Window on Eurasia

Editor Who Broke Soviet Anti-Religious Taboos Dead at 77

Paul Goble

Vienna, July 11, 2006 – Vladimir Shevelyov, the Russian writer and editor who helped to open the pages of Moscow’s leading publications to
honest discussions of religious life at the end of Soviet times, died last Friday and was eulogized by religious leaders yesterday as “the founder of Russian secular journalist on religion.”

Shevelyov, who specialized on religious questions for Soviet
publications like “Nauka i religiya” for many years, developed a
reputation even during that period for his accuracy and objectiveness
at a time when the standard Soviet practice was to say only bad things
about religions or nothing at all.

But it was his contacts with the apparatus of the CPSU Central
Committee and especially Gorbachev era ideologist and glasnost’ architect
Aleksandr Yakovlev that allowed Shevelyov to make his greatest
contribution to the development of reporting about religious affairs.

Shevelyov, himself an unbeliever, convinced Yakovlev and others in
positions of power that the country would benefit if journalists
covering religious issues could report more openly and if religious
leaders could be allowed to publish articles about the issues of
concern to them.

To implement this effort, Shevelyov moved to “Moskovskiye novosti,”
the first major daily to open its pages to religious leaders and one
that under his guidance as editor of its religious department was
always sympathetic, respectful, and most importantly accurate in its portrayal
of religious life, Interfax reported yesterday.

Shevelyov’s achievement continued to have an impact on post-Soviet
Russian journalism, but unfortunately both personally and
professionally his own life over the last decade was less than happy. His wife died before him, he lost his eyesight, and he suffered a variety of
debilitating illnesses, although he never lost his joy in living.

Unfortunately, he also suffered some serious professional reversals as
well. He was forced from his job at “Moskovskiye novosti” and, as
Portal-Credo.ru reported, the current chief editor of that paper and
his deputies did not bother to attend the funeral of the man who almost
singlehandedly transformed Russian media coverage of religion.

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