Римско-католическая и протестантская вера в среде немецких колонистов Бессарабии XIX – первых десятилетий XX вв. как фактор сохранения этнокультурной идентичности

Abstract

On the basis of versatile source materials, the author examines the problem of the preservation of the Roman Catholic and Protestant faith among the German colonists of Bessarabia in the 19th – early 20th centuries. The author comes to the conclusion that religious specificity, along with the German language, contributed to the preservation of their ethnic identity in the conditions of a different ethnic environment. Attention is drawn to how, under the influence of the German colonists, Protestant views in the form of Stundism (Baptism) became widespread among those professing Orthodoxy. The author focuses on the fact that for a long time, almost until the reforms of the 70s. XIX century, the Russian government was very loyal to the heterodoxy among the German colonists, which to a large extent contributed to the preservation of their ethno-confessional identity and isolation.