Transformation of the traditional religiosity of the ukrainian peasantry (1920s - 1930s): conceptualization of research problem

As of the late 1920s, the level of religiosity was still high. Thus, according to the results of O. Trygub's study, only in Mykolaiv District as of January 1, 1929, the poor and middle peasants made up almost 90% of the total number of believers, and the wealthy peasantry was only 2.9%. Distribution of members of religious communities by age categories: 18-20 years old - 10.8%, 20-25 - 14.5%, 25-30 - 17.5%, 30-50 - 34.3%, 50 and older - 22.9% ТригубО.П. Релігійність населення Півдня України за часів НЕПу (1921-1929 рр.)... С. 36.. Even at the beginning of the 1930s, according to O. Ihnatusha, over 85% of the rural population were believers; almost 52% of them were women, one-third of believers were in the age group from 21 to 30 years old; 45 - 50% were illiterate or people with lower education (with the increase in the level of education, the number of the religious community had decreased) Ігнатуша О. Інституційний розкол православної церкви в Україні. С. 378-388, 393, 396.. As of 1937, over 30.000 religious organizations were registered in the USSR, each of which had a church council of at least 20 people, so there were at least 600.000 `active' members of religious communities Ярославский Ем. Антирелигиозная пропаганда в современных условиях. Большевик. 1937. № 4. С. 33.. In the cities, about % of the adult population over the age of 16 considered themselves or were non-believers. In the villages, on the contrary, «about % remained believers,» and, - emphasized O. Yaroslavskyi, «there is still a fairly high percentage of believers not only among the old, but also among the youth in the villages» Ярославский Ем. Задачи антирелигиозной пропаганды. Об антирелигиозной пропаганде. Сборник. Москва: Партиздат ЦК ВКП(б), 1937. С. 19..

Changes in social and economic development (establishment of the education system, development of networks of libraries, clubs, cinemas, theaters, and museums, as well as the processes of urbanization, and industrial development) had a significant impact on the nature of the religiosity transformation, the atheism of the population, and the eradication of religious consciousness. In addition, urbanization, industrialization, and expansion of education fundamentally changed the social structure of the Ukrainian nation. Thus, in 1939, 29% of Ukrainians belonged to the working class, 55% were listed as collective farm workers, and 13% were employees Арутюнян Ю. Изменение социальной структуры советской нации. История СССР. 1972. № 4. С. 6.. In the conditions of a radical reformation of society and differentiation of the peasantry, there was a need not only to understand new processes but also the need for identity distinctness (social, stratificational, cultural, and political). Using coercion, violence, and repression, the authorities encouraged the peasantry to make the `right' choice concerning `class enemies'.

Conclusions

The above-mentioned processes evidenced the destruction of traditional culture (in particular, traditional Orthodox religiosity) both `from the outside' and `from the inside'. However, the process of worldview transformations is complex and multifaceted. As A. Kambur says, «a rather dynamic transformation of the value system of an individual is observed, ...the main phases of which are: preservation of the subject's previous value system (despite social changes, since the individual values system formed in the process of getting past experience serves as a kind of filter for value information coming from outside); disorder of the individual value system (a state that means the beginning of the destruction of individual values); the crisis of the individual value system, during which estrangement and self-estrangement occur, and the individual feels a value vacuum; 'development' (changing of the individual value- orientational system using the mechanism of adaptation to the changes in the social and cultural environment)» Камбур А.В. Соціальна адаптація особистості. Чернівці: «Золоті литаври», 2012. С. 185-186..

Adaptation of an individual to society presupposes the obligation to define the value-normative system legitimately dominant in society through its perception. Under such conditions, adaptation can be both hard and quite easy, and sometimes even problem-free; if a person does not perceive the legitimately dominant value- normative system of society, then «the process of adaptation can be carried out: a) by undisguised opposition of the personal system of value orientations to the societal one; b) by mimicry masking of a personal normative value system as a social one, i.e. a hidden opposition of personal value orientations to societal ones» Ibid. С. 186..

For the positioning of the individual in the conditions of the transformation of traditional religiosity, the spread of a peculiar `practice of social masking' became typical: traditional Orthodox religiosity was organically inherent in the Ukrainian peasantry for many centuries. The cardinal break of the spiritual and cultural core of Ukrainian society, in fact, due to the impossibility of countering it, led precisely to the masking of religiosity in the new environment of Soviet reality. Because of the fear of persecution, arrest, or fear of being marginalized, the individual (often simply hiding his own religious beliefs) had to accept the new communist ideology, declared dominant in the society instead of the former (traditional) religious one. But for most, it was not easy to `renounce' traditional Christian morality. In addition, one of the indicators of behavioral characteristics of a pious person for a long time (at the subconscious level) remained the fear of God's punishment. Fear also influenced the motivation for actions and deeds, behavioral strategies, etc. Living in society, a person sought to feel him/her not as marginal, but as a part of that society, adapting to it.

So, on the one hand, we observe persistent religiosity, supported by a part of the rural population, on the other hand, the formation of a cohort of supporters of the new ideological system and new socialist rituals, the formation of the `friend-or-foe' dividing line (marginalization of the clergy), the establishment of a new non-religious way of life, support and participation in anti-religious events of the Soviet government, directed, first of all, against the old system of values, age-old traditions, and religious consciousness in general.

The transformational breaks being a peculiar feature of transitional periods (in particular, the 1920s - 1930s) could be found not just in one of the segments, but, as a rule, cover all components of the social and cultural life space, initiating at the same time a situation of instability and uncertainty, generating a crisis of identities, and strengthening differentiation in the society. Under these conditions, the processes of finding new forms of social and cultural organization, norms, rules, meanings of being, cultural paradigm, and building a new hierarchy of values, identities are intensified. Such periods are characterized by the coexistence of different types of culture and different sociocultural groups. Therefore, it is obviously worth talking not about the transformation of religiosity, but about complex transformations.

The nature of the transformational processes of religiosity depended on many factors, one of which was the relationship between the state and the Church in the studied period. That became evident in the dynamics of the religiosity transformation: if in the 1920s there was worldview confusion, and the duality of worldview matrices More details see: Киридон А.М. Когнітивний дисонанс в умовах утвердження тоталітаризму. Наукові записки [НУ «Острозька академія»]. Сер.: Історичне релігієзнавство. 2009. Вип. 1. С. 87-101., then since the beginning of the 1930s we can observe more radical changes due to the introduction by the Soviet authorities of a system of measures aimed at the destruction of religious consciousness and religious worldview, excluding of the Church from the field of education, closing of temples and religious buildings, and repression of the clergy and believers. The essential characteristic of transformations in Soviet society was the purposeful destruction of established stereotypes of cultural behavior using state measures. The state consistently discredited the customs rooted in the ages, and tried to destroy their economic and cultural basis, imposing new rules of social life.

At the same time, the transformation of religiosity was determined not only by powerful pressure and a powerful arsenal of state power influence. In the conditions of the transformation of the social and cultural space, the core of which were the new Soviet cultural values, inversion processes took place in the public consciousness, which also predicted a corresponding change of axiological priorities in society.

During the entire atheist era, the functional range of religion in the worldview matrices of the Soviet, social world of religion was reduced and religious notions, symbols, and practices were forced out of the real socio-cognitive and active circulation in public life. It is about the break of tradition, the absence of a closed cycle of the traditional mechanism of religious experience assimilation, and losing basic religious experience. Religious integrity and the durability of religious culture were lost. In search of compensation for the emerging worldview uncertainty, anxiety, dissatisfaction, etc., the individual looked for new benchmarks, values, ideals, and ways of organizing life in society through the transformation of stable forms and ways of life. As a result of the leveling of established worldview landmarks, new values were outlined, where religiosity gradually acquired signs of fragmentation, non-church, non-confessional, latent forms and, despite the pressure of the totalitarian state, even in the conditions of a spiritual vacuum, it although transforming, but was inherited in a new social and cultural context for generations.

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