Dachniki of Tsaritsyno: Parishioners of the Life-Giving Spring Church in the Catherine Palace (Second Half of the 19th - Early 20th Centuries)

Abstract

The article's research subject is the life of the Orthodox community around the Life-Giving Spring Church in Tsaritsyno at the end of the 19th - early 20th centuries. The research object is the dachniki (summer residents) who became members of this Orthodox community.The Central State Archive of Moscow has preserved the metric books of this church. Based on this type of source, the author has compiled a list of the dachniki in Tsaritsyno who became parishioners of the Life-Giving Spring Church. The dachniki becoming part of the Tsaritsyno community was identified by the author through the evidence that they turned to the church's priests to perform various religious celebrations: baptisms, weddings and funeral services. Obviously, these celebrations are not indicative of the active participation of a specific dachnik in the life of the church, but in the author's opinion, this can still be indirectly used to analyze the relationship between country life and church life in Tsaritsyno. The author applied the historical method to analyze the archival materials collected at the Central Historical Archive of Moscow and the structural method to create a comprehensive picture of Russian life in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.The choice of this topic for scientific research is based on the fact that in the 1990-2010s the process of an Orthodox revival had begun, which also turned out to be partially tied to the modern dacha movement. On the example of a number of monasteries near Moscow, one can trace the growth of Orthodox communities in the opened monasteries thanks to the dachniki living nearby. Due to this, the historical experience of this interaction can contribute to a comprehensive understanding of the processes taking place in modern Russia.