Сохранение и утрата христианских икон на территории Коми-Пермяцкого округа в XX – начале XXI века

Abstract

The article is devoted to the problem of preservation/loss of religious objects in the Soviet and post-Soviet times on the territory of the Komi-Permyak District. The policy of looting churches and destruction of religious objects was adopted by the state since the beginning of the establishment of Soviet power in Russia At the same time the people reacted to these events in different ways, there were attempts to save both domestic and temple icons. These processes remain poorly studied since in historical science this topic has been under a ban for a long time. The relevance of the research is related to the increasing scientific interest in the issues of religiosity, the study of cultural and ethnic values. The goal of the study is to reveal and describe the processes of loss/conservation of icons on the territory of the Permian Komis' settlement during the 20th - early 21st centuries. The research is based on methods of oral history, memory study and folklore. The main sources were records of conversations with residents of Permian Komi settlements as well as observations of the author. In different years of the considered period certain "challenges", which became a threat to the preservation of icons, are mentioned. The closure of religious buildings, the persecution of believers and the exclusion of religious items from museum collections is only some of these challenges. There were people who, for ideological reasons, supported acts of destruction of icons; and there were also defenders and guardians of religious values. In cases of encroachment by the authorities on the images the way to save them was to steal these images from places of storage, hide them in houses, outbuildings, and in the ground. Until now there is a partial preservation and maintenance of folk customs related to icons. Most of the traditions contributed to the preservation of the images in the family homesteads and in the family circle. Stories about the abuse of icons or their salvation are known, as a rule, to a narrow circle of the local community. Many of the texts are characterized by laconic and fragmentary description of the events that took place.