Old Believers in a Changing World: Polish Narratives of World War ll

Two—Old Belief as Popular Religion: New Approaches

Two Old Belief as Popular Religion New Approaches In recent decades, the rediscovery of historical ethnographyinWesternhistoriographyhasproducedanextensiveliteratureon “popular Christianity” in many European societies.1 Until recently, however, thishistoriographicalcurrenthasexercisedverylimitedinfluenceonhistorical study in the former Soviet Union. In one sense, Russian historians had no need for such influence; the populist tradition in Russian historiography and its continuation in Marxist-Leninist attire meant that the study of popular attitudes and beliefs was hardly the novelty it was in other countries in recent decades.Atthesametime,Russianscholarsofthatcountry’shistoryhadavery limited voice in the international debates on the nature and impact of popular Christianity for several reasons. For one thing, the extreme difficulty of openly studying the religious dimensions of popular culture placed severe limitations on the issues that they could discuss in print.2 In addition, economic and political conditions have made access to contemporary Western European and American publications problematical at best. For all of these reasons, scholars writing outside the former Soviet Union have made the most interesting recent attempts to characterize Russian popular Christianity.3 Some of these essays present somewhat idealized recreations of Russian Orthodox spirituality as epitomized, for example, by the neo-hesychast mystical revival of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Other authors concentrate on the syncretistic religious practices of ordinary believers who, in their daily lives, blended elements of Eastern Orthodox 18 O l d B e l i e v e r s i n a C h a n g i n g W o r l d doctrine and practice with pre- or non-Christian folk beliefs and rituals. Their writings have as yet had little impact on broader discussions of popular religion on a European or worldwide scale. On the other hand, Russian theoreticians and scholars of Western European traditions do play central roles in international discussions of popular culture. M. M. Bakhtin’s theories (for example, the “carnivalesque” and “heteroglossia”) inspire the works of many contemporary historians and literary scholars.4 On a more concrete level, historians studying Western Europe in the Middle Ages praise the books of A. Ia. Gurevich, now available in translation, as among the most stimulating works on the history of European popular religion to appear in recent years.5 In this chapter I will reexamine the Old Believers in Russia in light of recent discussions of popular Christianity in Europe. The disparate groups that made up the Old Believer movement emerged in the second half of the seventeenth century in reaction against the liturgical reforms of Patriarch Nikon(1652–1667)andotherchangesinthechurch,state,andsociety.6 Once they had codified their beliefs, established liturgical practices, and organized communities, they articulated a more conservative understanding of Eastern Orthodoxy than the established Orthodox Church; and they regarded themselves as the only true bearers of authentic Christian belief and practice and the Russian national tradition in faith and culture. Long persecuted by the imperial government and the official church, the Old Believers stubbornly defended their convictions and practices and, when given the opportunity, proved remarkably adept at surviving, coping, and prospering in a sinful world.7 Although in this chapter I will concentrate on the Old Believers in the period between the mid-seventeenth century and the revolution of 1917, the main branches of the movement still survive in the former Soviet Union and in emigration and, like other religious confessions, are undergoing a revival in Russia thanks to recent political changes.8 The authors of the many recent works on the history of popular culture and beliefsinWesternEuropehavewrestledwithanumberofsignificantissues.9 The very word “popular” both shapes and confuses the discussion: which “people” are meant? Many scholars use the term broadly to include peasants, the urban poor, and other lower-class groups.10 Others, however, limit the “people” to the illiterate.11 The latter distinction presents several serious difficulties: it fails to take into account the gradual extension of literacy in European societies in the “early modern” period, the differing levels of competency in reading and writing among the nominally literate, and the continual interaction between literate and illiterate members of many societies. To cite a Russian example, Old Belief as Popular Religion 19 in Old Believer practice reading aloud was intended to introduce illiterate believers to complex written texts.12 Other scholars of “popular” religions make distinctions between the clergy and the laity: as they point out, nobles shared popular religious traditions with peasants.13 This approach also poses difficulties, not least the fact that...