Impact of Secularization on Everyday Practices of Town-dwellers from Regional Perspective of Yenissei Province and Textual Evidence of “Krasnoyarsk Worker” Newspaper (Beginning of 1920s)

Abstract

This paper examines how domestic and leisure practices of Siberian town-dwellers in the early 1920s were influenced by the state anti-religious policy. By examining state activities, the paper shows an enormous expansion of state intervention in the sphere of private life of the Yenissei province town-dwellers, their leisure activities and domestic practices. The participation of Siberian town-dwellers in the work of clubs, societies, lectures and new “proletarian” holidays became the mechanisms for secularizing their daily lives. The construction of the “new communist way of life” was underway and the state secularization policy became an additional catalyst for changes in domestic practices and a cause of family conflicts. By focusing on the above-mentioned period and using publications of the local leading periodical “Krasnoyarsk Worker” published in the Yenissei province since the year 1905 until recently, the article demonstrates the tendencies of changes in everyday life of the Yenissei province town-dwellers targeted by the state anti-religious policy.