Central Anti-Religious Museum in Moscow: From Anti-Religious Propaganda to the Study of Religion
Central Anti-Religious Museum in Moscow: From Anti-Religious Propaganda to the Study of Religion

Summary/Abstract: The paper examines the Central Anti-Religious Museum (CAM) in Moscow in 1926-1947 and its activities on the anti-religious propaganda and the study of religion. It was was established by a resolution of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party (VKPb) and became the first anti-religious museum in the USSR. Being recognized as a Research Institution of National Importance by the Council of People’s Commissars in 1934 the Museum performed a variety of important functions on aggregating data about provincial museums, developing guidelines on methodology of anti-religious museum work, organizing field works and study of religious practices of the USSR ethnic groups. As a result, by the late 1930s, the Museum developed from anti-religious propaganda establishment into research center and was renamed the Central Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism on 20 February 1942.

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