DOI: 10.47026/2712-9454-2023-4-1-68-84
УДК 271.22-78(470.344)”18”
ББК86.372.81-3(2Рос.Чув)
Valery V. TIMOFEEV, Pavel V. TIMOFEEV
Key words
religious and social groups, Old Belief, Old Believers, priests, bespopovtsy, Old Believer abbots, spiritual mentors, Old Believers prayer houses, Russian peasantry, legal proceedings, Alatyr district, Simbirsk province, the Volga region
Abstract
This article is devoted to the study of the social status of the Old Believer population of the Alatyr district of the Simbirsk province. The relevance of the problem under study is determined by the fact that at present the process of development of religious life is actively underway in the Russian Federation, and in society there is a deep demand for the restoration of traditional values, spirituality and morality. Against this background, the issues of interaction between the authorities and the Old Believer communities at the federal and local levels, the study of their history and socio-religious model is of particular importance. The main purpose of the work is the historical study of the Old Believers as a religious and social group in the population of the Alatyr district of the Simbirsk province on the materials of the cases of the Alatyr district court in the 10–40s 19th century.
The methodological basis of the study was narrative (descriptive-narrative), historical (historical-genetic), and comparative methods. When studying the functioning of the institution of spiritual guidance among the Alatyr Old Believers, the prosopic method was used. The novelty of the study lies in the fact that for the first time the work provides a comprehensive historical description of aspects of the life and work of both individual Old Believers and entire Old Believer communities of the Alatyr district, as well as their interaction with state authorities at the county and provincial levels in the state as they are reflected in the materials cases accepted for consideration by the Alatyr district court of the Simbirsk province in the 10–40s 19th century.
As a result of the study, an analysis was made of the current state of the materials of the Alatyr district court related to the Old Believers of the Alatyr district of the Simbirsk province for the period of 1810–1840s. The position of the Old Believers in the first half of the 19th century is studied in the Simbirsk province, as well as the state policy towards the Old Believers, the placement of the Old Believer communities in the Alatyr district of the Simbirsk province. Also, based on the materials of the Alatyr district court, the fate of the most prominent persons among the Old Believers of the district, in particular, religious leaders and spiritual mentors, was studied.
Summing up, we can conclude that the studied materials of the Alatyr district court reflect the development of the policy of the Russian Empire in relation to the Old Believers in the first third of the 19th century: from a neutral attitude to patronage, and then to severe administrative repression against the backdrop of an increasing number of Old Believer communities and their growth of public influence. The most significant Old Believer communities of the Alatyr district were located in large trading villages – Yavlei (Pomortsy), Cemeteries (Fedoseevtsy and Pomortsy), Syres (Spasovtsy) and other settlements of the county. By social origin, the peasants of the Old Believers belonged, for the most part, to the peasants, while among them were both state and privately owned peasants, as well as former soldiers. A noticeable layer among the Old Believers of the Alatyr district was occupied by coachmen. In these villages, public and private prayer houses were located in large numbers. In the communities, public prayers, baptisms, burials were performed, marriages were concluded according to the rules of the corresponding Old Believer agreements. The Old Believers of the Alatyr district had extensive ties with other communities not only within the limits of the Simbirsk province, but also far beyond its borders. In the Old Believer communities of the Alatyr district, the rectors were elected within the communities and blessed by the senior mentors. They performed rites, and also kept registers of the Old Believers of their societies. Almost all the abbots of the county in the first third of the 19th century subjected to prosecution and repression.
References
Information about the authors
Valery V. Timofeev – Candidate of Historical Sciences, Associated Professor, Department of Russian and World History, I. Yakovlev Chuvash State Pedagogical University, Russia, Cheboksary (timoval2001@mail.ru; ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4692-341X).
Pavel V. Timofeev – Post-Graduate Student, Institute of Tatar Encyclopedia and Regional Studies of the Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Tatarstan, Russia, Kazan (p-timofeev96@mail.ru; ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4771-7928).
For citations
Timofeev V.V., Timofeev P.V. OLD BELIEVERS OF THE ALATYR DISTRICT OF THE SIMBIRSK PROVINCE ACCORDING TO THE DOCUMENTS OF THE ALATYR DISTRICT COURT OF THE 10–40s OF THE 19th CENTURY. Historical Search, 2023, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 68–84. DOI: 10.47026/2712-9454-2023-4-1-68-84 (in Russian).
