Larisa Denisovna Demidova,
Candidate of Historical Sciences, 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.
Petition of Monk Avraamii in the Term Papers of Students of the Moscow Theological Academy (1864−1905)
DOI: 10.31518/2618-9100-2025-3-16
Term papers by students of the Moscow Theological Academy, dedicated to the study of the Petition of the monk Avraamii (1670) is only a small part of the works on the schism of the Russian Church in the 17th century, which have been preserved in the archives of the Moscow Theological Academy. This church educational institution became one of the centers for the scientific study of the Old Believers in the second half of the 19th century. Four works by students Vasily Lebedev, Konstantin Orlov, Stefan Zverev and Mikhail Solovyov were written in 1864, 1878, 1884 and 1905 respectively. Over the years, the scientific study of the problems of the schism of the Russian Church and the formation of the early Old Believer ideology has come a long way: many sources have been put into circulation, general and special research works have appeared. Academic papers were subject to the same source study problems that experienced authors of printed works faced at the time. However, independence of research was determined by the abilities and talent of the author. For example, S. Zverev, thanks to his general good erudition, was able to pose a number of interesting research problems in his work. On the contrary, M. Solovyov, who inherited the wealth of pre-revolutionary historiography on early Old Believers in almost its entirety, showed the least independence in studying the topic. The manuscript used by the students (RSL, f. 173.3, ms. 57) is notable for having both owner’s and numerous researcher’s notes. Their content is consistent with the observations on the text that were expressed both in student works and in N.I. Subbotin’s comments on the publication of Avraamii’s works. Research notes on manuscripts could certainly both provide for the “transmission” of observations on the text from a representative of one student generation to a representative of another, and also influence the formulation of the problems under consideration. The process of exchanging scientific knowledge between students and teachers of the Moscow Theological Academy was apparently mutual. There is reason to say that N.I. Subbotin, who came up with themes of the students’ works and acted as their reviewer, take into consideration the students’ observations on the text in his own publications, and reading the students’ works could have stimulated his own research, reflected in the comments on the publication of the oeuvres of the monk Avraamii.
Publishing: 28/06/2025
The article has been received by the editor on 04/04/2025
How to cite: Demidova L.D. Petition of Monk Avraamii in the Term Papers of Students of the Moscow Theological Academy (1864−1905) // Historical Courier, 2025, No. 3 (41), pp. 235−248. [Available online: http://istkurier.ru/data/2025/ISTKURIER-2025-3-16.pdf]
The article was made on the topic of the state assignment “The Past in the Manuscript Sources of the 16th−20th Centuries: Preservation and Development of Traditions” (FWZM-2024-0006).
Links: Issue 3 2025
Keywords: Moscow Theological Academy; N.I. Subbotin; schism of the Russian Church in the 17th century; early Old Believer movement; monk Avraamii; Petition of 1670