Ponarin P.V. The Mobilisation Possibilities of the Russian Orthodox Church in Overcoming the Famine of the Russian Empire’s Rural Population in 1891–1892

Abstract: The article summarises the results of the work conducted within the framework of the project RGNF no. 15-01-00026 "the Crisis of Agrarian Communities in Imperial Russian: the Famine of 1891–1892 in the Central-Chernozyomny Region" in 2015. The author focuses attention on the examination of the features of the Russian Orthodox Church's charitable activity during the period of the famine in 1891–1892 on the example of the Tula governorate, which belonged to the Agrarian centre of the Russian Empire. The article in particular highlights the investigation of the ecclesiastical institutes’ activities in the push to overcome the crisis in the Russian Empire at the end of the 19th century. The author, on the basis of published sources and unpublished archival material, analyses the activity of the Tula eparchial committee in aiding the starving population during the period of 1891–1892. The article also examines the particularities of the social and economic situation at the level of the rural parish, analyses the relationship between agrarian societies and the clergy under the condition of an emergency situation. The conducted research has allowed to come to the conclusion that the efforts of the Russian Orthodox Church objectively contributed to overcoming the crisis of the agrarian community at the end of the 19th century. The inclusion of the Russian Orthodox Church in solving the social and economic problems happened in a mode of a forced mobilisation, which gives ground for the author to talk about the exceptional mobilisation possibilities of the Empire's leading religious confession under the conditions of a crisis.

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