Soviet youth of the 'Thaw' period in 21st century research

  1. Lemma
  2. Советская молодежь периода “оттепели” в исследованиях ХХI века
  3. Russian
  4. Asliturk, Miriam
  5. Ecumenism and dialogue > Education - Key thinkers - Culture and national identities
  6. 04-01-2017
  7. Иошкин, Михаил Викторович [Author]. Советская молодежь периода “оттепели” в исследованиях ХХI века
  8. Альманах современной науки и образования
  9. Komsomol - Youth - Communism - Soviet education - Historiography - Religion
  10. Click Here
    1. <p class="item-title">Иошкин, М. B., Нестерова, A. A., и Скребнева, А. В. (2014). Советская молодежь периода “оттепели” в исследованиях ХХI века. <em>Альманах современной науки и образования</em>. Retrieved from: <a href="http://scjournal.ru/articles/issn_1993-5552_2014_2_18.pdf">http://scjournal.ru/articles/issn_1993-5552_2014_2_18.pdf</a> </p> <h1 class="item-title"> </h1>

    1. The authors provide an overview of current academic literature on Soviet youth during the ‘Thaw’ period (1950s – early 1960s). They cite a number of articles related to the Church’s desire to strengthen its influence among Soviet youth. For example, L.V. Silina writes about the 1950s ban for Christian youth to join the Komsomol, the official Soviet Youth organization. Researchers L. A. Koroleva, A. A. Korolev, and I. N. Garkin tackle the Church's desire to attract the young by its visually impressive rituals and exoticism of the Church’s environment rather than by appealing to their religious feeling. A. Stone and U. Khun argue that Krushev’s antireligious campaign did not achieve its main ideological goal, which consisted of proving the incompatibility of Soviet socialism and religion.

      The authors also quote Western literature on the subject. They mention that J. Furst claimed that Soviet youth after the Second World War developed an ambivalent attitude toward the Soviet system. On the one hand they supported the Soviet regime, and on the other hand they started questioning it. Researchers K. Ul and D. Field talked about one particular feature of the Thaw period: it focused on moral change rather than social change, characteristic of Stalin’s era. According to Ul, during the Thaw, young people were encouraged to preserve the achievements of previous generations, which is why it became conservative. At the same time, Ul argued, this period’s ideology widened the temporal framework to include the youth into the realization of the Communist project during their own lifetime, which was considered to be impossible before.