AT the TURN of 1928 - 1929 in the USSR there was a significant change in the entire course of state policy towards religious organizations. "The period of relatively calm contacts with them [religious organizations] has been replaced by a long period of extremely militant, intolerant attitude towards the Church."1. Moreover, in terms of the nature of the measures taken, the religious policy of the state in this historical period is comparable to that of the Civil War and the seizure of church valuables, but the scale of persecution of believers far exceeded similar phenomena at the turn of the 1910s-1920s.

Cardinal changes in the religious policy of the Soviet state are connected with general economic and political changes in the country: with the processes of accelerated industrialization and general collectivization, as well as with the ideology of "aggravation of the class struggle". This chronological period (1929-1939) can be roughly divided into several stages, taking into account the degree of intensity of administrative influences and repressive measures in the state's policy in the field of religion:

1) 1929-1930-the adoption of the law "On Religious Associations", the policy of general collectivization and related dekulakization of the population; under its sign, the mass movement was carried out.-

Russkaya Pravoslavnaya Tserkva pri Stalinu i Khrushchev (Gosudarstvenno-tserkovnye otnosheniya SSSR v 1939-1964 godakh) [Russian Orthodox Church under Stalin and Khrushchev (State - Church relations of the USSR in 1939-1964)]. Moscow: Krutitskoe Patriarshoe Podvorye; Obshchestvo lyubiteley tserkvnoi istorii, 2000, p. 87.

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military closure of churches and repression of clergy and ordinary believers;

2) 1930-1931 - a period of easing pressure on religious organizations; related to the article by I. V. Stalin "Dizziness from success", published in the newspaper "Pravda" N60 of March 2, 1930, in which he criticizes excesses in local religious policy related to collectivization;

3) 1932-1933 - a new wave of administrative and repressive actions; a number of secret service cases are fabricated about "counter-revolutionary anti-Soviet organizations", which are accused of creating representatives of various religious organizations;

4) 1934-1935 - a kind of "calm before the storm" of repression; again, there is some relaxation in the religious policy of the state due to the consolidation of the moderate group led by S. Kirov in the ruling circles, as well as for international reasons (the establishment of diplomatic relations with the United States, the Nazis ' rise to power in Germany in 1933 G.); however, the practice of administrative confiscation of prayer buildings continues;

5) 1936-the beginning of 1937 are marked by the Stalinist Constitution and the All-Union population census, which is why there is an "intensification of counter-revolutionary activities of churchmen and sectarians";

6) 1937-1938 - the years of the "great terror", when repressions hit all segments of the population;

7) The repressions subsided somewhat in 1939, after L. P. Beria became People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the USSR.

Naturally, the religious population of Soviet Belarus, as well as other regions of the USSR, could not help but react to administrative and repressive pressure from the state. The purpose of this article is to consider various ways of resistance of believers of Christian confessions of the BSSR to the state policy of forced secularization in 1929 - 1939, based on the documents of the National Archive of the Republic of Belarus (NARB), in particular, the fund 4p "Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Bolsheviks of Belarus" (1918 - 1941), inventory N1. Information about various cases of opposition by "churchmen and sectarians to the measures of the Soviet government" was mainly contained in such documents of the NARB as memos on the state of anti-religious propaganda in the regions of the BSSR and declassified special reports and special messages of the NKVD about the mood-

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population growth over a certain period of time. The number of these documents varies from year to year: periods of aggravation (collectivization, the "great terror") of relations between religious organizations and the state are reflected in more than 70 archival sources, while in years of calm their number is reduced to 5 units.

A number of scientific studies both in our country and abroad are devoted to the topic of the Soviet state's policy in the sphere of religion in the 1920s and 30s. In the Belarusian historical science, one should first of all mention the monograph under the general editorship of V. I. Novitskiy 2; it is also necessary to mention the work of I. I. Yanushevich 3, devoted to the relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the state in Soviet Belarus in 1917-1927; on the state's policy towards the Roman Catholic Church in the Belarusian lands in the first decade of Soviet power writes A.D. Lebedev 4; and others. The highest-level religious policy of the state, including its impact on the legal and socio-economic situation of religious organizations, was most often studied and analyzed. In addition, much attention was paid to the topic of repression against the clergy and ordinary believers. Much less developed is the theme of the evolution of everyday religious life under the influence of secular state policy. If, for example, separate chapters are devoted to Jewish religious everyday life in the works of A. Kaganovich 5, A. Zeltser 6, A. Litin7, the daily life of the Christian population of the BSSR is less studied. Here, the publications of the Belarusian historian I. Romanova are worthy of attention, in particular, an article in which she examines in detail the attitude of believers of the BSSR to the census

2. Canfesii on Belarus (c. XVIII-XX centuries)/Навук. рэд. У. І. Навіцкі. Мн.: ВП "Экаперспектыва", 1998.

Yanushevich I. I. 3. The policy of the Soviet state in relation to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1917-1927. (based on the materials of Belarus). Moscow: BSU, 2002.

Lebedev 4. Politika sovetskogo gosudarstva v otnoshenii k Rimsko-Katolicheskoi tserkvi v BSSR (1919-1929) [The policy of the Soviet state in relation to the Roman Catholic Church in the BSSR (1919 - 1929)].

Kaganovich A. 5. Rechytsa: History of a Jewish community in South-Eastern Belarus. Jerusalem, 2007.

Zeltser A. 6. Jews of the Soviet province: Vitebsk and small towns. 1917-1941. Moscow: ROSSPEN PUBL., 2006.

Litin A. 7. Istoriya mogilevskogo evreystva [History of Mogilev Jewry], Unipak Publ., 2006.

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In 1937, the author focuses on the history of the sect of the Lepel "silent people" 8.

In this article, taking into account the above-mentioned studies of I. Romanova, we have expanded the chronological framework and tried to analyze in detail the reaction of the believing population of Christian denominations to various activities of the Soviet government in the framework of the history of everyday life during the 30s of the XX century. Our analysis allowed us to identify the main ways of believers ' resistance to the state's policy in the field of religion and conditionally divide them into active and passive (which was not previously attempted in the research literature), depending on whether the believers took an active civil position in their relations with the authorities, tried to fight in a legal or illegal (from the point of view of or they evaded the measures of the Soviet government in various ways.

Active methods of resistance of believers during the period under review include the following: actions of believers against the closure of churches, collective petitions for the opening of prayer buildings, petitions for the release of clergy from arrest. The observance of the most important religious rites under conditions of forced secularization (we are talking, first of all, about baptism, funeral services, communion) can also be considered as a kind of form of resistance, especially since the Soviet government itself considered the facts of baptism and others precisely as "counter-revolutionary activities of priests and churchmen."

Passive methods of resistance include escaping to Poland from the "godless government", collective absenteeism during holidays, refusing passports and benefits for multi-family families, evading participation in the population census and even in elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.

Separately, we should focus on such a specific form of" anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda "as the so-called" letters of happiness", or"holy letters".

Раманава І. 8. Кляйменне Чырвонага дракона. Усесаюзны перапіс насельніцтва 1937 года і яго трактовка у сялянскім дыскурсе//АЯСНЕ. 2012. N3. pp. 246-261.

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"Active" forms of resistance

(1) Actions of believers against the closure of churches. The most numerous cases of open protests by believers against the closure of churches date back to 1929 - the first half of 1930 and are closely related to the application in practice of the law "On Religious Associations" of April 8, 1929.

The law "On Religious Associations" was actively used as part of the accelerated collectivization policy, when the mass closure of prayer buildings "for cultural needs" or "for grain storage" began. Believers reacted sharply not even to the new legislation itself, but to all sorts of "gross mistakes and all sorts of excesses, sometimes bordering on crime"9. In the document preserved in the NARB under the title "Mass Demonstrations" of April 14, 1930, 5 facts of mass spontaneous demonstrations of believers in various regions of the BSSR, in rural areas, are described in sufficient detail. Only in February-March 1930, the motive for these demonstrations were the arrests of clergymen, members of church councils and the most active believers, as well as the subsequent They are followed by the illegal removal of prayer buildings from the use of believers without the consent of the believers themselves.10
The performances of the faithful followed approximately the same scenario: at first, without taking into account the opinion of the faithful population, members of the party activists positively decided to withdraw the local village church as a warehouse or club. Without waiting for the official consent of the district executive committee (RIC) and the execution of relevant documents, Komsomol members, or members of the local cell of the "Union of Militant Atheists", or members of the Village Council, went to the church, took out all the church utensils without an inventory, and ordered either to pour grain there, or to start converting it into a club. After some time (most often on the same day), a crowd gathered with demands to open the church, return the seized church property and release the arrested. The degree of anger of the crowd was different, in one case (the Orthodox community of d. Sukharevka, Lupolovsky district, Mogilev district) case before-

9. National Archive of the Republic of Belarus (hereinafter - NARB). F. 4-P. Op. 1. D. 5030. L. 2.

10. Ibid., l. 8-10.

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there were even gunshots and injuries on both sides. It is important to note that the actions of believers went beyond the protection of only their religious interests, and this motivation was mixed with bitterness against forced collectivization. So, in d. Veleshkovichi Lioznensky district Orthodox believers, as the document reports, chasing members of the Village Council, shouted: "Break up the village council, destroy papers and books, it's enough to torment us and drive us to collective farms." 11 Bratovo Mahiliou district after the seizure of church property and the closure of the Orthodox Church believers " all day besieged the village Council with abuse. In the crowd were 75 % of the collective farmers of the "Giant" collective farm, who immediately dismantled the socialized cattle to their homes, and the rest of the cattle stood all day unfed. The crowd categorically declared to the two members of the District Committee of the CPB who arrived at the scene:: "As long as you do not return the church and the things taken from it to us, we will not give up the cattle and will not work on the collective farm" " 12.

In the end, the "high" authorities from the district committee of the CP(b)came to the placeB and promised to "sort everything out". Interestingly, no final decisions on closed churches were presented in the above document. But judging by the subsequent policy of mass closure of churches, most likely, the churches were closed.

In this regard, in subsequent years, this form of resistance of believers, such as protests against the closure of churches, is transformed into speeches for the opening of previously closed and long-standing empty churches. At the moment, only two such cases were described in detail in archival documents, in 1936 and 1937, where it is presumably about believers of the Orthodox faith; there is also a brief mention of speeches in two districts of the BSSR in 1937 (without defining confessions).

(2) Collecting signatures and funds for the opening of previously closed prayer buildings. This form of resistance became much more widespread in 1936-1937. This also includes collective requests for registration of clergymen13. To before-

11. Ibid., l. 9.

12. Ibid., l. 10.

13. Before beginning to perform their direct duties in a given locality, each clergyman had to go through the registration procedure and obtain a permit to conduct divine services in the local authorities. The latter could slow down this process, fail

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kladnoy note addressed to the secretaries of the Central Committee of the CP(b)B T. T. Volkov, Levitsky, Potapeyko "On the state of anti-religious propaganda in Belarus", submitted to the Central Committee of the CP(b)B at the end of 1936, head of the Department of Party Propaganda and Agitation of the Central Committee of the CP (b)B T. As a signal, the following information is provided: "As of December 20, 1936, 1371 churches were closed, 74 operating churches, 95 and 18, respectively. [... In 1936, there were 158 applications from believers to open churches in 51 districts, and 16 applications from churches in 11 districts." These figures, according to the author of the report, "clearly indicate a significant activation of churchmen and the weakness of our anti-religious propaganda in the republic."14 In another document-the minutes of the meeting of the Commission on Cults under the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee (CEC) for April 1937-recorded another 38 petitions of believers on the opening of churches and registration of clergy (including 25 from Orthodox, 8 from Jews and 1 application from Catholics, Old Believers and Evangelical Christians)15. The main reason for such mass appeals of citizens was the adoption in 1936 of a new Constitution, article 124 of which stated: "In order to ensure citizens' freedom of conscience, the church in the USSR is separated from the state and the school from the church. Freedom of religious worship and freedom of anti-religious propaganda are recognized for all citizens. " 16 In fact, this article of the Constitution only looked democratic on the surface, but in reality it tightened the provisions of the 1918 decree "On the separation of church from State and school from Church", paragraph 3 of which read:: "Every citizen can profess any religion or not profess any. All rights related to the confession of any faith or non-confession of any faith are canceled."17. As we can see, the 1936 Constitution of the Russian Federation is based on-

in the registration, referring, for example, to excessive employment in sowing operations. In this regard, believers were forced to apply to higher authorities.

14. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 11834. L. 394.

15. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 11853. L. 51-57.

16. Constitution of the USSR of 1936 / / Wikiteca [Electronic resource]. 2012. Access mode: http://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/CONSTITUTION_SSSR.

17. Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of 23.01.1918 On the separation of Church from State and School from Church//Wikitek [Electronic resource]. 2012. Access mode: http://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/Decretal_of_delement_of_cercie_of_state_of_school_of_cerci

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Citizens have little right to religious propaganda, which was previously formally granted by the Decree of the Council of People's Commissars. Surprisingly, believers of all faiths accepted the Constitution as a real guarantee of their religious freedom, including freedom of religious assembly, the possibility of opening churches and resuming worship services. They really, in "party" terms, intensified their activities in 1936-1937, hoping that the Soviet government would finally follow the letter of the law that it had itself established. And the reaction of believers to the adoption of the Constitution did not go beyond the framework of legality; it only called, in fact, for this legality to be observed.

In this regard, we can once again return to the aforementioned speeches for the opening of churches in 1936-1937. The most interesting case is that of the Orthodox community in the Nichiporovichi village Council of the Shklovsky district on April 6-7, 1937...] went around and around the surrounding villages on horseback [... deceiving the faithful that they will come from Minsk and the center of the district on the day of the Annunciation to open the church and that all the faithful will come to pray by 6 o'clock in the morning. And exactly by 11 o'clock in the morning, a crowd of about 200 people from all the above-mentioned village councils gathered in an organized way to the church, 30% of them young people, most of them women, and began to break the locks of the church, the outer lock was broken with a stone, but the inner one survived. Then they tore up the portraits of Lenin and Stalin that hung on the outside of the entrance to the church and moved to the village council. The chairman of the village Council - a non-partisan T. Gapeev-began to call the district. The crowd pushed him away, and one woman herself began to call the district department of the NKVD to send him to open the church. Tov. Krasinsky, the head of the NKVD district department, promised to come and investigate. The crowd, waiting for the arrival from the district, walked around the village, felt like the owner of the village council, behaved defiantly, got drunk near the church, and everyone demanded from the chairman of the village Council the keys to the church with shouts:"Open the church, because the Constitution says that churches should be opened." In the evening, when some of the crowd began to disperse, two NKVD officers arrived from the area and suggested that the crowd select their representatives with whom they would talk. They singled out 5 representatives (2 men and 3 women), through whom the NKVD officers conveyed that the church was legally closed and would not be opened, and invited the crowd to disperse.

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After shouting and shouting, the crowd dispersed towards evening. Last night, 7 people were arrested, and now one person and two others are being held on this case. " 18 The secret memo "On the anti-Soviet activities of churchmen and sectarians in the BSSR" dated July 7, 1938, addressed to the Central Committee of the CPSU(b), also mentioned cases of "mass actions aimed at seizing churches previously seized and equipped for clubs, provoking believers by counterrevolutionary interpretation of the Stalinist Constitution"19. As we can see, to the accusations of believers in "illegal performances" and "seizures", party workers also added the accusation of misunderstanding the provisions of the new Constitution, which, from the point of view of the authorities, was even more "counter-revolutionary".

(3) Petitions from the faithful for the release of clergymen from custody should also be considered a common form of resistance. The protests were made in connection with the policy of exorbitant taxation of the clergy at the initial stages of collectivization (1929-1930), with obligations to pay all taxes for the priest, 20 as well as in connection with complaints from the clergy themselves or their relatives about exorbitant taxation and dekulakization.21 Petitions and complaints were made to the chairman of the Central Election Commission of the BSSR A. Chervyakov (at the moment, 6 such appeals were identified in the documents of the NAR B, which fell on March-April 1930); believers hoped for the triumph of justice. The following excerpt from the letter of Orthodox believers to A. Chervyakov is significant: "When we received the newspapers, we read in Izvestia No. 73 of March 15, which says in paragraph 7 about a decisive end to the closure of churches, we, the undersigned, ask you, as the only help and protection, in the name of the Revolution, allow us to serve in the Orthodox churches. our Sobolevskaya Church and return us from the detention of our priest " 22. Subsequently, such petitions were no longer found in the documents of the NARB.

18. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 11852. L. 15-16.

19. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 13219. L. 66.

20. NARB. f. 4P. p. 1. d. 11834. l. 3, 4, 10. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 5036. L. 98-99, 100.

21. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 5036. L. 93-95, 101-101a.

22. Ibid., l. 98.

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(4) The observance of the most important religious rites can also, in our opinion, be attributed to forms of active resistance of believers; in particular, we are talking about baptisms, wearing crosses, performing services by ordinary believers in areas where there are no clergy left, holding prayer meetings in private homes by representatives of Protestant denominations. Moreover, after the mass closure of churches and arrests of clergy in 1929-1933. Up to 1936, only one "egregious" case was recorded in archival documents in the Sennensky district, when in 1935 a "kulak-priest group guilty of baptizing children under the age of 13 in the number of 14 people"was exposed. 23 after the adoption of the Constitution, as well as with petitions for the opening of churches, there is an "intensification of the activities of churchmen and sectarians" who were engaged not only in baptizing children, but also in organizing "illegal prayer meetings". So, for example, and April 1937 in the village of Dubovitsa, Kormyansky district, according to the secretary of the district committee, T. A large gathering of sectarians, essentially inter - district-Rogachevsky, Chechersky and 5 villages of the Kormyansky district-was held. When asked by the secretary about the purpose of the meeting, believers (presumably Evangelical Christians or Baptists) they reported that "they were going to pray to God. When I asked if they were registered and who authorized the collection, Lashkevich pulls out the Constitution from the table and, reading article 124, adds: "Stalin allowed us, the Stalinist Constitution." I stated that since they are not registered and do not have permission to collect a meeting, we cannot allow such a meeting. Lashkevich repeated , " We don't need to ask permission, Stalin gave us permission."24 This kind of situation wasn't unique. As noted in the above memo, T. Comments on: "On the eve of May 1, a number of illegal gatherings of churchmen and sectarians were discovered in the Loyevsky district. So, in the village. Pyatnaki - 30-40 people, in the village. Popovka - 40-50 people, in the collective farm "Leninets" - 30-40 people, where women-sole proprietors prevailed. The meetings were led by men from among the dispossessed, convicted, thieves, bandits. At these meetings, the gospel was read with counter-revolutionary commentaries, as well as counter-revolutionary verses covered with counterrevolution were read out.-

23. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 6869. L. 222.

24. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 11834. L. 396.

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a lucious shell. When a representative appeared at the meeting, the churchmen responded in an organized manner to the questions raised "on what issues is the meeting being held?": "we hold meetings on the basis of freedom of assembly, we work on the basis of freedom of religion, we compose and sing poems on the basis of freedom of the press ""25." Churchmen and sectarians "were also accused of influencing schoolchildren and young people:" Baptists force children to read the gospel, while prohibiting them from studying and reciting poems by Soviet writers. In a number of districts, children and young people are attracted to participate in church choirs "26;" at kalgasakh Bratkauskaga village council "Shlyakh leninizma", "Avangard" and at Kalgaspi "Ulyanava" Lyaninskaga village council...моладзь, асабліва дзяучата перад "пасхай" пасцілі - па 2 - 3 дні не елі"27.

In the few churches that were still open, services were held mainly on the most important Christian holidays (Easter, Christmas, Annunciation, etc.) . One of the most important elements of the external manifestation of religiosity was (however, as at present) the consecration of Easter cakes. 28 In the absence of functioning churches and clergy, believers could conduct services independently, as, for example, "at kalgase" Ulyanovsk "Lyaninskaga selsaveta 01.05 vecharam relligilgzniki sabiralis at 4 huts I chytali "svyashchennyya knigi" "29;" nochchu i-ga May perad paskhay zhanchyny hadzili on Kolenskaye kladbishcha malitsa. У вёсцы Пухавічах з першага на другое мая усю ноч свяцилі у хатах лямпы, і калі інспектар міліцыі т. Цвірко спытау у адной жанчыны, навошта усю ноч гараць агні, яна сказала, "спрауляем усюношную, у нас у канстытуціі сказана, якую хочаш рэлігію можаш выконваць""30. In above-

25. Ibid., l. 396.

26. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 11868. L. 398.

27. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 11852. L. 137. "In the collective farms of the Bratkovsky Village Council "The Path of Leninism", "Avangard" and in the collective farm "Ulyanovo" of the Leshnyansky Village Council... young people, especially girls, fasted before Easter - they didn't eat for 2-3 days."

28. Ibid., l. 59.

29. Ibid. L. 137. "In the collective farm" Ulyanovo "of the Leshnyansky village Council 01.05. In the evening, religious people gathered in 4 huts and read "sacred books"."

30. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 12082. L. 279. " On the night of May 1, before Easter, women went to the Kolensk cemetery to pray. In the village of Pukhovichi, from the first to the second of May, the lamps shone all night in the huts, and when the police inspector T. V. shone in the village of Pukhovichi. Tsvirko asked one woman why the lights were burning all night, and she said, ' we are holding a vigil, our constitution says we can perform whatever religion you want.'"

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the above stories are about Orthodox believers, since Orthodox Easter in 1937 fell just on May 2, and Holy Saturday-on May 1, Labor Day.

It should be noted that even after the "great terror" of 1937-1938, when "the functioning of churches in the BSSR ceased in 1937 and 1938, mainly due to the arrests of clergy for active anti-Soviet activities", and "a significant part of inactive churches were not formally closed, and a number of churches were not withdrawn from the faithful the keys are in the possession of the church asset. " 31 The faithful continued to perform religious rites and services. The already mentioned People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the BSSR T. Nasedkin in his report cites quite interesting facts about the religious life of believers, also, most likely, of the Orthodox faith, in the midst of the "great terror": "In some places, believers gather in churches and conduct church services themselves, without priests, and perform religious rites in apartments: 1) In Rogachev, a group of religious women, the so-called "deaconesses" - Loshakova-50 years old, Vishnevskaya-45 years old, Konovalchikova-75 years old and Gisel Alexandra-20 years old, go to the homes of believers, where they perform religious rites instead of priests-baptize children, bury the dead, etc. d) In the village of Luchino Former nuns of the Rogachevsky district also perform religious rites, h) Near Orsha, former nuns living in the chapel use the chapel for religious services, removing bedding for this time. 4) On 22.04.1938, former psalmist Kravchenok, 50 years old, gathered religious people in his house in Bolshaya Stepnya village, Minsk district, and held a prayer service, during which he walked around the house with icons. 5) In d. Simonichi Lelchitsky district a group of female churchwomen persuaded a 13-year-old boy to open a church on April 24, after which they organized a service in it, which brought together a significant number of believers in Lelchitsky and Turovsky districts. This church has not been functioning for 4 years, but there is no government decision to close it. Among the organizers of the opening of the church was Veresova Maria Yakovlevna, 38 years old, whose husband was repressed. 6) On 24.04.1938, in the Begoml district, at the Bereznevsky and Begomlsky cemeteries, there was a gathering of believers in connection with Easter.-

31. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 13219. L. 68.

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200 people who performed religious rites. Among those present were young people. In a number of collective farms, collective farmers did not work on that day. " 32
"Passive" reactions to anti-religious policies

(1)NARB documents contain information that" at the dawn of collectivization " priests in churches called on the faithful to leave "with all their property" for Poland. 33 This was especially true for representatives of national minorities (Poles, Latvians, Germans). Naturally, in the eyes of the authorities, this looked like an attempt to illegally cross the border, "a special way for the kulaks to fight against the activities of the party and the Soviet government, collectivization [ ... ] to increase harassment and slander against the Soviet Union." In the future, such cases were not identified in the NARB documents.

(2) Another method of passive resistance to the existing regime is collective absenteeism of collective farmers for field work on the days of church holidays. It concerned, first of all, the most important Christian holiday - the Resurrection of Christ, or Easter. The actions of Orthodox believers in 1937 came under particularly close attention of local authorities, since in this year, as already mentioned, Orthodox Easter was celebrated on May 2, and Holy Saturday, in turn, on Labor Day-on May 1. In this regard, the authors of reports on the religious situation in the regions of the BSSR recorded the following:: "У сувязі з супадзеннем рэлігійнага свята пасхі з Першамайскім святам значная частка працоуных не удзельнічала у праведзеных Першамайскіх мерапрыемствах, некаторая частка калгаснікау у перші дзень пасхі 2-га Мая не вышла на калгасныя палявыя работы" (Копаткевичский район)34; "у першы дзень пасхі - 2 мая - у калгасе "Шлях Сталіна" Навасельскага сельсавета дэманстратыуна ніхто не выйшау на работу. Ва многіх калгасах Будскага, Какоучынскага, Леднявіцкага и інш. selsavetau

32. Ibid., pp. 68-69.

33. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 4592. L. 67.

34. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 11852. L. 269. "Due to the coincidence of the religious holiday of Easter with the May Day holiday, a significant part of the workers did not participate in the May Day events held, and some of the collective farmers did not go out to collective farm field work on the first day of Easter on May 2."

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таксама ніхто не выйшау на работу. Нават у местачковым калгасе "Бальшавік" ніхто не выйшау на работу у першы дзень пасхі" (Богушевский район)35; "У дзень 2-га мая толькі у 6-ті калгасах частка калгаснікау вышла на работу у астатніх калгасах 2-га мая не работалі, а у 3-х калгасах навіт 3-га мая на работу не вьпшлі - святкавалі пасху, у той час як 1-га мая у 2-х калгасах значная частка калгаснікау арганізаваная ляснічым-камсамольцам Хруцюм, пашлі на пасадку леса. У дзень 1-га мая значная частка моладзі не танцавала, бо "у час усеночнай танцаваць нельза"" (Туровский район)36. The believers tried to defend their position: "At kalgase" Dyryzabl "Leshnyanskaga s / s zhanchyna spoke at the gathering of I zayauliala, shto May traba svyatkavats, ala zh i "paskhu" taksama traba svyatkavats "37. However, official documents interpreted such absenteeism as " anti-collective agitation under the guise of religious propaganda"38.

(3) Much greater historical and religious studies interest is aroused by the forms of resistance of groups of believers to such "measures of the Soviet government" that either had nothing to do with the state's policy in the field of religion (passporting, issuing benefits for multi-family families, elections to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR), or were indirectly connected with it (the All-Union population census). It is in connection with the religious perception of some believers of the above events that it is advisable to consider and understand the reaction of believers to them in this article.

Let's start with the reaction of believers to the census, which had something to do with the religious policy of the state. In a number of researchers devoted to the history of re --

35. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. i868. L. 46. "On the first day of Easter - May 2 - in the collective farm "Stalin's Way" of the Novoselsky Village Council, no one demonstratively went to work. In many collective farms of Budsky, Kokovchinsky, Lednevitsky and other village councils, no one came to work either. Even in the small-town collective farm "Bolshevik" no one went to work on the first day of Easter."

36. NARB. F. 4p. Op. 1. D. 11852. L. 83. "On the day of May 2, only in 6 collective farms some of the collective farmers went to work, in the rest of the collective farms on May 2 they did not work, and in 3 collective farms even on May 3 they did not go to work they went out and celebrated Easter, while on May 1, in 2 collective farms, a significant part of the collective farmers, organized by the Komsomol forester Khrutsky, went to plant the forest. On the day of May 1, a significant part of the youth did not dance, "since it is impossible to dance during the all-night vigil."

37. Ibid. l. 136. "In the collective farm "Dirigible" of Leshnyansky village, a woman spoke at a meeting and declared that May should be celebrated, but also "Easter" should also be celebrated."

38. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 11868. L. 46.

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In a letter dated 1937, it is alleged that item No. 5 "on religion" 39 was added to the list of questions on the census questionnaire by Stalin personally during the editing of the list. As far as we know, officially clarifying the position of the population in relation to God and religion was not presented as the main purpose of the census. Nevertheless, the main question that concerned the population, and this was repeatedly recorded by the authors of special reports and special messages "On the negative mood of the population in connection with the census", was "mainly about the point - believer or non-believer" 40. The reaction of the population to this point was mostly wary, but the reasons for this wariness they were different.

So, some believers were apocalyptic: they perceived the Soviet government as "the power of the antichrist", and the population census was represented as the process of applying the "seal of the antichrist". "The census is a diabolical thing, anyone who will be subjected to the census will be branded, and therefore when the census begins, everyone needs to hide for this time, where anyone can"; "population census is before the end of the world, confuse believers. Population censuses must be avoided at all costs"41;" whoever gives information about himself will be printed " 42-these are the most typical responses of this contingent of believers. Fears were fueled by the fact that the census was scheduled for Christmas Eve - January 6, and such a frank question of faith on the part of the "godless" authorities seemed to many believers the final choice between God and the devil at the "end of time". Moreover, even participation in the census itself turned out to be a deviation from faith. Hence the demonstrative refusal to give any information about themselves in almost every district of the BSSR. The most illustrative example in this case is the sect of "molchalniki" from the Lepel district of the Vitebsk region, about which the information bulletin of January 5, 1937 reported the following:: "In the Lepel district, especially in the Staykovsky, Pyshnyansky village councils, 200-250 people refused

39. Population Census of 1937: fictions and truth//Demoscope weekly [Electronic resource]. 2012. Access mode: http://demoscope.ru/weekly/knigi/polka/gold_fundo8.html

40. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 12036. L. 7.

41. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 12035. L. 9.

42. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 12036. L. 11.

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There is a decision (promise) among evangelicals to remain silent from January 1 to January 7, and when these individuals are approached by scribes, they remain silent, turn their backs on them, and some demonstratively put a handkerchief in their mouths in order not to talk."43 The argument of the "silent ones" was as follows: "We don't need your authority, we only recognize the authority of Christ."; "we need to stick to Christ and not be afraid of any reprisals, as soon there will be few people left and those who have relatives on collective farms will be eliminated from them and pure believers will remain. "44 For similar reasons, the" silent ones " also refused to receive passports and benefits for multi-family families ("I don't want to give myself up to Satan, as the collective farmers did, let them expel me But I don't want to lose the kingdom of heaven."45
I. Romanova writes in more detail about the "silent ones", which was already mentioned earlier in this work. Her research is of considerable interest, including on the issue of the religious affiliation of the "silent ones". The fact is that party officials who dealt with the "silent people" referred to them in official documents as "Baptists, evangelists, anti-Draconians". I. Romanova, based on her own archival and field research (interviews with 8-year-old children of the "silent people"), suggested that this sect belongs to the sects of the Orthodox sense, namely, to the "krasnodrakonovtsy": "Mozhna merkavats, shto" mauchalnyika-chyrvonadrakonauskaya " idealogy was entered in Lepelsky i Turauski raeny tym, xto yashche in the 1920s. паспрабавау знайсці зямлі і шчасця у Сибірі, аднак пазней вярнууся у сваю вёску [...] Дажыушыя да сённяшняга дня дзеці маучальшкау якім цяпер ужо за 80 гадоу сцвярджаюць, што іхныя бацькі билі праваслаунымі, паказваючы на абразы, што вісяць у тым жа самым куце, што і больш за 70 гадоу таму. На пытанне ж: "Чаму маліліся дома?", - адказваюць: "А дзе ж яшчэ? Tserkvau was not there, papou taksama "" 46.

43. Ibid., l. 3.

44. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 13219. L. 73-74.

45. Ibid., l. 74.

Раманава І. 46. Кляйменне Чырвонага дракона. Usesayuzny perapis naselnitstva 1937 I yago interpretation of the syalyanskim dyskurse. pp. 246-261. "We can assume that the" molchalnitsko-Krasnodrakonovskaya " ideology was introduced to the Lepel and Turov districts by those who tried to find land and happiness in Siberia in the 1920s, but later returned to their village... [... ] The children of the silent ones who have survived to this day, who are now over 80 years old, claim,

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The fears of another group of believers were much more mundane: people were afraid of reprisals. Typical example: "In Tolochinsky district, a former NSU employee reports that she had to have a conversation about the census with a worker who came to her home and some other citizens. They are all concerned about religion. They ask why you need to know. One of them says, " all believers will be rewritten, and then sent to one place, they say, live there for yourself." Another says that she is a believer, "but how can you admit it, no, it's scary""47. In such a situation, it was also easier for a believer to refuse the census than to overstep his conscience and "register as an unbeliever".

There was also a third group of believers, whose members not only did not resist the census, but also readily gave information about themselves as believers or agitated not to hide their religious affiliation. The believers in this group took part in the census for two completely different reasons: some of them apparently did not lose the hope, supported by the provisions of the 1936 Constitution, that "if you sign up as a believer, they will give up churches or allow new ones to be built" 48; others were confident that the fall of Soviet power, the onset of war, and the arrival of people who would crack down on non-believers, so they pragmatically believed that "we need to organize and register as believers during the census" 49.

A similar situation occurred during the election of deputies to the Supreme Soviet in December 1937. Believers refused to vote for communists, because "this is not allowed by our religious feelings"; because "during the voting, people will be branded with the number 666"; "we have chosen God and will not elect anyone else"; " we must pray to God instead of going to the polls, you don't have to give in to their agitation, because the Soviet government exists temporarily."50 In the minds of believers, the elections have become a continuation of the population census, participation in

that their parents were Orthodox, pointing to the icons that hang in the same corner as they did more than 70 years ago. To the question: "Why did you pray at home?", they answer: "Where else? There were no churches, no priests either."

47. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 12036. L. 22.

48. Ibid., l. 5.

49. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 12035. L. 9.

50. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 12059. L. 99-103.

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in which it was considered an attack on religious feelings: "Previously, there was a population census, and now there are elections. They will lead us to ruin, because they force us to abandon our faith. " 51 Religious motives were intertwined with political ones, when believers sought to vote for "foreign rulers" or for "priests"who, in their opinion, would protect their interests much better. And since it was the height of the" great terror", anyone who boycotted the elections or spread" counter-revolutionary rumors " was actively arrested.

"Letters of happiness" as a special form of resistance

Finally, the last method of not so much conscious resistance of believers to the anti-religious policy of the state, but rather a certain spontaneous reaction of religious consciousness to the extraordinary events of our time is the so-called "letters of happiness" or "holy letters", which were also clearly perceived by the Soviet authorities as "counter-revolutionary material of religious sects"52. As a clear example, one of the letters that are stored in the documents of the NAR B is placed in the Appendix (spelling and punctuation of the original are preserved). The phenomenon of "letters of happiness", or "holy letters", is described in sufficient detail in the article "Letters of Happiness as an element of the occult environment of society"by the well-known Belarusian researcher of new religious movements V. A. Martinovich53. By letters of happiness (holy letters, heavenly messages, letters from heaven, etc.), the author means " texts sent by mail that call for their reproduction and further dissemination under various pretexts."54 and refers the "letters of happiness" as a whole to the sphere of non-traditional religiosity, magical perception of reality, taking into account both their religious or occult content, and the reasons why people rewrite them (as a rule, various kinds of superstitions). Author

51. Ibid., l. 30.

52. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 11853. L. 59.

Letters of happiness as an element of the occult environment of society / / Information and Advisory Mission Center named after St. John the Baptist. Joseph, Hegumen of Volotsk [Electronic resource]. 2012. Access mode: http://sobor.by/center.php?n=letters.

54. Ibid.

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He also points out the significant temporal and geographical extent of the spread of the phenomenon of holy letters, mentioning countries of all continents of the world and historical epochs from antiquity to the present day.

However, he does not rule out the fact that some "happiness letters" pursue both religious and secular goals. As an example, the author cites an excerpt from the letter of happiness, which called for resisting collectivization: "I am the Lord your God and I say to you: the moment has come when the devil entangles the people in his nets - in collective farms. Those who are not tempted by the collective farms will be saved; I will destroy all the collective farmers in the next few days ... " 55 According to V. Martinovich, a person could rewrite this letter both because of their own superstition and because of their unwillingness to join the collective farm.

The NARB documents contain 3 versions of the" holy letters", or" letters of happiness", dated 1937 (the text of one of them is given in the Appendix, the other two versions have similar content). These letters were most often written by schoolchildren - children of believers - and distributed in schools. In addition, these letters could be transmitted through adults from village to village. According to the documents, " the main source of distribution of this letter is Mogilev, Minsk, as well as areas bordering the Western region and Ukraine. The letter "from God" or" holy letter "is spreading extremely fast and has covered a significant part of the districts, such as Mogilev, Gomel, Budokoshelevsky, Kormyansky, Kirov, Osipovichi, Lepel, Dribinsky, Starodorozhsky, Turovsky, Vetkovsky, Narovlyansky, etc." 56 As for the confessional affiliation of the authors and distributors of "holy letters", then in one of the versions of the "holy letter" there is a direct appeal to Orthodox believers (in the other two versions, however, it is absent). The Mother of God is also mentioned at the beginning of the letters. Based on the above, it can be concluded that the letters were distributed most likely among Orthodox Christians.

If we analyze the "holy letters" presented in the NARB, it becomes obvious that they did not, in our opinion, have any political overtones, but were exclusive.-

55. Ibid.

56. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 11852. L. 13.

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especially religious in nature. But according to local authorities, these letters were not just " counter-revolutionary anti-Soviet leaflets." The distributors of the letters presented themselves almost as members of an organized counter-revolutionary organization, which " sets itself the task of finding out what they have at their disposal on the eve of secret elections. It sets itself the task of developing anti-Soviet agitation and recruitment work. Disrupt your exit to work. Sow panic in the population before the military danger"57.

However, in archival documents, evidence was found of such a "holy letter" in which "unbelievers are threatened with everything in the next world: boiling in pitch, and all sorts of indignation from God."58. However, the absence of the full text of the letter, coupled with the retelling of some parts of it by an anti-religious party official, does not allow us to draw unambiguous conclusions about the anti-Soviet nature of this letter.

The National Archives also did not find any documents indicating the presence of "letters of happiness" on the territory of the BSSR, in which anti-collective agitation would have taken place.

* * *

Thus, we have identified and considered various forms of resistance of Christian believers to the anti-religious policy of the Soviet government from the late 1920s to the late 1930s. We have identified active forms (such as protests against the closure of churches, collective petitions for the opening of prayer buildings, petitions for the release of clergy from arrest, etc.) and passive forms (refusal to obtain passports, multi-family assistance, evasion from participating in the population census, etc.). It was precisely those forms that we classified as "passive" that contained a more serious challenge to the authorities from the point of view of Soviet legislation, and therefore the authorities had more grounds to suppress and suppress them. As for those forms of religious resistance that we have classified as "active", they did not set the goal of "overthrowing the Soviet government" or even openly resisting it. The authorities themselves, on the contrary, interpret-

57. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 12082. L. 155.

58. NARB. F. 4P. Op. 1. D. 11852. L. 61.

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We interpreted the "active actions of believers" as a direct "counter-revolutionary" challenge, which is reflected in the documents of the National Archive that we reviewed. Letters of happiness also became a peculiar form of reaction of religious consciousness to cardinal changes in reality. They reflected the fears of believers about the imminent war, when "brother will go against brother", calls for a righteous life as a guarantee of future salvation, hopes for higher justice, when "Christ will come to earth to judge the living and the dead" - in general, all those aspirations that religious people experience in critical epochs. The letters of happiness presented at the NARB also did not pose a serious threat to the Soviet system.

Attempts by believers to protect their right to "practice religion", whether it was collecting signatures for the opening of a church or refusing a Soviet passport, eventually resulted in mass arrests and expulsions in 1937-1938.

Bibliography

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National Archive of the Republic of Belarus (NARB).

F. 4P (Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Bolsheviks of Belarus (1917 - 1941)).

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Decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR of 23.01.1918 On the separation of Church from State and school from Church//Wikitek [Electronic resource]. 2012. Access mode: http://wikisource.org/wiki/Decree_of_delement_squie_from_state_school_squi_squi

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Kaganovich A. Rechitsa: History of the Jewish Shtetl of South-Eastern Belarus. Jerusalem, 2007.

Канфесіі на Беларусі (к. XVIII - XX ст.)/Навук. рэд. У І. Навіцкі. Мн.: ВП "Экаперспектыва", 1998.

Constitution of the USSR of 1936 / / Wikiteca [Electronic resource]. 2012. Access mode: http://ru.wikisource.org/wiki/CONSTITUTION_SSSR.

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Martinovich V. A. Letters of happiness as an element of the occult environment of society//Information and Advisory Mission Center named after St. John the Baptist. Joseph, Hegumen of Volotsk [Electronic resource]. 2012. Access mode: http://sobor.by/center.php?n=letters.

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Раманава І. Кляйменне Чырвонага дракона. Усесаюзны перапіс насельніцтва 1937 года і яго трактовка у сялянскім дыскурсе//АЯСНЕ. 2012. N3. pp. 246-261.

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Appendix 1

Holy Letter

From the Mother of God, father, son and Holy Spirit. This letter was found near the monastery. This letter is written in gold letters by the Lord Jesus Christ himself. A lot of people came to this letter. It says: "Honor your parents, do not forget the poor, keep fasts, believe in God, believe this letter - you will not be punished by God with thunder and fire, people will go against people, brother against brother and there will be great bloodshed between you and people entering the temple of God. Zvyarnitesya spasayuchy souls prydi mothers of God and who will believe this letter and pass it on to others, proshcheno him many sins, then the whole world will be and should be literate rewrite it 6 times, pass it on to people, and then get joy. The village of Demidov in Siberia, in the daytime it was visible to two 12-year-old boys grazing cattle, and at that time a cross came out, and then a man came out-the Lord himself was surrounded by a rainbow. There were a lot of people of angels, and they also sang prayer songs, there were a lot of people in the field and everyone was listening, suddenly the sky dissolved, Christ came out and spoke the whole truth, I will soon come to earth to judge the living and the dead and the unhappy and responds before God not faithful I myself will judge the unhappy, from them

Many people gathered in the temple and listened to the angels singing prayer songs. The Lord told those boys that only one-third of the people would be left alone, and they would perish. The voice of the savior was heard saying read and pray our father you will be saved. Those who receive such a letter write 6 letters, and after 6 days you will receive a letter and do not pass it, you will receive a great grief.

Source: NARB. f. 4P. Opl. d. 12082. L. 108. Typewritten copy.

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