The Soviet Jewish Autonomous Oblast

[The Vagabond]

Originally posted by VetLegion
Soviet practice to give autonomies to various nationalities always struck me as odd. I mean at one point they tried to abolish money, surely they could have tried to abolish nationality in the name of the New Socialist Man.

It was more important to abolish religion. In fact, religion tends to be more divisive a factor than nationality.

[VetLegion]

It wasn't religion that broke the Soviet Union. It was nationalism.

[The Vagabond]

Yes. Just because religion was already pretty much suppressed by then. So the second strongest factor came into play.

[VetLegion]

Unrelated, but where did all the priests for all the new/reopened churches come from?

[The Vagabond]

I don't know. Perhaps, at first, some deacons (and others of the sort) became priests. Afterwards, the seminaries started to churn out more graduates. In fact, Russian priests are rather young on the average.

[Lancer]

I think the Japanese were correct in all their conclusions.

[onodera]

Originally posted by VetLegion
Soviet practice to give autonomies to various nationalities always struck me as odd. I mean at one point they tried to abolish money, surely they could have tried to abolish nationality in the name of the New Socialist Man.

The Turks do exactly that, and have problems with Kurds refusing to acknowledge they're Turks, not Kurds.
What the Soviets tried to do was create a "happy family of nations united by the common cause". Should've forcefully assimilated the Chechens, though. Jewish-style, if necessary.

[C0ckney]

it's very difficult to make people forget who and what they are.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by VetLegion
Soviet practice to give autonomies to various nationalities always struck me as odd.

Yeah, but I have a certain feeling that they used their own definition for "autonomy" in Soviet times ....

[Lancer]

Bendoverocracys

[Dinner]

Originally posted by onodera

The Turks do exactly that, and have problems with Kurds refusing to acknowledge they're Turks, not Kurds.
What the Soviets tried to do was create a "happy family of nations united by the common cause". Should've forcefully assimilated the Chechens, though. Jewish-style, if necessary.

Jewish style if necessary? Are you saying the Soviets should have rounded up and killed all Chechens? I know Stalin did round up and deport to remote locations lots of different nationalities, including Chechens, though they all remembered where they were originally from and went back home as soon as they were able. Forced mass relocations of whole ethnic groups seemed to be one of Stalins specialties.

I'm hoping someone from the former USSR can tell me more about the status of religion inside the USSR. I know the country was officially atheist and during the period between 1918-1941 the communists destroyed or shut down most places of worship but surely at some level certain places were permitted. I mean how else could things like the Russian Orthodoxed Church bounce back so quickly after 1991?

[Saras]

The sovs had a wicked sense of humour - they established a museum of atheism in the church of patron saint of lithuania, St. Casimir, a gorgeus baroque church smack in the middle of Vilnius.

[Lancer]

I assume the church is back to being a place of worship?