The Post-Soviet Transition and the Science of Religion

This text is an extended review of the volume "Science of Religion, Scientific Atheism, Religious Studies. Current Problems of the Science of Religion in 20th-21st centuries Russia" (editor K. Antonov, 2014). The review emphasizes the need of de-Sovietization of the religious studies that in the Soviet times existed under the rubric of "scientific atheism". The volume's authors were right to present the Soviet religious studies as an amalgam of scientific and non-scientific approaches and practices. The Soviet scholars studied religion while they were expecting its near disappearance. With such orientation, it was almost impossible to follow thorough scientific procedures: the science as such was determined by the overall condicio sovetico with its unescapable mixture of what is what ought to be. The post-Soviet transition is supposed to be a way of de-ideologization, and this principle should be applied to such a new form of ideological bias as confessional engagement, which apparently has replaced the old "scientific atheism" of the Soviet era.