The book they tried not to remember: Viktor Yelensky and his Soviet past

```html

book:
Yelensky V. E. Jewish Clericalism and Zionism. K.: Vyshcha Shkola, 1988. 112 pages.
"What sophistication the defenders of the forgery about «persecutions of faith in the USSR» did not show, what lies the anti-Sovietists did not resort to, under what angles they did not consider their own «duck»! <...> The absurdity of the fabrications about «persecutions of believers» is especially evident to those who had the opportunity to get acquainted with the life of religious associations in the USSR. To any unbiased observer, the anti-communist orientation of the hype about «suffocating religion in the USSR» becomes completely obvious, its complete inconsistency. Those who try to objectively understand the Soviet reality come to conclusions that cause our enemies to gnash their teeth: the piles of lies on which they have spent so much money and effort and which promised serious dividends in the future on the anti-communist field are collapsing" (pp. 96, 102-103).
I - some of my explanations. II - selected quotes. III - links to the full text.
a convincing request: before leaving comments, please read at least section II of my entry. everything will become clear to you.
I.
Viktor Evgenievich Yelensky (born 1957) - Soviet and Ukrainian religious scholar. currently - head of the State Service of Ukraine for Ethnopolitics and Freedom of Conscience (GESS; Ukr. DESS). in other words, he is now the main Ukrainian official responsible for relations between the state and religious organizations, as well as for the implementation of state policy in the field of freedom of conscience.
mentions of the existence of Viktor Yelensky's book "Jewish Clericalism and Zionism", published by him during the years of Perestroika, I have encountered for a long time and repeatedly, but until recently I could not find any detailed information, not even a single quote, except for a photograph of the cover and a brief annotation taken from the back of the title page.
a long search on the internet eventually yielded a positive result.
first, I found an entry from September 20, 2002, in LJ by a user with the nickname "amddiffynfa" (judging by the profile information - he was a resident of Tel Aviv), who also called himself "Vladimir Voblin" and had his own library site. in this entry, he reported:
+++
And also, again something new in the online library. voblin.vstyle.co.il:
<...>
And I also scanned a Soviet anti-Israeli booklet, published in (on) Ukraine in 1988 (!) year. That is, "Ogonyok" and "Children of the Arbat" were already booming. Even the first Sokhnut officials began to reach out from here to the USSR for the first semi-official Jewish events, and the last Soviet fighters against Zionism-imperialism were still printing their Talmuds.
It is called "Jewish Clericalism and Zionism". I decided to post this book primarily to help our local fighters against religious dominance and fans of Meretz-Shinui, otherwise they have already started repeating themselves. Let them draw from the old, but true... uh... source - Soviet anti-Israelism.
Perhaps this is the very last book of this genre. And, perhaps, the most foolish and hilarious. He has kibbutzim there - conductors of Jewish religious
fanaticism! And there are a lot of such jokes.
But the main joke is that the author is a certain Viktor Evgenievich Yelensky.
When I searched for him on Yandex, I couldn't believe my eyes: he is now a doctor, professor, and most importantly - heads several organizations on religious freedom issues! He sits together with "Memorial"! And also
publishes some deep reflections on the fact that "there cannot be too much religious freedom".
If someone had told me - I would have thought it was too simple a move for
a feuilleton...
+++
so, the author of this entry published in September 2002 a scanned copy of V. Yelensky's book on his library site voblin.vstyle.co.il (and reported this in LJ). however, this resource is no longer operational.
continuing the search, I was still able to find the desired book: on the site libelli.ru, which is also called "Electronic Library «Nestor»". This library, which was last updated in 2009, was compiled by historian Vyacheslav Sachkov (1952-2024) - a convinced Marxist, head or participant of a number of atheist organizations.
on this site, you can download a zip archive via the corresponding link. it contains four images (the cover of Yelensky's book from both sides, the title page, and its reverse side) and a doc file. the latter is an "automatically recognized" text of the entire Yelensky book without further editing, so it is full of characteristic typos (spaces within words; hyphens in the middle of lines where there were hyphenation marks; sometimes erroneous symbols, etc.). these typos, however, do not interfere with reading at all.
since the files inside the zip archive, published on the site libelli.ru, are dated September 16 and 19, 2002, it can be said with 100% certainty that this is the very scan copy of the edition we are interested in, which was created by the LJ user amddiffynfa (aka "Vladimir Voblin") and about the publication of which on his site he reported in the LJ entry from September 20, 2002.
WARNING!
to avoid unfair accusations against me personally:
I am not the publisher of this Yelensky book. it was published by Viktor Evgenievich Yelensky himself in Kyiv in 1988 with a circulation of 20,000 copies at a price of 15 kopecks per copy.
I am also not the one who first published this book on the internet. it was first done by the LJ user amddiffynfa ("Vladimir Voblin") twenty-three years ago, after which the electronic text of the book he published also ended up on the library site libelli.ru. this entry of mine is not an advertisement for the latter site (I emphasize this, as it contains a lot of Marxist-Leninist literature); I am merely referring to it as the source where I was able to find the text of V. Yelensky's book.
while searching for this book on the internet, I repeatedly encountered mentions of it. but at the same time, I never saw claims that it belongs to the category of extremist literature and that its distribution is prohibited by the legislation of Ukraine and the relevant Ukrainian authorities and law enforcement agencies. the author of this book is a well-known contemporary religious scholar and a current high-ranking Ukrainian official.
furthermore, I have never come across information that Viktor Yelensky openly gave this book of his a sharply negative assessment, publicly renounced it, officially demanded to withdraw its available copies from Ukrainian libraries and destroy them.
therefore, quoting several quotes and publishing links to its full text cannot be considered a violation of the law.
the book is present in the electronic catalogs of a number of major libraries in Ukraine, meaning that its physical copy can be freely accessed by ordering it in the appropriate library in the reading room.
the book was published in the series "Atheist Student Library" and in a large circulation (20,000 copies). as stated in the annotation, it had a wide target audience and was intended "for university students, students of secondary specialized educational institutions, propagandists", and not for a narrow circle of specialists; its main task is to serve as a manual in the field of post-school education.
responsibility for the content of the book and its publication lies entirely with its author.
my attitude towards this book by Viktor Yelensky and the ideas he expressed is categorically negative.
recommended for reading to all those interested in the history of late Soviet Ukrainian religious studies, as well as to assist researchers of the creative biography of Viktor Evgenievich Yelensky.
II. selected quotes.
I would like to draw special attention to those quotes that begin approximately from page 80 and onwards. here Viktor Yelensky not only praises the "Leninist principles of freedom of conscience" in the USSR. he confidently states that "persecution of believers" and "persecution of religion" in the Soviet Union are all lies, myths, fabrications, deliberately inflated by hostile Western "patented anti-Sovietists" and anti-communists. Viktor Yelensky considers the Soviet Union throughout its history to be a state with an almost exemplary policy regarding religion and freedom of conscience.
the small number of religious buildings (Christian churches, synagogues, mosques, etc.) in the USSR, Viktor Yelensky explains not by the fact that such buildings were forcibly closed and destroyed by the Soviet authorities. in his opinion, among Soviet people, there is actually only a very small percentage of believers, while the majority of Soviet citizens are atheists, and religious organizations are unpopular and in a state of deep ideological crisis. therefore

Read also