The Legacy of the Soviet Historiography of John Toland’s Religious-Philosophical Ideas

The article provides a chronological review of some basic provisions of the selected Soviet historiography of the religious-philosophical ideas of an original Irish philosopher John Toland (30.11.1670-11.03.1722). The works of leading domestic experts in Toland’s philosophy -G.S. Tymyansky, A.V. Shcheglov, K.I. Salimova, A.M. Deborin, B.V. Meerovsky, B.E. Bykhovsky -are analyzed. These authors interpret Toland’s religious-philosophical ideas as parts of their works. The author of this article notes that the study of this historiography is very relevant, because it allows developing a careful and respectful attitude to the heritage and traditions of national historical-philosophical knowledge and learning the research potential of the Soviet formational-evolutionary historiography of Toland’s religious-philosophical ideas. The aim of the article is to identify the main characteristics of Toland’s religious-philosophical ideas discussed in the selected Soviet historiography. As a result, the following was stated. First, Soviet specialists actively developed the provisions on Toland’s contribution to the doctrines of deism, pantheism, and materialism. Second, Soviet specialists focused on the fact that Toland criticized religion in general, as well as Christianity in particular. Third, Soviet specialists almost unanimously noted the atheistic orientation of Toland’s religious-philosophical ideas (very often disagreeing about the depth of Toland’s atheism). The article is provided with a reference section in the form of short bibliographic descriptions of the first original editions of a number of Toland’s works (de visu), short personalities, short dictionary and bibliographic entries (de visu). The reference section allows assessing the breadth of both Toland’s religious-philosophical ideas and the historiographic materials considered in this article.

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