Changing attitudes toward manifestations of Orthodox religiosity in Northwest Russia in the first two decades after 1917

The article analyzes changes in social normativity at the level of everyday practices in the first two decades after 1917. Using examples of everyday life in Petrograd (Leningrad), Novgorod, Cherepovets and related administrative-territorial units, the gradual evolution of society’s perception of various manifestations of Orthodox religiosity is studied.
The areas of civil life whose radical transformation was significant for society were examined: the calendar of official holidays, the conduct and support of civil status acts, the organization of space and leisure activities, and school education. Attention is paid to the differences between the city and the countryside in how these processes unfolded. For the first time, a collection of materials from the Cherepovets newspaper "Kommunist" is used as a source illustrating the changes at the level of everyday life.
The Soviet policy of secularization set one of its goals as the introduction of a total materialistic worldview into the consciousness of citizens and the reorientation of their way of life in accordance with it. This determined its antireligious orientation, which throughout the period under review had varying intensity, which was reflected in the dynamics of the social transformations. The study shows how, in the two decades following 1917, a nearly complete inversion occurred — from the perception of the Orthodox way of life as an acceptable norm to its interpretation as completely unacceptable for Soviet citizens.

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