Vasily Baranovsky
Vasily Baranovsky (13th of April 1933, Ilūkste county, Republic of Latvia) – a writer, an author of books and articles about the Old Believers.
Below is the autobiography written by V. Baranovsky.
I was born on 13 April 1933 into the family of parishioners of the Yudovo–Malyutki Old Believers’ community—Savva and Kilikiya (née Balysheva), residents of the settlement of Yudovka, Laucese parish, Ilūkste county of the Republic of Latvia (today Yudovka is within the city of Daugavpils). My paternal grandfather and grandmother were descendants of the first settlers of the village of Voitiški (now Augšdaugava Municipality), where in 1740, with the blessing of the spiritual father Feodor Samansky, an Old Believers’ church was founded. Among my close and distant relatives were ministers of the Old Orthodox Church. My great-uncle Lukiyan Fedotov (on my father’s side) served for some time as a nastavnik (spiritual mentor). My uncle, Vasily Balyshev, after completing religious and educational courses (Daugavpils, 1931), taught young people church literacy and served as golovshchik (choir leader) of the Grīva church. I was baptized by the nastavnik Leonty Tsirkin.
From the mid-1930s our family lived in Riga. My father paved city streets with stone and worked on the construction of the Ķegums Hydroelectric Power Plant. I remember attending the Grebenshchikov Church together with my parents. In the autumn of 1940 I was enrolled in the 5th primary school (formerly the Grebenshchikov Old Believers’ school). The class teacher was Miropiya Yershova, the leading singer of the choir of the then-famous Circle of Zealots of Native Antiquity.
The Second World War brought severe hardship and loss. In the battles against fascism my father, my father’s brother Kalistrat, and my mother’s brothers Pyotr and Sergei were killed. For a long time my mother, my sister, and I lacked daily bread and proper housing. I began my working life in 1946 as a courier; later, after graduating from the Grīva seven-year school, I worked as a loader and a printing-house worker, and from the age of seventeen until being drafted into the army—as a staff member of the multi-circulation newspaper of the Laucese Machine and Tractor Station.
After completing my compulsory military service, I continued working in journalism. Circumstances brought me to Lithuania. From 1955 to 1978 I had been working as a correspondent and editor of the Zarasai district newspaper and as deputy editor of the Klaipėda city newspaper. During those same years I completed an evening secondary school and studied by correspondence at the Faculty of Economics of Vilnius University.
My literary beginnings date back to my youth. I witnessed complex changes taking place in the countryside. I grew up among peasants, railway workers, stonecutters, and masters of many other trades. Their remarkable personalities, vivid folk speech, and unexpected life paths later found reflection in my short stories and novellas.
A kind of school for me were the meetings of the literary association at the Daugavpils House of Culture. I retain a grateful memory of its head, Yevgeny Volkov (1916–1984), who also provided support in everyday matters. In January 1950 my first publication appeared in the newspaper Latgales Pravda (Daugavpils). Later, however, my literary pursuits were interrupted. It was only in the 1960s–1970s that a number of short stories were written, as well as the novellas The Morning Cart (in its second edition—Your Nativity…) and The Thin Thread, devoted to the difficult fates of Russian old residents of the Baltic region, that is, the Old Believers. I will always remember my acquaintance with the outstanding Russian prose writer Konstantin Vorobyov (1919–1975), whose advice and support were unforgettable.
In April 1978, the plenum of the board of the Writers’ Union of Lithuania approved my appointment as deputy editor-in-chief of the journal Literary Lithuania (since 1989—Vilnius). With some interruptions, I worked at this journal until my retirement in 1993. In 1983 I was admitted to the Union of Writers of the USSR. In the 1980s–1990s thematically unified novellas were published: The Opponents, The Crimson City, The Curse, and Boyarynya Morozova.
In the summer of 1945, the nastavnik of the Yudovo–Malyutki parish, Savva Maksimov (1898–1979), taught me Church Slavonic reading and the basics of worship. It was important thereafter to preserve an understanding of and respect for the customs and traditions of the milieu to which I owe my origins. Years later, deeper knowledge of Old Orthodoxy and assimilation of its spiritual values were fostered by meetings (1982–1983) with the outstanding religious figure, researcher, and collector of ancient Russian culture I. Zavoloko, as well as communication with the then chairman of the Supreme Old Believers’ Council in Lithuania, I. Yegorov, who kindly provided rare books from his personal library.
With the essay “Kitezh-grad” (Vilnius, No. 8, 1989) I began relatively regular work on Old Belief topics, aiming, to the best of my ability, to illuminate history and the lives of adherents of ancestral piety. In 1990 the Supreme Old Believers’ Council in Lithuania resumed publication of the journal Kitezh-grad, originally founded in the 1930s. Elected a member of the editorial board, I prepared a number of materials and outlined plans for further publications. Unfortunately, due to various obstacles, only a few issues were published.
Having been a parishioner of the Zarasai Old Believers’ community since 1994, I compiled and published the books Guardians of the Old Faith (2000) and Age-Old Shrines (2004), reflecting the emergence and present-day condition of Old Believers’ communities, churches, and cemeteries of the Zarasai region.
In 2001 I handed over a substantial manuscript for a historical-biographical dictionary I had conceived to Doctor of Sciences G. Potashenko, who, with his own additions and the inclusion of materials by other authors, carried out the final preparation and publication of the dictionary. The book Old Belief in the Baltic States and Poland was published in 2005.
I had the opportunity to participate in church councils and congresses in Lithuania and Latvia, as well as scholarly and religious conferences held since 1997 in Rēzekne, Riga, Daugavpils, Vilnius, and other places. I have been awarded Certificates of Honour from the central bodies of the Old Orthodox Church of Lithuania and Latvia, as well as the commemorative medal of I. Zavoloko (2012).
I hope that my modest creative achievements will add at least a small page to the chronicle of Old Belief and will become yet another testimony to the devotion of many people to the ancestral faith, carried through the centuries, nourishing heights of spirit, holy feats, and the great covenants of our forebears. Their injunctions are especially relevant today.
Vasily Baranovsky
December 2014
