Russian Peasant Beliefs and Practices Concerning Death and the Supernatural Collected in Novosokol'niki Region,Pskov Province,Russia, 1995. Part II: Death in Natural Circumstances

This article, based on fieldwork but drawing on other contemporary and historical material, examines some aspects of the present state of mortuary ritual and associated beliefs among a mixed population of official Russian Orthodox and the religious group known as Old Believers, about whose funerary practices little has been written. The ritual emerges as a complex balance of Christian and pagan elements, a clinging to archaic tradition combined with modern pragmatism and accommodation to changing socio-economic conditions.