Luehrmann S. Secularism Soviet Style. Teaching Atheism and Religion in a Volga Republic. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2011. - 292 p.

Sonia Luhrmann's book is a combination of thorough case study with interesting generalizations. Based on the material of one specific Russian Republic Ma-

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The author tries to trace the bizarre relations between religion and secularism in the Soviet and post - Soviet times in the Riy El (former Mari Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic) - a material related to the "big" XX century with the capture and beginning of the next century. The Republic of Mari El, which the author has been studying intently for many years, is a modest, small and very special imperial periphery, which was hit by grandiose waves of secularization and desecularization, transforming along the way and acquiring a tangible local identity. However, it is precisely this reliable local knowledge (and this work, in fact, is almost the first experience of this kind) that allows us to reliably speak about the meaning of "large" processes.

The disciplinary optics that the author calls "historically-informed anthropology" (p. 222), i.e., anthropology supported by historical knowledge, serves to achieve the volume and depth of the resulting picture. The book begins with an outline of the pre-revolutionary confessional regime in the Volga region, then moves on to the twists and turns of the XX century with periodic returns to the past. The region was characterized by a complex interweaving of ethnic and confessional identities, the key to which was what the author calls the "tradition of interreligious neighborhood" at the level of intercommunal fragmentation; not dogmatic differences, but local identity was the key principle of this fragmentation; such a confessional mosaic was both dividing, but also, quite understandably, connecting - or at least at least as a mitigating factor: In any case, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, the region did not experience serious conflicts on ethnic or religious grounds (p. 43) - the Soviet universalist project, however, saw religion exclusively as a source of discord and hostility, introducing other, "rational" (at least at first glance) principles of solidarity. In the post-secular post-Soviet context, the "neighborhood tradition" partially suppressed in the USSR is being restored, but then immediately transformed under the influence of new forms and new actors: These are the revived Chimari religion-the autochthonous Mari "paganism" - and Finnish Lutherans, a completely new phenomenon here, who seem absolutely alien and unintentionally strengthen, on the basis of solidarity opposition to the Other, the rapprochement between Orthodox and pagans, which is encouraged by the post-Soviet authorities appealing to tradition (p. 34-40).

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This history essay contains some individual observations and results, which it is appropriate to briefly list. For example, the author notices something important in the policy of regular Soviet atheists: despite initially rigid ideological attitudes, they eventually realize the non-dogmatic, non-ideological nature of local confessional fragmentation and begin to act more and more pragmatically (p. 41). This also includes an interesting analysis of archival reports on the" Khrushchev " meetings to close churches, from which, despite their censored predictability, some interesting details can be extracted; in particular, it can be concluded that local activists, following general directives from above, did not master Soviet rhetoric perfectly and so these meetings were, in a sense, a school for both sides, where everyone was taught the Soviet official discourse (learned to speak Bolshevick, as Stephen Kotkin famously put it); and at the same time, official reports, within the framework of the same allowed and on-the-go completed discourse, reveal reliable and different "voices from below"(p. 106).

The author accurately notes and illustrates in detail how the Soviet authorities tried to differentiate local holidays, encouraging "life-affirming", "folk" and communal ones like sabantuy and suppressing clan-family (particularistic) and difficult-to-secularize rites, such as food donations in anticipation of the harvest (agavayrem) (p. 47-8). Very interesting is the description of how the Mari Chimarii is revived at the end of the century: it is being reinvented from a loose set of beliefs and practices into a "denomination", a" religion "- a process that includes both internal conversion (link to K. Geertz) and "Protestantism" (link to R. Gombrich and G. Obeyesekere) (p. 127-133).

A very interesting chapter is devoted to the use of the concept of "spirituality" - how it was understood by atheists ("spiritual values of socialism") and how it is now interpreted in different competing denominations; in particular, how disputes over spirituality reveal fundamental differences between Orthodox and charismatic Pentecostals. (The author again refers to R. Gombrich and G. Obeyesekere, who described the two

Kotkin S. 1. Magnetic Mountain. Stalinism as a Civilization. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995

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forms of spirituality in Buddhist Sri Lanka-focused "silent" meditation and exalted spirit possession, p. 174).

And yet, despite the presence of these separate and more or less detailed plots that have their own value, the book has an unconditional and clearly visible leitmotif: This is the idea that it is impossible, within the framework of concrete and socially significant human experience, to draw a rigid boundary between religious and secular; their constant interpenetration; their eternal flow into each other. S. Luhrmann writes that the actors themselves - both believers and (in Soviet times) atheist activists-did not fully realize this boundary. The ambiguity of the boundary between the secular and the religious, however, also confuses researchers who are forced to observe how, as a result of the return of religion to the public space at the end of the last century, the previously unshakable paradigm of secular modernity is collapsing. The author's super-task is to try to overcome this epistemological discomfort, this uncomfortable feeling that the solid ground of the usual models is slipping out from under his feet. The author believes that the method of "historically informed anthropology" chosen by her makes it possible to fulfill this task (p. 221-222).

In order to make theoretical sense of this interconversion of the secular into the religious and vice versa, the author uses Weber's concept of "selective affinity", hinting at the presence of procedural and semantic similarities between them. Not a replacement of one with another (secular culture instead of religious after the Revolution and reverse replacement after the collapse of the USSR), but always a complex combination of both. Following the principle of ellective affinity, the author finds in his material many manifestations confirming this idea.

The first example concerns the transition from the pre-revolutionary regime to the Soviet one. In the most general sense, we can say this: the Soviet worldview, for all its fundamental atheism, rejection of "supernatural forces", rejection of Durkheim's idea of religion as a manifest social unity, reliance on "exclusive humanism" (the term of Ch. Taylor), could not but absorb the religious spirit, the indestructible mechanisms of sacralization. The idea of the hidden quasi-religious nature of the Soviet system is far from new. Luhrmann, referring to the current interest in Karl's "political theology"

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Schmidt and Talal Asad's deconstruction of the concept of religion in Modern times raises the question of whether it is even possible to build a political regime in which there would be no, even if indirect, sacralization of power or any, even if hidden theological justification. This statement seems to be an exaggeration, but when applied to the Soviet regime - as well as to other totally ideologized political systems-it makes sense. Atheist workers, the author writes, constantly raised the question of the metarational legitimation of the Soviet cosmos and, in particular, "recognized and sought to use the potential of religious rituals to strengthen solidarity" (p. 20). Also, despite the revolutionary gaps, the system of religious education penetrated Soviet educational projects (p. 14-16) (this can be put on a par with such an interesting phenomenon as the mass "march to Revolution" of children of Orthodox priests, as Laurie Manchester wrote) .2 The author examines in great detail another example of" selective similarity " - the consonance of Soviet propaganda methods and Protestant preaching. Unlike the Orthodox Church, with its emphasis on hierarchy, tradition, and the dominance of the institution over individual members, Soviet propagandists and Protestant missionaries show many similarities: a system of "cells" and communities; collective discussion on a "given topic"; the task of achieving rapid mobilization and social transformation, etc. These similarities are interestingly illustrated by the example of the work of the Znanie Society. However, this similarity is without influence and direct interaction, which makes the comparison risky, even if it is made within the framework of the idea of "selective similarity". It must be admitted that the author also notes the key differences between the two propaganda machines: first of all, the absence in the Soviet system of propaganda of anything analogous to the cult of the pastor-preacher; and also-that personification of the relationship between the believer and the pastor, analogues of which are not represented in the Soviet depersonalized bureaucratic project. In general, despite all the external ambiguity and historical "suspense" of this comparison, it has a deep meaning: both the technique of Soviet propaganda and the technique of the Soviet Union.-

Manchester L. 2. Holy Fathers, Secular Sons. Clergy, Intelligentsia, and the Modern Self in Revolutionary Russia. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2008.

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the roots of the Protestant mission, despite all the differences between these phenomena, probably come from the same deep root - the modernist impulse of social and moral transformation, which also involves methods of purposeful efficiency. In this sense, Orthodoxy, as a deeply and essentially anti-modern tradition, stands in sharp contrast to both Soviet and Protestant mobilization technologies. With the second sharp break of the 20th century, in the 1990s, a new transformation takes place: the skills of the Soviet educated class are in demand in the process of desecularization. The main characters of Luhrmann's book are Soviet full-time methodists. Methodist is a word that it leaves without an exact translation into English and which covers all those who are part of the "didactic public", including scientific and atheistic propagandists, but not only them, all, so to speak, professional carriers of Soviet discourse; or, one might say, all soldiers of the army., broadcast the official ideology to the masses of ordinary citizens. And now, after the collapse of the system, it turns out that the experience of these former "methodists" and "didactics" is easily adapted to the new, post-Soviet (and also post-secular) environment, and many (although, of course, not all) of the former teachers, journalists, university teachers, actors, trade unions and other figures they become religious activists (in the context of Mari El-mainly among neo-Pagans and Protestants). At the same time, Luhrmann refers to both his own (interviews with these people) and other researchs3. This mass conversion of active atheists into active believers only at first glance seems to be just unprincipled opportunism and opportunism. It is possible that some of these people may have been previously as convinced Communists as they are now sincerely believers (here the factor of changing age of these individuals is also important). In essence, however, we are talking about a more complex process-the transformation of social capital, the new use of accumulated social energy, or, following the author's metaphor, recycling (i.e., the secondary use of an old resource).4. (Similar to-

Rogers D. 3. The Old Faith and the Russian Land: A Historical Ethnography of Ethics in the Urals. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2009; Wanner C. Communities of the Converted: Ukrainians and Global Evangelism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2007.

4. See an earlier article by Luehrmann S. Recycling Cultural

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at once, the resources of the Soviet party and Komsomol nomenclature, which "flowed" into the post-Soviet economic and political elite, did not disappear without a trace). Among other things, this recycling process confirms that modern Russian culture in general, and religious culture in particular, grew up on Soviet leaps and bounds. The irony is that the new religious preachers are using the same methods that they, as Soviet Methodists, received in the midst of building a rigidly secular society. However, I would like to point out that the new "didactic public" (including religious leaders) does not consist only of former Soviet propagandists; current activists with non-Soviet or anti-Soviet leaven should also not be discounted.

The author's observations on how religious and scientific mentalities touch and converge on their peripheries are extremely interesting. It is enough to recall the often voiced idea that religion is functionally close to scientific thinking, that it has explanatory potential, and so on, and hence the popularity of occult knowledge both before and after the fall of the USSR; hence the mechanism for inventing pragmatic syncretism under the brand of "spirituality"; this syncretism was not so much the result of secularization as a reaction on the inability of "pure" secularism to explain what went beyond ordinary understanding (p. 216-217). This insight, however, the author does not specifically develop.

The author cautiously uses the term "post-secular" in relation to Russian society. It should be used with caution. We are talking about complex relations between the religious and the secular. However, if the "selective similarity" between them, as the author seeks to show, has always existed, if it is appropriate to talk about the fluctuation of the border in relation to different eras, and if even Soviet secularism was imbued with the sacred, then the term "post-secular" loses its definiteness.

Overall, the book's leitmotif sounds consistent and convincing. The author writes: "Soviet secularism was never able to completely exclude religion, and post-Soviet religiosity relies on the secular knowledge and skills of former Methodists. So we must not think of the religious and the secular as characteristics of long periods of time.

Construction: Desecularization in Postsoviet Man El//Religion, State and Society. 2005. Vol. 33. No. 1. P. 35 - 56.

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as a meeting place where the secular and the religious alternate and overlap in the life of societies and individuals" (p. 199).

However, let us note in conclusion: no matter how many "variances and inversions of religious elements" 5 we may see (including in the twists and turns of life and the ambivalent narratives of the book's main characters-former "methodists" who turned into preachers); no matter what surprises the sophisticated mechanisms of "selective similarity" may present us; no matter how insidious the transformation of secular-to-religious-and-vice versa did not inspire us with epistemological concern , but we cannot yet abandon this dichotomy, we cannot begin to consider the border completely insignificant; and S. Luhrmann herself constantly operates with the concepts of "religious/secular", otherwise her entire research grammar would collapse. Consistent constructivism does not invent a new language; but it challenges its obsessive conventions and brings it closer to the complexity of reality itself.

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