Abstract
The eighteenth century was a turbulent period in the history of Russian Orthodox monasticism. During this century monastic communities were merged, dissolved, stripped of their land and peasants, and subjected to closer regulation, with the result that their number, membership, and wealth declined sharply. The main impetus for these developments arose from the expanding imperial state. But they also reflect the complex relationship between the state and the Orthodox Church that emerged during the imperial period.1 While the efforts of state officials to direct monastic wealth and the monastic clergy toward purposes deemed useful to the state and society led to tension with church leaders, both state officials and the Orthodox hierarchy shared a desire to regularise and assert greater control over monastic communities.2 Although scholars have explored several aspects of this process of monastic reform, its impact on female monasticism has received little scholarly attention.3 This chapter seeks to help fill this gap by tracing the development of female Orthodox monasticism in the city of Nizhnii Novgorod during the eighteenth century. Such an examination demonstrates that while female monastic communities were indeed reshaped significantly by state reform during the early imperial period, they were shaped no less powerfully by their institutional structure and their social, economic, and cultural environment.
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Notes
On this relationship, see especially Gregory Freeze, ‘Handmaiden of the State? The Church in Imperial Russia Reconsidered’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 36 (1985), 82–102.
In this regard, efforts to reform monasticism in eighteenth-century Imperial Russia were very similar to those undertaken at the same time in Catholic Europe. On the latter, see Derek Beales, Prosperity and Plunder. European Catholic Monasteries in the Age of Revolution, 1650–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
For works on the impact of reform on female monasticism, see Brenda Meehan, ‘Russian Convents and the Secularization of Monastic Property’, in Russia and the World of the Eighteenth Century, ed. R. P. Bartlett, A. G. Cross, and Karen Rasmussen (Columbus, OH: Slavica Publishers, 1986), pp. 112–124
E. B. Emchenko, ‘Zhenskie monastyri v Rossii’, in Monashestvo i monastyri v Rossii XI–XX veka, ed. N. V. Sinitsyna (Moscow: Nauka, 2002), pp. 245–84
E. B. Emchenko, ‘Gosudarstvennoe zakonodatel’stvo i zhenskie monastyri v XVIII-nachale XX veka’, Tserkov’ v istorii Rossii, 5 (2003), 171–221
Claire Louise Claus, ‘Die russischen Frauenklöster um die Wende des 18. Jahrhunderts, ihre karitative Tätigkeit und religiöse Bedeutung’, Kirche im Osten, 4 (1961), 37–60
Carolynn Burbee, ‘Catherine and the Convents. The 1764 Secularization of the Church Lands and its Effect on the Lives of Russian Nuns’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Missouri-Columbia, 2000).
On the history of Nizhnii Novgorod during this period, see Istoriia goroda Gor’kogo. Kratkii ocherk (Gor’kii: Volgo-Viatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1971)
N. Khramtsovskii, ‘Kratkii ocherk istorii i opisanie Nizhnego Novgoroda. Chast’ 1-aia. Ocherk istorii’, reprinted in Istoriia i opisanie Nizhnego Novgoroda (Nizhnii Novgorod: Nizhegorodskaia Iarmarka, 1998), pp. 15–172
the essays of A. Gatsiskii reprinted in Nizhegorodskii letopisets (Nizhnii Novgorod: Nizhegorodskaia Iarmarka, 2001)
D. Smirnov, ‘Ocherki zhizni i byta nizhegorodtsev XVII veka’ and ‘Ocherki zhizni i byta nizhegorodtsev XVIII veka’, both reprinted in Nizhegorodskaia starina (Nizhnii Novgorod: Nizhegorodskaia Iarmarka, 1995)
S. I. Arkhangel’skii (Gor’kovskoe oblastnoe gosudarstvenno izdatel’stvo), Ocherki po istorii promyshlennogo proletariata Nizhnego Novgoroda i Nizhegorodskoi oblasti XVII–XIX vv. (Gor’kii, 1950 )
Iu. R. Klokman, Sotsial’no-ekonomicheskaia istoriia russkogo goroda. Vtoraia polovina XVIII veka (Moscow: Nauka, 1967), pp. 32–8, 183–90, 266–91, 311, 317.
Ieromonakh Makarii, ‘Voskresenskii zhenskii monastyr’, N. Khramtsovskii, ‘Kratkii ocherk istorii i opisanie Nizhnego Novgoroda. Chast’ 2-aia. Opisanie goroda’, reprinted in Istoriia i opisanie Nizhnego Novgoroda, pp. 331–51 (pp. 331–36), Al’bitskii and Mamontov, pp. 7–10, Solov’ev, no. 15, pp. 761–69, P. V. Verkhovskoi (Tip. Uchilishcha glukhonemykh), Naselennye nedvizhimye imeniia Sv. Sinoda, arkhiereiskikh domov i monastyrei pri blizhaishikh preemnikakh Petra Velikago. Kollegiia Ekonomii i Kantseliariia Sinodal’nogo Ekonomicheskogo Pravleniia (15 iiulia 1726 g.-12 maia 1763 g.) (St Petersburg, 1909), Tables, pp. 71, 130
A. Zav’ialov (Tip. A. P. Lopukhina), Vopros o tserkovnykh imeniiakh pri imperatritse Ekaterine II (St Petersburg, 1900), Table IV, pp. 385–86.
Descriptions of religious life in Nizhnii Novgorod at this time are woefully inadequate, but see Arkhimandrit Makarii, Pamiatniki tserkovnykh drevnostei (repr. ed., Nizhnii Novgorod: Nizhegorodskaia Iarmarka, 1999), pp. 19–142, 245–422, 611–24, Khramtsovskii, Istoriia, pp. 118–19, 128, 131, 135, 230, 253–353, Gatsiskii, pp. 630–53, 659–61, 704 (n. 85), Smirnov, pp. 91–6, 221–4, 259, 262, 266–71
011Arkhimandrit Makarii, Sviatiteli zemli Nizhegorodskoi (Nizhnii Novgorod: OOO ‘Tsentr Sodeistviia Biznesu’, 2003), pp. 14–90.
Since the boundaries of Nizhnii Novgorod diocese changed several times during the eighteenth century, I have used those established in 1799 in compiling Table 10.1. There is no general study of female monasticism in Nizhnii Novgorod diocese during the early modern period, but for histories of individual convents see, in addition to the works cited in note 5 above, A. S. Petriashin, Arzamasskie monastyri. Istoriia, arkhitektura, khoziaistvennaia deiatel’nost’ (Arzamas: OAO ‘Arzamasskaia tipografiia’, 2003)
P. Piskarev, ‘Arzamasskii Nikolaevskii zhenskii monastyr’, NGV, 1849, no. 60, ch. neoff., pp. 237–40
N. Shchegol’kov (Tip. N. Dobrokhotova), Arzamasskii Nikolaevskii obshchezhitel’nyi zhenskii monastyr’. Istoriia ego i opisanie (Arzamas, 1903)
I. N. Chetyrkin (Tip. Nizhegorodskogo gubernskogo pravleniia, 1887), Istoriko-statisticheskoe opisanie Arzamasskoi Alekseevskoi zhenskoi obshchiny (Nizhnii Novgorod, 1887), I.
N. Chetyrkin Istoricheskii ocherk i opisanie Arzamasskoi Alekseevskoi obshchiny (St Petersburg, 1866).
On these organisational effects, see in general N. A. Gorskaia, Monastyrskie krest’iane Tsentral’noi Rossii v XVII v. O sushchnosti i formakh feodal’no-krepostnicheskikh otnoshenii (Moscow: Nauka, 1977)
I. K. Smolich, Russkoemonashestvo 988–1917 (Moscow: Tserkovno-nauchnyi tsentr ‘Pravoslavnaia Entsiklopediia’, 1997), pp. 127–56, and, on the differences between male and female monastic institutions
see Marie A. Thomas, ‘Managerial Roles in the Suzdal’skii Pokrovskii Convent during the Seventeenth Century’, Russian History, 10, Pts. 1–2 (1980), 92–112.
On the property rights of women in Muscovy, see William G. Wagner, Marriage, Property and Law in Late Imperial Russia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), pp. 227–33, and the literature cited there.
The differences between female and male monasticism in Nizhnii Novgorod diocese conformed broadly with the pattern for the empire as a whole at this time. See Ia. E. Vodarskii, ‘Zemlevladenie russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi i ee khoziaistvenno-ekonomicheskaia deiatel’nost’ (XI-nachalo XX v.)’, in Russkoe pravoslavie: vekhi istorii (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo politicheskoi literatury, 1989), Table 3, pp. 527–29, and the data in Verkhovskoi, Naselennyia nedvizhimyia imeniia, Tables III, IV, VI–XI, and Zav’ialov, Table IV. In general, see Smolich, Emchenko, ‘Zhenskie monastyri’, and V. S. Rumiantseva, ‘Monastyri i monashestvo v XVII veke’, in Monashestvo i monastyri, pp. 163–85.
Vodarskii, ‘Zemlevladenie russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi,’ Table 3, p. 529, and p. 530, Sophia Senyk, Women’s Monasteries in Ukraine and Belorussia to the Period of Suppressions, Orientalia Christiana Analecta, vol. 222 (Rome: Pont. Institutum Studorium Orientalium, 1983), p. 68, and Somlich, pp. 114–26.
On these efforts, see N. N. Lisovoi, ‘Vosemnadtsatyi vek v istorii russkogo monashestva’, in Monashestvo i monastyri, pp. 203–4, Robert O. Crummey, ‘Ecclesiastical Elites and Popular Belief and Practice in Seventeenth-Century Russia’, in Religion and the Early Modern State. Views from China, Russia, and the West, eds. James D. Tracy and Marguerite Ragnow (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 68–9
Robert O. Crummey, ‘Religious Radicalism in Seventeenth-Century Russia: Re-examining the Kapiton Movement’, Forschungen zur osteuropilischen Geschichte, 46 (1992), 171–86, and Smolich, pp. 162–64.
On Petrine measures with respect to monasticism, see Lindsey Hughes, Russia in the Age of Peter the Great (New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1998), pp. 337–48, 355, 378, 385–8, Smolich, pp. 257–72, 286, Lisovoi, pp. 186–208, 217–18, Emchenko, ‘Gosudarstvennoe zakonodatel’stvo’, pp. 171–82, 188–213, Emchenko, ‘Zhenskie monastyri’, 258–63
I. A. Bulygin, ‘Monastyrskoe khoziaistvo v Rossii v pervoi chetverti XVIII v.’, in Istoricheskaia geografiia Rossii XII-nachalo XX v. Sbornik statei k 70-letiiu professora Liubomira Grigorevicha Beskrovnogo (Moscow: Nauka, 1975), pp. 164–76
I. A. Bulygin, ‘Tserkovnaia reforma Petra I’, James Cracraft, The Church Reform of Peter the Great (London: Macmillan, 1971), pp. 84–90, 97–8, 251–61, 305–7, P. G. Ryndziunskii, ‘Tserkov’ v dvorianskoi imperii (XVIII v.)’, in Russkoe pravoslavie: vekhi istorii, pp. 231–39, 248–49
for older studies, P. V. Verkhovskoi, Uchrezhdenie dukhovnoi kollegii i dukhovnyi reglament. K voprosu ob otnoshenii Tserkvi i gosudarstva v Rossii, 2 vols (Rostov na Donu, 1916), I, 204–6, 490–91, 620–21, II, 79–80, 94–105, 124–51, and P. V. Verkhovskoi, Naselennye nedvizhimye imeniia, pp. 255–64.
On the measures adopted by Peter’s successors, prior to Catherine II, see Smolich, pp. 266–74, 287, Lisovoi, pp. 193–95, Emchenko, ‘Gosudarstvennoe zakonodatel’stvo’, pp. 171–82, 188–213, Emchenko, ‘Zhenskie monastyri’, 258–63, A. I. Komissarenko, Russkii absoliutizm i dukhovenstvo v XVIII v. (Ocherki istorii sekuliarizatsionnoi reformy 1764 g.) (Moscow: Izdatel’stvo Vsesoiuznogo zaochnogo politekhnicheskogo instituta, 1990), pp. 47–51, 103–9, Ryndziunskii, pp. 259–62, 276, and, for older studies, Verkhovskoi, Naselennye nedvizhimye imeniia, and Zav’ialov.
On this process in the Orthodox Church, see especially the works of Gregory L. Freeze, The Russian Levites. Parish Clergy in the Eighteenth Century (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1977)
Gregory L. Freeze, ‘The Rechristianization of Russia: The Church and Popular Religion, 1750–1850’, Studia Slavica Finlandia, 7 (1990), 101–36
023Gregory L. Freeze, ‘Institutionalizing Piety: The Church and Popular Religion, 1750–1850’, in Imperial Russia. New Histories for the Empire, eds Jane Burbank and David L. Ransel (Bloomington and Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998), pp. 210–49.
Arkadii, pp. 25–28, Gavriil, pp. 3–70 passim, M. Dobrovol’skii (Protoierei), Putevoditel’ po sviatym i tserkovnym dostoprimechatel’nostiam g. Nizhnego Novgoroda (Nizhnii Novgorod, 1912), pp. 147,151–52
S. Dobrotvorskii, ‘Opisanie Pecherskago Nizhegorodskogo pervoklassnogo muzhskogo monastyria’, NGV, 1849, no. 33, ch. neoff., pp. 129–32, no. 34, ch. neoff., pp. 133–5, no. 35, ch. neoff., pp. 137–40, Istoricheskoe opisanie Gorodetskogo Fedorovskogo monastyria, pp. 18–24
Makarii (Ieromonakh), Opisanie Oranskoi Bogoroditskoi pustyni (Moscow, 1851), pp. 81–2, Petriashin, pp. 90–91, and, in general, Kovaleva.
E. I. Kolycheva, ‘Pravoslavnye monastyri vtoroi poloviny XV–XVI veka’, in Monashestvo i monastyri, pp. 96–9, and A. V. Ikonnikov, ‘Simvolika prostranstvennoi formy monastyrskogo kompleksa’, in Monastyri - kul’turnye i dukhovnye tsentry Rossii i Evropy. Istoriia i sovremennost’: Mezhdunarodnaia monografiia, ed. O. G. Sevan ( Moscow: Ministerstvo Kul’tury RF i dr., 2003 ), pp. 39–47.
On cultural life in Nizhnii Novgorod during this period, see Istoriia goroda Gor’kogo, pp. 85–95, Khramtsovskii, Istoriia, pp. 137–53, Gatsiskii, pp. 167–76 and passim, Smirnov, ‘Ocherki zhizni i byta nizhegorodtsev XVIII veka’, pp. 251–362 passim, and B. N. Beliakov, V. G. Blinova, and N. D. Bordiug, Opernaia i kontsertnaia deiatel’nost’ v Nizhnem Novgorode-gorode Gor’kom (Gor’kii: Volgo-Viatskoe knizhnoe izdatel’stvo, 1980), pp. 14–23.
On the Russian merchantry at this time, see Alfred Rieber, Merchants and Entrepreneurs in Imperial Russia (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1982)
N. V. Kozlova, Rossiiskii absoliutizm i kupechestvo v XVIII veke (Moscow: Arkheograficheskii tsentr, 1999), and, on merchants of Nizhnii Novgorod see, Kazhdyi rod znamenit i slaven, pp. 10–11.
William G. Wagner, ‘The Transformation of Female Orthodox Monasticism in Nizhnii Novgorod Diocese, 1764–1929, in Comparative Perspective’, Journal of Modern History, 78 (2006), 793–845.
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Wagner, W.G. (2007). Female Orthodox Monasticism in Eighteenth–Century Imperial Russia: The Experience of Nizhnii Novgorod. In: Rosslyn, W., Tosi, A. (eds) Women in Russian Culture and Society, 1700–1825. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230589902_11
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