The development of the territory of the European North by representatives of individual religious groups (on the example of the study by the narodniks of the Old Believers religious group)

Kuznetsova Natalya Yurevna Postgraduate student; Institute of History, Political and Social Sciences; Petrozavodsk State University 185910, Russia, respublika Kareliya, g. Petrozavodsk, pr. Lenina, 33 foliage.07@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Kulagin Oleg Igorevich Doctor of History Professor, Department of National History, Petrozavodsk State University 185910, Russia, Republic of Karelia, Petrozavodsk, Lenin Ave., 33 olkulagin@yandex.ru

The research was carried out at the expense of a grant from the Russian Science Foundation No. 23-28-10260, https://rscf.ru/project/23-28-10260 / conducted jointly with the Republic of Karelia with financing from the Venture Capital Investment Fund of the Republic of Karelia (FVI RK).

Researcher Alexander Stepanovich Prugavin (1850-1920) is known today as a narodnik and religious scholar, the author of a large number of publications (books, articles, essays) devoted to the Russian people and, to a greater extent, its category as "religiosity". At the same time, A. S. Prugavin simultaneously explored other aspects of people's life in imperial Russia in the late 1870s - 1910s, believing that it was the Russian peasantry that "bears the brunt of the modern system on its shoulders" ^[1], which means that this category of the empire's population deserves close attention not only from the state (as the bulk of tax payers) but also the intelligentsia.

The researcher noticed in the early 1880s that "the desire to get closer and closer to the people, to get to know them, to study them is becoming more and more noticeable in our society" ^[1]. However, different categories (bureaucracy, socio-political movements, representatives of the Church) approached the issue of the people in different ways, as they saw this as a different goal for each of them. If for the servants of the state and the guardians of the law, research on the conditions of the economic situation of the peasantry was at the forefront, then for the Orthodox clergy the question of the "correct" spiritual life of the people was acute. Also, for these two categories, the "intersection" in considering the life of the population of the empire was the problem of security (revolutionary sentiments and terrorism) and, as a result, the level of loyalist sentiments among the people.

A. S. himself. Prugavin, who adhered to populist positions, considered the people as the basis of a stable state, and considered the category of "Old Believers" to be "an example of Russianness." The religious scholar believed that, despite the great interest in the study of folk life, the number of works aimed at the peasant budget and economy prevailed. Without reducing the importance of these works, collections of materials and observations, Prugavin emphasized that in the people's environment "except for purely material needs <...> there are other needs, <...> the needs of waking thought, the needs of feeling and heart, the thirst for mental, spiritual activity" ^[1].

A. S. Prugavin: revolutionary, populist, researcher

The future well—known religious scholar was born in the north of the Russian Empire - in Arkhangelsk, Arkhangelsk province. It was the European North that subsequently played an important role in the author's appeal to the Old Believers, the formation of his views on the Russian peasantry and the formation of Prugavin as a researcher. He spent several years (1871-1873, 1875-1879) here already at a conscious age, being sent into exile from Moscow, where he studied at the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy, for participating in a student revolutionary circle.

It was during his student years that Prugavin showed interest in the problem of religious movements among the people and especially in the Old Believer question, as he came under the influence of the ideas of populism, one of the socio—political movements active at that time in Russia. Having come under the influence of the ideas of a number of well-known representatives of this movement (to a greater extent M. A. Natanson), Prugavin believed that in the Old Believers one should look for a social protest force, which, with the application of certain efforts on the part of populism, would become a bulwark for the struggle against state power. In particular, M. A. Natanson noted that "religious renegades" should be raised "to revolt against the autocracy"^{[2, p. 117]} through the "going to the people", A.D. Mikhailov emphasized that "their (schismatics') secret organization is ready to be used as a subsidiary for the people's will" ^{[3, p. 128]} it can be transformed with the right approach and preparation. Most of the ideologists of revolutionary populism proposed ideas that somehow echoed: the creation of decorated protest "organizations" in the ranks of the Old Believers through the inclusion in their social group of a certain figure who would have to take on leadership tasks (the idea of "worldly leaders" by M. A. Natanson, the activities of "cultural loners" by S. N. Krivenko or the thought of A.D. Mikhailov about "his man").

However, after fate confronted the author with representatives of the Old Believers religious community personally (during the period of exile), Prugavin realized how deep, complex and significant they were for Russian society. Later, he devoted his entire research life to studying a range of issues and problems about the religiosity of the people. And the Old Believer question occupied one of the prevailing places in the author's research. Although narodnik himself emphasized that in his works "by the word schism" he meant "the totality of all religious and everyday protests and differences of opinion of the Russian people," that is, "not only the split of the Old Believers, but also <...> sects" ^[1].

A. S. Prugavin studied intra-confessional boundaries in religious groups, their formation and features, developed his own classification of religious movements among the people, published in the book "Schism and Sectarianism in Russian Folk Life". According to this classification, "the Russian schism can be divided into three main groups: the sects of the Old Believers, rationalistic and mystical" ^[4]. In his personal fund in the Russian State Archive of Literature and Arts (hereinafter — RGALI), which has more than ... cases, among other things, the draft materials of the narodnik on the development of this classification (schemes and the "split tree") were found ^[6].

Education and economy of the Russian people through the prism of the Old Believers

A. S. Prugavin devoted almost his entire adult life to the study of Old Believers. During the period of the late 1870s — the first half of the 1880s, his first creative rise occurred, when articles and essays were published in the metropolitan periodicals, as well as several major works.

Of course, the views of a religious scholar could not but be subject to changes caused by both internal and external circumstances. For example, a religious scholar went through several directions of populism in the formation of his socio-political views: revolutionary and liberal. This led to the "transformation" of the Old Believer community in his perception — from a revolutionary force that must be raised to fight, to the awareness of the Old Believer religious group as an original and self-sufficient community from the point of view of the economic and household sphere, which could become the support of the state.

The contribution of the Old Believers to peasant life according to A. S. Prugavina allowed us to see in this religious group an example of the very Russian ideal man, in search of whom the intelligentsia was, starting with the Slavophiles. In this regard, the Old Believers as a social group living in communities, the community of Prugavin echoes the idea of a communitarian movement in which the transformation of society was supposed to be possible by changing the "inner spiritual rebirth of each individual in a small community" ^{[5, p. 88]}. Prugavin was one of the first populists in the early 1880s, when the first "going to the people" had already failed and the concept of the "theory of small affairs" was just emerging, he called on the intelligentsia interested in studying folk life to go to the people again, believing that researchers would have "opportunities to observe" and "personally have the opportunity to make sure" it is while being in the popular environment ^[6].

Education in the popular environment according to A. S. Prugavina spread largely thanks to the "schismatics", despite the fact that "everywhere and everywhere they met all kinds of obstacles and obstacles" ^{[7, p. 169]}. The facts related to education were traced by him based on the materials of the Russian metropolitan and regional periodicals. The researcher highlighted some features of this issue:

• the educational level in the popular environment, where the Old Believer population prevailed, was strikingly different for the better compared to the level of the Orthodox population due to the widespread spread of home-based education and the option of "wandering teachers",
• the main problem for the development of Old Believer education was the constant equating of such pedagogical activity with violation of the law ("spreading schism", "seduction from Orthodoxy"),
• the Old Believers, for all their special relationship with the authorities and the Orthodox Church in the matter of their children's education, sent them to state schools,
• the high level of literacy in the Old Believers' environment caused their high eonomic level.

So Prugavin noted that "rich, well-to-do Old Believers are also quite sympathetic to the cause of public education and do not refuse to donate to this cause," and gave a number of examples of such activities: a factory school in the Pokrovsky district of the Vladimir province (from the Russian Vedomosti for 1883), a two-grade school in Kudykino village and a folk school in the village of Perniki, Pokrovsky district (from the Russian Courier for 1880) ^{[7, pp. 171-172]}. Here, Prugavin refers to the undoubted advantages of the educational sphere of the Old Believers as the appearance of "properly organized and beautifully furnished pedagogically" schools, in which even modern manuals (for example, Ushinsky's books) were present ^{[7, p. 174]}. 

At the same time, the practice of home schooling, when children studied under the guidance of their parents or even more often "under the guidance of <...> the mentor of some venerable, gray-haired old man", some "cell girl" remained in use in the Old Believers everywhere. Prugavin considered the "native schools" in Guslitsy to be a vivid example of such schools ^{[7, p. 173]}. That is, according to the researcher, the question that the Russian peasantry "owes its literacy to the split <...> cannot be questioned" ^[8].

But the acute problem with the persecution of Old Believer teachers by the authorities has not gone away. As noted by Prugavin, most often at the instigation of the local clergy or the police there was an accusation of "seduction into schism", teachers in such schools came under trial, often at the instigation of the local Orthodox clergy, who saw in such activities a violation of paragraph 10 of the law of May 3, 1883. "On granting dissenters certain civil rights and on the administration of spiritual duties." That is, educational work was put on a par with the spread of religious teaching, and this, the religious scholar emphasized, was quite simple to justify, since those who were engaged in spiritual education were often responsible for studying with Old Believers — "charters, mentors and other persons performing spiritual tasks" ^[9]. It was very easy to blame them for "spreading their misconceptions among the Orthodox." In the end, such cases ended with the fact that "schools were closed, and teachers were obliged by subscription "not to teach anyone anything from now on" ^{[7, p.177]}. In addition, the religious scholar noted that "even strict police supervision could be established for persons convicted of pedagogical inclinations."

A similar fate — persecution and judicial proceedings — was noted by Prugavin, and many Old Believer printing houses (except for "government-authorized" co-religionists) expected, although "all their activities were limited only to verbatim reprinting of books published under the first five Moscow patriarchs" ^{[7, p. 182]}. And this is despite the fact, the researcher emphasized, that the benefits of such Old Believer enlightenment are undeniable, since education also contributes to the economic prosperity of the population.

Thus, according to A. S. The Old Believer population tries in every possible way to satisfy its own "urgent needs of mental life", often at the same time encountering not just misunderstanding, but persecution of the authorities. The higher a person's level of education, the more socially and economically active they become. In the popular environment, as the researcher believed, the Old Believers vividly demonstrated this. The author, relying again on the periodical press of his time, points out that "many of the schismatics are keenly following the events of modern life, subscribe to newspapers <...> Russian Vedomosti and Modern News, and the Austrian Old Believer, and the Voice, and the Country" ^{[7, p. 191]}.

The economic role of the Old Believers in the research of A. S. Prugavina, as a rule, was not displayed as a separate topic, but was organically included in the texts of many of his works. Thus, touching upon the issue of Old Believer centers as a possible protest force, the researcher argued that the latter "revealed their protesting character and really were propaganda centers only during times of persecution," and as soon as the authorities in the state relaxed pressure on the Old Believers, such places — communities, hermitages — turned into "peaceful, purely industrial communities and They seemed to be completely immersed in various kinds of commercial and other enterprises" ^[10]. As an example in one of his works, he cites the famous Vygovo community, which has become a central cultural and economic entity in its region (the European North). At the same time, Prugavin took the information from the report of the governor of the Olonets province to the Minister of Internal Affairs (material from the archive of the provincial chancellery), which he writes about. The religious scholar thus emphasizes that the highest level of government in the province received not only information about the religious component of the Old Believers, but also data on its economic strength. At the same time, local officials sought, as the researcher writes, not to extract economic benefits for the region in this case, but only to momentary enrichment at the expense of these Old Believer centers, which manifested itself in the form of "bribes and extortion." As an example in this case, Prugavin also chooses the spiritual center of the north of the empire — the Topozersky monastery, in the account book of which interesting data has been preserved. Firstly, there was even a special article in the document called "for guests", which recorded exactly the expense of "appeasement" for local authorities. Secondly, the researcher gives figures that make the reader think: in three months of 1835, the skete spent 3,064 rubles on such "appeasement" ^{[10, p. 220]}. The amount seemed impressive to the author even after almost half a century.

This practice did not save the Old Believer centers from ruin by the end of the 1850s. And already in the modern period, the religious scholar notes that where large economic units were previously located, there are (if they were not completely ruined and closed) objects that have "nothing to do with what they were in former times": there is no former economic fortress ("buildings, <...>, they are completely dilapidated and every year, <...> they are becoming more and more dilapidated and in decline"), the composition of the population has changed ("<...> most of the wanderers currently consist of various kinds of cripples and in general people who are completely helpless, ill, and elderly") ^{[10, pp. 251-252]}.

A. S. Prugavin was interested in the economic experience not only of the spiritual centers of the Old Believers, but also of the believers themselves as economic entities. The author, paying tribute to the government's statistics on the study of religious life among the people, published by his predecessors, notes that it is impossible to rely entirely on these data. Developed and published by him in 1881 . "A program for collecting information about the Russian schism, or sectarianism" ^[11] (information about the program that Prugavin proposed to collect information about religious movements among the people is also available in archival materials ^[12] contains a whole block of surveys that should help to understand their economic structure. In particular, the search for answers "in the fields" consisted in highlighting just the economic structure of the Old Believers in comparison with the Orthodox population. The researcher was interested in whether "there was greater economic well-being among sectarians compared to the Orthodox?" and, if so, how it was expressed: "the attitude of sects to various manifestations of capitalism", "various types of mutual assistance", "public funds", "artels, folds, partnerships" ^[11].

Thus, from the pages of the press, the author appeals to all those who are interested in studying the religious question and invites them to repeat the "going to the people", but no longer for propaganda purposes, but by giving such an event an organized character and increasing its scientific significance, for which such a program was necessary. The collection of such information and its systematization, according to the religious scholar, would make it possible to show the Old Believer economy as a strong economic unit. This would be especially valuable information, since Prugavin was worried about the lives of Russian "religious renegades" who were forced to flee from confrontation with the Russian state abroad. In particular, he was interested in the affairs of Old Believer groups in Romania and Molokans in the United States of America. According to Narodnik, such emigration has acquired catastrophic proportions in Russia and should have attracted the attention of the authorities, since "strong business executives" were leaving. This fact had a negative impact on the economic life of the people.  

Old Believers as a variation of the original Russianness.

Deep research experience of A. S. Prugavina, when studying religious movements in the Russian people, allows us to consider him one of the outstanding religious scholars. His desire to collect as much information on the topic as possible and critically rework it allowed the researcher to give an objective assessment. Thus, Prugavin always emphasized to his readers that he did not strive to present the Old Believers as "an exclusively progressive element in the Russian national social environment" ^{[7, P. 199]}, although after reading his works this was often the feeling, but only tried to tell an unbiased story about a significant part of the country's population, which, with the help of the authorities and the Church I got the label "dangerous".

A. S. Prugavin shows the Old Believers not as rigid adherents of "antiquity", but, supporting Kelsiev's idea that "new ideas, if only they coincide with the character of the people and make clear to them their own desires," defines Old Believers as a lively and progressive trend in terms of accepting new influences and new ideas that "bring new ones with them strength, new energy and vitality" ^{[4, pp. 92-93]}. If adherents of the communitarian movement wrote that in order to see a cultural Russian village, it is necessary to achieve "the inner spiritual rebirth of each individual in a small community" ^{[5, p. 89]}, then Prugavin already saw the existence of such a ready-made practice in the Old Believers' environment (instilling culture and the ability to think through education and Christian upbringing). And here he acts as an opponent, for example, to N. N. Neplyuev, who believed that "the problem of Russia is that no one embodies their (Christian ideals)" ^{[5, p. 97]}.

Russian Russian historian A. M. Etkind, who touched in his works on the connection of the Russian liberation movement with popular religiosity and traditional Russian sects, called A. S. Prugavin was an "ethnographer — sectarian" and "the greatest expert on the Russian schism" ^[13]. Like many before and after him, A. S. Prugavin admired the Old Believers, but not thoughtlessly, but only after deep and painstaking work on the study of this religious phenomenon among the Russian people. Russian Russian question At the end of the twentieth century, A. I. Solzhenitsyn, considering the "Russian question", emphasized that it was the Old Believers in Russia who constituted the "root of the Russian people" ^[14]. Prugavin, having spent his entire adult life researching the religious issue, having studied the experience of developing the northern territories, comparing the Old Believer with the ideal image of a man from the people, rightly emphasized that the Old Believers could be that example of a "strong Russian peasant", the search for which was conducted by the intelligentsia ^{[15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20]} on the span of a century.