Old Believer Letters of Request and Thanks during the Imperial Period

This article analyses Old Believer letters from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries containing requests for financial or other assistance and expressing gratitude for it. The letters originate from various Old Believer settlements (sketes and hermitages) in Northern Russia. The author mostly focuses on letters from the Vyg and Leksa community, the largest Old Believer centre of Russia between the eighteenth and the first half of the nineteenth centuries. The letters are analysed both as historical sources and literary works. They are of historical value because they contain information on little-known Old Believer hermitages, the number of monks in them, and the connection of the hermitages with other centres of Old Belief. The letters contain Old Believer writers’ names and autographs. This means that samples of their handwriting can be used to attribute anonymous manuscripts. Letters of request were part of record books that the representatives of Old Believer hermitages took with them when they went to collect donations. The article cites persecution of this activity by the authorities. Also, it considers the literary aspect of the letters, for instance, how the authors used quotations on mercy and compassion from biblical and patristic texts and how they applied the form of the parable and employed a self-deprecating vocabulary. The author concludes that the Vyg Old Believer letters fully correspond to the principles of the Vyg rhetorical school.