Iosif Aronovich Kryvelev (russian: Иосиф Аронович Крывелёв, 1906–1991) was a

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

scholar of religion and historian of Judaism and Christianity. From 1959 until his death, Kryvelev was affiliated with the Ethnography Institute of the

Soviet Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991, uniting the country's leading scientists, subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (until 1946 ...

(now

Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography The Institute of Anthropology and Ethnography or N.N. Miklukho-Maklai Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology (russian: Институт этнологии и антропологии им. Н.Н. Миклухо-Маклая; abbreviated as ИЭА ...

). By the end of the 1980s Kryvelev remained as virtually the only proponent of

Christ myth theory The Christ myth theory, also known as the Jesus myth theory, Jesus mythicism, or the Jesus ahistoricity theory, is the view that "the story of Jesus is a piece of mythology", possessing no "substantial claims to historical fact". Alternative ...

in Soviet academia.

Life

Kryvelev was born in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

and graduated from the Moscow Institute of History and Philosophy in 1934. From 1932 he taught philosophy. Kryvelev was affiliated with Soviet atheism propaganda, having worked in the Central Museum of Irreligion in 1936–39. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

he fought in the military. In 1947–49, Kryvelev worked in the Philosophy Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. He attained the degrees of Doctor of Philosophy and Professor. In the academic career, Kryvelev declared his adherence to the

Marxist–Leninist Marxism is a left-wing to far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand class relations and social conflict and a dialect ...

worldview, being convinced that "the objective elucidation of historico-religious problems leads to the revealing of those aspects of religion which characterise it as the

opium of the people The opium of the people (or opium of the masses) (german: Opium des Volkes) is a dictum used in reference to religion, derived from a frequently paraphrased statement of German sociologist and economic theorist Karl Marx: "Religion is the opium ...

, as a reactionary ideology acting against the interests of mankind". Along with Soviet Armenian philosopher Suren Kaltakhchyan, Kryvelev published antireligious articles in '' Komsomolskaya Pravda''. In July 1986, Kryvelev criticised

Chinghiz Aitmatov Chinghiz Torekulovich Aitmatov (as transliterated from Russian; ky, Чыңгыз Төрөкулович Айтматов, translit=Chynggyz Törökulovich Aytmatov; 12 December 1928 – 10 June 2008) was a Kyrgyz author who wrote mainly in Russia ...

's novel ''The Place of the Skull'', believing that to reject principled, logical atheism was to reject the "very foundations of a scientific and materialist worldview". Kryvelev's critical article spurred a reply from Soviet poet

Yevgeni Yevtushenko Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko ( rus, links=no, 1=Евге́ний Алекса́ндрович Евтуше́нко; 18 July 1933 – 1 April 2017) was a Soviet and Russian poet. He was also a novelist, essayist, dramatist, screenwriter, ...

in December 1986. Yevtushenko argued that Kryvelev had made a mistake by confusing the opinions of the novel's hero with those of Aitmatov himself. Kryvelev died in Moscow in 1991.

Selected publications

*''Christ--Myth or Reality?'' (Religious studies in the USSR, 1987)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kryvelev, Iosif 1906 births 1991 deaths Christ myth theory proponents Critics of Christianity Historians of Christianity Historians of Jews and Judaism Writers from Moscow Russian atheists Soviet historians Moscow State University alumni Russian historians of religion