Marriage Ideas and Practices among Evangelical Believers in the Soviet Union in 1940-1980s: The Case of Central Black Earth Region

Abstract

The scope of the present research is the evolution of marriage and family ideas in the Evangelical Christian Baptist movement after World War II in the Soviet Union. The author analyzed the special views on marriage among the Russian Baptists, found in the Baptist bulletin “Bratsky Vestnik" (Fraternal Bulletin), as well as in the archival documents from the Evangelical Christian Baptist churches of Tambov, Voronezh and Lipetsk regions. The author reconstructs the model of marriage relationships and family practices among the Evangelicals. The article shows the system of normative mindset and instructions; the nature of disciplinary practices for regulating the private sphere in the Evangelical Christian Baptist churches. The Baptist doctrine of marriage and family, gender roles, and family planning issues composed a dynamically changing ideology that contained, however, a unique code distinguishing the Baptist life world from the life world of a common Soviet man.