Politicization of religious communities and issues of intercultural understanding in post-secular Russia

Abstract

The paper discusses a conflict in the sphere of culture between representatives of religious (Orthodox) activist groups and artists of contemporary art, and the public circles supporting both sides of the conflict.
That issue is studied in the context of the assertion of secular values, which not only oust religious ideas from public life into the private, but also claim to form a kind of secular religion. The existing antagonism between religious perception of the culture and secular concepts goes back to the traditions and ideology both of the early Russian avant-garde and of the Soviet underground, marked with radical attitudes and the atricalized aggression.
The article raises question of the role of the state, of church structures and media in the formatting negative image of participants in experimental art groups. The escalation of confrontation between various social clusters, and an emergence of the phenomenon of “insulting religious feelings” is explained through the traits of the socio-psychological condition of Russian society, which is mainly at a loss and fear of drastic social changes and of erosion of the former cultural and aesthetic boundaries as result of the expansion of the postmodern world view.