Home – Home – Jornals – Humanitarian sciences in Siberia 2018 number

The study objective is to analyze the state policy in the field of church construction in the resettlement villages of Siberia in the regions of intensive peasant colonization. The study object is the nature, direction and mechanisms to implement government assistance to new settlers in satisfying their spiritual needs. The state activities in the sphere of church construction are considered in the context of socio-cultural and civilizational approaches. It allowed revealing the social significance of the church in the social life of peasant migrants. The institutional approach elements were used as scientific tools, - which allow considering the church not only as an instrument of ideology, but as an institution socially significant for the peasants and playing an important role in their daily life. Church construction is regarded as an important mechanism to adapt settlers in the colonized areas. The use of archival documents made it possible to prove that the initiators of churches and temples building were often peasant migrants themselves. The analysis of the state aid mechanisms in the sphere of church construction showed that during the period of the Siberian Railway Committee’s activity, the church construction in resettlement villages of Siberia was financed through charitable donations and departmental sources. During Stolypin’s reforms, the churches’ construction was carried out at the expense of the Synod and budgetary funds in the form of loans, which in 1913 were turned into non-repayable benefits. The archival materials analysis led to the conclusion that the state was not only concerned about immigrants of the Orthodox religion. Under the law on loans, funds were given to construct churches, quail houses and temples for Catholic immigrants, Lutherans and Old Believers as well. The author concludes about the state policy’s flexibility in satisfying spiritual needs of new settlers. The main scientific result of the work is the conclusion about the social character of government assistance to immigrant peasants in the field of church construction in Siberia at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries.