 Doukhobour women, 1887 | |
| Founder | |
|---|---|
| Siluan Kolesnikov (17??–1775) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Canada (British Columbia, etc.) | 40,000[1] |
| Southern Russia | 30,000 |
| Religions | |
| Christianity (Old Believers) | |
| Scriptures | |
| Book of Life(a hymnal) | |
| Languages | |
| Doukhobor Russian • English | |
| Related ethnic groups | |
| OtherRussians, especially other RussianSpiritual Christians | |
| Website | |
| doukhobor uscc-doukhobors | |
TheDoukhobors (Canadian spelling) orDukhobors (Russian:духоборы, духоборцы,romanized: dukhobory, dukhobortsy;lit. 'Spirit-warriors, Spirit-wrestlers')[2][3][4][5] are aSpiritual Christianethnoreligious group ofRussian origin. They are known for theirpacifism andtradition of oral history, hymn-singing, andverse. They reject the Russian Orthodox priesthood and associated rituals, believing that personal revelation is more important than the Bible. Facing persecution by the Russian government for their nonorthodox beliefs, many migrated to Canada between 1899 and 1938, where most of them reside as of 2023[update].[6]
In Russia,Dukhobortsy were variously portrayed as "folk-Protestants",Spiritual Christians,sectarians, andheretics. Among their core beliefs is the rejection ofmaterialism. They also reject theRussian Orthodox priesthood, theuse of icons, and all associated church rituals. Doukhobors believe theBible alone is not enough to reach divine revelation[7] and that doctrinal conflicts can interfere with their faith. Biblical teachings are evident in some published Doukhoborpsalms, hymns, and beliefs. Since arriving in Canada, parts of theOld Testament, but more profoundly theNew Testament, were at the core of most Doukhobor beliefs. There continue to be spiritually progressive thinkers who, through introspection and debate, search for divine revelation to improve the faith.
The Doukhobors have a history dating back to at least 1701 (though some scholars suspect the group has earlier origins).[8] Doukhobors traditionally lived in their own villages and practicedcommunal living. The nameDoukhobors, meaning "Spirit-wrestlers", derives from aslur made by the Russian Orthodox Church that was subsequently embraced by the group.[9]
Before 1886, the Doukhobors had a series of leaders. The origin of the Doukhobors is uncertain; they first appear in first written records from 1701.
The Doukhobors traditionally ate bread andborsch.[10][11] Some of their food-related religious symbols are bread, salt, and water.[12]
In the 17th-and-18th-centuryRussian Empire, the first recorded Doukhobors concluded clergy and formal rituals are unnecessary, believing in God's presence in every human being. They rejected the secular government, theRussian Orthodox priests, icons, all church rituals, and the belief the Bible is a supreme source of divine revelation.[7] The Doukhobors believed in thedivinity of Jesus; their practices, emphasis on individual interpretation, and opposition to the government and church provoked antagonism from the government and the established RussianEastern Orthodox Church. In 1734, the Russian government issued an edict againstikonobortsy (those who reject icons), condemning them asiconoclasts.[13]
The first-known Doukhobor leader was Siluan (Silvan) Kolesnikov (Russian:Силуан Колесников), who was active from 1755 to 1775. Kolesnikov lived in the village Nikolskoye,Yekaterinoslav Governorate, in modern-day south-centralUkraine.[13] Kolesnikov was familiar with the works of Westernmystics such asKarl von Eckartshausen andLouis Claude de Saint-Martin.[14]
The early Doukhobors called themselves "God's People" or "Christians." Their modern name, first in the formDoukhobortsy (Russian:духоборцы,dukhobortsy ("Spirit wrestlers") ) is thought to have been first used in 1785 or 1786 byAmbrosius the Archbishop ofYekaterinoslav[13][15] or his predecessor Nikifor (Nikephoros Theotokis).[16][a] The archbishop's intent was to mock the Doukhobors as heretics fighting against theHoly Spirit (Russian:Святой Дух,Svyatoy Dukh) but around the beginning of the 19th century, according to SA Inikova,[16] the dissenters adopted the name "Doukhobors" usually in a shorter formDoukhobory (Russian:духоборы,dukhobory), implying they are fighting alongside rather than against the Holy Spirit.[13][18] The first known use of the spellingDoukhobor is in a 1799 government edict exiling 90 of the group to Finland;[13] presumably theVyborg area, which was part of the Russian Empire at the time, for producing anti-war propaganda.[19]
The early Doukhobors were pacifists who rejected military institutions and war and were thus oppressed inImperial Russia. Both thetsarist state and church authorities were involved in the persecution and deprivation of the dissidents' normal freedoms.[20]
In 1802, TsarAlexander I encouraged the resettlement of religious minorities to the "Milky Waters" (Molochnye Vody) region around theMolochnaya River aroundMelitopol in modern-day southernUkraine. This was motivated by the desire to quickly populate the richsteppe lands on the north shore of theBlack andAzov Seas, and to prevent the "heretics" from contaminating the population of the heartland with their ideas. Many Doukhobors, as well asMennonites from Prussia, accepted the Emperor's offer and travelled to the Molochnaya from other provinces of the Empire over the next 20 years.[19]
WhenNicholas I succeeded Alexander as Tsar, on February 6, 1826, he issued a decree intending to force theassimilation of the Doukhobors through military conscription, prohibiting their meetings, and encouraging conversions to the established church.[13][18] On October 20, 1830, another decree followed, specifying all able-bodied members of dissenting religious groups engaged in propaganda against the established church should be conscripted and sent to the Russian army in theCaucasus while those not capable of military service, and their women and children, should be resettled in Russia's recently acquiredTranscaucasian provinces. With other dissenters, around 5,000 Doukhobors were resettled inGeorgia between 1841 and 1845.Akhalkalakiuyezd (district) in theTiflis Governorate was chosen as the main place of their settlement.[19] Doukhobor villages with Russian names appeared there; Gorelovka, Rodionovka, Yefremovka, Orlovka, Spasskoye (Dubovka), Troitskoye, andBogdanovka. Later, other groups of Doukhobors were resettled by the government or migrated to Transcaucasia of their own accord. They also settled in neighbouring areas, including theBorchaly uyezd of Tiflis Governorate and theKedabek uyezd ofElisabethpol Governorate.[21]
In 1844, Doukhobors who were being exiled from their home nearMelitopol to the village of Bogdanovka carved theDoukhobor Memorial Stone, which is held in the collection of theMelitopol Museum of Local History.[22]
After Russia's conquest ofKars and theTreaty of San Stefano of 1878, some Doukhobors from Tiflis and Elisabethpol Governorates moved to the Zarushat and Shuragel uyezds of the newly createdKars Oblast to the north-east ofKars in the modern-dayRepublic of Turkey.[23] The leader of the main group of Doukhobors, who arrived in Transcaucasia from Ukraine in 1841, was Illarion Kalmykov (Russian:Илларион Калмыков). He died in the same year and was succeeded as the community leader by his son Peter Kalmykov (?–1864). After Peter Kalmykov's death in 1864, his widow Lukerya Vasilyevna Gubanova (? – December 15, 1886; (Russian:Лукерья Васильевна Губанова); also known as Kalmykova) took his leadership position.[24]
The Kalmykov dynasty lived in the village of Gorelovka, a Doukhobor community in Georgia.[25][21] Lukerya was respected by the provincial authorities, who had to cooperate with the Doukhobors. At the time of her death in 1886, there were around 20,000 Doukhobors in Transcaucasia. By that time, the region's Doukhobors had becomevegetarian and were aware ofLeo Tolstoy's philosophy, which they found quite similar to their own traditional teachings.[24]
The death of Lukerya, who had no children, was followed by a leadership crisis that divided the Dukhobortsy in the Caucasus into two major groups, which disputed their next leader. Lukerya wanted leadership to pass to her assistantPeter Vasilevich Verigin. Although most of the community—"the Large Party"Russian:Большая сторона,romanized: Bolshaya Storona—accepted him as the leader, a minority faction known as "the Small Party" (Малая сторонаMalaya Storona) rejected Verigin, and sided with Lukerya's brother Michael Gubanov and the village elder Aleksei Zubkov.[24][26][18]
While the Large Party was a majority, the Small Party had the support of the older members of the community and the local authorities. On January 26, 1887, at a community service at which the new leader was to be acclaimed, police arrived and arrested Verigin. He, along with some of his associates, was sent into internal exile inSiberia. Large Party Doukhobors continued to consider Verigin their spiritual leader and to communicate with him, by mail and via delegates who travelled to see him inObdorsk.[24][26][27] An isolated population of exiled Doukhobors, a third "party", was about 5,000 miles (8,000 km) east inAmur Oblast.
At the same time, the Russian government applied greater pressure to enforce the Doukhobors' compliance with its laws and regulations. The Doukhobors had resisted registering marriages and births, contributing grain to state emergency funds, and swearing oaths of allegiance. In 1887, Russia extended universal military conscription, which applied to the rest of the empire, to the Transcaucasian provinces. While the Small Party cooperated with the state, the Large Party, reacting to the arrest of their leaders and inspired by their letters from exile,[28] felt strengthened in their desire to abide by the righteousness of their faith. Under instructions from Verigin, the Large Party stopped using tobacco and alcohol, divided their property equally among the members of the community, and resolved to adhere to the practice of pacifism and non-violence. They refused to swear theoath of allegiance required in 1894 by the newly ascended TsarNicholas II.[13][26]
Under further instructions from Verigin, about 7,000 of the most zealous Doukhobors—about one-third of all Doukhobors—of the three Governorates of Transcaucasia destroyed their weapons and refused to serve in the military. As the Doukhobors gathered to burn their guns on the night of June 28/29 (July 10/11,Gregorian calendar) 1895, while singing psalms and spiritual songs, governmentCossacks arrested and beat them. Shortly after, the government billeted Cossacks in many of the Large Party's villages; around 4,000 Doukhobors were forced to disperse to villages in other parts of Georgia. Many died of starvation and exposure.[26][29]
The resistance of the Doukhobors gained international attention and the Russian Empire was criticized for its treatment of this religious minority. In 1897, the Russian government agreed to let the Doukhobors leave the country, subject to conditions:
Emigrants initially attempted to settle inCyprus. Cyprus was, at the time, recognized as a possession of theOttoman Empire, but in the wake of theRusso-Turkish War (1877–1878), the Ottoman Empire had granted theUnited Kingdom the right to administer the island in exchange for support in its continuing conflict with theRussian Empire. This fact made the potential settlement of the Russian Doukhobors a politically-sensitive question among some in the British government, but afterQuaker supporters both made assurances of the Doukhobors' political inoffensiveness and provided financial guarantees against their potential indigency, officials permitted over 1,000 Doukhobors to establish farming settlements in several locations on the island beginning in the second half of 1898. However, the Cyprus experiment soon proved to be disastrous: beset by disease (made worse by insufficient food that met the Doukhobors' religious requirements) as well as internal disagreements over community organization, nearly ten percent of the colony died by early 1899.[citation needed]
Canada offered more land, transportation, and aid to resettle in the Saskatchewan area. Around 6,000 Doukhobors emigrated there in the first half of 1899, settling on land granted to them by the government in modern-dayManitoba,Saskatchewan, andAlberta. The Cyprus colony and others joined them, and around 7,500 Russian Doukhobor emigrants—about a third of their number in Russia—arrived in Canada by the end of the year.[31] Several smaller groups joined the main body of emigrants in later years, coming directly from Transcaucasia and other places of exile.[26] Among these latecomers were 110 leaders of the community who had to complete their sentences before being allowed to emigrate.[31] By 1930, about 8,780 Doukhobors had migrated from Russia to Canada.[32]
TheQuakers andTolstoyan movement covered most of the costs of passage for the emigrants; writerLeo Tolstoy arranged for the royalties from his novelResurrection, his storyFather Sergei, and some others to go to the emigration fund. Tolstoy also raised money from wealthy friends; his efforts provided about 30,000rubles, half of the emigration fund. The anarchistPeter Kropotkin and professor of political economy at theUniversity of TorontoJames Mavor also helped the emigrants.[33][34]
The emigrants adapted to life in agricultural communes; they were mostly of peasant origin and had low regard for advanced education.[b] Many worked as loggers, lumbermen, and carpenters. Eventually, many left the communal dormitories and became private farmers on the Canadian plains. Religiousa cappella singing, pacifism, and passive resistance were markers of the sect. One subgroup occasionally demonstrated naked, typically as a protest against compulsory military service.[36] Their policies made them controversial. The modern descendants of the first wave of Doukhobor emigrants continue to live in southeasternBritish Columbia communities such asKrestova, and in southernAlberta andSaskatchewan. As of 1999[update], the estimated population of Doukhobor descent in North America was 40,000 in Canada and about 5,000 in the United States.[1]
In accordance with theDominion Lands Act of 1872, for a nominal fee ofCA$10, the Canadian government would grant 160 acres (0.65 km2) of land to any male homesteader who was able to establish a working farm on that land within three years. Single-familyhomesteads would not fit the Doukhobors'communitarian tradition but a "Hamlet Clause" within the Act had been adopted 15 years earlier to accommodate other communitarian groups such asMennonites. The clause allowed beneficiaries of the Act to live in a hamlet within 3 miles (4.8 km) from their land rather than on the land itself.[37] This allowed the Doukhobors to establish a communal lifestyle similar to that of theHutterites. Also, by passing Section 21 of theDominion Military Act in late 1898, the Canadian Government exempted the Doukhobors from military service.[37]
The land for the Doukhobor immigrants, in total 773,400 acres (3,130 km2) within what was to soon become the Province ofSaskatchewan, came in threeblock settlement areas or "reserves", and an annex:[38]
North and South Colonies, and Good Spirit Lake Annex, were located aroundYorkton near the modern-day border with Manitoba; the Saskatchewan (Rosthern) Colony was located north-west of Saskatoon, a significant distance from the other three reserves.[citation needed]
In 1899, all four reserves formed part of theNorthwest Territories: Saskatchewan (Rosthern) Colony in the territories'provisional District of Saskatchewan. North Reserve straddled the boundary of Saskatchewan andAssiniboia districts, and the other reserves were entirely in Assiniboia. After theestablishment of the Province of Saskatchewan in 1905, all reserves were located within that province.[citation needed]
Verigin persuaded his followers to free their animals, and pull their wagons and plows themselves. On the lands granted to them in the prairies, the settlers established Russian-style villages, some of which received Russian names after settlers' home villages in Transcaucasia; for example Spasovka, Large and Small Gorelovka, and Slavianka; while others gained more abstract "spiritual" names not common in Russia, such as Uspeniye (Dormition), Terpeniye (Patience), Bogomdannoye (Given by God), and Osvobozhdeniye (Liberation).[38] The settlers found Saskatchewan winters much harsher than those in Transcaucasia, and expressed disappointment the climate was not as suitable for growing fruits and vegetables. Women greatly outnumbered the men; many women worked on the farms tilling the land while many men took non-farm jobs, especially in railway construction.[37] The earliest arrivals came from three backgrounds, had varying commitments to communal life, and lacked leadership. Verigin arrived in December 1902, was recognized as the leader, and reimposed communalism and self-sufficiency. The railway arrived in 1904 and hopes of isolation from Canadian society ended.[39][40]
Canadians, politicians, and the media were deeply suspicious of the Doukhobors. Their communal lifestyle seemed suspicious, their refusal to send children to school was considered deeply troubling, while pacifism caused anger during theFirst World War. The oppression of the Russian Tsarist regime had entrenched its resulting pacifist beliefs into the Doukhobour tenets and they did not waver with the onset of either World War. Some Canadians who were willing to go to war did not respect a sect of people that were excused from military service. This difference in perspective produced much political prejudice towards the Doukhobours. Tumultuous political posturing and years of polarized social disagreements eventually brought some Doukhobours to the point of protests aimed at maintaining their simple, non-materialistic, and autonomous communal living. The Doukhobor faction known asSons of Freedom conducted nude marches and carried out night-time arson attacks, which was considered unacceptable and offensive.[41] Canadian magazines showed strong curiosity, giving special attention to women's bodies and clothing. Magazines and newspapers carried stories and photographs of Doukhobor women engaging in hard farm labour, doing "women's work", wearing the traditional ethnic dress, and in partial or total states of undress.[42] Doukhobors received financial help from Quakers.Clifford Sifton, the Minister of the Interior, wanted the Doukhobors in Canada; he arranged financial subsidies to allow them to migrate.[43]
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Due to the community's aversion to private ownership of land, Verigin had the land registered in the name of the community. By 1906, the Canadian Government's newMinister of the InteriorFrank Oliver started requiring the registration of land in the name of individual owners. Many Doukhobors refused to comply, resulting in 1907 in the reverting of more than a third (258,880 acres (1,047.7 km2)) of Doukhobor lands back to the Crown. The loss of legal title to their land became a major grievance.
Ten years after the Russian conscription crisis, another political issue arose because the Doukhobors would have to become naturalized British citizens and swear anOath of Allegiance to the British Crown—something that had always been against their principles.[44] They did not know that they could have submitted an "affirmation" instead of an "oath".[45]
The "oath" issue resulted in a three-way split of the Doukhobor immigrants in Canada:[13][16]
Of these groupings, the Independents integrated the most readily into Canadian capitalist society. They had no problem registering their land groups and largely remained in Saskatchewan. In 1939, they definitely rejected the authority of Peter Verigin's great-grandson John J. Verigin, Sr.[citation needed]
In 1908, to remove his followers from the corrupting influence of non-Doukhobors andedinolichniki (individual owners) Doukhobors, and to find better conditions for agriculture, Verigin bought large tracts of land in south-easternBritish Columbia. His first purchase was aroundGrand Forks near the US border. He later acquired large tracts of land further east in theSlocan Valley aroundCastlegar. Between 1908 and 1912, about 8,000 people moved from Saskatchewan to these British Columbia lands to continue their communal way of living.[38] In the milder climate of British Columbia, the settlers were able to plant fruit trees and within a few years became renowned orchardists and producers of fruit preserves. As the Community Doukhobors left Saskatchewan, the reserves there were closed by 1918.
On October 29, 1924, Peter V. Verigin was killed in a bomb explosion on a scheduled passenger trainen route to British Columbia. The government had initially stated the bombing was perpetrated by people within the Doukhobor community, although no arrests were made because of the Doukhobors' customary refusal to cooperate with Canadian authorities due to fear of intersect violence. It is still unknown who was responsible for the bombing. While the Doukhobors were initially welcomed by the Canadian government, this assassination, as well as Doukhobors' beliefs regarding communal living, their intolerance for schooling, and other beliefs considered offensive or unacceptable, created a decades-long mistrust between government authorities and Doukhobors.[58]
Peter V. Verigin's son Peter P. Verigin, who arrived from the Soviet Union in 1928, succeeded his father as leader of the Community Doukhobors. He became known as "Peter the Purger" (Chistiakov) and worked to smooth relations between the Community Doukhobors and wider Canadian society. The governments in Ottawa and the western provinces concluded he was the closet leader of the Sons of Freedom and was perhaps a dangerousBolshevik. The governments decided to deport him, use the justice system to impose conformity to Canadian values on the Doukhobors, and force them to abide by Canadian law and repudiate unacceptable practices. With a legal defence managed byPeter Makaroff, the deportation effort failed in 1933.[59][60] The Sons of Freedom repudiated Verigin's policies as ungodly and assimilationist, and escalated their protests. The Sons of Freedom burnt Community Doukhobors' property and organized more nude parades. In 1932, theParliament of Canada responded by criminalizingpublic nudity. Over 300 radical Doukhobor men and women were arrested for this offence, which typically carried a three-year prison sentence.[37]
Doukhobors could not vote in British Columbia until 1952. They were the last ethnic or religious community to be granted suffrage in the province.[61]
The Sons of Freedom, a break away protest sect identifying assvodoniki (sovereign, free people) in 1902, used nudism and arson as visible methods of protest.[62] They protested against materialism, the land seizure by the government, compulsory education in government schools, and Verigin's assassination in 1924. This led to many confrontations with the Canadian government and theRoyal Canadian Mounted Police, which continued into the 1970s. Nudism was first used after the Doukhobors' arrival in Canada.[36] They used violence to fight modernity, and destroyed threshing machines and other signs of modernity. The group conducted night-time arson attacks on schools built by the Doukhobor commune and Verigin's house.[58] The highly publicized acts by the Sons of Freedom were repeatedly mislabeled with the word "Doukhobor", confusing the different groups and anguishing many law biding assimilated descendants of Canadian Doukhobors.[50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57]
During 1947 and 1948, Sullivan'sRoyal Commission investigated acts of arson and bombing attacks in British Columbia and recommended several measures intended to integrate the Doukhobors into Canadian society, notably through the education of their children in public schools. Around that time, the provincial government entered into direct negotiations with theFreedomite leadership.W. A. C. Bennett'sSocial Credit government, which came to power in 1952, took a harder stance against the "Doukhobor problem." In 1953, 174 children of the Sons of Freedom were forcibly interned by government agents in a residential school inNew Denver, British Columbia. Abuse of the interned children was later alleged.[63][64]
In less than fifty years, the Sons of Freedom committed 1,112 separate acts of violence and arson, costing over $20 million in damages; these acts include bombing and arson attacks on public schools, bombings of Canadian railway bridges and tracks,[65] the bombing of a courthouse atNelson,[66] and the destruction of a power transmission tower servicingEast Kootenay district, resulting in the loss of 1,200 jobs. Many of the independent and community Doukhobors believed the Sons of Freedom's arson and bombings violated the Doukhobor central principle of nonviolence, and that they did not deserve to be called Doukhobors.[50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57]
After the departure of the more zealous and uncompromising Doukhobors, and many community leaders, to Canada at the close of theElisabethpol Governorate in theCaucasus Viceroyalty (nowAzerbaijan), the former Doukhobor villages became mostly repopulated byBaptists. Elsewhere, some Doukhobors joined nearbySpiritual Christian groups.[24]
Those who remained Doukhobors were required to submit to the state. Few protested against military service; of 837 Russiancourt-martial cases againstconscientious objectors recorded between the beginning ofWorld War I and April 1, 1917, 16 had Doukhobor defendants, none of whom hailed from the Transcaucasian provinces.[24] Between 1921 and 1923, Verigin's son Peter P. Verigin arranged the resettlement of 4,000 Doukhobors from theNinotsminda (Bogdanovka) district in south Georgia toRostov Oblast in southern Russia, and another 500 intoZaporizhzhia Oblast in Ukraine.[26][67]
The Soviet reforms greatly affected the lives of the Doukhobors, both in their old villages inGeorgia and in the new settlement areas in southern Russian and Ukraine.State anti-religious campaigns resulted in the suppression of Doukhobor religious tradition, and the loss of books and archival records. Many religious leaders were arrested or exiled; for example, 18 people were exiled from Gorelovka in 1930.[26] Communists'imposition of collective farming did not contradict the Doukhobor way of life. Industrious Doukhobors made theircollective farms prosperous, often specializing incheesemaking.[26]
Of the Doukhobor communities in the Soviet Union, those in South Georgia were the most sheltered from outside influence because of their geographic isolation in mountainous terrain, their location near the international border, and concomitant travel restrictions for outsiders.[26]
Doukhobor oral holy hymns, which they call the "Book of Life" (Russian:Zhivotnaya kniga),de facto replaced the written Bible. Their teaching is founded on this tradition.[68][69]The Book of Life of the Doukhobors (1909) is the first printed hymnal containing songs in theSouthern Russian dialect, which were composed to be sung aloud. Their prayer meetings and gatherings are dominated by the singing ofa cappella psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.[69]
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In 2001, an estimated 20,000–40,000 people of Doukhobor heritage lived in Canada, 3,800 of whom claimed "Doukhobor" as their religious affiliation. An estimated 30,000 people of Doukhobor heritage live in Russia and neighbouring countries. In 2011, there were 2,290 Canadians who identified their religious affiliation as "Doukhobor"; in Russia there were 50 such persons by the mid-2000s.
CCUB, the Orthodox Doukhobors organization or Community Doukhobors, was succeeded by theUnion of Spiritual Communities of Christ (USCC) formed by Peter P. Verigin, Peter V. Verigin's son, in 1938.[70] The largest and most active formal Doukhobor organization, it is headquartered inGrand Forks, British Columbia.[71]
During theCanada 2011 Census,[72] 2,290 persons in Canada—of whom 1,860 inBritish Columbia, 200 inAlberta, 185 inSaskatchewan, and 25 inOntario—identified their religious affiliation as "Doukhobor". The proportion of older people among these self-identified Doukhobors is higher than among the general population.
| Age groups | Total | 0–14 years | 15–24 years | 25–44 years | 45–64 years | 65–84 years | 85 years and over |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| All Canadians, 2001 | 29,639,035 | 5,737,670 | 3,988,200 | 9,047,175 | 7,241,135 | 3,337,435 | 287,415 |
| Self-identified Doukhobors, 2001 | 3,800 | 415 | 345 | 845 | 1,135 | 950 | 110 |
| Self-identified Doukhobors, 1991 | 4,820 | 510 | 510 | 1,125 | 1,400 | 1,175 | 100 |
Twenty-eight percent of the self-identified Doukhobors in 2001 were over 65 (born before 1936), as compared to 12% of the entire population of Canadian respondents. The aging of the denomination is accompanied by its shrinkage, starting in the 1960s:[72][73]
| Census year | Self-identified Doukhobor population |
|---|---|
| 1921 | 12,674 |
| 1931 | 14,978 |
| 1941 | 16,898 |
| 1951 | 13,175 |
| 1961 | 13,234 |
| 1971 | 9,170 |
| 1981.g., 28% | ? coded as "Doukhobor, Orthodox" and "Doukhobor, Reformed" |
| 1991 | 4,820 |
| 2001 | 3,800 |
| 2011 | 2,290 |
| 2021 | 1,675 |
The number of Canadians with Doukhobor heritage is much higher than the number of those who consider themselves members of this religion. In 2012, Doukhobor researchers estimated there were "over 20,000" people "from [Doukhobor] stock" in Canada[73] and over 40,000 Doukhobors by "a wider definition of religion, ethnicity, way of life, and social movement".[74][page needed]
Canadian Doukhobors no longer live communally. Doukhobors do not practicebaptism, neither wet nor dry, nor require one to be "born again". They reject several items considered orthodox among Christian churches, including church organization and liturgy, the inspiration of the scriptures, the literal interpretation of resurrection, the literal interpretation of theTrinity, and heaven and hell. Some avoid the use of alcohol, tobacco, andanimal products for food, and eschew involvement in partisan politics. Doukhobors believe in the goodness of man and reject the idea oforiginal sin.[75]
Since the late 1980s, many of the Doukhobors ofGeorgia started emigrating to Russia. Various groups moved toTula Oblast,Rostov Oblast,Stavropol Krai, and elsewhere. After the 1991 independence of Georgia, many villages with Russian names received Georgian names; Bogdanovka becameNinotsminda, Troitskoe becameSameba. According to various estimates, inNinotsminda District, the Doukhobor population fell from around 4,000 in 1979 to between 3,000 and 3,500 in 1989, and around 700 in 2006. InDmanisi district, it fell from around 700 Doukhobors in 1979 to no more than 50 by the mid-2000s. Most of those who remain in Georgia are older people; the younger generation found it easier to relocate to Russia. The Doukhobor community of Gorelovka in Ninotsminda District, the former "capital" of the Kalmykov family, is thought to be the best-preserved in allformer Soviet Union countries.[26]
The Doukhobors have maintained a close association withMennonites andQuakers due to similar religious practices; all of these groups are collectively considered to bepeace churches due to their belief inpacifism.[76][77][78]
In 1995, theDoukhobor Suspension Bridge spanning the Kootenay River was designated aNational Historic Site of Canada.[79] The site of Community Doukhobors' headquarters inVeregin, Saskatchewan, was designated a National Historic Site in 2006, under the name "Doukhobors at Veregin".
A Doukhobor museum known as "Doukhobor Discovery Centre" (formerly, "Doukhobor Village Museum") operates inCastlegar, British Columbia. It contains over 1,000 artifacts representing the arts, crafts, and daily lives of the Doukhobors of theKootenays in 1908–38.[80][81]
Although most of the early Doukhobor village structures in British Columbia have vanished or been significantly remodelled by later users, a part of Makortoff Village outsideGrand Forks, British Columbia has been preserved as a museum by Peter Gritchen, who purchased the property in 1971 and opened it as Mountain View Doukhobor Museum on June 16, 1972. The site's future became uncertain after his death in 2000 but in March 2004, in cooperation with local organizations and concerned citizens,The Land Conservancy of British Columbia purchased the historical site known asHardy Mountain Doukhobor Village while Boundary Museum Society acquired the museum collection and loaned it to TLC for display.[82]
TheCanadian Museum of Civilization inOttawa has a collection of Doukhobor-related items. A special exhibition there was run in 1998–99 to mark the centennial anniversary of the Doukhobor arrival in Canada.[83]
The Doukhobors took with them to Canada a Southern Russian dialect, which in the following decades changed under the influence of Canadian English and the speech of the Ukrainian settlers inSaskatchewan. Over several generations, this dialect has been mostly lost because the modern descendants of the original Doukhobor migrants to Canada are typically native English speakers; when they speak Russian, it is typically a fairly standard variety.[5]
In 1802, the Doukhobors and otherspiritual Christian tribes were encouraged to migrate to theMolochna River region aroundMelitopol near Ukraine'sSea of Azov coast, within thePale of Settlement neighbouring settlements ofanabaptists from Germany.[19][84] Over the next 10 or 20 years, the Doukhobors and others, mostly speaking a variety of Southern Russian dialects, arrived at the Molochna from several provinces, most of which are located in modern-day eastern Ukraine and south-central Russia.[85] In the settlers' villages, an opportunity for the formation of adialect koiné based on Southern Russian and Eastern Ukrainian dialects arose.[5][86]
Starting in 1841, the Doukhobors and others were resettled from southern Ukraine toTranscaucasia, where they founded several villages surrounded by mostly non-Russian speaking neighbours—primarilyAzerbaijanis inElisabethpol Governorate,Armenians[87] inTiflis Governorate, and likely a mix of both in the later post-1878 settlements inKars Oblast. These conditions allowed the dialect to develop in comparative isolation from mainstream Russian.[5]
With the migration of 7,500 Doukhbors from Transcaucasia to Saskatchewan in 1899, and some smaller latecomer groups from both Transcaucasia and from places of exile in Siberia and elsewhere, the dialect spoken in the Doukhobor villages of Transcaucasia was taken to the plains of Canada. From that point, it experienced influence from Canadian English and, during the years of Doukhobor stay in Saskatchewan, the speech of theirUkrainian neighbours.[5][88][89]
A split in the Doukhobor community resulted in a large number of Doukhobors moving from Saskatchewan to south-easternBritish Columbia around 1910. Those who moved, the so-called Community Doukhobors—followers ofPeter Verigin'sChristian Community of Universal Brotherhood—continued living communally for several decades, and had a better chance to preserve their Russian language than the Independent Doukhobors, who stayed in Saskatchewan as individual farmers.[5]
By the 1970s, as most Russian-born members of the community died, English became the first language of the great majority of Canadian Doukhobors.[90][73] Their English speech is not noticeably different from that of other English-speaking Canadians of their provinces. Russian still remains in use, at least for religious purposes, among those who practice the Doukhobor religion.[5]
Research into the Russian spoken by Canada's Doukhobors has not been extensive but several articles, mostly published in the 1960s and 1970s, noted a variety of features in Doukhobors' Russian speech that were characteristic of Southern, and in some casesCentral Russian dialects; for example, use of the Southern [h] where Standard Russian has [g].[86][91]
Features characteristic of many locales in theEast Slavic language space were noted, reflecting the heterogeneous origin of the Doukhobors' settlements inMolochna River after 1800; for example, likeBelarusians, Doukhobor speakers do not palatalize [r] in "редко" (redko, 'seldom'). Remarkable was the dropping of the final -t in the third-person singular form of verbs, which can be considered a Ukrainian feature and is also attested in some Russian dialects spoken in Southern Ukraine (e.g.,Nikolaev near the Doukhobors' former homeland on the Molochna). As with other immigrant groups, the Russian speech of the Doukhobors uses English loanwords for some concepts they had not encountered until moving to Canada.[21]: 74 [91]
During the late 18th century, the group was persecuted by the tsars and the Russian Orthodox Church for heresy and pacifism. In 1785, an Orthodox archbishop called them Doukhobors, or "Spirit-Wrestlers." It was intended to mean "Wrestlers against the Holy Spirit," but the group adopted it, interpreting it as "Wrestlers for and with the Spirit."
Mr. [Peter V.] Verigin ... spoke very feelingly about the falsehoods that had been printed by the newspaper men of Canada regarding the Doukhobors.
... Peter [P.] Verigin ... urging the community members to have nothing to do with the Sons of Freedom.
The community will have nothing to do with the Sons of Freedom who are not true Doukhobors at all. ... " ... the government of Canada is weak because it can not handle the Son of Freedom fanatics. It makes me feel ashamed."
.. fate of ... delinquent B.C. Sons ... 'If you continue in your senseless conflict with the government, don't call yourselves Doukhobors. ... Your great hope is education.'
.... no Freedomite ever had a kind word to say about the Doukhobors. They regarded Doukhobors as traitors to the faith of their fathers, as men and women who had yielded to the sins of the flesh and had abandoned Christ. ... about the Freedomites ... "... if you write about them, please do not fail to tell your readers that they are not Doukhobors, and that the Doukhobors are heartily ashamed of them.
Anyone who participates in a violent act, ceases to be a Doukhobor.
… Sons of Freedom … have nothing to do with the Doukhobor faith …
They are not Doukhobors …
... Doukhobors having nothing in common with Freedomites … The word Doukhobor should not be used to identify the zealots. When it is used, it falsely identifies the majority of law abiding, constructive, peaceful group with the unlawful behaviour.
The English Quakers, who had made contact with the Doukhobors earlier, as well as the Philadelphia Society of Friends, also determined to help with their emigration from Russia to some other country—the only action which seemed possible.
The only contact with Mennonites was the period 1802–41 when they lived in the Molotschna, where Johann Cornies (q.v.) rendered them considerable assistance.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Wood, James, ed. (1907). "Doukhobours".The Nuttall Encyclopædia. London and New York: Frederick Warne.
