Metal clasps of liturgical books of novosibirsk old-believers

The article analyzes the newly discovered monuments of the Old-Believer book and artistic culture-fasteners of old printed and manuscript liturgical books of the 18th-19th centuries. In 1990s, these fasteners were kept in a small box in a prayer house of the Old-Believers of the Fedoseevsky community in Novosibirsk. It was strictly forbidden to keep service books open, which is observed up to the present time (explanation: “so as not to defile something unclean”). For this reason, books were closed and snapped into place. Observations of the way of life of the Novosibirsk Old-Believers-Fedoseevites allowed us to conclude that the community members treated not only books, but also metal fasteners as sacred objects. The tradition to snap liturgical books continued to live in the years of the USSR until the end of the 1990s, when the community ceased to exist due to the demolition of the prayer house. As a result of the analysis, the classification of the types of fasteners, depending on the shape, ornaments and execution technique, was carried out. Some general patterns of ornamentation of fasteners are identified, possible vectors of cultural contacts that influenced the design (medieval Russia and the Middle East) are indicated, and the author ’s interpretations of religious meanings imprisoned in the ornaments of these works of applied art are provided. The need to protect objects of worship and everyday life from “evil”, the depicted ornamental figures allow us to assume precisely the apotropic (protective) purpose of the fasteners under consideration. Paradoxical as it may seem, the discovered materials also make it possible to draw a parallel with the well-known ancient Slavic archaeological materials, attributed by archaeologists to Pagan amulets.