Tamara Vasil’evna Panich,
Doctor of Philology, Institute of History 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.
Leaders of the Ural-Siberian Old Believers in the “Siberian Epistles” by Ignatius (Rimsky-Korsakov)
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2023-2-9
The “Siberian Epistles”, which occupy an important place among the accusatory and polemical works devoted to the struggle against schism, were written by the Siberian and Tobolsk Metropolitan Ignatius (Rimsky-Korsakov) in the 90s of the 17th century. The essay is directed mainly against the spiritual leaders of the Ural-Siberian Old Believer movement, in whose activities Metropolitan Ignatius saw a great threat to the Church. A huge place in the polemical discourse of the author of the epistles of bishops is devoted to criticism and denunciation of specific representatives of the Ural-Siberian anti-church protest: Iosif Astomen, Yakov Lepikhin, Avraamiy Vengerskiy, Vasily Shaposhnikov, Fyodor Tarsky and other leaders of the Old Believers of the Trans-Urals. The article examines the images of these historical characters, reveals the peculiarities of the author’s interpretation of the personality of each of them in the pages of the “Siberian Epistles”; defines the techniques and literary means of depicting the ideologists of the Ural-Siberian split; the author analyzes the nature of the author’s strategy and the attitude to the described “heroes”. Metropolitan Ignatius expresses his own opinion about each of them, and by all available means seeks to present the “schism teachers” in the most negative light. At the same time, he turns to the means of artistic narration, uses epithets, comparisons, motives and images of Holy Scripture, etc. Ignatius accuses the Old Believer leaders of heresy, and some of them of witchcraft (for example, Fyodor Tarsky and his disciple Anton Chupalov). For the author of the epistles, they are all ideological opponents, spreading dangerous teachings and involving new adherents from among the representatives of his flock in the ranks of opponents of church reform. The strategy chosen by the author of the “Siberian Epistles” was determined by the desire to expose the Old Believer leaders as the exponents of this doctrine directed against the patriarchal Church.
Publishing: 28/02/2023
The article has been received by the editor on 03.02.2023
How to cite: Panich T.V. Leaders of the Ural-Siberian Old Believers in the “Siberian Epistles” by Ignatius (Rimsky-Korsakov) // Historical Courier, 2023, No. 2 (28), pp. 108–116. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2023/ISTKURIER-2023-2-09.pdf]
The article was made on the topic of the state assignment “Memory of the Past in Written Sources of the 16th–20th Centuries: Updating Events, Broadcasting Cultural Traditions, Research Practices” (FWZM-2021-0005).
Links: Issue 2 2023
Keywords: Metropolitan Ignatius of Siberia; “Siberian Epistles” (1696); leaders of the Ural-Siberian Old Believers