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Professional Affiliation

Associate Professor, Department of History, Wesleyan University

Expert Bio

Victoria Smolkin is Associate Professor of Russian History at Wesleyan University (Middletown, Connecticut). She completed her Ph.D. at the University of California Berkeley in 2010. Her publications include: 鈥淭he Confession of an Atheist Who Became a Scholar of Religion鈥�: Nikolai Semenovich Gordienko鈥檚 Last Interview,鈥� Kritika (Summer 2014), and 鈥淭he Ticket to the Soviet Soul: Science, Religion and the Spiritual Crisis of Late Soviet Atheism,鈥� in Russian Review (April 2014). Smolkin's research has been supported by Princeton University's Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies; the Social Science Research Council Eurasia Post-Doctoral Research Award; the Sherman Emerging Scholar Lectureship; the Newcombe Dissertation Fellowship in Religion and Ethics; and the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, among others. Smolkin-Rothrock鈥檚 forthcoming monograph is titled A Sacred Space Is Never Empty: The Spiritual Life of Soviet Atheism. In 2014-2015, Smolkin was a Title VIII Research Fellow at the Kennan Institute of the Woodrow 乐鱼 体育 in Washington D.C. 

乐鱼 体育 Project

鈥淎 Sacred Space Is Never Empty鈥�: The Spiritual Life of Soviet Atheism

Project Summary

A Sacred Space Is Never Empty: The Spiritual Life of Soviet Atheism is the story of the confrontation between scientific atheism and lived religion in the Soviet Union. While the Soviet state waged several antireligious campaigns鈥攎ost notably during Stalin鈥檚 Cultural Revolution and under Khrushchev鈥攖he state never actually managed to 鈥渙vercome鈥� religion. Indeed, religion and believers preoccupied the Soviet leadership for the country's entire history. What role did atheism play in the Soviet project? How did the experience of 鈥渟cientific atheism鈥� affect the elite鈥檚 understanding of the state鈥檚 role in spiritual life? The book challenges the common perception that Soviet religious policy was solely destructive. Over the course of Soviet history, the battle against religion became the battle for atheism. In this sense, the book is the story of the unprecedented attempt to transform atheism into its opposite: a set of positive beliefs and practices with a spiritual center.

Previous Terms

Short-Term Scholar, Kennan Institute. Assistant Professor, Department of History, Wesleyan University. "A Sacred Space is Never Empty: Scientific Atheism, Socialist Rituals, and the Soviet Way of Life (1954-1999)." July 2011 - Aug 2011.