Public Health Hazard or Miraculous Water?  Science and Progress in Soviet-Style Anti-Religious Propaganda Films

Tuesday, Nov. 7, 4:00-6:00 pm; Knight Library Browsing Room

This presentation focuses on Soviet-style anti-religious propaganda films produced in the 1960s and illustrates how religious practices were portrayed as “subversive,” “unhealthy,” or anti-progressive. These films attempted to convince people of the fraudulent nature of religious pilgrimage sites during the Cold War era by focusing on the public health hazards associated with bacterial and virus infection from “miraculous water” and touching and kissing holy statues by pilgrims. Using film clips and other visual examples, the lecture explores the cinematographic phenomenon of “soft propaganda” that has not received attention in the emerging field of Cold War film studies.

Kinga Povedák is a senior research fellow at the HUN-REN-SZTE ’Convivence’ Religious Pluralism Research Group and assistant professor at the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology (University of Szeged). Dr. Povedák is the convenor for the Choreomundus Program (International MA in Dance Knowledge, Practice, and Heritage) sponsored by the European Research Council. Her research interests include vernacular religiosity during Socialist times, Christianity and popular music, the musical life worlds of Roma communities, and Pentecostal-Charismatic Christianity. Her recent publications include the co-edited volume The Secret Police and the Religious Underground in Communist and Post-Communist Eastern Europe (2021, with James Kapaló) and Religion and “Securitization” in Central and Eastern Europe (2023, co-edited with András Máté-Tóth).

Sponsored by: Folklore and Public Culture Program; Ira E. Gaston Bequest; Department of Cinema Studies; Department of Comparative Literature; Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies