SEKÜLER LİTÜRJİ OLARAK POLİTİK DİN: STALİN’İN CENAZESİ VE YASIN TIBBİ DİLİ

Öz

Bu makale, kendini ateist olarak tanımlayan bir rejimin, Stalin’in Mart 1953’teki ölümünden sonraki devlet töreninde açığa çıkan kitlesel yası hangi kurumsal araçlarla yönettiğini incelemektedir. Sergei Loznitsa’nın Sovyet arşivlerinden derlediği State Funeral (Devlet Töreni) belgeseli, döneme ait tıbbi bültenler ve arşiv belgeleri eşliğinde analiz edilmekte ve belgesel, geçmişi yansıtan şeffaf bir pencereden ziyade, iki kez dolayımlanmış bir nesne olarak değerlendirilmektedir. Propagandanın kutsal bir dramaya dönüştürdüğü yas süreci, politik din kuramı bağlamında ele alınmaktadır. Rejim, geleneksel dini kamusal alandan tasfiye ederken kurumsal bir boşluk bırakmamış; aksine, dinin yapısal formlarını devralıp bu formların içini bilim ve tıpla yeniden doldurmuştur. Bu dönüşüm neticesinde devlet töreni seküler bir litürjiye, tıbbi bültenler kutsal metinlere, hekimler ile parti ideologları ise yeni bir ruhban sınıfına dönüşmüştür. Tıbbi bültenlerde kullanılan teknik dilin halka kapalı olması bir iletişim hatası değil, tıpkı geleneksel kutsal dillerde olduğu gibi, metnin yalnızca yetkili uzmanlarca çözülebilmesine dayanan yapısal bir otorite inşasıdır. Makale, salt zorlamaya veya rızaya değil, bu ikisi arasındaki gerilime dayanan politik din olgusunu söz konusu tarihsel örnek üzerinden, rejimin Ortodoks Hristiyanlık ve İslam ile ilişkileri bağlamında da inceleyerek sekülerleşme tartışmalarına katkıda bulunmaktadır. Sovyet ateizmini ve modelini özgün kılan husus, kutsalın dışlayıcı biçimde devlet tekeline alınmasıdır. Diğer yandan, sivil dinin kutsal üzerinde dışlayıcı olmaktan ziyade hegemonik ve görünmez bir etki ile ulusal topluluğu kutsaması, bu olgunun demokrasileri farklı bir biçimde kapsadığını da göstermektedir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Politik din
• Seküler litürji
• Sekülerleşme
• Sivil din
• Sovyet ateizmi.

Destekleyen Kurum

Bu çalışma kapsamında herhangi bir kurum veya kuruluştan destek alınmamıştır.

Etik Beyan

Bu çalışma teorik ve kültürel bir inceleme niteliğinde olup; insan veya hayvan denek kullanımını, anket, mülakat, odak grup çalışması, deney veya klinik araştırma gibi etik kurul izni gerektiren herhangi bir nicel veya nitel veri toplama yöntemini içermediğinden çalışma için etik kurul onayı gerekmemektedir. Makalenin planlanması, araştırılması ve yazımı süreçlerinde Yükseköğretim Kurumları Bilimsel Araştırma ve Yayın Etiği Yönergesi kurallarına bütünüyle uyulmuştur. Ayrıca yazar, bu çalışmanın herhangi bir aşamasında hiçbir kişi veya kurumla çıkar çatışması bulunmadığını ve araştırma kapsamında hiçbir kurum veya kuruluştan finansal destek alınmadığını beyan eder.

POLITICAL RELIGION AS SECULAR LITURGY: STALIN’S FUNERAL AND THE MEDICAL IDIOM OF MOURNING

Öz

This article examines the institutional mechanisms through which a self-declared atheist regime managed mass mourning during the state funeral following Stalin’s death in March 1953. Sergei Loznitsa’s documentary State Funeral, compiled from Soviet archives, is analyzed alongside contemporary medical bulletins and archival documents. The film is evaluated not as a transparent window into the past, but as a doubly mediated object. The mourning process, transformed into a sacred drama by propaganda, is addressed through political religion theory. While eradicating traditional religion from the public sphere, the regime left no institutional void; instead, it appropriated religion’s structural forms, refilling them with science and medicine. Consequently, the state funeral became a secular liturgy, medical bulletins functioned as sacred texts, and physicians alongside Party ideologues formed a new clergy. The opacity of the bulletins’ technical language was not a communication error but a structural construction of authority, decipherable only by authorized experts, akin to sacred languages. By examining a political religion operating on the tension between coercion and consent through this historical case and the regime’s relations with Orthodox Christianity and Islam, the article contributes to secularization debates. The distinctiveness of the Soviet model lies in the state’s exclusionary monopolization of the sacred. Conversely, civil religion consecrates the national community through a hegemonic, invisible influence rather than an exclusionary one, which shows that this phenomenon also encompasses democracies differently.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Civil religion
• Political religion
• Secular liturgy
• Secularization
• Soviet atheism.

Destekleyen Kurum

No institutional support was received for this study.

Etik Beyan

As this study is a theoretical and cultural review and does not involve any quantitative or qualitative data collection methods requiring ethics committee approval—such as the use of human or animal subjects, surveys, interviews, focus group studies, experiments, or clinical trials—ethics committee approval is not required. The planning, research, and writing processes of this article fully complied with the Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Directive of Higher Education Institutions. Furthermore, the author declares that there is no conflict of interest with any person or institution at any stage of this study, and that no financial support was received from any institution or organization for this research.

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