatia: Legal Framework, Religious Instruction, and Social Expectations,” in Religion and Politics in Central and South-Eastern Europe: Challenges since 1989, ed. Sabrina P. Ramet (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014): 133.

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isted independently of each other: one in the public sphere, propagated, imposed and legitimized by the Communist Party, and another non-institutional, alternative, private, “tolerated opposition” that served as caretaker and guardian of traditional and national values.¹¹ In other words, knowledge and legitimations, which were transferred as objective truths by the ruling party in the position of power, did not succeed in imposing themselves as the dominant and sole symbolic universe for the majority of the population, even in the communist period. At the beginning of the 1990s, Croatia, as part of Yugoslavia, followed the path of other communist countries that experienced the fall of the official system. The consequent changes were not only political but also economic, ideological, cultural and deeply structural. In addition to the collapse of the communist system, the disintegration of Yugoslavia (due to the rebellion of the local Serbian population, supported by the official Serbian government) was accompanied by war aggression toward Croatia in 1991. In these dramatically changed circumstances, social consolidation was based on homogenization in a national and religious sense. The newly established political elite based its own legitimacy as well as the legitimacy of the new social system partly on religion, as a historical guardian of traditional values and Croatian national identity. Religion and the Church¹² changed their position in social life and became the main factors in the “integration of society.”¹³ They entered the public sphere and participated in shaping relationships at different levels of society, such as the politics, media and education. The strengthening of the historical connection between religious and national identities led to the revitalization of religion in general,¹⁴ but also to the strong mobilization of the religious symbolic repository for political purposes.¹⁵ As religiosity became the new conformist pattern, there was also an increase in confessional and religious identification on the individual level. Therefore, religious legitimations of various social phenomena became evident at different levels of society.

 Srđan Vrcan, Od krize religije k religiji krize (Zagreb: Školska knjiga, 1986), 70.  Religion and the church in the text refers to the Roman Catholic Church as the major and dominant religion in Croatia, since according to the 2011 population census 86.28 % of Croatian citizens identified as Roman Catholics.  Berger, and Luckmann, The Social Construction, 94.  Irena Borowik, and Grzegorz Babinski, eds. New Religious Phenomena in Central and Eastern Europe. (Krakow: Nomos, 1997); Miklós Tomka, “The Changing Social Role of Religion in Eastern and Central Europe: Religious Revival and its Contradictions,” Social Compass 42 (1995): 17– 26.  Srđan Vrcan, “Religija i politika – Simptomatični primjer bivše Jugoslavije devedesetih godina 20. stoljeća,” Republika 15 (2003): 1– 30.

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The inclination of the governing political structure towards the Catholic Church in the 1990s partly shaped the legal framework that determined the position of religion(s) and the church(es) in the future. The regulations between church and state within the Croatian constitution are based on the model of separation, with simultaneous cooperation in specific areas (ritual, educational and charitable). In practical terms, that model was implemented first with the Catholic Church by signing four Vatican Contracts 1996 – 1998.¹⁶ The contracts have triggered a variety of public reactions from the outset and present a fundamental problem in their violation of the principle of secularity as it is perceived by organizations of nonreligious people and atheists. Even before the signing of the Vatican Contracts, religious confessional education was introduced in public schools in 1991/92, which gave the impression that the Catholic Church enjoyed a privileged position in society. This impression of its preferred status was reinforced by the fact that the Law on the Legal Status of Religious Communities¹⁷ was adopted only in 2002 and that, due to the additional conditions it prescribed

 The Vatican Contracts are interstate contracts between Croatia and the Holy See which regulate different rights and the role of the Catholic Church in specific areas: 1. Contract between the Holy See and the Republic of Croatia on the Spiritual Guidance of Catholics, Members of the Armed Forces and Police; 2. Contract between the Holy See and the Republic of Croatia on Cooperation in the Field of Education and Culture; 3. Contract between the Holy See and the Republic of Croatia on Legal Issues; 4. Contract between the Holy See and the Republic of Croatia on Economic Issues.  The Law on the Legal Status of Religious Communities was passed with the intention of guaranteeing to the other religious communities the rights that the Catholic Church already enjoyed based on its contracts with the state. Regulating the legal status of religious communities opens up the possibility of cooperation with the state in areas of common interest through the signing of individual treaties. The legal provision that caused the controversy relates to the distinction between religious communities that already operate as legal entities (which can be simply entered in the Register of Religious Communities by applying for entry) and religious communities that will be established in the future (which must prove that they have at least 500 believers and have been evidenced in the association register for at least five years). Furthermore, in 2004 the Conclusion (subordinate act) was adopted, which stipulated additional requirements for the future contracts between the state and religious communities: 1. that they have been active in Croatia from 1941 until today in continuity and legal succession and that the number of their adherents exceeds six thousand according to the last census; 2. that they are historic religious communities of the European cultural circle. Since the requirement for signing the treaties with the government was rejected on these grounds, three churches (Word of Life, Church of the Gospel, and Protestant Reformed Church) decided, after exhausting all the legal possibilities in Croatia, to sue the state for discrimination before the European Court of Human Rights, which eventually ruled in their favor.

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as necessary for the registration of new religious communities, contributed to the general impression of a hierarchization of religious communities.¹⁸ In their preamble, all contracts between the Holy See and the Republic of Croatia refer to an “irreplaceable historic and present role of the Catholic Church in Croatia in the cultural and moral education of the people, and its role in the field of culture and education.”¹⁹ The contract on cooperation in the field of education and culture stipulates that the educational system in public preschool institutions and schools, including higher education institutions, shall consider the values of Christian ethics (Article 1, Paragraph 2²⁰). Thereby, Catholic values are introduced as general values and new generations are socialized by institutions, for which the legitimation of objectivated knowledge about the Christian symbolic universe is essential. Although this type of legitimation is present and dominant, it is certainly not the only process of legitimation which is taking place in Croatian society. Research shows that on the pragmatic level there is a gradation from almost complete confessional identification by individuals (80 – 90 %) towards the lower levels of religious self-identification (70 – 80 %). Furthermore, not all those who declare being religious accept fundamental religious beliefs: belief in a personal God²¹ (about 50 %), life after death (about 50 %), Heaven (50 – 55 %) and Hell (40 – 50 %). An even smaller proportion of citizens participates regularly in mass (20 – 25 % weekly and 12– 16 % monthly) and accepts the Church’s moral teachings about contraception and premarital sex (about 15 %), divorce (27 %) or extramarital relationships (31 %).²²

 Siniša Zrinščak, “Religion and Values,” in Democratic Transition in Croatia, eds. Sabrina P. Ramet, and Davorka Matić (Texas: A&M University Press, 2007), 140 – 2.  Narodne novine (NN) 2/1997, 3/1997, 18/1998. Available at: http://narodne-novine.nn.hr/clanci/medunarodni/1997_02_2_10.html; http://narodne-novine.nn.hr/clanci/medunarodni/ 1997_02_3_19.html; http://narodne-novine.nn.hr/clanci/medunarodni/1998_12_18_165.html (Accessed 22/09/2017).  Odluka o proglašenju zakona o potvrđivanju ugovora između Svete Stolice i Republike Hrvatske o suradnji na području odgoja i kulture, NN 2/1997, available at: http://narodne-novine.nn.hr/clanci/medunarodni/1997_02_2_10.html (Accessed 22/09/2017).  Besides those who express belief in a personal God, there is a proportion of citizens who believe in God as “some kind of spirit or life force” (about 35 %). These two different types of believers are recognized as traditional (institutional) believers and believers who have developed individualized religiosity. See more in Eileen Barker, “The Church Without and the God Within: Religiosity and/or Spirituality?,” in Religion and Patterns of Social Transformation, eds. Dinka Marinović Jerolimov, Siniša Zrinščak, and Irena Borowik (Zagreb: Institut za društvena istraživanja, 2004), 26.  Josip Baloban, Ivan Štengl, and Danijel Crnić, “Određeni aspekti crkvenosti u Hrvatskoj u komparaciji s nekoliko europskih zemalja,” in Vrednote u Hrvatskoj i u Europi; Komparativna analiza, eds. Josip Baloban, Krunoslav Nikodem, and Siniša Zrinščak, (Zagreb: Kršćanska sa-

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Similar to the religious population, nonreligious and atheists are not a homogenous group. According to different studies, between 8.5 % and 14 % of Croatian citizens are nonreligious.²³ Data²⁴ show that more than 50 % of the nonreligious citizens adhere to some (mostly Catholic) confession and about the same percentage were raised in the faith. About 40 % do not believe in God, 17 % do not know whether God exists and think that there is no way of knowing it, more than 22 % believe in some higher force that is not God, 7 % do not know and 12 % believe in God. About one-quarter of the nonreligious population goes to church once a year, and 10 % pray monthly. More than 15 % go on pilgrimages and about 40 % have an altar, cross, icon or some other religious object in their homes for religious purposes. Nonreligious citizens are more permissive than religious ones when it comes to issues like abortion, homosexuality and extramarital and premarital sexual relations. The research conducted among the members of nonreligious and atheistic organizations showed similar results.²⁵ Whereas Croatian national identity is in large part based on (the Catholic) religion and built in opposition to communism (and everything associated with it), after the 1990s nonreligiosity and atheism can be found in public discourses, in the media and within the education system labeled as suspicious remains of the previous system²⁶ and thus typified in a negative way.²⁷ All of the above result in some nonreligious people and atheists perceiving their own identity as unequal and discriminated against. Although this cannot be categorized as systematically or institutionally implemented discrimination (as it was in the case of religious citizens under communism), a certain degree of stigma does exist. The perception of nonreligious identity as unequal and dis-

dašnjost KBF Sveučilišta u Zagrebu, 2014), 43 – 92; Goran Črpić, and Siniša Zrinščak, “Dinamičnost u stabilnosti: religioznost u Hrvatskoj 1999. i 2008. godine,” Društvena istraživanja 19, no. 1/ 2 (2010): 3 – 27; Dinka Marinović Jerolimov, and Branko Ančić, “Religioznost i stavovi o seksualnosti i braku odrasle populacije u Hrvatskoj,” Društvena istraživanja 23, no.1 (2010): 111– 32; Krunoslav Nikodem, “Religija i crkva: pitanje institucionalne religioznosti u suvremenom hrvatskom društvu,” Socijalna ekologija 20, no. 1 (2011): 5 – 30; Krunoslav Nikodem, and Siniša Zrinščak, “Croatia’s Religious Story: The Coexistence of Institutionalized and Individual Religiosity,” in The Social Significance of Religion in the Enlarged Europe, eds. Detlef Pollack, Olaf. Müller, and Gerd Pickel, (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 207– 27.  See previous reference.  International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), 2008 (www.gesis.org)  Bajić, “Nereligioznost u Hrvatskoj”.  See Marinović Jerolimov, Dinka, and Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić, “Atheist Bus Campaign in Croatia; One Day Stand,” in The Atheist Bus Campaign, Global Manifestations and Responses, eds. Stevens Tomlins, and Spencer Bullivant (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 114– 38.  Berger and Luckmann, The Social Construction, 45 – 6.

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criminated against is reflected in the appearance of formal and informal organizations²⁸ of nonreligious people and atheists over the last decade which aim to protect and promote their rights and interests. Although these organizations (especially formal ones) gather just a small number of members, which is not unusual,²⁹ they are publicly active, attract media coverage and for some activities have the potential to attract larger numbers of sympathizers and stronger public interest. There are five formal and four informal organizations of nonreligious people and atheists in Croatia (table 1). Table 1. Formal and informal organizations of nonreligious people and atheists. Formal Protagora David Center for Civil Courage Ata LiberOs

Year of establishment

Members

    

    

   

.

Informal* I’m not a Believer Movement for Secular Croatia Coalition for Secularism Atheists and Agnostics of Croatia³⁰

* Informal groups for which the number of members is not specified consist of other formal and informal organizations (not only those who gather on the principle of nonreligiosity and atheism, but also others, e. g. different feminist, leftist organizations, associations for the protection of human rights, LGBTQI associations, etc.) and many individual supporters. Because of their informal structure, it is impossible to determine the exact number of members.

 Formal organizations are those legally registered as associations. They have an internal structure with elected bodies and their clearly defined functions and powers. Such an organizational model resembles political models with democratic practices of decision making. On the other hand, informal organizations are not legally registered. They gather and act when they think it is needed. This sort of “unorganized organization” implies antagonism toward authoritarianism to such an extent that they do not have a hierarchy, leader, or authority to manage the group.  See also Spencer Bullivant, “Research Note: Sociology and the Study of Atheism,” Journal of Contemporary Religion, 23, no 3 (2008): 363 – 8; Richard Cimino, and Christopher Smith. Atheist Awakening, Secular Activism and Community in America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014).  Atheists and Agnostics of Croatia is a Facebook group, but it is included here because of its marked activity in public and the organization of regular informal monthly gatherings entitled ‘Coffee with the Unbelievers’, which are held simultaneously in various towns around Croatia.

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The position of the nonreligious and atheists outside the dominant Croatian religious identification framework requires different knowledge for the foundation of their institutionalized actions. This body of knowledge belongs to another symbolic universe based on other principles than the traditional religious ones. These principles are found in science,³¹ which became the basis for the “sub-universe of meaning”³² of this particular organized community.

3 Methodology In order to comprehensively analyze the phenomenon of the organization of nonreligious people and atheists in Croatia, and specifically the role of science³³ in these organizations (on the group and individual levels), various methods were used. Content analysis of the documentation and websites published by these organizations was conducted in the first phase, followed by semi-structured interviews with 22 organizations’ members. The analyzed documentation relates to the statutes of formal organizations (or data on goals, activities, structure, etc. for organizations that do not have official statutes) and their equivalents, formulated as defined rules, goals and activities for informal organizations. For the content analysis of the web pages, all the texts available on the sites were reviewed to select those that were relevant for the research. Selected texts, especially the sections on the organization and activities, were analyzed using the same approach as for the documentation analysis. The type of content analysis implemented is called ‘directed content analysis,’³⁴ in which the basic set of variables or concepts (codes) are established a priori. This makes the method more structured than conventional con-

 It is beyond the scope and the topic here to discuss in detail the relations between science and religion. This dialectical relation was extensively theorized in some older and recent scholarly work. See, for example, William Sims Bainbridge, “Science and Religion,” in Leadership in Science and Technology: A Reference Handbook, ed. William. S. Bainbridge, (Thousand Oaks: SAGE, 2012), 307– 18; John Hedley Brooke, Science and Religion: Some Historical Perspectives (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991); Peter Harrison, The Territories of Science and Religion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015); John F. Haught, Science and Religion: From Conflict to Conversation (New York: Paulist Press, 1995); Alister McGrath, Science and Religion: A New Introduction, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).  Berger, and Luckmann, The Social Construction, 102– 5.  Science in the context of this chapter primarily refers to the natural sciences.  Hsiu-Fang Hsieh, and Sarah Shannon. “Three Approaches to Qualitative Content Analysis,” Qualitative Health Research 15, no. 9 (2005): 1277– 88.

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tent analysis.³⁵ The documentation was analyzed with regard to goals, activities and references to science. The second phase, interviews with some members of organizations, was part of a wider study of organizations of nonreligious people and atheists in Croatia, in which a survey was conducted among the members of the organizations. The interviewees were recruited through the survey by asking them to leave their contact details should they be interested in participating in the interviews. Ninety individuals left their details. The criteria applied for the selection of the sample were geographical distribution, socio-demographic characteristics and the type of organization the respondent belonged to (formal, informal). Attention was given to creating a sample from as many different groups regarding these criteria as possible. The socio-demographic structure of the sample is shown in Table 2. The withdrawal rate from the interviews was high: 68 people were contacted, of whom 22 were interviewed. Interviews were held face to face and lasted between 50 minutes and 2 hours.³⁶ All of them were audio recorded after the interviewees’ verbal consent and later transcribed verbatim, coded and analyzed using the software package NVivo 10. Table 2. Socio-demographic structure of the sample for the interview Gender

Region

Residence

Education

M () F ()

 –   –   –   –  Over 

() () () () ()

Zagreb Split Osijek Rijeka

() () () ()

Urban () Rural ()

High school () University () Postgraduate ()

M () F ()

Up to   –   –   –   –   – 

() () () () () ()

Zagreb Split Osijek Rijeka

() () () ()

Urban () Rural ()

High school () University () Postgraduate ()

Formal ()

Informal ()

Age

 Gary Hickey, and Cheryl Kipping, “Issues in research. A multi-stage approach to the coding of data from open-ended questions,” Nurse Researcher 4 (1996): 81– 91.  The interviews were not concerned only with science, but were of a general nature (as part of a wider study), however in this chapter only the science-related parts will be analyzed.

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4 Group level The content analysis of published documentation and websites, among other sources, identified basic underlying principles on which organizations of nonreligious people and atheists in Croatia carried out their mission (aims, actions, activities) and which can be treated as ‘secular sacred’ values. Kim Knott³⁷ defined these values as “non-negotiable matters of belief and value that do not derive from formally religious sources but that occur within the domain of ‘non-religion.’” The following ‘secular sacred’ values were indicated: rationality, personal freedom, science, critical thinking, equality, solidarity and secularity. Scientific evidence that all people are by nature genetically equal and that society imposes (unnecessary) categories to divide them (religions, nations) is the foundation of the assumption of social equality of all human beings.³⁸ In this way, science is the source from which social ‘secular sacred’ values of egalitarianism, respect for personal freedom, solidarity and others arise. The notion that ‘secular sacred’ values are threatened or violated provokes mobilization and activation of members of nonreligious and atheist organizations, since they believe that the overall social structure should be based on these values³⁹: “Society in its future development should be governed by scientific knowledge, not faith.”⁴⁰ In other words, scientific knowledge precedes legitimations of institutionalized secular values and a corresponding moral system, belonging to a specific  Kim Knott, “Theoretical and Methodological Resources for Breaking Open the Secular and Exploring the Boundary between Religion and Non-Religion,” Historia Religionum 2 (2010): 126.  Natural science, in this context, is understood primarily as genetics or genetic evidence for the common origin and equality of human beings because it represents a way of connecting to non-nationalist and nonreligious values and human rights. However, the Catholic Church in Croatia is seen by some nonreligious and atheistic organizations and their members (as well as by some other citizens) as deeply compromised becuse of its role in the short-lived quisling Independent State of Croatia (1941– 1945) which was led by the Ustasha regime and supportd by Axis forces – Hitler’s Germany and fascist Italy. The Independent State of Croatia was thus connected with racist ideologies and terror carried out against Jews, Roma and Serbs, but also against Croats who opposed the regime. The Ustasha government put an emphasis on the great role of the Church in the public life of the new state. Although part of the clergy critisized the Ustasha regime, numerous lower clergy accepted it and the Catholic Church in Croatia has never taken a clear and unequivocal stance about it. This question has, to this day, an echo in numerous political and social issues and is the cause of heated arguments and disagreements.  See also Lorna Mumford, “Living Non-Religious Identity in London,” in Atheist Identities – Spaces and Social Contexts, eds. Lori. Beaman, and Steven Tomlins (New York: Springer, 2015), 153 – 70.  From the official Protagora’s web site. Available at: http://www.protagora.hr/Iz-medija-clanak/Religija-i-znanost-nikako-se-ne-mogu-izmiriti/202/ (Accesed 10/07/2017).

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symbolic universe and a science-based “conceptual machinery for universe maintenance,”⁴¹ which is contrasted with the dominant symbolic universe based on religion. This opposition is stressed through activism and public appearances of nonreligious/atheistic organizations that point out the need for secular public space as a frame of reference which implies cultural, symbolic and institutional division between religion and other social spheres,⁴² such as the public proclamation at the Reason Rally in Zagreb on the 16th of January, 2013, shows: Secular values are already more than 200 years among the keystones of modern Western civilization, which is based on reason, rationality, science, respect for personal freedom and human rights and the rule of law. On the other hand, we respect and support everyone’s choice of religion and value system as long as personal or organized religion does not come into conflict with those basic principles.⁴³

Science, as a basis for nonreligiosity/atheism, and faith, as a basis for religion, are seen as incompatible oppositions: Science and religion have nothing in common, they are mutually exclusive: suspicion, disbelief, and curiosity are at the root of science, and freedom is a condition of its beginning and development. Religion is something completely opposite.⁴⁴

Furthermore, there is a noticeable influence of the phenomenon of New Atheism on nonreligious and atheistic organizations in Croatia on the group as well as the individual level.⁴⁵ The idea that science and nonreligiosity/atheism correlate

 Berger, and Luckmann, The Social Construction, 127.  Monika Wohlrab Sahr, “Secularity, Non-religiosity, Atheism: Boundaries between Religion and its Other,” in Annual Review of the Sociology of Religion: Sociology of Atheism 7 (2016): 255.  Public proclamation at the Reason Rally, Zagreb, 16/01/2013. Available at: http://www.protagora.hr/Clanak/Proglas-javnosti-sa-Skupa-razuma/304/ (Accessed 16/07/2017).  From the official David website. Available at: http://david-udruga.hr/novosti/2016/09/12/upodlozi-znanosti-su-sumnja-nevjerica-i-radoznalost-a-sloboda-je-uvjet-njezina-pocela-i-razvojavjera-je-nesto-potpuno-suprotno/ (Accessed 10/07/2017).  On the group level, this can be traced through activities such as the organization of a Croatian Reason Rally and the Atheist Bus Campaign, gatherings like Sceptics in the Pub, celebrating Festivus (a fictional holiday that came from American pop-culture and parodies family gatherings and consumerism. Its popularity in the non-religious/atheist community relates to its secular nature, without reference to religion). Even the time of the emergence of the first nonreligious and atheist organizations in Croatia coincides with a stronger appearance of New Atheism. On the individual level, this influence is manifested through the high popularity of the most famous authors of New Atheism (Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens). It often came up in the

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positively with each other and therefore that knowledge and education in science will lead to nonreligiosity and atheism⁴⁶ is present today in the narrative of New Atheism,⁴⁷ but was also part of the communist ideology.⁴⁸ Equating science with knowledge (in the sense of education) implies that religion is a relic of the past (of the primitive human) and redundant at this point in history. A statement from the Protagora website expresses these positions in a quite radical way: “Education has always been the main enemy of the Church, and its main task is to prevent the education of children in the spirit of Western civilization.”⁴⁹ Besides being equated with knowledge itself, science is also understood as a method of rational cognition about the world. Since scientific knowledge is produced in accordance with specific, strict patterns, it is considered as “more accurate, better-grounded knowledge”⁵⁰ then its religious counterpart. Furthermore, everything, religion and its claims included, is and can be subjected to rigorous scientific methods. So, science is at the same time a comprehensive universe of knowledge about the world as well as a method of producing that knowledge based on processes of critical thinking, evidence, objectivity, verifiability, etc. Science for us does not include only white coats, experiments, shakes, tubes, flasks, microscopes and Petri dishes. Science for us is, above all, a method, a mode of questioning, thinking and deep critical reflecting on the complete reality.⁵¹

interviews that New Atheism literature verbalized individual attitudes and offered an alternative perception.  There is also a long intellectual tradition that is based on the authority of rational scientific knowledge over religion as an irrational phenomenon. In sociology, this tradition can be traced back to Auguste Comte, who saw religion, beyond being an (inaccurate) way of interpreting and understanding reality, also as a phenomenon enabling social cohesion. He thought that the evolution of society through phases would lead to a situation in which science (sociology) would take over the role of religion in this sense.  See more in Richard Dawkin, Iluzija o Bogu (Zagreb: Izvori, 2007); Stephen LeDrew, The Evolution of Atheism: The Politics of a Modern Movement (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015); Teemu Taira, “New Atheism as Identity Politics,” in Religion and Knowledge: Sociological Perspectives, eds. Mathew Guest, and Elisabeth Arweck (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 97– 113.  See Esad Ćimić, Drama ateizacije (Sarajevo: Zavod za izdavanje udžbenika, 1971); Paul Froese, “Forced Secularization in Soviet Russia: Why an Atheistic Monopoly Failed,” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 43, no 1 (2004): 35 – 50.  From the official Protagora website. Available at: http://www.protagora.hr/Iz-medija-clanak/ Obrazovanje-je-glavni-neprijatelj-Crkve/292/ (Accesed 10/07/2017).  Taira, “New Atheism as Identity Politics,” 98.  Rules of the group Atheists and Agnostics of Croatia. Available at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hrvatskiateisti (Accesed 25/06/2017).

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Apart from promoting science, often in collaboration with other, not necessarily nonreligious/atheistic organizations in various public appearances (e. g. Skeptics in the Pub and March for Science), organizations of nonreligious people and atheists in Croatia reflect the tradition of glorifying scientific discoveries and famous scientists, which is also noted as a practice within the New Atheism movement.⁵² Unquestionable “secular sacred” values are perceived as embodied in important scientific discoveries in human history and personified in famous scientists. Thus, the source of absolute values is shifted from the transcendental to the secular frame (this-worldliness). This process can be observed in activities such as printing stickers at the end of every calendar year imitating those shared by priests when blessing houses. These stickers feature the inscription “Reason to This House” (“Razum kući ovoj”) and pictures of famous scientists, atheists, writers, etc. who promoted “secular sacred” values through their life and work (figure 1),⁵³ instead of the traditional inscription “Peace to This House” (“Mir kući ovoj”). There are also secular calendars that imitate Catholic calendars. While Catholic calendars mark the religious significance of each day,⁵⁴ these calendars mark their significance based on this-worldly events, emphasizing secular holidays (like Earth Day or Democracy Day), natural cycles (solstices) and birthdays of famous scientists, artists and humanists (figure 2). According to one of the sites that announce calendars, marking these kinds of events and people of different nationalities, religious backgrounds and worldviews is important because it unites humanity, while religion divides it because it is “particular” and exclusive.⁵⁵ Further, it says that secular calendars are for those who do not need reli Smith, and Cimino, Atheist Awakening, 138  Left figure source: http://zupa-trnovcica.net/?start=56 (accessed 22/09/2017); right figure source: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hrvatskiateisti (accessed 22/09/2017). Sticker made by the non-religious/atheistic organizations has the pictures of Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Dutch feminist, activist and scholar born in Somalia. Publicly declared as atheist after abandoning Islam and becoming its fierce critic), Nikola Tesla (famous Croatian American scientist and inventor responsible for numerous irreplaceable inventions used today, the most important of which being the alternating current. He was raised religiously, but was not overtly religious later in life), Niel deGrasse Tyson (American astrophysicist and writer who claims to be a scientist above all else and refuses to declare himself an atheist but expresses atheistic stances in his appearances) and Marija Jurić Zagorka (first professional female journalist and the most-read Croatian writer).  It indicates feasts, holidays or patron saints for each day. Holidays are based on the general Roman Calendar and are celebrated throughout the Roman Catholic Church, with a special accent on the holidays that are important for the Roman Catholic Church in the Croatian nation (days commemorating Croatian saints, for example).  Available at http://fama.com.hr/sekularni-kalendar-za-2017-godinu/ (accessed 26/06/2017).

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Figure 1: Sticker made by one of the local parishes (on the left) and sticker made by an organization of nonreligious people and atheists (on the right).

gious “fictitious ‘saints’” because there are real people like us who “truly are saints that indebted humanity.”⁵⁶ Calendars are shared among the members of the organizations as well as anyone else who is interested. Interest is substantial, so those who do not manage to get a printed version can download it from the internet. According to the calendar description, it features: Only great people who really existed. Only great events that really happened. The birth of the idea of knowledge, not delusions; people thanks to whom the world is a better place, not a medieval leper desert. All in one place – this time – our calendar!⁵⁷

This statement reflects an understanding of reality grounded entirely on verifiable and known this-worldly events and represents the position of materialism, or the view that everything that makes up our world can be completely explained through physical nature and human agency. Knowledge (or science) is celebrated and again contrasted with religion, which is considered a “delusion”. Faith in God’s help is ironized and described as useless compared with real people’s ideas and knowledge. Shifting the source of absolute good from the transcendental to the secular framework, its embodiment in unquestionable values and its personification in

 Ibid.  Available at: https://www.scribd.com/document/335061182/Sekularni-Kalendar-2016 (Accesed 24/04/2017).

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Figure 2. Catholic calendar (above) and secular calendar (below)

historical people is manifested as a subversive action using the well-known forms of religious artifacts. These artifacts, which are symbols of the dominant and apparent religious repository, are linked in an unexpected way to content with an opposite worldview. Although the form is conventional and normative

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and the content unexpected and controversial, both artifacts derive from the Christian-shaped culture, which is shared by the majority of Croatian society. This method makes it possible to undermine and question dominant typifications and legitimations. Calendars and stickers become symbolic markers that operate at different levels. The first one is spatial – they are used to “occupy” physical space and connect it with a different (contrary) symbolical system than the dominant religious one. The second level concerns the level of consciousness. In the course of people’s daily routines, they root everyday life in the secular and scientific, invoking and reinforcing legitimations different from the dominant ones and placing individual (or family) identities in a specific sub-universe of meaning. In the words of Berger and Luckmann,⁵⁸ “[e]veryday life becomes bereft of both sacred legitimation and the sort of theoretical intelligibility that would link it with the symbolic universe in its intended totality.”

5 Individual level On the micro-level, respondents strive to root their nonreligiousness/atheism firmly in science. This can be traced on the level of individuals’ “secular sacred” values, morals and beliefs as well as along individual paths to nonreligiousness/ atheism. When asked what they think about the relationship between science and religion, respondents stress that these two cannot be reconciled. However, they fail to verbalize exactly why. In an attempt to explain the basic disagreement, which they intuitively or “pre-theoretically”⁵⁹ feel, they refer to a methodological approach in which science leads to knowledge through strictly verifiable methods, while religion claims facts which cannot be factually proved: As an atheist scientist I approach reality by asking questions that I may never have an answer to. While in religion, you get an answer, but you cannot ask a question. And that is something that is simply not compatible. So, the two of them cannot coexist together. (Ivan)

Another explanation for this disagreement is seen in the reduction of the scope of religious interpretation due to the advance of science. According to this approach, scientific progress leads to religion’s withdrawal into a particular social sphere (compartmentalization).

 Berger and Luckmann, The Social Construction, 130.  Berger and Luckmann, The Social Construction, 108.

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They are not compatible, as religion has usually appropriated scientific knowledge, for example facts, truths, the question of cosmology, the issue of evolution, the question of the functioning of different things, and given these a religious interpretation. Thanks to science, that field open to religious interpretation is getting smaller and smaller. So, I do not see the way science and religion can be reconciled. (Lovro)

However, the conflict is of a deeper nature and concerns the basic principles of the underlying legitimations and the corresponding symbolic universes as described above and indicated in Mislav’s interview: I believe that the future of humanity lies in the abolition of political influences of religion and nation. But it is a very distant future. […] I am a globalist, humanist, and I think that we should simply consider every man to be equal, because science proves that we are genetically totally the same, completely the same, except for these tiny differences, hair color, eyes and so on … or skin color. (Mislav)

Even among the respondents who emphasize that there is no conflict between religion and science because they operate in different social spheres, there is a strong underlying feeling of fundamental disagreement that can be noticed in the need to position themselves on the side of science: “Well, I think religion has its place in philosophy, not in science. So, I do not think they are in conflict. But, I’m absolutely on the side of science.” (Davor) Furthermore, morality and the moral grounds on which people build their own sense of right and wrong are seen as natural characteristics of the human species, which are essential for its survival. The thesis on the biological condition of morality, which is evolving over time, but whose roots lay in humanity’s innate sense of well-being, was presented by the authors of New Atheism.⁶⁰ This idea was accepted by the interviewees, for example Marko: In fact, purely evolutionarily it can be proven where morality comes from. It comes from the first, let’s say, human tribes when people were few and, simply, it was good to be good, it was opportune not to kill each other because as a group we worked better if we worked together. […] And mutual solidarity is, simply, in man. It’s an evolutionary mechanism. (Marko)

This way, values and moral legitimations are derived from scientific knowledge and no longer from religion or divine authority. Because science becomes the primary source of knowledge and legitimation, individual beliefs, or answers to existential questions, are placed in the domain of science as well. The existence of a soul or life after death is rejected by the interviewees. Some do it with greater  Like Dawkins, Iluzija o Bogu, 196 – 208.

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conviction, some with lesser, because they claim that nothing can be proved. However, in all likelihood death means the end. Their explanations reveal materialistic understandings, based on natural sciences: All recognizable human chemical and electrical activity ceases at death, which would mean that man ceases to exist in any meaningful form. I cannot be completely sure about it because there is no scientific evidence about it, but, according to what scientific logic says, I’m pretty sure. (Marina)

Humanity is perceived as a part of nature, as an animal species, which – thanks to the evolutionary process – has some advantages over other animal species, but in its essence is not a lot different from them.⁶¹ The only way a human can survive death (other than reproduction) is precisely through those opportunities given to the human species, for example the ability to create some monumental work or scientific discovery which will remain common knowledge after his or her death. Man is an animal species and belongs to the fauna of this world. In the game of evolution he received the potential of intellectual thinking, anticipation, contemplation of possibilities and some other capabilities, which no other animal has. We have the technology we got because of that intellect, we’ll probably go somewhere in the universe one day and who knows how long we will evolve. But we are only an animal species and when we die, we die. There is no soul, there is nothing else, there are only works and ideas that we have left behind. (Mislav)

This position is connected with feelings of admiration and gratification toward people who have in some way indebted humanity (scientists, but also artists, benefactors) and moved it further in its evolutionary progress. Scientists play the most important role in this process. Glorification of science and scientists present at the organizational level is thus reflected also on the individual level and is manifested as a firm faith in science: Of course, science, through its development came to many facts that are contrary to religious interpretations and although there is no answer to all the questions that one can ask, I still firmly believe in the truth and power of science. (Sanja)

 For some interviewees, this line of thinking leads to an all-encompasing, non-anthropocentric worldview and lifestyle.

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This especially refers to scientists who, as symbols of values and absolute goodness, outgrew their human nature and became deities themselves: “My gods are Tesla, Einstein and Edison. These are my gods!” (Davor) Individual accounts of the development, or a growing awareness, of one’s own nonreligious/atheistic attitudes are presented as a cognitive, intellectual process in which scientific explanations or achievements negate religious claims. And later, of course, when you read some of these […] when you see science progressing, when you see how it has discovered incredible things, from the fact that man landed on the Moon and that we are able to catapult, either as person or device, out of Earth’s atmosphere […] For me, knowing this, the possibility that we are held on a thread by something somewhere completely disappears because of science. (Ivana)

Interviewees emphasize rational explanations and describe their nonreligious/ atheistic identity as the result of a sequence of intellectual phases in which they revealed their disagreement with religious assumptions based on logical and scientific thinking. They reject religious interpretations as a reaction to logical inconsistencies: There are so many contradictions. Jesus for instance. When I read some historical articles, in fact, there was no record of him until a few decades after his alleged death. And it’s interesting that the Romans had chronicles of everything, or of very unimportant events. […] But about a man who returned from the dead, made the blind see, fed thousands with a fish, nothing! And then… If we look at geology, there are so many different epochs in Earth history that lasted millions and millions of years. And where was God all that time? He appeared a minute ago. So, God created the universe and waited 14 billion years to appear on this small planet, which is absolutely irrelevant in our galaxy, let alone in the universe. And then the entity that created the whole universe has decided to announce its existence on this small territory, to a small tribe in the Middle East. What about the rest of the world? And to make things even funnier, he has his chosen people. (Mario)

For some interviewees, the point of contention with religion obviously arises from an emotional resistance or contradiction to the values inherent therein. This is, however, merely mentioned and not accentuated as important, although in all likelihood it plays a big role. The whole process is shown primarily as an intellectual and cognitive disagreement based on the authority of science.⁶² In  Other authors also mention intellectual disagreements with religious beliefs as the main motives for their non-religious/atheistic stances. See Spencer Bullivant, “Introducing irreligious experiences,” Implicit Religion 11, no. 1 (2008): 16; Mumford, “Living Non-Religious Identity in London,” 156 – 7.

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the next quote, Mislav explains what influenced his nonreligiosity/atheism. However, later in the interview he incidentally mentioned a personal trauma which had obviously affected him but was not mentioned as important for his personal nonreligious/atheistic identity. Scientific discoveries have had a crucial impact on me. Or rather, my education. I was engaged in astronomy and after I stopped believing in these esoteric faiths, I believed in some concept of general good and so on, be it God or not God. […] But as I was further educated in science and got acquainted with some atheists, Richard Dawkins for instance, and their arguments, I concluded that it really makes no sense to pretend anymore. […] Namely, my sister died in the army during the war. She was very young and was supposed to leave the army two days later but was hit by a random grenade. I heard from her a couple of days earlier. She said ‘It’s the last action, I’m coming home.’ After that I just said ‘There is no God for sure because he’s supposed to be omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniwhatever, but the Devil exists. It was just a human reaction […]. (Mislav)

It is also important to note that associative connections between nonreligiosity/ atheism and communism are used by part of the Croatian (religious) public to diminish the value of criticism of religion: Today in the Croatian society, where the current government is a supporter of religious ideas, any nonreligious initiative is automatically condemned as a political opposition and excluded from the discourse. (Lovro)

Some of the interviewees, like Željka, expressed concern over being too closely identified with communism and a desire to distance themselves from it. In other words, they strive to detach their own sub-universe of meaning from the communist legacy, or de-politicize it using references to science and New Atheism. It is not easy when you hear from some members of the Church that we promote evil or violently fight for atheism. We also get that famous title of the Yugo-communist, Yugo-nostalgics and so on. I do not know how these two are connected, being an atheist and being a communist. If communism has appropriated atheism, it does not mean that it has a monopoly on it. You can be an atheist without accepting communist ideology. […] Our activism is, in fact, about raising awareness about science, skepticism, critical thinking, and popularizing some other rationality-based attitudes and knowing that everything is relative and that truth and evidence and facts are to be sought. That is the opposite of accepting existing religious explanations and ‘celestial North Korea’ as Hitchens said. (Željka)

Religion is perceived among interviewees as a fantastic creation of the human mind. They call it fascinating, intriguing and interesting. Since religion is a phenomenon that lies at the very basis of human civilization, it needs to be studied

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in a rational and scientific way. Interpreting religion as a remnant of primitive humans evokes a fascination for it as well as a constant interest in “how others can believe” (Ines), and how religion can represent such a crucial part of someone’s life. Occasionally, this attitude takes the form of suspicion or lack of understanding towards religious people. Or, sometimes it is also expressed as genuine wonder in situations in which religion and science merge (like in the case of scientists who are deeply religious). Scientists, as personifications of supreme authority, in these cases lose their respectability to a certain extent: “Đikić,⁶³ for instance. I was stunned when Đikić said that he is a believer or something stupid like that. For me, he is a scientist who should be respected.” (Josip) Therefore, science is understood (similarly as on the level of the organizations) as knowledge which goes hand in hand with education. Furthermore, scientific knowledge (objective, verifiable, intersubjective) and faith are set as an antonymic pair: “So, the more people know, the better for them. Between belief and knowledge, the emphasis would be on the latter. Information, education and a scientific approach above all.” (Lovro) Science is also perceived as a method of understanding reality that is contrary to religious beliefs: Science is, above all, the method. Therefore, that’s what we have to be aware of. In this method you have prediction, you have analysis, you have calculation. […] Science and religion cannot be reconciled. (Mladen)

As shown above, science is constantly brought up as an opposition to religion, or an alternative for upholding an overall social symbolic universe on an individual level – be it as either knowledge or method, as a source of values, morality and beliefs. Members of nonreligious/atheistic organizations try to impose this internalized symbolic universe as the dominant one through collective public activism.

6 Conclusion Since the 1990s, the dominant symbolic universe is based on the nation and religion as its most important determinants in Croatian society. Institutions of power include the Catholic religion as an important factor. Although on the practical level religion serves more as a marker of identity than as an all-encompassing worldview for most citizens, it is still the dominant frame of reference imposed by the education system and media. In this social context,  Ivan Đikić is a famous Croatian scientist who specializes in the molecular biology of tumors.

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organizations of nonreligious people and atheists represent alternative interpretations of social reality, which question widespread and accepted forms of religious knowledge and legitimations. Organizations of nonreligious people and atheists become transmitters of objectivated knowledge about social reality through described group activities and individual identities. Establishing themselves as an organized community in society, although small in number, organized nonreligious/atheists have on some occasions attracted public attention which exceeds their numbers and provoked the Church. All public gatherings and protests are covered by the media, which provokes polarization among citizens regarding different moral questions (bioethical issues, education, women’s rights, alternative lifestyles, etc.). The Church and lay organizations close to it sometimes even refer to themselves in their public appearances as endangered, in a situation where a “minority rules the majority.”⁶⁴ However, in the overall social space, organizations of nonreligious people and atheists do not have an influence that is significant or could threaten the dominant religious symbolic universe. Science is used in organized communities of nonreligious people and atheists to discredit religious interpretations of the social reality and to legitimize certain values and morals. However, in the Croatian context, rooting religious criticism in science is important for one additional reason: It allows atheists and the nonreligious to distance themselves from politicizing their view and from its association with communism. After all, the religious answer to criticism made by these organizations in Croatia strives to discredit them based on their alleged ideological (communist) orientation. In this way, critical viewpoints are discredited and reduced. The above-described practices of organizations of nonreligious people and atheists on the group and individual levels (printing stickers and calendars, placing a personal identity that rejects religion onto a scientific/intellectual cognitive path, opposing religion and science on the intuitive [pre-theoretical] level, placing personal beliefs and hopes on science, attributing qualities of absolute good to science and scientists thereby deifying historical figures, and so on) point to the fact that science is (consciously or intuitively) seen as a complete symbolic universe and scientists as its symbols, executors and exponents. Through these practices, organizations of nonreligious people and atheists in  See, for example: http://www.e-novine.com/stav/39530-Otac-sin-duhovnik.html (Accessed 26/04/2017); https://www.glas-koncila.hr/dr-natalija-kanacki-drzava-mora-zastititi-sve-svojegradane-od-diskriminacije/ (Accessed 26/04/2017); https://www.vecernji.hr/hrvatska/kaptol-katolici-su-u-hrvatskoj-diskriminirani-i-ugrozeni-304841/komentari?page=20 (Accessed 27/04/ 2017).

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Croatia present science as an alternative way of defining reality in immediate everyday life and experience.

Marta Kołodziejska

Religious knowledge as the common ground

The case study of atheists on catholic online forums in Poland

Introduction This paper investigates the exchanges between nonreligious and religious participants on two Roman Catholic forums: forum.wiara.pl and dyskusje.katolik.pl. While dedicated mostly to Catholic users, the forums also attract significant numbers of people identifying as atheist, agnostic, or antireligious. Through the lens of computer-mediated discourse analysis (CMDA), the article investigates the discursive formation of the opposition between religion and nonreligion by participants in the Roman Catholic forums, and the common ground of exchanges between nonreligious and religious participants. The paper argues that knowledge (religious, scientific) and references to sources of knowledge enable a heterogeneous group of participants to find a common ground. The analysis shows that while self-identification as nonreligious was usually associated with the perception of science and religion as opposing domains (with science based on rationality, replicability and verification being superior to religion), references to both scientific and religious discourses were common among religious and nonreligious users alike. Knowing what one does and does not believe in was the general (and often explicitly mentioned) effect of engaged participation. The desired result of the discussions was not necessarily to reach an agreement or consensus, but rather to find ways of building dialogue among people with different values. While some differences between forum users remain irreconcilable, the collective agreement to ground all claims with references to knowledge sources was an integrating factor allowing a basic shared understanding among forum users.

https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547085-014

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1 Roman Catholic forums: the online intermediaries When I first started my study of Roman Catholic online forums back in 2010, I was surprised by how many participants self-identified as atheist or nonreligious. While some were present on the forums as trolls and flamers, the vast majority engaged in lengthy debates with their religious counterparts. It seemed an odd hobby: Why would anyone spend hours in front of their computer screen arguing with strangers subscribing to completely different values and worldviews? My own research was focused on community-building and constructing religious authority online,¹ and atheism as such was not the object of the analysis. As it turned out, it became a vital part of the entire project, and so did finding the answer to the aforementioned question. The latter is puzzling also for another reason, namely that in Poland declared atheists are a small minority of the population² (and are sometimes put in the same category as people declaring no affiliation, religious indifference or agnosticism – however, those declarations may have wholly different implications), while on the forums they were often the second most active group. This group was vocal about their convictions and worldviews, and often very critical of religious beliefs, practices and institutions. And yet, atheists on the Polish Catholic forums were generally welcome, and would often gain the status of experts in religious knowledge,³ become moderators, or receive special privileges such as being able to participate in threads⁴ usually open to Christians or Catholics only. This was an indicator that online Catholic forums were an expressive environment where diverging worldviews could coexist, and where people with all sorts of religious and nonreligious (as well as antireligious) convictions and values were free to interact. This paper investigates the exchanges between nonreligious and religious participants on two Roman Catholic forums: forum.wiara.pl and dyskusje.kato-

 See Marta Kołodziejska, and Anna Neumaier, “Between individualisation and tradition: transforming religious authority on German and Polish Christian online discussion forums,” Religion 47, no. 2 (2017): 228 – 55; Marta Kołodziejska, and Alp Arat, “Religious Authority Online: Catholic Case Study in Poland,” Religion and Society in Central and Eastern Europe 9, no. 1 (2016): 3 – 16.  In 2016, 7 % of Poles declared non-belief (Centrum Badania Opinii Społecznej, “Przynależność Polaków do ruchów i wspólnot religijnych” [Participation in religious movements and communities among the Poles], 2016: 2.  Kołodziejska, and Arat, “Religious Authority Online”.  A forum thread is a topic or theme of a separate discussion. It consists of user posts, which are shorter or longer commentaries by participants.

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lik.pl. In my original study, I also analyzed a third forum, adonai.pl/zrodelko, but since the interactions between atheists and Catholics were rarer there, I decided not to include it in this paper. The aim of this text is to investigate, through the lens of discourse analysis, 1) the discursive formation of the opposition between religion and nonreligion by the participants of Roman Catholic forums, and 2) the common ground of exchanges between nonreligious and religious participants, which will offer a general frame for the investigation described in point 1. I will argue that knowledge (religious, scientific) and references to sources of knowledge was what enabled a heterogeneous group of participants to find a common ground. While some differences were irreconcilable, the agreement to ground one’s claims with references to knowledge sources was an integrating factor allowing a basic understanding among forum users. Before I move on to the analysis, I would like to answer the following two questions: What are the analyzed forums and what is their institutional setting? What is the status of nonreligion in Poland, according to the polls? Once we know the answers, the context of our discussion will become more tangible. There is no reliable data regarding the number of Roman Catholic (from now on referred to as RC) websites and/or forums in Poland. One can estimate that there are hundreds of such sites, which include those run by laypeople, parishes, convents, formal and informal organizations and groups within the Church, Church-based charities, social media and so on. The latter have far surpassed forums in terms of popularity: Younger generations are the most eager users of social media, and so a large part of religious communication online has followed the youth. A forum seems old-fashioned when compared to Snapchat, for instance, and the text-based formula may discourage young people who tend to seek accessible multimedia content. However, this does not mean that forums are dead: The ones I analyzed each count over 12,000 registered users. This number does not translate into 12.000 active (posting) users, but it shows that the interest in this form of online communication is still present. My observation, although not supported by statistically representative data, is that the average active forum participant is male. On both forums I analyzed, women comprised approximately ⅓ of the most active users.⁵ It was also apparent that the average active forum user was older than the typical social media user, as the dominant age cohort of forum users was around 35 – 45. Some people shared their ages in  To give an example, on dyskusje.katolik.pl there were 25 women among 100 of the most active users, while on forum.wiara.pl 29 of 100 randomly selected users who published a minimum of 500 posts were women. Since these gender identifications are declarative, one must be cautious when making assumptions. However, the qualitative analysis confirms that both forums were much more popular among men than women.

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their profiles, while some referred to their education, professional experiences and personal lives, which are useful estimators of their stage in life. I mention this because I believe it is important to understand whom the forums attract: For some members of the 35 – 45 year old cohort, the forum is the first, if not the only space where they can engage in discussions in a pluralistic environment. My observation is also that most of the active users come from urban rather than rural areas, and most of them are well-educated. This factor may influence the style and form of discussions, but systematic and statistically relevant studies must be conducted to offer more insights into user demographics. If we inquire about the institutional setting of the forums, the ones I have placed under scrutiny are part of RC portals: katolik.pl, a site run by the Salvatorian Brothers in Krakow, was established in the year 2000, while wiara.pl, which is part of a Catholic media institute based in Katowice (which also publishes a highly popular RC weekly Gość Niedzielny [‘Sunday Visitor’]), was created in 2001. The editorial boards of both portals consist of clergymen and laypeople, but the forums are separate entities: Moderators and administrators are not identical (although there are some functional overlaps). Since both portals were created by established RC institutions and the media, and since they are often cited by the Catholic Information Agency’s website (and other official RC sources), we can assume they are approved by the institutional Church and to some degree endorsed as online RC resources. This is confirmed by the fact that the editorial board policy is favorable to the Church and that the authors refrain from publishing highly controversial content. Both portals, however, represent a more centric or liberal wing of the Church: They engage in debates on politics offering pluralistic opinions, but at the same time avoid being identified with one party or political orientation. They publish original and re-posted content from other Catholic and non-Catholic portals, and the articles and commentaries are authored by members of the clergy, as well as by laypeople (including experts from academia, theologians, commentators, etc.). While there is no official institutional oversight over the portals, it can be assumed that the content they produce is generally in line with mainstream Catholicism and Catholic teachings. The forums, as I have already mentioned, have more of an autonomous status: Naturally, since they are part of the RC portals, their foundations are also in compliance with the teachings of the Church, however the actual content of the debates is often a significant departure from those foundations. What I mean by this is the discrepancy between forum regulations and the posted content. The former favor RC teachings and urge all participants, regardless of their convictions and affiliations, to abide by certain rules, such as respecting the correct spelling of religious vocabulary (for instance, when referring to the Catholic

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God, God must be capitalized), refraining from defaming the Church and its representatives and beliefs, refraining from propagating ideas and values countering RC teachings, and so on. While some of these rules are quite clear-cut (the standards of polite discussions are, after all, a part of the netiquette, and the rules of spelling are defined not by the Church but by the Polish Language Council), others are prone to numerous interpretations. Propagating ideas, for instance, is not always easy to discern from simply sharing one’s opinions and defending them. If a user of the forum says she believes abortion should be legal and accessible to all women who need it, it does go against the RC teachings, but is it a form of promoting abortion or propagating the pro-choice standpoint, or simply a case where someone is expressing her convictions? In many such instances, the interpretation depends on the moderators who monitor the thread. This is a potential source of conflict between the users and the moderators. The latter are in charge of making sure that all participants follow the rules, and they can issue warnings and temporary or permanent bans to discipline insubordinate individuals. However, the moderators themselves are by no means a uniform group: According to information provided in their profiles, most of them are Catholics, but some are not. Some of them are more conservative, while others hold a liberal worldview. Some are stricter in their judgement, while others interpret the rules more in favor of the speakers, and so on. Therefore, the moderators can and do argue among themselves, although most of those exchanges are likely to be hidden from public view in private threads. Here, we come back to the first sentence of this paragraph: The content of the threads, while monitored, is not in full compliance with RC teachings. This is a result of different moderator policies, but also of the heterogeneous user community: Far from being a uniform group (as they are sometimes depicted in mainstream secular media), they represent almost all worldviews and convictions one can imagine. This heterogeneity has another facet: lack of outward definitions of ‘religious’ and ‘nonreligious’ or ‘atheist.’ With religious affiliation, such as Catholic or Orthodox, it seems there is less variety, as the most basic definition created by forum users is that of an individual following the teachings of their Church and believing in the credo. Nevertheless, when it comes to particular issues or topics, users argue about and explain what it means to be a ‘Catholic’: notions of ‘a true Catholic’ come into play. During discussions, similar statements were sometimes uttered with regard to users identifying as atheist or nonreligious: Some of their opinions or claims were identified by other interlocutors as ‘fake atheism.’ In the following section, we will explore the conceptualizations of nonreligion and atheism as observed in the course of the discussions, but first let us come back to the very first question that inspired this paper.

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2 Why do atheists visit religious forums? While investigating personal motivations for participation was beyond my research interests, statistical data, in combination with the aforementioned facts, may help shed some light on this phenomenon and offer a sociological answer. First of all, only 3 % of Poles declare no religious affiliation, which in comparison to the 94 % who declare some affiliation (the dominant one being the Roman Catholic Church) is a small minority. However, if we juxtapose this data with declared levels of religious engagement, we will see a dramatic change: In total, 39 % of Poles declare no engagement and no participation in any Church.⁶ According to another data source, the number of people who declare that they are not religious has been slowly but steadily growing and is now at about 10 %, almost doubling since 2007.⁷ Here, I should add that Poland is traditionally Catholic, and belonging to the Church is part of the cultural/family heritage. Church weddings and baptisms are celebrations one (usually) carries out, regardless of one’s personal faith and religious engagement: It is often a rite, underscoring the celebratory character of the event. In this context, I believe it is safe to assume that the majority of Polish non-believers have been baptized, and more often than not also received the First Holy Communion. Religious education, which usually is dominated by the Catholic teachings, is taught in public schools by members of the clergy and certified laypeople. While it is not a mandatory subject, the majority of pupils attend this class for social and practical reasons. Therefore, it is also probable that the majority of Polish non-believers have received some religious education. And despite having lost their connection with the Church and/or religion as such, they have not lost interest in debating it: The grounds for such discussions were knowledge and the juxtaposition of rational scientific knowledge and discourses with what we can call religious discourses.

 GUS, Jakość życia w Polsce w 2015 roku [The quality of life in Poland in 2015] (Warsaw: Wyd. GUS, 2017): 114, 120.  CBOS, Zmiany w zakresie podstawowych wskaźników religijności Polaków po śmierci Jana Pawła II (Warsaw: CBOS, 2015): 4.

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3 The study of Catholic forums The study of Roman Catholic Polish-speaking forums was conducted using the Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis (CMDA) framework.⁸ The timeframe of analysis was January 2010 through March 2013, and the process of data collection involved downloading forum content via a customized web crawler program, automated keyword generation based on an TF/IDF algorithm (ten keywords per thread), keyword selection and two rounds of systematic sampling. The final thread sample consisted of over 350 threads, each comprising a minimum of 11 posts. Those threads were then analyzed using the CMDA framework, focusing on verifying three criteria of online communities, namely sociability, identity and support. The core method used in the study was Critical Discourse Analysis,⁹ supplemented with 23 online questionnaires and nine individual indepth interviews. All original names and nicknames were replaced with identifiers (such as W1, indicating that the user was part of the wiara.pl forum, and that his/her post was analyzed as the first one), and all excerpts in this paper were translated by myself from Polish. For the purpose of this paper, I have chosen those excerpts which were the most adequate representations of the issue discussed. Using Critical Discourse Analysis entailed assuming a constructivist approach to discourse, according to which discourse is not only shaped by actors and institutions, but also has the power to shape and change the latter. Discursive action is thus a dimension of social processes, and goes beyond producing texts or utterances. This perspective allows the researcher to view individuals and groups not as merely replicating and disseminating institutionalized and legitimized discourses, but also as creatively contributing to their creation and alteration. In my analysis, I focused on moments of potential discursive change, which manifested themselves in the crises in interactions signaling ‘problematizations’ of various kinds. Those included conflicting interpretations and resistant readings, misunderstandings, repetitions, longer pauses in conversation, the use of irony, etc. In those moments, not only were the sources of potential conflicts identifiable, but also representations of various groups were constructed. For instance, during an argument which resulted from opposing interpreta-

 Susan Herring, “Computer-Mediated Discourse Analysis: An approach to researching online behavior,” in Designing for virtual communities in the service of learning, eds. Sasha Barab, Rob Kling, and James H. Gray (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 338 – 76.  Norman Fairclough, Discourse and social change (Cambridge: Polity, 1992).

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tions of a source, in-group and out-group language¹⁰ was deployed, which indicated that a group was forming around each of those readings. This language often involved using dichotomies like ‘we vs. you’ and ‘ours vs. yours,’ but also building more complex representations of ‘devout Catholics,’ ‘lukewarm Catholics,’ ‘radical anticlericals’ or ‘rational-scientific atheists,’ to name just a few. The means with which such representations were constructed differed depending on the thread’s topic and the composition of participants, and so they were prone to change and reconfiguration. They did, however, have one thing in common: They were rooted in religious knowledge. Let us now investigate what this means and the implications of this process.

4 Creating social representations¹¹ in the forums In my analysis, I discovered that religious knowledge, in particular the knowledge of sources, was the bedrock and context of the overwhelming majority of discussions. There were threads devoted to the debates around sources, including interpretations of the Bible, papal encyclicals, and theological works. Those debates involved the dissemination, interpretation and discussion of sources, and the conversing group usually engaged users who were particularly knowledgeable in a certain domain, such as theology, the history of the papacy, etc. The other most common type of thread was the debate on personal matters and individual opinions: The variety of topics included marital issues, witnesses (of conversion, a religious experience, etc.) and moral or ethical dilemmas. While the first type was usually focused on exchanging information and gaining/disseminating knowledge, the latter involved people asking for advice, help and emotional support. However, despite different aims, both types of threads were rife with references to sources: both in the form of direct quotes and paraphrases, and in mentions or indirect evocations. This strong adherence to references was partially the effect of the forum rules, which obliged users to give the sources of their claims, and partially the result of mutual user control. Interpretation of sources was often a basis for conflicts between users: Resistant readings merged with divergent worldviews and opinions, dividing the disputants into

 Henry Tajfel, and John Turner, “An interactive theory of intergroup conflict,” in The social psychology of intergroup relations, eds. William G. Austin, and Stephen Worchel (Monterey: Brooks/ Cole, 1979), 33 – 47.  I define social representations as the collective elaboration “of a social object by the community for the purpose of behaving and communicating” (Serge Moscovici, “Attitudes and opinions,” Annual Review of Psychology 14 (1963): 251).

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groups depending on which side they identified with. Such divisions, as mentioned earlier, involved constructing representations of an in-group and an out-group. While they were observed throughout all threads, it was during the moments of crises when they were most visible and intense – these were also cases where such divisions were part of the discussion itself, often dominating its development. The in-group referred to a circle of like-minded people (although the degree of compatibility varied) with whose interpretations and opinions one identified. The out-group then represented the opponents of the ingroup, which was associated with different views and usually referred to in negative terms. Those divisions were not identical to the divisions between religious and nonreligious users, but affiliation, or more broadly, the attitude towards religion, was an important dimension of constructing opposing representations. If we were to recreate the representation of nonreligion in the forums, its most prominent dimension would be atheism, defined primarily as ‘being against religion,’ and not so much religious indifference. This may be reflective of the fact that those indifferent to matters of faith and religion (understood primarily through the lens of Christianity and Christian concepts of both, with minor references to Islam)¹² would be less inclined to participate in debates than those who had negative opinions on religion and faith. Being against religion had several meanings, however: It was associated with anticlericalism, rejecting a religious worldview and ridiculing religion, but also advocating a rational-scientific way of understanding the world and propagating materialism and scientism. Depending on the theme of the debate, those various elements were underscored or minimized: What all representations had in common was the posters’ attitudes towards religious knowledge on the one hand, and towards scientific knowledge on the other. Let me start with a passage from one of the threads: W1: […] But it’s you Catholics who show how narrow your thinking is, when you decide upon your moronic dogmas where God resides and in what quantities. W2: Dogmas are indisputable and the infallibility of the Pope guarantees that they’re true. […] the only thing you can do with them is believe in them. Any critique will be immediately defined as getting in too deep and simplifying, as only an idiot would do […].

 It should be noted that while in some debates faith was understood in more general terms, and was associated with spirituality/experiences of transcendence, the dominant concept of faith and religion had Christian connotations. Since on the forums non-Christian believers were a minority, their concepts of both terms were also present, although naturally in a less pronounced form.

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W3: Yes, but it’s your own fault – you can’t go beyond your limited perspective. You demand that everything is brought to your level, and you can’t fathom that others may think differently. Faith isn’t ‘fantasizing’. It’s yet another example that you can’t get over this. You either MUST mock it or discuss it with this kind of spitefulness. (forum.wiara.pl)

Two main conclusions can be drawn from that exchange. W1 was a declared atheist who criticized Catholics for their unwillingness to participate in debates with an open mind. He did so by overtly mocking some elements of institutionalized religion (the dogmas), and was then joined by W2, another nonreligious user, who emphasized that Catholics are in fact narrow-minded and do not allow actual discussions of what they believe in. W3, a Catholic user, defended his standpoint by reversing the argument and blaming atheists for being hotheaded and limited in their judgement. We can see that both sides blamed their opponents for not being able to entertain an open discussion, and that in fact they used similar arguments. Another observation is that the two groups used the ‘we’ and ‘you’ categorization in their posts: This opposition allowed the users to identify with one side of the strife, and at the same time it enabled them to distance themselves from ideas and views they did not subscribe to. Here, the ‘we’ and ‘you’ division was related to Catholics and atheists (or vice versa, depending on the speaker), and users subscribed to those representations without questioning their content. Voices diversifying the representations were not observed. This opposition was centered around religious knowledge, here represented by the Catholic dogmas. The meaning of dogmas to Catholicism per se was not questioned, but the two opposing groups assessed their value differently. This short exchange can also be interpreted as a dispute between different visions of religion: The atheist users, it would seem, associated religion with a spiritual experience, a form of epiphany, or as a way of looking at the world through the lens of some ideal. They seemed to reject the institutionalization of religious affect – this is what the reference to “moronic dogmas” suggests. To the participating non-believers, the institutionalization of certain elements of religion and religiosity was in fact rendering the latter absurd (“deciding […] where God resides and in what quantities”), hence the forms of such institutionalization (as the dogmas) themselves become part of the religious belief (“the only thing you can do with them is believe in them”). A similar understanding of what religion is was often observed in debates between believers and non-believers: Declared atheists would often separate religious belief and experience from institutionalized religion (the Church organization, hierarchy, organized ritual, formalized procedures, etc.). While they were generally critical of religious belief, it seems that they accepted privatized, individualized religion and religiosity as one exist-

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ing worldview, so long as the latter was not imposed on others or put above scientific reasoning – and institutionalization was a form of such imposition. For religious users, most of whom declared affiliation to the Church (like W3), religious affect, experience and belief were complementary to the institutional organization, hence they advocated a ‘holistic’ view of religion. In other debates, they strongly opposed individualized forms of religiosity which excluded the Church organization, and viewed them as both incomplete and threatening. The representations of non-believers and believers often involved a particular perspective on science, or more precisely on the relationship between religion (and religious knowledge) and science (and scientific knowledge). Let us take a look at an excerpt from a discussion on Creationism and Intelligent Design.¹³ While Creationism is not popular among Roman Catholics in Poland, there were lengthy discussions on both forums which attracted enthusiasts and proponents of Creationism and Intelligent Design. Their comments would often elicit a reaction from non-believers and believers arguing for the theory of evolution instead. Interestingly, users proposing a separation of scientific knowledge and religious belief were also present, advocating for an approach similar to non-overlapping magisteria.¹⁴ The analysis shows that all groups involved in such discussions referred to both scientific and religious (faith-based) discourses to support their claims. In one such discussion, a life scientist, K35, engaged in a debate with K2, who argued that the Roman Catholic Church does not support Creationism, and that in fact religion and the Church are indifferent to scientific claims about the origins of the world, because they ask different questions and are driven by a different purpose. At one point, user K35 noted an inaccuracy in another user’s reference to geological periods, and pointed out that the error was a serious one and as such rendered the whole argument irrelevant: K35: But you know: mistaking the Precambrian with the Cretaceous Period is sooo much more than the 5 % error … :). K2: Please, tell me, SINCE WHEN does the Church teach about the Genesis [that it is not historically accurate – M.K.]? Be honest in this discussion. […] And who said 5 % is the mar-

 Creationism is understood here as a religiously based belief that the universe was created by God through divine intervention. It is often based on a literal reading of the Bible and as such opposes Darwin’s theory of evolution. Intelligent Design is a concept which claims that the world, and living beings in particular, show signs of being designed, and so must have had an original, intentional creator. Both concepts are often backed up with references to the works of scholars, however, mainstream science does not consider them to be valid scientific proof.  Cf. Gould, “Nonoverlapping Magisteria”.

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gin of error… I’m going to agree to 10 % from now on :-D¹⁵, or why not 0.1 % […] Tell me what the error of description is in that you’re facing the computer screen right now. K35: Let’s see… Wikipedia: The official position of the Catholic Church was expressed for the first time in the encyclical Humani generis (1950) by Pius XII […] [The margin of error – M.K.] is a matter of scientific consensus. [referring to the 5 % error – M.K.] The risk of rejecting the null hypothesis referring to the lack of differences between trials, despite the absence of these differences, was accepted to occur no more than once in 20 cases. […] There is no such thing as a description error. K2: Unfortunately, the power of your arguments has knocked me down completely … oh no, what a tragedy ;-(Okay [K35] … Read some facts about the case first. […] You have evidence for what? You think that the Pope is a scientist who determines which of the scientific theories are valid? :-D I think I’m gonna cry […]. Catholicism doesn’t care whether the sun is a nuclear reactor or a magic disc… K35: Well, [K2], here are your facts. […] perhaps you should read the contents of the document of the Pontifical Biblical Commission: Concerning the historical nature of the first three chapters of Genesis (June 30, 1909) […] I understand that you’re abandoning the discussion on statistics altogether. And rightly so, because you would fail miserably. K1: Statistics is close to math, so [K2] is probably afraid. St. Augustine warned against mathematicians saying that “The good Christian should beware of mathematicians. The danger already exists that mathematicians have made a covenant with the devil to darken the spirit and confine man in the bonds of Hell. K36: I was greatly touched when I read about the affection and paternal love, the Church as a whole, and the Vatican especially has had for the sciences in general, and for the scholars in particular. Unfortunately, one document contradicts this opinion, namely one called the Index of Prohibited Books (Latin: Index librorum prohibitorum or Index Expurgatorius) […]. Now on this list we find the works of such authors as: Nicolaus Copernicus […]. Just as a fun fact I will add that Adam Mickiewicz [a famous Polish poet from the Romantic period – M.K.] and a certain Faustina Kowalska [a Polish saint – M.K.] are also on this list, the latter now a saint. As you know, the Church never ever changes its mind :-P. (katolik.pl)

This exchange is rife with examples of how the representations of religion and atheism are constructed. First, let us investigate the various discourses that were used by the interlocutors: We can generally discern the religious discourse and the scientific discourse. Note that the former was present in the posts of nonreligious users (K1 and K36), who deployed irony both when referring to a source of religious knowledge (as in K1’s quote from St. Augustine) and when mimicking the style of Church documents (see K36’s post). Both users deployed the re The emoticon (i. e. pictorial representation of a facial expression, an emotion or an action, such as smiling, crying, or feeling angry) :-D stands for laughing. It is used to emphasize a humorous undertone of a phrase, to show that it is meant as a joke, or to let other know that something is amusing or funny to the speaker.

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ligious discourses in order to counter the arguments offered by religious participants. The latter in some cases (see K2’s posts) referred to scientific reasoning to deflect some of the arguments made by their opponents. This passage illustrates an important aspect of constructing representations, namely that no group had the ‘exclusive rights’ to one particular discourse: Their deployment depended on the topic and context of the discussion, and not solely on the composition of users, although some of them were more likely to rely on certain types of argumentation than others. For instance, K35, being a scientist, included scientific argumentation in many of his posts, and usually participated in discussions referring to academic works and logical reasoning. That said, while we can assume the reliance on certain discourses to be a vital part of the representations in question, no discourse (within the religion/science spectrum) can be ascribed exclusively to a certain group. The analysis of the passages above shows that the relationship between science and religion was another important element in the construction of social representations on the forums. For several nonreligious users, science was considered superior to religion as it is available for verification, replication and methodical argumentation. Science, as a domain of critical reflection and validation, is by no means free of error and manipulation (see K35’s post), but it serves humanity in that it enables us to understand the world better. Therefore, nonreligious users often viewed religion and science as opposing orders, with the former attempting to deny or undermine the latter. Nonreligious users would point out incongruences between what science has determined and what religious texts and authorities claim to be true. For them, science was most commonly a synonym of reason and logic, and so their depiction of religion as illogical and unreasonable implied that it does not conform to the standards of scientific verification. The understanding of religiosity proposed by religious users opposed the view that religion is irrational, because rationality was defined in different terms, referring to the sui generis reality of the domain of religion instead of scientific reasoning. Religion and belief did not have to conform to scientific standards of verification and validation. However, this did not mean that religious users were ‘fantasizing’ or believing in fairy tales. The religious institution provided the basis for reasoning and rationality: The Bible was not necessarily an accurate and reliable historical account, but it was a source of religious knowledge, and religious truth. Interpretation and allegory did not in any way obscure this function. This standpoint corresponds with what Robert

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Bellah wrote in his famous article “Christianity and symbolic realism,”¹⁶ in which he argued that “religion is a reality sui generis,”¹⁷ and any form of reductionism is in fact obscuring what religion is. One form of reductionism Bellah uses as an example is the uncovering of the ‘true’ meaning behind religious symbols, in a manner of revealing what is true, real and tangible behind the falsity and ‘magic’ of religion. While many nonreligious users actively took on a similar position, the religious users seemed to advocate a non-reductionist perspective on religion. These two standpoints, religion as an aspect of reality subject to the scientific criteria of verification and rationality, and religion as a reality sui generis were in fact irreconcilable. This constituted the fundamental difference between nonreligious and religious users in the forums. Let us consider one more excerpt, in which this difference is revealed in another context, namely during a debate on homosexuality: K26: As far as I can remember, years ago there was a departure from the label ‘damaged’, formerly used to describe people with Down syndrome. Today you don’t even use the term ‘cripple’. The teachings of the Church have contributed to that progress. For those who try to diagnose psychological symptoms on the Internet, I recommend checking out the works of actual renowned psychiatrists […]. And regular reading of the Gospel, to always follow the teachings of Jesus, and not something that’s just similar… K27: Objectively, homosexuality is a bad thing because 1) it opposes the law of God; 2) it contradicts the purpose of the sexual act. K30: […] it is a matter so complex that it’s difficult to understand. There are people who behave like heterosexuals, and in certain situations they change into homosexuals (in what cases – well, that’s where the Church and sexologists have the most to say). K28: I have contact with homosexuals and yet I haven’t become homosexual myself. If someone is gay then they usually feel gay from a young age […]. And one can’t do anything to change this. (dyskusje.katolik.pl)

In this fragment, several different standpoints and discourses regarding homosexuality (and heterosexuality) were observed: Some users evoked the teachings of the Church, condemning homosexual acts (K27), some referred to the concept of homosexuality as a matter of choice (K30), others attempted to be the conciliatory voice between science and the teachings of the Church (K26), while still others described homosexuality through the lens of scientific argumentation and reasoning (K28’s reference to sexual orientation). For users criticizing homo-

 Robert Bellah, “Christianity and symbolic realism,” Scientific study of religion, 9, 2 (1970): 89 – 96.  Bellah, “Christianity,” 93.

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sexuality, the point of departure was the teachings of the Church which, despite advocating for including homosexual individuals into the Catholic community, forbid homosexual acts. The categories navigating this discourse were that of ‘sin,’ ‘the law of God,’ ‘the purpose of the sexual act’ and ‘the teachings of Jesus.’ Those were the reference points that constituted a certain rationality. The scientific reasoning involved such categories as ‘orientation’ and ‘psychiatry,’ which referred to the scientific consensus regarding homosexuality. As we can see, the categories of sin and orientation, God’s law and science were disjointed and could not be compared using the same criteria (for instance, a sin cannot be defined by scientific terms, and scientific reasoning is not the content of God’s law, etc.).

5 Conclusion: knowledge as the common ground As we have seen from the analyses above, the representations of nonreligious and religious users were often grounded in fundamentally opposing discourses and categories, although I would once more like to emphasize that this division was neither the only nor a fixed one on the forums. There was no unified ‘front’ of religious or nonreligious users who would regularly oppose the other group strictly on the basis of their religious affiliation or lack thereof. I have observed many instances of Catholics forming alliances with atheists, or believers of all affiliations unifying with non-believers against a group of very conservative Catholics. What allowed those seemingly opposing users to ally was the agreement to refer to the sources of knowledge or interpret them in a particular way. A good example of such an alliance was found in the thread on whether paying for certain types of mass is justified and ethical. The users expressed different attitudes toward this practice: Some thought it was acceptable, some tried to nuance their judgment by differentiating between several types of mass, while others were generally or entirely against it. In this discussion a combination of alliances was observed, transcending the differences in religious affiliations and worldviews: W62: When going to a store, no one is forced to take a 3-D TV credit for thousands of Euros. You want to show off, you gotta pay. It’s a matter of choice. If someone wants to pay, let him do so, if someone doesn’t, let him be. […] Anyway, even a hundred Masses will not help someone already dead. W8: So say mostly those who give little or nothing. The poor mostly fear that what they gave is not enough […] Do you know anything about the Gregorian Masses? If you knew what

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their roots and purpose were, you wouldn’t be surprised why people want to spend so much money on it… W60: What difference does it make for God if you pray once and 30 times? Is this some kind of a show, that you need 30 prayers or something? Do you have money to waste? […] Is only one Mass bad? W8: The money’s one thing, but read about the Gregorian Masses. Their name comes from the name of the Pope – St. Gregory the Great (purgatory is his idea). W62: Is someone forcing you to have a church funeral? Stop reading the press and think for yourself. That’s what the brain is for. W64: […] We play in one team, so we need to think about how to fix things so that everyone is closer to salvation and perfection. W63: On what basis do you say the priesthood is a way to be closer to God? Very interesting thesis… W8: On the basis that the priests are the only legitimate (in practice and Catholic theory) ordinary stewards of the sacraments. (forum.wiara.pl)

User W8 was a declared atheist knowledgeable in the history of the Catholic Church and its laws, who during this discussion allied with another nonreligious user, W62. W8 expressed his knowledge of the Gregorian Masses and his acknowledgment of people willing to pay for this service, which supported W62’s claim that since some rituals are optional, the need to pay for them is hardly a scandalous or unethical practice. W62 was critical of an attitude towards devotional practices he called “showing off” and criticized devoting unnecessary energy to rituals which did not have any tangible effect. W8 showed his knowledge and acceptance of the Catholic customs, but at the same time used phrases that indicated his distance towards Catholicism: He presented the theological concept of purgatory as an “idea” of one pope and stressed that “Catholic theory” regulates the functions of priesthood. Thus, he suggested that his personal convictions, which could potentially bias his reasoning (were he a Catholic), did not interfere with the argument he was making. However, despite exhibiting different attitudes towards religious rituals, W8 and W62 had a similar perspective on the issue at hand. Both interpreted the Church laws in a similar way, as they argued that paying for Mass is justified in special circumstances, such as the Gregorian Masses. Against W8 and W62 were W60 (a non-believer) and W63 (a Christian), who condemned the practice of paying for Mass, especially in cases where the bereaved family is asked to give a substantial amount of money for a religious service. W64, a declared Catholic, joined their alliance, emphasizing that everyone is “playing in one team” and that it is important to find unity beyond differences. In their case, differences in affiliation

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and worldviews (W60 was against religious rituals in general; W63, despite exhibiting anti-clerical attitudes, accepted rituals as part of religion; while W64 was a compliant Catholic) did not deter these users from building a temporary ‘front’ and countering the claims made by their interlocutors. This short excerpt shows that the alliances (and in consequence, also conflicts) could transcend potential discrepancies, although the users did not forsake their standpoints altogether in order to form such pacts. Forum interactions did not iron out the differences between users, but created an expressive environment where those could be balanced by finding a common ground. Religious affiliation and worldviews themselves were not a sufficient basis for creating alliances: What mattered most was the knowledge interlocuters possessed (such as the knowledge of the Gregorian Masses in the aforementioned thread) and their interpretations of its sources, which had both an integrative and differentiating potential.¹⁸ Forum regulations encouraged or even obliged users to base their claims on reliable sources whenever it was relevant or necessary. In the excerpts above, there are several references to such sources, and users would request them whenever they felt that the argument of their opponent was faulty or based on unreliable data. The moderators’ task was to make sure everyone followed the rules and to discipline users who broke them. However, the participants themselves controlled this aspect of the debates, providing and verifying sources, requesting them, or even reporting users who regularly made unsupported claims, regardless of their religious affiliation. In this regard, all participants were equal, as they shared the common obligation. Disseminating religious knowledge was one of the goals of the discussions, and almost all of the interviewees mentioned acquiring knowledge as one of the greatest benefits of participating in the debates: And you gain knowledge by talking to people you disagree with […]. Through questions and discussions my personal growth takes place. I get acquainted with content which I wouldn’t have found if it hadn’t been for the forum […]. I like to know and ask ‘why?’ […]. That’s why I’m on the forum. (I6, male, atheist) […] I was certainly surprised by some statements that appeared on the forum […]. Because through online forums I have developed an approach that you can’t be so radical about everything… Now I know that each of us has the right to experience reality differently, so I say ‘maybe’, because it’s me who can be wrong, not necessarily someone else. (I2, male, believer)

 Marta Kołodziejska, “Religion on Catholic Internet Forums In Poland. A Memory Mediated,” Nordic Journal of Relgion and Society 27, no. 2(2014): 151– 66.

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I wouldn’t say my spiritual development was influenced by contacts with users, but these discussions gave me different inspirations, in several directions. For the purpose of discussion I collected data, then wrote an article for some newspaper or something. (I4, male, believer)

Sharing religious knowledge made users wiser, but also more tolerant and openminded, understanding and curious. Despite different approaches to knowledge as such, and often opposing views on what religion is and how it may (or may not) help to explain the world, there was a common agreement that religious knowledge should be respected. What followed from this was the need to include references to sources, to share them and interpret them. The forum group, despite internal differences, alliances and conflicts, in fact facilitated the general dissemination of knowledge and the democratization of access to sources. In other words, all users, irrespective of their worldview and affiliation, could reaffirm their own convictions by grounding them in reliable sources, and they could learn about the standpoints of others in an informed manner. Knowing what one does and does not believe in was the general (and often explicitly stated) effect of engaged participation. The desired result of the discussions was not agreement or a consensus, but rather finding ways to build dialogue among people with different values. And interestingly, due to the large effort made by their users, to some participants the forums offered more substantial religious education than, according to their own testimonies, the church ever did. This is not to say that the forums were some sort of an idyllic space of mutual respect and embracing of differences. In fact, many debates were far from it. However, the foundation of knowledge did allow the heterogeneous group to find a common ground. Perhaps this grounding can also be attributed to the fact that the majority of forum atheists have been brought up in a (more or less) Catholic household, which included participation in rituals, religious education classes and receiving some sacraments. Since Catholicism is publicly present in Poland, it is also quite difficult not to have contact with religion on a daily basis. Therefore, for most atheists on the forums, religion and belief are not strange or foreign as a phenomenon: It is rather their foundations, logic, values and manifestations that are obscure and incongruent with what the atheists view as rational or meaningful. For believers on the forum, getting to know nonbelievers may allow the former to look beyond the stereotypes and learn to negotiate meanings with representatives of different worldviews. What could be further investigated are the varying conceptualizations of religious knowledge, the definitions of source validity and specific uses of sources among religious and nonreligious participants.

Jenny Vorpahl

Central results

All of the contributions in this volume testify that socialist ideology and policy encroached upon most parts of society in Central and Eastern Europe and continue to have an effect even after the collapse of the political system. Over several decades, socialist political authorities grew to control not just territories, but education, science, media and cultural work. And, whoever controls the public space with its integrative and communicative functions wields an instrument of social power with the ability to establish definitions. The term ‘Eastern Bloc’ suggests a kind of homogeneity, an ideologically bound unity, constructed from the top down. One similarity shared by all socialist governments is the fact that they all put pressure on religious institutions. Yet, the studies collected here also demonstrate the flexibility of the regimes in dealing with religion and religious institutions given the prevailing conditions.¹ Phases of suppression and fighting, of compromises and cooperation, even of dialogue between Marxists and theologians alternated with one another and expressed the experimental character of the socialist projects. Various religious traditions were given different amounts of attention and were evaluated differently: The concentration on ecclesial organizations and representatives sometimes fostered other religious movements, such as in the Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia. Religious minorities were even considered as potential allies in the fight against the establishment. While historical churches were criticized for their political interests, in several cases new religious movements were pictured as misguided, associated with immoral and antisocial behavior. The investigated sources and contexts primarily understand religion not just in theistic, but in Christian terms. Non-Christian religious traditions are treated cursorily or ignored completely. Even the new religious movements mentioned are often Christian minorities. Another overarching characteristic connecting several parts of this volume is the utilization of selected religious, usually Christian, traditions. Motifs, customs, values, historical figures and events become secularized, integrated into a myth,² intended to legitimize the ruling communist

 Of course, former Yugoslavia was not part of the Eastern Bloc controlled by the Soviet Union, but the religious politics worked in a similar way.  Myth is here understood as a meaningful story, which is shared by a community and is an expression of a conviction – independent of its verisimilitude. It is emotionally charged, defended vehemently and quite persistent, because it is decisive for the identity of the collective. See Robert Segal, Mythos. Eine kleine Einführung (Stuttgart, Reclam, 2007), 11– 4. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110547085-015

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party and its policies. The examples of Croatian nonreligious calendars and stickers or Jugendweihe and wedding ceremonies in East Germany show that this method of adapting and reinterpreting is also used today in nonreligious contexts – it works with traditional forms which were or are part of the majority culture and can therefore be understood more easily. Predominantly nonreligious but also religious societies in Central and Eastern Europe did and still refer to their cultures’ Christian heritage. In societies with a strong connection between national and religious identities, the affiliation to a Christian Europe is especially emphasized at the public level. Where belonging to a church and identifying with socialist ideals are compatible with one another, it becomes more about values common to both, such as equality, justice and humanity. Two positions are shared by the majority of the agents presented here: The first rejects the involvement of religious organizations in political affairs, and the other juxtaposes religious and scientific knowledge. Atheism is mostly connected with condemning the misuse of religious beliefs and institutions in order to attain power, while privatized forms of religiosity are accepted. Many religious people also favor a limitation of the churches’ influence and advocate the separation of church and state. Furthermore, religion-related discourses are often centered on organized religion, the functions of religion, or the role of religion in history and (national) culture. Concrete beliefs are discussed rarely. In more faith-centered parts of the selected sources, the focus is usually on the incompatibility of religious and scientific knowledge – regardless of whether it stems from socialist or post-socialist times. Ideologically formed negative stereotypes dominate the socialist period, repeating the allegedly illusionary and outdated character of religious teachings and practices. But, also later in more democratic spaces, the superiority of science and reason is considered essential. Secularization and scientific progress are strongly connected into one storyline, based on ideas of enlightenment. Although the ideologization of science can be understood as prevailing in the Soviet sphere of influence, religion-related studies were also used strategically to deliver antireligious propaganda material.³ The engagement in religion, the investigation of religion and the religiosity of the population were all necessary for finding strategies to deal with religion. Atheism and science were two sides of the same coin. A waning functionalist understanding of religion meant that science, work, art and community life had to fill in the gaps left by the declining religiosity and weakened religious institutions. There reigned a conviction that it was possible for everyone to just focus on the

 See John Anderson, Religion, State and Politics in the Soviet Union and Successor State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 38 – 67.

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material world, and that sooner or later everything would be explicable by science – even existential questions. The battle between science and religion was not an open and fair competition; there was no negotiation process granting recognition to strong arguments. Rulers supported one position from the very start, and the results were a foregone conclusion. This competitive relationship between science and religion is still enormously relevant in post-socialist societies. The relationship to religion and science is an identity marker for individuals, but also for nations. The correlation between a nation’s religious policy and the religiosity of its society is striking. This volume proves how knowledge is evaluated as true based on politically motivated decisions determining which information shall be promoted and sponsored and which shall be held back. Sometimes antireligious policy led to hidden forms of religiosity, sometimes it was a motor for pluralization, and other times it caused religious illiteracy, the internalization of anticlerical attitudes or even adherence to conservative forms of religiosity. Depending on the relationship between religious organizations and the communist party, religious affiliation could be labeled as resistance, while atheism was seen as opportunism. Cooperation usually led to mistrust towards churches as collaborators. In some areas, religiosity was a persistent and creative aspect of life with the ability to adapt to the current situation. In other regions, it stepped into the ring already weakened and was easily defeated. During and after socialist times, national borders demarcated divergent religious landscapes. To speak of a ‘Bloc’ concerning the religious dimension therefore seems inappropriate. Accordingly, all authors are aware of the relevance of each area’s specific context. Most of them consider the national situation and fewer biographical information of individuals or other factors. To mention just a few examples, Schuster points out the anti-communist attitude of churches years before the GDR and their sympathizing with the Nazis, whose terror also hit the communists. Those experiences were formative elements of their anticlerical attitude. Gleixner mentions the persecution and suppression of religious minorities in Czarist Russia, which is why their interest in fighting against the state Church was a given. Coțofană calls for the contextualization of the phrase “religion is the opium of the people” in order to show that Marxism was not necessarily antireligious. Furthermore, she stresses the discontinuities between Soviet Marxism and Romanian realities that led to the construction of a specific Romanian identity, showing that communism and secularism need not go hand in hand. Marinović explains three different policies of communist states towards religion, where Yugoslavia practiced a comparatively liberal policy. She considers not just the phase of socialist rule, but also phases of feudalism and war to interpret the developments in religious education in Croatia during previous years. Kołodziejska explains the pe-

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culiarity of nonreligious users’ presence on online forums by the fact that Catholicism is part of the cultural heritage and everyday life of Poles. The majority have received at least some religious education and are therefore not alienated from religion. Describing changes in religious socialization in the Hungarian People’s Republic, Vancsó factors in the participation in socialist movements and the socalled ‘second economy,’ which left less time for private life and privately practiced religion. Several times, it becomes clear that the adherence to religious traditions signaled a need for stability after decades of radical changes. An (unfulfilled) need for open discourse is also mentioned, for opportunities to ask critical questions in society, such as in Hungary, Poland and Croatia. In general, it seems that defaming one’s opponent is part of legitimizing one’s own position. Similar strategies are sometimes used to attack or question the other’s worldview. Even if respect or tolerance constitutes a highly rated value, there is still a conviction that one is right while the others are wrong. Acknowledging the limits of one’s own symbolic universe, i. e. the fact that it is subjectively constructed and not universally valid, seems to have not been an option. This would mean the loss of a taken-for-granted reality and the questioning of habitus and group belonging. The religious or nonreligious opponent is needed in order to distinguish oneself against the other. Binaries are therefore stable elements in the discourse around religion in the contexts investigated here. Nonetheless, where antireligious attitudes are visible one has to look closely at whether they are really directed against religion in general or ‘just’ against anticlericalism and not individual practices and beliefs. A religious affiliation shared by the majority of a society should not be put on a level with personal beliefs or an uncritical attitude towards teachings and organizations. There always needs to be a differentiation between the private sphere, the public sphere and public space. Surely, the decisive role of Christian traditions, binaries such as religious vs. scientific knowledge and transmitted visions of a better future are all part of narratives which legitimated and still legitimate governments’ power. The strengthening of civil society, the failure of political strategies and broken promises and trends toward pluralization, medialization and globalization all contribute to increasing the gap between the governmental and public spheres. Legitimated myths were worn out in the years before the transition and are also questioned today in these societies, at least partially.

List of Contributors Nikolina Hazdovac Bajić holds Ph.D. in sociology from the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences in Zagreb, Croatia. She works as a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar, regional centre Dubrovnik. Her scientific and research interest in the field of sociology of religion concerns traditional church religiosity, non-religiosity and atheism; public role of religion and non-religion; as well as expressions and formations of (non)religious identities. She is co-editor-in-chief of RASCEE (Religion and Society in Central and Eastern Europe) journal. Alexandra Coțofană is Assistant Professor in the Humanities and Social Sciences Department at Zayed University, Abu Dhabi. Alexandra Coțofană’s research explores intersections of politics, modernities, and ontologies of governing. Alexandra’s scholarly interests focus on political ecologies, the ontological turn, the study of political elites and ways of governing, as well as the occult as a tool for governing, and discursive techniques employed in populist imaginaries to form racial, gender, and political Others. Alexandra earned her PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Indiana University Bloomington, with a Doctoral Minor in Religious Studies. Johannes Gleixner is a researcher at Collegium Carolinum, Research Institute for the History of the Czech Lands and Slovakia in Munich, Germany. Since 2018 he represents the institution’s branch office in Prague, Czech Republic. He studied East European History, Political Science, Sociology and Economics at the University of Munich. He specializes in the History of Religion and Atheism in Central and Eastern Europe in the 20th century, History of Socialism/Communism, Digital History. His latest research interest is in the transnational history of socialist free-thought. Johann Ev. Hafner is Professor for the Study of Religion at the University of Potsdam, Germany. He studied Catholic Theology (MA), Philosophy (PhD) and Systematic Theology (Habilitation). His recent publications include a comprehensive investigation in religious and humanistic communities in Potsdam (Glaube in Potsdam, 2018, 850p.). Currently he supervises a research on Muslim communities in Brandenburg. Ksenia Kolkunova Ph.D., is an associate professor at Saint Tikhon’s Orthodox University, Moscow, Russia. She got a degree at Moscow State University in the study of religion, with the focus of her thesis being sociological and theological approaches to religion-like phenomena. Her primary fields of research include alternative religiosity and spirituality. In 2017 she published a monograph, “Spirituality: Discourse and Reality.” (co-auth. Georgiy Orekhanov, in Russian). With a research project at St Tikhon’s Orthodox University, she studied the Soviet period of religious studies with a particular interest for the correspondence Scientific Atheism has with the approaches to religion and religious situation in Russia today. Marta Kołodziejska is a post-doc at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, The Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. She is a sociologist of religion focusing on the intersection of religion and digital media. Her PhD thesis investigated community-building processes on Roman Catholic forums in Poland. The topic of her current project (“Minorities and the media”, Beethoven 2, in cooperation with ZeMKI Bremen) is the construction of religious

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identity through the use of the media of Seventh-Day Adventist Church. In 2018 she published a monograph “Online Catholic Communities: Community, Authority, and Religious Individualization”. Her other academic interests include the transformation of mindfulness practices through mediatization. Ankica Marinović is scientific advisor at the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb. She graduated in sociology and comparative literature at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb (Croatia), where she received her MA and PhD, in the field of sociology of religion. She teaches Sociology of Religion at the University of Split. Her main fields of interest are minority religions, religious education and religious experiance. She is editorin-chief of the journal Sociologija i prostor (Sociology and Space). Among other published books and many articles, she is co-author of the book Vjerske zajednice u Hrvatskoj (Religious Communities in Croatia) and co-editor of the book 500 godina protestantizma: baština i otisci u hrvatskom društvu (500 Years of Protestantism: Heritage and Prints in Croatian Society). Manuela Möbius-Andre examines religious image motifs in official commissioned art in her research project on GDR art. She studied Study of Religion at the Free University of Berlin and Criminology at the Ruhr-University Bochum. Her focus areas in research are deviant behavior and “political religion”. In her master project at the Ruhr-University Bochum she analyzed politically motivated offenses and religious extremism. Zdeněk R. Nešpor is a senior researcher at the Czech Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Sociology and a full Professor at the Charles University in Prague. As a historian and sociologist, he deals with early modern and modern (18th to 21st centuries) religion in the Bohemian/ Czech Lands, comparative religion, cultural history, and history and methodology of social sciences. He has authored two dozen books and several hundred academic papers. His recent projects include comparative study of Czech and Slovak religion after the fall of Czechoslovakia in the early 1990s, biographical lexicon of Czech, Slovak, German and Polish Protestants in modern Czechoslovakia, and editing of an on-line Czech Sociological Encyclopaedia. Daniela Schmidt is PhD student at the Department of Jewish Studies and Study of Religion at the University of Potsdam. Until 2019 she was research associate at the Chair for the Study of Religion with focus on Christianity. She studied Catholic Theology and German medieval studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. From 2002 until 2009 she was lexicografă at WMU (“Wörterbuch der mittelhochdeutschen Urkundensprache”). Her doctoral project is an research on German dictionaries until 1945. The focus is the vocabulary with the root syllable ‘Jud’ (‘Jew’) and how the vocabulary is demonstrated in relation to documents of other written discourses. Dirk Schuster was born in 1984 and studied History and the Study of Religion at the University of Leipzig until 2009. In March 2016 he defended his dissertation at the Free University of Berlin (title: Die Lehre vom “arischen” Christentum. Das wissenschaftliche Selbstverständnis im Eisenacher “Entjudungsinstitut” [The Doctrine of an Aryan Christianity. The scientific selfconception of the Institute for De-Judaisation in Eisenach]). Between 2011 and 2014 he was a PhD scholarship holder at the Friedrich-Naumann-Foundation. Since 2014 Dirk Schuster is Research Assistant at the Department of Jewish Studies and Study of Religion at the University of Potsdam, Germany. From October 2019 until January 2020 he was a research fellow at the

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University of Vienna/ Austria with financial support of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation. His main interests are the interaction of religion and politics, Atheism and the history of the Transylvania Saxons. Anna Vancsó is a PhD candidate of sociology at the Corvinus University of Budapest. Her research interest covers the role of religion in the public sphere, especially its appearance on the online media and its relation to politics. Her dissertation is about understanding the various interpretations of Christianity in the post-socialist Hungarian public sphere, focusing on the discourses on migration in the political speeches and on the online media. She has been teaching sociology of religion and text analysis at Corvinus University as a guest lecturer. Jenny Vorpahl is research associate and lecturer at the Department of LebensgestaltungEthik-Religionskunde (Chair for the Study of Religion with focus on Christianity) in Potsdam. She studied History and Study of Religion at the University of Potsdam. In her doctoral project she analyzes and compares contemporary discourses about marriage in nonreligious and Christian wedding speeches. Here focus areas in teaching and research are Ritual Studies, the study of nonreligion and secularity, theories and methods in the Study of Religion as well as characteristics of religious language.

Index Anticlerical 9, 17, 22, 44 f., 47, 53, 62, 106, 108, 111 – 114, 116, 118 – 120, 288 f., 301 f. Antifascist 159 Antireligious 3, 10 f., 17 f., 41, 43 – 57, 59 – 64, 68 – 71, 73 – 75, 109, 113, 130, 146, 153, 172, 200, 202, 281 f., 300 – 302 Atheism 1, 3 – 14, 17 – 19, 21 – 23, 27 – 29, 31 – 38, 41 – 47, 49 f., 53 f., 56 f., 59 – 66, 68 – 72, 74 f., 77, 79 – 81, 91 – 93, 95, 102 f., 105 f., 114 f., 118 – 121, 130 f., 152 f., 166, 172, 176, 189, 197 f., 201 f., 206, 209, 217, 230, 237, 240 f., 243, 245 f., 249 – 259, 261, 263 – 271, 273, 277, 279, 281 – 283, 285 f., 288 – 290, 292, 295 – 298, 300 f. Belief 2 f., 5, 11 – 13, 16, 32, 41, 45, 54 – 56, 61, 64 f., 71, 85 f., 88 f., 92 f., 95, 98 f., 105 f., 114, 147, 150, 155, 158, 173, 179, 186, 198 – 200, 203, 205 f., 208, 211, 216 f., 221 f., 225, 228 f., 232 – 234, 241, 243 – 245, 252, 258, 262, 267, 273 f., 276, 278 f., 282, 285, 290 f., 293, 298, 300, 302 Bellah, Robert 215 f., 294 Berger, Peter 1, 4 – 6, 26, 181, 200, 213 – 215, 219, 221, 227, 230, 239 f., 243, 245, 257, 260, 263, 265, 268, 273 Bible 59, 129, 186, 199, 201, 222, 233, 288, 291, 293 Biography 133, 143 f., 164 Bloc 3, 36, 189, 209, 239, 301 Boer, Roland 189, 201 f. Bolshevik 7, 10, 17, 42 – 46, 48 – 51 Bourdieu, Pierre 7 f., 35 f., 215 Buddhism 141 Capitalism 35, 38, 68, 77, 84, 92, 97 – 99, 101, 103, 114, 132 f., 149, 156 f., 160, 166, 177, 193, 202 Catholic 9 f., 21 f., 30, 73, 85, 100, 106, 108, 111 f., 115 – 117, 120 f., 125, 127, 148, 192,

196, 202, 204, 211, 216 f., 224, 226 – 228, 233, 237 – 239, 242, 244, 246 – 248, 251 – 255, 259 – 263, 267, 270, 272, 278, 281 – 292, 295 – 298 Christianity 18 – 22, 30 – 32, 35, 45, 48, 65, 70 – 72, 75, 85 – 88, 93, 97, 106, 109 – 112, 118 f., 123, 125 – 127, 130, 138, 141, 148, 159, 166, 172, 175 f., 185 – 187, 189 – 192, 194 – 198, 202 – 205, 211 f., 216, 219, 223, 225 f., 229 – 235, 237, 241, 244 f., 247, 249, 252 – 256, 258, 262, 273, 282, 289, 292, 294, 296, 299 f., 302 Church 2, 9, 13, 18 f., 21 f., 29 – 31, 33, 37 – 39, 41 – 43, 45 – 50, 53 f., 57, 59 f., 62, 64, 66 f., 69, 71, 75, 80 f., 85, 92, 97 – 103, 105 – 123, 125 – 127, 130, 133 f., 145 – 148, 151 – 154, 156, 159, 166 f., 169, 171 – 174, 191, 196 – 199, 202, 216 – 234, 238 – 244, 246 – 248, 250 – 256, 259 – 263, 267, 269 f., 277, 279, 283 – 286, 290 – 292, 294 – 296, 298 – 301 Civil 13, 41, 134, 145 – 149, 152 f., 167, 169, 171 – 174, 180, 198, 215 f., 218, 223 f., 226 f., 229, 232, 240, 245, 248, 251, 255, 264, 302 Class 8, 35 f., 51, 54, 60, 68 – 70, 83, 90 – 93, 99, 102, 121, 127, 129, 134 f., 139, 146, 157 – 161, 168 f., 175, 178 – 180, 182, 186, 189, 193 f., 197, 209, 231, 286, 298 Clergy 5, 47, 71, 111 f., 115, 196, 218 f., 222, 225 f., 255, 267, 284, 286 Clerical 19, 44, 46, 80, 92, 95, 99 f., 102 f., 297 Collective 4 f., 7, 13, 20, 72, 135 – 137, 142, 147 f., 150 f., 153, 155, 161 f., 167 f., 176, 182 – 184, 207, 252, 257, 278, 281, 288, 299 Communication 5, 10, 15 – 17, 20 f., 25 f., 28, 36, 129, 142, 147, 161, 168, 180, 212, 214 f., 219, 227 f., 231 f., 234, 283, 299

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Index

Communism 2 – 4, 8 f., 12, 17 f., 20, 22, 30, 42, 45 – 47, 49, 51 – 54, 56 f., 61 – 64, 67 – 69, 74, 90, 95, 105 – 111, 113 – 120, 122 f., 126, 129 f., 132 f., 135 – 138, 142, 152, 156, 159, 166, 180, 186, 189 – 195, 198 f., 201 f., 206, 217, 221, 226, 237 – 239, 241 f., 244, 254 f., 257, 259 f., 263, 269, 277, 279, 299, 301 Constitution 22, 95, 97 – 99, 102 f., 148, 159, 177, 181, 197 f., 230, 237, 242 f., 246 – 248, 252, 259, 261 Croatia 10, 21 f., 237 f., 240 – 248, 251, 253 – 271, 273, 277 – 280, 300 – 302 Culture 1, 3 f., 6, 13 – 16, 20 – 22, 27, 30, 50, 53, 59 f., 63, 66, 68, 74, 78, 95, 98, 109 f., 126, 134, 137 – 139, 142, 145 – 148, 150 – 168, 170, 173 – 184, 186, 198 f., 203 f., 211 – 213, 216 – 218, 221 – 225, 229 – 232, 234, 237, 239 f., 243, 247 f., 252 – 254, 256, 260 – 262, 268, 273, 286, 299 f., 302 Czechoslovakia 3, 18, 105 – 110, 114, 117 – 120, 161, 299 Davie, Grace 216, 227 f., 239, 256 De-secularization 21 Discourse 1, 4 – 7, 9 f., 18 – 21, 38 f., 41, 44, 52, 59 f., 62, 64, 71, 74, 78, 80, 97, 102, 105 – 107, 113, 118, 138, 146 f., 151, 153, 155 f., 163 – 167, 173 f., 178, 187, 189, 191 – 193, 195, 198, 200 f., 203, 213 f., 222, 227, 232, 237, 246, 254, 259, 263, 277, 281, 283, 286 f., 291 – 295, 300, 302 Eastern Bloc 2, 4, 8 – 10, 36 f., 241 f., 299 East Germany 9, 19, 77, 121 f., 124 f., 131 f., 145 f., 173, 176, 194, 241, 300 Education 3, 7, 10, 20 f., 28, 33, 42, 52 f., 59, 61 – 63, 83, 95, 102 f., 115, 119, 124, 126, 130 f., 133, 137, 139 – 141, 143, 151, 156, 161, 164, 173, 176 f., 180, 183, 187, 196, 199, 216, 219, 222 f., 227 f., 231, 237 f., 240, 243 – 248, 251 – 256, 259 – 263, 266, 269, 277 – 279, 284, 286, 298 f., 301 f. Epistemic 20, 143, 193 f., 200, 203 – 209

Europe 2 f., 7, 15, 17, 30, 37, 45, 65, 110, 118, 137, 141, 152, 189 – 191, 193 f., 196, 199, 201 f., 206 f., 209, 217, 226 f., 230, 234, 238 f., 243 f., 253, 255 f., 259 – 261, 263, 282, 299 f. Family 71, 118, 121, 123, 126 f., 136, 139 f., 142 – 144, 148 – 150, 152 – 154, 156, 158 f., 168 f., 171, 174, 219 – 222, 238, 243, 251, 258, 268, 273, 286, 296 Function 7, 35, 213, 300 Functional 15, 26, 69, 127, 136, 214, 226, 229, 231, 241, 284 German Democratic Republic 79, 95, 148, 175, 177, 181 Germany 1, 29 f., 37, 79, 81 f., 84 f., 88, 90 f., 95, 98, 121, 123 – 125, 128, 131 f., 137 f., 145, 148, 160, 164, 175, 177, 181, 185 f., 267 Heritage 3, 7, 20 f., 59, 156 – 158, 161, 166, 175 – 182, 184 f., 187, 237, 246, 254 f., 286, 300, 302 Honecker, Erich 29, 130, 132, 134, 136, 153, 177 f., 180 f. Humanism 11, 14, 19, 124, 126, 139, 142, 155 – 159, 181, 184 f., 250, 259, 270, 274 Hungary 20 f., 117, 161, 211 f., 214 – 217, 220 – 222, 224 – 234, 238 f., 302 Identity 5 f., 9, 20, 22, 25, 123, 127, 144, 146, 157, 167, 176, 189 – 193, 195 – 200, 209, 211, 222, 231 f., 234, 242, 253, 257 f., 260, 263, 267, 269, 273, 276 – 279, 287, 299 – 301 Ideology 2 f., 5 – 10, 13 f., 18 – 21, 28, 30 – 33, 38 f., 42, 44, 46, 48, 50 – 52, 59, 63, 66, 69, 74 f., 78 f., 82 f., 98, 101 f., 107, 109 f., 112 f., 119 f., 122, 126, 131, 134 – 137, 142, 146 – 151, 154 – 156, 158, 160, 162 – 164, 166, 170 – 174, 178 – 180, 185 – 187, 189, 191, 194 f., 201 f., 206, 208 f., 213, 215, 217, 221 f., 229, 238 – 241, 243, 245, 254, 259 f., 269, 277, 279, 299

Index

Indifference 11, 13, 21 f., 47, 53, 71, 120, 143, 173, 249, 282, 289, 291 Individual 3 – 7, 9 – 13, 15 f., 22, 26, 28, 32, 48, 51, 63, 78, 121, 128 f., 133 f., 136 f., 139, 142 – 144, 146, 149, 151, 153 f., 161 – 163, 166 – 169, 172, 186, 189, 196, 200, 204, 217 f., 222, 232 f., 246, 248 f., 254, 257 f., 260 – 266, 268 f., 273 – 276, 278 f., 285, 287 f., 295, 301 f. Institutionalization 5 – 8, 10 f., 19, 22, 32 f., 50, 59, 62, 154, 189, 216, 225, 257, 263, 265, 267, 287, 290 f. Internet 139, 270, 294, 297 Irreligious 200, 237, 249, 253, 276 Islam 66, 73, 112, 141, 212, 271, 289 Jehovah’s Witnesses 18, 70, 72 Judaism 2, 31, 88, 141 Keller, Reiner 4 – 6, 10, 25, 147, 155 f., 165, 167, 173 f., 214 Khrushchev, Nikita 9, 18, 31, 57, 59 – 62 Knott, Kim 267 Latour, Bruno 200 f., 203 – 205 Law 2, 6, 65, 71, 129, 134, 153, 169, 174, 177, 196, 199, 219, 226, 230 f., 243, 247 f., 261, 268, 294 – 296 League of the Militant Godless 49 f., 60, 68 Lee, Lois 7, 11, 13, 258 Legal 21, 42, 62, 65, 98 f., 101 f., 106, 113, 126, 148, 216, 219, 225, 228 – 230, 232, 237 f., 245 f., 252, 259, 261, 285 Legislation 63 – 66, 74 f., 118, 257 Legitimation 1, 5, 10, 19 – 22, 26, 29, 35 f., 39, 50, 145, 148, 151, 154, 176, 213, 225 f., 233, 257, 260, 262, 267, 273 f., 279 Lenin, Vladimir 46, 59 f., 64, 67 – 70, 92, 117 f., 133 f., 151, 156, 161, 164, 180, 201, 209 Luckmann, Thomas 1, 4 – 6, 26, 200, 213 f., 216, 227, 245, 257, 260, 263, 265, 268, 273 Marxism 2, 4, 7, 10, 14, 17, 19 – 22, 25, 27 – 29, 32 – 39, 43 f., 46, 50 f., 60 f., 64,

309

68 f., 80, 82, 84, 90, 93, 98 f., 101 f., 108 – 112, 115, 118 f., 132 – 136, 146, 155 f., 158, 161, 164, 176, 179, 182 f., 187, 189, 193, 199 – 202, 206, 208, 237, 240 – 242, 246, 254 f., 299, 301 Marx, Karl 7, 35 – 39, 92, 94, 96, 108, 133, 149, 156, 161, 164, 176, 179 – 182, 200 – 202, 206, 209 Materialism 22, 32, 34 f., 38, 44, 60, 129 – 131, 133, 155, 164, 179, 184, 271, 289 Media 4 f., 10, 59 f., 91, 102, 105, 107 f., 119, 151, 153, 160, 166, 168, 197 f., 211 – 213, 215, 224, 228, 234, 243 f., 251, 259 f., 263 f., 278 f., 283 – 285, 299 Minority 21, 43, 45, 57, 67, 69, 72 f., 147, 225, 231, 234, 253, 279, 282, 286, 289, 299, 301 Modernity 3, 5 f., 9, 14, 17, 25 – 27, 38, 41 f., 44, 50, 54, 56, 109, 114, 116, 119, 123, 141, 146, 155, 160, 166 f., 173, 192, 200, 202, 204, 208, 215, 222, 227, 230, 237 f., 243, 254 f., 268 f. National 7, 9, 14, 17, 21, 31, 44, 65, 106, 110, 116 – 118, 123, 126, 134, 146, 151, 157, 171, 175 f., 181, 183, 185, 189 – 195, 197, 230 f., 233 f., 239 f., 242, 244, 246 – 248, 254, 259 f., 263, 300 f. New Atheism 22, 259, 268 – 270, 274, 277 Nonreligious 1 f., 5 – 7, 10 – 13, 16, 18 – 22, 41, 80, 89, 92, 99, 123, 143, 146 f., 154, 166, 173, 187, 197, 225, 238, 257 f., 261, 263 – 268, 270 f., 276 – 279, 281 – 283, 285, 289 f., 292 – 296, 298, 300, 302 Norm 2, 5 – 7, 12, 15, 21, 149, 157, 160, 162, 173, 191, 199, 214, 227, 232, 246, 252 f. Orthodox 41 – 43, 45 – 48, 54, 59, 62, 70 f., 73, 75, 116, 136, 189 – 192, 194 – 199, 204, 239 f., 285 Party 1, 9, 18 f., 22, 28 – 33, 39, 42 – 45, 47 f., 54, 56, 60 – 64, 67 f., 70, 72, 74, 91, 99, 105, 107 f., 110 – 113, 117, 122 f., 127, 129 – 131, 133, 135 – 138, 141 – 143, 150, 152 f., 163 f., 177, 180, 183, 186,

310

Index

189, 193 – 195, 197 – 199, 202, 206 f., 212, 230, 234, 241, 259 f., 284, 300 f. Pluralism 5, 21, 50, 110, 214 f., 218, 226 f., 229, 301 f. Poland 9, 22, 202, 239, 281 – 283, 286, 291, 297 f., 302 Policy 1, 3, 9 f., 17, 29, 31, 38, 42 – 44, 46, 49 f., 60 – 62, 69, 72, 108 – 111, 114 – 116, 119 f., 146, 148, 161 f., 165, 175 – 177, 179, 181, 183, 202, 228, 242, 284, 299, 301 Politician 2, 18, 20, 74, 156, 164, 189, 191 – 199, 201, 203, 207, 209, 212 Post-Soviet 59, 72, 74, 239 Prayer 20, 82, 94, 96, 211 f., 232 – 234, 296 Private 5, 10, 21, 53, 92, 102, 119, 128, 133, 135, 137, 142, 144, 151, 153, 159, 165, 167, 170, 172, 183, 202, 211 f., 214 – 223, 228, 231 – 234, 243, 251, 259 f., 285, 302 Proletarian 128, 136, 138, 141, 145, 156, 161 Propaganda 1 – 3, 8 – 10, 14, 17, 20, 25, 31 f., 38, 44 f., 49, 52, 56, 60 – 62, 64, 68 f., 71, 74, 92, 95, 98, 109, 113, 119, 131, 151, 159, 164, 172, 176, 180, 300 Protestantism 2, 15, 29 – 31, 106, 111, 116 – 120, 122 f., 125, 127, 146, 148, 261 Public 10, 12, 17 f., 20 – 22, 28, 34, 39, 41, 48, 53 f., 57, 59 f., 64 – 66, 72, 74, 80, 102, 105 – 107, 113 – 117, 119 – 122, 124, 126 f., 130, 135, 147 f., 156, 165, 170, 176, 191, 196, 202, 206 f., 211 f., 214 – 220, 222 – 224, 226, 228 f., 232 – 234, 237 f., 244 – 248, 251, 253 f., 256, 259 – 264, 267 f., 270, 277 – 279, 285 f., 299 f., 302 Reformation 2, 47, 106, 109, 117, 158, 178, 184, 233 Religion 1 – 23, 25, 27 – 29, 31 – 39, 41 – 44, 46 – 53, 55 – 57, 59 – 61, 63 – 68, 70, 72 – 75, 77, 79 – 81, 84, 88, 90 – 99, 102 f., 105 – 116, 119 f., 122 – 124, 129 f., 134, 136, 138 f., 141 f., 145 – 148, 152, 154, 158 f., 163, 166, 170 – 173, 186 f., 189 – 192, 196, 198 – 209, 211 – 223, 226 – 228, 230 – 234, 237 – 247, 249, 251 – 265, 267 – 271, 273 f., 276 – 279, 281 – 283, 286, 289 – 294, 297 – 302

Religious 1 – 3, 5 – 7, 9 – 22, 26 f., 31 f., 35 – 38, 41 – 57, 59, 61 f., 64 – 75, 77, 79 f., 82, 84 f., 87 – 89, 92, 94 – 96, 98 f., 101 – 103, 105 – 114, 116 – 121, 123 – 126, 129 – 131, 133, 138 f., 141 – 143, 145 f., 149, 151 f., 154, 156, 158 – 161, 166 f., 170, 172 f., 176, 187, 189 f., 192 – 195, 197 – 206, 209, 211 – 235, 237 – 254, 256 – 263, 265, 267 – 279, 281 – 286, 288 – 302 Revolution 7, 42 – 45, 47, 51, 53, 63 f., 67, 117 f., 120, 122, 129, 137, 140, 142, 151, 153, 159, 161, 175 – 177, 180, 184 f., 189 f., 192, 199, 209, 258 Ritual 16, 19, 31, 49, 62, 67, 94 – 96, 121 – 131, 133, 137 f., 141 – 143, 145 f., 148 f., 151 – 155, 157, 159 f., 163, 165 – 167, 169 – 172, 174, 189 f., 214, 222, 234, 258, 261, 290, 296 – 298 Romania 20, 189 – 199, 209, 301 Rosta, Gergely 9, 15 f., 123, 146, 171, 173, 227 Russia 3, 7, 17 f., 41 – 49, 51, 53, 57, 59 f., 62 – 66, 68 f., 71 – 75, 84, 114, 116 – 118, 176, 189, 239 f., 269, 301 (Russian) Old Believers 45, 70 Sacred 20, 22, 43, 79, 85, 131, 143, 152, 157, 170, 185 f., 202, 213, 215, 219, 221, 227, 233, 240, 244, 252, 267, 270, 273 School 1, 10, 21, 23, 34, 52, 60, 64, 70, 102 f., 114, 119, 121, 123, 126, 134 f., 138 f., 141 f., 163, 169, 173, 186, 216 f., 221, 230 f., 237 f., 241 f., 244 – 248, 251, 253 – 256, 261 f., 266, 286 Science 1, 3 – 6, 8 – 10, 14 – 23, 25, 27 – 29, 31 – 39, 41 – 52, 56 f., 59 – 67, 69 – 75, 78, 82 – 84, 90 – 93, 95 f., 102, 105 f., 109, 113, 121, 125, 128 – 136, 141 f., 147 f., 152, 154, 156, 158, 161, 163 – 165, 167, 170, 172 – 174, 178 – 180, 182 f., 197, 199 f., 203 – 207, 215, 219, 222, 238 – 241, 250, 257, 259, 265 – 271, 273 – 281, 283, 286, 288 f., 291 – 295, 299 – 302 Sect 45, 47 – 49, 59, 67 – 75, 115, 251 f. Secular 2, 11 – 15, 22, 31, 56, 80, 131, 145 f., 151, 154, 158, 166, 173 f., 189 f., 197, 202,

Index

215, 218, 223, 226 f., 230, 245, 251, 264, 267 f., 270 – 273, 285 Secularism 2 f., 14, 43, 47, 57, 201 f., 223, 264, 301 Secularity 2, 11 – 14, 173, 261, 267 f. Secularization 2, 6, 12 f., 18, 20 f., 57, 75, 77, 89, 101, 146, 173, 201, 214 f., 217, 223 – 228, 241, 243 f., 269, 300 Socialism 1 f., 4, 6, 8 f., 13 f., 16 – 21, 25, 27, 30 – 32, 35 – 39, 41 – 44, 51, 56 f., 67, 75, 83, 90 f., 97 – 100, 102 f., 107, 109 – 111, 115, 117 – 119, 121 – 124, 126 – 129, 131 – 139, 141 – 143, 145, 147 – 164, 166 – 172, 174 – 184, 186 f., 189 f., 193 – 195, 201 f., 206 f., 209, 211 f., 214, 216 – 222, 224 – 226, 229 f., 235, 237 – 242, 245 f., 257, 259, 299 – 302 Sociology 1, 3 – 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 17, 25, 27 – 29, 32 – 39, 41, 44, 67, 72, 120, 197, 200, 213 – 215, 217, 219, 224, 239, 257 f., 264, 268 f. Soviet 1, 3 f., 6 – 10, 12, 16, 18, 27 – 32, 36 – 38, 41 – 51, 53, 55 – 57, 59 – 72, 74 f., 110, 118, 130 f., 137, 143, 145, 151 f., 154, 157, 166, 170 – 172, 175, 191, 193, 207, 209, 238, 240, 259, 269, 299 – 301 Spiritual 41, 45, 56, 59, 63, 70 f., 95, 106, 120, 178, 189, 200, 226 – 228, 246, 252, 258, 261, 290, 298 Stalin, Joseph 31, 43 f., 68, 202 State 2 f., 6 – 10, 12 – 15, 17 – 22, 25, 28, 30 – 34, 36, 38 f., 42 – 45, 47, 49 – 51, 57, 60 – 62, 64, 67 f., 72 f., 77, 79 f., 83, 92, 97 – 103, 108 – 111, 114 – 117, 119 f., 122 – 126, 134, 137 f., 140, 143, 145, 148 f., 151 – 153, 156, 159, 161, 163, 167, 169 f., 175 – 177, 179, 181 – 183, 186 f., 192, 194, 196, 199 f., 202, 206 f., 213, 215 – 223, 225 – 228, 230 – 232, 234, 238 – 242, 244 f., 247 – 251, 253 – 255, 259, 261, 267, 300 f. Stereotype 18, 73, 160, 298, 300 Symbol 4 – 7, 16, 65 f., 147, 154, 159, 163, 165 – 167, 176, 183 – 187, 191, 200, 213 f., 221, 231, 235, 257, 259 f., 262, 265, 268, 272 – 274, 276, 278 f., 294, 302

311

Taylor, Charles 12, 227 Theology 5, 19 f., 64 f., 67 f., 77, 85, 87, 111, 115 – 118, 148, 158, 189, 192 f., 197 – 202, 215, 222, 288, 296 Tolerance 16, 21, 123, 137, 157, 250, 253, 302 Tradition 3, 7, 17 – 21, 44 f., 48 – 50, 52, 54, 56, 63, 72 f., 75, 85, 88, 95, 101, 108, 112, 116 f., 121 – 124, 126 f., 138 f., 141 – 143, 145 f., 148 – 163, 165 – 169, 171, 174 – 181, 183 – 185, 187, 190 f., 200, 205, 207, 213, 222 – 232, 234, 238, 240, 244, 252, 255, 258 – 260, 262, 265, 269 f., 282, 299 f., 302 Transcendence 13 – 16, 35, 143, 205, 212 f., 225, 235, 289 Truth 1, 5 f., 16 f., 25 – 29, 38 f., 74, 88, 90, 131, 133, 155, 158, 194, 200 f., 203 f., 208, 233, 252, 260, 274 f., 277, 293 Ulbricht, Walter 180 f.

1, 29, 91, 122, 130 – 132,

Values 2, 6, 13, 20 – 22, 26, 32, 45, 56, 59, 142, 149, 151, 157 – 159, 181, 191 f., 195 – 197, 199, 214, 216, 225, 227, 231 f., 237 – 240, 243 f., 247 f., 250, 253 – 257, 260, 262, 267 f., 270 f., 273 f., 276, 278 f., 281 f., 285, 298 – 300 War

2 f., 7, 15, 30 f., 44, 48, 62, 69 f., 92, 111, 130, 132 – 134, 143, 152, 164, 175, 177, 180, 184 – 186, 193, 206, 217, 226, 237, 243 f., 254 f., 260, 277, 301 Weber, Max 37, 67, 224 f. Western 2 f., 8 f., 15, 20, 35, 37, 42, 86, 110, 114, 134, 148, 152 f., 160, 186, 190, 195, 197, 199 f., 203, 206, 222, 239, 242, 244, 253, 258, 268 f. Wohlrab-Sahr, Monika 3, 6, 9, 11 – 14, 147, 158, 173, 241 Worldview 1, 7 f., 10 f., 16 f., 22, 32, 35, 42, 44, 46, 49, 54, 57, 61 f., 65, 83, 91, 93 – 96, 99, 114, 124, 128 – 132, 135, 140, 143, 146, 163, 173, 180, 213 f., 218 f., 221, 223, 225 – 227, 230, 234, 237 f., 241, 243, 246, 250, 252 – 255, 258, 270, 272,

312

Index

275, 278, 282, 285, 288 f., 291, 295, 297 f., 302

Yugoslavia 2, 9, 237 – 240, 242 f., 246, 254, 259 f., 299, 301