The Traditional Worldview of the Khakas in the Study of the Orthodox Priest M. Aleksandrov

The aim of the article is to study the little-known ethnographic work of the Orthodox priest M. Aleksandrov "On the Religious worldview of the Minusinsk Natives". To achieve this goal, the following tasks were set: identification of motivation and methods of studying the traditional outlook and ritual practice of the Khakass people, analysis of the source base that served to write the indicated work and the characteristics of the main research results. The chronological scope of the study is limited to the second half of the 19th century - the time when the very study of the spiritual culture of this people was done. The work is based on an integrated, system-historical approach to the study of the past. The research method based on historical and ethnographic methods - scientific description, concrete historical and relict. In the process of studying this cultural phenomenon, he used and systematized extensive ethnographic materials: historical, ethnographic and folklore (heroic legends - alypty nymkhtar and fairy tales - nymakhtar). To achieve the goal, he was one of the first to use a comparative-historical method of investigation. As a comparative material he attracted ethnographic and linguistic information about the neighboring and related Khakass people - the Altaians (Altai Turks). Because of the analysis, the following conclusions can be drawn: 1) Missionary activity in Khakassia by the end of the 19th century reached its peak, during which almost all the indigenous population converted to Orthodoxy; 2) Along with this, the degree of penetration of this creed into the consciousness of local residents and their spiritual practice can be characterized as superficial. This reality explained mainly by the administrative approach in the process of their Christianization. In turn, this contributed to their indifference to the religion imposed from above. Christianized Khakass, in fact, remained a pagan, adhering to traditional religious and mythological beliefs; 3) The Russian Orthodox Church used a new strategy to improve the efficiency of proselytizing activities among the indigenous people. Clergymen try to study their language and culture more deeply, including, traditional outlook and ritual. The received knowledge called to help in the spiritual-educational activity among the "aliens" and significantly increase its effectiveness; 4) Within the framework of this missionary installation, the priest M. Alexandrov conducted the study of the marked topic; 5) His work "On the religious worldview of the Minusinsk Natives" was one of the first ethnographic studies of the XIX century, in which the picture of the Khakass world was recreated purposefully and relatively full and structural. Author's development of the analysis of the traditional world outlook was later widely used by subsequent researchers of this problem; 6) By his work, this priest made a significant contribution not only to missionary work, but also to ethnographic study of the culture of the Khakass people. Despite the fact that the study of its traditional worldview was carried out through the prism of the Christian worldview, to some extent this work contributed to the establishment of information contact between the indigenous and Russian Orthodox population of the designated region.

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