Vyazma’s Merchant Savva Timofeev Son Altukhov:the Problem of Determining the Personalityand Motivation of the Temple-Builder of the 18th Century

The article deals with the little-studied problem of merchant temple building in a provincial Russian city of the 18th century using the example of Vyazma. The author applied anthropological, systemic and critical approaches. In the 18th century, donations for the construction of churches became a characteristic feature of the daily life of the merchant elite. The focus of the study is the history of the Vyazma merchant-temple builder S.T. Altukhov. The example of this merchant shows what problems a historian may encounter in the process of research. A critical approach to the publications of the 19th century made it possible to make a more plausible assumption about the date of construction of the Vyazma temple, for which the merchant Altukhov donated his capital. Establishing the identity of the merchant, determining the approximate date of his birth, the composition of the merchant family were studied on the basis of a comprehensive study of the materials of the first and second revisions, as well as parish registers. The problem of motivation for the temple-building activity of the merchant S.T. Altukhova is considered on the basis of the study of archival documents from the fund of the Chief Magistrate. When working on the article, the funds of the Russian State Archive of Ancient Acts and the State Archive of the Smolensk Region were used. This article develops the topic of articles about the Vyazma merchant-temple builders of the 18th century, published by the author earlier.