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proposed by Patriarch
NIKON
, as well as one of
the founders of the
OLD BELIEVER
(Old Ritualist)
sect that broke away from the Russian Ortho-
dox Church during the Great Schism of
1666-67. At the age of 23, Avvakum followed
his father's path and became a village priest in
the
NIZHNII
-
NOVGOROD
region. While in Moscow
in 1646-47, he became associated with the cir-
cle of pious zealots and acquainted with the
devout czar
ALEKSEI MIKHAILOVICH
. After a short
stay in Iurevich Povolskii in 1652, he returned
to Moscow and became priest at the Kazan
Cathedral. His strong words against the reforms
proposed by Patriarch Nikon earned him a ban-
ishment in 1653, with his family, to Tobolsk, in
western Siberia, and later to Dauriia. In 1663,
Czar Aleksei, trying to bring Avvakum back into
the official church, recalled him to Moscow, but
Avvakum did not recant his previous state-
ments, instead accusing Nikon of heresy.
Although Avvakum's pronouncements against
Nikon gained him the support of some promi-
nent boyars, such as F. P. Morozov, Avvakum
was again banished in 1664, this time to Mezen.
Two years later he was recalled to Moscow, an
anathema was pronounced against him, and in
1667 he was sent off to Pustozerskii prison.
Here, over a span of 15 years, Avvakum did not
cease his struggle with the church and wrote his
most important works,
The Topic of Conversations
(
Kniga besed
),
The Topic of Learning
(
Kniga tolko-
vanii
), and
The Life of Archpriest Avvakum by Him-
self
(
Zhitie
). Avvakum's popularity was so great
that even prison guards helped distribute his
works. Finally, by czarist decree, Avvakum and
his closest associates were burned at the stake on
June 14, 1682. Conservative, almost fanatical in
his views, Avvakum exercised an immmense
influence on the Old Believer movement. He
was also an outstanding writer, and his autobi-
ography in particular is a remarkable work of
early Russian literature. Here, he takes the tradi-
tional form of the lives of the saints and through
sharp, lively writing transforms it into a capti-
vating autobiographical narrative.
Azev, Evno Fishelevich
(1869-1918)
(Evgenii Filippovich)
terrorist and double agent
A founder of the Socialist Revolutionary Party,
Azev was perhaps the most notorious and
highly paid of many police agents in the revolu-
tionary movement. His family, impoverished
Jewish tailors from Grodno province, moved to
Rostov-on-Don in 1874. Sought by the police for
revolutionary activities, in 1892 Azev stole 800
rubles and fled to Germany, where he pursued
studies in electrical engineering while becoming
an informer for the czarist police (Okhrana).
Back in Moscow in 1899, he became a member
of the Northern Union, which in 1901 joined its
southern counterpart to form the Party of Social-
ist Revolutionaries (PSR). A founding member
of the party's Central Committee, Azev also was
a part of its terrorist Fighting Organization,
which for security reasons was an autonomous
arm of the PSR. In 1903, Azev became the direc-
tor of the Fighting Organization after the capture
of its leader, Grigorii Gershuni. In this capacity,
Azev masterminded the assassinations in 1904
of the interior minister, Vyacheslav Plehve, and
in 1905 of the czar's uncle and governor-general
of Moscow, Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich,
both hated enemies of the revolutionary move-
ment. These two assassinations overshadow the
extent to which Azev succeeded in sabotaging
the party's terrorist activities. Working for Sergei
ZUBATOV
, the controversial chief of the Moscow
Okhrana, Azev provided police with lists of par-
ticipants at underground PSR congresses as well
as active party members. In 1908, seven mem-
bers of the group were hanged after his denun-
ciations. He was unmasked to a great scandal by
Vladimir L. Burtsev, a journalist and self-
appointed hunter of police agents in 1908. Sen-
tenced to death in absentia by the Central
Committee of the Socialist Revolutionary Party,
Azev fled to Berlin, where he reportedly worked
at the stock exchange under an assumed name.
He was arrested and interned by the German
police in 1915 but released in December 1917.
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