LIFE WITHOUT GOD": ATHEISTIC PROPAGANDA IN OGONIOK MAGAZINE IN THE 1920s

Abstract

The paper based on materials of mass Soviet weekly Ogoniok of the 1920s features forms and methods of atheistic propaganda that was an integral part of mechanism aimed at creating a new socio-cultural identity in the Soviet society as well as one of the important practices of the Soviet power. Religious moral values of "the old society" were being replaced by Bolshevik ideology focused on collectivism and internationalism. The fight against religion was a form of the fight for "a new lifestyle", proliferation of new social practices and replacement of religious rites by civil ones. The magazine publications exposed the church as an outdated social institution that did not correspond with ongoing processes of modernization. The image of the church constructed by the press was directly related to political purposes of the Soviet power in that historic period. The author comes to the conclusion that the power used the press to introduce new values and ideas into public consciousness. In the 1920s the image of the church in publications was controversial. It ranged from allegations that the church was opposite to progress and science (in the early 1920s) to scathing invectives exposing clergymen as the enemies of the Soviet state (in the late 1920s).