Adrian Pushkin: Perm experience of the bureaucratic messiahship

• Published in: VESTNIK ARHEOLOGII, ANTROPOLOGII I ETNOGRAFII
• Main Authors: Bushmakov A.V., Riazanova S.V.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Russian
• Published: Tyumen Scientific Centre SB RA 2021
• Subjects: national orthodoxy; messianic ideas; perm province; religious prophecy; folk religion; individual religion; messiah; Archaeology; CC1-960; Solovetsky; Kama
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.20874/2071-0437-2021-52-1-15; https://doaj.org/article/567628e0459a407aad143fa2d9cf9ccd

This paper presents to the reader’s attention a unique case of a local “messianic” prophecy which combines features of folk religious movements and principles of functioning of the bureaucratic machine. The manuscripts of civil servant and merchant Adrian Pushkin, who lived in the 19th century in the city of Perm (Kama region, West-ern Ural), are considered as a variation of development of popular religion which includes a messianic-apocalyptic narrative. This places the provincial clerk closely to founders of the alternative to the official Orthodox discourse movements in the Russian Empire, as well as new religious movements of the later period. The aim of this paper is to determine the place and the role of Pushkin’s revelation in the religious space of that historical period. The main sources of the research are local archival documents which include business correspondence, personal letters, photographs, also documents related to Pushkin’s psychiatric examination and his subsequent expulsion to the Solovetsky Monastery, letters and family photos of the “prophet”, and service notes. The research method is based on the phenomenological approach with elements of hermeneutical analysis. The new revelation was founded on biblical text well known to the Perm messiah, and its content was provided by the social and historical context. The targeted audience for the new prophet was the middle strata of the society, comfortable for him. The preferred way of communication involved the tools of the bureaucratic system of pre-revolutionary Russia. The development of the new interpretation of Christian teaching was based on individual choice of the revelator and mediated by already initiated processes of secularization of public life. Traditional narratives and imagery of the sacred books of the Orthodox tradition were placed by the messiah-bureaucrat in the context of local space of the region and the country, and were interpreted through realities of personal life. Open criticism of the official Church was combined with ...