The monograph highlights the essence of anticlerical peasant movement of the early twentieth century Russia. On the base of archival documents, newly introduced into the research field, the author shows the influence of the First Russian Revolution at the worldview of the peasantry.
Analyzing materials of the secret reports of bishops to the Most Holy Governing Synod, the author demonstrates the development of the anticlerical movement of peasants comparing it with the background of the developing revolutionary process, reveals the reasons for the struggle of peasants against the Church and against the monastery land tenure, shows mass demonstrations against the Black Hundred clergy in 1905-1907, considers the nature and peculiarities of anticlerical and atheistic sentiments in the Russian countryside of that period.
The study of peasants’ anticlericalism in the Russian Empire in the first quarter of the twentieth century was continued by E. in her two following books: ‘Historical Preconditions for Overcoming Religion in the Soviet Countryside. Secularization of the Village on the Eve of the Great October Revolution’. Leningrad: GMIRiA, 1975; and ‘Peasants and the Church on the Eve of the Great October Revolution’. Leningrad: Nauka, 1976.