On the experience of understanding Russian folk art as a spiritual phenomenon in domestic humanitarian studies

Abstract

This article aims to identify and characterise a number of scholarly approaches and conceptual research positions within the historiographic experience of Russian humanities research regarding the influence of Christian spirituality and church arts on Russian folk fine arts. The study utilizes methodological approaches to examining the research material that differ from the established research paradigm focused on the pre-Christian mythological imagery of Russian folk art. This constitutes the scientific novelty of the work. Comparative-historical and logical methods, along with an interdisciplinary approach, are applied to consistently analyze the development of philosophical, historical-philological, and art-historical thought. This research is relevant in the current scientific era, when globalisation, the spread of electronic media, and the prevalence of mass culture have significantly increased trends towards national self-identification and the identification and analysis of the value-based features of our culture, many of which are naturally associated with the Orthodox tradition.

The analysis of the evolution of scientific views on the problem of the influence of Christian spirituality and church arts on Russian folk fine and plastic arts covers three main historical stages in the development of Russian humanities: the pre-revolutionary, Soviet, and post-Soviet periods. In particular, the article analyses the scientific approaches and conceptual positions of the participants of the academic expeditions of the 18th century across the expanses of Russia (N.Ya. Ozeretskovsky et al.), Slavophiles (K.S. Aksakov, Yu.S. Samarin), the founders of academic art criticism (F.I. Buslaev, N.P. Kondakov, V.V. Stasov), researchers of archaism in the Soviet period (B.A. Rybakov, V.A. Gorodtsov), and authors who focused in Soviet times on certain aspects of the problem of the Christian basis of Russian art (G.K. Wagner, V.M. Vasilenko, V. Vishnevskaya, O.V. Kruglova). The methodology of Academician M.A. Nekrasova’s work in the post-Soviet period, as well as other scholarly views and studies, has also been explored. Thus, the problem of the influence of the millennium-old Christian tradition on traditional folk culture (and folk art in particular) has been relevant at all stages of the development of Russian scholarship. The positive experiences and shortcomings of the early stages were largely taken into account in the post-Soviet period, when it became possible to examine in greater depth the entire complex of issues affecting Russian spiritual culture. In the field of art history, significant steps in this direction were taken by M.A. Nekrasova, as well as by other scholars.