«Russia, Russia! Keep Yourself, Keep it!..» Book review: Essays on the History of Russian Custodians (‘Khranitel’stvo’

Author(s):  
Boris Yu. Aleksandrov ◽  
Olga Ye. Puchnina

The ideas of conservative modernization of Russian society are currently very relevant. However, the concept of «conservatism» in modern discourse is very ambiguous, and most importantly, not fully relevant to the complex of domestic socio-political and religious-philosophical ideas that have developed since the existence of the Old Russian state. A much more precise definition in this regard is the concept of “Khranitel’stvo”, which organically developed in the Russian tradition almost until the end of the 19th century and which is a unique and original phenomenon of the intellectual culture of Russia. On the basis of large historical and theoretical material, the authors of the monograph study the ideological origins, essence and evolution of «Khranitel’stvo» as a specific socio-political direction of Russian thought.

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-72
Author(s):  
Tatiana A. Isachenko

<p>&nbsp;The motif of &ldquo;the escape from paradise&rdquo; has recently become one more time the subject of historical poetics. This motif is opposed to &ldquo;the expulsion from paradise&rdquo; accepted in Western literature. In the perception of scholars the motif of &ldquo;the escape from paradise&rdquo; in 19th century literature took a paradoxical form of &ldquo;loneliness&rdquo; (Dmitriev, Pushkin, Ostrovsky and Batyushkov) and then was designated as a &ldquo;moving&rdquo; model of a Russian man&rsquo;s life who escapes from Paradise&nbsp;&mdash; a &ldquo;homeostatic&rdquo; society (L.&nbsp;N.&nbsp;Gumilev). The transformation of the motif from a &ldquo;stable&rdquo; model to a &ldquo;moving&rdquo; one led to formation of a new Russian character&nbsp;&mdash; a &ldquo;homeless wanderer&rdquo; mentioned by F.&nbsp;M.&nbsp;Dostoevsky in his &ldquo;Pushkin Speech&rdquo;. The article puts forward a thesis that under the influence of wandering a part of Russian society feel inclined for Old Russian forms of world outlook that incites person&rsquo;s searches for life paradise in his own soul. This trend appears in the pilgrimage and theological literature of the 19th century. The transformation of the ratio between the &ldquo;stable&rdquo; and the &ldquo;moving&rdquo; towards the Old Russian ideal of wandering brings man to the saving paths of evangelical commandments. The theme of &ldquo;escape in the desert&rdquo; is closely related to the theme of &ldquo;Mental Paradise&rdquo;. In this regard, the key plot of the popular collection &ldquo;Mental Paradise&rdquo; popular in the 17th century and released in Wallay Iversky Monastery in 1658&ndash;1659 is considered. Based on the manuscripts the article shows how the motives of &ldquo;Paradise&rdquo; and &ldquo;escape in the desert&rdquo; having preceded the trends and having been developed in the 19th century leading to the prosperity of pilgrimage literature, are presented in literature of pre-Peter Russia.</p>


2021 ◽  
pp. 275-294
Author(s):  
Marina S. Krutova ◽  

The Department of Manuscripts of the Russian State Library contains letters of Hegumen Ieron (worldly Ivan Nosov-Vasil’yev), Schemamonk Innokentiy (worldly last name — Sibiryakov) and Iosif the monk, the brethren of New Athos Monastery, named after Simon the Canaanean, to Archimandrite Leonid (worldly Lev Kavelin), Rector of the Trinity-Sergius Lavra, a prominent scientist, a prominent scholar of the Russian Orthodox Church, one of the most enlightened priests of the 19th century. In 1885, the book “Abkhazia and New Athos Monastery, Named after Simon the Canaanean, in It” by Archimandrite Leonid was a real event. The published letters were written by the brethren of the monastery, people of different cultural levels; but they are all imbued with a sense of gratitude to the author, who wrote a book about their holy monastery, which they love and care about the improvement of. Hegumen Ieron’s letters contain numerous details about the opening of Pitsunda Monastery as a skete of New Athos Monastery, about the restoration of the ancient Pitsunda temple, about its beautification and the forthcoming consecration. Schemamonk Innokentiy’s letters provide detailed information about the history of the Monastery, as well as some cartographic data needed by Archimandrite Leonid for his book. Monk Iosif ’s letter contains details of the economic life of the monastery.


Author(s):  
Tatiana Feklova

The history of the Russian Magneto-Meteorological Observatory (RMMO) in Beijing has not been extensively researched. Sources for this information are Russian (the Russian State Historical Archive, Saint Petersburg Branch of the Archive of the Academy of Sciences, Russian National Library) and Chinese (the First Historical Archive of Beijing, the Library of the Shanghai Zikavey Observatory) archives. These archival materials can be scientifically and methodologically analyzed. At the beginning of the 18th century, the Russian Orthodox Mission (ROM) was founded in the territory of Beijing. Existing until 1955, the ROM performed an important role in the development of Russian–Chinese relations. Russian scientists could only work in Beijing through the ROM due to China’s policy of fierce self-isolation. The ROM became the center of Chinese academic studies and the first training school for Russian sinologists. From its very beginning, it was considered not only a church or diplomatic mission but a research center in close cooperation with the Russian Academy of Sciences. In this context, the RMMO made important weather investigations in China and the Far East in the 19th century. The RMMO, as well as its branch stations in China and Mongolia, part of a scientific network, represented an important link between Europe and Asia and was probably the largest geographical scientific network in the world at that time.


2010 ◽  
Vol 37 (3) ◽  
pp. 250-273
Author(s):  
Cornelia Soldat

AbstractThe only surviving copy of a Testament of Ivan the Terrible stems from the beginning of the 19th century with a watermark from 1805. In January 1822 the director of the Foreign Office's archive, Aleksei Malinovskii, sent the testament to the historian and novelist Nikolai Karamzin, who was working on his History of the Russian State, and who published it in the commentary to the ninth volume of the History. An analysis of Aleksei Kurbatov's and Vasilii Tatishchev's alledged authorship of the testament's preface and commentary leads to the conclusion that the testament displays the literary devices of a fictional text. The preface presents a story complete with the grammatically ambiguous signature ,,A. Kurbatova“, a host of conflicting dates and several lost copies of a lost original. The argument for Tatishchev's authorship rests solely on some peculiarities concerning the publications of his personal copy of the Sudebnik of 1550. The questions surrounding the testament are resolved easily when one takes into account the literary hints and regards the text as an early 19th-century mystification.


2021 ◽  
pp. 331-342
Author(s):  
Natalia A. Ovchinnikova ◽  

The article presents the history of the epistolary heritage of the Buldakov merchant family. The object of the research is letters of M. M. Buldakov, a representative of the Veliky Ustyug merchants, the leading director of the Russian-American company. These documents contain valuable information on the history of Russian merchants in the last quarter of the 18th – first third of the 19th century and the activities of the Russian-American company. Similar to all sources of epistolary genre, their distinctive feature is that they were created without additional edits and censorship and thereby recorded historical reality at first hand, while retaining the style and language characteristic of the period. The main problem faced by historians is patchy location of M. M. Buldakov’s letters. Currently, only a part of them, stored in the Vologda State Historical-Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve, has been published and introduced into scientific use. The documents scattered across other archives are yet to be identified and examined. The purpose of this study is to determine the true volume of the Buldakovs' epistolary heritage, to understand the reasons for its fragmentation, and to trace the movement of documents from one owner to another. This is the first attempt to restore the path of epistolaries from the pre-revolutionary family archive to modern archives, which determines the scientific novelty of the work. The methodological basis of the research is principles of historicism, consistency, and objectivity. This makes it possible to consolidate the scattered information and facts testifying to the movement of M. M. Buldakov’s papers. The analytical and synthetic method of comparing data provides an opportunity to see the general picture of letters location, while concrete-historical method allows us to describe the facts in historical sequence. We managed to identify three large collections of letters: in the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts, in the Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire of the Historical and Documentary Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and in the Vologda State Historical, Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve. The results of this study provide a unified picture of the epistolaries location in different archives, which, in turn, provides an opportunity for historians and archivists to continue their work on identifying and introducing into scientific use of documents necessary for further study of the history of Russian merchants and the Russian-American company activities.


Author(s):  
Shirap Tsydene ◽  

With the inclusion of Buryats in the Russian state, the need arose to create management mechanisms and inclusion are of the Buryats in Russian culture. This need became the subject of research by theoreticians of scientific thought and state building, which formed over the 19th century, the historiographic foundation. The article highlights the issues formed and the development of historiography on the history of local self-government.


2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (1) ◽  
pp. 56-72
Author(s):  
Nadežda Morozova

The history of Old Believers in Lithuania in the 19th century is insufficiently studied. Well, we know the main centers, events and names of the most important figures, the key moments in the history of the Old Believer society are identified. But there are any generalizing monographs in this field and now the main task is to accumulate empirical material and try to put them in a future common historical narrative. The Old Believer community of Rimkai is one of the oldest in the central part of present-day Lithuania. In 1856 an Old Believers’ church assembly was held in the village of Rimkai. This assembly has so far been unknown in historiography, so this is the first time information about the meeting is being introduced into scientific circulation. The resolutions of the assembly are preserved in the only manuscript, which i s now held at the Russian State Library as part of E. V. Barsov’s collection no. 1025. The resolutions consist of 33 articles discussing the Old Believers’ iconolatry as well as regulation of ritual and everyday norms of behaviour applicable to both church leaders and ordinary parishioners. The documents were signed by 13 Old Believers’ spiritual fathers and monks from Lithuania and East Prussia. This study contains a diplomatic edition of Rimkai resolutions too. The text of the document is supplemented by historical commentary and source analysis.


Author(s):  
Marina S. Krutova ◽  

Letters of 1869–1872 of the famous figure of the Bulgarian Renaissance Spiridon Nikolayevich Palauzov to the outstanding researcher and collector of manuscript books Aleksey Yegorovich Viktorov, stored in the Russian State Library’s manuscripts department, are published in full for the first time. The value of these epistolary documents for Russian and Slavic literature of the 19th century lies in the fact that they contain little-known information on the history of research, attribution and publication of handwritten monuments such as “The Life and Praise of Saint Philothei of Athens”, “The Commendation of Saint Euthymius of Tarnovo” by Gregory Tsamblak, the Service of Holy Venerable Theodosius of Tarnovo, and the writings of Saint Clement of Ohrid and Tsar Simeon I the Great, the Great Menaion Reader was compiled in the 1530s–1540s under the supervision of Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow, etc. An introductory article gives a brief description of the letters. The text of the epistolary documents is provided with historical, literary and real commentary.


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