Emily Baran

M.A. Student
baran@email.unc.edu

Major Field: Twentieth century Russian history

Advisor: Donald Raleigh

Research Interests: My dissertation will use one of most marginal and controversial western religious organizations, the Jehovah's Witnesses, to answer a set of broader questions about the nature of Soviet religious policy and religious life after World War II, and their transformation in the post-Soviet period. The Witnesses provide a unique and critically important window onto the broader transformation of Soviet society in general, and religious life in particular, that emerged after World War II. The incredible tenacity and even growth of religious communities in the postwar era belied official claims that the Soviet Union was steadily progressing toward communism. Further, in the wake of the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the Witnesses stood at the center of a growing debate over the proper limits of religious toleration in post-Soviet Russia. Through an examination of the Jehovah's Witnesses, I seek to answer two fundamental questions regarding public and private life in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia: How does the study of one marginal religious organization shed light on larger issues in postwar Soviet and Russian history? In particular, what do the Jehovah's Witnesses tell us about the boundaries of religious pluralism, personal autonomy, and democracy both in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia?