HISTORICAL MEMORY IN RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS: RUSSIAN RESEARCHERS’ VIEW

Abstract

The relevance of the research of historical memory in religious movements is due to the modern temporal transformation and the need to study the problem of translation of the previous generations experience in the conditions of permanent socio-cultural changes. The purpose of the work involves the study of problems related to the mechanisms of historical memory in religious movements. On the basis of the studied sources, the importance of discussions about the definition of religion and post-secular/desecularization for the research of historical memory is substantiated. It is shown that religious experience is influenced by social processes, so it is necessary to take into account the socio-cultural dynamics, as well as political and economic changes in the evaluation and analysis of the religious aspects of historical memory. We analyze how these discussions influenced the assessment of changes in the role of religious institutions, as well as the transformation of the content of images of historical memory and religious practices. It is proved that the historical memory for religious movements can act as a symbolic resource, but the experience gained in the religious sphere is also regularly used by other communities. Particularly interesting is the mutual influence of the political and religious spheres, which were separately analyzed in the framework of our research. It is proved that the problems of the research of religious aspects of historical memory coincides with the main trends of memory studies.