Polemic culture of the Old Believers and the structure of a manuscript collection of the late 19th century: features of interaction

The article is devoted to the problem of studying a handwritten Cyrillic collection in the context of the polemical culture of the Old Believers of the late 19th century. An attempt is made to analyze this book, its attribution and to determine the principles of grouping the texts included in it. The book contains 52 works of pre-Reform origin. It should be noted that the first work ("A conversation between a scribe and a boy") sets the general "narrative" tone of the entire collection, which is why, apparently, it was located at the beginning of the collection. As part of the compilation, the composition loses its moralizing motives which confirmed the incomprehensibility of knowledge about God and concentrates the reader's attention solely on the need for a decisive and convincing "stand for the ancient piety". In the second part of the collection, the little-known "Testament of Martyn, a Christian" is presented. The work continues the polemical theme designated in the collection by an introductory fragment. The following forty texts serve as a "convoy" in relation to the first two works. The secondary character of these works in the structure of the collection is indicated by their volume which does not exceed two to three pages. Despite the apparent disorder of the works, they are nevertheless united by the main problems: (1) rules of preaching; (2) eschatological reasoning; (3) hagiography of the martyrs; (4) "contamination" from the gentiles. Works on various subjects constantly alternate inside the "block", with each of the micro-topics repeated many times. According to the concept of the author of the collection, hagiographic works had to be separated from each other by essays of the escha-tological genre, which would strengthen the readers' attention to the text constantly changing its style. A conclusion is drawn that in view of the incentive effect that hagiography had on the reader together with dogmatically developed texts, the compiler ultimately counted on the rapid growth of the number of his own community and soglasiye [confession]. The next significant block of texts in the collection is represented by four works belonging to the pen of Ephraim the Syrian. Apparently, the inclusion of these works in the compilation should be explained by the desire of the compiler to provide the collection with a high level of readers' trust. The final block of texts is represented by three collections of apostolic, conciliar and patristic rules. A great deal of attention is given in the sample to the regulation of family and sexual relations. The nature of the texts makes it possible to say that the compiler of the collection was a convinced supporter of marriage. Adherence to marriage excludes the possibility of the compiler's belonging to the large Siberian soglasiyes of Stranniki, Fedoseevtsy and Filippians. The most likely compiler of the collection could be a representative of the Pomorian soglasiye that, to a large extent, did not lose its radicalism even by the end of the 19th century.

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