death

Conflict of Immortalities: Biopolitics of Cerebral Subject and Religious Life in “Altered Carbon”

The article explores a possible conflict between practical and ethical implications of scientific and religious discourses about human nature proposed by the sci-fi series “Altered Carbon.” It discusses the clash between biopolitically implemented technology and the religious life. The scientific discourse is represented by the “ideology of the cerebral subject” (F. Vidal, F. Ortega), which establishes the connection between the brain and the self. A brief examination of examples of the embodiment of this ideology in science fiction and its general logic follows.

Godbuilding and Authoritarianism: A Discussion of Bolshevism and Religion

The thesis that socialism and communism have some traits in com‑ mon with religion has often been argued for. Here we analyze the well‑known positions of A.V. Lunacharsky on religion, which he developed in close connection with Gorky’s God‑building, and A.A. Bogdanov’s critique of religion and religious language as a form of authoritarian ideology.

The Female Spiritual Elder and Death: Some Thoughts About Contemporary Lives of Russian Orthodox Saints

Ordinary Death in the Soviet Union: the Material and Spiritual in Atheist Cosmology

The paper deals with the problem of death as approached by the Soviet atheist ideologists. In particular, it explores the attempts by Party ideologists to substitute religious death rituals by new “socialist rituals.” The author draws upon the work of a special Commission on the study and introduction of “socialist rituals” created in 1969 under the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.