Вестник Православного Свято-Тихоновского гуманитарного университета: Серия I. Богословие, философия (Apr 2015)
Psychology of Religion of Dr. Martha Anatolievna Popova
Abstract
The paper is dedicated to the analysis of ideas of Dr. Martha Anatolievna Popova, a famous Soviet specialist in religious studies. Through this analysis, we demonstrate that her theoretical ideas in a sense sum up other studies of Soviet researchers in this field. In the article we show that the goals and lines of investigation defined by Dr. Popova are relevant for contemporary researchers as well, and her theoretical and practical academic heritage related to the understanding of foreign studies in the fi eld is very important today. Dr. Popova’s studies on the history of Western psychology of religion are especially interesting because of her analysis of English and American works on psychology of religion and psychoanalytical theories of religion and culture. In the course of our study of Dr. Popova’s ideas, we found out that in her works she defi ned four general aspects of psychology of religion that are closely related to each other. The first of these aspects is the study of psychology of an individual believer, the study of particular groups and the development of methodology related to it. The second aspect is the specification and precise definition of the fundamental terms and concepts of Psychology of Religion. The third aspect is the practical application of results achieved during the first and second stages. These three problems cannot be solved without study of the theoretical ideas of previous researchers in the field of psychology of religion, or, to put it in other words, without the study of the history of psychology of religion, which is the fourth aspect of research in psychology of religion. In the article, we analyze the ideas of Dr. Popova using her works that are not widely known and this can help us to understand her theoretical ideas deeper than before.
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