THREE VIEWS ON THE «DEVASTATION» OF THE OLD BELIEVERS’ DUBCHESSKY SKETES IN 1951
A.V. KOSTROV1, S.V. BURAEVA2
1Irkutsk State University, Irkutsk, Russian Federation
2Institute for Mongolian, Buddhist and Tibetan Studies SB RAS, Ulan-Ude, Russian Federation
Keywords: Old Belief, Chasovennoe consent, Yenisei Siberia, Dubchessky sketes, pogrom of 1951, historical memory, historiography
Abstract
Old Believers were persecuted both in the Soviet and Imperial periods. Therefore, traditional distancing of this broad movement’s followers from the authorities has long internal and external reasons. The chapel consent representatives form the most striking and massive group that preserved both the Old Orthodox rite and classical Old Believer attitudes of worldview and practice. Members of this group are mainly settled from the Urals to the Far East, and from Argentina to Alaska. However, the spiritual center of this Old Believer church is located in Yenisei Siberia and presented by a network of remote taiga monasteries. They were brought here from Western Siberia between 1917 and 1940, and made up three skete groups - Verkhovsk (located in Tuva), Bezymyansky and Dubchessky (located in the west and north of Krasnoyarsk Region). Due to the Tuvan People’s Republic entering the Soviet state after the anti-religious struggle peak and against the background of indulgent confessional policy in wartime, the Verkhovsk sketes were not subjected to a total pogrom. This fact allowed N.N. Pokrovsky and other Novosibirsk scientists in the 1960s to make the famous “archaeographic discovery” of Siberia just there. Dubchessky monasteries had a different fate: they were devastated in 1951, which was similar to the pogroms of the skete centers undertaken by the authorities during the Imperial period. This dramatic plot was reflected in both the historical memory, culture of chapel harmony, and external reflections. This research gives the analysis and comparison of different views on this pogrom history. First, this is the perception of the Old Believers themselves embodied in their prose and poetry, visual arts, individual and collective memory. Second, the view of the repressive side including the operation participants, whose letters are at the disposal of scientists. Third, the view of secular writers turned to this story - A.I. Solzhenitsyn and M.S. Perevozchikov. The study concludes with the analysis of stereotypes created by these sources and influencing expert and public opinion.
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