Church archives of the Moscow diocese in 1812: problems of document preservation under the occupation of Moscow by Napoleon's army

Scientific article

doi 10.28995/2073-0101-2024-2-331-340

For citation

Ivanov, Il'ya O. (2024), “Church archives of the Moscow diocese in 1812: problems of document preservation under the occupation of Moscow by Napoleon's army”, Herald of an Archivist, no. 2, pp. 331-340. doi 10.28995/2073-0101-2024-2-331-340

Ivanov, Il'ya O., Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia

Church archives of the Moscow diocese in 1812: problems of document preservation under the occupation of Moscow by Napoleon's army

Abstract

The diocesan archives of the Moscow diocese in 1812 were never the subject of a special study. Because of the wide spread of the church institution, the archives of the diocese often found themselves in the offensive zone of the Great Army. This circumstance made the documents of the church extremely vulnerable to the invaders. The events connected with the occupation of Moscow are widely reflected in the memoirs of eyewitnesses of the French stay in Moscow. Decades later, diocesan officials, with all the distortions of reality inherent in this type of memoirs, testify to the archive of the Consistory. N. P. Rozanov's analysis of the testimonies, which more or less concern the destruction of the records of church institutions, demonstrates the low reliability of the information provided by consistory officials. This article reconstructs the state of archives in the autumn of 1812 on the basis of the documents of the Synodal Consistory and the Moscow Consistory, the fonds of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Greece and the Central State Archive of Moscow: orders of the public prosecutor, the prosecutor of the Synodal Consistory, reports on the state of archives, and the reports of the Spiritual Boards. In the context of the evacuation of Moscow archives not quite successful decisions of the military administration and the diocesan leadership of the organization of the removal of records of the Synodal office and the Moscow Ecclesiastical Consistory are considered. The soldiers of Napoleon's army ravaged the archives of all levels of diocesan administration - the Synodal Office, the Consistory, ecclesiastical boards and parishes. The way in which the archives were treated depended on such factors as the orders of the occupying army and the behaviour of the enemy units quartered in the church buildings, which were not always in favour of plundering. Before the French withdrew from the city, some inhabitants of Moscow district were looting in the immediate vicinity of the diocesan archives. The participation of local residents in the spoiling and plundering of archives is confirmed by postwar reports sent to the Consistory by the diocesan boards of church authorities of the Moscow districts. The post-war restoration work that followed, in addition to revealing serious documentary losses, created the prerequisites for the establishment of an archival committee that was not attached to the office and focused solely on the handling of archival documents. It is concluded that the 1812 war not only caused material losses, but also made it necessary for the diocesan leadership to seek non-trivial solutions which, in the long run, would have a positive effect on the consistory's archives.

Keywords

Diocesan archives, metric books, Napoleon, Synodal House, Consistory, registrar, chancery

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About the author

Il'ya O. Ivanov, master's degree in history, post-graduate student, Russian State University for the Humanities, Institute for History and Archives, Department of History and Organization of Archival Affairs, Moscow, Russia, +7-915-379-48-99, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

The article was received in the editorial office on 20.04.2023, recommended for publication on 20.03.2024.