Old Believer family in the USSR as an object of historical and demographic study in post-Soviet Russian historiography

The paper analyzes the study of the Old Believer family in post-Soviet historiography within the framework of historical and demographic research. In post-Soviet historiography, there is a tendency to expand the scientific problems for which the Old Believer family is studied. This is most relevant when studying the history of the Soviet period. The reason is a significant and abrupt transformation of society. The closed nature and traditionalism of the Old Believer society relied on the religious factor. Identifying the role of the family in preserving tradition is one of the main areas of studying the history of the Old Believer family in post-Soviet historiography. Similarly, the preservation of religiosity in the context of anti-religious pressure; the existence of traditional religious education are studied. Due to the fact that the institution of the family is one of the most traditional and least susceptible to change, the entire spectrum of the discovered changes has significant scientific value for researchers. The specificity of interpretations of the identified changes depends on the subjective views of the researchers. The historiography of the history of the Old Believer family is distinguished by clearly expressed regional specifics. This is explained by the specifics of the territorial residence of the followers of the Old Believers and the degree of study of the problem in different regions. At present, there are no general studies covering the entire territory of Russia. At the same time, there is no significant methodological difference between regional studies. The differences are associated primarily with the specifics of the historical situation in a particular place and in a particular period. Such a historiographic situation increases the effectiveness of comparative analysis in studying the history of the Old Believers.