The Volga Germans’ Confirmation as the Christians’ Lifestyle Evidence

Abstract

The present paper deals with the confirmation evidence of the Volga Germans in the form of the visual communication artifacts, in which religious meaning has been depicted. The semiotic analysis has identified the structure of the confirmation documents in the symbolic space. The structure contains a number of similar grounds or markers and indicates the formation of the Volga Germans’ confessional culture. The religious ceremonies’ transmission and the traditional forms’ reconstruction by the Lutheran community in «the alien environment» were based on the existential nature, contributed to the preservation of the Russian Germans’ ethno cultural image, to the ethnic identity functioning and to the national consciousness determination. Having resettled to the vast Russian expanses and to the Volga region in particular and being isolated from their homeland, the Germans built their mode of life in accordance with the traditional religious way of life. Lutherans did their best in perpetuating every stage of the Christians’ lifestyle, the Lutheran confirmation texts detecting it easily. The preserved extant examples of the confirmation evidence maintained personal data of each believer. The quotations from the Bible, the Psalms, the lines from the pastor’s sermon, the verses of the anthems and chants, the Biblical stories paintings have been found in the symbolic space under research. Thus, he confirmation evidence has been proved to comprise Lutheran confessional culture markers on the verbal, artistic, musical levels in the symbolic space of the visual communication.