6. New Sources

Old Believers’ Utopian Literature: Russian Version of Civitas Dei?

The material was received by the Editorial Board: 2015-10-25

The article reconstructs the utopian text fixed in Old-Believers’ manuscripts of the 18-20th centuries. The utopian texts are considered as a reflection of mythopoetic conscious­ness. The Old-Believers’ utopia is based on the actualization of eschatology and is manifested as a complex of motives in literary texts. The utopian text is primarily a world view-related phenomenon showing the folk-Christian tradition of ideals that are religious and eschato­logically aligned. The ideals are shown to be linked with the theory of salvation in the world of Antichrist, the set of mythologemes idealizing the past and ancient archetypes typical for the folk-religious culture. The analysis is based on Old-Believers’ manuscripts, which is a novelty. Links between the Old-Believers’ utopia and the ideas of European utopian literature are discussed.

Keywords: Old Believers, eschatology, utopia, myth, Vyg, folk-religious culture.

Old Believers’ Utopian Literature: Russian Version of Civitas Dei?
References: Olga D. Zhuravel Old Believers’ Utopian Literature: Russian Version of Civitas Dei?. Universum Humanitarium (En). 2, #1. P. 75–89.