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One—Past and Current Interpretations of the Old Belief
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One Past and Current Interpretations of the Old Belief In the last few years, bibliographies of new books and articles and the agendas of scholarly conferences bear witness to an unprecedented surge of interest, in Russia and elsewhere, in the history and culture of the Old Believers. Not since the 1860s and 1870s and the interrevolutionary years, 1905–1917, has Old Belief attracted such wide interest among scholars and the general public. The reasons are not difficult to identify. As we are constantly reminded, in radically new political, social, and economic circumstances, Russians are seeking common values to replace the long-dead pieties of official Marxism-Leninism. The search leads in many directions, not least to Eastern Orthodox Christianity in its official and Old Believer variants. Indeed, in their enthusiasm for religiosity and religions of all kinds, Russians increasingly resemble Americans. Moreover, in struggling to create a new society on the ruins of the old, Russians are understandably searchingforworkableandculturallyappropriatemodelsofsocialorganization and political action. For both practicing Old Believers and scholars of Old Belief, the past is an obvious place to look. In a broad sense, none of this is new. The earlier surges of interest in Old Belief also were responses to the social and political issues of the day. The current flowering of Russian scholarship on the history and culture of Old Belief is the culmination of several decades of hard and careful work. Scholars published what the conditions permitted—studies on movements 6 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 of religious heterodoxy as ideological reflections of popular resistance to politicaloppressionandserfdom;editionsandtextologicalstudies;andguides to manuscript collections. Annual summer expeditions combing remote regions for old books and manuscripts have long been a familiar feature of the academic landscape. Any work we undertake builds on these efforts. At the same time, as we all know, scholars like V. I. Malyshev cultivated a much deeper and more comprehensive scholarly understanding of Old Belief beneath the surface of the printed word. In the last few years, that which was hidden has been revealed: scholars in Russia can discuss any and all features of Old Belief without Aesopian language or intellectual gamesmanship. Their most serious problem now is a familiar one to their foreign colleagues—the economics of publishing. A remarkable feature of the contemporary scene is the extent to which Old Believer studies has become a profoundly international enterprise. The prevailing currents in historical study are partly responsible for this situation. The “new history,” as my younger colleagues call it, puts heavy emphasis on the study of cultural values or “mentalities” particularly of non-elite social groups. Many studies of popular religious culture have appeared in the last three decades.1 Theclosecollaborationofhistorians,literaryscholars,andethnographers— long a feature of Old Believer studies in Russia—dovetails neatly with these scholarly agendas. Not surprisingly, then, in the last few years, important studies of Old Belief have appeared in several countries, Russian and nonRussian scholars alike have full access to unpublished written materials, the summer archeographical expedition has become a kind of international ecotourism and the international conference on Old Belief or traditional Russian culture a frequent occurrence. How we use this opportunity is surely our most important concern. The core of this chapter will consist of observations on the history and current state of the literature on Old Belief. I make no claim to present a systematic survey of the historiography of Old Belief. Before offering my reflections, I have no choice but to raise issues of definition. To begin with the most obvious question, what is Old Belief? From the mid-seventeenth century until today, officials, polemicists, and scholars alike have moved uneasily between two understandings of Old Belief— staroobriadchestvo and raskol—both well entrenched in serious scholarly writing.Bystaroobriadchestvo,scholarsmeanthegroupsofEasternOrthodox Christians who have defined and identified themselves by their rejection of certain liturgical practices of the post-Nikonian Russian Orthodox Church [3.235.251.99] Project MUSE (2024-03-28 17:34 GMT) Past and Current Interpretations of the Old Belief 7 such as the three-finger sign of the cross. This definition clearly includes members of the various accords of popovtsy (priestly) and bespopovtsy (priestless). Leaving aside its pejorative overtones, the word raskol (schism) logically encompasses a much wider variety of Russian Christians who reject their historical allegiance to the official Russian Orthodox Church, and thus it includes individuals and groups who...