Wipper’s Religious myth theory

Abstract

This research is devoted to the views of Robert Yurievich Wipper, a historian who has worked both in Russia and abroad, in the study of religion. His work can be divided into two main areas of research: 1) the Reformation, especially Calvinism, 2) the first centuries of Christianity. It is important to note that the research topics concerning religious and political events of the 16th century were related to the early stages of his activity. The formation of Wipper as a historian occurred at the end of the 19th century. It was time when there were popular ideas of positivism. A later development of ideas with the advent of Christianity fit into the so-called mythological school. Wipper’s ideas on this evolved, including the environmental spread of religion, but the main postulate for several decades, regardless of where the historian, worked at the time, Latvia or the Soviet Union, remained unchanged: the figure of Jesus Christ was mythological rather than historical. His ideas were not only affected in the person of Klyiuchevskiy or Guerrier, but foreign researchers as well, links to whom are often found especially in his early works, from the end of the 19th century to 1910. The ideas of Marxism had a significant influence which was understandable for the time. Refs 14.