The position of Buddhist communities in Tuva in the system of state-confessional relations of the USSR in the mid-1950s.

Abstract

In the Soviet Union after the death of I. V. Stalin, changes occurred in the system of state-confessional relations. The state-confessional policy of the studied historical period is characterized by variability, unsystematic, and nonlinearity, as evidenced primarily by the documents of Soviet legislation and archival materials. In general, Khrushchev's policy at this stage was of a moderate atheistic nature when conducting ideological activities in the state. In this regard, the position of religious communities in the country at the time under consideration is considered to be relatively stable. The purpose of this article is to study the position of Buddhist communities in Tuva in the context of the state-confessional policy of the USSR in the mid-1950s. Materials and methods. The source base of the study was regulatory and legal documents and archival materials of the State Archives of the Russian Federation, reflecting the influence of the Soviet state-confessional policy on the Tuva population in the mid-1950s. The study was conducted using retrospective, comparative history and problem-chronological methods. For the first time, historical information about the religious situation in Tuva is introduced into scientific circulation in the context of the Soviet state-confessional policy in the period under study. Results. In the Tuvan Autonomous Region in the mid-1950s, similar religious processes took place among its population as in the entire Soviet legal and socio-cultural space. However, representatives of the Buddhist communities of the region, who, with the change of political leadership in the country, again submitted their registration documents to local authorities, did not receive the right to officially conduct religious activities. In the region, as before, only the parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church in the cities of Kyzyl and Turan functioned legally. In this work, the authors managed to partially reflect the religious situation in Tuva in the context of new political realities and state-confessional relations in the USSR in the mid-1950s.