INSTITUTE OF THE HISTORY OF RELIGION OF THE USSR ACADEMY OF SCIENCES IN 1946-47: UNSUCCESSFUL PROJECT (ACCORDING TO THE LETTERS FROM KLIBANOV'S ARCHIVE)
In the post-war period by the efforts of V.D. Bonch-Bruevich and a number of his colleagues it was made an attempt to create a new institute in the structure of the USSR Academy of Sciences - the Institute of the History of Religion on the basis of the museums of the history of religion in Moscow and Leningrad. This project was never implemented but some materials about this period allow us to take a fresh look at the early stage of the Russian religious studies formation. The pages of the history of the Leningrad Museum of the History of Religion have been studied in sufficient detail in publications of recent years while little is known about the events in Moscow. We turn to A.I. Klibanov’s letters to his wife N.V. Yeltsina written from Moscow to Leningrad s the main source of information about these events. The letters cover the period from April 30, 1946 to February 27, 1948. The first date is the start time of work on the project of the new Institute, the last date is the re-arrest of A.I. Klibanov. The letters were prepared for printing (typed on a typewriter) and provided with handwritten comments by A.I. Klibanov. The scientist did not implement the plan of publishing his letters and memoirs. Currently these materials are stored in the A.I. Klibanov Foundation in the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The preface to the publication debunks the myth of A.I. Klibanov as a "false scientist", a "wolfhound". The difficult fate of Alexander Ilyich - scientific work, interspersed with camp terms, forced separation from his wife (also a biologist) largely reflects the path of the Soviet science. The fragments of correspondence cited in the publication, in addition to the actual history of religious studies, are full of details of post-war Soviet everyday life (the card system, difficulties with registration, problems with documents for former prisoners and, finally, the repeated wave of arrests in 1948-49). The publication of letters and comments were prepared by E.V. Vorontsova.