THE INFLUENCE OF ORTHODOXY ON URBAN YOUTH IN THE USSR: WHAT THE HIGHEST PARTY AUTHORITIES “SAW” IN THE 1970S AND EARLY 1980S

Abstract

The paper examines the phenomenon of growing interest in Orthodox culture among Soviet urban youth during the period of “developed socialism,” as well as the reflection of this phenomenon in documents submitted to the central committees of the Communist Party and the Komsomol. The author studies the content of analytical materials “for administrative use” prepared by the Institute of Scientific Atheism of the Academy of Social Sciences under the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council for Religious Affairs under the Council of Ministers of the USSR in 1971-1982, characterizing the attitude of schoolchildren and students toward traditional confessional values. The paper identifies such phenomena as a significant increase in the number of baptisms, an increased search by young citizens for the foundations of national culture and morality in Orthodoxy, the desire to combine religious and scientific values in life, as well as the “fashion” for Orthodox paraphernalia. The trends in Russian literature, art, and museum work of the late Soviet period, which increased the attention of young people to Orthodox culture, are generally characterized. The article shows that Soviet functionaries increasingly openly recognized the existence of a “serious problem” in ideological work with students and gradually realized the failure of the atheist project.