The Peter and Paul Lobanova Hermitage: Folk Legends about Royal Gifts
The article studies ancient legends recorded in the second half of the 19th century in the Peter and Paul parish of Vytegra county (uiezd) of Olonets Province on the southeastern coast of Lake Onega. The parish had as its center the only church of the former male Peter and Paul Lobanova Hermitage, which was closed by the secularization reform of 1764. The accuracy of the information preserved in the oral tradition regarding the closed monastery is checked against published materials and documents found by the author in Russian archives. The primary focus is on the supposed visit of Peter the Great to the Lobanova Hermitage in the first quarter of the 18th century. Due to the lack of reliable historical evidence, it is still unclear whether the visit actually took place, and if it did, when the visit could have happened. The article also examines when and under what circumstances the Lobanova Hermitage received the bell with a lengthy inscription in Latin and Swedish. According to the legend, Peter the Great granted this bell to the local monks together with his opponent in the Northern war, King Charles XII of Sweden. Documents studied in this research confirm the stories told by the peasants of the Peter and Paul parish about the special regard the tsar and his mother, tsarina Natalia Kirillovna Naryshkina, showed toward the Lobanova Hermitage and its miracle-working Tolga icon of the Mother of God. These oral stories can be viewed as a part of the large cycle of Northern Russian legends about “Peter's journey” to the Vytegra region, which once were popular in the villages near Lake Onega that are located along the St. Petersburg-Vytegra highway.