The study focuses on the activities of the Central Anti-Religious Museum (CAM) in Moscow – an issue previously overlooked by historians. The article considers different aspects of its work during the brief period from 1929 to 1947 relating to the establishment and closure of the museum as well as provides an overview of the key areas of its collection, expedition, research and exhibition work. The article also follows the development of the CAM’s highly skilled research team that investigated rudimentary religious practices of ethnicities inhabiting the USSR and the gradual disappearance of these practices. The growing research potential of the CAM and the museum’s evolution from a propagandist institution into a history museum led to the renaming of the CAM to the Central Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism in 1942, upon which the museum passed from the auspices of the League of Militant Atheists into the charge of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
Keywords: Central Anti-Religious Museum, League of Militant Atheists, study of religious beliefs, religious survivals
DOI: 10.22250/2072-8662.2019.4.121-127
About the author
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Ekaterina A. Teryukova – PhD (Philosophy), Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy of Religion and Study of Religion, St. Petersburg State University; Deputy Director for Research, State Museum of the History of Religion; 14 Pochtamtskaya St., St. Petersburg, Russia, 190000; This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |