No "škeltniekiem" uz "vecticlbniekiem": Diskurss par vecticbu krievijā 19. Gadsimta otrajā pusē - 20. Gadsimta sākumā

Ever since the schism of the Russian Orthodox Church in 17th century, the opponents of Patriarch Nikon - the "Schismatics" (Raskolniki) were considered in the Imperial Russia not only as enemies of Orthodoxy but also as unloyal members of the society. The use of the term in official documents defined a clear position that rejected the legitimacy of any form of service that differed from that of the official Church and the specific character of the Orthodox world view. Up to the middle of the 19th century the theme of the "Schizmatics" was represented mainly in the so-called missionary literature, which upheld the position of the negative character of the schism from the point of view of the history of the Church. The terms "Old Believers" (staroobriadtsi) and "Old Believers Faith" (staroobriadchestvo) became to be used only after the 1905 Manifesto, when they entered into the official documents. The social and political aspect of the schism of the Church attracts the attention of the historians and pamphleteers during the 30-ies and 40-ies of the 19^th century in connection with the debates between the Slavophiles and "the Westernizers". This discussion brought to the fore the question about the psychological and mental peculiarities of the Russian people, as well as about the causes of divisions within the Russian society/community. Looking for arguments against the views of the Westernizers favoring the positioning of Russia within the system of Western European culture and values, the Slavophiles attempted to discover the kernel of the Russian "national ideal" by way of identifying it with the religious consciousness. The theses of the Slavophiles concerning the faith of the "people" and their particular evaluation of the schism of the Russian Church presents only a modified, idealized representation of the forms that may be proposed as an alternative to the model of the Western life. The continuation of this discussion may be traced within the confrontation between the conservative (pochvenniki) and liberally democratically (narodniki) disposed parts of Russian intelligentsia. The theme of the "Schismatics" was used to talk about the power relations as against the people and the revolutionary democratic thinkers in particular. Though the Old Believers were still regarded as an "uneducated" part of the Russian people, Old Believers Faith was considered as a phenomenon of social life, as an organic (though deserving criticism) part of the Russian culture. The discussion of the last decades of the 19^th century is best characterized by the philosophical publications of Vladimir Soloviev. Within his system of filosofia vseedinstva he attempted to accentuate the contradictions within the Old Believers praxis that are to be viewed not only from the point of view of official Orthodoxy, but also from generally Christian position. Soloviev considers the schism of the Russian Church as a general "spiritual malady" (dukhovnyi nedug) of the whole Russian society, for a large part of the Russian people substituted the sacred authority of the Church with allegiance to the past (starina), which is only but one of the component parts of the spiritual tradition of the Church. Besides their own local tradition the Old Believers presented this position not as one of the forms of Orthodoxy but as the only one. The thematization of popular religiosity of the religious psychology of the people and the problematics of the schism became topical at the turn of the 19^th - 20^th centuries during the so-called Russian religiousphilosophical renaissance. Specific place within the Russian religious philosophical thought is taken by ruminations about the religious experience. The question of spirituality is viewed within the crossing point of philosophy and theology by way of accentuating of the compatibility of the ethical ideal and the authority of ritual activities in the daily life of the Orthodox believers. Pavel Florensky has turned special attention to the peculiarities of the Russian Orthodox faith. He connected the schism of the Church with radical cultural changes - as a resistance to the influence of the Western Europe Renaissance that depreciated the traditional spiritual values and the authority of the Church. The link between the Old Believers faith and the profoundest conflict within the Orthodox tradition is stressed also by Georgy Florensky and Georgy Fedotov. Both thinkers point out to the existing difference between two ideals of spirituality within Orthodoxy (the service within the "world" supported by Moscovite Russia and ascetic orientated askesis of the "Greeks"). This caused the acceptance by the Old Believers of the "national" variant thus moving away from the supra-national character of the Orthodoxy. The choice of the theme of the Old Believers and Old Believers faith by the Russian emigrē authors is to be explained by their attempts to justify or to explain the tragic collisions in the history of Russia. This type of discourse persists in non-recognition of the Old Believers faith as a religious phenomenon on an equal basis with official Orthodoxy, while the cultural tradition of the Old Believers, especially their specific customs, are considered as being maximally close to the "authentic" Russian life. Thus, they deserve positive evaluation as a phenomenon of culture, but not as a religious practice.