The orders, life, and mores of the theological schools of post-reform Russia (on revelations and omissions in the memoirs of the clergy)

The article analyzes an unpublished manuscript of memoirs about studying at the Vyatka Theological School in the first half of the 1880s. The manuscript, whose author failed to identify his name, has been introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The article attempts to identify the author of the memoirs and evaluate the information contained in them concerning the life, orders and customs that existed in the Vyatka Theological School. Fragments of the manuscript are compared to the data about the school’s everyday life found in the published memoirs of other graduates of the Vyatka Theological School, who studied at the same time as the author of the memoirs. The analysis of biographical information that the author of the memoirs reports about himself, in conjunction with other historical sources, allows the author of the article to conclude that the authorship of the manuscript belongs to the famous Vyatka priest Yakov Fedorovich Multanovsky. His manuscript being small in volume and not quite distinguished by a good literary style repeats a lot of facts contained in the long-published and widely known memoirs of the school’s graduates. Nevertheless, his brief memoirs contain many interesting and important facts that characterize the everyday life of the school. In addition, the text of the manuscript highlights the author’s vivid impressions of his fellow students and teachers, which well reflects the personality of the author himself. As a whole, the manuscript is a valuable source of private character for the study of the history of not only theological educational institutions, but also of the clergy of the second half of the 19th century, in general. Finally, the article offers explanations of the reasons why the manuscript was never published by the author, never finding its way to a wide readership.