The Harvard Project on the Soviet Social System as a Source of Religious Studies

Abstract

The article examines the potential of using the data from the Harvard Project on the Soviet social system (HPSSS) as a religious studies source. The author has given a review of the Harvard project materials as an object of research by sociologists and historians. The sections of the interviews of the Schedule A and Schedule B, which contain data relevant for religious studies, have been considered. The author revealed some directions and perspectives of the religious studies analysis of the interviews of the Harvard Project from the standpoint of the study of the perception of religion by Russian emigrants of the second wave. The data in the Schedule A interview, that can be analyzed from the perspective of religious studies, are considered in two sections: “Family” and “Philosophy of Life”. The evidence of religious reflection can also be found in Schedule B interviews, fragmented though but equally valuable. On the basis of the interview materials the author has identified possible areas of research: the role of generational factors in the formation of religious views, some peculiarities of the perception of church-state relations, the influence of the historical context and ideological factors on the perception of religion, the dynamics of the religious views of emigrants.