“The Magic of Technological Progress” in the Eschatological Worldview of the Old Believers-Chasovennye on the Yenisei: the Verbal and Visual Sources

Abstract

The article is based on the materials of the expeditions of 2020-2024 in the settlements of the Old Believers сhasovennye on the Yenisei in the Turukhansky and Yeniseisky districts of the Krasnoyarsk Territory. The analysis of hand-drawn paintings “World Wide Web. The World Wide Web” (2010), “Part of the Bowl of Them” (2010), the Electronic Age manuscripts (2018), which were created in the monasteries of the Old Believers-chasovennye on the tributaries of the Yenisei. The content of the poetic texts and hand-drawn paintings echoes modern media sources. The chasovennye on the Yenisei doctrinally establish contacts with the world, but in the narratives they demonstrate their awareness of the achievements of modern civilization. The presented sources interpret the current problems of the development of the technical world: from the “digital concentration camp” to the world government. The images and the poetic text are didactic in nature and are designed to remind of the perniciousness of the modern information society and digital technologies, which act as guides to the “last times”. The stylistics of pictorial and poetic texts are based on the combination of ancient Russian traditions with modern narratives. The iconography uses the traditions of the ancient Russian book culture. The eschatological worldview offers a variant of sotereology when choosing a life strategy on a “narrow” path, dangers in the context of harmful technological achievements of a “wide smooth” path.