Bogdanov V.P. The Old Believers' Booklore and Old Believers' books in the 20th-21st Centuries: on the Material of Polemical Works

Abstract: The study continues the author's research in the field of the Old Believers' booklore. The widespread interest in this topic is founded primarily by the fact that the Old Believers' culture in many ways grew out of a careful treatment of the ancient book. The general reasons for the topic's development are formulated in the works of N. Y. Bubnov, N. S. Guryanova, I. V. Pozdeeva, N. N. Pokrovsky and others. At the same time, many studies are of a descriptive nature. The suggested by O. N. Bakhtina and E. E. Dutchak approach ("social archaeology") has allowed to tie the questions of the use of one or other monuments by the social environment in which they existed. In the presented article, based on the principles of this approach, the author attempts to trace the changes in the reading circle of the Old Believers in the 18th - 21st centuries. In contrast with the previous article, which was based on an analysis of the content of Old Believers' libraries in the second half of the 20th - 21st centuries, this new work is based on the polemical texts of the Old Believers. To these one can rather conditionally call upon not only the works written as a reaction to the leading discussion, but also the texts of the Old Believers on the history of their agreements. As a rule, the latter were written also as part of a polemical discussion with their opponents. On the basis of the polemical works of the 20th century, created primarily in South Vyatka and Verkhokamye, on the information of field diaries, the author traces the fates of Old Believer scribes and reconstructs their collection of reading. The article shows the transformation of the relationship of different generations of tradition-bearers towards polemical monuments composed by their fellow believers and their perceptions of the information contained in them.

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