Old Believers under Sovietization: Materials of the Commissioner for Religious Denominations under the Council of Ministers of the USSR for the Astrakhan Region (1945–1950)

Abstract

   The article raises the question of a “new” stage in the Sovietization of the religious sphere in the USSR in the post‑war years. If before that there were repressive and punitive methods against believers of all confessions, then in the process of the Great Patriotic War the state began a specific “dialog” with church associations of all directions. This is revealed on the basis of regional archival materials of the Astrakhan region. In particular, trends in the interaction between the Old Believer communities and the local administration are investigated. These empirical data are given in the context of characterizing the processes of “sovietization” of these religious communities. The peculiarities of this stage of “adaptation” in the activities of various consciences of the zealots of “ancient piety” are shown. The registration of the Popovites of the Belokrinitskaya Church, as well as the Philippovites‑Popovites took place in the regional center. At the same time, the main mass of Old Believers of these directions, as well as the Bespovtsy‑Philippovtsy‑Fedoseevites, lived in several families in many districts of the Lower Volga region. Realizing that the documentary information of the Commissioner for Religious Affairs under the Council of Ministers was of an external, administrative nature, we will demonstrate both the formal manifestations of the above interactions and the specifics of confessional otherness in the circumstances of the atheistic socialist society of the region.