THIS VOLUME of 48 documents collected in 1895-1902 by the Department of Police of the Imperial Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs and recently made available by the State Archives of the Russian Federation (GARF), is here presented in English translation with informative annotations.  These documents include: internal police memos on the Doukhobors and their supporters, the Tolstoyans; letters written by Doukhobors and Tolstoyans, intercepted by government agents; and two series of first-hand accounts of the journey from the Caucasus to the Canadian prairies published in Russian newspapers of the day.  Copies of all these documents were procured in Russia by archivist George Bolotenko for Carleton Universityís Centre for Research on Canadian-Russian Relations.  They are drawn from a catalogue compiled by the same author -- The Doukhobors: 1895-1943 (CRCR, 2e édition, 1997) -- which lists, with summaries and cross-references, more than 1,600 pages of documents acquired from GARF.

 
 
 
 
 

. Price within Canada: Cdn$30.- For orders from outside Canada: US$24.- or Cdn $36.- Please note: This book is not available from the Slavic Research Group Please address orders (with cheque or postal order) directly to the publisher: Penumbra Press P.O. Box 940 Manotick, Ont. Canada K4M 1A8 For further information please enquire by fax: (613) 692-5589 or by telephone at: (613) 692-5590 .

 

IT ALL STARTED THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO with a desire to worship God in freedom of conscience without the trappings of centuries-old organised religion, to live a simple peasant life of honest toil without undue control by an authoritarian state, and above all to live oneís life without being forced to take or even harm anotherís. Just serving in the army and being made to carry a lethal weapon was, to the Doukhobors, a direct violation of the Christian teaching of non-violence.

To the Russian authorities, on the other hand, Doukhoborism was a direct violation of the practices they had relied upon for centuries, especially when its sectarians began to be influenced by the free-thinking philosophy of Leo Tolstoy. The Doukhoborsí burning of their weapons in the Caucasus in 1895 provoked one of the most intense campaigns of police observation, information collection and counter-measures in Russian history, all directed at the Doukhobors and their sympathisers and collaborators, the Tolstoyans. The latter took measures of their own and arranged, with the wholehearted support of Leo Tolstoy himself, for 7,500 Doukhobors to be resettled from the Caucasus to the middle of the Canadian prairies in the winter and spring of 1899.

The obstacles to this labour of love were many: constant frustration in dealing with suspicious Russian authorities, an arduous sea-journey fraught not only with discomfort but with diseases that claimed several of the emigrantsí lives, the practical arrangements involved in welcoming, transporting and temporarily housing and feeding thousands of newcomers at once, and, finally, the difficulty of carving a new life out of uninhabited prairie lands where no one else around spoke a language they could understand. The stuff of Hollywood film epics, yes, but in this case it was the reality faced by the Doukhobors of 1899 and those who were helping them achieve their goal of freedom from persecution.

Fortunately for the scholars and history buffs of today, the Russian police of a century ago gathered and preserved their information on the Doukhobors and their emigration venture very well. It is only in the past decade, however, that many of the documents in this collection have been known to anyone but the police themselves. Translated and published here for the first time in the centenary year of the Doukhoborsí arrival, they shed new light on a most significant event in the history of Canada as a multicultural society.
 

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From the compiler's Introduction

Common enough in the documents, on the one hand, was the sterotypical view of the Doukhobors as the 'enemy' of the State, including numerous references to the 'harmful influence' they could potentially exercise on others by promoting refusal of military service, not to mention anarchy and disobedience to authority.  ...  On the other hand, this researcher noted many instances of a more positive approach to the Doukhbors, including, at times, what seemed to be a genuine interest in their welfare, a genuine effort to treat them fairly on a par with other Russian citizens and a genuine appreciation of their moral qualities and their contribution to Russian society as a whole.
 
 

From a report to the authorities in the Caucasus by two senior investigators (Document 7):

...in adopting a régime which he ascribed to the Governor in dealing with the unruly population and putting it into effect, [Cossack commander] Esaul Praga did not hesitate to punish violators of this régime with whips, the most shameful of severe punishments, held in reserve by our legislators only for exiles who have been deprived of all civil rights.  ...  Independently of the above-stated measures, Esaul Praga took upon himself the settlement of family disputes between exiled Doukhobors, divorces between husbands and wives and the issuing of papers not only to Doukhobors but also to transient Tatars and Armenians.  ...  Whatever the nature of the administration's dealings with Esaul Praga, official or private, he had no right, under the rules appended to [Article] 12 of the Garrison Duty Regulations, which he was obliged to carry out to the letter, to take administrative duties upon himself; he had even less cause to administer, at his own discretion, punishment with whips, against people who were not accused before the court, and even to women, which was most certainly prohibited by law.
 
 

From a newspaper article by a Russian doctor on the Doukhobors in Canada (Document 32):

These [Doukhobor] communities make a very favourable impression on the visitor.  They are all like one family.  Who knows what effect their free life in Canada with its large land allotments and good wages will have on them?  For the time being, at least, they are practising solid restraint.  It is easier for them to adopt better farming methods from the Canadians, since it is not difficult for them as a community to buy agricultural equipment, and they are already seriously considering this.  Another burning issue with them is the construction of a mill, and there is no doubt one of the wealthier communities will take this on.
 
  

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