The Case of Blessed Nastya of Viratyino: “Hiding Behind Religious Prejudices, She Was Making Anti-Soviet Ag
https://doi.org/10.22394/2073-7203-2021-39-3-XX-XX
EDN: MRQELO
Abstract
This article studies local practices of the groups of “True Orthodox Christians” in Tambov region in the 1950s, which resulted in the criminal persecution of some of the believers. The study is based on Alexander Klibanov’s personal archive and materials form Tambov archives, as well as field research. The studied practices are divided into four groups: 1) practices of political non-participation (abstaining from participating in elections, joining public organizations, signing Soviet documents); 2) religious practices (refusal to attend an official church; meetings of believers at home; home prayer and sermon); 3) economic practices (rejecting wages, state loans, pensions and social payments; non-paying taxes); 4) labor practices (refusal to join collective farms, state farms and work at Soviet enterprises). The article argues that the local habitus of the peasants of Tambov region served as the framework for all these practices.
About the Authors
Elena Vorontsova
St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University for the Humanities
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
Valeria Elagina
St. Tikhon’s Orthodox University for the Humanities
Russian Federation
Russian Federation
References
1. 85 let Sosnovskomu raionu. Iz proshlogo v nastoiashchee (2013). [85 years of the Sosnovsky district. From the past to the present.] Sosnovka.
2. Alymov, S.S. (2010) Nesluchaynoe selo: Sovetskie etnografy i kolkhozniki na puti «ot starogo k novomu» i obratno, in Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie 101(1): 109–129. ["Non-accidental village": Soviet ethnographers and collective farmers on the way "from old to new" and back]
3. Bernshtam, T.A. (2007) Prikhodskaya zhizn' russkoi derevni. Ocherki po tserkovnoi etnografii. SPb.: Izdatel'stvo SPb-un-ta, Peterburgskoe Vostokovedenie. [Parish Life of the Russian Village: Essays on Church Ethnography.]
4. Bourdieu, P. (2001) Prakticheskiy smysl. SPb.: Aleteya. [Practical Sense]
5. Chebotarev, S.A. (2004) Bor'ba s nelegal'nymi sluzheniyami. Likvidatsiya svjatykh istochnikov, in Tambovskaya eparkhiya 40–60 gg. XX v., Tambov: "Izd. YuLIS": 181–194. [Struggle Against Illegal Ministries. Elimination of Holy Springs]
6. Danilov, V., Manning, M. (eds.) (2004) Tragediya sovetskoi derevni. Kollektivizatsiya i raskulachivanie. 1927–1939: dokumenty i materialy. Vol. 5. 1937–1939. Kn. 1. 1937. Moscow: "Rossijskaya Politicheskaya Entsiklopediya" (ROSSPEN). [The Tragedy of the Soviet Village. Collectivization and Dispossession]
7. Dem'yanov, A.I. (1977) Istinnopravoslavnoe khristianstvo. Kritika ideologii i deyatel'nosti. Voronezh: Izdatel'stvo Voronezhskogo universiteta. [True Orthodoxy. Critique of Ideology and Activity]
8. Dyukov, A.R. (2018) “K voprosu o dopustimosti ispol'zovaniya sledstvennykh pokazaniy, poluchennykh organami OGPU-NKVD”, Izvestiya vyssnikh uchebnykh zavedeniy. Povolzhsky region. Gumanitarnye nauki 3(47): 74–89. [On the Issue of Using Investigative Testimony Obtained by OGPU-NKVD]
9. Golofast, V. (2004) “Globalizatsiya i mesto morali”, Teleskop: nablyudeniya za povsednevnoy zhiznyu peterburzhtsev 2: 2–11. [Globalization and the Place of Morality]
10. Gullickson, G.L. (2008) “Emily Wilding Davison: Secular Martyr”, Social Research 75(2): 461–484.
11. Huhn, U. (2012) “S ikonami i pesnopeniyami, ili episkop, sbeshchavshii ot svoikh prikhozhan. Massovye palomnichestva v Rossii epokhi Stalina i Khrushcheva”, Gosudarstvo, religiia, tserkov' v Rossii i za rubezhom 3-4(30): 232–256. [With Icons and Psalms, Or a Bishop Who Ran Away from His Parishioners. Mass Pilgrimages in Russia During the Times of Stalin and Khrushchev]
12. Huhn, U. (2016) “Die Wiedergeburt der Ethnologie aus dem Geist des Atheismus. Zur Erforschung des 'Zeitgenossischen Sektierertums' im Rahmen von Chruschtschows Antireligioser Kampagne”, Jahrbucher fur Geschichte Osteuropas 64(2): 260–298. [Rebirth of Ethnology from the Spirit of Atheism. On the Study of Contemporary Sectarianism Within the Framework of Khrushchev’s Anti-religious Campaign]
13. Iz istorii goneniy Istinno-Pravoslavnoi (Katakombnoy) Tserkvi [From the History of Persecutions of the True Orthodox (Catacomb) Church], in Memorial[http://histoript-kt.memo.ru/, accessed on 1.11.2020].
14. Kushner, P.I. (1958) Selo Viryatino v proshlom i nastoyashchem. Opyt etnograficheskogo izucheniya russkoy kolkhoznoy derevni. Moscow: Akademy of Sciences Publishing House. [Village Viryatino in Past and Present. Experience of Ethnographic Study of Russian Collective Farm Village]
15. Lavrov, A.S. (2001) “Yurodstvo i ‘regulyarnoye gosudarstvo’ (konets XVII-pervaya polovina XVIII vv.)”, in Trudy Otdela drevnerusskoy literatury, vol. 52, pp. 432–447. SPb.: Dmitry Bulanin. [Foolishness and the Regular State (Late 17th Century – First Half of the 18th)]
16. Levin, O. (2020) “Tambovskaya eparkhiya pri arkhierepe Ioasafe (Zhurmanove): 1946–1961 gg.”, Tambovski eparkhal'nyye vedomosti 10(154): 36–41. [Tambov Diocese Under Archbishop Joasaph (Zhurmanov): 1946–1961]
17. Luehrmann, S. (2012) “Chto my mozhem znatʹ o religioznosti sovetskogo perioda? (Sopostavlenie arkhivnykh i ustnykh istochnikov iz poslevoennogo Povolzhʹia)” [What Can We Know about Soviet-era Religiosity? A Comparison of Archival and Oral Sources from the Postwar Volga Region], Gosudarstvo, religiia, tserkov’ v Rossii i za rubezhom 3-4(30): 485–504.
18. Malikova, T. (2016) Slava Tsaria Nebesnogo… Zhizneopisanie blazhennoi prozorlivoi devitsy Anastasii Krikovoi (“Nasti Viryatinskoi”) [Glory to the Heavenly Tsar ... Biography of the blessed visionary girl Anastasia Krikova]. M.
19. Mitrokhin, N. (2012) “Boleznʹ pod nazvaniem «fond upolnomochennogo» ili neskolʹko stranits ob aktualʹnykh problemakh izucheniia religioznosti v SSSR” [The Illness of “the Fund of the Commissioner”: Reflections on the Actual Problems of Research in the Field of Religiosity in the USSR], Gosudarstvo, religiia, tserkov’ v Rossii i za rubezhom 3-4(30): 505–511.
20. Nikol’skaya, Z.A. (1961) “K kharakteristike techeniia tak nazyvayemykh istinno-pravoslavnykh khristian Sovremennoe sektanstvo i yego preodolenie. Po materialam ekspeditsii v Tambovskuyu oblast’ v 1959 g.” [To the Characteristics of the Current of the So-called True Orthodox Christians in Modern sectarianism and its overcoming. Based on materials from an expedition to the Tambov region in 1959], Voprosy istorii religii i ateizma IX: 161–188.
21. Panchenko, A.A. (2012) Ivan i Iakov — neobychnye sviatye iz bolotistoi mestnosti: “Krest’yanskaia agiologiia” i religioznye praktiki v Rossii novogo vremeni [Ivan and Yakov — Unusual Saints from a Swampy Area: “Peasant Hagiology” and Religious Practices in Modern Russia]. M.: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie.
22. Sarychev, А. (2014) Sviashchennosluzhiteli, monashestvuiushchie i miriane Tambovskoi mitropolii, postradavshie za Khrista [Priests, monastics and laity of the Tambov Metropolitanate who suffered for Christ]. Tоm 3. Tambov: Izdatelʹskii dom “Michurinsk”.
23. Scott, J.C. (1998) Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve The human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.
24. Vagramenko, T. (2021) “Visualizing Invisible Dissent: Red-Dragonists, Conspiracy and the Soviet Secret Police”, in J. Kapaló, K. Povedák (eds) The Religious Underground and the Secret Police in Communist and Post-communist Central and Eastern Europe. Religion, Society and Government in Eastern Europe series, pp. 60–82. Routledge.
25. Viola, L. (1996) Peasant Rebels under Stalin — Collectivization and the Culture of Peasant Resistance. Oxford University Press.
26. Vitkovskiy, I.G. (1961) Pravda o “sviatykh” istochnikakh [The truth about the “holy” sources]. Tambov: knizhnoe izdatelʹstvo.
27. Volkov, V.V., Harhordin, O.V. (2008) Teoriia praktik [Theory of practice]. St. Petersburg.
28. Yahnovskaya, S. (2015) ““Ustarel nash kolhoznyi Ustav”. Priusadebnoe zemlepol’zovanie kolhoznikov i ego gosudarstvennoe regulirovanie (konets 1950-kh — nachalo 1960-kh gg.)” [“Our collective farm charter is outdated”. Household land use of collective farmers and its state regulation (late 1950s — early 1960s)], Rodina 4(415): 121–123.
Review
For citations:
Vorontsova E., Elagina V. The Case of Blessed Nastya of Viratyino: “Hiding Behind Religious Prejudices, She Was Making Anti-Soviet Ag. State, Religion and Church in Russia and Worldwide. 2021;39(3):244-270. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.22394/2073-7203-2021-39-3-XX-XX. EDN: MRQELO
Views:
1
Email this article 