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A Visit with the Doukhobors of Irkutsk
by
Nikolai Mikhailovich Astyrev
Nikolai Mikhailovich Astyrev (1857-1894) was a
writer who specialized in subjects of Russian folk life. From 1888 until his
death, he was a government statistician stationed in Irkutsk. In 1891, Astyrev visited the village of
Koty in northern Irkutsk province. The
population of Koty was predominantly Orthodox, but the village did
serve as the sole point of the weak development of Doukhoborism in the
province. His article, originally published as “V Gostiakh u Dukhobortsev
Irkutskoi Gubernii” in the Russian journal “Sievernii Viestnik” (St.
Petersburg, No. 4, April 1891: 52-65), provides a rare glimpse of a small
group of Doukhobors isolated from the main body of Doukhobors in the
Caucasus. It is made available for the first time in English translation in
this Doukhobor Genealogy Website exclusive. Translation and editorial notes
by Jack McIntosh. Afterword by Jonathan J. Kalmakoff.
Preface by the Author
According to official statistics, there are,
apart from the 212,000-strong rural population of the Russian Orthodox faith
in the three southern districts of Irkutsk guberniia (province) (not
counting Buddhists and Shamanists, who number 12,000 and 38,000
respectively), 5,800 sectarians of both sexes, that is, 2.2% overall. A
substantial proportion of them are first-generation exiles. Many of the
convicts, as is well known, have not settled down to married life and thus
leave no heirs (this is especially true of Catholics and Lutherans). Of the
sectarians who could or might under other circumstances be able to have a
marked influence on the Orthodox masses, only two groups are noteworthy: the
Dukhobortsy (Dukhobors) and the Subbotniki (Sabbatarians). The remaining sects are
represented by only a few first-generation individual exiles, although of
course under exceptionally favourable circumstances, on prepared soil, even
one Stundist or Shelaput (sic - i.e. Shalaput) could grow many seeds with
his teaching. But the soil, I emphasize, is not all that favourable to any
kind of ethical doctrine, be it mystical or rationalistic. As for the two
sectarian groups mentioned, according to the national census of 1888, they
number as follows: Subbotniki – ninety-one families, totaling 653 persons,
and Dukhobors – eight families comprising forty-three
individuals.
While traveling around Irkutsk Province, I happened to become personally
acquainted with these groups of local inhabitants, albeit very fleetingly,
unfortunately. Nevertheless, in view of interest in the subject itself, I
think that a few pages telling the story of my encounter with people
“searching for the Holy City,” will not be squandered uselessly.
In the literature about the Dukhobors I have
read many articles, all of which suffer from a casual approach and
incomplete observations, or from a narrow and unseemly one-sidedness.
Novitsky’s work on the Dukhobors, published back in 1832, deserves to be
considered the most substantial contribution to the history of the Dukhobors.
It is based on the author’s personal observations and investigations. Plenty
of water has flowed under the bridge since then, and perhaps to a
considerable extent Novitsky’s prediction of numerous changes in store for
the Dukhobors’ philosophy has been borne out. Thus it would be all the more
important and interesting now to have a new detailed and disinterested
investigation of this subject, tracing the changes in beliefs, rituals and
communal life that have taken place during the sixty-year interval during
which a significant event for all Dukhobors occurred – the migration of the
Dukhobors from the Molochnye Vody (Milky Waters) to the Transcaucasus.
While it is not firmly established when the Molokan/Dukhobor sect emerged,
it is commonly accepted that it happened in the first half of the last
century in the provinces of Tambov and Kharkov. The sectarians called
themselves “Spiritual Christians” and to some extent, this name is still in
use. After the death of Siluan Kolesnikov, who gave flesh and blood to this
sect, a split formed within it. Some of the sectarians remained loyal to the
teaching of Kolesnikov and his disciple, Uklein; the others followed the
interpretation of the new reformers, Pobirokhin and Kapustin, as to the
significance of the holy scriptures and parted from Uklein’s followers in
their understanding of several other questions of essentially secondary
importance. Thus there occurred a division of the sect into Molokans and
Dukhobors, who differ very little even now in the spirit of their beliefs,
but abhor each other with the passion of narrow-minded fanatics. In the last
century, the Dukhobors were severely persecuted: they were exiled to
Siberia, to Ezel island, and to the Kola Peninsula.
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Nikolai Mikhailovich Astyrev (1857-1894) |
In 1802-1804, the sectarians who remained in
various localities of central Russia were allowed to move together as a
group to the Molochnye Vody area (located in the Melitopol district of
Tavria province); later, after becoming personally acquainted with the
sectarians, Tsar Alexander I permitted all other sectarians who had been
previously exiled to outlying areas of Russia to move there too. The new
Milky Waters settlements prospered greatly, especially during their first
years. The sectarians laid purely communistic foundations for their mutual
relations; but although the rural economy of the peasant village (mir)
developed very successfully in terms of material results, the Milky Waters
commune did not hold out for long, and by the end of the 1820s no trace of
it remained. What took its place was theocratic domination by the “Council
of Thirty”, who took it upon themselves to keep a watch on the conduct of
their unreliable brethren, acted like St. Hermandad (in medieval Castile,
holy “brotherhoods” formed for vigilante purposes) and disgraced themselves
with numerous clandestine crimes. When some of those crimes nevertheless
came to light, a decree was issued in 1841 forcing the sectarians to be
evicted from Milky Waters to present-day Akhaltsykh and Elizavetpol
districts in the Transcaucasus. The localities chosen for settlement were
unhealthy; the settlers were threatened by constant danger from as yet
unsubdued mountain tribes and numerous criminals, but the colonists
withstood all these trials and by now have settled whole districts in the
area in question.
This has been a brief historical sketch of the Dukhobor sect in Russia. As
for the life of the exiled sectarians in Siberia in general and in Irkutsk
Province in particular is concerned, almost nothing is known. However, there
is some indication that in 1805, exiled Dukhobors in Irkutsk Province
petitioned for transmigration to the Milky Waters, but were refused at that
time and possibly migrated later after receiving gracious permission from
Tsar Alexander I, who personally visited the Milky Waters colonies. As for
specifically who among the Dukhobors were subsequently exiled to Eastern
Siberia and why, I am also uninformed. In the Oyek volost (rural
district) in Irkutsk okrug (larger territorial division), forty
versts (Imperial Russian linear measure equal to 3,500 feet or 1.067 km)
from Irkutsk and three versts from the large village of Oyek with its 3500
inhabitants lies the village of Koty, perfectly ordinary in
outward appearance, land and other economic conditions, with its 150
Siberian old settler homesteads and ten belonging to the recent arrivals.
The village has its own parish priest and a church built by a
merchant-benefactor from Irkutsk who used to be a peasant in Koty.
There is a tavern maintained by another merchant who so far has only said
that he intends to build a church somewhere to atone for his sins. There is
also a little shop run by “a political exile from the nobility“ (i.e. a
participant in the Polish Revolt), who has put about five thousand rubles
into circulation at an annual “Christian“ rate of interest of 40-80 per-cent
secured by pasture allotments, arable lands, cows, horses and other peasant
properties, in return for which they call him a “benefactor”. In a word, as
a village, Koty stands out from the rest solely by being the only
place of development, weak though it is, of the Dukhobor sect in Irkutsk
Province.
Before my arrival there, all I knew about the local Dukhobor community was
that it numbers forty persons; in addition, information about the sect’s
origin, its growth, and attitudes of the Orthodox towards the Dukhobors was
related to me by the local village clerk, a local peasant who bore no
resemblance to the usual type of clerk appointed from among the exiled
settlers – typically drunk, sneaky and thievish. About twenty years ago, the
mother of a Koty peasant who had served her sentence in exile in
Yakutsk Oblast, returned to her native village accompanied by “an old man of
quiet demeanor”. This guest spent a winter modestly in the village and left
for parts unknown in the spring, while leaving lasting traces of his stay in
Koty. Some time later, at a village assembly, three or four families
among the local old settlers ceremoniously refused to pay their ruga
(annual contribution to the local clergy), to supply firewood to the church
and the parish priest, or to pay housing support to the sexton. In a word,
they declared that they would no longer “carry” any church duties and, as
confirmation of their break with Orthodoxy, they returned their home icons
to the church. When asked by their surprised fellow-villagers what all of
this meant, the dissidents declared that from now on they reject the church,
sacraments, rituals and the clergy and had become “Spiritual Christians –
Dukhobors”. “Up to now, we wandered in darkness, and only now have we found
the true faith and the pathway to salvation,” they solemnly replied.
Of course such a significant fact could not pass unnoticed by “those
responsible for keeping watch.” At first, the sectarians experienced hard
times. However, they firmly withstood this ordeal and their existence in
Koty was finally officially acknowledged. The volost was issued with
books to register the births, marriages and deaths of the sectarians and the
reprimands ceased or became less persistent. The Orthodox believers began to
“carry” church duties and taxes on behalf of the sectarians, in return
loading on them cartage duties and other village responsibilities not
related to the church.
Over the past twenty years, four more peasant families have joined the sect
at various times, so now they number twenty men and twenty-three women.
Still, this growth of the sect has to be considered very slow when compared
to the incredibly rapid success of sectarian propaganda in Russia. The
attitude of the Orthodox toward the sectarians in Oyek and neighboring
districts nowadays can be described as reserved and curious: every son of
the true church observes the actions of his heretical neighbors with
distrustful curiosity at times masked by indifference, as if in constant
expectation that all of a sudden they will “pull some kind of stunt.” The
Orthodox express their common opinion about the sectarians in approximately
the following words: “We have seen nothing bad about them that we don’t do
ourselves: they are not used to drinking, they care for the salvation of
their souls much more than we do – only in their own way, of course. The bad
thing is that they have no respect for the church, icons and all that.”
But if in conversation one brings up the economic relations between these
two sides, the Orthodox people inevitably begin to speak in offended tones
about the sectarians’ refusal to fulfill their obligations to the church.
“But didn’t you pile on them lots of extra obligations in exchange for
relieving them of the ruga and church duties?” “That’s right, but it’s still
offensive ….”
For their part, the Dukhobors explained that they fulfill extra village
duties worth twice as much as all the services to the church that they had
rejected. “They are glad to oppress us because they are a force, a whole
army, while we are a small handful. Still, we are yet prepared to put up
with it for the sake of our faith.”
Among the householders of Koty I spoke to about “the pleasures of the
soil” and community affairs, there was a Dukhobor, one who had only recently
abandoned Orthodoxy, as the clerk told me. Snatching a moment when no one
was paying attention to us, I asked, “You are a Dukhobor, aren’t you?”
Suspicious, he gazed at me intently, but hastened to answer in the
affirmative.
In the evening, the work being over, I asked the clerk whether he could take
me to the recently met Dukhobor and whether it would be acceptable to show
up at his place unannounced. The clerk dispelled my doubts and led me
through the narrow, winding streets of the village. He stopped at the small,
plain hut with a tumbledown fence around the yard. “This is Nikolay
Petrovich’s hut. Shall I knock?” “What about you?” I asked, “Will you come
in too? Won’t he be embarrassed?” “Don’t worry. He is entirely without
formality! They know me.”
Our knock on the gates and the dog’s growling brought the man out into the
yard. “Who’s here?” he asked, half-opening the wicket-gate. I stood so that
the moonlight fell on my face and asked in return: “Will you welcome
unexpected guests, Nikolay Petrovich?” He was somewhat confused at first by
our unexpected arrival, but immediately tried to regain his composure and
replied in an exaggeratedly calm voice: “There are no two guests alike.
There are all sorts!… Please come in.”
The interior furnishings of the hut also turned out to be very poor. A
Russian stove, already caving in from decrepitude, took up a quarter of the
space. Burning brightly in the small hearth set into the corner of the stove
an arshin (Imperial Russian linear measure equal to 28 inches or 71
cm) and a half above the floor were four finely chopped pieces of firewood
spreading warmth and light throughout the hut (poor peasants in Siberia warm
their homes in such a way all through the winter). Small dark pegs were
hanging right over the door; in the corner there was a bed with a torn large
felt mat with two soiled cushions instead of a mattress. There was a table
in the krasny ugol ("red corner", a special space in a Russian peasant hut usually
decorated with embroidered towels and one or more icons, to form a private
chapel); along two walls were benches. There were no icons, but hanging
along the walls forming the krasny ugol were several oleographs (a
chromolithograph printed from metal or stone plates using oil paint on
canvas - in imitation of oil paintings), portraits of the royal family, a
group of European emperors, among whom, incidentally, I noticed the Shah of
Persia; I noticed “The Broad and Narrow Way”, a painting of a group of
ladies and gentlemen in the funniest caftans and dresses passing through the
gates of hell, and a group of simple men, pilgrims and monks passing through
the narrow gate into the kingdom of heaven. There was also “Christ being
tempted by the Devil”, a picture issued by the “Posrednik” publishing house
and some others, none of which exhibited the least trace of romantic or
humorous content.
In the peasant hut, apart from our host, his wife and two children, there
were two peasants who had obviously just “dropped in for a minute” and were
sitting with their hats in their hands. One of them, an altogether common
peasant type in appearance, was smoking a pipe; the other, by virtue of his
cleaner clothing and broad, well-fed countenance looked more like a
dvornik, (i.e. the proprietor of a coach inn) than a peasant ploughman.
When I entered, the hostess started fussing and began to wipe something off
the table, though it was clean enough, lit a small blackened lamp, set the
logs straight in the hearth and sat up to the cradle where a baby was
starting to cry. Our host did not know what to do with his tall self and
aimlessly paced the floor near the table, watching his wife’s efforts. Only
the man with the full face remained unperturbed. “Look, His Honour wanted to
know how you are living, Nikolay Petrovich,” said the clerk as a kind of
weak recommendation and sat down on the bed near the man who was smoking.
“Well, then, welcome! We are glad to meet a good person.…”
Then there was a pause; naturally, it was up to me to break it. I looked
around hoping to find a topic of conversation and soon, fortunately, I found
one. I asked them about the price of kerosene and whether it was widely used
in the villages. In return they asked me about the price of kerosene in
Russia. Then we moved to the prices of other products in the local shop;
from here it was easier now to bring up the benefits provided to peasants
needing credit from the local “nobleman among the exiles”; then we talked
about setting up savings and loans banks in the district, and other matters.
We were having a rather lively conversation, though only three people took
part in it besides me: the fellow with the full face and the clerk; the
others kept quiet almost all the time.
I did not know whether it would be proper to turn the conversation to
religious questions in view of the presence of guests whose relationship
with our host was unknown to me, but in one of the short lulls in the
conversation, the stout fellow asked me: “You are, by all appearances,
Russian; have you been to the Kavkaz (Caucasus)?” (He pronounced it “Kapkaz”).
“No, I haven’t, but I know something about it from books.” “It seems that’s
where our Dukhobors are living. I wonder if life is good there.” “You mean
the Transcaucasus, specifically, near Lenkoran in Akhaltsykh and Elizavetpol
districts?” “Exactly, so have you had an opportunity to be there?”
I told them everything that came to mind about the climate there, living
conditions, and so on. They listened attentively, asked if it was far from
St. Petersburg and Irkutsk, how to get there and what would it cost. I could
not give any kind of definite answer to the last question, but I described
the possible routes in detail. Finally, I asked why they were so interested
in life in Transcaucasia.
“Who knows, maybe we’ll have to go there! Our spiritual brethren live there,
and here – strangers all around. They are offended at us not paying the
annual fee to the church or contributing firewood. They also are threatening
to take away a desiatina (Imperial Russian land measure equal to 2.7
acres) of land per head. So how can we live here? We’ve got no place to go:
there’s little room here, stony ground stretches from here up to the sea
(Lake Baikal): although the land there doesn’t belong to anybody, it’s no
good. We also heard rumours that the local officials themselves are going to
drive us out of here….” “For years they have been singing the same old song,
yet nothing has happened and it looks as though it never will. Where can
they exile us even farther away?” remarked our host.
I stood up to take my leave, thinking that my first visit was long enough
and counting on seeing these sectarians again the next day. “Why have you
sat with us such a short time?” asked Vasily Nikolayevich, the stout one,
“We should talk longer, we much enjoy good conversation. Tomorrow – will you
still be here?” (I answered in the affirmative.) “So, please come in the
evening, if you don’t find our company boring. I live across from here,
kitty-corner, two houses over.” “Please, please come and see us,” our host
also extended an invitation as he saw us to the gates.
“That man, the fat one, he is chief among the brethren,” said the clerk as
we walked down the street. “Oh, how clever they are at talking! He’ll talk
your ears off, you won’t be able to get a word in edgewise in response.” “Do
they live peaceably among themselves?”
“Didn’t you see? They visit each other every evening, read holy books and
sing psalms, but in life you wouldn’t notice anything that makes them
different from us. Remember, you mentioned that Polish exile; there are
those among them who would buy hay fields from their own brethren at half
price and take the land in pawn. At Nikolay’s place, where we were, consider
– there is nothing to eat, while at Vasily’s house – you’ll see tomorrow –
it’s like a merchant’s mansion! So with them it’s “live and struggle, every
man for himself,” just as it is with us…. Well now, as for the women, we’ve
also noticed something about them: it’s hard for a young woman to live in a
family with an old man…. We have seen enough of them – sweet singers,
indeed!…. Well, here are your digs. Will you excuse me now? Good night!”
The next evening, I entered the clean, spacious house where Vasily lived. My
hopes were realized. Obviously a prayer gathering was about to begin,
because five or so of the “brethren” had gathered in the sitting-room;
members of Vasily’s family were also there: his wife, already quite an old
woman (however, he appeared no more than forty-five, although he was
actually approaching sixty), his two daughters, both in their early
twenties, and a son about twelve years old. They greeted me as a friend,
without reserve. Immediately we were given brick tea with milk, warmed up
hard-boiled eggs and some kalachi (wheatmeal loaves) baked from
homemade flour. The tea was served to me first, and then to the “brothers”,
the wife handing each person a loaf and a lump of sugar. Most of them had
only one cup of tea – out of delicacy, I suppose.
During tea we had a conversation on scientific topics. Somebody recalled the
eclipse of the sun on August 7, 1887; another mentioned some lunar eclipses:
a whole series of questions gave me an opportunity to give a sort of lecture
about the reasons for eclipses, day and night, and the seasons. Using a lamp
and two small shan’gi (round loaves) as visual aids, I described how
the earth goes around the sun, how the moon goes around the earth, and so
on. Everyone listened with great attention and acceptance, without making
skeptical comments. Their questions were sensible; I even found myself
unable with total accuracy to answer from memory some of their questions
about numbers. In our conversation it turned out that some of them had their
own ideas as to the reasons for the phases of the moon: they thought that
some kind of dark “planetoid” orbiting the Earth is hiding the moon from our
sight. In general, this whole episode made a very favourable impression on
me; clearly, mental gymnastics are not foreign to these people, they possess
a certain inquisitiveness, and if they are wandering in the semi-mystical
labyrinths of Dukhobor teachings it is not their fault that life has not
given them anything better, has not led them to strive for self perfection
in another, more rational direction. I recall my three-year stay among
peasants in one of the “black soil” provinces of Russia: not once there did
I ever have occasion to carry on such a long scientific discussion and never
did I have such attentive and inquisitive interlocutors. With regard to the
waning and waxing of the moon, my friends in the black soil areas had
virtually no interest; I never once heard from them any sort of even
childishly naïve interpretations of these phenomena, not even of a sort such
as “angels are crumbling the moon into stars”; there I would always receive
the same answer to my questions: “Who knows!… We don’t have a clue!…
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| Map of Koty village, Oyek district, Irkutsk province, Russia. |
Of course, a small group of Dukhobors cannot be assumed to represent the
state of mind of the Siberian peasantry in general: the latter, as I have
already pointed out in a previous essay, are little interested in abstract
ideas, let alone religious matters; however, more practical questions affect
even the average Siberian deeply. Everywhere, for example, the rumour of a
railway creates a virtual sensation and everyone with whom I discussed that
topic was interested in what exactly a chugunka (Russian archaic term
for railroad train, comparable to “iron horse” in English) is like, how
powerful it is, what quantity of goods it can transport, how far it can
travel in a day, and so on.
The Dukhobors thus appear, by virtue of their inquisitive nature, to be the
cream of the local peasantry: they are interested not only in the chugunka,
which will one way or another affect the pocketbooks of the whole
population, but also in issues more remote from everyday life.
When we had finished sipping our tea, the host’s daughters, after clearing
away the dishes, sat down right there with their needlework. The boy went
over to the front corner and took out two rather worn books from a drawer.
The brothers were sitting on the beds and benches; our host himself was
sitting almost squatting – whether intentionally or without forethought, I
do not know – at the doorway from the main room out leading out beyond a
partition; he thus occupied the lowest position in line with the others.
“Shall we read, brothers?… Well, then, Senia (diminutive form of the
Russian men’s name Semen, Ksenofont, etc), read chapter 13 from the Epistle
to the Romans”, he said.
None of the rituals that researchers who have studied this sect say are
performed before a prayer session did I observe; the men and women even
remained sitting alternately without separating into two groups; everybody
continued to sit in the most natural postures just as before the reading;
one man was even unhurriedly finishing smoking his pipe. The boy began
reading rather animatedly. After he finished reading, everyone repeated,
“Lord, save us!” in a low voice. They repeated the same words after each
subsequent reading or singing.
“This is what the Christ’s apostle passed on to us,” explained our host,
“Every person should be subject unto the higher powers.” And then, “render
to all their dues: custom to whom custom is due; honour to whom honour is
due. That
means the rulers are God’s ministers. That’s why we show respect to them and
obey them; we also pay all taxes prescribed by the officials, except those
prescribed by others. We honour the powers that should be honoured, but not
everyone who desires to be honoured.”
It was clear that all this and much of what followed was addressed directly
at me. “Now, then, Senia, read chapter 23 from Matthew!” “But be not ye
called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren…”
Senia went on reading: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for
ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in
yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering to go in. Woe unto you,
scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye devour widows’ houses, and for a
pretence make long prayer… . ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men,
but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity”… . Again, “Lord, save us”
with commentary: “And this we consider to mean authorities in the world
other than our village powers. We do not honour the former ones and we want
nothing to do with them. We acknowledge only one Teacher and Guide, our Lord
Jesus Christ.”
“I remember reading somewhere that the Dukhobors supposedly do not recognize
the Holy Scripture, as they consider one tradition to be sufficient, that
is, the fruit of inner revelation or enlightenment from God the Word, and
that for you people the Bible and its Gospel have been replaced by a “book
of life”, i. e. a collection of altered psalms of David?” I asked. “Possibly
that is so in other places, but we read both the Gospels and the Epistles.”
“Do you acknowledge any later prayers and the writings of the holy fathers?”
“We accept only the Lord’s Prayer given to us by the Lord and the beginning
of 'I believe in one God, the Father Almighty…'. And that's all.”
When I asked why they use only the first words of the Apostles’ Creed, our
host answered “we don’t need anything beyond that.” With that he indirectly
acknowledged that they conceive of the divinity of Christ with great
reservations.
But just then I was astonished by the following answer to my question about
baptism. “Of course we baptize our children ‘in the name of the Father, the
Son and the Holy Spirit’ and name the child right then.” “Surely isn’t that
just what the Orthodox do?” “We don’t make up our own names. We name
children according to the church calendar. Only when we come to the names of
bishops or priests, we skip them.”
“Then do you bury and marry people yourselves?” “Yes, on our own. We
announce the marriage before all the brethren; we consider that sufficient.
Only we also recite Psalms that are appropriate.”
“But look here, with respect, you all surely were Orthodox once. Do you
remember what beautiful prayers there are? For instance, take just the
burial ceremony. Why did you reject them and recite nothing but the Psalms?
Does it matter who composed a prayer if it speaks to the heart?” “I know
them all very well. I used to go to church often thinking I would find the
true way to salvation. The only thing is, all that was not to my liking; the
prayers themselves are good, but the way they read them!? So let them have
them!”
“Why do you not recognize icons?” “An icon is the work of man’s hands,
sometimes a vile man; how can we worship it? We only worship God alone, as
the Gospel says: ‘Where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am in
the midst of them.’ We gather as often as possible in His name so that He
will be in our midst as much as possible. Let’s recite some psalms,
brothers.”
He started reciting the 10th Psalm “In the Lord we trust”. After that, an
old woman who had been sitting all the time motionless, but with clear signs
of fanaticism on her wrinkled face, solemnly recited the 90th Psalm “He that
dwelleth in the secret place of the most High….” Then our host’s elder
daughter laid her needlework down on her lap and recited the 113th Psalm;
then all those present, with the sole exception of the peasant sitting next
to me, recited various psalms in turn. They all distinctly pronounced the
words, though their diction was monotonous and sluggish. Whether they
deviated at all from the text, I was unable to tell, as I didn’t have the
book in hand to check on it.
“But all of you, it would seem, cannot read: how then did you learn those
long Psalms?” “This is how: Senia reads and the rest repeat after him;
that’s how we learn them.” “For others, it is awfully easy,” remarked my
neighbour, “It’s enough for her (pointing to the girl) to hear a psalm two
or three times and she’s ready: she knows it to the last little word. My
memory is poor, or the Lord is not letting me: I just can’t memorize! I try
and try, but as soon as I learn one verse, I forget another.”
“How many Psalms do the rest know?” “That girl over there, it seems, knows
over forty.” “Forty-two,” said the girl, not taking her eyes off her work.
“Well, brothers, let’s sing something: these folks will listen.” They sang
several psalms. Every time the old woman and our host would start the
singing and the rest would join in after the third or the fourth word. “I’m
not in good voice today,” said one of the brethren, coughing and spitting.
Their psalm singing was extremely doleful; some of them exuded sincerity as
they sang. I was especially taken with their singing of the 99th Psalm “Make
a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.”
It was already eleven in the evening when I said good-bye and thanked them
for their trust and cordial hospitality. “We thank you most humbly for
paying us a visit, and thank you for not looking down on us. But how are we
to address you and remember you?” asked our host. I gave him my visiting
card and again shook hands with everyone. “If you ever happen to visit our
region, don’t pass by, do us the kindness!” “Come visit us again, we humbly
beg you! We’ll be glad,” said the others also.
However, I was not to have an opportunity to see any of them again. Recently
I have found out from the newspapers that on such and such a day, “a
provincial court considered the case of a peasant from the village of
Koty, a Dukhobor charged with uttering blasphemous words at a village
meeting…” and so on. The accused was that silent and gloomy recent Dukhobor
convert, the one I had once visited late at night uninvited. Why was it
specifically he who was put on trial? Was it because long-repressed
indignation at pressure from the community had boiled up in him and exploded
in a stream of reproachful and abusive words, or had he during this interval
of time become, owing to outside influence, a fanatic who had decided to
“suffer for the true faith,” to strengthen thereby the unity of the commune
and call sympathetic attention to it from wavering members of the
surrounding population? The dry newspaper account reported only that the
accused had been deemed by the judge to have acted without clear
understanding and had, therefore, been sentenced to a light punishment.
However, some time later I read in another paper a report about a severe
drought in the northern district of Irkutsk okrug and that the Koty
community regards it as punishment sent down on the Orthodox folk for the
indulgences granted by them to the Dukhobors, and they then decided to take
away from each of them one desiatina of arable land.
What brother Vasily feared has come to pass. Thus, for this small group of
Dukhobors, a new period of ordeals has begun. The reasons for this onslaught
are difficult to gauge from afar, some six thousand versts away: it all may
come down to the fact that there has been some change unfavourable for the
Dukhobors in the personnel of the volost or higher ranking administration.
Or, possibly, due to scarcity of land, the rural community intends to expel
entirely from their nest these local renegades to somewhere “beyond the ‘Kapkaz’”
(Transcaucasia), to where even the Dukhobors themselves would apparently not
be averse to resettling were they not apprehensive about the vast distance
separating them from their “brothers in spirit”.
Such is life for the group of Dukhobors with whom I chanced to become
slightly acquainted in one of the remote frontier areas of Russia. However
slight this acquaintance, it would seem possible that on this basis it may
be concluded that the beliefs of the Irkutsk Dukhobors differ in many
respects from the more fixed Dukhobor doctrines in Russia proper. This
difference in dogma and rituals is considerably favoured by the isolation of
Koty’s semi-mystical, semi-rationalistic Dukhobors from their Russian
brethren.
Afterword
Throughout nineteenth century Russia, a number
of small, isolated groups of Doukhobors existed, separate and apart from the
main body of Doukhobors in the Caucasus, in places such as Samara, Orenburg,
Irkutsk, Amur, Kamchatka and elsewhere. Unfortunately, little is known or
documented about them. In this regard, Astyrev, who displays considerable
knowledge of Doukhobor history and historiography, provides us with a rare,
valuable glimpse of one such group.
Astyrev traced the origins of the Doukhobors of
Koty village, Irkutsk
to a wandering Doukhobor, an “old man of quiet demeanour” who had been
exiled to Yakutsk province. Following his release, in circa 1871, he
wintered in the village. Over the course of several months, he taught the
villagers the Doukhobor life concept. The following spring, he departed the
village for “parts unknown”. Despite his brief stay, this “Christ’s apostle”
left lasting traces; for a short time later, several village families converted
to the Doukhobor faith.
The Doukhobors Astyrev met espoused many of
the central tenets of Doukhoborism, including the belief that the spirit of
God can be found in the soul of every man; the worship of God in spirit and
in truth; and the rejection of external rites, sacraments and dogma. They
did not attend the Orthodox Church and rejected the use of icons. They met
for simple prayer meetings in their homes, during which they sang hymns and
recited psalms and prayers. Many of these they committed to memory, as
exemplified by the young woman Astyrev encountered who knew forty-two psalms
“by heart”.
At the same time, Astyrev observed some differences in their religious
practices from those of the Caucasian Doukhobors.
For instance, they did not separate into two groups of men and women during
their prayer meetings. As well, they adopted only the first person of the
Trinity, the Father; the Son and Holy Ghost, they informed Astyrev, were
“not needed”. In addition, they baptized their children according to
Orthodox ritual; although they married and buried their dead themselves.
Perhaps most significantly, they continued to hold the Bible as a source of
divine authority.
Unlike the Doukhobors in the Caucasus, the Doukhobors of Koty did not
manifest any strong ideological opposition to the state. While visiting
them, Astyrev found portraits of the reigning Romanov family and other
secular rulers – including the Shah of Persia – on the walls of their homes.
They respected and obeyed the government and paid their taxes regularly,
according to the maxim that “every person should be subject unto the higher
powers” and “render to all their dues: custom to whom custom is due; honour
to whom honour is due.”
Some differences in religious expression were
probably inevitable, given the Koty Doukhobors' geographic and social
isolation from other Doukhobor groups. Indeed, their brief time spent
with the old Doukhobor exile, twenty years earlier, was their only point of
reference. However, for their part, the
Doukhobors did not consider such discrepancies to be important. When Astyrev
explained how the practices of the Caucasian Doukhobors differed from their
own, they casually remarked that “possibly that is so in
other places”, but “this is what the Christ’s apostle passed on to us.”
During the course of his visit, Astyrev
discussed a broad range of issues with the Doukhobors, including current
events, religious philosophy, the role of education, scientific phenomena
and technological advances. The statistician was favourably impressed with
their “shrewd questioning” and “intellectual curiosity” in matters both
practical and remote from everyday life. On this basis, he deduced
that the Doukhobors were “the cream of the local peasantry”.
In particular, the Koty Doukhobors expressed a keen interest in the
lands “beyond the Kapkaz”, inquiring about the climate there, living
conditions, how to get there, and what it would cost. When Astyrev asked
them why they were so interested in life in Transcaucasia, the Doukhobors
explained that they wished to join their “brothers in spirit” living there,
were it not for the vast distance which separated them.
Not surprisingly, the Koty Doukhobors
encountered hostility from their Orthodox neighbours, who viewed them with
“distrustful curiosity” tinged with "concealed contempt.” The Doukhobors
told Astyrev, and the Orthodox freely admitted, that they were forced to
shoulder disproportionate mir duties and obligations because of their
refusal to support the local Orthodox Church. The Orthodox, the Doukhobors
explained, "are glad to oppress us because they are a force, a whole army,
while we are a small handful." Despite this discrimination and
maltreatment, the Doukhobors
remained unshakable in their faith.
After his departure from Koty, Astyrev learned from newspaper accounts
that several of the Doukhobors were brought before a provincial court for
uttering "sacrilegious words" in a village meeting. The court
sentenced the offenders to only light punishment for acting "without clear
reason". A short time later, a severe drought struck northern Irkutsk.
The Koty community decided that its affliction was caused by Orthodox
"indulgence" of the heretical minority in its midst. It was resolved
to reduce the Doukhobors' share of arable land. Astyrev learned
nothing of their subsequent fate.
In an incredible postscript to this story, the Doukhobors of Koty did
indeed meet their "brothers in faith". In April 1899, a group of
forty-one Doukhobor women and children from the Caucasus, escorted by the
Tolstoyan doctor Prokopy Nestorovich Sokolnikov, arrived in Irkutsk en route
to Yakutsk to join their
husbands and fathers who were exiled there for their rejection of military
service. There, they were warmly welcomed by the Koty Doukhobors
who had traveled to meet them. Over the course of ten days, the local
Doukhobors visited with the weary travelers, hosting them in their homes,
and supplying the women with provisions and a small amount of money.
On the day of their departure from Irkutsk, the Koty Doukhobors came
out to the main road to meet them, bringing them additional supplies and
bowing to the ground before them. Their parting was very touching, and
many of the Doukhobors cried to the point of sobbing. The remarkable
historic meeting of these two Doukhobor groups was recorded by Sokolnikov in
his diary, published as
"Wives
and Children of the Doukhobors".
The fate of this small group of
steadfast Spirit Wrestlers in twentieth century Russia and beyond remains
unknown - JJK.
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