Ideological Distortions of Russian Church History in the Works of Ukrainian Soviet Authors of the Second Half of the 1980s

Abstract

The second half of the 1980s opens a new stage of Ukrainian historiography. It was connected with the processes of democratization of the socio-political life of the country. However, the influence of Soviet atheist ideology on church-historical research remained quite strong. one of the main tasks of this study is to trace the ideological features of the formation of the historical thinking of Ukrainian historians in the context of understanding the role and place of the Church in the country's past. Using historical-typological and historical-comparative methods, the authors analyze the publications of Ukrainian historians, philosophers, and public figures of the second half of the 1980s concerning issues of church history. The author substantiates the conclusions that the main methodological methods of ideological distortion of church history were: wholesale simplification of historical reality; purposeful simplification of the church's interpretation of the past of Russia, distortion of the conclusions of Christian authors; the formation of a negative attitude to the position of church scientists by labeling, unjustified opposition «friend — foe», «progressive — backward», «scientific-fictional»; the use of expressive, negatively colored vocabulary. The article also discusses specific examples of the implementation of these methods in the distortion of historical reality in the cultural, social, public and state spheres. The ideological myth of «church modernism» in Russian theology of the second half of the twentieth century is analyzed separately.