"Staraia vera" po-chuvashski: knizhnaia traditsiia i povsednevnye praktiki odnoi staroobriadcheskoi obshchiny

Abstract

Drawing on the notion of textual communities as elaborated by Brian Stock, the author examines a range of practices related to written texts in a Chuvash community of old believers. There are various kinds of texts from the most canonical ones in Old Church Slavonic to twentieth-century manuscripts and latest printed editions. They are used to different purposes. The former, being associated with “imagined” old books, are the embodiment of “old faith” as a whole; while the latter may be either texts for personal reading or texts meant for collective practices. However, all and any texts remain subjects to interpretation and objects that are given specific status.