Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2017 number

The clergy and officials were notable and significant social groups, played an important role in the empire and its management. They were connected together with complex and ambiguous relationships. The character of these relationships was influenced by the clergy’s ideas about officials and officials’ ideas about the clergy. The article examines the image of officials, formed in minds of the Siberian priests of the XIX century. In order to identify its main components, the memorial-epistolary works created by representatives of the clergy are used, as well as their reports and journalistic works, all these texts are united under the term «notes». An analysis of the texts showed that the important component of the image of a «good» official for the clergy was his / her devotion to the Orthodox faith, so the Catholic Poles were often presented in the most negative colors, while officials with liberal views were accused at best in «indifference» towards Orthodoxy, at worst - in nihilism. Direct opponents of Christianity were those people who were indulgent towards Buddhism, visited datsans, attended shamanistic rituals and invited shamans to towns for a demonstration. In the views of missionaries, «good» officials had to help the Orthodox mission and its activity, patronize christened non-Russians. Some hierarchs and ordinary priests highly valued honesty, conscientiousness, energy, experience and understanding of the needs of the region and the population. An important criterion was a respectful attitude of officials to the clergy. The notes contain images of officialdom in general, of its certain groups and particular officials - real people with their individual human qualities. Generalized images are less common, they were created mostly by heads of dioceses who were more educated, more inclined to journalism and possessed a literary gift. In missionaries’ notes one often can see the most negative ideas about the lower strata of officialdom. The notes of the Siberian priests created «personal and everyday image» that became the basis for a stereotype, the way to organize of the clergy’s collective memory and to form of its collective identity.