I read a lot about the enthusiasm of the nobility and intelligentsia in Russia at the turn of the century towards different sects and religious offshoots - the best example (and the most well-known) is definitely Rasputin, but looks like to me, that such -hand in hand with that "Titanic-like" decadence of the higher classes- was indeed a "fashion" - so as the interest in various sects. Some converted to R.Catholicism,but some turned towards more "Russian spirited" groups, such as hlists, etc....(even the bolshevik Bonch Bruevich mentions it).
I wonder if the Old Beilevers ("Raskolniks"*) came into the picture of such (re)searchers, and overall I am interested in their position; in some books I even read that some suspected Rasputin as being "one of them" or at least associated closely with them. (Ok, maybe I should have opened this in the Rasputin-thread...?)
I know, that until 1905, Old Believers were not fully emancipated, but had they any role between 1905 and 1917/18 in Russian society? I know, that the Empress Alexandra was also interested in what she called "native Russian beliefs" (of course within orthodoxy)...did she ever come across them...?
*It might be an offensive name, if so I apologise...
