Among Hungarian researchers, the following should be
mentioned: Károly Kerényi, Einführung in das Wesen der
Mythologie (Introduction to the nature of mythology, written
with Carl Jung, 1951); Die Religion der Griechen und Römer
(The religion of the Greeks and Romans, 1963); Sándor
Bálint, Tamulmányok a magyar vallásos népélet köréböl (Essays
on folk religion in Hungary, 1943); Instván Hahn, Istenek
és népek (Gods and peoples, 1968); Hitvilág és történelem:
Tanulmányok az ókori vallások köréböl (Religion and history:
Essays concerning ancient religions, 1982); Imre Trencsényi-
Waldapfel, Vallástörténeti tamulmányok (Studies on the his-
tory of religion, 1959); and Sir Mark Aurel Stein, Innermost
Asia: Detailed Report of Exploration in Central Asia, Kansu
and Eastern Iran I–IV, 1921.
From among the many Polish contributions, the follow-
ing should be mentioned: Tadeusz Margul, Sto lat nauki o
religiach ́swiata (One hundred years of the scientific study
of religion, 1964); Franciszek Adamski, editor, Socjologia re-
ligii (Sociology of religion, 1983); Zgymunt Poniatowski,
Religia i nauka (Religion and science, 1960); Jan Szmyd,
Teorie i do ́swiadczenie (Theory and proof, 1966); and Witold
Tyloch, editor, Current Progress in the Methodology of the Sci-
ence of Religion, 1984; Studies on Religions in the Context of
Social Sciences: Methodological and Theoretical Relations,
1990.
In the Czech Republic there arose, among others, Josef
Tvrdy ́, Filosofie nábozˇenství (Philosophy of religion, 1921);
Frantisek Lexa, Nábozˇenská literatura staroegyptská I-II (An-
cient Egyptian religious literature, 1921); Vincenc Lesny ́,
Buddhismus (Buddhism, 1948); Josef Kubalík, Dˇejiny
nábozˇenství (The history of religion, 1984); Dusan Zbavitel,
Hinduismus a jeho cesty k dokonalosti (Hinduism and its path
to perfection, 1993); Zbynek Zˇába, Les Maximes de Ptahotep,
1956; Rock Inscriptions of Lower Nubia, 1968; Miroslav Ver-
ner, Ancient Egyptian Monuments as seen by V. R. Prutky,
1968; Bretislav Horyna and Helena Pavlincová, Filosofie
nábozˇenství (Philosophy of religion, 1999); Dˇejiny religionis-
tiky (The history of religious studies, 2001); Dusan Luzˇny ́,
Nábozˇenství a moderní spoleˇcnost (Religion and modern soci-
ety, 1999); and Luboˇs Beˇlka, Tibetsky ́ buddhismus v Bur-
jatsku (Tibetan Buddhism in Buryatia, 2001).
Works devoted to the conceptualizing of religious
studies, and of religious ideas, merit careful attention. The
first theoretical-methodological work in Eastern Europe was
Pertold’s book Základy vˇseobecné v ̆edy nábozˇenské (Founda-
tions of the universal study of religion). This author consid-
ers religion to be an emotion-based awareness of dependence
on that which currently transcends the limits of all possible
human knowledge. Under the influence of positivism and
evolution theory, he distinguished between so-called primi-
tive religions (i.e., ancestor worship, animism, pre-animism,
fetishism, shamanism), theistic religions (i.e., polytheistic
and monotheistic religions), and new religious forms that
come into existence through the decay of monotheism (sects,
magic, folk religion). He subdivided the scientific study of
religion into what he called concrete religious studies, which
deals with religious facts, and so-called abstract religious
studies, whose task is to classify and evaluate the knowledge
gained from the history of religion.The first introduction to religious studies after World
War II appeared in Poland with Poniatowski’s Wst ̨ep do re-
ligioznawstwa in 1959. This work was essentially oriented to-
ward religious theory to accommodate the interest of the Pol-
ish Academy’s workgroup for religious theory, which was
created in 1957. In the Czech Republic, only one introduc-
tion was written prior to 1989, Nástin religionistiky (Over-
view of the scientific study of religion) from Jan Heller and
Milan Mrázek in 1988. This, however, is written from a
theological point of view. The first introduction that con-
formed to the requirements of the academic study of religion
was Horyna’s 1994 work Úvod do religionistiky (Introduction
to the study of religions). Here the scientific study of religion
was represented in a manner comparable to that of other
standard works of Western European scholarship; questions
of religious-scientific theory were stressed, as well as ques-
tions concerning the internal structuring of religious studies,
its conceptual foundations, and religious-scientific meta-
language. In Russia, theoretical problems of religious studies
have been reflected with delay and with many obscurities;
this was a legacy of Marxist ideology.
SCHOLARLY ORGANIZATIONS AND PUBLICATIONS. Colleges
for the scientific study of religion first came into existence
in Poland and the Czech Republic shortly after World War
I. The first college for the history of religion dates back to
1918 at Poland’s University of Lublin; its dean was Josef Ar-
chutowski. The first college for religious studies came into
existence in 1923 at the Wolna Wszechnica Polska in War-
saw, with Stefan Czarnowski as its dean. In 1937, Wiesław
Niemczyk appointed himself the first professor of religious
studies in Poland at the University of Warsaw. In the Czech
Republic, Pertold appointed himself the first professor of
comparative religious studies at Charles University in
Prague, where the College of Religious Studies was estab-
lished in 1934 within the philosophy department. However,
this college was dissolved by Communist order in 1948, so
that no direct line of successorship exists between it and the
post-1989 colleges.
Pertold attempted to incorporate Czech religious
studies into international research circles, and participated in
the year 1912 in the Fourth International Congress for the
History of Religion in the Dutch city of Leiden. His work,
however, went unrecognized until 1990 at the Sixteenth
Congress of the International Association for the History of
Religions (IAHR) in Rome, where the newly established
Czech Society for Religious Research was admitted to the
regular membership ranks. In contrast, the Polish Society for
the Scientific Study of Religion dated back to 1958, and had
been admitted to IAHR ranks at the Twelfth Congress in
Stockholm, Sweden. In other Eastern European countries,
the scientific study of religion as an institutionalized field of8774 STUDY OF RELIGION: THE ACADEMIC STUDY OF RELIGION IN EASTERN EUROPE AND RUSSIA