Ayant conclu un accord avec les autorités russes sur l'émigration des Doukhobors au Canada, l'écrivain Lev (Léon) Tolstoï a demandé à son fils aîné Sergueï d'accompagner l'un des premiers bâteaux.

Le 4 juillet 1899 Sergueï L. Tolstoï quitta le port de Batoum dans la Mer Noire à bord du S. S. Lake Superior en route pour Halifax.  Il escortait 2 300 Doukhobors vers leur terre promise, où ils essayeraient de réaliser leur espoir d'une vie plus libre, sans la surveillance et la persécution religieuse du passé.

Ce fut un voyage pénible (plus de 20 personnes sont décédées en route), une épreuve d'endurance (il a fallu passer quelques semaines en quarantaine sur une île aux côtes de la Nouvelle Écosse).  Mais ce fut un voyage épatant -- lorsque les Doukhobors sont montés dans six trains spéciaux en convoi vers l'ouest, et ont commencé leur aventure de coloniser la frontière des prairies canadiennes au seuil du XX siècle.

Tout cela est vivement décrit par Sergueï Tolstoï, ainsi que son expérience personnelle de découverte de lui-même -- dans son journal intime et dans ses lettres aux membres de sa famille.  Ces dernierès sont publiées ici dans leur russe original et dans une traduction anglaise (les deux pour la première fois), avec des lettres écrites par des amis et par des fonctionnaires des deux côtés de l'Atlantique.

The police chief's inspection began in the morning.  In preparation for this all the Doukhobors were brought onto the dock, and then the police chief, customs officials and other authorities took up positions by the gangplank and let the people back on board, taking their transit permits and checking them against the passports forwarded to the Batoum administration office by the local governors.  Then the police chief threw both the permits and the passports into a bag -- a plain canvas bag.
   The inefficiency of these measures later came to light.  Several Doukhobors were going by other names; one young man who was subject to conscription came dressed as a female member of another family.  The girl whose place he had taken had recently died, and the authorities had not been informed.
   Since the Doukhobors' homes were far removed from the authorities, and the authorities generally did not enter into their lives, but only took bribes from them, confusion had become normal in the inspection process, which took up a great deal of time -- almost the whole day.  Some of the passports had simply not been forwarded by the local authorities, and in others the notations differed from those in the transit permits.  The police chief must be given credit, though: he did only what was absolutely necessary and refrained from authoritative outcries and gratuitous formalities.
 
 

Extrait de la traduction anglaise (Partie I : Chapitre 6, du 18 février 1899) :

A crowd was standing on the dock.  Before disembarking, the starichki [Doukhobor elders] decided they would say a few words of greeting to the Canadians, represented by the immigration official who met us.  On the dock the crowd of Canadians formed one semi-circle, a crowd of Doukhobors another, and in the middle the immigration official -- a Mr [T.] Peddler -- and I exchanged words of greeting.   I translated the Doukhobors' words as best I could, saying that they wanted to give thanks to God for a safe arrival, and to thank the Canadian government for receiving them and giving them land.  Mr Peddler in turn welcomed the Doukhobors to Canada and said that in this country they would be free of any persecution for their faith.
   Then the disembarkation began.  On the other side of the dock is the railway platform from which five trains -- prepared especially for the occasion -- will take the Doukhobors directly to the Far West.  The trains will depart at two-hour intervals.  A separate sixth train will take the baggage.  All this has been arranged most practically and efficiently.  The trains arrived and departed on schedule, and people disembarked from the ship and directly boarded the trains.  A fair-sized crowd of Canadians stood by.  Ladies gave out sweets to the children; many bought handcrafted wooden spoons from the Doukhobors, and for some reason had me autograph them; some came up just to shake hands according to [North] American custom, to say that they had read Tolstoy or had heard of him, and that they were very sympathetic to the arrival of the Doukhobors etc.  And I was kept running from the ship to the dock and from the dock to the railway platform to supervise the boarding, the unloading and loading.
 
 

Extrait de la traduction anglaise (Partie I : Chapitre 8, du 17 mars 1899) :

I did not expect so many houses to be already built in the colony.  About twenty homes have now been built in the big forest, on the beautiful banks of the Swan River, behind a little hill protecting it from north winds; several others are under construction.  The walls of these houses have been hastily put up using thick fir cuttings, the roofs are simply of boards, without ceilings or gratings; only underneath are they covered with cardboard.  Inside two decks of bunks have been constructed on both sides.  In the centre of each hut stands an iron stove. [...]
   McVeigh [a government agent] and the Canadian workers are quartered in plain canvas tents.  I would not have thought it possible to live in tents at -20^o or below; it turns out, however, that as there is little or no wind here, it is not at all cold in the tents, and new settlers setting out to build themselves houses on their homestead sites usually take tents with them to live in temporarily.  Snow is piled up all around below the tent and then packed down tight, and in the centre an iron stove constantly burns, with an iron chimney taking the smoke up through the roof.  Inside the tents it gets cold only in the morning when the stove cools off.
 
 

Cliquez sur les liens ci-dessous pour voir les autres volumes de la Série Tolstoï
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Série Tolstoï -- Volume I	Sergej Tolstoy and the Doukhobors: a journey to Canada
Série Tolstoï -- Volume II	L. N. Tolstoj i F. A. Zheltov: perepiska > Traduction anglaise de ce volume
Série Tolstoï -- Volume III	L. N. Tolstoj i S. A. Tolstaja: perepiska s N. N. Strakhovym / The Tolstoys' correspondence with N. N. Strakhov
Série Tolstoï -- Volume IV	Novye materialy o L. N. Tolstom: iz arkhiva N. N. Guseva / New materials on Leo Tolstoy: from the N. N. Gusev archive
Série Tolstoï -- Volume V	Edinenie ljudjej v tvorchestve L. N. Tolstogo / The Unity of people in Leo Tolstoy's works
Série Tolstoï -- Volumes VI & VII	L.N. Tolstoj--N.N. Strakhov: Polnoe sobranie perepiski / Leo Tolstoy & Nikolaj Strakhov: Complete correspondence

  

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