“Between ‘God exists’ and ‘God does not exist’ there lies an enormous field, which a wise man crosses only with great effort.” In A Sacred Space Is Never Empty: A History of Soviet Atheism, historian Victoria Smolkin shows that Soviet leaders spent a great deal of energy on traversing this terrain — with varying degrees of wisdom.

Smolkin cites the above words from Anton Chekhov to take us on a historical tour of the Soviet state’s efforts to not only combat religion but replace it with an active atheism. She reveals how Soviet state interventions often produced unexpected — and unwanted — results, driving youth toward disinterest in not only religion and atheism but in socialism itself. Her study also challenges any idea that the Soviet Union was homogeneously atheistic. By shifting the focus from the Communist Party’s repression of religion to its attempt to supplant it with an atheist creed, she raises many new questions about the type of society that was really being created.