Штодзённае жыццё ўніяцкага парафіяльнага святара беларуска-літоўскіх зямель 1720-1839 гг

ENThis book is the first study in the domestic and foreign historiography to examine the daily life of a Uniate priest. The chronological framework of the study confines itself to the period from the synod of Zamoscie (1720), which unified the rites of the Uniate Church, up to the synod of Polatsk (1839), the resolution of which eliminated the Uniate Church in the territories of the Western Governorates and forced a network of the Uniate parishes and administration to join the Orthodox Church. The geographical framework of the study comprises the “Belarusian-Lithuanian lands” – a term that means the territories of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Podlachia where the Uniates resided and where there was an intricate network of the Uniate parishes. These lands, where the East-Slavic population was predominant, became the basis for the formation of the Belarusian nation in the nineteenth century. The archival base of the research rests upon the holdings of the repositories in Vilnius, Grodno and Minsk. Many of the records are swept up in the historiographical shift for the first time. The reconstruction of the components of Uniate priests’ lives has been possible due to the use of the materials of visits – the minutes of parochial visitations by the upper church authorities in the eighteenth – the first third of the nineteenth centuries.The Uniate clergy was quite a closed group of the population. 1987 priests out of 2401, about whom the data have been collected, belonged to hereditary priestly families. In the territories of separate deaneries and dioceses family clans were formed to struggle for the authority and influence within the church hierarchy. Every decade a number of highly trained and well-educated priests and clergymen increased. The work examines the main forms of priests’ recreation and fulfillment of duties: pastoral activities, management of libraries, the care of churchyards, the task of recording superstitions and miracles, communication (travels and correspondence), diary keeping, sociopolitical activities. On the basis of archival and published sources the author makes an attempt to reconstruct the image of a Uniate priest, as seen through the eyes of the parishioners and the church authorities. By employing the history of everyday life as a methodology, it has become possible to look into a number of controversial issues in the history of the Uniate Church: the influence of the Uniate secular clergy on the ethnocultural and political processes occurring in the Belarusian- Lithuanian territories, the language of everyday communication, a level of education of a Uniate priest, changes in his property status, his attitude towards the elimination of the union and the preparation of the elimination.

• Etnologija / Ethnology
• Istorija / History