Local History of Russian Orthodox Church during the Great Patriotic War in Orally Transmitted Sources

Abstract

Introduction: Research on Russian Orthodox Church history of the period of the Great Patriotic War has ample complex of sources come into scientific operation fully enough. However, it should be noted that researches chiefly focus their attention on documentary sources whereas it must be admitted that memory-based oral literature, such as orally transmitted pieces of evidence devoted to the history of Russian Orthodox Church parishes in the rear, for example, is somewhat lacking. The purpose of our research is caused by the necessity to fill the lacunas in the field of the church history in Mordovian study of local lore during the period of 1941–1945 as well as to enrich information which is presented rather sparingly. Materials and Methods. The materials of the article are orally transmitted sources collected and processed by the students and teachers of Saransk theological seminary. Interdisciplinary nature of the problem of our research determined the coherence of methodological aims of social knowledge such as hermeneutics, historical anthropology, sociology, etc. Results. The article describes the results of the work connected with collecting and analyzing several narrative complexes of memory-based and orally transmitted pieces of evidence linked by the period of the Great Patriotic War and the theme of life in the rear parishes of Mordovian region. Collecting information was carried out by means of free interviewing methods, frequently used in cultural and anthropological researches. Discussion and Conclusions. The significance and value of orally transmitted historical sources concerning the church history of the Great Patriotic War period are hard to overestimate. Interviewees reconstruct not only the events of the past but also transmit, along with the whole complex of their emotional experiences, linked with these events, their mental references. All this is essential for better understanding social history, the history of family on the one hand, and the history of culture, on the other, inasmuch as oral pieces of evidence supplement documentary information with anthropological constituent. This is the most valuable thing while studying themes, closed for the public before, such as Russian Orthodox Church history of the first half of the XX century, for example.