“An Atheist’s Breviary”: Theory and Practice of Civil Ritual in the USSR

The article is devoted to the analysis of the book “Socialist Rituals”. Kyiv. 1985, which outlines the theory and practice of civil rituals in the late USSR. This manual may well be called an “Аn atheistic breviary”, designed to replace the church breviary. The work shows the artificiality and lifelessness of Soviet civil rituals, considered by its creators primarily as an element of persecution of the Russian OrthodoX Church. The inability of Soviet civil rituals to satisfy human spiritual needs has been proven. The main, unsolved task of the creators of non-religious civil rituals was to find means of persuasion and evidence of its effectiveness. The article shows how, in order to impart a certain “spirituality” to civil rites, the authors of the manual consciously or unconsciously use the method of mental associations. New Soviet rituals are analyzed — “rites of the calendar cycle”, “solemn registration of marriage”, “solemn registration of a newborn”, “civil funeral services”.