The Formation of “Pre-Christian Beliefs” in the Context of the Soviet Ideology

About the lecture
The Soviet period was defined by an anti-religious ideology and broad secularization strategies, representing a large-scale social experiment aimed at the eradication of religion. Yet, despite the dismantling of institutional and ideological foundations of religious life and the mass propaganda of secular and modern lifestyles, Soviet authorities were unable to eliminate faith and grassroots religiosity. On the contrary, repression, the de-institutionalization of religion, and the economic and social modernization of Soviet villages and cities gave rise to new forms and manifestations of religiosity that replaced traditional modes of religious life. Soviet ethnographic scholarship, however, often dismissed these practices as mere “survivals,” failing to recognize in them an entirely new system of everyday and ritual religious life. The presentation will describe and analyze forms of religious life in Soviet Armenia as products of the Soviet modernization project.

About the speaker
Yulia Antonyan is Associate Professor at the Department of Cultural Studies, Faculty of History, Yerevan State University (since 2008). Her professional interests are in the anthropology of religion and anthropology of social structures, with a special focus on the Soviet and Post-Soviet periods. Her fieldwork was mainly conducted in Armenia and Armenian communities in Georgia, Syria, and Lebanon. Dr. Antonyan has published around 45 articles in English, Armenian, and Russian, a collective monograph on the religious landscapes of 20th-century Armenia (2023), and edited volumes on the anthropology of elites in the South Caucasus (2016) and the concept of Armenian-Soviet culture (2023). Her most recent work is the edited volume on the political and social situation in post-revolutionary and post-war Armenia (2024).

Venue:
Faculty of Philosophy, Room 304
(Universiteto g. 9, Vilnius)

You may also like the following events from VU Azijos ir transkultūrinių studijų institutas:

• Next Tuesday, 21st October, 05:00 pm, The Secret Doctrine of the Jews: Jewish Theosophists and the Kabbalah in Vilnius
• Next Wednesday, 22nd October, 06:00 pm, Dance Project FRAGMENTS in Vilnius
• Next month, 5th November, 05:00 pm, Social Theory and Culture of Elites in the Context of Post-Soviet Developments in Vilnius

Also check out other Nonprofit events in Vilnius.