Ural Skete Dwellers in the “Chulym and Kolyvan Taiga” (From the History of the Old Believers of the Tomsk Region at the End of the 19th — First Third of the 20th Centuries)

DOI: 10.33876/2311-0546/2023-2/184-194

Abstract

One of the main tasks in studying such a complex and contradictory phenomenon as Russian (and Siberian) Old Believers is the study of local centers of different consents and interpretations. We firmly believe that only this approach makes it possible to recreate a complete, three-dimensional "picture" of the phenomenon of Old Believers in Russia. The article is devoted to the reconstruction of the history of the little-known (nowadays) Old Believers' skete center, which appeared in the last quarter of the XIX century in the Tomsk province and existed until the end of the 1930s. The author pays special attention to the reconstruction of the biographies of skete dwellers, most of whom were natives of the Urals and lived in various Ural sketes before moving to Siberia. The comprehensive use of sources of both Siberian and Ural origin made it possible to significantly expand our understanding of these people, and in some cases quite fully reconstruct the biographies of prominent elders (starets), about whom little has been known until now. The paper also covers the issues of the periodization of the migration movement of the Ural skete dwellers to Siberia and the reasons for many Old Believers to migrate to the Tomsk province. It describes their life in the new conditions and problems that led to a new migration in the 1930-s to even more remote lands – to the banks of the Yenisei.