Old Believers of Altai in the context of repressive policy of the Imperial authorities

Abstract

After the church split, those who did not accept religious innovations were persecuted by the official church and government, which caused their flight, including to Altai. At the end of the XVII — the first half of the XVIII centuries. the first Old Believers appeared on the territory of the Upper Ob. This territory was attractive due to its low development, small population, fertility of land, and the weak position of official authorities. As a result of violent and unauthorized colonization, Altai turned into one of the Old Believers (in the regional and spiritual sense) centers, and at the same time, the arena of a fierce struggle between the secular and church authorities of the Russian Empire with the "schism" they hated. The resistance of the Old Believers was passive in nature and manifested themselves in mass and solitary shoots to the most remote and underdeveloped places and were illuminated by the flame of Old Believer "burns" — mass self-immolations. At the same time, despite the tough anti-Old Believer imperial policy, which in some places had an openly repressive character, it was thanks to the Old Believers that the cultural and economic development of the uninhabited and wild Altai as part of the Russian Empire took place.