Zakharova Kseniya

From the history of Russian religious studies: the concept of Urmonotheismus in Russian academic theological philosophy

Abstract

This article is devoted to Urmonotheismus, a concept that views faith in one God as the initial form of religious consciousness and the subsequent development of religious ideas in paganism as degradation. Arguments and facts in support of the concept of Urmonotheismus can be divided into the four groups: 1) arguments that appeal to the Bible; 2) evidence of monuments of ancient peoples; 3) testimonies of ethnographers about tribes that are at primitive levels of development; 4) philosophical arguments, particularly the argument that the idea of unity was simpler for primitive man than the idea of plurality. The article shows the infl uence of Kudryavtsev-Platonov, the first Russian founder of the concept in question, on the representatives of the subsequent academic theological tradition, namely archimandrite Khrisanf (Retivtsev), N. P. Rozhdestvensky, A. I. Pokrovsky, A. I. Vvedensky, archpriest Timofey Butkevich, I. P. Nikolin, as well as on teachers of theological disciplines at universities: archpriest Alexander Klitin, archpriest Iakov Galakhov and archpriest Nikolay Bogolyubov. The article also discusses the Russian receptions and criticism of Western scholars in this sphere. Besides, the article shows how far ahead the representatives of the Russian pre-revolutionary science were of the Western scholars, e.g. A. Lang and W. Schmidt. Finally, the article deals with the criticism of the conception of Urmonotheismus in Russia and abroad as well as with the attitude of contemporary religious scholars to it.

Keywords

Urmonotheismus, academic theological tradition, Kudryavtsev-Platonov, heathendom, uncivilized peoples, records of ancient religions, Max Muller

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Information about the author

Zakharova Kseniya

Student status: Graduate student;
Place of study: St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University for the Humanities; 6/1 Likhov pereulok, Moscow 127051, Russian Federation;
ORCID: 0000-0003-3455-6851;
Email: xenzah@yandex.ru.