CONFERENCEDr. art. Nadežda Pazuhina nadezda.pazuhina@lu.lv
ORCID 0000-0001-6212-8497
Scopus Author ID: 57195726541
The priestless Orthodox Old Believers represent a closed ethno-religious community that was formed on the territory of modern Latvia from the 1660s. In Latvia, both during the interwar period and after the restoration of independence, Old Believers presented themselves in the public space as a distinctly different group. The positive marginalization of Old Believers in official discourse was also linked to the idea of their political loyalty to the Latvian state in the interwar period. How have political and social processes in the 20th century influenced the internal life of the community and its relations with the rest of society and other religious communities? The contribution of the Old Believer community to the cultural landscape of Latvia has still not been deeply studied, however, this ethno-religious community has a diverse experience that represents both the preservation of traditional cultural practices and the ability to adapt to modernization processes. At the same time, the study of the history of the Old Believer community in Latvia touches on a broader range of research questions: the collective identity and cultural memory of marginalized religious groups, cultural interrelation within religiously and socially heterogeneous minority community, as well as the interaction of conservative religious groups with the institutions of secular society.