Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2014 number

The aim of the article is to check the concept of “Russian orthodox landscape” against the historical record of the Tobolsk mеn’s monastery in the XVII century. By “orthodox landscape” the author means a system of religious objects arranged on a certain area and forming its territorial integrity. The monastery with the Church of Saints Zosima and Savvaty of Solovki is believed to be built on the right bank of the river Irtysh in 1595/96. Change of location led to renaming the monastery - the Uspenskiy (since 1609/10), the Znamenskiy (since 1624). The author proves that it is erroneous to suppose that the men’s monastery was established in Tobolsk before 1595/96, and expresses doubts about the existence of the Zosimo-Savvatievsky monastery. These doubts are based on the fact that according to the documents of the first quarter of the XVII century the tradition of honoring Zosima and Savvaty is not traced in the churches’ names and iconostasis of the Uspenskii and the Znamenskii monasteries. It originated in the monastery only in the second quarter of the XVII century and was reflected in the fact that a side-chapel of the Znamenskaya church was dedicated to these saints. In the last quarter of the XVII century a chapel dedicated to the saints of Solovki appeared in the Kazanskaya church. In the authors’ opinion it was connected with creating a tale about the Znamenskiy priory as a predecessor of the Zosimo-Savvatievsky monastery. The monastic community faced the need to identify its historical roots when the monastery changed its status within the sacred space of Tobolsk. Previously it had been a resting place for the feeble veterans of the civil service and a place for exile of the disgraced monks. After the establishment of the Siberian diocese it began to play the role of an ecclesiastical centre closely connected with the Tobolsk archbishops. The important step in that process was the discovery of the miraculous icon Our Lady of Kazan in the Znamenskii monastery in 1661. According to the author’s hypothesis, the Tobolsk monastery rose from a hermitage which appeared near Tobolsk before 1609/10. It was a home to a few monks and, most likely, there was no church. In 1609/10, they moved to the Uspenskii monastery, which was built by the service people preparing a shelter for their old age.