Пътищата на спасението в историческата памет на липованите край Дунава
Ways to Salvation in the Historical Memory of Lipovanians along the Danube

Summary/Abstract: The subject of this research draws attention to Russian Old Believers and their settlements on the Danube River and to the occurrence of modern enclaves. The author analyzes materials based on the historical memories of the settlers from Ukraine, Romania and Bulgaria, and also on sources from 19th and 20'" centuries. These are folklore data of various genres (fairy tales, legends, fables etc). The uniting factor is the theme about the origin of the community, which is chronologically a hundred years past, i.e. two or three previous generations. In modern oral history or folk-study such situations carry to mythical, instead of "documentary" narratives. We shall try to show that similar reflections can be involved in reconstruction of features of historical consciousness. It can be seen in a context of disclosing the phenomenon of diversifying of history — global mainstream processes break up to plurality of viewpoints (local histories) on the same events. This phenomenon is shown to pattern the unwritten history in modern conditions. The oral character of such knowledge is due to the necessity to consider the past in discrepancy with the official historiography of the countries where the community lives. Not before the end of 20th century there appeared the first professional versions of community history, which include it into the process of the general history of the countries. Special attention is paid to vertical translation of legends, and also to motives of their functioning. In particular, the eschatological plots, the strife for justice in life as a basis of perception of history, and the actual migrations of the community in the past are analyzed. The local past at the level of separate communities and families is included in the patterns of the world outlook of the Old Believers, and they, in turn — retrospectively satirize precedents in modern practice.

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