Renewal of Icons in the Smolensk Region in 1949–1950: Based on Materials from the State Archive of the Smolensk Region

Abstract

The article analyzes information about the cases of icons’ renewal recorded in the Smolensk region in 1949–1950 and reflected in documents from the State Archive of the Smolensk region (fund R-1620 “Commissioner of the Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church under the Council of Ministers of the USSR for the Smolensk region”). This local wave of icon renewals in private homes and temples (72 cases in total) has not attracted the attention of researchers so far. The archival materials clearly show the vector of the spread of “miracles of renewal”, the mechanism of spreading rumors about renewed icons, and also contain an assessment of the manifestations of popular religiosity given by representatives of ideological structures and the Orthodox Church ministers. The documents emphasize the exposure of superstitions and the position that the “miracles” of renovation of icons in churches were engineered by priests and timed to coincide with the church holidays; the renewal in the homes of private individuals was the result of the use of various cleaning products. At the same time, the Commissioner’s reports give negative characteristics to people involved in cases of icon renovation (cooperation with the occupiers during the war, spreading anti-Soviet rumors, organizing “pilgrimages” to places of icon renovation, etc.). Information about the wave of icon renovation in the Smolensk region in 1949–1950 clarifies the geography of this phenomenon on the Russian-Belarusian ethnocultural borderland and add new data to the already known facts.

Received: 29.05.2025.

Citation
Belova O. V. Renewal of Icons in the Smolensk Region in 1949–1950: Based on Materials from the State Archive of the Smolensk Region // Slavic Almanac. 2026. No 1–2. P. 457–474 (in Russian). DOI: 10.31168/2073-5731.2026.1-2.25