Emelyakh Liubov

Emelyakh Liubov (1924—1992) – historian, archive and museum specialist.

She finished secondary school in Leningrad on June 22, 1941. Up to the May 1942, she stayed in Leningrad, in the blockade, and worked as pioneer leader with children, then, as a sanitarian in hospital. From May 1942 till April 1945, she was in the army, at the front. Among her awards was a medal ‘For Military Deeds’. From September 1945, she became a student of the Historical Faculty of the Leningrad State University; she graduated it with excellent results in 1950. She studied under the supervision of Prof. S.N. Valk.

In September 1950, she started her work at the Museum of the History of Religion of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R., and stayed there for all her life: at first as a guide, then as junior researcher (1951), Head of the Manuscript Department (1951-1962), senior researcher (1965). After the transformation of the Museum into the State Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism of the Ministry of Culture of the U.S.S.R., she became the Head of the Department ‘The History of Russian Orthodoxy and Atheism in the U.S.S.R.’, then the Head of the Sector of ‘Atheism and Orthodoxy in the U.S.S.R.’, and in 1975, temporary Director of the Museum. In 1960-s — 1980-s, under her direct supervision, all the exhibitions of the Museums on the history of Orthodoxy in Russia were created.

From the student period, she conducted archive studies on peasants movements in Russia and found new documents, including secret reports of bishops to the Synod about the anti-clerical riots in the first quarter of the twentieth century. That archive experience helped her to organize the work of the Manuscript Department of the Museum (Research Historical archive of the Museum) created on the initiative of V.D. Bonch-Bruevich in 1951; that department got a great massive of manuscripts which still form the main corpus of the archive collection of the Museum.

In 1962, E. got a degree of Candidate in History after the defense of her thesis ‘Anti-Clerical Peasants Movements during the Revolution of 1905-1907’ at the Leningrad Branch of the Institute of History of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R.; and in 1978, she defended Doctor thesis ‘Anti-Clerical Peasants Movements before the Great October’.

The main topic of her research was in the field of the history of Orthodoxy and Russian peasants movements; she wrote also numerous popular works on the history of Christian rituals and festivals.

She was the wife of Soviet philosopher and historian of religion M.I. Shakhnovich.

Compositions

Old Manuscript Books of the Museum of the History of Religion of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R. // Trudy of the Department of Old Russian Literature. Vol. 13. Moscow–Leningrad, 1957. P. 556–661. (in Rus.)
Peasants Movement in the Poltava and Kharkov Regions in 1902 // Istoricheskie zapiski. Moscow: Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R., 1951. Vol. 8. P. 154-175. (in Rus.)
Anti-Clerical Peasants Movement in the First Russian Revolution. Moscow-Leningrad: ‘Nauka’, 1965. (in Rus.)
The Origin of the Christian Cult. Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1971. (in Rus.)
Historical Premises if the Overcoming of Religion in the Soviet Village. Secularization of Village on the Eve of the Great October. Leningrad: State Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism, 1975. (in Rus.)
‘Enigmas’ of the Christian Cult. Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1985. (in Rus.)
Peasants and Church on the Eve of the Great October. Leningrad: Nauka, 1976. (in Rus.)
Christian Sacraments. Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1977. (in Rus.)
The Origin of Christian Sacraments. Moscow, 1978. (in Rus.)
Criticism of Orthodoxy by V.I. Lenin. Leningrad: Society ‘Znanie’, 1971. (in Rus.)
Atheistic Traditions of the Soviet People. Leningrad: Society ‘Znanie’, 1980. (in Rus.)
Atheistic Traditions of the Russian People: Collection of Works / Edit. L.I. Emelyakh. Leningrad: State Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism, 1982. (in Rus.)
Russian Orthodoxy and Atheism in the Russian History: Collection of Works / Edit. L.I. Emelyakh. Leningrad: State Museum of the History of Religion and Atheism, 1988. (in Rus.)

About her

Correspondence between V.D. Bonch-Bruevich and L.I. Emelyakh as a Source on the History of the Manuscript Department (Research Archive) of the State Museum of the History of Religion of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R. // Supporting Historical Disciplines in the Contemporary Scholarly Knowledge. Materials of the XXXII International conference. Moscow: Institute of the World History of the Russian Ac. of Sc., 2019. P. 444-446. (in Rus.)
Correspondence between V.D. Bonch-Bruevich and L.I. Emelyakh on the Manuscript Department of the State Museum of the History of Religion of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R. (1951-1955) / Introd., comm.. and publ. by М.М. Shakhnovich // Trudy of the State Museum of the History of Religion. Iss. 15. St. Petersburg: 2015. P.163-238. (in Rus.)
Shakhnovich М.М., Chumakova Т.V. The State Museum of the History of Religion of the Ac. of Sc. of the U.S.S.R. and Russian Religious Studies (1932-1961). St. Petersburg: ‘Nauka’, 2014. (in Rus.)

M. Sh.