SOURCES FROM THE HISTORY OF THE STUDY OF THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY OF SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTISTS IN TRANSCARPATHIA DURING THE SOVIET PERIOD (BASED ON THE MATERIALS OF THE STATE ARCHIVE OF TRANSCARPATHIAN REGION)

Abstract

In recent decades, scholarly interest in the study of religious issues in the country has revived. The work with archival documents on this topic has revealed new and unresolved issues. The need to cover the history of individual denominations in a narrowly regional dimension was revealed. An objective and comprehensive study of the history of the Seventh-day Adventist religious community in Transcarpathia during the Soviet era (1944-1991) requires the use of all available historical sources. The article analyzes the source base on this issue. The purpose of the article is to determine the informative potential, reliability and representativeness of the source base for studying the functioning of the religious community in the above period. The research is based on materials from the state archives of the Zakarpattia region. 
The article presents and analyzes the available archival data of various state institutions, which differ in content and informational potential. Together, they can provide a sufficient basis for researching this issue. In terms of their status and information potential, state archives occupy a leading position for studying the history of the Seventh-day Adventist religious community in Transcarpathia during the Soviet era.
In this study, we have tried to outline the potential of historical sources that can be used to reconstruct the functioning of the Seventh-day Adventist religious community in Transcarpathia during the Soviet era (1944-1991). We have identified, analyzed, and systematized sources and archival information into thematic blocks.
The archival heuristics on this issue made it possible to comprehend a significant layer of the untouched source base, some of which was first introduced into scientific circulation. The analyzed sources make it possible to study the history of this religious community in the Soviet period in Transcarpathia. The identified archival potential provides a wide field for historical reconstruction of the life of the Adventist community in Transcarpathia. At the same time, it provides additional valuable information for the ethnography of the region, the study of the genealogy of some families, historical processes in the region, and the study of the functioning of various denominations in the region.