Today we often ask ourselves this question, but the answers are opinions, not the result of serious in-depth research involving the answers of specialists in the history of religions and religious studies the whole court. For the first time in Europe, at least twenty scholars answer the following questions in a documentary film devoted to the academic study of religion, implicitly the study of the comparative history of religions: Are we free to study religion in Central and Eastern Europe today? Researcher Valerio Severino’s documentary, created as part of the European Commission’s Marie Sklodowska-Curie MSCA Horizon 2020* program, offers a question-and-answer journey that addresses questions thirty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall. the history of religious and scientific freedom. European states under the influence of the Soviet Empire lived for more than fifty years with the feeling that religion was confused with scientific materialism, with Marxism, with atheism or any register of denial of the religious phenomenon.

Many interlocutors claim that the scientific-materialist educational program has suffered a colossal failure, perhaps the greatest in history; and now we realize that virtually the same regime that is still going on today ends up blessing the chemical bombs dropped from the sky over Syria with the support of the councils of priests. A new Faustian pact to once again try to destroy any hope of understanding the religious universe because it is connected, very multiple.

Where are we with the freedom to study religions from an academic standpoint, as long as the history of religions is not a subject of study even in secondary schools and rarely in theology departments or in the departments of humanistic institutes, in agony? This documentary may reveal some answers, and to feel its atmosphere, I found an opportune moment to interview Valerio Severino, who answered quickly and generously.

You referred to the first principle of the European Charter for Researchers, which calls for freedom of research in Europe. You are also one of the most important experts in the historiography devoted to the work of Raffaele Pettazoni, one of the founding fathers of the discipline “History of World Religions”. How do you reconcile the principle of research freedom dedicated to the comparative study of religions, as Pettazoni conceived it at the time, and the different facets of this freedom revealed in your documentary?

The documentary explores the history of religious and scientific freedom and the fall of communism in Europe. Pettazzoni was born a few years after the Italian invasion of the Papal States and founded the first chair History of religions from Italy during Fascism, at the University of Rome. Although these two stories are unrelated, they are connected on many levels.

One of those interviewed in the documentary film, Evgeny Churtin, director Institute of History of Religions with Romanian Academy, explained Pettazzoni’s freedom of research with his enormous competence in various disciplines. Churtin claimed that Pettazzoni’s vast experience allowed him to “embrace all his intellectual freedom.” This statement helped me to connect Pettazzoni’s complicated background as a researcher of religions with the documentary I was working on and the issue of freedom that it addresses. Even if there are external constraints such as political, social, or even economic factors, the freedom to explore ultimately comes from our ability to expand our knowledge beyond our limited understanding.

There is an extraordinary reference to one of the foundational texts of the Pali Buddhist canon, the Dhammapada, by Professor Valk, University of Tartu. It is about criticism of authorities, for example, the Brahmin caste, by monks, followers of the Buddha. mmutatis mutandis it is a critique of researchers devoted to the religious phenomenon to the various ideologies that interfere with their subject. Do you think irony still works as a system of conceptual defense and critical thinking in the face of ideologies generated by political systems?

Irony can still reveal the absurdity of the system, as it did in the Soviet Union. My father, who lived in Moscow during the years of Perestroika, told me about a Russian film he saw in a cinema at that time. He described to me a certain scene that he remembered. Somewhere in the film, a column of a building is about to collapse, and the people around it band together to prevent the disaster. They support it with their hands and withstand the weight of the heavy collapsing column. Some even climb over each other to support him, forming a human column. At first their plan succeeded, and they rejoiced and boasted. But then they slowly realized the seriousness of the situation. The audience laughed heartily. Such irony can change history. It can reveal flaws in the system and inspire people to change it and envision a better future.

Julo Valk’s words in his interview inspired the title of the documentary “Some Kind of Liberating Effect”. Informative and descriptive, but retains a sense of irony and wit. This is a much more suggestive and attractive choice than the previous, more restrained title “Memory of Freedom”.

Among your interlocutors are researchers and scientists from countries that were under Soviet influence for decades, assimilated Marxist philosophy and the emergence of scientific materialism even (or especially) in the religious sphere, trying to replace existing religions. A failed project, however, from an educational point of view. Today, we are faced with populist politics and the spread of ideologies in social networks, a phenomenon that is a threat to democracies, as one of your interlocutors said: there is democracy, but there are no democratic actors in politics. Where do we place the study of religions and religious phenomena, given the possible ideological interventions practiced now, but perhaps also in future times?

I hope nowhere. In my opinion, the most dangerous and intrusive ideology is that which claims to protect us, as totalitarianism did. The spread of ideologies is not a threat to democracies. If we accept democracies, we will necessarily take responsibility for our own environment and ideological programs. In my view, the real danger lies in believing that science can give us absolute and certain truth, and not being able and willing to live with uncertainty. This is especially important when studying religion that deals with dogma.

The Czech scholar Tomas Bubik, whom you are probably referring to, says that “we have a system, but we must become democrats.” He calls it a “long-term process” that should continue as long as our society remains open. Bubik has conducted extensive research on the history of scientific atheism in former communist countries. We can learn a lot from the experience of these countries and the complex failure of pseudoscientific ideologies in Central and Eastern Europe in recent decades to better understand modern democracy and the challenges it poses.

It has been said that democracy is the ideology of science because the scientific approach challenges all knowledge and assumptions and is willing to share this knowledge without bloodshed. So it’s not a matter of defense and invasion, but a matter of choice. This is my point of view. The problem with democracy is not “who rules the system,” as Karl Popper said, but whether we can free those who rule. This is as true for politics as it is for science.

Women researchers and their careers are one of the topics of your documentary. What does that part of the film express, in which the researcher’s thoughts are filled with silence and symbolism? What are we supposed to understand as people who watch cinematic and non-verbal narrative?

Addressing the gender issue is a requirement of the European Commission, the sponsor of the documentary. This is a useful requirement for a comprehensive and accurate analysis of challenges to research freedom in academia.

The silence in the scene you mention can be seen as a metaphor for how women’s voices are often ignored. The fact that we don’t hear what the women on stage are listening to highlights and depicts the invisible barriers women researchers face. Nonverbal narrative appeals to silence, allowing us to learn untold stories.

The scene is a tribute to women in academia and represents the polymorphism of four successful female researchers, not marginalization. All four are silent. Their silence speaks volumes, visually conveying the scale of the problem we face. – read the entire article and comment on contributors.ro