Religious life in the late Soviet Union This book presents the first large overview of late Soviet religiosity across several confessions and Soviet republics from the 1960s to the 1980s. Based on a broad range of new sources on the daily life of religious communities including material from regional archives and oral history it shows that religion not only survived Soviet anti religious repression but also adapted to new conditions. Going beyond traditional views about a mere returned of the repressed the book shows how new forms of religiosity and religious socialisation emerged as new generations born into atheist families turned to religion in search of new meaning long before perestroika facilitated this process. In addition the book examines anew religious activism and transnational networks between Soviet believers and Western organisations during the Cold War explores the religious dimension of Soviet female activism and shifts the focus away from the non religious human rights movement and from religious institutions to ordinary believers. Change of ritual practice under communism : the case of the Russian Orthodox Church in Soviet Ukraine in the late 1950s early 1970s Natalia Shlikhta The erosion of tradition : life cycle rites among the Orthodox in the Prikame Region (1950s 1980s) Svetlana Riazanova The Rybnitser Rebbe and Underground Jewish religious life in the Soviet town of Rybnitsa (1960s 1970s) Maria Kaspina Funeral and memorial rites of Moscow Muslims in the 1960s 1980s Islam Zaripov and Marat Safarov The boundaries of legality as an approach to the study of Soviet religious policy : the case of evangelical Christians Baptists Johannes Dyck Trying to leave the religious underground : registration of Catholic communities in late Soviet Kazakhstan Jerzy Rohozinski The activism of Soviet Pentecostals in the 1960s 1980s Vera Kliueva Gender specificity of protest activism in unregistered groups of evangelical Christians Baptists in the late Soviet Union Nadezhda Beliakova A Christian feminism in the USSR : a historical overview of the religious womens club Mariia (1980 1982) Anna Sidorevich Startsy samizdat and underground seminars : the religious life of young Russian Orthodox converts in the 1970s 1980s Barbara Martin Anatolii Vaneevs circle as a phenomenon of informal church community in Leningrad in the 1970s 1980s Anna Lepekina Longing for Truth morality and enchantment : late Soviet spiritual searches and journeys to Islam 1970s 1980s Eva Rogaar The entry of Indian spiritual movements into the cultural space of Soviet Latvia in the 1970s 80s Solveiga Krumina Konkova Astrological samizdat in the context of (post )Soviet esoteric culture Anna Tessman.