Authors

Kieko Kamitake¹;  ¹ Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, Japan

Discussion

This presentation aims to illuminate the relationship between the emergence of musical modernism in the early 20th-century Russia and the cultural activities of the Russian Orthodox Old Believers. By analyzing essays and critiques written by Old Believer music journalists concerning the Russian musical world of the time, the study seeks to uncover the unique aesthetic philosophies they espoused.

The Old Believers are a sect that broke away from the mainstream Russian Orthodox Church in the mid-17th century, rejecting the liturgical reforms initiated by Patriarch Nikon in 1653. Branded as “schismatics” under the Tsarist regime, they endured centuries of persecution. Nevertheless, Old Believer communities flourished both within and beyond Russia, cultivating distinctive religious and social cultures. By the late 19th century, many Old Believers had risen to prominence as merchants and industrialists, and their patronage of the arts—particularly in opera and theater—had a profound impact. Notably, Sava Mamontov’s private opera company pursued a vision of opera as a total art form, implementing a series of practical reforms.

This presentation focuses on the 1915 essay “Revival of Antiquity” published in the journal Old Believer Thought by Yakov Bogatenko (1880–1941), an archaeologist and art critic affiliated with the Old Believers. It examines how Bogatenko evaluated Sergei Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil through the lenses of “tradition,” “innovation,” and “return to origins.” Bogatenko was not only a theorist but also a practitioner, founding choirs and organizing performances of sacred music.

     Although the Old Believers have long been recognized as a significant force in Russian history, they have often been portrayed as culturally isolated and disengaged from secular artistic life. In particular, their relationship with the arts—especially music—has remained underexplored. This presentation challenges such assumptions by redefining the Old Believers not as outsiders to art, but as active contributors to Russia’s musical landscape. In doing so, it bridges the divide between religious and secular cultural spheres within Old Believer studies and contributes to a broader reexamination of Russian “culture” during the Silver Age, prior to the October Revolution.