Authors

Łukasz Gemziak¹;  ¹ Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland

Discussion

Together with the process of implementing perestroika, the government of the Soviet Union changed its approach towards religion. As a result, the Soviet press printed a number of articles relating to religion and ethics. A substantial number of these articles were opinions of Soviet intellectuals who dealt with a wide range of topics. Among many others, there were voices stressing the significance of Christianity and the Russian Orthodox Church in Russian culture (for example, Dmitri Likhachev) and history (for example, Yevgeny Yevtushenko) or paying attention to the necessity of restoring ethical values eliminated by the communist regime (for example, Daniil Granin). This paper aims to describe and analyze the influence of the abovementioned opinions on the whole process of changing public attitudes towards religion. I also make an attempt to show how the views of Soviet intellectuals were connected both to the manifestations of religious themes in literature and cinema as well as to the forthcoming celebrations of the millennium of Christianity in the Soviet Union.