"Visual Atlas of Faiths": (Anti) religious Propaganda and Catholic Church in Science and Cinema of the 1920s–1930s

DOI: 10.33876/2311-0546/2025-4/108-124

Abstract

The paper considers visual and anthropological sources and examines anti-Catholic movie documents from the USSR's "cultural revolution" in the context of its visual propaganda policy.  An important issue in the scientific study of confessions in the USSR during the 1920s and 1930s was the search for possible forms of their visualization. Religious cartography, in particular, became an important method for studying the religiosity of the population of the Union, undertaken by Leningrad scientists. Ethnographic and religious studies of Catholics were carried out in the 1920s and 1930s as part of anti-religious expeditions directed by L. G. Brandt. Alongside scientific research during this period, visual means of constructing images of Catholicism were developed (St. Jorgen’s Day, Gadfly, The Cross and the Mauser, Forest Past (Lesnaya byl), Blue Express). The most indicative among the film documents of the era was the feature film St. Jorgen’s Day (1930) by Yakov Protazanov, who not only used innovative cinematic techniques, but also built a line of anticlerical satire in an entertaining form. The article also analyses the images of the Catholic Church, produced by Protazanov's film, and presents assessments and criticisms of this film based on the materials of the antireligious press such as Anti-Religious and Atheist. The article concludes that scientists, propagandists, and filmmakers developed their anti-religious propaganda in parallel in the 1920s and 1930s, gradually transitioning from research and artistic reflection to class struggle against faith.