«Надо б в церкви, для крепости»: почему в 1920-е годы в Советской России продолжали венчаться

Шаги/Steps. 2024. Т. 10. № 1. С. 12–67.

Grafova M. A.

This article explores religious marriage in the USSR
during the New Economic Policy (NEP). From the start, the Soviet
authorities made great efforts to gradually eliminate religious beliefs
within Soviet society. One of the first steps in that direction
was the removal of marriage from Church jurisdiction. Moreover,
Soviet power was constantly trying to compromise the tradition
of religious marriage. However, many people still preferred to be
married in church in addition to civil registration. A wide range of
historical sources studied in this research (political and sanitary
propaganda, communist and entertainment media, printed court
reports) reveals that the new “civil” marriage was considered to be
extremely unreliable by “ordinary” people, especially young girls of
marriageable age and their parents. It was too easy to enter into
such a marriage and to end it. It was associated with divorces, alimony
suits, almost legalized cheating. The intention to marry in
church at least meant a serious commitment, a willingness to take
responsibility. Also, even many years later, during the Census of
1937, the majority of the population of the USSR considered themselves
believers. This situation continued until a crucial change in
ideology and social politics took place in the late 1920s, when most
churches were closed. This study is focused on psychology of the
“little man” in an epoch of global political and social changes.

Keywords: НЭП, statistics, развод, atheism, атеизм, советская идеология, divorce, gender history, женская история, гендерная история, communist ideology, коммунистическая идеология, брак и семья, NEP, anomia, аномия, советская повседневность, идеология и пропаганда, историческая культурология, история семьи, Soviet ideology, бытовая религиозность, гендер и семья, History of the Russian Church, незарегистрированный брак, Bolshevik's Persecution of Religion, everyday life history, советская власть и церковь, Marriage in Church, венчание, Советская статистика, culture in the soviet union, everyday life in USSR, женская повседневность, traditional marriage, традиционный брак, Soviet power, исследования семьи и брака, early Soviet propaganda