The author considers the current situation with Russian Old Believers in the Balkans and the Baltic States by analyzing two aspects in the development of the Old Believers Diaspora development in the context of the membership of some Balkan and Baltic countries in the European Community: 1) Old Believers as Russian minority living in the “new” European democracies in comparison with the “Soviet” Russians; 2) Old Believers as a religious and ethnic community, which is intensively participating in the postmodern processes of reviving their own culture, traditions and identity. The article studies concepts of the minority in the national discourse of the “new” EU countries (Bulgaria and Romania in the Balkans and Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in the Baltic States). The article is based on field researchers in the Balkans and the Baltic States conducted by the author in 2008-2017, as well as published and archive materials.

Odessa has always been distinguished by its polyethnic and polyconfessional nature. Old Believers were among the first inhabitants of the city including Bespopovtsy (supporters of a priestless sect) who had their own prayer houses in the early of the 19th century. Odessa became one of the centers of Bespopovtsy by the middle of the 19th century. The article traces some aspects of the history and culture of the Old Believers-Bespopovtsy of the city from the foundation of the community to the termination of activity at the end of the 19th century. That analysis is based on archival, reference and periodical data. The article focuses on the issue of the existence of the community, which includes some aspects: attempts to close the prayer house in pre-revolutionary and Soviet times; a description of some prominent figures, such as Nikita Yakovlev, the Alekseev family; the article describes the religious and cultural traditions of the Odessa Old Believers-Bespopovtsy.

The researcher focuses on the communication processes between the mentor of an Old Believers community and the Old Believers during the general and personal confessions in the prayer house. The work is based on oral narratives recorded in the expeditions to the Old Believers of Latgale in 2016-2017. Among them there are stories about the order and time of general confession (penance), about the origin of a number of prohibitions and the peculiarities of observing the Old Believers' prescriptions in a multinational and different confessional environment, about the connection with both the pagan ideas of the Slavs about the world around them, and with the realities of the present time.

The article considers the mutual influence of the written and oral traditions of the Old Believers-Bespopovtsy of the Novgorod region on the example of proverbs that exist in those communities at the present time. The article substantiates an application of the approach to the Old Believers, considering it as a textual community, and reveals the role of interpretation of written sources in the oral paremia tradition.

Upper Kama region (Verkhokamye) is considered as one of the most studied regions of the Old Believers. The research interest has long been focused on the manifestations of a high spiritual and rich material culture.

However, in the 20th century, the region underwent complex transformations. As a result social roles changed and also their religious assessment. The article considers several women's strategies of self-determination in life (“the synodic'', “wayward”, “girlfriend/mate”), as well as the development of compromise assessments of each category by the Old Believers society.

The article is concerned with a religious painting by Ivan Ipatievich Mikhailov “Andrey Dionisevich, Prince Myshetsky”, created in the 1930s. The main idea of the article is to show the aesthetic and didactic functions of art. The study employs an interdisciplinary approach that contributes to a better comprehension of the picture: the iconographic, iconological and iconic methods are complemented by the analytical history of culture. The analysis allows concluding that

1)        the painting reveals a direct connection with the national Russian-Old Believers culture in Poland in the 1930s;

2)        the painting depicting the Vygovsky leader and celibacy advocate A. Denisov, in a direct and paradoxical way also served to strengthen the special ideology of married Pomortsy (the most moderate trend among Old Believers - Bespopovtsy) in Poland in the 1930s;

3)        Mikhailov's “Andrey Dionisevich” was an original work, and not just a reproduction (of an earlier engraving), since through the “seeing vision” (an important term in the iconology by M. Imdal) it acquired a new meaning. The hero of the early Old Belief A. Denisov for the first time became a particularly important religious figure and a fellow for the married Pomortsy of Poland in the first half of the 20th century. In other words, the “seeing vision” allowed to cover both the subject of the picture itself, and the artist or viewer who saw it anew (comprehended, understood).

The author turns to the little-known biographical aspects of two outstanding icon painters - the Old Believer-Bespopovets from Estonia Pimen Maksimovich Sofronov and the Catholic monk of the Benedictine Holy Cross Monastery in Chevetogne (Belgium) Father Jerome Leussink. From December 1939 to the beginning of the 1940's, Leussink studied icon painting with Sofronov in Rome. The article is based on archival materials of the Holy Cross Monastery, in particular on Leussink's letters to his abbot. They show that the relationship between the teacher and the student quickly developed into a genuine cooperation, and then into a deep mutual respect and friendship. The author emphasizes that Pimen Sofronov not only conveyed but also revived the Old icon-painting tradition in Europe and in the New World, across boundaries between Churches. This was made possible by the help of his numerous students and friends in Paris, Prague, Rome and America.

The article concerns with the analysis of the representation in the 16th century French engraving of the murder of Henry of Guise and Louis of Lorraine, Cardinal of Guise in the Royal Chateau de Blois in december, 1588. The murder of the leaders of the Catholic party by order of the French king provoked an increase in the number of the tyranny-fighting pamphlets and related leaflets. As in the case of textual sources, the leaguers engraving is characterized by flattering images of Guise brothers to the religious one: they are represented as “martyrs for belief” by means of a number of biblical allusions the top of which it becomes imitatio Christi.