As a manuscript

ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE CHILDHOOD OF RUSSIAN BASHKORTOSTAN

(endXIX- middleXXV.)

Specialty 07.00.07. – ethnography, ethnology and anthropology

for the competition degree candidate historical sciences

Izhevsk - 2016

The work was carried out at the Federal State Budgetary Institution of Science, Institute of Ethnological Research. R. G. Kuzeeva Ufa Scientific Center Russian Academy Sciences.

Object of study - Russian rural population of the Republic of Bashkortostan.

Subject of study - Ethnography of Russian childhood in Bashkortostan. In this study, ethnographic methods are used to study rituals, customs associated with the birth and upbringing of children in a traditional society, as well as clothing, food, household items, toys, games, folklore, childhood illnesses and ailments, and folk ways to get rid of them.

Territorial scope of the study - The Republic of Bashkortostan, which in the past belonged to the Ufa province (sample 1865) and the Bashkir ASSR (1919). The Russian villages of Belokataisky, Birsky, Duvansky, Dyurtyulinsky, Zilairsky, Karaidelsky, Krasnokamsky, Kugarchinsky, Mechetlinsky districts, in which Russians live, were studied in particular detail. – immigrants from the northern, southern and central provinces of Russia.

Timeline of the study cover the period from the end of the 19th century (the completion of the formation of the areas of settlement of the Russian population in Bashkiria; the availability of published information about the world of childhood) to the middle of the 20th century. (interruption of native traditions after the opening of maternity hospitals, the loss of the institution of midwives, the widespread rejection of customs associated with religion and community education). In some cases, the chronology has been extended to early XXI V. (2010 – 2014) to identify the dynamics of traditions.

The degree of knowledge of the problem. The ethnography of childhood has become the subject of research by a large number of foreign and Russian authors. Summarizing the corpus of various sources, we can distinguish three stages in the development of this scientific direction abroad, in Russia and Bashkortostan.

1. Formation of the ethnography of childhood as an independent subject of research in the last quarter of the 19th - early 20th centuries. Information about the ethnography of childhood in Russia was accumulated along with general factual information. V. S. Kasimovsky, describing in the 1860s - 1870s. features of life and culture of the Russian population of the Zlatoust district of the Ufa province, also recorded information about children. N. A. Gurvich in the “Memorial Book” for 1883 in the section “Folk Examples and Beliefs in the Ufa Province” published an essay by R. G. Ignatiev, in which he provided information about prohibitions for pregnant women, customs associated with childbirth, “child place”, about the role of a midwife, etc. Information about the world of childhood is available in the memoirs of a general practitioner, Professor D.I. Aksakov (1791, Ufa - 1859, Moscow), literary works Nikolai Pallo (1922–2013), a native of the Zlatoust district.

On turn of XIX and XX century. the formation of childhood ethnography as an independent scientific direction began. At the same time, research approaches were changing, which determined the formation of childhood ethnography as a multidisciplinary scientific direction. The first, earliest approach, the researchers call pediatric. It is characterized by "medical-anthropological studies" of the "bodily-physiological" side of childhood (obstetrics, childhood illnesses, physical education, etc.), dates back to the last quarter of XIX V. Its representatives were E. A. Pokrovsky, V. F. Demich, G. Popov. Doctors set themselves the task of improving the state of their life through studying the world of childhood and educating the people. E. A. Pokrovsky (1834-1895) - Russian pediatrician, psychologist, organizer and editor of the psychological and pedagogical journal "Bulletin of Education", studied the physical education of peoples. Along the way, he collected children's things and accessories from all over Russia: cradles, wheelchairs, dolls, clothes, as well as recipes for children's food, children's games. In Europe, at the same time, the book of the German anthropologist, ethnographer and gynecologist Hermann Heinrich Ploss (1819–1885), dedicated to the ethnographic, anthropological, cultural and historical characteristics of women, was popular.

The second way of studying the world of childhood is actually ethnographic, marked by the appearance in Russia in 1904 of the "Program for collecting information about native and christening rites from Russian peasants and foreigners" by V. N. Kharuzina (1866–1931). In the work of V. N. Kharuzina, for the first time, the world of childhood became the subject of a special study. A significant contribution to the study of the problem was made by one of the founders of Russian ethnography N. N. Kharuzin (1865–1900) and the ethnographer, local historian, and museum worker V. V. Bogdanov (1868–1949). In May 1904, the famous ethnographer D.K. Zelenin worked in the Belebeevsky district of the Ufa province. Having visited the Old Believer village Usen-Ivanovo, he revealed, on the one hand, the conservatism of the system of raising children, and on the other, the inevitable impact of social changes. Information about children participating in public holidays and fun is contained in the provincial press.

Third way - folklore emerged at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. thanks to V.P. Shein (1826-1900), who first singled out children's folklore as an independent section. In the 1920s folklorists G. S. Vinogradov (“godfather new science”) and O. N. Kapitsa identified the world of childhood as a special subculture with its own structure, language, and traditions.

Thus, in late XIX- the beginning of the XX century. approaches to the study of the world of childhood were formed - from the point of view of medicine, ethnography and folklore. Subsequently, they were expanded by the efforts of psychologists, linguists, educators, sociologists, religious scholars, philosophers, culturologists, defectologists, and representatives of other disciplines.

2. "Children's ethnography" / "ethnography of childhood" in the 1920s - 1980s. In the USSR, the development of childhood ethnography (as well as ethnological science in general) was possible within the framework of historical materialism, the class approach, and the need to form a “new” person. The upbringing of children was studied on the example of the Evenks, Kets, Khanty, Chuvash, Estonians, and the peoples of Dagestan. The circle of studied peoples and problems expanded. The customs and rituals of the children's cycle were described, studies of the family and family life were carried out different peoples THE USSR. Characterized by deep transformations of relationships in Soviet family. Regional studies of the ethnography of Russian childhood were organized, including the methods of field ethnography.

I. S. Kon (1928–2011) made a significant contribution to the ethnography of childhood in Russia. He is called the "ancestor" of the domestic direction of childhood ethnography. Many materials on the ethnography of childhood were presented by I. S. Kon, being the executive editor of the serial publication Ethnography of Childhood. For the first time, these books collected and compared the ways of socializing a child in a number of Asian cultures, studied ways of caring for babies, labor and sex education, forms of encouragement and punishment, relations between parents and children. Collections have ethnographic, cultural, pedagogical, psychological value.

Jan 2016 14

On January 13, 2016, at a meeting of the Presidium of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the results of the elections for the honorary title of "Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences" were approved. Now we have 12 historians and 10 philologists, doctors of sciences under the age of 50 have this new title. They represent leading scientific institutes and centers, universities and regions of the country. The Department of Historical and Philological Sciences congratulates everyone on this honorary title.

RAS professors

Alekseeva Elena Veniaminovna Doctor of Historical Sciences, Institute of History and Archeology, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences

1. Berezovich Elena Lvovna Doctor of Philology, Federal State Autonomous Educational Institution of Higher Professional Education Uralsky federal university named after the first President of Russia B.N. Yeltsin
2. Burlak Svetlana Anatolyevna Doctor of Philology, Institute of Oriental Studies RAS
3. Grintser Nikolai Pavlovich Doctor of Philology, Institute of Social Sciences of the Russian Academy National economy And public service under the President of the Russian Federation
4. Danilko Elena Sergeevna Doctor of Historical Sciences, Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology. N.N. Miklukho-Maclay RAS
5. Desnitsky Andrey Sergeevich Doctor of Philology, Institute of Oriental Studies RAS
6. Zagrebin Aleksey Egorovich Doctor of Historical Sciences, Udmurt Institute of History, Language and Literature, Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences
7. Kazakovskaya Victoria Viladievna Doctor of Philology, Institute of Linguistic Studies RAS
8. Korobov Dmitry Sergeevich Doctor of Historical Sciences, Institute of Archeology RAS
9. Krivoshapkin Andrey Innokent'evich Doctor of Historical Sciences, Institute of Archeology and Ethnography SB RAS
10. Lipkin Mikhail Arkadyevich Doctor of Historical Sciences, FGBUN Institute world history RAS
11. Lyustrov Mikhail Yurievich Doctor of Philology, FGBUN Institute of World Literature. A.M. Gorky RAS
12. Panchenko Alexander Alexandrovich Doctor of Philology, Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House) RAS
13. Polonsky Vadim Vladimirovich Doctor of Philology, Institute of World Literature. A.M. Gorky RAS
14. Savinov Dmitry Mikhailovich Doctor of Philology, FGBUN Institute of the Russian Language. V.V. Vinogradov RAS
15. Solovyov Kirill Andreevich Doctor of Historical Sciences, FGBUN Institute Russian history RAS
16. Stefanovich Petr Sergeevich Doctor of Historical Sciences, National Research University graduate School economy
17. Usachev Andrey Sergeevich Doctor of Historical Sciences, Historical and Archival Institute of the Russian State University for the Humanities
18. Uspensky Fedor Borisovich Doctor of Philology, Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences
19. Khavanova Olga Vladimirovna Doctor of Historical Sciences, Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences
20. Khristoforov Igor Anatolyevich Doctor of Historical Sciences, National Research University Higher School of Economics
21. Chernykh Alexander Vasilievich Doctor of Historical Sciences, Perm Scientific Center of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences

Scientific interests:

history and culture of the Old Believers, anthropology of religion, ethnocultural processes in the Ural-Volga region, visual anthropology, urban anthropology

Email mail: [email protected]

In 1996 she graduated from the Department of Archeology of the Faculty of History of the Bashkir state university. From 1996 to 2003 she worked at the Center for Ethnological Research with the Museum of Archeology and Ethnography of the Ufa Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 2000 she defended her Ph.D. thesis on the topic "Old Believers in the Southern Urals: a historical and ethnographic study." In 2007 she completed her doctoral studies at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology of the Russian Academy of Sciences and defended her doctoral dissertation on the topic “Mechanisms of self-preservation of Russian and Finno-Ugric Old Believer communities Ural-Volga". Author of over a hundred scientific publications and about ten visual-anthropological films. He is a member of the International Commission for the Study of the Old Believers at the Congress of Slavists.
From 2005 to 2009 she was the Executive Director of the Russian Association of Ethnographers and Anthropologists.
Executive Director of the Moscow International Festival of Visual Anthropology "Intermediary Camera". In 2013 she was a member of the selection committee of the International Festival of Visual Anthropology and Media in Chicago USA (SVA Film & Media Festival in Chicago) and a member of the jury of the International Festival documentaries Astra in Sibiu, Romania (Astra Film Festival Sibiu International Festival of Documentary Film).
She worked as an editor-analyst for a series of programs about the peoples of Russia “Russia is my love” on the Kultura TV channel, conducts a film lecture “The Culture of the Old Believers” in Central Museum of ancient Russian culture and art named after Andrey Rublev and film lectures on visual anthropology "Intermediary Camera" at the Zvezda cinema.

Selected publications:

“Svyatsk, because a holy place…”: a story about a village that has disappeared (to the study of biographical and religious narrative). M.: Indrik, 2012. S. 329-362.

Memories of the Chef // Kuzeev Rail Gumerovich. Scientist. Creator. Citizen. Digest of articles. Ufa: GUP RB UPC, 2012. - P. 138-144.

"The Humble Archbishop Arkady...": Some Pages from the History of the Belovodsk Hierarchy Collection scientific papers and materials. Kyiv-Vinnitsa, 2011. Issue 5. - S. 369-391.
Ethno-confessional minorities of the peoples of the Ural-Volga region / ed. E.A. Yagafova. Samara: PSGA, 2010. 264 p. with color illustration Collective monograph.

Interfaith interactions in the Ural-Volga region: Old Believers among the “foreigners” // Traditional Culture. 2010. No. 3. S. 72-80.
small provincial town in modern Russia(Based on materials from field research in the city of Davlekanovo, Republic of Bashkortostan) // Studies in Applied and Urgent Ethnology. No. 216. M., 2010.
Tatars in ethnically mixed settlements of the Ural-Volga region: features of intercultural interactions // Ethnographic Review. 2010. No. 6. S. 54-65.
Relationship folklore tradition with adaptation processes in modern Old Believers (on the example of eschatological and utopian legends) // Ethnographic Review. 2007. No. 4.
A closed society in the modern world: problems of self-preservation of the Old Believer communities of the Southern Urals // Religious practices in modern Russia: Collection of articles. M., 2006.
The Old Believers' Tradition and the Changing World // 15 Years after. Program of the 2004 conference of the International Study of Religion in Eastern and Central Europe Association 9-11 December 2004. Pázmány Péter Catolic University. Budapest-Piliscsaba.
Old Believers in the Southern Urals: Essays on History and Traditional Culture. Ufa, 2002. 225 p., illustrations, maps.

Ethnographic films:

“Home oil”, 25 min., 2012 (co-authored with E. Aleksandrov)
"Andrey from Mikhalkino", 25 min., 2010 (co-authored with E. Aleksandrov)
"Seven-Fiery Arrow", 60 min., 2009 (co-authored with E. Alexandrov)
“In the hands of summer”, 45 min., 2005 (co-authored with E. Alexandrov)
"Island of Faith", 13 min., 2005 (co-authored with E. Alexandrov)
"Uchuk", 25 min., 2004
“Kumiss from the Bashkir horse…”, 18 min., 2003

Danilko Elena Sergeevna- Specialist in the history and culture of the Old Believers, the peoples of the Ural-Volga region, visual anthropology, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Professor, Head of the Ethnographic Scientific and Educational Center of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology named after. N. N. Miklukho-Maklay of the Russian Academy of Sciences, member of the editorial board of the journal “Bulletin of the Chuvash State University.

In 1996 she graduated from the Faculty of History of the Bashkir State University, in 2002 she defended her thesis on the topic "Old Believers in the Southern Urals: a historical and ethnographic study." From 1996 to 2003 she worked at the Center for Ethnological Research of the Ufa Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In 2007 she graduated from the full-time doctoral studies at the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology named after V.I. N. N. Miklukho-Maclay of the Russian Academy of Sciences and defended her doctoral thesis on the topic “Mechanisms of self-preservation of Russian and Finno-Ugric Old Believer communities of the Ural-Volga region”. From 2005 to 2009 she was the Executive Director of the Association of Ethnographers and Anthropologists of Russia. Currently, he is in charge of the Ethnographic Scientific and Educational Center of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology named after A.I. N.N. Miklukho-Maclay RAS.

Author of more than a hundred scientific publications and about ten visual anthropological films. He is a member of the International Commission for the Study of the Old Believers at the Congress of Slavists. Executive Director of the Moscow International Festival of Visual Anthropology "Intermediary Camera". In 2013, she was a member of the selection committee of the International Festival of Visual Anthropology in Chicago (SVA Film and Media Festival in Chicago) and a jury member of the Astra International Documentary Film Festival in Sibiu, Romania (Astra Film Festival of Documentary Film). She worked as an editor-analyst for a series of programs about the peoples of Russia “Russia is my love” on the Kultura TV channel.

Region scientific interests: history and culture of the Old Believers, the peoples of the Ural-Volga region, visual anthropology

Major Publications

• Peoples of Russia / E. S. Danilko. M.: ROSMEN, 2015. 80 p. : ill. (My Russia).
• Bashkirs / otv. ed. R.G. Kuzeev, E. S. Danilko; Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology im. N. N. Miklukho-Maklay RAS; Institute of Ethnology im. R. G. Kuzeev of the Ufa Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences; Institute of History, Language and Literature of the Ufa Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences. M.: Nauka, 2015. 662 p. (Peoples and Cultures).
• Ethno-confessional minorities of the peoples of the Ural-Volga region: monograph / E. A. Yagafova, E. S. Danilko, G. A. Kornishina, T. L. Molotova, R. R. Sadikov; ed. Dr. ist. Sciences. E. A. Yagafova. Samara: PSGA, 2010. 264 p.: tsv.ill.
• Old Believers in the Southern Urals: Essays on History and Traditional Culture. Ufa, 2002. 225 p., illustrations, maps.
• The Old Faith in Chuvash: Book Tradition and Daily Practices of an Old Believer Community // Ethnographic Review. 2015. No. 5. S. 19-32.
• Old Believer communities in Chernobyl zone: the history of the village of Svyatsk // Studies in applied and urgent ethnology. No. 230/231. pp. 55-71.
• “Svyatsk, because a holy place…”: a story about a village that has disappeared (to the study of biographical and religious narrative). Moscow: Indrik, 2012-2013. pp. 329-362.
• Tatars in ethnically mixed settlements of the Ural-Volga region: features of intercultural interactions // Ethnographic Review. 2010. No. 6. S. 54-65.
• Interfaith interactions in the Ural-Volga region: Old Believers among the “foreigners” // Traditional Culture. 2010. No. 3. S. 72-80.
• A small provincial town in modern Russia (based on field research in the city of Davlekanovo, Republic of Bashkortostan) // Studies in Applied and Urgent Ethnology. No. 216. M., 2010. 24 p.
• The relationship of folklore tradition with adaptation processes in modern Old Believers (on the example of eschatological and utopian legends) // Ethnographic Review. 2007. No. 4. P.43-53.
• Historical memory in the oral traditions of the Zyuzda and Yazva Komi-Permyaks // Ethnographic Review (online). 2007. No. 2.
• Social Mechanisms for the Preservation of Traditional Values ​​(on the Example of the Old Believer Community of the City of Miass, Chelyabinsk Region) // Ethnographic Review. 2006. No. 4. P. 98-108.

Publications in the Traditions section

Sacred History and Schism in Old Believer Narratives (Based on Field Research among the Old Believers of the Ural-Volga Region)

Oral traditions of the Old Believers of the Ural-Volga region, reasoning on historical themes, unique retellings of popular stories from the Holy Scriptures.

Field ethnographic materials collected by us in 1996–2006. among the Old Believers of the Ural-Volga region (Russians, Komi-Permyaks and Mordovians) on the territory of the Republic of Bashkortostan, Orenburg, Chelyabinsk, Perm and Kirov regions RF, include various oral works. These are records of informants' discussions on historical topics, retellings of popular stories from Holy Scripture. Most of them have written analogues of both canonical and apocryphal nature, however, they are examples of a fairly free interpretation of well-known texts, built according to the laws of development of traditional or mythologized consciousness.

The Old Believers as a social and religious movement arose at the end of the 17th century. as a result of the church reform initiated by Patriarch Nikon (1652-1658) and aimed at unifying the rites according to the modern Greek model. In the course of the reform, changes were made to old printed books, and the charter of the church service was changed. Nikon's reforming activities aroused sharp resistance from part of the clergy and laity. Against the background of the concept that developed in the public consciousness of that time about the special mission of Rus' as the only guardian of Orthodoxy (the theory of "Moscow - the Third Rome"), innovations were perceived as a refusal to observe the purity of the Orthodox faith. In 1666, by the decision of the Council, all Nikon's innovations were legalized, and supporters of the ancient worship (Old Believers) were anathematized.

Already at the end of the XVII century. Old Believers faced the need to solve a number of ideological and organizational problems. With a decrease in the number of confessors of the pre-Nikonian setting, the question arose about the attitude towards the institution of the priesthood itself, dividing the Old Believers into two areas - priesthood and priestlessness. The priests considered it possible to accept "runaway priests" from the dominant church, while the non-priests, who considered the post-reform church devoid of grace, preferred to completely abandon the sacraments, for the performance of which a priest was required. As a result of further dogmatic disputes, these currents, in turn, broke up into many interpretations and agreements.

Since its inception, the Old Believers have been formed as a kind of ethno-cultural phenomenon, on one pole of which there is a bookish church culture, on the other - folk everyday life. According to N.I. Tolstoy, the interaction of these two principles - bookish and folk - gives rise to structures that are complex in semantic and formal terms.

The question of using even the most “historical” folklore genres (epics, historical songs, etc.) to reconstruct real events of the distant past has always been debatable, since creativity is based on special artistic patterns, primarily the repetition of archaic models. In this regard, we would like to consider the “historical” texts of the Old Believers, including plots from the sacred history and the history of the schism itself, exclusively as sources for studying the features of their worldview.

Nikolsky Church of the Old Believers-priests in the village. Vankovo.

Old Believers, like others confessional groups, see the world through the prism of Holy Scripture, which is referred to in various situations, to explain certain phenomena, make important decisions, confirm one's own judgments, etc. At the same time, secondary texts (metatexts) are formed, which, through the individual characteristics of the narrator (informant), through the rhetorical devices used by him, the choice of plots, keywords, emphasis on certain events, reflect the mental characteristics of the entire community.

Two types of sources can be distinguished, on the basis of which modern historical traditions are created. These are traditional stable plots, which were recorded by the collectors of the 19th - early 20th centuries, gleaned from sacred texts (the Bible, Lives of the Saints, Menaia, etc.), various apocrypha, handwritten stories, spiritual verses, popular prints. Another type of springs is already modern and has a huge variety. TV and radio broadcasts “about the divine”, sermons of priests, newspaper and magazine articles, illustrations in textbooks, etc. can become an impulse for living folk art. In addition, stories from secular literature and ordinary everyday situations heard from fellow villagers, acquaintances or neighbors can be interpreted in a “divine” key.

The ratio between written and oral text may be different. As a rule, it depends on the personality of the narrator. The greatest degree of closeness to the original text is typical for narratives recorded from mentors, priests or ordinary members of communities who are well acquainted with Holy Scripture. The stability and similarity of images is fed by the book tradition, however, as observations show, the methods of their intergenerational transmission are largely based on a developed oral culture. Often the narrators make only indirect references to written sources. Their acquaintance with the texts did not come through self-study(reading), but in the process of listening and fixing in memory. Information could have been obtained many years ago, in childhood, from older relatives:

“Grandfather read such a book to us, they write a lot of interesting things there, but now we don’t have those books”; “The old people told us, they had such books, special ones.”

Actually, for the folk tradition it does not make a significant difference in which book the retold story was recorded. A reference is made to a book in general, a book containing sacred information about everything, any knowledge in the field of Christianity. The epithet “ancient” is usually added to the characteristics of such a “Book” - “it is written in ancient books”. In the Old Believer culture, the old, in contrast to the new, is equivalent to unconditionally correct, authoritative, time-tested. To confirm the truth of the story, a double appeal to the "old" is often used:

“It's all taken from old books. The old people were talking. After all, they were closer to the divine, not like we are now.

As our field materials show, evangelical stories predominate in the Old Believer "folk Bible". Old Testament traditions are represented by stories about the creation of the world, man, the origin of good and evil, motives about the flood and the construction of the Tower of Babel are widespread. It can be quite difficult to single out and somehow classify individual motifs, since the texts tend to combine plots of different content and origin into a single narrative.

Here is one of the typical stories about the creation of the world, recorded by the Komi-Zyuzdins, where the motifs about the creation of the world, the creation of the first people and the fall into sin are rather succinctly combined:

“There was nothing at first. The Holy Spirit created everything. He created heaven and earth, distinguished water, divided it. And then people, Adam and Eve. From the earth of Adam he created and breathed into him a soul. And then he fell asleep, and he took out his rib and created Eve. And so they began to live. He created a garden, a paradise and some kind of fruit was there. Apple. And he forbade them: “You don’t eat this, it’s evil.” And the demon pretended to be a snake or something, I forgot. Or a person. The snake was there. "Eat an apple." She refused at first. And then she ate. She ate this fruit, and her eyes opened and she began to see herself naked, she began to close. She ate and fed Adam. And then God cursed them and sent them to the ground: “You will earn money with your labor, you will give birth to children in illness.” Compare with the text recorded by the Russian Old Believers in the same region (Afanasyevsky district, Kirov region): “That's how he created our whole land. Out of nothing... Why, God himself, he's so omnipotent. Our sun did not appear by itself, no, not by itself. His God our Lord created, and after all, even before he created man ... "

The cited texts, like many others, are almost identical to the written original (the Bible, the Book of Genesis), but their continuation is quite far from the canon and contains elements of archaic dualistic beliefs. According to this version, God had a brother, with whom relations did not develop quite smoothly. In the first example, the brother demanded for himself a part of the world, “his share”, the result of a quarrel was the appearance of hell: “The Lord from created heaven. And this brother flew even higher and created the sky. The Lord flew even higher and created the sky. Then he moved this brother, and he went deep into the earth. And he leaves, leaves, leaves, and remembered, he made a prayer. Isusov. And stopped. And God told him: “The living people will be mine, and the dead ones will be yours.” Though sinners, though not sinners, all were with the demon. Here, ancient mythological ideas (the creation of the world by demiurge brothers) are closely intertwined with Christian tradition: the creation of the Jesus Prayer as a means of salvation in a difficult situation. (Compare: “Jesus' prayer will get it from the bottom of the sea.”) Further, according to legend, Jesus descends into hell and leads people out of there, promising the owner of hell to fill his possessions with drunkards and harlots. Similar motives exist among the Komi-Zyryan Old Believers on Upper Vychegda and Pechora, only hell is filled with people who use tobacco. Thus, the well-known ban on smoking among the Old Believers is substantiated. The second (Russian) text also contains a description of the confrontation between two brothers (God and Satanael), the appearance of evil on earth (from a hole made by a bad brother), their rivalry due to the influence on a person.

Head of the Old Believer Church, Metropolitan Kornily

Quite common among various groups of Old Believers are oral variations on the theme of the flood and Noah's ark with a characteristic motif about the penetration of evil or a demon onto the ark because of Noah's quarrel with his wife. The motif, apparently, goes back to the Tolkova Paley (XV century). The narrative contains several etiological legends explaining why different animals that were on the ark should be treated well or, conversely, badly. For example: “The mouse, if it gets into the dishes, you need to throw the dishes away. She is a bad animal. In the ark began to gnaw the floor. The tiger sneezed, a cat jumped out of its nostrils and ran after the mouse. And the frog sat on the hole, covered it with itself, so the ark did not drown. They saved people. They must be respected."
The narrative motivation of some religious and everyday prohibitions and prescriptions, their moralizing aspect, are also found in gospel stories. For example, the ban on washing and generally working on church holidays: “Mary Magdalene, a harlot, gathered in a church on a hillock. There was a woman splashing around, and she condemned the sinner, well, mentally condemned. She went into the desert. And the condemning one rinsed on a big holiday. She condemned herself, but she also did not follow the rules. Went to hell."

A characteristic feature of oral retellings of sacred texts is the simplification of complex theological concepts, bringing them closer to the realities of peasant life, operating with understandable, simple categories. So the thesis about the immaculate conception and virginity of the Mother of God is transformed as follows: “She (the Mother of God), when she gave birth to Jesus Christ, was a virgin. She was a virgin both by birth and by death. He is not from the place that everyone left, but from here ... (points to the armpit). And after the death of a maiden. Common expressions, common in the village environment, are put into the lips of the holy virgin, with which she explains her surprise at the mission that fell to her: I washed my feet and drank water. Among Nikon's innovations was a change in the inscription of the name of God, they began to write it with two "and", the Old Believers retained the pre-reform form (Jesus).

The events of sacred history for the Old Believers are directly connected with the history of the schism itself. Orthodox Church. The split seems to be the starting point of world history, according to which the vector of the further development of mankind is determined. The beginning of Christianity and the appearance of the old faith coincide. It is the antiquity of the Old Believer doctrine that irrefutably testifies to its truth:

“By which faith Jesus Christ was born, by such faith we live”; “The worldly faith has been going on since 1666, and our Pomeranian faith has been going on for two thousand years. Noted recently"; “Our Fedoseev faith was even before the crucifixion of the Lord God. And then there was the struggle with Satanail. We fought for three days. They were angels, they became demons.

A fairy-tale motif is again woven into the fabric of the narrative - the struggle between good and evil principles, demiurge brothers, numerical symbolism (“we fought for three days”).

Head of the Old Believer Church, Metropolitan of Moscow and All Rus' Kornily

The above plots also speak of a developed sub-confessional self-awareness. Informants can present in this way not only the history of the Old Believers as a whole, but also the history of their consent, Pomor, in one statement, and Fedoseevsky in another. The essence of dogmatic disagreements, which at one time led to the formation of agreements and interpretations, is known for the most part to clergy and literate Old Believers, “scribes”, therefore, various interpretations can be found among the laity. Some can identify only two main directions - priests and bespopovtsy. A “geographical” etymology is possible: “When the persecution of the faith began, some went to Pomorye, they began to be called Pomeranians. Kerzhaks went to the Kerzhensky forests, that's why they are called so. The rejection of the pejorative name "schismatics" is manifested in the following plot: "There was a faith -" schismatics ". Then under Nikon. They were inclined towards the Old Believers, but so that they would not be killed, but, for a bleziru, a little bit there too. Apparently, we are talking about co-religionists who administratively belonged to the official church, but retained the Old Believer charter.

The main reason for the split is the correction of church books, which is perceived as an encroachment on the shrine, which has irreversible consequences for true Christians: “They changed all the books. Printed with errors. You can’t change a word, the apostle Paul also said, neither add, nor subtract, not rearrange. If you change, you will be anathema. If they have changed, you are no longer a Christian, but a heretic.”

The “facilitation” of faith, its simplification, distortion, as well as self-interest characterize the perpetrators of the reform, Nikon and Peter I, in the view of the Old Believers: “Earlier, some Patriarch Nikon softened the faith, it seemed hard to him. Who also wanted to take it easy, they followed him, but the Old Believers did not. The Nikonians say, and there is no need to observe fasts”; “Peter I did it all. I wanted a lot of income, but we have everything for free, we don’t have it.” The actions of the reformers, described in modern language, are completely blasphemous, the main thing in them is the profanation of holiness, neglect of the most important, inviolable things:

“Nikon began to change the old laws. I planted illiterate people to write, drunk, illiterate, punctuation marks were missed, prayers were mixed up. Places were missed. Someone, maybe, wrote in good conscience, a person will drink like that. How could they have been entrusted with a sacred work? Is it possible to do so?"

Consider one of the examples of Old Believer historical prose, recorded in the city of Miass Chelyabinsk region from the master of chapel consent. It is the ministers of worship - priests, mentors or active laity who show special awareness of the history of the Old Believers, knowledge evidence base, exact dates and names of persons who played an important role in it. The range of their reading is quite diverse and, as a rule, is not limited to liturgical literature.

The story begins with a description of the "terrible times" that Christians experienced with the advent of Patriarch Nikon. They were the result of the correction of books, because the holy fathers said: "Not a single letter can be changed." Nikon had an assistant - "Arsen the Greek", who tempted the patriarch to increase distortions, saying: "Correct as much as possible." And it is added: "Like Lenin." To the question "Why like Lenin?" An explanation follows: “He also said this: “The more priests we destroy, the better.” The comparison is based on the similarity of goals (destroy the faith) and even the sound of statements (“I also said so”). Thus, the desire inherent in traditional consciousness to search for analogies to single and extraordinary events or to typify phenomena, their endless repetition, is manifested here.

The following is a rationale for the idea, popular among the Old Believers, of the election of Russia (“Moscow is the Third Rome”). The narrative is built according to a well-known principle: first Rome fell away from Orthodoxy, then after the Union of Florence - Constantinople and only "Moscow, Russian state, kept the faith until Nikon. Avvakum was burned because he did not agree with the new introductions.” The narrator calls the facts that really took place, the exact dates. The system of argumentation of one's vision is based on appeals to categories, primarily of a moral order, and, characteristically, is confirmed by references to Holy Scripture. So, in his opinion, the retreat of Rome from the true faith was due to the fact that "it is a rich country", and wealth is devoid of holiness. Here, for persuasiveness, the gospel insert is given: “Rather a camel will crawl through the eye of a needle than a rich man will go to paradise.”

The content of other recorded plots is not distinguished by such historical accuracy, the sequence of events in them is periodically disturbed, and the participants may be people who lived in different eras. So, Nikon and Peter I are sometimes called the main culprits for the division of churches, they appear as accomplices acting at the same time. Folklore motifs often sound: “People from all over Russia have gathered to decide which faith is correct. We thought for a long time, wondered how to write, faith hung by a thread. And then, at the instigation of Antichrist, they decided to write as Nikon said.

A curious narrative was recorded among the Komi-Yazva people, in which the local history (the origin of the local religious community) and the history of the schism as a whole are closely intertwined and mythologized. In addition, the text can serve as a source for analyzing the specifics of the ethnic and confessional identity of the Yazvinians: “In fact, we are Old Believers refugees. There was a big church somewhere on the Don. She was very big. There was an exclamation from heaven: “Tomorrow a man will come to you with books, icons. You cut off his head." They began to pray. A man is coming. He should have cut off his head and burned his books. If this had been done, their (Orthodox) Nikonians would not have existed. They started arguing. They (the Nikonians) stayed there. And those who wanted to cut off the head ran away, here we are. The Komi-Permyaks are different, they didn’t run away, they have the Nikon patriarchal faith.”

The story of the Solovetsky rebellion, which was reflected in a number of documentary and artistic monuments, also received a peculiar interpretation: “An angel came to the king and said to him:“ You will destroy the monastery, you will burst. The king did not obey, sent troops, the monastery was destroyed, and King Herod burst. Interestingly, the main character here is King Herod, a biblical character.

As one of the patterns of functioning of traditional consciousness, researchers identify a special attitude to the category of time, when only time is linear. own life narrator. The events of this segment logically line up one after another, some milestones are indicated - internal borders (marriage or marriage, the birth of children or another plan - war, for example, etc.). And everything that was before is in a certain “spatio-temporal field”, easily changes places and becomes mythologized. Hence the unexpected, it seemed, the neighborhood of Nikon and Peter I and the reincarnation of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich into Tsar Herod. In the latter, the principle of identification is also manifested, when only one concept is assigned to one word. In this case, the key concept is "king", that is, the persecutor of faith. They can also say about Nikon "king" - "king Nikon". The wrong external incarnation of the word entails an absolute change in its meaning, as, for example, in writing the name of God: "Jesus is Christ, and Jesus is different, this is Antichrist." The same thing happens in the above story about the "schismatics", by which they mean people of a different, "intermediate" faith.

A special place in the repertoire of Old Believer historical legends about the schism is occupied by stories about its “culprits”, which are unambiguously endowed with negative characteristics - ambition, cruelty, pride. However, their biographies can be comprehended within the hagiographical genre, in which there is often a motive of sincere repentance for committed atrocities. So in one of the oral histories, the main tormentor and persecutor Nikon appears repentant and lonely:

“Tsar Nikon announced to Tsar Alexei and everyone: “I will be the most important.” Tsar Alexei did not like it, did not accept it at the feast, pushed it away 100%. Nikon went to the monastery. Was there for seven years. He waited for Tsar Alexei to forgive and bow to him. There he died. But before his death, he arranged lynching for himself: “I was wrong, I betrayed the holy faith, I destroyed many people.” He apologized to himself."

The text of the legend is replete with specific details designed to give the narrative historical authenticity, and modern language story ( “pushed 100% away”, “arranged lynching” ) removes the distance between the events of previous centuries and today's narrator. In another text written at the end of the 19th century, Nikon's wife took over the cross of repentance. Learning about the unrighteous deeds of her husband, she took the veil as a nun and devoted the rest of her life to prayers for the persecuted and unjustly offended.

On the whole, the path of the old faith appears to be a martyr's one. In the eyes of its modern adherents, the numerous sufferings that their predecessors were subjected to serve as confirmation of the special mission of the "old faith". Belonging to it requires courage and constant readiness for trials: “Nikon introduced bodily anger, killed and burned”; "True Christians will always be persecuted." The motive of "escape" is found in almost every narrative about the history of the split: "They fled from persecution to the forests, to the outskirts"; “There were persecutions. Everyone wandered off somewhere. Especially the priests, they got more”; “The 12 tribes from Jacob are scattered throughout the universe. Each tribe has its own generation from the creation of the world. When there were persecutions, the Old Believers fled to 14 countries, lived in communities in the forests. The source of the last statement is a TV show.

An echo of messianism is also heard in the ideas about the Old Believers as having been from the beginning of the world, underlying all religions that arose later: “Our elders say that there used to be one faith. Our old one. And then everything changed. Now they are looking for an easier place to pray. Where you don't have to pray much, they go there." In the next plot, the messianic idea is consonant with eschatological motives. In addition, despite the brevity, the text is very rich, it contains both the transformation of the Old Testament tradition about the Tower of Babel and the origin of languages, and Soviet rhetoric, and the main acting characters New Testament apostles appear in it: “There are Old Believers in all the republics. The apostles smashed. I found the holy spirit, they began to know languages, and dispersed to all countries. And the apostles passed on the Old Believers to everyone. That is why they are in all countries, the Old Believers. And the Antichrist will also send his enrages to all countries.”

The Old Believers’ awareness of their own mission is present in most historical narratives: “Our true faith has been preserved only in Russia”; "only 77 faiths, and the correct one is ours." Accordingly, belonging to it imposes a great personal responsibility on each of them: “There are few of us faithful left. Until then there will be no Judgment, as long as at least one faithful remains. estrangement last day Thus, the Old Believers consider it a personal duty, and see the ways of saving the world in zealous religious service: “You need to pray, keep the commandments of the Lord, then the Lord will wait.” This is seen as one of the reasons for the stability of the tradition. The messianic idea is directly related to the eschatology of the Old Believer worldview, which contributed to the formation of ideas about the greatest personal responsibility of each Old Believer as the last custodian of true Orthodoxy.

Religious procession in Gary to the Michael-Arkhangelsk sketes. Old Believers

Since the emergence of the Old Believers and throughout its history, there have been marked dates on which ideas about the approaching end of the world were updated. Their identification was based on the “number of the Antichrist” (666), the starting point could be the time of the creation of the world or some special events. Documents from the beginning of the 20th century record the presence of peculiar interpretations of theological literature among the South Ural Old Believers. So, in the report of the Ufa Diocesan Brotherhood of the Resurrection of Christ it was said:

“In the Peschano-Lobovsky repair there is a strong mentor Nestor, who, interpreting the Revelation of John the Theologian in his own way, preaches about the end of the world and in the fall of 1898 appointed his day.”

Modern Old Believers rely on the same source: "John the Theologian called the number 666, and Nikon's reform was in that year, in 1666."

Similar expectations were associated with 1900 (the change of centuries), with 1992: “The prophecies were fulfilled five years ago, now wait any minute”; “Already the eighth thousand has gone, as it is written in the Books.” Until recently, 2000, the turn of the millennium, was most often used as the final date. As is well known, an increase in the intensity of eschatological expectations, their more vivid expression and sharpness are observed during periods of historical and social upheavals (wars, reforms), the appearance of unusual natural phenomena and climate change (severe drought, comets, meteorites), as well as in connection with rare calendar dates (turn of the century, change of millennia), etc.

Despite the existence of marked turning points, the majority of respondents tend to think that "the end of the world cannot be experienced - a sin." “Jesus said: “My father did not give me the understanding to know when the death will be, only he knows.” The Holy Fathers wrote that on the eighth thousand... We can only wait, prepare for this.”

The descriptions of the last day, recorded by us in the course of field research, are generally identical among priests and bespopovtsy. Main characteristic is suddenness, surprise, events begin to unfold with unusual speed, rapidly. Natural elements are sharply activated - a strong wind, a terrible thunder. The direction from which shocks should be expected is clearly defined: "A fiery cross will appear on the eastern side of the sky." The source of destruction is fire, destroying everything in its path: “A fiery river will open from east to west.” At the same time, the fire serves as a symbolic border, sinners are on one side of the fiery river, and the righteous are on the other. Their number is insignificant: “Out of a thousand men, one will be saved, and only one woman out of darkness.” Main actor Drama Lord (Judge) is on the seventh of the heavenly spheres, gradually unfolding one after another. Thus, popular ideas about the Last Judgment as a whole repeat both the particulars and the general scheme of biblical prophecies. There are also more free retellings: "Besya will fly like angels, wreaths will burn on them, the Lord will lower Elijah the prophet."

Eschatological expectations of the Old Believers, correlated with modern world, find a figurative embodiment in a fantastically comprehended surrounding reality. In sacred texts containing descriptions of the second coming, as indispensable attributes of the day of judgment, there are cosmic turmoil, natural disasters. Therefore, sharp weather changes, unusual atmospheric phenomena and last years environmental shifts are also perceived by the Old Believers as confirming signs. These kinds of statements are often heard:

“The water in the rivers has become poisoned, and before the very end it will not be at all. Gold will be lying around, no one will need it, and there will be no water. The roads turned purple. The tractor crimsons them (spoils them, makes them bad. - E.D.)”, “The summer is now cold, and the winter is warm. Everything is the other way around, which means we are close to the end now,” etc.

The description by the Old Believers of the last times, given by researchers of the early 20th century, for example, is as follows: “It is said: there will be smoothness on earth, the sky will be copper, the earth will be iron, sorrow will be great,” coincides with the modern one: “The sky will be copper, and the earth will be iron . Nothing will grow. Everyone will die, there will be stench and grief.

Both among priests and bespriests, one of the signs of the approach of the last times is the appearance of false prophets. As you know, the dispute about the time of the coming of the Antichrist and his appearance served as one of the main reasons for the division of the once unified Old Believers into two directions. Priests, literally perceiving the biblical texts, expect the arrival of a sensual, that is, physically real Antichrist, immediately on the eve of the death of the world. Bespopovtsy tend to understand it allegorically, in a "spiritual", "inflow" sense, that is, as any deviation from faith, canon, commandments. This implies that the advent has already happened and the world surrounding the Old Believers is the kingdom of Antichrist.

Differences in the interpretation of eschatological ideas and symbols can also be traced in modern field material. So, among the priests, the Antichrist is “a living person, an unbeliever, a false prophet.” Among the non-priests, he appears in many guises and is embodied in various phenomena of real life: “everyone who does not believe in God is the Antichrist”, “doing evil to people, cursing, baptizing is wrong - this is all the Antichrist”, “everything around is the Antichrist, time now it's like this." There are also such statements: “The Antichrist came out of the sea. The sea is people, human vices. As you can see, the Bespopovites use more lengthy, non-specific explanations.

In the marginal, in fact, chapel agreement, there were supporters of both priestly and non-priestly views on this issue. Understanding the nature of the Antichrist as dualistic is also characteristic of modern chapels: “The last times, as the holy fathers say, have already come with the advent of Nikon. Not Nikon the Antichrist, but those who spread his teachings. We look forward to it both sensually and spiritually. Sensually he is a personality, but spiritually he already reigns - all laws are twisted.

In accordance with the book texts, the worshipers of the Antichrist were marked with a special sign - a seal on the hand or on the forehead. Passports, money, National emblem. Many attributes of modern reality are also perceived by the Old Believers as sinful and forbidden. Until now, some informants refuse to be photographed themselves and do not allow taking pictures of their belongings, considering the photo to be “the seal of the Antichrist.” Satanic signs were food coupons that were introduced during the period of perestroika, social numbers, etc.

It is a well-known fact that the most radical accords have long rejected electricity, radio, television, railways. Until now, especially religious Old Believers consider it a sin to watch TV, calling it a "demonic box", they avoid listening to the radio: "Someone says, and who is not visible - demonic temptation." A direct parallel is drawn with apocalyptic predictions and electric wires: "a network that entangled the sky, an iron web." Planes are called "iron birds": "It was said that iron birds will fly everywhere in the last times."

Traditionalism, adherence to antiquity as a distinctive feature of the Old Believers was noted by all its researchers. Such an idealization of the past is naturally accompanied by a critical look at the present. Modern reality is assessed as a turbulent, disturbing time, confirming the prophecies: “Before the end of the world, life will be bad, wars. Because of the wars, there will be few people left: out of seven cities, they will gather into one city. So it is, around the war.

The actions of the authorities also cause negative emotions: “Recently, the leaders in the head will become, like a child, nothing will work out, the state will collapse. That's how it works." Analyzing the relations between people, the Old Believers come to the conclusion that they have changed in negative side: "People hate each other, swear among themselves"; "There is hatred all around, brother against brother, son against father." The general decrease in the level of morality, ignoring the rules of morality, the absence of fear of punishment for sins are emphasized: “They are not afraid of sin, they do what they want”, “Women have no shame, they have abortions, they wear everything masculine”; “There is discord and strife all around, there is no agreement between people.”

So, the specificity of the Old Believer culture, like any other, is largely determined by the worldview of its bearers. It focuses on traditionalism as the main principle and is built on the interweaving of oral and written traditions. The interpretation of book texts and the transformation of any information from the outside world occurs among the Old Believers in the categories of traditional consciousness. All this is embodied in the existence of utopian legends and apocrypha, and can be traced in oral historical stories.

A large place in the religious and philosophical system of the Old Believers, developed by its ideologists, is occupied by messianism and eschatology. This has found expression at the everyday level and can be recorded by the methods of ethnographic science on regional material.