Mansour Kildeyev

The Level of Muslim Religiosity in the Middle Volga and Ural Regions According to Soviet Sociological Surveys (1966 - 1991)

Mansour Kildeyev - Leading Researcher, Scientific Center for Safety Research (Kazan, Russia). tegel76@yahoo.de

This article explores the methods and results of the research of Muslim religiosity in the Middle Volga and Ural regions in the late Soviet Union. The article draws upon the sociological surveys conducted in 1966-1991. These surveys revealed some interesting trends that did not correspond to ideological objectives and expectations. The article also demonstrates regional specifics of the Soviet sociological school and its relationship with the ideological authorities. The surveys of religiosity of the Soviet population were, in a sense, a vote of confidence to the official ideology.

Keywords: religiosity, Islam in the USSR, atheism, atheistic education, social surveys, the Council for Religious Affairs.

The main function of sociological research on religion and atheism in the USSR, as now in Russia, was to study the level of religiosity, that is, to establish the relationship in society between the carriers of religious and non-religious consciousness. In the USSR up to the end of the 1980s, sociological studies of the religiosity of the NACE-

The publication was prepared with the financial support of the Russian Foundation for Scientific Research (project N 12 - 03 - 18003).

page 131
The research was conducted not by specialized sociological institutes, but by the Institute of Scientific Atheism at the Academy of Social Sciences of the Central Committee of the CPSU, the highest party educational institution. The results did not reach the scientific community, as they were published not in scientific journals, but in closed bulletins.

The use of selective sociological research methods has become an alternative to departmental accounting of information related to the activities of religious societies operating in accordance with the law. Collecting information on the level of religiosity of the population ("systematic study of the religious situation in localities") was one of the tasks of the commissions established in 1960 - 1961 to monitor compliance with the legislation on cults under local authorities. 1 However, local (city, district, rural) councils were interested in, firstly, strictly administering religious societies and organizations operating on their territory, and, secondly, artificially underestimating the indicators of the population's religiosity. Thus, in 1975, the district committee of the CPSU of the Abzelilovsky district of the Bashkir ASSR reported to the regional committee on the work carried out in each locality to identify the degree of religiosity by the figure of "up to 2%" of believers from the total population.2 It would be possible to take this information on faith. But only a year earlier, a study conducted in the district by scientists from Ufa ended (with the results of which, apparently, the district leadership was not yet familiar). They found the level of religiosity to be an order of magnitude higher than stated in the information of the district committee. Increased religiosity, as well as the activity of unregistered religious organizations and the involvement of minors in their activities, could be regarded as an" excess " in the field of atheistic education and become the subject of thorough investigations by decision-making bodies at the highest level.3 Hence the high

1. Serova E. A. Activity of commissions for monitoring the observance of legislation on cults (on the example of Evangelical Christian-Baptist communities of the Kemerovo region)//Istoricheskie issledovaniya v Sibiri: problemy i perspektivy [Historical Research in Siberia: Problems and Prospects]/Institute of History SB RAS. Novosibirsk, 2010. p. 228.

2. TsGAOO RB. F. 122. Op. 189. L. 2.

3. Thus, the activity of the German Baptist community in the Davlekan district of the BASSR received an all-Union resonance. The area itself remained for a long time

page 132
conjuncture of information received by local Soviet authorities.

The collection of confessional statistics was coordinated by the authorized representatives of the Council for Religious Affairs of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, who had broad powers to control religious associations. According to our observations, at the regional level, the use of the collected data was limited to transmitting statistical references and reports to higher authorities. Their more or less rational application, including scientific systematization and sociological analysis, which would establish the relationship between the factors of religious consciousness and religious behavior, was rather an exception. Thus, based on the information collected by the commissions, the Commissioner of the Council for Religious Affairs for the Penza Region, S. Gorbachev, compiled a sociological typology of settlements by level of religiosity (as of the mid-1960s), which has not lost its relevance to this day. He also calculated the number of Muslim believers in the Penza Region4, which was largely confirmed by subsequent opinion polls5.

Ordinary researchers (sociologists, philosophers, social scientists) they did not have access to information and reports, which were usually classified as "for official use" or "classified". In the work of many commissioners of the Council for Religious Affairs, administrative functions prevailed in relations with religious organizations and societies to the detriment of scientific and analytical ones. Thus, the authorized bodies in the Bashkir ASSR were not limited to their supervisory function to detect" violations of the legislation on cults " by the clergy, constantly interfering in the work of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of the European part of the USSR and Siberia.6
on the control of the Central Committee of the CPSU as" dysfunctional " in religious terms. See the Resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU" On the state of atheistic education of the population in Davlekanovsky district " dated 31.1.1978.

4. Over 20,000, or about a third of the Tatar population as of 1959.

5. Korolev A. A. Power and Muslims of the Middle Volga region: evolution of mutual relations. 1945_2000 years. Diss. ... Doctor of Historical Sciences. Specialty 07-00. 02. Moscow, 2008. pp. 71, 72.

6. In the plan of work of the office of the Authorized Council for Religious Affairs in the Bashkir ASSR for 1975, the main tasks are: "a) hold a plenum of the Spiritual Administration, elect a new mufti" and " b) remove from the spiritual administration-

page 133
The sociological study of the level of religiosity of the Soviet people became possible in the mid-1960s with the appearance of a sufficient empirical base in the form of the results of specific sociological studies. According to a number of sources, a large-scale sample study of the adult population of Kazan in 1966 was the first representative study of the religiosity of the population in the country7. However, the results of a sociological survey in Kazan were published only in 1968.8 This was preceded by a report to the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Department of Philosophy and Law of the Academy of Sciences on the results of a study conducted by the Institute of Scientific Atheism in the Penza Region in 1967-1968 on the topic "The process of secularization in a socialist society". The report had a significant impact, as it revealed significant flaws in the picture created by official propaganda. The ensuing discussion paved the way for further large-scale research.9 The research was continued in the Mari ASSR (1973 and 1986), the Bashkir ASSR (1973-1974), the Kuibyshev ASSR (1969-1971), the Gorky ASSR (1972 and 1982), the Penza ASSR (1972-1977), and the Tatar ASSR (1987).

A sociological study of Muslim religiosity in the republics and regions of the Ural-Volga region was carried out on the basis of statistically significant samples of the Muslim population. Research varied by object type and scientific goals. Our interest in them lies in the fact that sociologists measured the level of religiosity in the context of socio-demographic, socio-professional, and ethno-social structure of society. This information, on the one hand, demonstrates the quantitative side of the secularization process (moving away from religion), and on the other hand, the tendency to preserve and maintain ethno - confessional traditions.

disloyal elements < < i>surnames are listed. - M. K. >, replacing them with more suitable employees". See: TsGAOO RB. F. 122. Op. 189. D. 342. L. 264.

7. Abdullin Ya. E., Avilov Sh. Sh., Baltanov R. G. et al. Dictionary-reference about Islam and atheism (in Russian). Kazan: Tatar Book Publishing House, 1981.

8. Experience of concrete and sociological study of the state of the religious population of Kazan//Information bulletin of the INA AON under the Central Committee of the CPSU. 1968. N1.

9. Lopatkin R. A. Sotsiologiya religii v Rossii [Sociology of religion in Russia]: experience of the past and modern problems / / State, religion, Church in Russia and abroad. 2001. N10. pp. 266-272.

page 134
Using the example of the region, we will try to present trends that were identified during the 1960s-1980s and that did not agree with the "facade" constructed by ideological bodies, based on which the goals and hypotheses of sociological research were determined.

Thesis 1. The population's religiosity is higher in rural areas due to conservative traditions and customs intertwined with religious remnants.

In order to deepen the results obtained by selective study, a series of new studies was conducted in Kazan to study the religiosity of the population in rural areas and small towns. Surveys in rural areas showed that in areas with a Tatar population, the level of Muslim religiosity and rituals was not much higher than in the capital of the republic. Thus, in 1967, in a continuous survey of the population of the Tatar village of Verkhny Nurlat in the Oktyabrsky district of the TASSR, 34.5% of respondents recognized themselves as believers, and in the ethnically mixed village named after Michurin in the Leninogorsk district - 33.9% of Tatars living there.10 These figures are not so strikingly different from the figures of religiosity of the Tatar population of Kazan (25.8%). In 1987, a sample study was conducted among the Tatar population of Kazan and the Arsky district of the republic. It turned out that among the Tatars of Kazan, the share of believers was 30% (thus increasing by 4 points in two decades), and in the Arsky district - 34.3%. The difference between a large city and a rural area this time was also small11.

Thesis 2. In the conditions of a socialist society and way of life, a higher level of religiosity remains among the population, which has preserved to the greatest extent the national traditions "mixed" with religion.

A 1966 study in Kazan showed that the level of religiosity among the Muslim (Tatar) population is indeed higher than that of the Orthodox (Russian) population. Among the Russian population, believers made up 19%, among Tatars-25.8%. Among the Tatar believers, there is a smaller gap between the number of Orthodox Christians and the number of Orthodox Christians.-

10. Baldanov R. G. Sociological problems in the scientific and atheistic education. Kazan, 1973. p. 33.

11. Braslavsky L. Y. Islam in Chuvashia. Historical and cultural aspects. Cheboksary, 1997.

page 135
more women and men than Orthodox believers. Thus, there were 1.5 times more Tatar believers than Tatar believers, while the ratio of Russians in the same sample was 1: 312.

According to other sociological studies conducted in the 1960s and 1980s, it was found that Tatars outside of Tatarstan and Bashkiria were more religious than their fellow tribesmen from both "Muslim" autonomous regions of the Volga region and generally more religious than other peoples living in these regions. In the Penza Region in 1968, 48.4% of Tatars were believers (the average number of believers in the region was 28.4%) 13, in the Gorky region in 1972 - about 50% of Tatars (in the region-27.2%) 14, in the Mari ASSR in 1973, 45.7% of Tatars were believers 15 (in the republic-27.1% ), in the Mordovian ASSR - 39% of Tatars in 1985-86. 16. In these regions, the Tatar population is a national minority and during the study period did not exceed 5-6% of the total population. This trend was first identified by G. V. Starovoitova on the basis of indirect sociological data.17
However, this trend is not universal. In rural areas of the south-east of the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, the level of religiosity among Bashkirs and Tatars was lower than the regional average for neighboring non-Muslim peoples. This is evidenced by the results of the only large-scale study known to us in the republic with the involvement of qualified scientific personnel, which was carried out by the Department of Marxist-Leninist Philosophy and Scientific Communism of Bashkirs-

12. Harutyunyan Yu. V. (ed.). Social and national. Experience of ethnosociological research. Based on the materials of the Tatar ASSR, Moscow, 1972, p. 138.

13. Korolev A. A. Power and Muslims of the Middle Volga region. p. 200.

14. Islam v SSSR [Islam in the USSR], Moscow: Mysl', 1983; Garadzhav I. Sotsiologiya religii [Sociology of Religion], Moscow: INFRA-M, 2005, p. 235.

15. Shabykov V. I. Religious consciousness of the Tatar population of the Republic of Mari El (on the material of sociological research) / / Galiaskar Kamal: 125 years since the birth and 125 years in the newest history of culture and art of the Turkic-Muslim peoples of Russia. Collection of materials of the All-Russian Scientific Conference, Moscow, 2005.

16. Mokshina E. N. Ob urovne religioznosti mordvvy v period "razvitiogo sotsializma" [On the level of Mordovian religiosity in the period of "developed socialism"]. Mezhkonfessional'nye otnosheniya v tsentre Evrazii, na primere Volgo-Uralskogo regiona (XVIII-XXI vv.)/Edited by S. Dudoignon, K. Le Torrivellec, O. Senyutkina. N. Novgorod: NGLU Publishing House, 2012.

17. Starovoitova G. V. Etnicheskaya gruppa v sovremennom sovetskom gorod [Ethnic group in the modern Soviet city]. Leningrad, 1987, p. 119.

page 136
In 1970-1974, he worked at the state farms of the "virgin" Khaibullinsky district. At that time, a continuous study covered the adult population (aged 17 years and older) of four multinational state farms in terms of population composition: in total, more than 3 thousand people. A separate program surveyed the working and non-working population 18. It turned out that among the working population, believers made up 17.5%, among the unemployed population - 28%. Among the Bashkirs and Tatars (economically active population) , the percentage of believers was 16%, which is lower than the average for the district (Table 1).

If we take into account the results of this study, it should be recognized that the level of Muslim religiosity in Soviet times within the Middle Volga region and the Urals as a whole was indeed higher than average, but it had its own regional characteristics and, most likely, tended to decrease as the concentration of the Muslim population itself increased.

Table 1. What kind of people do you consider yourself to be in relation to religion and atheism? (economically active population), Abzelilovsky district of the BASSR, 1974

Total (people)

from them answered (people)

no response (pers.)

I am an atheist (96)

I consider myself an unbeliever (%)

I am indifferent to religion and atheism (%)

experiencing fluctuations (%)

I consider myself a believer (%)

Polled

2068

1953

11,5

6,5

50,2

24,1

8,2

9,3

Some of them are Bashkirs and Tatars

995

980

15

7,2

54,6

23

8,1

7,9

Thesis 3. The level of religiosity is higher where the influence of clergy is strong and where registered religious communities operate.

18. Khamitova R. Fundamentals of a differentiated approach in atheistic work// Atheists at work. Ufa, 1975. pp. 133-143.

page 137
To verify this thesis, we will use the data of the above-mentioned study in rural areas of the TASSR. In one of the villages, in Verkhny Nurlat, at the time of the survey, one of the eleven mosques registered in the Tatar ASSR was operating, and in the other, in Michurin, there was no mosque. In addition, the first locality was a mono-national Tatar one, while the second one had an ethnically diverse population. At the same time, the level of Muslim religiosity in both localities was almost the same. If we continue the comparison with the data of the 1987 study, it is important to note that Kazan believers observed Eid (Muslim fast) more strictly than rural residents and recited namaz more often. Thus, 4% of all respondents read the obligatory five - fold prayer in Kazan every day, and in the Arsky district, where there were no mosques or Muslim clergy, one percent did.19 Apparently, the influence of the "official" clergy did not extend beyond the community of believers, and their sermons were mainly reflected in the thoroughness of the implementation of religious precepts.

Thesis 4. The process of withering away of religion and the Church under socialism is a natural consequence of social development.

Even with the fact that the majority of Soviet believers are at an advanced age, which is invariable for the sociological study of religion, it was impossible to ignore the fact that from generation to generation the share of believers among people of retirement age did not decrease at all. In addition, in some cases, a significant (over 10%) proportion of young people among believers is revealed.

In the Soviet sociology of religion, public opinion research on religion and atheism among young people played an important role. Among the studies of the early period, we know about the study of the views of Tatar youth in the Gorky region of the RSFSR (1973). The survey covered 355 Tatars from among graduates of Tatar secondary schools in six Tatar villages, young workers of industrial enterprises and students of universities in Gorky. The subject of the study was the attitude of young people to the Muslim religion. To the question: "What does religion give people?" - 159 people (44.7%) answered that religion is harmful, including 93 people (26.2%) answered that Islam is harmful.

19. TSGAIPD RT. f. 15. Op. 15. d. 934. P. 9.

page 138
also harms; other religions do harm, but Islam does not harm-34 people ( 9.6%); Islam, like other religions, does neither harm nor benefit-41 people ( 11.5%); Islam is useful - 13 people (3.7%); have not thought about this question - 98 people (27.5%). Thus, despite their atheistic upbringing, 13.4% of young people surveyed had a more or less positive assessment of the role of Islam in public life. For comparison, in a survey of young people across the region, the question: "How do you feel about religion?" 52.9% of respondents said that religion causes harm, 35.4% "didn't think about it", 9.2% said it doesn't do any harm or benefit, and 0.9% said it does good. The author of the article avoids the whole question of attitude to faith, but based on the comparison of the opinions of religious and non-religious youth given in the article, it is not difficult to understand that a considerable percentage of believers are identified among young people.20
In the Soviet era, the sociological literature on the topic of religiosity allowed only the citation of data from specialized studies conducted with the participation of the Institute of Scientific Atheism; only their data were used to compare individual regions and republics.21
Despite their opportunistic nature, it would be premature to claim that these results "served" any previously known "control" figures. At least those researchers with whom the author interviewed categorically deny the facts of interference of the "customer" (party bodies) in the research process and do not allow the possibility of further falsification of the results obtained by them22. On the other hand, there are grounds for assertions about latent religiosity, which has not been identified by sociologists.

In our opinion, if there was a distortion of the results, it was caused by an imperfection of the methodology. In whatever form the questionnaire questions about religion were asked, they could not be considered psychologically neutral for the respondent due to the fact that the respondent could not fully experience religious beliefs.

20. A. Orlov On the nature and structure of the remnants of Islam (based on the materials of sociological research among the Tatar population of the Gorky region) / / Problems of research on the structure of religious consciousness. Gorky, 1973. pp. 76-93.

21. Garadzha V. I. Sotsiologiya religii [Sociology of Religion].

22. From an interview with Associate Professor of KSU S. A. Akhmetova, formerly an employee of the Laboratory of Sociological Research, a participant in research in 1966-67. Interview date: October 23, 2013

page 139
trust in the survey procedure, namely, to preserve the anonymity of its response. As is well known, even legally protected information about the conduct of wedding or maternity religious rites, transmitted by religious organizations to financial authorities, easily "leaked" from there, getting into the primary party or Komsomol cells, 23 as believers could see from personal experience or learn through their own communication channels. The scale of the alleged distortions caused by distrust of the survey procedure is indicated by the results of a methodological experiment of ethnosociologists of the USSR Academy of Sciences, who conducted their research in the Tatar ASSR in 1967.They found out the influence of the interviewer's nationality on the answers of Tatar respondents. The greatest correlation was found for questions about attitudes to religion, "national" rites and holidays (as well as the language of instruction at school). Thus, 34% of respondents gave a positive answer to the question about the celebration of Muslim religious holidays when they were interviewed by an interviewer of Russian nationality ("alien"), and 44% - when the interviewer was of Tatar nationality ("own").24. In the research of the Institute of Scientific Atheism, the verification of the honesty of the respondent's answers was not provided for and could not be rechecked by other methods.

The collection of data on attitudes to religion and atheism as one of the sociological variables was included in the program of many studies conducted by leading sociological institutes. Ethnosociological studies, which considered the level of religiosity ("religious survivals") as an element of interethnic relations, competed somewhat with the Institute of Scientific atheism. The above-mentioned large-scale study was conducted in the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic by the Department of Concrete and Sociological Research of the Institute of Ethnography of the USSR Academy of Sciences. More than 100 thousand residents were interviewed for urban and rural samples. The data on Muslim religiosity that we are interested in are based on indirect indicators: the celebration of religious holidays.-

23. Mikhalev I. A. On some of the most relevant issues of control over cults (1970). ON RT. F. 873, Op. 1. d. 41-L. 165-167.

24. Methods of collecting information in sociological research. Book 1. Moscow: Nauka Publ., 1990, p. 63.

page 140
work and participation in religious rites 25. Reporting publications show differences in the opinions of religious and non-religious populations, but the characteristics of these two subsamples are not compared. Now these figures are known, as they were published 25 years later by local ethnologues. 26 As it turns out, 17.9% of believers were identified among Tatars, 19.7% were wavering, 46.6% were indifferent, and 15.8% were atheists.

Despite the fact that a selective study of public opinion on the problems of religion and atheism was conducted in almost every region of the USSR, the study of the picture on a national scale was never implemented. R. Baltanov, head of the Laboratory of Sociological Research at Kazan University, wrote on this occasion that "obtaining a picture of the population's religiosity on an all-Union scale is a task of enormous practical complexity"27. In the Soviet sociology of religion, when choosing the objects of research, preference was given to typical administrative divisions, from the point of view of the confessional composition of the population: regions and republics, districts and localities. When studying the religiosity of the rural population, expeditions were practiced.

The researchers ' attitudes regarding the sample size evolved during this period. The first studies mentioned above in Kazan and the Penza Region in the mid-1960s were conducted on a one-percent sample, while studies in rural areas of the TASSR and BASSR covered the entire adult population of the studied localities. In 1987, in Kazan, the sample population was limited to a statistically minimal value of 500 units (assuming that with a probability of 0.954, the general average falls within the range of 5%).

The difference in the sample sizes and methods of selecting research units among ethnosociologists and sociologists of religious studies was quite fundamental: in 1985-1986, the Department of Ethnography of the Research Institute of Language, Literature and Economics (NIIYALIE) and the Mordovian State University named after N. P. Rsa-

25. Ibid., pp. 135-138.

26. Musina R.N. On the question of the place and role of religion in the life of modern Tatars//Modern national processes in the Republic of Tatarstan. Issue I. Kazan, 1992. pp. 52-64.

27. Baltanov R. G. Sotsiologicheskie problemy [Sociological problems], p. 65.

page 141
reva conducted a survey among 2 thousand residents of the Mordovian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic based on a republican sample in 45 localities 28.

Despite the difference in approaches and methods, research on the issues of religiosity and atheism in the Ural-Volga region was conducted at a high scientific and methodological level. The monopoly of one scientific institution protected the research area from imitators of scientific activity in its own way and allowed maintaining the high scientific and methodological level necessary for comparative analysis. When, in the second half of the 1980s, other structures, ranging from ideological departments of city committees to amateur sociological foundations, became involved in the sociological research of religiosity, the methodological level went down sharply. It is characteristic that in a survey of employees of enterprises of the Ordzhonikidze district of Ufa in 1988, only 3.5 - 4% of believers were identified 29. It was particularly noted that these are primarily women engaged in "heavy unskilled labor" 30. You should not look for any other reasons for such an improbable result, other than a conscious desire to bring the results of the study under a pre-known control figure.

The use and interpretation of sociological data was rarely aimed at identifying actual problems and was limited to illustrating propaganda cliches. The main pathos was to emphasize secularization trends ("the death of religion") as positive aspects of social dynamics. Even the relatively high level of religiosity of Muslim peoples was described as "a slower rate of departure from religion" .31 Revealed religious "excesses" resulted in measures to strengthen the system of atheistic political enlightenment.32 Dependence

28. Mokshina E. N. On the level of Mordovian religiosity in the period of "developed socialism".

29. For comparison, in a similar study of enterprises in Kazan, conducted by the ideological department of the city Committee of the CPSU in 1987, 17% of respondents recognized themselves as believers. See: TSGAIPD RT. F. 15. Op. 15. D. 1626. P. 13.

30. Shteyngart R. To atheism in a new way. // Vechernyaya Ufa. 1988. November 2.

31. Harutyunyan Yu. V. (ed.). Social and national. p. 136.

32." On the results of a sociological study of the religiosity of the city's population and tasks for further improvement of atheistic work": Resolution of the Bureau of the Civil Code of the CPSU of Kazan dated May 15, 1967 / / Ibid. f. 15. Op. 7. N694. L. 218.

page 142
the rejection of the ideological notion of religion as an object of atheistic propaganda strongly limited the cognitive possibilities of the sociological study of religiosity.

In an effort to emphasize the survivable nature of religion, its negative role in the spiritual development of the individual, certain sociological indicators were highlighted. Thus, the secretary of the Bashkir Regional Committee on Ideology T. Akhunzyanov, speaking at the conference with a report on the state of scientific and atheistic education in the republic, focused on the low socio-professional status and educational level of Muslim believers. According to him, 86.6% of believers have an education in the volume of grades 2-4, 7.8% - seven years, 0.9% - secondary, only 0.3% received incomplete higher education, 4.4% - did not study at all 33. From another report of the same official, it can be concluded that the main result of the study in the Abzelilovsky district was that people of certain specialties predominate among the believers: for example, there are many calves, cattle breeders, shepherds and milkmaids, but few drivers and tractor drivers.34
Among the important results of the research, in addition to finding the statistical distribution of the population in relation to religion, was its empirical typology and classification. The typology of believers was one of the most acute theoretical problems of Soviet sociology of religion. 35 Nevertheless, in applied research, the question of where to place the population that is wavering in matters of faith has always been decided in favor of classifying them as believers. In the study conducted in the Abzelilovsky district of the BASSR, based on the attitude to religion, a typology was used, according to which the population was divided into 5 groups: believers, waverers, indifferent (indifferent), non-believers and atheists. Groups 1 and 2 are religious, while groups 3 and 4 are non - religious. The calculation shows that 46.9% of the religious population of the specified region fluctuated between faith and disbelief, and 50.6% among Bashkirs and Tatars. Among the non-working population, the percentage of vacillators is much lower - about 28.6%. Typology and class-

33. Akhunzyanov T. A. To know the reasons//Atheistic education in modern conditions. Ufa, 1976. p. 8.

34. Atheists at work. From the experience of working on atheistic education of workers in the Bashkir ASSR. Ufa, 1975. p. 6.

35. Smirnov M. Y. Modern Russian sociology of religion: where and why?// Religious Studies. 2007. N2. pp. 154-164.

page 143
Sifikation was considered a prerequisite for a differentiated approach to different groups of believers, depending on their age, profession, education, gender, social or national affiliation and religion. T. Akhunzyanov suggests different approaches to fanatical believers, believers who are tolerant of atheism, waverers, as well as those who use religion for their own selfish purposes (medicine men, wandering mullahs, and sectarian preachers)36.

Based on the example of studies in the regions and republics of the Volga region and the Urals, it should be concluded that in the 1960s and 1970s, research was mainly aimed at identifying and overcoming ritual and everyday manifestations of religiosity. As you know, "worship" was the only type of permitted religious activity, and all other religious activities - educational, missionary, catechetical, charitable, organizational-were legally prohibited. Researchers were mainly interested in participating in religious rites against the background of the mass introduction of new "Soviet rites"to replace them.

In the 1980s, researchers moved from studying the level of "background" Muslim religiosity to studying its role in socio-political processes in society. In 1986, the 18 mosques officially operating in the TASSR accounted for more than 800 informal Muslim religious groups.37 Due to the growing Islamic factor in the international arena, the country's political leadership was concerned about the uncontrolled Muslim religiosity in the country38. If earlier Muslim religiosity was studied on the basis of statistically significant subsamples, then in 1987 in the TASSR, only the Tatar (Muslim) population of one of the districts of Kazan and the prigorodny Arsky district was studied. Researchers, in addition to

36. Akhunzyanov T. A. To know the reasons. pp. 9, 10.

37. TSGAIPD RT. f. 15. Op. 14. N403. L. 83.

38. See the secret resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU of August 18, 1986 "On strengthening the fight against the influence of Islam" and the previous resolution of the Central Committee of the CPSU of October 21, 1985 "On additional measures in connection with the activation of "militant Islam"in Asia and Africa". - About the work of the Tatar Regional Party Organization on atheistic education, overcoming the remnants of Islam among the working people and the population. TSGAIPD RT. f. 15-Op. 14. N403. L. 39.

page 144
The main criteria of religiosity were used to identify respondents ' interest in the position of Islam abroad, their attitude to foreign radio stations and religious radio programs dedicated to Islam. The main goal of the Moscow scientists was, apparently, to find out whether Muslim religiosity can be a ground for spreading radical religious ideas and ideas.39 The study did not reveal such a connection. However, it has demonstrated - like others, especially the INA's 1988 study of the Tatar population in the remote Oktyabrsky district of the TASSR - trends such as the rejuvenation of the religious population, the penetration of religiosity into those segments of the population for whom ostentatious atheism was recently considered part of the lifestyle-the Komsomol youth, the intelligentsia, and the ruling party itself. In some areas of the republic, Islam had almost more influence on the population than the Communist Party.40 It is known that during the years of Perestroika, the ideological department of the Tatar Regional Committee of the CPSU did not submit a single issue to the Regional Committee bureau without conducting a proper sociological analysis. 41 There is no doubt that the results of sociological studies of the population's religiosity were taken into account when implementing state policies aimed at liberalizing relations with faiths.

Unfortunately, there is no evidence in the scientific circulation that would allow us to repeat similar conclusions in relation to the neighboring regions of the Ural-Volga region. This is due to the fact that the archive collections that would represent the reaction of party and Soviet authorities to the results of sociological research in the late 1980s are still not declassified. Business relations between social science and government did not exist everywhere. The available data allow us to state, for example, that the ideological bodies of the BASSR did not have much confidence in the data of sociological surveys and did not rely on them in their work. So, in 1989, an official responsible for the confessional sphere answered a question from a journalist: "How many ve-

39. For more information, see: The state of religiosity and atheistic education in the regions of the traditional spread of Islam: (Materials of Sociol. research) / AON under the Central Committee of the CPSU, INA, Sov. sociol. assoc. Moscow: AON Publ., 1989.

40. TSGAIPD RT. f. 15. Op. 15. N933. L. 58.

41. Isaev G. A., Yurtaev A. N. Sotsiologicheskaya deyatel'nost ' v Tatarii [Sociological activity in Tatarstan]. TSGAIPD RT. f. 15. Op. 15. d. 918. L. 3-19.

page 145
runes in Bashkiria?" - he did not give a direct answer, but forwarded it to social scientists 42.

In general, it should be noted that the problem of the sociological measurement of Muslim religiosity of the population in the Soviet period was studied in detail in only two or three regions of the Ural-Volga region. In others, only the actual facts of research are known, or there is fragmentary research information. For this reason, my conclusions are based on a small body of research data, and for greater accuracy, they need to be supplemented with a wider range of data of a retrospective and interregional nature.

A distinctive feature of the sociological study of religion in Soviet times was the monopoly of one academic structure - the Institute of Scientific Atheism; based on the fundamental ideological provisions, religion was considered a relic on the way to a society of "mass atheism". Therefore, in a sense, the religious surveys described in this article became a kind of vote of confidence in the official ideology.

Nevertheless, at least some sociological studies were conducted methodologically accurately in general and revealed a number of interesting and adequate conclusions about the religiosity of the Muslim population of the republics and regions of the Volga region and the Urals, in particular:

- there was no large gap in the religiosity of urban and rural populations;

- the level of Muslim religiosity in Soviet times within the Middle Volga region and the Urals was higher than the national average and tended to decline as the share of the Muslim population in a particular area grew;

- the presence of officially active Muslim clergy did not affect the overall level of religiosity in the area.

In general, it can be concluded that the survey data refuted the thesis about the "withering away of religion" and revealed the crisis state of the system of scientific and atheistic education.

42. Muratshin A. How many believers are there in Bashkiria? It is impossible to answer this question exactly, but... / / Vechernyaya Ufa. 1989. October 16th.

page 146
Bibliography/References

Archive materials

National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan (ON RT).

P-873. Council for Religious Affairs under the Council of Ministers of the TASSR.

Central State Archive of Historical and Political Documentation of the Republic of Tatarstan (TSGAIPD RT).

F. 15. Foundation of the Tatar Regional Committee of the CPSU.

Central State Archive of Public Associations of the Republic of Bashkortostan.

F. 122. Fund of the Bashkir Regional Committee of the CPSU.

F. 10317. Znanie Society of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Ufa.

Literature

Abdullin Ya. G., Avilov Sh. Sh., Boltanoe R. G. et al. Dictionary-reference about Islam and atheism (in Russian). Kazan: Tatar Book Publishing House, 1981.

Harutyunyan Yu. V. (Ed.). Social and national. Experience of ethnosociological research. Based on the materials of the Tatar ASSR. Moscow, 1972.

Atheism-to the masses (in Russian). Kazan, 1972.

Atheists at work. From the experience of working on atheistic education of workers in the Bashkir ASSR. Ufa, 1975.

Akhunzyanov T. A. To know the reasons//Atheistic education in modern conditions. Ufa, 1976.

Boltunov R. G. Sociological problems in the scientific and atheistic education. Kazan, 1973.

Islam in Chuvashia. Historical and cultural aspects. Cheboksary, 1997.

Valitov O. K. (Comp.). Atheistic education in modern conditions. Ufa, 1976.

Garadzha V. I. Sotsiologiya religii: Ucheb. posobie dlya studentov i post-graduate students of humanitarian specialties. 3rd ed., reprint. Moscow: INFRA-M Publ., 2005.

Islam in the USSR, Moscow: Mysl', 1983.

Islam and Muslims of the Southern Urals in the historical and legal space of Russia: Collection of legislative acts, resolutions and orders of central and regional authorities and management of the XX-XXI centuries. Ufa, 2009.

Karamyshev H. G. Atheistic education: experience, problems (in Bash. yaz.). Ufa, 1984.

Korolev A. A. Power and Muslims of the Middle Volga Region: Evolution of mutual relations. 1945-2000 Diss ... Doctor of Historical Sciences. Specialty 07-00.02. Moscow, 2008.

Lopatkin R. A. Sotsiologiya religii v Rossii Sociology of Religion in Russia: past experience and current challenges//State, religion, and Church in Russia and abroad. 2010. N4. pp. 266-272.

Methods of collecting information in sociological research. Book 1. Moscow: Nauka Publ., 1990.

Mokshina E. N. Ob urovne religioznosti mordvva v period "razvitiogo sotsializma" [On the level of Mordovian religiosity in the period of "developed socialism"]. Mezhkonfessional'nye otnosheniya v tsentre Evrazii, na primere Volgo-Uralskogo regiona (XVIII-XXI vv.)/Edited by S. Dudoignon, K. Le Torrivellec, O. Senyutkina. N. Novgorod: NGLU Publishing House, 2012.

page 147
Muratshin A. How many believers are there in Bashkiria? It is impossible to answer this question exactly, but... / / Vechernyaya Ufa. 1989. October 16th.

Musina R.N. On the question of the place and role of religion in the life of modern Tatars//Modern national processes in the Republic of Tatarstan. Issue I. Kazan, 1992. pp. 52-64.

Experience of concrete and sociological study of the state of the religious population of Kazan.//Information bulletin of the INA AON under the Central Committee of the CPSU. 1968. N1.

A. Orlov On the nature and structure of the remnants of Islam (based on the materials of sociological research among the Tatar population of the Gorky region) / / Problems of research on the structure of religious consciousness. Gorky, 1973. pp. 76-93.

Serova E. A. Activity of commissions for monitoring the observance of legislation on cults (on the example of Evangelical Baptist communities in the Kemerovo region)//Istoricheskie issledovaniya v Sibiri: problemy i perspektivy [Historical Research in Siberia: Problems and Prospects]//Institute of History SB RAS. Novosibirsk, 2010.

Modern Russian Sociology of Religion: where and why? / / Religious Studies. 2007-N2. pp. 154-164.

The state of religiosity and atheistic education in the regions of the traditional spread of Islam: (Materials of sociol. research) / AON under the Central Committee of the CPSU, INA, Sov. sociol. assoc. Moscow: AON Publ., 1989.

Starovoitova G. V. Etnicheskaya gruppa v sovremennom sovetskom gorod [Ethnic group in the modern Soviet city]. Leningrad, 1987.

Khamitova R. Fundamentals of a differentiated approach in atheistic work//Atheists at work. Ufa, 1975. pp. 133-143.

Shabykov V. I. Religious consciousness of the Tatar population of the Mari El Republic (based on a sociological study)//Galiaskar Kamal: 125 years since his birth and 125 years in the modern history of culture and art of the Turkic-Muslim peoples of Russia. Collection of materials of the All-Russian Scientific Conference, Moscow, 2005.

Shigaev D. G. Islam before and now (in Bash. yaz.). Ufa, 1971.

Shteyngart R. To atheism in a new way. // Vechernyaya Ufa, 1988. November 2.

Archival Materials

Central State Archive of Historical and Political Documentation of the Republic of Tatarstan.

F. 15. Fund of the Tatar Regional Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Central State Archive of Public Associations of the Republic of Bashkortostan.

F. 122. Fund of the Bashkir Regional Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

F. 10 317. The "Znanie" Society of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Ufa.

National Archive of the Republic of Tatarstan.

R-873. The Council of the Religious Affairs, Council of Ministers of the Tatar Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.

Literature

Abdullin, I. G., Abilov, Sh. Sh., Baltanov, P. G. et al. (1981) Slovar' - spravochnik ob islame i ateizme (na tat. iazyke) [A Dictionary and Reference Book on Islam and Atheism (in Tatar)]. Kazan: Tatar Book Publisher.

page 148
Akhunzianov, T. A. (1976) "Znat' prichiny" [To Know the Causes], Ateisticheskoe vospitanie v sovremennykh usloviiakh [Atheistic Education Today], p. 8. Ufa.

Arutiunyan, Yu. V. (ed.) (1972) Sotsial'noe i natsional'noe. Opyt etnosotsdiologicheskikh issledovanii. Po materialam Tatarskoi ASSR [The Social and the National. The Experience of Ethnosociological Studies. On the Materials of the Tatar ASSR]. Moscow.

Ateizm - v massy [Atheism-to the Masses. In Tatar]. (1972). Kazan.

Ateisty za rabotoi. Iz opyta raboty po ateisticheskomu vospitaniu trudiashchikhsia v Bashkirskoi ASS R [Atheists at Work. The Experience of the Atheistic Education of Workers in Bashkir AAR]. (1975). Ufa.

Baltanov, R. (1973) Sotsiologicheskie problemy v sisteme nauchno-ateisticheskogo vospitania [Sociological Problems in the System of Scientific Atheistic Education]. Kazan.

Braslavskii, L. (1997) Islam v Chuvashii. Istoricheskie i kul'turologicheskie aspekty [Islam in Chuvashia. Historical and Cultural Issues]. Cheboksary.

Garadzha, V. I. (2005) Sotsiologiia religii: Ucheb. posobie dlia studentov i aspirantov gumanitarnykh spetsial'nostei. 3-е izd., pererab. i dop. [The Sociology of Religion. A Textbook for Students in the Humanities. Third Revised Edition]. Moscow: INFRA - M.

Islam i musul'mane. Islam i musul'mane Iuzhnogo Urala v istoriko-pravovom pronstranstue Rossii: sbornik zakonodatel'nykh aktou, postanoulenii i rasporiazhenii tsentral'nykh i regional'nykh organov vlasti i upravlenia 20 - 21 vv. [Islam and Muslims of the Southern Urals in the Historical and Legal Landscape of Russia. A Collection of Legal Acts and Decrees of Central and Regional Authorities in 20 - 21" Centuries]. (2009). Ufa.

Islam v SSSR [Islam in the USSR]. (1983). Moscow: Mysl'.

Karamyshev, Kh. (1984). Ateisticheskoe vospitanie: opyt, problemy [Atheistic Education: Experience and Problems (in Bashkir)]. Ufa.

Korolev, A. A. (2008) Vlast' i musul'mane Srednego Povolzh'ia: evoliutsiia vzaimootnoshenii. ig45 - 2000 gg. Diss....dok.ist.nauk. Spetsial'nost' 07.00.02 [Power and Muslims in Middle Volga: a History of Relationships. A PhD Dissertation]. Moscow.

Lopatkin, R. (2010) "Issledovania problem religii v sovetskii period" [Studies of Religion in the Soviet Period], Gosudarstvo, religia, tserkov' v Rossii i za rubezhom 4: 266 - 272.

Metody sbora informatsii v sotsiologicheskikh issledovaniiakh [Methods of Gathering Information in Sociological Research]. (1990). Kn. 1. Moscow: Nauka.

Mokshina, E.N. (2012) "Ob urovne religioznosti mordvy v period 'razvitogo sotsializma'", in Duduan'ona, S., Le Torrivelleka, K. and Seniutkinoi, O. (eds) Mezhkonfessional'nye otnosheniia v tsentreEvrazii, naprimere Volgo-Ural'skogo regiona (XVIII-XXI vv.) ["On the Level of Religiosity of Mordva People during the 'Developed Socialism'", in Dudoignong, S. et al. (eds) Interconfessional Relations at the Center of Eurasia, the Case of Volga-Urals Region, 18 - 21 cc]. N. Novgorod: NGLU.

Muratshin, A. (16 October 1989) "Skol'ko veruiushchikh v Bashkirii? Na etot vopros tochno otvetit' nel'zia, no..." [How Many Believers in Bashkirii? The Question Cannot Be Answered, but...], Vecherniaia Ufa.

Musina, R. N. (1992) "K voprosu о meste i roli religii v zhizni sovremennykh tatar" [On the Role of Religion in the Life of Contemporary Tatar People], Sovremennye natsional'nye protsessy v Respublike Tatarstan. No. I, pp. 52 - 64. Kazan'.

page 149
Opyt konkretno-sotsiologicheskogo izucheniia sostoianiia religioznogo naseleniia g. Kazani [An Essay of Empirical Sociological Survey on Religious Population of Kazan City]. (1968), Informatsionnyi biulleteri INA AON pri TsK KPSS. No. 1.

Orlov, A. (1973) "O kharaktere i strukture perezhitkov islama (po materialam sotsiologicheskikh issledovanii sredi tatarskogo naseleniia Gor'kovskoi oblasti)" [On the Nature and Structure of the Muslim Left-Overs (on the Materials of Sociological Surveys among the Tatar Population of Gor'kii District)], in Problemy issledovaniia struktury religioznogo soznaniia, pp. 76 - 93. Gor'kii.

Serova, E.A. (2010) "Deiatel'nost' komissii po kontroliu za sobliudeniem zakonodatel'stva о kul'takh (na primere obshchin Evangel'skikh khristian-baptistov Kemerovskoi oblasti)" [The Activities of the Commission Controlling the Observance of the Legislation about the Cults (the Case of the Evangelical Baptist Christians of Kemerovo District)], in Istoricheskie issledovaniia v Sibiri: problemy i perspektivy: Sb. materialov IV regional'noi molodezhnoi nauchnoi konferentsii/lnstitut istorii SO RAN. Novosibirsk.

Smirnov, M.Iu. (2007) "Sovremennaia rossiiskaia sotsiologiia religii: otkuda i zachem?" [Contemporary Russian Sociology of Religion: Whence and Why?], Religiovedenie 2: 154 - 164.

Sostoianie religioznosti i ateisticheskogo vospitaniia v regionakh traditsionnogo rasprostraneniia islama: (Materialy sotsiol. issled.) [The State of Religiosity and Atheistic Education in the Traditionally Muslim Regions (A Sociological Survey)]. (1989). Moscow: AON pri TsK KPSS.

Starovoitova, G.V. (1987) Etnicheskaia gruppa v sovremennom sovetskom gorode [Ethnic Groups in Contemporary Russian Cities]. Leningrad.

Khamitova, R. (1975) "Osnovy differentsirovannogo podkhoda v ateisticheskoi rabote" [The Bases of a Differential Approach in Atheistic Work], in Ateisty za rabotoi, pp. 133 - 143. Ufa.

Shabykov, V. I. (2005) "Religioznoe soznanie tatarskogo naseleniia Respubliki Marii El (na materiale sotsiologicheskogo issledovaniia)" [Religious Consciousness of the Tatar Population of Marii El Republic (a Sociological Survey)], in Galiaskar Kamal: 125 let so dnia rozhdeniia i 125 let noueishei istorii kul'tury i iskusstua tiurko-musul'manskikh narodov Rossii. Sbornik materialov Vserossiiskoi nauchnoi konferentsii. Moscow.

Shigaev, D. (1971) Islam ran'she i teper' [Islam Before and Now (in Bashkir)]. Ufa.

Shteingart, R. (2 November 1988) "K ateizmu po-novomu" [Toward a New Type of Atheism], Vecherniaia Ufa.

Valitov, O. K. (ed.) (1976) Ateisticheskoe vospitanie v sovremennykh usloviiakh [Atheistic Education in Current Conditions]. Ufa.

page 150

Постоянный адрес данной публикации: