The Old Believers in Imperial Russia. Oppression, Opportunism, and Religious Identity in Tsarist Moscow. By Peter T. De Simone. The Library of Modern Russia. London: I. B. Tauris, 2018. xvi, 263, pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Illustrations. Photographs. $95.00, hard bound.

Slavic Review ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 78 (2) ◽  
pp. 577-578
Author(s):  
William G. Wagner
Author(s):  
Sergey V. Homyakov

Establishment of the Soviet power in Buryatia was another and the most painful factor in the decline of the lifestyle of one of the communities living here – the Old Believers. Having appeared in the region in the second half of the XVIII century, they managed to preserve their religious identity and cultural specifics, although already at the beginning of the XX century researchers noted trends of breaking with the most orthodox traditions and discontinuity of generational ties. In the 1920s, the Bolsheviks skillfully supported the protest wave of young people against the power of their parents, the desire to change their lives by leaving the confines of a closed community, as well as the idea of Old Believers about everyday life (built around the basis of their identity, the Old-Orthodox religion) as about the dark and hopelessly outdated. Already in the 1930s, the messages of the main newspaper of the republic – “Buryat-Mongol Pravda” – reported on the new happy life of not only young, but also elderly Old Believers who had abandoned religious prejudices and were in the forefront of building the Soviet society in the villages of Buryat-Mongolia. The article considers the issue on what caused such a change in people’s mentality: the ideological victory of the Soviet propaganda or a socially approved behavior (including cases of active and continued general passive resistance to a new life)? Hence, taking into account the desire of the current Old Believers to return and develop old traditions, the tasks of analyzing the external (everyday) changes of the 1930s in working life and searching for attempts to preserve (for further continuity) the identity of the social group are set. The object of the study is the Old Believers’ community of a part of the former Verkhneudinsky uyezd (since the 1930s – Tarbagataisky and Mukhorshibirsky aimaks of the Buryat-Mongolian ASSR), the subject is the ideological, cultural and religious processes that took place in their environment during the indicated period. As a brief conclusion, it follows that the ideological campaign in Buryat-Mongolia, which continued in the 1930s, had a formal character in the Old Believer districts, which took place in the adoption of changes in the way of life while preserving the foundations of religious identity.


Author(s):  
Наталья Ивановна Шитова

Работа посвящена выявлению и анализу архивных материалов из фонда Алтайской духовной миссии (Государственный архив Алтайского края, фонд 164), освещающих особенности этно-культурной идентичности русского населения подведомственной миссии территории (Горный Алтай и его предгорья). При этом религиозная идентичность рассматривается в неразрывной взаимосвязи с этнокультурной и как ее важнейшая составляющая. Выявление подобных материалов представляется актуальным, поскольку позволяет впоследствии осуществить метод интеграции архивных и полевых этнографических источников и получить более достоверную картину особенностей этнокультурной идентичности русских и ее трансформаций в условиях иноэтнического окружения и поликонфессиональной среды. Рассмотрение наблюдений миссионеров начала ХХ в. особенно интересно тем, что отражает процессы, последовавшие за провозглашением свободы совести в 1905 г. По рассматриваемым материалам прослеживается активизация религиозной деятельности старообрядцев и охлаждение к церкви православных. Также наблюдается своеобразная конкуренция православной церкви и старообрядческих общин за своих прихожан, особенно актуальной проблема становится в смешанных в конфессиональном отношении населенных пунктах. Прослеживаются процессы трансформации идентичности, такие как переходы из православия в старообрядчество и, реже, наоборот, также переходы из одного старообрядческого согласия в другое, что, безусловно является интереснейшим проявлением трансформации этнокультурной идентичности. Выявляются наиболее распространенные причины таких переходов, по большей части связанные с практическими соображениями, такими как желание вступить в брак, часто повторный, или получить более выгодные экономические условия. Миссионеры в своих записках выделяют также ряд важнейших этнокультурных маркеров принадлежности к старообрядчеству, не только обрядовых, но и связанных с внешним видом, одеждой, приятием или неприятием некоторых новых явлений жизни. В целом, можно говорить о том, что в начале ХХ в. в Горном и предгорном Алтае наблюдается достаточно пестрый этнокультурный состав русского населения и разнообразные процессы трансформации этнокультурной идентичности. The research is dedicated to revealing and analyzing of archival materials from the fund of the Altai ecclesiastical mission (State archive of the Altai Krai, Fund 164) that concern the specifics of ethnocultural identity of the Russian population who lived at the territory (Gorny Altai and low elevational parts of the Altai) that referred to the running of this mission. The religious identity of the people is seen as closely connected to the ethnocultural identity and is its important integral part. The finding of these materials is believed of much relevance, for it allows using the method of integration of archival and field ethnographical resources and further obtaining of a more clear picture of the specific features in the ethnocultural identity of the Russians, and how it was transformed in conditions of the foreign surrounding and multiconventional environment. The study of the observations of missionaries of the 20th century is especially interesting due to its potential to reflect processes that followed the declaration of freedom of worship in 1905. The studied materials show a growing activity in the sphere of religion among Old Believers and alienation from church among the Orthodox believers. The research reveals a particular competition between the Orthodox church and the communities of Old Believers to have more parishioners, which was a specially evident problem at settlements with confessionally mixed relationships. The research discovers processes of transformation of the identity of people, such as transferring of from the Orthodox church to Old Believers and on the contrary visa versa, what is still noticed much rarer. There were cases of leaving one Old Beleivers’ community for another, and these cases most interesting explosion of the transformation processes of the ethnocultural identity. The work also names the most common reasons of these transformative changes, which were largely dependent on practical perspectives of the people, including willing to get married again, or acquiring a more lucrative economic conditions. The missionaries note in their records a number of most essential ethnocultural markers that belong to the Old Belief, such markers that not only concern rituals, but referring to the outlook of a person, his clothes, accepting or not accepting some new things in life. In general, one can say that in the beginning of the 20th century in Gorny Altai and its neighboring low elevations in Russia the ethnocultural composition of the Russian population was quite varied and was subject to different transformation processes of the ethnocultural identity.


Author(s):  
ALEXANDER PALKIN ◽  
JAMES WHITE

Founded in 1800, edinoverie was a missionary mechanism that offered converts from ‘schismatic’ Old Belief the use of their anathematised rituals within the Russian Orthodox Church. However, the edinoverie clergy's distinctive social characteristics and working conditions stymied successful integration into the caste-like clerical estate. These representatives of an alternative form of Orthodoxy chiefly championed by Old Believers therefore remained on the periphery of the confession. This demonstrates the limits of intraconfessional diversity within the imperial Church: even when championed by ethnic Russians, the Church was reluctant to sponsor alternative visions of Orthodoxy in its own ranks.


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