Исследуются особенности проявления архаизации современного российского общества на примере анализа двух акций: перформанса Александра Бренера «Убить постмодерниста» в Елоховском соборе 1995 г. и панк-молебна Pussy Riot «Богородица, Путина прогони!» в Храме Христа Спасителя 2012 г. Делается вывод о распространении процесса архаизации социального дискурса, нашедшего отражение, в частности, в реакции общества, государства и Русской Православной Церкви на акты современного искусства.

The purpose of the paper is to highlight the features of the manifestation of the archaization of modern Russian society by the example of two Russian actions - the performance of Alexander Brener at the Elokhov Cathedral in 1995 and the punk-prayer of the feminist group Pussy Riot in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in 2012. One of the problematic questions the author answers in this paper is why two similar actions that took place in one country, but in different time intervals, gave rise to such different reactions from both the state and society? To solve the problem, the following tasks were set. It was necessary to identify the markers that predetermined the result of the performance in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, to reflect the reasons why Alexander Brener's gesture turned out to be almost unnoticed in public circles and the punk-prayer of the feminists became known all over the world. In addition, one of the main tasks of this paper was reflection on specific examples of the archaization of Russian public discourse which took the most radical forms in the course of Putin's third presidential term. The source of this paper is Pussy Riot's punk-prayer service in the church, Brener's action in the Elokhov Cathedral and the reaction of the state authorities, the church and society to them. In the course of the study, it was concluded that Pussy Riot's punk-prayer managed to hit an important and painful point of the all-Russian historical discourse, to brightly reveal the emerging trend of social consciousness and, thus, cause a powerful social resonance. Performance in the Elokhov Cathedral did not cause such an effect, and the words of the famous artist and gallery owner Marat Gelman about the "health" of the society of the 1990s and the "ill health" of the society of the 2000s in this context can also be interpreted in the aspect of the archaization process that has spread in recent years. Specific signs of social discourse archaization were also noted. These are constant appeals of the authorities to the "spiritual bonds" and their search for new "sacred places". These are laws about "insulting the feelings", which give work to courts. This is a variety of inanimate objects "crying oil", which becomes a subject of public discussion. This is the repression in the modern discourse of power of the talk about reforms by the concept of the "glorious past". The study of such problems is important, especially by historians. These trends imply a number of important implications for modern Russian society. The desire to find a lot of "sacred places", insults of people's feelings (especially people who believe in God) lead to a clash between different social groups, the distrust to the authorities from society, anti-constitutional merging of the Orthodox Church and the state.