Anton Vladimirovich Kartashev as a publicist and social activist of the early XX century: analytical review of articles in the “Russian Word” (1911-1913)

Abstract

This article is a sequence of publications on the role of Anton Vladimirovich Kartashev in religious movement for the Russian church reform of the XX century. The subject of this research is his journalistic activity during the 1911-1913. After participating in the Petersburg religious-philosophical gatherings, Kartashev joined the intelligentsia movement for the church reform; tried his hand at journalism; and picked the topic “Russian Church and Modernity” to write about for the liberal “Russian Word”. Observing Kartashev’s publicistic writing the author underlines his role as a social activist in the movement for church reform. For studying the systemic approach of A. Karthashev towards the problem of church reform in Russia, the author applies the historical method allowing to correlatie the evens of the history of Russian Church, crisis stage of religious movement and response in Kartashev’s publicistic writings. The period from 1911 to 1913 is one of the insufficiently studied periods in social activity of the future Minister of Religious Confessions of the Provisional Government and the last last Ober-Procurator of the Most Holy Governing Synod of the Orthodox Church in Russia (1917). The content of his works during this period were not viewed in the context of the upcoming church reform. However, it demonstrated Kartashev’s ideas on what impeded the Russian Church in becoming the center of historical-cultural and economic modernization of Russia.