Pavel Mel’nikov’s Epic Novels as a Window to the Economic, Creative, Political, and Sexual World of Volga Sectarians

Session Submission Type: Panel

Affiliate Organization: Association for the Study of Eastern Christian History and Culture

Brief Description

Though relatively unstudied in the West, Pavel Mel’nikov (who often wrote under the pseudonym Andrei Pecherskii) is quite well known in Russia as the primary bytopisatel’ or chronicler of the Volga sectarians’ day-to-day life in the early to mid-nineteenth century. Tasked by the Tsarist government with investigating and eventually dissolving the Old Believer settlements not far from Nizhny Novgorod (both of which he fulfilled), Mel’nikov made an abrupt ideological about-face and, by the 1860s, was arguing in support of the Old Ritualist communities he had formerly helped to destroy. The papers in this panel concern Mel’nikov’s two great novels, In the Forests (1874) and On the Hills (1881), and seek to unlock both the author’s unparalleled knowledge of sectarian customs, beliefs, and the intricacies of Old Believer politics and economic relations, as well as his attempt to change the political narrative concerning this often-marginalized group.

Sub Unit

• Literature: 19th Century

Chair

• Page Herrlinger, Bowdoin College

Papers

• What They Say Beyond the Volga: Folklore and Economics in Pavel Mel’nikov’s 'In the Forests' - Isabella Palange, U of Wisconsin-Madison

• Redefining Conservatism Spatially: Pavel Mel’nikov’s Novel 'In the Forests' and the Question of the Austrian Hierarchy - Charles H. Arndt, Vassar College

• Sex, Celibacy, and Religious Dissent in P. I. Mel'nikov's Epic Novels - J. Eugene Clay, Arizona State U

Discussant

• Vera Shevzov, Smith College