Russian Judaizers’ Communities beyond the Pale in the First Third of the Nineteenth Century: Leaders, Relationships with the Authorities, Contacts with Jews

The lecture attempts to throw some light on the life of the Judaizers’ communities located in the heartland provinces of the early nineteenth century Russia. The sources of the research are the archival materials.

In the first third of the nineteenth century the Subbotnik movement was a variety of organized groups; it had developed a specific set of religious beliefs and practices. Sectarian groups often revealed themselves to the local or central authorities; they sometimes had cemeteries and even specifically built houses of public worship and religious instruction of children.

At that time the movement produced outstanding leaders of the religious dissent, fervent preachers of the “Mosaic law” who catechized converts, performed the sacred rites and represented their communities in dealing with the authorities. They displayed perseverance in defending and propagating “Mosaic teaching” and in relationships with officials. On the other hand, they were able to go underground, formally renouncing their views in critical situations. Such combination of “rigid” and “flexible” behavioral patterns replicated within religious groups, gave a certain measure of stability to the movement.

In the perıod under revıew we can clearly trace contacts between the followers of “Mosaic Law” and Russian Jews. The Jews played the role of the Russian dissidents’ religious instructors. They visited the Subbotniks’ homes, sometimes lived there, entered into written communication with Judaizers. The sources point out the attempts of the Jews to instill the idea of insufficiency of the Judaizers’ Old Testament faith, while pointing to standard Judaism as a norm.