Magical letters of Astrakhan sectarian Judaizers as a sociocultural phenomenon (late 19th – early 20th centuries)

Annotation

The article examines the examples of sacred epistles, so-called “magic letters”, or messages of representatives of the old Russian sectarianism of Judaizers who had been living in the territory of the Astrakhan province since the 19th century. Magical letters, or “circular”, “saints” ones as well as “letters of happiness” are considered to be one of the genres of the folk culture known for many centuries. As a rule, magical letters are of divine origin and under certain conditions they promise protection from some catastrophes and misfortunes. The relevance of the article is connected, among other things, with the clear definitions of the sectarian epistolary heritage. The ultimate goal of the study is to define boundaries between official and deviant religious commitment. Using analytical, interpretative and axiological scientific methods, the authors argue with the famous researcher A. L. Lvov about the attribution of sectarian letters that were considered by him as religious and magical texts. Based on the absence of the usual characteristics of such texts – the divine origin, the evidence of magical effects on respondents, the threats to vital values and compensatory nature ‒ the authors disagree to define sacred epistles of Judaizers as magical religious texts thus concluding that they are more likely to be attributed to ritual practices.

Keywords

• Magic letters
• holy letters
• circular letters
• letters of happiness
• old Russian sectarianism
• Judaism
• ritual practices
• divine origin
• vital threats
• compensatory
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Contribution of the authors

Kanatieva N. S. – development of the research concept, processing and presentation of source materials, writing the original text, final conclusions; Glazkov A. P. – work on sources, revision of the text, final conclusions.

References

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