Abstract
The article is about the new sources pertaining to Agvan Dorjiev, the leader of the Buddhist renovationist movement in Russia. Reports, summaries and other declassified OGPU documents allow studying the important aspects of his activities in the 1920s. The paper is focused on the analysis of the documents which contain a lot of valuable information about the political stance of the Buddhist priests, the nature of the relationship between them and the ordinary believers, and the daily life of the Buddhist monasteries (dazans and huruls). The study of the declassified documents makes it possible to bring to light important data about the relations between the Soviet officials and the Buddhist Sangha, and about the clashes inside the Buddhist organizations. A network of secret agents has gathered valuable information about the conflict between the renovationists and the conservatives, about the activities of A. Dorjiev and other Buddhist leaders. Those documents contain the data referring to the disputes and other methods of antireligious agitation and propaganda. Reports on the “counter-revolutionary” statements and activities of the Buddhist clergymen and believers help revealing their attitude towards the Soviet authorities’ religion policy. Also, the documents facilitate for obtaining valuable information dealing with the real meaning of the concepts that are popular in contemporary historiography – the concepts of the “religious NEP” and the “Golden Age of Buddhism” in Soviet Russia.
Published Version
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