Tender Psalms: The Ethnic and the Religious in the Culture of Russian Judaizers

Alexander Lvov - Interdepartmental Center "Petersburg Judaica", European University at St. Petersburg (Russia). al_lvov@mail.ru

The article deals with a disappearing community of Russian Judaizers (Subbotniks) in Armenia. The analysis of the folklore repertoire of the Subbotniks allows concluding that the very experience of breaking with the religious past is a foundation of their identity. The break happened in the second part of the 20th century and was accompanied by accepting the exonym "Subbotnik" which turned into a relatively stable ethnic category. This uncommon process can be explained using the distinction between "groups" and "categories" and the opposition of "ethnic" and "religious". The article considers the history of the use of the term "Subbotnik" and its complex connotations, referring to both Judaism and Christian sectarianism. In contrast to "ethnicity without groups," as coined by Roger Brubaker, the Judaizers show an example of stable communities that are particularly difficult to categorize. The Subbotniks of Armenia, who emerged as a "group without categories," are now tuning into a "category without group". The article shows a correlation between this transformation and the substitution of textual (religious) foundations of daily practices by the ethnic ones.

Keywords: Judaizers, Subbotniks, ethnicization of religion, Russian sects, textual communities.

The article was written with the support of the RGNF grant (N 14 - 21 - 20002).

Lviv A." Nezhnye psalmy": etnicheskoe i religioznoe v kul'ture russkikh iudeystvuyushchikh ["Tender Psalms": Ethnic and religious in the culture of Russian Judaizers]. 2015. N 3 (33). pp. 100-120.

Lvov, Alexander (2015) "Tender Psalms: The Ethnic and the Religious in the Culture of Russian Judaizers", Gosudarstvo. religiia, tserkou' v Rossii i za rubezhom 33(3): 100 - 120.

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The focus of this article is on the disappearing community of Russian Judaizers (Subbotniks)1 in Armenia. Analyzing its current state and recording the changes that took place in the life of this community and in the history of the movement as a whole, we will try to consider the anatomy of one of the communities that are commonly called ethno-confessional in Russian science.

As tools of analysis, we will use, on the one hand, the distinction between group and category 2 introduced by R. Brubaker, and, on the other hand, the juxtaposition of the categories of ethnic and religious, about which it is necessary to say a few words before our analysis.

The understanding of religion as a worldview that a person is able to consciously choose (and therefore is responsible for it), probably developed in the Enlightenment. 3 In Soviet science, "the possibility of an arbitrary change of self-consciousness" was considered as the main feature that "sharply distinguishes a religious community from an ethnic community"4. However, within the framework of the constructivist approach, which insists on social conditionality and, in a certain sense, arbitrariness not only of religious, but also of ethnic, gender identity.

1. For the genesis and history of the movement, see Lviv, A. L. Sokha and the Pentateuch: Russian Judaizers as a Textual Community (Studia Ethnologica, Issue 9). St. Petersburg: Publishing House of the European University in St. Petersburg, 2011. For an overview of the current state of preserved Subbotnik communities, see Chernin V. Jewish Subbotniks as a Subethnic Group: an attempt to review the current state / / Eurasian Jewish Yearbook 5770 (2009/2010). Troitsk: Trovant Publ., 2010, pp. 44-59.

2. " By consistently distinguishing between categories and groups, we can recognize the relationship between them as a problem, not a given. We can ask about the degree of groupness associated with a particular category in a particular situation, and about the political, social, cultural, and psychological processes by which categories are endowed with groupness <...>. We can ask how people - and organizations - perform actions with categories." Ethnicity without Groups, Moscow: Publishing House of the Higher School of Economics, 2012, p. 33).

3. For example, I. Kant, defining Enlightenment as the determination and courage to "use your mind without guidance from someone else", writes about religion:"...if I have a spiritual shepherd whose conscience can replace mine, < ... > then I have nothing to worry about " (Kant I. Sobr. soch. in 6 volumes. Vol. 6. Moscow, 1966. p. 25). See also Asad, Vol. (1993) Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

4. See Puchkov P. I. On the correlation of confessional and ethnic communities // Soviet ethnography. 1973. N 6. P. 54.

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and other identities, such a distinction simply loses its meaning. It turned out that you can preach not only religion, but also ethnicity 5.

Meanwhile, distinguishing between the two modes of perception of one's own and others ' cultural characteristics - either as inherited, attributed, or freely chosen - remains a very useful research tool. It is clear that they can no longer be considered as distinguishing features of objectively understood ethnic and, accordingly, religious groups. Both modes can be found in any type of community.6 They reflect people's ideas about what exactly unites them in a community: a private, often unique story and / or generally valid, but still unknown to others truth. It is these modes of perception that we will call, respectively, ethnic and religious7.

Subbotniks of Elenovka (Sevan)

In Transcaucasia, subbotniks, as well as representatives of other branches of the old Russian sectarianism - Molokans and Doukhobors-appeared in the 1830s as a result of exiles and voluntary relocations8. Back in Soviet times, Armenia had a large (several hundred people) community of subbotniks, who lived mainly in the city of Sevan (formerly Sevan). S. Elenovka)9. At the beginning of the XX century.

5. See Brubaker R. Ethnicity without groups, pp. 27-28.

6. For example, S. E. Nikitina notes the coexistence of both modes in the culture of Molokans, on the one hand, preserving the memory of the period of rapid spread of the sect, and on the other-considering "that one should be born a Molokanin, but it is already impossible to become one" (Nikitina S.E. Confessional cultures in their territorial variants. Moscow: Institute Heritage, 2013, p. 103).

7. The applicability of the category of ethnic understood in this way to religious communities is evidenced by the rather wide use of the phrase "ethnization (or racialization) of religion" (see, for example: Shnirelman V. A. "Threshold of tolerance": ideology and practice of new racism / In 2 volumes. Moscow: New Literary Review, 2011. Vol. 1. P. 138.). On the other hand, the religious character can be seen in ethnic and national movements and ideologies, as R. Bellah did, for example, in his famous article on civil religion in America (Bellah, R.N. (1967)" Civil Religion in America", Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 96(1): 1-21).

8. Cm. Breyfogle, N. (2005) Heretics and Colonizers: Forging Russia's Empire in the South Caucasus. Ithaca (N.Y.); London: Cornell University Press.

9. Dingelstedt N. Transcaucasian sectarians in their family and religious life. SPb.: Tipografiya M. M. Stasyulevich, 1885. pp. 251-267; Klibanov A. I. Iz mira religioznogo sektantstva. M.: Izd-vo politicheskoi literatury, 1974. pp. 197-212;

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they numbered up to 1,800 people; 10 they had their own synagogue and a prayer book in Russian, "Prayers of the Jewish Community for the Whole Year, printed in 1908 in the printing house of the Erivan Provincial Government. 1st edition, collected from various prayer books by the works of Eliazar Aharonovich Semyonov, who lives in the villages. Elenovka Eriv. gub.". Today, there are no more than 10 - 15 subbotniks left in Armenia. They are integrated into the life of the local Jewish community (both religious and secular), are proud of "their" Torah scrolls presented to the Yerevan synagogue, and almost every year receive researchers and journalists who come to them from all over the world in search of exotic "Russian Jews"11.

TK, one of the few remaining subbotniks in Sevan, showed me a notebook in which she wrote down her favorite songs: "I wrote this for myself. So as not to forget. All are gentle... These are the psalms. " 12
In my opinion, only two texts that can be classified as spiritual verses should be called" psalms "in this notebook (one of them, about the sale of Joseph to the "Egyptian king", was familiar to me from the repertoire of S. Subbotnikov's subbotniks). Privolny 13). The rest, united by a common theme of orphanhood, were samples of folk urban songs. Among

Ulanovsky I. Subbotniki sela Elenovka // Bulletin of the Hebrew University in Moscow. 1993. N 2. pp. 32-39.

10. Statistical data on sectarians (as of January 1, 1912). St. Petersburg: Publishing House of the Department of Spiritual Affairs of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 1914, p. 53.

11. See, for example, Edwards, M. (2014) " Jewish? No, We're Subbotniks. Welcome to Our Synagogue. Russian Sect Practices Judaism - In a Way", The Jewish Daily Forward. 1 August [http://forward.com/articles/201843/jewish-no-we-re-subbotniks-welcome-to-our-synag/ accessed on 26.05.2015]; Levine, Y. (2006) "Subbotniks struggle to survive", Jewish telegraphic agency. 7 September [http://www.jta.org/2006/09/07/ life-religion/features/subbotniks-struggle-to-survive accessed on 26.05.2015]; Brown, F. (2001) "The Last of the Saturday People", The Jerusalem Report. 19 November [http://molokane.org/subbotniki/Armenia/Last_Saturday_People.html accessed on 26.05.2015].

12. PMA 1. Female, about 60 years old, Sevan. Interview - August 19, 2014

13. The village of Privolnoye in the Jalilabad district of Azerbaijan until the early 1990s was the largest settlement of Russian Judaizers in Transcaucasia (see Dymshits V. A. Ethnographic description of the village of Privolnoye / / Proceedings of the 6th International Interdisciplinary Conference on Judaics. Jewish Culture and Cultural Contacts, Part 3, Moscow, 1999, pp. 76-77).

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among them are such well-known ones as"Forgotten, abandoned "14 and"Fogs, fogs, give me back my mother" 15.

"This is also what we sing in the cemetery, "TK said, referring to the place of these" psalms " in the religious practices of her small community. They are also sung at meetings that until recently were held weekly, or on the occasion of the arrival of former villagers who came to visit their native graves: "Sometimes you already want to cry. Here, when... Those who left came, and we sang these songs, this psalm, and they wept. " 16
How do these touching ("tender", according to TK) songs relate to the religious specifics of the group? Why does the TC call them "psalms"? Religious content can be seen, perhaps, only in the ending of the song "Tumany". After the words "Your mother will die, then you will understand: / you can't buy your mother anywhere for gold", which end most versions of this song, a few more lines follow:

On a happy wedding day, I felt sad about my mother.
I came to the grave to call my mother:
Oh, dear mother, you get up, dear,
I came to invite you to the wedding.
There is a beautiful couple standing on the grave,
Their eyes are filled with hot tears.
Suddenly a trembling voice from the grave rang out:
Thank you, children, for your memory of me.
Live happily and fear God,
Love each other, go home.

One might assume that these added lines reflect the custom of inviting deceased parents to the wedding, adopted by Ashkenazi Jews.17 However, TK knew nothing about this custom, and the invitation scene is also found in other VA's-

14. "On the far side" / / Songbook of an anarchist underground worker [http://a-pesni.org/dvor/pozabyt.php accessed from 26.05.2015].

15. "Tumany" / / Songbook of an anarchist underground worker [http://a-pesni.org/dvor/tumany.php accessed from 26.05.2015].

16. PMA 1.

17. See Fedchenko V., Lvov A. Matchmaking, engagement, wedding / / Shtetl, XXI vek: Polevye issledovaniya. Comp. by V. A. Dymshits, A. L. Lvov, and A.V. Sokolova. St. Petersburg: Publishing House of the European University in St. Petersburg, 2008 (Studia Ethnologica; Issue 5). pp. 226-260.

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18. Only the last four lines, in which the deceased mother addresses her daughter and her fiance with parting words, distinguish this version from all others. However, even here the religious specifics that can be seen in the words "fear God" are dissolved in the wishes of quite secular ones: "live happily", "love each other","go home".

A similar identification of one's own religious tradition with moral and family values - inherited from one's parents-can be seen in other interviews:

I was surprised: when adults reprimanded children, they answered. We were not allowed to do this. <...> It is clear that this is why, I tell you, it is genetics, it is laid down. Also here I am told: you don't know how to be angry. And how can I be angry when my grandmother is dead, she always said: anger never brings a solution to the problem. You can't throw out your emotions, you need to be calm. Then, when I started going to the [Jewish] community, I started reading a lot of literature, and suddenly I realized that yes, here is the essence...19.

They also talk about religious practices, of course, mostly in the past tense and even in the third person:

We didn't go to meetings, kids. Our old men used to go, of course, I can still remember. They are Saturday... So dress up! The women had their new skirts in their trunks, clean ones. They wore these skirts, blouses, aprons, handkerchiefs. As I remember now, it was their Subbotnitsky holiday, they were going to a meeting. When they came home from the meeting, they took 20.

In a more structured form, the rites of Subbotniks are presented in the story of ms, recommended to me as an informant

18. " On a happy wedding day, I was sad about my mother. / How the white gull came to her daughter. / Fogs, fogs, tell your mother, / I came to invite her to the wedding. Gray mists covered the whole earth. / The girl together came to the grave. / Fogs, fogs, give me back my mother, / She should congratulate us today "(see, for example, Fogs / / Navshy Staradarozhchyny. 23.04.2014. N 60-61. p. 5. [http:// newsstd.by/arhiv/2014/60 -61. pdf accessed from 26.05.2015]).

19. PMA 2. Female, born in 1946, b. born in Sevan, lives in Yerevan. Interview - August 18, 2014

20. PMA 3. Female, about 70 years old, Sevan. Interview - August 19, 2014

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She was the head of the Armenian Jewish community and already had experience in representing Subbotniks (she gave an interview to a researcher from England). MS also did not participate in subbotnik meetings during the Soviet era ("...I worked in the government, I won't hide it"), but she tells the story in the first person:

Now I will say for the rites for ours. What are our rituals? < ... > The couple got together. A child was born. After a week, they take it for circumcision. There was a specially old man, he read a prayer and did circumcision. How he did it, I do not know, but I know that we then invited him. The child was born - not such a holiday, and when after circumcision - we already have a holiday. Our boy! He is circumcised, he is already ours, of our faith! We are subbotniks, I am not saying that we are Jews, we are Subbotniks, but our faith is Jewish. But not everything coincides. <...> In the month of February, we have the holiday of Mardofei. Mordecai. They have Mordecai, we have Mardothai 21. Horses were cleaned, and children were collected a lot, and we rode. A prayer was read. < ... > And we had such psalms, women sang! Friday is our bath day. We're going to a meeting on Saturday. We prayed standing up. They'll pray a little, maybe half an hour. Then we sat down to rest. The old people will say a prayer or something and start singing psalms. The women sang together and sang together. Rested - get up, continue until one o'clock in the afternoon, until two o'clock. Then they came and sat down at the table. But everything was prepared on Friday 23rd.

However, between the "old people" and the current, already elderly generation of subbotniks, there is a gap that everyone is aware of. Even

21. This refers to the holiday of Purim. In the Synodal translation of the Book of Esther related to the holiday, the name of the main character of the book is Mordecai, in modern Hebrew translations-Mordecai.

22. A similar practice, or rather, memories of it, were recorded in 2001 in the community of subbotniks of the village. In the Voronezh Region: during the break between prayers recited by men on Siddur, on holidays, women sang psalms in the "Molokan" manner typical of subbotniks - "Karaites". This singing was denoted by the verb "piyat", they said: "women piyat". Presumably, this verb is derived from the word "piyut", which denotes works of Jewish liturgical poetry that are usually included in festive prayers for decoration. The term "piyut" and its explanation are given in the comments to some bilingual siddurs published in the late 19th century, which were widely distributed among subbotniks.

23. PMA 4. A woman, born in 1928, born in the village of Elenovka (now Sevan), lives in Yerevan. Interview - August 20, 2014

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MS, speaking of meetings in Soviet times ("...we closed the windows so that no one would know, but there were still people, we gathered and prayed"), immediately corrects himself: "Not we - our here, old"24. The gap between generations created by the closeness of the religious life of "old people" was discussed by almost everyone:

I can't say that I've heard many prayers. The door was closing 25. They didn't involve us in this. I don't know why. They walk, and we run to ourselves. [Were you interested?] And who knows? Somehow there is no 26. Children weren't allowed in, I don't know why. So that they don't interfere. And who wants to... Here I was also a child, but in me... It came in, now... Nothing exists for me, I know my [faith]. That's all. This is my 27. It was impossible to get them to talk. She [the grandmother] was silent. And it was impossible to find out anything unnecessary. ... They are very somehow... did not try to talk about this topic 28.

A family of economists, engineers-naturally, they are not interested. The exception is me, and I have already become interested, but there is no one left 29.

Subbotniks associate their current meetings in Sevan with the support (moral and material) that they receive from the Chief rabbi of Armenia, a participant in the Jewish renaissance, who still caught the "old people" in the early 1990s.:

24. PMA 4. A woman, born in 1928, born in the village of Elenovka (now Sevan), lives in Yerevan. Interview - August 20, 2014

25. PMA 2.

26. PMA 3.

27. PMA 4.

28. PMA 2.

29. PMA 5. Female, about 40 years old, Yerevan. Interview - August 18, 2014

30. About his impressions of the first meetings with subbotniks (whom he prefers to call "Russian Jews") he said: "When we began to seriously investigate what was left of us here [Jewish], because the revival, as it were ... < ... > When we discovered them in the nineties, they did not show off for us, there, Shabbat show. They are <before that... we prayed, and sang very beautifully, and there was a lot of it... minhag [Hebrew: custom], or something: men in front, women behind, did not mix. <...> And all without sitting, standing. < ... > There was music there, that it wasn't yesterday's music, that it was such a tune that they have come from [ancient times]" (PMA 6. A man, about 50 years old, rabbi, Yerevan. Interview - August 21, 2014).

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When he gathered us, there were still 25 or 30 of us in Sevan. And we were already united at that time, and he came and saw this Torah. He read with us. < ... > He looked after us very well. He found our cemetery, fenced it off, made a gate, and made a star on the gate. < ... > Well, we gave him this Torah. There was no one else to read 31.

Of course, these gatherings, which only involve five or six people, cannot bridge the generation gap. Rather, they allow the current subbotniks not to forget about this gap, about the religion of their "old people"that remained unknown to them, although familiar from childhood:

Now there are no men left, only women. < ... > But they continue again. < ... > Not because they are there... Well, it's just that there are very few people left, you know, this is some kind of outlet, so you're going to say...32.

Probably, the spirit of these nostalgic meetings was embodied in the "psalms" collected in the notebook of TK. The theme of orphanhood, which is variously presented in them, sounds like a metaphor for the experience of a breakup. It has three distinct motives:

1. The religious life of the "old people" can no longer be restored, it can only be remembered with sadness ("Come, O daughter, to my cold grave. / Come to cry, to cry"; "I have an abandoned share / I will fly to look for it. / I will fly and descend / over the grave of the road , / and I will bow my head, / I will pour her a tear").

2. The gap was partly the fault of the current generation, who did not show interest in the religion of their "old people" ("Forgotten, forgotten / from young young years "instead of" Forgotten-forgotten..." in well-known versions of this song), and partly due to circumstances that tore the subbotniks away from their roots ("Green Twig, green twig, / where are you going? / Oh, take care, heart, / you will fall into the sea. < ... > From your native tree / the wind tore off a branch. / Let the wild winds carry it wherever they want. / And now this twig / will never grow together").

31. PMA 4.

32. PMA 2.

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3. Current subbotniks, who cherish the memory of the past, deserve approval or at least leniency from their parents, despite a different, more secular way of life ("Thank you, children, for remembering me,<...> go home"; " Suddenly the grave trembled, / a voice was heard from it: / Get away, daughter, from the grave, / do not disturb my bones! / My bones are cold, / my heart doesn't hurt anymore"). "At present, the community has fallen into decline. <...> The last thing that connects this community with Jewry is the cemetery, matzah, and Torah scroll," wrote I. Ulanovsky more than 20 years ago.33 Indeed, several decades of intensive migration have led to a catastrophic decline in the number of subbotniks in Armenia; there are many mixed marriages; strict observance of the Sabbath and Kashrut is a thing of the past. Yet the impression I have of this community is only very difficult to fit into the concept of "decline." I would like to address this difficulty in a little more detail.

When speaking of decline, they usually mean "a state of weakening activity, a decline in activity" 34. During the period of its greatest activity, from the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 20th century, the Subbotniks movement was a network of textual communities that checked their lives directly with the Bible, defending their textual rationalism in disputes with neighbors and authorities.35 However, the religious culture of the current subbotniks in Armenia is built on completely different grounds, and it hardly makes sense to consider it as a "weakening of the activity" of textual communities.

The key characteristic of this culture, in my opinion, is not so much the decline as the experience of decline, which gives the culture of subbotniks an unexpected integrity. The preserved religious practices turn out to be a memory of the past for them and acquire the character of ethnic characteristics. Armenian subbotniks, unlike other groups born out of the disintegration of Judaizing textual communities, were more successful in the process of ethnizing the religious heritage.-

33. Ulanovskiy I. Subbotniki sela Elenovka [Subbotniks of the village of Elenovka]. p. 39.

34. Ozhegov S. I., Shvedova N. Yu. Tolkovyi slovar ' russkogo yazyka [Explanatory dictionary of the Russian language], Moscow, 1997.

35. See for more details: Lviv, A. L. Sokha and the Pentateuch: Russian Judaizers as a textual community, pp. 88-110.

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diya their "old men". This success is manifested, first of all, in the consistency of external and internal categories that define the cultural boundaries of group 36, in the consistency of incomplete, relative, but still significantly exceeding the usual level for subbotniks.

"Subbotniki" as an ethnonym

For the first time, the term "subbotniks" appears in investigative cases of the early 19th century, as one of the local names of sectarians that needs to be explained: "subbotniks who fell away from the Christian faith and surrendered to the Jewish faith"37. The official status of this term was given by the decree of July 29, 1825 "On measures to prevent the spread of the Jewish sect under the name of Subbotniks", which prescribes, in particular, "to call subbotniks a Jewish sect and announce that they are truly Jews".38 The authorities, classifying the new-found sectarians as " subbotniks "and at the same time" truly Jews", fell into contradiction: the situation of sectarians and Jews in the Russian Empire was different, they were subject to different laws and were under the jurisdiction of different departments of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The decree did not change the legal status of Subbotniks (from the point of view of the law, they remained sectarians who voluntarily "deviated from Orthodoxy"), but connected the category of Subbotniks with Jewry and Judaism with stable, though not entirely clear connotations. On the other hand, official documents often combined subbotniks with Molokans, if necessary adding clarifying definitions to the general denomination: "Molokans-Sunday workers" or "Molokans-Subbotniks". Another meaning of the term "Subbotniks", no longer connected with the history of the Jewish movement, appeared in the XX century: some groups of Adventists began to call themselves this way.

36. For the concept of the "cultural boundary" and the role of external and internal categorization in its creation and maintenance, see Barth. Introduction / / Ethnic groups and social boundaries / ed. by F. Barta, Moscow: Novoe izdatelstvo, 2006. pp. 9-49; Jenkins, R. (1994) "Rethinking Ethnicity: Identity, Categorization and Power", Ethnic and Racial Studies 17(2): 197-223; Brubaker R. Ethnicity without Groups, Moscow: Publishing House of the Higher School of Economics, 2012.

37. See, for example, RGIA. F. 1284. Op. 195 (1814). d. 4. l. 10 vol., 13.

38. Complete Collection of Laws of the Russian Empire, 1649-1830. Vol. XL. N 30456. p. 399.

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Contradictory connotations of this term, linking it, on the one hand, with Jewry, and on the other - with Christian sectarianism, have repeatedly become a source of problems and misunderstandings for Subbotniks. The exonym "subbotniks" imposed on them turns them into a kind of classification error, making them alien to both Christians and Jews. The recognition that Subbotniks receive or may receive in the Jewish world is often associated with attempts to give them a new name. Thus, in the decisions of the rabbinical court that recognize Jews from the village of Ilyinka in the Voronezh Region, they are contrasted with all other "subbotniks", which, according to the rabbis, are a " Christian sect "39. V. Chernin suggests using the ethnonym" Subbotniks Jews", linking this "with an attempt to classify the descendants of Russian proselytes who were formed over the centuries". many generations into a special ethno-confessional group, as another sub-ethnic group of the Jewish people in the post-Soviet space, along with such groups as Ashkenazi, Mountain, Georgian, Bukharian Jews, as well as Crimean Jews. " 40 The Chief Rabbi of Armenia, G.-M. Burshtein, also prefers to call his wards "Russian Jews"rather than "Subbotniks".

The subbotniks themselves, unlike the Molokans and Doukhobors, usually did not show attachment to the exonym imposed on them, preferring to define themselves as "followers of the Mosaic Law." However, this self-determination, manifested in textual rationalism and daily religious practices, remained local, that is, understandable only within their communities and among their closest neighbors, who were familiar with the practices of Subbotniks and with the textual justifications for these practices. Neighbors (Orthodox, Molokans and others) often considered Subbotniks Jews, and Jews-suspicious sectarians. The fear of encountering distrust and misunderstanding gave rise to secrecy and gave Sabbath-keeping the characteristics of crypto-Judaism.41 Leaving

39. Beit din Yerushalayim le-dinei mamonot u-lebirur yohasin. Case No. 1319 [http:// www.daat.ac.il/daat/vl/pd1jerdl/pd1jerdl261.pdf accessed from 26.05.2015]

40. Chernin V. Jewish Subbotniks as a subethnic group: an attempt to review the current state. p. 44_59.

41. For similar behavioral characteristics of "secret Jews" who consider themselves descendants of Anusim, see Halevy, Sh. C. (1995)" The Last Inquisition", Solomon Goldman Lecture. Spertus Institute for Jewish Learning and Leadership [http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~nachum/sch/sch/PAPERS/Goldman.txt accessed on 26.05.2015]; Halevy, Sh. C. (1996)

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their communities and subbotniks encountered misunderstandings from even the closest people when they tried to tell them about their origin 42. A similar dissonance between different external and internal definitions of their identity is also characteristic of Subbotniks who remain in their communities that have moved away from religion.43
Until recently, the same manifestations of crypto-Jewish consciousness were characteristic of Armenian subbotniks:

Here you know, somehow earlier, earlier... To be honest, both Russians and Armenians somehow despised, so they thought: a Jew! A Jew is not a human being. And here are many... We hid it so they wouldn't be rude to us. Because of this. And now it's already open. I even lived in Yerevan, I know... Here we had friends, they were Jews. There were Jews. I knew somewhere that I was... They were really pure Jews, not subbotniks. I was on a Saturday night. But we never once explained ourselves to each other. <...> They hid it, and I hid it. Russian, and all 44.

However, the appearance of Jewish organizations in post-Soviet Armenia led to significant changes in the status of subbotniks. Against the background of local Jews, most of whom moved here during the Soviet era, subbotniks look like old-timers. For the leaders of all three Jewish organizations in Armenia, they proved to be living evidence of the continuity of Jewish history in that country. The exoticism of Subbotniks as a Jewish group fits well into this history full of white spots. Along with the lost Armenian Jewry, the existence of which was attested by ancient texts, and a unique medieval cemetery in the village of St. Petersburg. Yeghegis, subbotniks turned out to be

"Manifestations of Crypto-Judaism in the American Southwest", Jewish Folklore and Ethnology Review 18(1 - 2): 68 - 76.

42. For example, the daughter of a native of the village of Privolny wrote about her father: "We couldn't understand who he was by nationality, as he didn't really understand it himself. My mother recalls that he said the words "Hera" and "Molokans", but we didn't take it seriously, because we thought that there was no such nationality " (see A. L. Sokha's Lviv and the Pentateuch: Russian Judaizers as a Textual Community, p. 13).

43. See Zhukova L. G. "She didn't pray, she was only listed": religious life of subbotniks of the collective farm "Stalindorf" // Vestnik RGGU: Filosofskie nauki. Religious studies. 2012. N 17. pp. 238-246; Lviv A. L. Sokha and the Pentateuch: Russian Judaizers as a textual community. pp. 269-278.

44. PMA 3.

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one of the main Jewish attractions in Armenia, attracting researchers and tourists, always mentioned in popular essays, encyclopedic articles, etc. 45 Of course, the wide popularity of Armenian subbotniks is limited to the Jewish world. For the majority of Armenian residents, the differences between the Russian sectarians living here - Molokans and subbotniks - remain incomprehensible: "Armenians do not distinguish. Molokans, that's all. " 46 Sometimes subbotniks have to defend their identity, which has suddenly become very popular, even in disputes with the local rabbi, who prefers to call them "Russian Jews":

[The old people] considered: subbotniks. Well, subbotniks, that's all. And I'm always swearing at Gershu right now. He says: you're Jewish. I say: no, I am a Sabbath-goer, only our faith is Jewish. He says: well, go to your subbotniks. I say: are there any subbotniks here?47

However, such disputes rather emphasize the stability of the self-designation "subbotniks", which has become a full-fledged, that is, a fairly widely recognized category. If we use the distinction suggested by R. Brubaker [48], we can see that the decline of subbotnikism as a group in Armenia coincides with the flourishing of the category of subbotnikism. The rapid decline in the number of Subbotniks in the post-Soviet period and the disappearance of most of their religious practices are not an obstacle to the same rapid growth of their popularity in the Jewish community of Armenia and abroad. In turn, external interest in subbotnichestvo as a category supports the existence of the group with its nostalgic songs, narratives and practices.

This new group of subbotniks - formed by the category-feels and is perceived by others as the successor of the Subbotniks ' community of Yelenovka, as an attempt to preserve, at least partially, its traditions and memory. In this respect, it is

45. See, for example, I. Karpenko. In the country of multicolored tufa / / Lehaim, 2008, No. 7 [http://www.lechaim.ru/ARHIV/195Aarpenko.htm accessed 26.05.2015]; History of Jews in Armenia. Wikipedia [https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Иcтopия_eвpeeв_в_ [Accessed from 26.05.2015].

46. PMA 5.

47. PMA 4.

48. See footnote 2.

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it is similar to a community of fellow countrymen, similar, for example, to the community of natives of s. Privolnoye Village, collected by the website "The village of Privolnoye in our memory". However, in the materials of this site, the religious features of the village are far from central and are mentioned only in a euphemistic form, usually with the epithets "strange" or"unusual" 49. Natives of Yelenovka, on the contrary, directly call themselves and their "old people" subbotniks, and in their reconstructions of the past, the main emphasis is on the "Jewish faith". This is one of the rare cases in the history of the Jewish movement when the exonym "subbotniks" is adopted by the group as a self-designation, 50 while acquiring a distinctly "ethnic" character.

Meanwhile, the religious culture of the "old people", the heirs of which the current subbotniks feel themselves to be, was based on completely different, textual grounds, not reducible to any categories-neither ethnic nor confessional. The Yelenovka subbotniks, as well as other groups of Russian Judaizers in the nineteenth century, defined themselves primarily through their practices, which they and their neighbors saw as the most direct and complete embodiment of the Biblical texts.

Outside of categories

In the 1870s, the St. Petersburg official N. A. Dingelstedt, traveling on business in Transcaucasia, compiled a fairly detailed description of the sectarian world of the Erivan province. His attention was drawn primarily to the Molokans and recently to the Po-

49. Thus, in the "nostalgic poem" about the village of Privolny, written by one of its former residents, only two stanzas are devoted to religion: "There were strange rites / Women living in rural areas / have colorful outfits, / Dances, songs, etc. / No matter how strange they may seem , / But the custom was like this, / Although people were considered / From the Kuban Cossacks " (Ivanov V. Ya. Poem about Privolny [http://seloprivolnoe.ru/poem accessed on 26.05.2015]). See also the page dedicated to p. Privolny on the Sayapin family website [http://pronegra.narod.ru/index/o-6 accessed from 26.052105].

50. Another similar case is attested to by the "Prayer Book for Subbotniks: Collected from the Bible, the Old Testament, and the Psalter by A. A. Ponarin"published in 1914 in the village of Labinskaya in Kuban. While other prayer books published or used by Subbotniks had a clear-either Jewish or Karaite - confessional affiliation, the title of this book, as well as its content, just as clearly shows the desire to present Subbotniks as a separate, independent denomination (for more information, see A. L. Sokha's Lviv and the Pentateuch: Russian Judaizers as a Textual community, pp. 252-259).

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the direction of jumpers that appeared among them. He devoted only a few sarcastic pages to the Yelenovka Subbotniks, but we are most interested in his observations on the relationship between sects. This is what subbotniks looked like in the performances of Molokan jumpers at the end of the XIX century.:

They disdainfully call Subbotniks Jews and use this name, as, however, it is done everywhere, in the sense of abuse.51
Nizhneakhta jumpers are even seriously considering switching to subbotniks, recognizing their faith as more correct and consistent with Scripture.52
It is impossible not to note the hopeless doubts and hesitations into which the question of the Sabbath and circumcision plunged jumpers. Their innumerable discussions on this subject have hitherto had absolutely no consequences. With all their profound respect for the biblical traditions and ordinances, they do not want to switch to the Sabbath, nor do they want to be circumcised, and it seems that they do not want to do so solely because they are afraid to merge with the Sabbatarians and fall behind Christ. "It's certainly our fault," one jumping horse breeder told me, " that we don't switch to the Sabbath, but we don't circumcise ourselves. We ourselves know that we are sinning against God... It follows... That's right, it works... Yes, God willing, we will soon begin to be circumcised... and we'll go on a sabbath... " 53.

It should be noted that there is nothing specific in the contradictory attitude to the Sabbath day presented in the quotations, which is typical only for the Molokan jumpers or for the Erivan province. In the 19th century, almost everywhere where subbotniks lived, their neighbors - both sectarians of various trends and Orthodox peasants-also contemptuously called them Jews, or tried to adopt their practices, which they saw as a direct fulfillment of biblical prescriptions. 54
51. Dingelstedt N. Transcaucasian sectarians in their family and religious life. p. 29.

52. Ibid., p. 95.

53. Ibid., p. 181.

54. For example, according to a priest of a large sectarian village in the Astrakhan province, Orthodox parishioners have repeatedly told him: "Subbotniks are people who do everything correctly and in accordance with the law of God; it is not for us to teach them in the matter of faith, but to learn from them. < ... > -

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The peasant iconoclastic movement that emerged in the second half of the 18th century and later split into Doukhobor, Molokan, and Subbotnik movements was inspired by textual rationalism - a conscious desire to compare their practices with the texts of Scripture. Common to all these movements was the criticism of church rites-they were rejected as "unwritten" in the Bible. However, subbotniks, unlike Molokans and Doukhobors, could not only criticize other people's religious practices, but also provide textual justification for their own religious practices. "We do as it is written,"they said, and these words were very convincing among the peasants. Most of those who heard them could only contrast the textual rationalism of the subbotniks with their adherence to tradition, habit, and irrational attachment to inherited customs familiar from childhood.

In 1877, the Orthodox missionary M. Gusakov, making his annual trip to the sectarian villages, in private conversations asked the sectarians:"If someone disabused you, proved that you were mistaken, please tell me frankly, would you leave your faith?". There were two types of responses. Some said, " No. We were born in it. Her fathers had told her not to leave her. And we ourselves are used to it." Others, on the contrary, preferred a conscious choice to unconsciously following tradition: "Salvation is not dear to anyone. I would have left him without fail. " 55 These two positions (which could be described as "ethnic" and "religious"), thanks to Gusakov's artfully formulated question, turned out to be rigidly divided and attributed to different people. Meanwhile, in Dingelstedt's descriptions, we see people who both recognize the need to change their practices and do not do so. I believe that dogad-

It is much easier to talk about the subjects of faith than with Subbotniks, because in many cases <...> Molokans cannot justify themselves to Subbotniks by a letter or line from the Holy Scriptures, as, for example, in relation to the first commandment of God,<...> regarding the replacement of the Sabbath day celebration by Sunday, as well as the method of observing and keeping this day, etc., < ... > we Orthodox, imitating the Molokans in this case, also cannot justify ourselves in any way before Subbotniks and before the judgment of God " (S. Paradizov). On the activity of a missionary among Molokans in the villages of Prishibe and Zaplavny in 1880-1884 / / Astrakhan Diocesan Vedomosti. 1885. N 4. pp. 59-60).

55. Travelogue of the Astrakhan Diocese of the missionary of Anti-Molokan propaganda, Priest. Mikhail Gusakov / / Astrakhan diocesan vedomosti. 1877, N 45. pp. 6, 9.

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Digelstedt's theory is correct, and the reason for the jumpers 'indecision was the fear of" merging with the Subbotniks and falling behind Christ " 56. Discussions about religious practices, which were conducted on the basis of common biblical texts in the peasant environment, created a space for interaction and mutual influence between sectarians of different persuasions and Orthodox Christians. At the same time, each participant's commitment to their own particular group values and symbols hindered interaction and limited the impact of textual arguments, often replacing them with demonstrations of the group's power and authority. In the war of authorities, the Subbotnik movement, as the only non-Christian group in this common space of peasant religiosity, was the most vulnerable. However, the strength of subbotnikism recognized by all its neighbors was textual rationalism, the ability to prove the truth of one's faith with clear references to Scripture. Dingelstedt cites in his book a quote from the manuscript of the Molokan jumpers, showing that subbotniks were considered the most dangerous opponents in disputes: "Don't hesitate! Above all, do not be confused by Sabbath debauchery and other various doctrines, but stand on the open truth that God gave to our ancestors, so abide in it."57
In the course of the twentieth century, the common space in which Bible-based discussions about faith correction were conducted has virtually disappeared. Textual rationalism, which previously served as the basis for group unity and defined its boundaries, has lost its central role or completely disappeared from the life of most Subbotnik communities.58 As a result, the descendants of subbotniks inherited from their parents only a very vague identity, defined by the internally contradictory category of "subbotniks". Such a legacy pushes them either to form a crypto-Jewish consciousness and behavior patterns, or to find ways to integrate with Jewish communities with the prospect of assimilation. The small community of subbotniks in Armenia is the only exception I know of-a successful attempt-

56. Cf. Dingelstedt N. Transcaucasian sectarians in their family and religious life. pp. 29-30.

57. Ibid., p. 84.

58. Perhaps the only exception is the community of the village of Privolny, which until the very end of the XX century. the division between the Subbotnik-Karaite and Ger-Talmudist interpretations and, accordingly, discussions between these interpretations remained.

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It is a way of building your own identity, using the category "subbotniks" as a self-name.

Bibliography / References

Author's field materials (PMA)

Female, about 60 years old, Sevan. Interview - August 19, 2014

Female, born in 1946, b. born in Sevan, lives in Yerevan. Interview - August 18, 2014

Female, about 70 years old, Sevan. Interview - August 19, 2014

A woman, born in 1928, born in the village of Elenovka (now Sevan), lives in Yerevan. Interview - August 20, 2014

Female, about 40 years old, Yerevan. Interview - August 18, 2014

Male, about 50 years old, rabbi, Yerevan. Interview - August 21, 2014

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