Alina Bila

Junior Research Fellow / Invisible University for Ukraine

Am Planetarium 7
Email: alina.bila@ukma.edu.ua

Alina Bila (born 2003, Kostopil) is completing her master's degree in history at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in 2026. Since January 2026, she is a mentor at the Invisible University for Ukraine (CEU). Previously, she was a fellow of this certificate program for several semesters. She took part in winter and summer schools organized by the IUFU at the Central European University in Budapest (2025–2026). Alina received her bachelor's degree in history from the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in 2024. She took part in an academic mobility program at Adam Mickiewicz University (Poznań, Poland) in the summer of 2023. Alina had internships at the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Centre and at Medzhybizh State Historical and Cultural Reserve in 2022.

Research Project at the Kolleg

Public Renunciations of Former Priests Who Promoted Atheism: Between Ideology and the Author’s “Self” (1950s–mid-1960s)

This research is based on public renunciations by priests of various denominations, published in the media of the Ukrainian SSR in the 1960s. During Khrushchev’s anti-religious campaign, apostate priests were regarded as propagandists of atheism. Firstly, the authorities viewed them as a living example of the triumph of the materialistic worldview. Secondly, former priests were well versed in the basic religious doctrines and they were able to criticize it.
Soviet ideologues encouraged former priests to publish their renunciations in newspapers and magazines in the 1960s. And former priests were fully aware of what the authorities wanted to hear from them, so their texts were influenced by Soviet ideology. However, they also adapted this ‘correct’ narrative to their own biographies. In this context, the texts of renunciation are an interesting source of self-reflection, in which we can see how former priests constructed their new identity, their new atheistic ‘Self’. On the one hand, their rhetoric can be perceived as ‘speaking Bolshevik’ (Stephen Kotkin), as they attempt to employ the ideological messages required by the authorities. On the other hand, the religious experience of their authors and their own writing style were still very noticeable in the texts of renunciation. 

Therefore, I am trying to analyze how the authors of the renunciations described their life experiences, constructed the image of religion as an ideological ‘Other’, and how they shifted the focus of their stories depending on their audience. In general, the main focus of my research is the combination of ideological narratives with the authors’ own voices in the texts of the renunciations.

Main areas of research

History of Soviet Atheism
Secularism and Atheism in Eastern Europe after World War II
History of Propaganda
Eastern European Studies