Kazantseva Tatyana G.,
Candidate of Art History, State Public Scientific-Technical Library of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russia, e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
About the Eternity of “Angelic God-inspired” Singing: Based on the Materials of the Polemic Collection of Old Believers Stranniky (Wanderers) “Izumrud” (“Emerald”)
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2020-2-12
The article gives a reconstruction of the system of musical and aes-thetic representations of one of the factions of the Russian Old Believers – Stranniky (wanderers). The reconstruction is based on the materials of the polemic collection “Emerald”, compiled by the fathers of this community in the 1910s. Articles devoted to questions of liturgical singing are available in volumes I and III of the collection. They do not constitute a coherent author’s text, but are collections of quotes from patristic, Church-Law, historical literature and fiction. The quotes are grouped according to different aspects of the theme of liturgical singing into verses and articles. A study of the content of these quotes made it possible to establish a clear position of Old Believers Stranniky mentors on liturgical singing. This position is manifested in the selectivity of quotations, the logic of their arrangement in chapters, in the wording of theses and titles of articles. This position is based on the theory of angelic singing, traditional for Orthodoxy, actualized in the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite. According to this theory, liturgical singing is a form of earthly reflection of the praise of the Lord by the ranks of the heavenly hierarchy. Angelic praise is primordial and eternal, and this is the guarantee of the eternity of human angelic singing. The compiler of the collection seeks to fit the liturgical tradition of his agreement into a common unbroken line in the history of Christian liturgical singing, the beginning of which was laid by Christ and the apostles. According to the concept formed on the basis of quotes, this singing finally took shape in the Byzantine Church, was brought to Russia through Greek singers and transmitted through the Solovetsky monks and inhabitants of the Vyg hermitage to Old Believers Stranniky who were proclaimed the only guardians of the angelic God-inspired singing in its pristine and undistorted form.
Publishing: 29/04/2020
How to cite: Kazantseva T.G. About the Eternity of “Angelic God-inspired” Singing: Based on the Materials of the Polemic Collection of Old Believers Stranniky (Wanderers) “Izumrud” (“Emerald”) // Historical Courier, 2020, No. 2 (10), pp. 158–168. [Available online:] http://istkurier.ru/data/2020/ISTKURIER-2020-2-12.pdf
Links: Issue 2 2020
Keywords: Old Believers Stranniky (Wanderers); polemical collection “Izumrud” (“Emerald”); musical aesthetics; Orthodox Church; sources