The Traces of the Old Believer Culture in V.M. Shukshin's Fiction

The aim of the study was to reveal the role of the Old Believer culture in V.M. Shukshin's model of history, space and man. The information was gathered from Shukshin's fiction and literary studies. The validity of addressing the indicated problem is confirmed by the presence of a special vocabulary in the writer's texts (Kerzhaks, dissenters, dvuperstniki [those crossing themselves with two fingers], Archpriest Avvakum, Patriarch Nikon, the Kerzhenets River, the Solovetsky Monastery, "old" and "new" faith). In addition to the obvious references to the Old Believers, the texts contain motifs and images, implicitly referring to the Old Believers (Be-lovodye, the hidden church). The study showed that the Old Believer culture is a sign of a specific real time (17th century) and place (Siberia) in Shukshin's artistic world. In the writer's spiral model of time, the Split of the 17th century "rhymes" with other periods of national discord (the era of princely civil strife in the 12th century, the revolution and civil war at the beginning of the 20th century). The history of the Old Believers is associated with the history of the Russian development of Siberia, the ethnogenesis of the Russian Siberian. To some extent, the "Old Believer" element of a Shukshin character is synonymous to the "Siberian" (narrower to "Altaian", broader to "inherently Russian") one. Shukshin extensively addresses the topic of the Split in his novel I Came to Give You Freedom about the events of the 12th century: in the images of Avvakum and Nikon, Razin's dialogue with the "patriarch" about the essence of the "old" and "new" faith, the Solovetsky Monastery. Intra-confessional disputes do not become the subject of the writer's reflection. The solution of the question of faith in general and of freedom as liberation from the Christian dogma is much more significant for him. The Solovetsky Monastery, in its real and virtual realization, organizes the plot of Razin's "liberation" from the shackles of religion that constrain his freedom. The Old Believer culture is a specific manifestation of the leading issues of the writer's works: freedom-as-feast and the axiological normative institutions that limit it (church, family, state, etc.). Thus, the results of the study showed that, although the Old Believer culture is not the leading component of Shukshin's works, its traces are found in the space-time and character organization of the writer's artistic world. They are included in the problem field of larger worldview questions: freedom-as-feast, faith in God, life and death.

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