From decree to dispersal: the evolution of Soviet religious policy toward Buddhist education (the case of “Tsanit-Chore”). Part I. — the 1920s

Abstract

Based on archival materials introduced into scholarly circulation for the first time, this article examines the process of the closure of the higher Buddhist philosophical school “Tsanit-Chore” (Tsannid-Choyra) in the Kalmyk Autonomous Oblast in the 1920s. The research is grounded in a body of documents from the holdings of the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF) and the National Archive of the Republic of Kalmykia (NARK), including protocols of spiritual congresses, charter documents, administrative correspondence, and resolutions of Soviet bodies. Analysis of these materials allows for the reconstruction of the complex picture of interaction between the Buddhist clergy, lay believers, and Soviet authorities during a turning point in Russian history. It is shown that the closure of the school was not a single act or the result of a direct prohibitive directive, but rather a multifactorial process in which the economic difficulties of the post-revolutionary period, internal contradictions within the Buddhist community (a split between conservatives and renovationists), consistent administrative pressure, and systematic ideological struggle were all intertwined. Particular attention is paid to the contradiction between the formal declaration of freedom of religion in Soviet legislation and the actual measures aimed at the elimination of Buddhist educational institutions. The author concludes that the fate of Tsanit-Chore became a telling example of how religious educational traditions were destroyed under the combined influence of external and internal factors in the early Soviet state. on a set of documents