Monastery as a multicultural concept in the landscape of the Russian North

Abstract

The monastery in the culture of the Russian North is a multifunctional phenomenon, and its historical experience is diverse. The emergence of monasteries with fortified walls and white-stone churches in peripheral, sparsely populated territories, where pagan traditions still persisted into the 14^th century, resulted from Moscow’s colonization policy. From their foundation, these monasteries became ‘strongholds of faith’ and markers of the Orthodox Ecumene, serving as border and even military outposts, places of political exile, centers of economic development for remote northern territories, and the region’s leading spiritual and artistic centers. The fundamental elements of everyday monastic culture include the following modes. First, the idea of monastic seclusion, a retreat from worldly vanity for the salvation of the soul. Second, incessant prayer, which helped overcome physical deprivation and temptation, regulated the main spheres of existence, and set the monastery’s rhythm. Third, physical labor, which occupied a primary place in the daily lives of northern monks as a principal way of fulfilling the vow of obedience, complementing their primary spiritual work. Monasteries were an influential sphere of state policy and, until the modern era, played a central role in the cultural history of both the region and the country as a whole.