Kunt Ernő szerk.: Kép-hagyomány – Nép-hagyomány (Miskolc, 1990)

I. RÉSZTANULMÁNYOK - Tatiana Voronina: A lubok helye és szerepe az orosz népi kultúra rendszerében a 19. század 20-as és 60-as évei között

decoration of the hut is complemented by a lubok picture of a general. Another picture shows three luboks at a time (III. 9). In both cases the sheets are located on the wall just by the iconostasis, which as a rule decorated the front or „krásny" (red) corner of peasants' huts. Quite often the wooden icons were complemented by engravings depicting the Saints, which in such case performed a religious role. Similar descriptions are available concerning the patriarchal life style of peasants in the Zaraisk district. Ryazan province: ..benches and chests stretch from the bed along the side wall to the corner and along the wall under the windows upto the partition wall; the front corner is decorated with icons and an icon-lamp in front of them. The walls are sometimes decorated with lubok pictures, cheap engravings and lithography pictures mainly of the ecclesiastical and religious nature**.

13 In the 20s and 30s of the 19th century the majority of pictures of a religious nature depicting monasteries and Saints* images, were published in large ecclesiastical printing houses. This was due to a number of decrees adopted by the Orthodox Church, dating back to the 18th century, which banned the sales of pictures, containing distorted images of the icons' standard subjects, and also unskilled representation of the canonized Saints. That is why the Kiyevsky, Pechorsky. Solovetsky and other monasteries published the sheets from the dies at their disposal in their own printing houses. But in the mid 19th century the monasteries lacked both the engraving printing-presses and the craftsmen capable of printing operations. Therefore, the views of monasteries, images of Saints and prominent clergymen were published at the order of monasteries in Moscow and Petersburg by means of lithography: the images include „Filaret, Metropolitan of Moscow and Kolomna'", „Staropigialny pervoklassny Solovetsky monastery", etc. The pictures representing the images of the Saints, of Our Saviour, Our Lady. St. Nicholas and St. George, were particularly widespread in the villages of Kostroma province, but were mainly seen in the huts of the wealthier peasants. Sometimes all the walls were covered by them: ten pictures in one home was not a rarity. Most often these were pictures of ecclesiatical content: „Last Judgement", „Our Lady's Dream", ..St. Catherine's Life", „Life of St. Paraskeva", „Life of St. Panteleimon", „Life and Sufferings of Jesus Christ", religious holidays. Beside these, there were secular pictures with songs, and historical pictures were often encountered: the feats of Suvorov, Skobelev, genealogical tree of Russian Tsar, Emperor's portrait, portrait of Empress and the royal family. Precise data on the extent of diffusion of the pictures are not available. Local publications contain some casual pieces of information only. For example, the majority of 265 copies of lubok pictures registered in peasants' homes in Krasnoufimsky district, Perm province, had an ecclesiastical and moral content.

14 Apart from ..official" sheets, licensed by the ecclesiastical censorship, numerous designs were produced in the northern monasteries of Russia. The pictures conveyed the notions which had for centuries pervaded the minds of believers. The old-believers were concerned with the vanity of the world, spiritual purity, patience, etc. Theses ideas were expressed in coloured drawings secretly painted most commonly in but a single version on paper sheets employing water-colours and distemper. Quite often the birds of Eden Sirin and Alconost were depicted (III. 10). A number of pictures were of an edifying nature, for example, „The spiritual drugstore" (III. 11). Some sheets were devoted to moral issues (III. 12). These coloured pictures were used and intended for use in daily life. This is shown by the inscriptions made by an author, evidently a monk, on a sheet printed in Vologda province: „I ask and entreat, in the name of the Lord, those who will keep the picture at home, to make a frame for it and to keep the sheet protected by glass and to hang it in a dry place, so that it does not become misty or damp" (III. 13).