“There is Peculiar Bespopovshchina Here...”: From the History of the Old Believers of the Nizhnesaldinsky Plant

Abstract

Old Believers have been one of the most important components of the religious landscape of Russia for several centuries. Between the 18th and early 20th centuries, one of the largest centres of Old Believers in the Russian Empire was the mining Urals. Despite the large number of studies on the phenomenon of Old Belief, it should be noted that it is not well studied. This mostly applies to local centres and individual concords. This article attempts to reconstruct the history of Old Believers in the factory settlement of the Nizhnesaldinsky Plant with reference to both already known and new sources. Founded in the second half of the 18th century by N. A. Demidov, the Nizhnesaldinsky Plant was originally inhabited by natives of the Volga Region, a significant number of them being Old Believers. The role of the “Old Believer factor” in the history of Nizhnyaya Salda is evidenced by this fact: an Old Believer chapel appeared there simultaneously with the construction of the village, and an Orthodox church was only built 5 years later. It should be noted that initially all Nizhnaya Salda Old Believers belonged to the Beglopopovtsy movement (receiving priests who fled from the official Church), but in the early 19th century, part of the Оld Believers of Nizhnyaya Salda transitioned to Bespopovtsy (Pomortsy), and in the second half of the 19th century completely transformed into the radical movement of Stranniki (runners). The article reveals the motivations and reasons for these transitions. It also provides information about changes in ideological attitudes and analyses statistical data. Special attention is paid to the period between the 1930s and early 1940s, when the Soviet authorities brutally dealt with the Salda Stranniki. However, the Old Believers managed to survive the repression and adapt to the new conditions.

Keywords

• религиозный ландшафт
• урал
• нижнесалдинский завод
• старообрядцы
• беглопоповцы
• поморцы
• странники