РЕЛИГИОЗНЫЙ ФАКТОР В КОНТЕКСТЕ ОБЩЕСТВЕННЫХ ПЕРЕМЕН НАЧАЛА ХХ ВЕКА В ПОГРАНИЧНОЙ КАРЕЛИИ
THE RELIGIOUS FACTOR WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF SOCIAL CHANGES IN BORDER KARELIA DURING THE EARLY XX CENTURY

Summary/Abstract: This article examines ego-documents of Orthodox priests from the early XX century, focusing primarily on diary entries published in 1908 in the Olonetskiye Gubernskiye Vedomosti (Olonets Province Gazette) and in 1916 in Karelskiye Izvestia (Karelian Announcements). These texts were authored by Hieromonk (originally Hierodeacon) Isaac (Ivan Romanovich Trofimov) of the Valaam Monastery, an assistant to the Karelian Synodal Missionary. The significance of these documents lies in their role as a vital component of the regional culture of the Karelian-Finnish border area, being a part of an extensive shared cultural heritage and at the same time reflecting the regional specificities of the bordering territories influenced by religious and national factors on both sides of the border. Despite numerous studies on religious life in Karelian villages in the early XX century, a detailed content analysis of the missionary’s ethnographic notes and his reflections on the spiritual world of the Karelian peasantry, based on his visits to specific settlements in the Salmi Uyezd, has not been undertaken. The sources enable to identify the territorial aspects of the interaction between the two dominant confessional spaces in Border Karelia – the Orthodox and Lutheran faiths – during the final period of the Russian Empire. Additionally, this study introduces, for the first time, an appeal from the Mikhailov priests from the village of Suistamo to the Vyborg Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies, preserved in the National Archives of Finland. Dated at the onset of the February Revolution of 1917, this “Letter to Power” offers a firsthand account of the consequences of mutual provocations between warring parties in “battles for the soul of the Karelians”. The research concludes that studying parish life in specific border regions through previously unexamined ego-documents authored by Orthodox priests provides a viable approach to understanding the role of the religious factor in the social history of Border Karelia during this period.

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