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While the arms burning of 1895 remains the most renowned moment in the Doukhobors' Russian past, the years preceding this event represent a period different both in tone and content from the turbulent 1890s. Nicholas Breyfogle provides a broad outline of Doukhobor history in Transcaucasia from 1845-1895. He touches on such themes as religious beliefs and practices; family and marriage structures; Doukhobor self-government and leadership; economic development and prosperity; relations between the Doukhobors and the indigenous populations; and the interaction between state and Doukhobors, especially in regards to the not inconsequential role played by the latter in Tsarist colonization of the southern borderlands. The author ends with a discussion of the six primary forces whose mutual influence resulted in the enormous conflict between state forces and Doukhobors after 1895.

L'evenement le mieux connu de l'histoire russe des Doukhobors reste la mise a feu des armes en 1895. Les annees qui ont precede cet evenement representent une periode qui differe beau-coup a la fois en ton et en teneur des annees turbulentes 1890. Nicholas Breyfogle discute de plusieurs aspects de l'histoire des Doukhobors en Caucasie entre 1845-1895: les croyances et pratiques religieuses, les structures familiales et de mariage, le systeme politique interieur des Doukhobors, leur developpement economique, les relations entre les Doukhobors et les peuples caucasiens et les relations entre l'Etat et les Doukhobors, surtout en ce qui a trait au role important que ces demiers ont joue dans le processus colonisateur russe dans le sud de l'empire. L'auteur conchut par une discussion sur les six principales raisons qui ont contribue au conflit enorme entre les forces etatiques et les Doukhobors apres 1895.

The dramatic events surrounding the 1895 arms burning have dominated scholarship on the nineteenth-century history of the Russian Christian sect known as the Doukhobors.[ 1] Indeed, the pervasive Doukhobor image, both from within and outside the community, derives from these incidents. Doukhobors are depicted, on one hand, as adherents to a radical religious movement and conscious dissenters from secular power. On the other hand, they are seen as a religious minority perpetually at odds with the state and continually suffering for their faith, much like the early Christians. This representation is not unexpected. The highly charged incidents constituted a watershed both within the Doukhobor community and in relations between the sect and Russian state power. Moreover, a large body of polemical literature has grown up around the 1895 conflict with each side determined to argue its case in the public arena.[ 2]

For the Doukhobors, the period 1886-1899 was one of accelerating ferment.[ 3] Internally, for both spiritual and socio-political reasons, Doukhobors split into two (and later three) factions--a fissure that literally tore families apart--and engaged in a court battle over control of their communal property. The so-called Large party,[ 4] under the millenarian leadership of Peter Verigin, took up more radical religious beliefs and practices, including complete non acceptance of secular power, a commitment to nonviolence and social equality, contempt for property and riches, abstinence from sex for those married and from marriage for those unwed, vegetarianism, sobriety and renunciation of tobacco. In external relations, this Doukhobor majority refused to swear an oath to the new Tsar, repudiated military service, returned military equipment and reservist papers, burned personal arms in their possession, withheld taxes from a state they did not recognize, and proselytized among the local population. In response to these and other actions, the local administration imprisoned, beat, tortured and forcibly relocated 4,000 of these Doukhobors. At the end of the decade, Doukhobors emigrated en masse to Canada to escape utter destitution.[ 5]

At the time, these incidents involved not only the state and its opposition--particularly Tolstoyans and Social Democrats[ 6]--but also the international community, which was awakened to the conflict through Lev Tolstoy's letter to the London Times of October 23, 1895 and the subsequent publicizing work of V. G. Chertkov and P. I. Biriukov.[ 7] More recently, the Canadian Doukhobor community has taken up the mantle of 1895. They celebrate these years as the beginnings of their contemporary history--a birth by fire--which will be marked over the course of 1995-96 with a series of festivals and exhibitions.

The 1890s remain the most (in)famous period in the life of the Russian Doukhobors and have successfully overshadowed previous Doukhobor history in Transcaucasia--a time starkly different from the 1895 conflagration. The popular image represents a uni-dimensional, incomplete portrayal of the Doukhobor religious community. To be sure, the image of the oppressed resistor and Christian radical stands, deservedly, as a central and inviolable component of Doukhobor history and identity. But this was not the only Russian Doukhobor archetype. To understand more fully the complexities of Doukhobor experience in the Transcaucasus, three other roles, or identities, must be seen to have co-existed with the "dissenting sectarian": the "accommodationist Doukhobor," "Russian colonist," and "Russian peasant."[ 8] These Doukhobor "types" evolved from the interplay and mutually reinforcing negotiations of three forces: the internal aspects of the Doukhobor community--religious beliefs, social practices, governing structures and economic growth; the Transcaucasus, its indigenous peoples and physical environment; and the relations between sect and state, especially processes of colonization. In addition, while these identities describe Doukhobor existence in the Transcaucasus as historical typologies, their interactions themselves played an active function in charting the course of the Doukhobor past.[ 9]

The "accommodationist Doukhobor" identity[ 10] was pre-eminent from 1845 to 1886--from the end of the forced Doukhobor migration to the Transcaucasus from New Russia to the death of Doukhobor leader Lukeria Kalmykova[ 11]--although it continued to exist in the modified form of the Small Party through 1895. In those years, the Doukhobors constructed a community in Russia's southern borderlands relatively free from state interference. It was characterized by a vibrant and successful economy, peaceful relations with Russian state power and spiritual compromise with earthly demands. This accommodation led to social stratification between rich and poor as growing wealth went hand in hand with a tendency away from communalism, and to an uneasy drifting away from such religious tenets as nonviolence. sobriety and indifference to literacy. To use sociologist Bryan Wilson's terminology, they crafted a form of Doukhobor religiosity in which "introversionist" and "reformist" tendencies stood out over "conversionist" and "utopian."[ 12]

From the moment that the Doukhobors were forcibly settled in Transcaucasia, they also took on the role of "Russian colonists." The Transcaucasus was only recently conquered and far from being under Russian control. For both military and economic reasons, Imperial policy in the newly acquired lands strove to populate the territory with ethnic Russians--a policy similar to other borderland regions of the expanding Empire.[ 13] However, processes of internal migration and colonization in Transcaucasia are particularly interesting because of the disproportionately large role played by sectarians and schismatics. Into the 1880s, they comprised the majority of ethnic Russian settlers in the region.[ 14]

The state and Synod considered the Doukhobors anti-feudal pariahs and religious heretics--"dissenting sectarians." Like other sectarians, they were forcibly relocated from the Empire's centre as part of efforts to prevent the spiritual contagion of Orthodox peasants through geographic isolation, prompt conversion to Orthodoxy and restrict the sect's numerical growth. In the case of the Doukhobors' transfer from New Russia, impetus also came from accusations, followed by an administrative investigation, of murder, torture, harboring deserters and other wrong-doing in their Milky Waters' communities.[ 15] Yet, despite their characterization as "pernicious" sectarians, the Doukhobors gradually took on the coloration of quasi-official representatives of Russia upon their arrival in the Transcaucasus. As early as the 1860s the Doukhobors were considered model colonists--raising "high the banner of Russian [russkii] culture"--with their economic success and good relations to the local population.[ 16] For their role as careers of Russian civilization, government administrators, ironically, bestowed certain privileges upon the Doukhobors: such as relatively large land grants and access to weapons.[ 17] In addition, the local and regional state administrations took a "laissez-faire" approach towards Doukhobor colonists--a system that devolved almost all regulatory functions to the hands of the communities themselves. This arrangement permitted the Doukhobors to develop "a state within a state"--often labeled Doukhoboriia--that at least one author observed "looked upon Russia [Rossiia] as a friendly neighboring power, relations with whom are confined on its side only to the payment of 'tribute'."[ 18]

Throughout their tenure in Transcaucasia Doukhobors were also "Russian peasants." More than one hundred years ago, the populist writer S. M. Kravchinskii boldly asserted:

. . . we see that our peasantry, in its intellectual awakening, shows a remarkable tendency to run into religious channels. Dumb and inert in the domain of politics, it is in the founding of religious sects that our peasantry has formulated its most cherished ideals and social aspirations. Here they exhibit not only great intellectual activity but also unlimited moral energy.[ 19]

It may be going too far to agree entirely with Kravchinskii's evaluation of the meaning of sectarianism to Russia's peasants. Certainly, it is an undertaking fraught with pitfalls to envision one as simply a more articulated version of the other. Nevertheless, he is not incorrect to highlight the significant connections between sectarianism on one hand and peasant culture, society, and politics on the other. Doukhobors should be considered another varietal of a social group, the complexity of which historians are only now beginning to document.[ 20] Although Doukhobors were different in fundamental ways from other Russian peasants, as well as other sectarians, they shared salient similarities in social and cultural practices. Moreover, Doukhobors were juridically considered state peasants by the government, at least until the Emancipation.

Doukhobor history in the Transcaucasus should be understood differently, then. from the image left by 1895. Indeed, the identities of the "accommodationist Doukhobor," "Russian colonist," and "Russian peasant" must be added to that of the "dissenting sectarian" if the essence of these years is to be grasped more fully. The remainder of this article will discuss each of three causative agents--religious, social, political and economic structures, relations to local inhabitants, and Russian state policies, central, local and colonial--so as best to understand the formation of Transcaucasian Doukhobor identities, and of Doukhobor history. 1845-1895, in general. It will also examine how, once formed, these identities became themselves--and through their blending--producers of historical events. The study moves from the "bottom up," beginning with the internal workings of the Doukhobor community and then expanding outward to incorporate the influences of outside forces. By way of conclusion, the article will note reasons for the considerable change in Doukhobor-state relations in the 1890s, commenting on both the parameters of tolerated behavior in late Imperial Russia and the nature of Russian national identity.

Between 1841 and 1845, approximately 4,000 Russian peasants subscribing to the Doukhobor faith were forced to migrate from New Russia to the Transcaucasus by terms of a 1839 State decree.[ 21] Despite the geographic dispersion that the Doukhobor community underwent during the process of migration to Tiflis and Elizavetpol' provinces (and later to Kars territory (1879-1881)). Doukhobors maintained strong ties: politically through unquestioned support of the leader and annual meetings in Doukhoboriia's administrative center, Goreloe: through strong economic ties, both on a day-to-day basis but also through their highly developed welfare system; and most importantly through shared bonds of religious faith and cultural experience.[ 22]

The new settlers brought with them a religious faith, practice and experience forged over 75 to 100 years both in central Russian provinces and in the "Milky Waters" region of Tauride guberniia. Both in personal and state terms, their identity as Doukhobors stemmed from their religiosity, social practices, internal governing structures and their Russian peasant origins. In the Transcaucasus, Doukhobor spiritual systems continued to undergo constant evolution. Nonetheless, certain tenets run through their Transcaucasian history as a binding thread.[ 23]

At the core of Doukhobor faith lay the belief that the spirit of God resides constantly in each and every human being.[ 24] Since all humans are endowed with the spirit of God--Doukhobor and non-Doukhobor, man and woman, rich and poor alike--Doukhobors believed in the equality of all. They recognized no outward distinctions between individuals and did not hold temporal rulers in any higher esteem. Furthermore, the Doukhobors considered killing a great sin since, in effect, it was killing God. The Doukhobors denied the divinity of Christ. Christ was no doubt a son of God, but only in the manner in which all humans are also children of God. He was unquestionably a special man in the strength and depth of his connections to God's spirit, but he was flesh and blood just as they. For Doukhobors, there was one God, but in three parts: God the father was memory, God the son, intelligence, and the Holy Spirit, will. In that sense, all people were themselves the embodiment of the Trinity.

To worship and praise God, humans must open themselves up to their internal light--a task for which an official church with priests, buildings and liturgy was unnecessary. Each individual has a direct connection to God and can act as his or her own "priest" or mediator.[ 25] The Doukhobors denied the importance of any external manifestations of religiosity such as fasts, icons, festivals and church sacraments, like baptism and weddings. The only outward displays of their faith--outside of a good and godly day-to-day life--came in the saying and singing of psalms and prayers, which accompanied every stage of life, and the bread, salt and water placed on the table at meetings--traditional peasant symbols of the foundations of life. While sobriety was a component of Doukhobor religious practice at other times, in Transcaucasia drinking played a very significant part in both everyday life and special occasions.[ 26]

Significantly the Doukhobors disregarded any written sources--such as the Bible, gospels, or works of church leaders. Rather than through writing, the Doukhobors passed on their beliefs and doctrine orally in the form of the "Living Book" [Zhivotnaia Kniga][ 27] This "book" was the unwritten compilation of their psalms and prayers, many ostensibly of Davidian origin, others written by various Doukhobor leaders of which the most important were Saveli Kapustin and Ilarion Pobirokhin.[ 28] The contents of the "book" were taught to children as their sole education from the moment they could speak.

The oral transmission of psalms and prayers led, according to observers, to their partial or complete alteration, sometimes to a point where they made little sense.[ 29] When challenged on inconsistencies Doukhobors held firm to a belief that these words were indeed identical to those their fathers and forefathers had said, and that, change or no change, God understood the meaning of their hearts and their prayers. Critiques of psalm content mistake the intellectual for the experienced religion--the sense of communal demonstration of faith through joint action, and the ability to lift up the soul through the singing or humming of songs. To Doukhobors, the spiritual heights of the form, the doing, were more important than the rational consistency of the content.

In a visit to the Doukhobor village of Slavianka in the 1860s, the artist V. V. Vereshchagin took part in a Doukhobor prayer service.[ 30] As he describes, Doukhobor services were simple in structure, and lacked the external manifestations of faith that were found among the Orthodox. The Sunday service took place in a special hut, packed full of people. Men stood on one side and women on the other facing each other, a design that allowed each celebrant to look at the image of God during the service.[ 31] The worshippers in turn said prayers out loud. When a mistake was made in the relating of a particular prayer, those around the speaker immediately corrected him or her and in this manner, the Doukhobors asserted, the prayers had remained the same since the day they were created. Men made more mistakes than women and women held a pre-eminent role as correctors--a fact that speaks to the significance that Doukhobors assigned to women as guardians and preservers of the faith. The prayers lasted hours to the point of physical exhaustion. Vereshchagin relates, somewhat irreverently, how the sounds of snores from the back gave impetus for someone in the group to suggest that they move to the singing.

The entire group exited the hut into the village courtyard [dvor], where they again split into sides of men and women. Psalms were sung in a mournful and plaintive tone that deeply affected Vereshchagin, evoking for him the feeling of far-off homelands. Those who did not know the words to a specific psalm simply "wailed" the music. Standing in front of the men was the choir leader [zapevala] who was responsible for starting the group on a particular psalm. The position of choir master was one of prestige and responsibility among the Doukhobors and was given to a village elder. The zapevala with whom Vereshchagin conversed was visibly proud of his role. Before the end of the service, the participants turned to every other individual at the service and, grabbing right hands, they bowed twice to each other, then kissed and bowed twice again, all the while singing continued.[ 32]

Doukhobor marriage practice in Transcaucasia stemmed from a combination of Doukhobor theology and traditional patterns of Russian peasant marriage.[ 33] Nonetheless, it was a social practice that differentiated the Doukhobors from the Orthodox in the eyes of the Synod and its missionaries. In fact, the unceremonial nature of Doukhobor marriage practices attracted rumors of improper sexual behavior from among the Orthodox.[ 34] In theory, marriage for Doukhobors required nothing other than the mutual decision of the couple to make a life-long commitment and the assent of the parents--although, in practice, marriages were often arranged by parents.[ 35] Doukhobor observer and state secretary V. R. Marchenko relates how "sometimes . . . this mutual consent is not made evident until the bride has become a mother."[ 36] While no special sacraments or ceremonies were required, Doukhobor wedding practice in Transcaucasia became ritualized and, especially in the 1880s, very ostentatious and expensive. The expenditure on drink alone could exceed 100 rubles at even the most modest banquet.

The process of marriage was divided into four stages: matchmaking, betrothal, the gathering [svod] and the wedding. At each point in the marriage procedure, psalms, food and drink played central roles, and gifts were bestowed, both to the families and to the guests. At betrothal the groom handed from fifty to 100 rubles to the bride's family--however, the significance of monetary transactions for Doukhobors appears much more symbolic than in the case of Orthodox peasants.[ 37] Since the elapsed time between gathering and wedding could be substantial, a husband was entitled to sleep with his wife at her parents' house after this former stage. During the wedding, either outdoors or in the bride's house, the parents gave advice to the young bride over how to conduct her marriage and her life. The central themes of the counsel centered on loving each other, the blessings of God on the marriage, and the importance of keeping rumors and gossip from the house. There were no written documents to certify the marriage. V. D. Bonch-Bruevich describes a typical wedding ceremony:

The father of the bride normally conducted the "ceremony" by asking the couple whether they wished to live together and whether they loved one another. Receiving an affirmative answer, the bride's father then declared the couple's mutually professed love to be the word of law. . . .[38]

At each stage the role of women, especially the matchmaker, was paramount.[ 39] In fact, in the social life of the Doukhobors women played a particularly important role both spiritually and secularly. Since the spirit of God exists in all individuals, Doukhobor women took on an extremely important role as the life-givers of Christ. Indeed, each woman was considered a "Virgin Mary" Svetlana Inikova relates how the similarity of both clothing and hairstyle between married and unmarried women mirrored Doukhobor emphasis on perpetual purity. Unlike Orthodox peasant women who underwent elaborate changes in hairstyle and clothing upon marriage to reflect both their change in status in the community and their new function as a woman, Doukhobors privileged the religious role of women over their physical and marital status.[ 40] This may indeed explain the absence in Dzhashi's narrative of any discussion of marriage consummation which played such a significant and symbolic role in the "ritual drama" of Orthodox peasant weddings.[ 41]

Despite the outwardly informal nature of marriage and the ease of divorce--the decision to leave a husband or wife, in theory, required only the public announcement of intent and the payment of a sum--contemporary witnesses assert that the incidence of marriage termination among Doukhobors was very low during the fifty years under consideration.[ 42] However, this marital stability came to a crashing end after the death of Kalmykova. From exile, Peter Verigin ordered his followers to break all ties with any who followed the Small Party. The Doukhobor Vasia Pozdniakov relates:

Thus, if anybody belonging to the Large party has a wife which [sic] sympathizes with the Small party, he ought to turn her out of the house, even if she had children,--let her go to the Small party; and a wife of a husband belonging to the Small party, if she sympathizes with the Large Party, ought to leave her husband and come to the Large party. The Large party followed Verigin's order, and thus many families were separated and hundreds of children were left without attendance. The authorities had to issue an order. They ordered the husbands to give allowances to their wives they had turned out; and those wives that had run away from their husbands were installed in their homes again, and forced to provide for their children.[ 43]

Ethnographer I.E. Petrov agrees with Pozdniakov's characterization of the impact of the split on marital relations. While divorce was uncommon among the Doukhobors beforehand, from the day of the beginning of the "ferment" (which Petrov dates to August 29. 1889), eighteen couples divorced in Slavianka, one in Novo-Troitskoe, three in Novo-Spasskoe and one in Novo-Gorelevoe.[ 44]

Like all states, Doukhoboriia required a complex system of governance. Unlike the fragmented and messianic leadership of exiles in the 1890s, Doukhobor administration in the Transcaucasus--especially during the reign of Lukeria Kalmykova, 1864-86--was an efficiently functioning, systematized structure meeting the needs of both internal and external affairs.[ 45] On one hand, the management system ensured an environment for the growth of a Doukhobor spirituality and identity through a judiciary, welfare support system, and economic coordination policy. On the other hand, the administration acted as the negotiators with Russian state power and struggled to channel and control, to the best of their abilities, the state's impact on them as colonists and sectarians.[ 46]

Doukhobor government in the Transcaucasus has been called a theocracy, which rested on four pillars: 1) God as the ultimate source of power, 2) undisputed equality of all Doukhobors, 3) the rule of an all-powerful individual leader (the only, albeit enormous, exception to the second pillar) and 4) the administrative structures--legal, financial and legislative--constructed around the Orphan Home [Sirotskii dom].[ 47] An elder [starshina], ataman and a council of elders conducted day-to-day business management and assisted the leader. These "state" structures were reproduced in miniature in each village, although not always systematically.

Since God was considered the ultimate source of power, Doukhobors doctrinally denied the omnipotence of the tsar and his representatives. However, as will be discussed below, during the years in Transcaucasia they came to a modus vivendi with Russian state power in which they would fulfill all outward duties that did not contradict their religious beliefs--such as killing or swearing oaths.[ 48] The assertion of equality of all Doukhobors in the decision-making of the village grew directly from Doukhobor beliefs in the existence of God's spirit in all humans. Thus, in village gatherings, both rich and poor, men and women had an equal vote in the resolution of issues. In the instance of village decision-making, settlements were determined by a unified and agreed spirit.

The development of single-leader rule among the Doukhobors took place over many generations and with three leaders in particular. The first Doukhobor leader, Silvan Kolesnikov (approximately 1750-1765), claimed that God was found in the souls of all humans and that they were "the image of God on earth." Ilarion Pobirokhin, the next recognized leader of the Doukhobors (approximately 17651790), deviated substantively from extant teachings when "not content with recognizing himself to be a son of God like others, inspired by the holy spirit sufficiently to enable him to discern his duty and progress towards perfection, he claimed to be Christ."[ 49] Pobirokhin asserted that the spirit of Christ never left earth and in every generation it is embodied in one individual. The personification of Christ will manifest the strength and characteristics of Christ, such as an absence of sin and the incapacity to be wrong, and by destiny will lead the community of faithful. Since all orders from the Christ-leader came by definition directly from God, the Doukhobors held "unquestioning obedience" to their ruler.[ 50] Under the subsequent leadership of Saveli Kapustin (approximately 1790-1818) the characteristics of the Christ-spirit and the Christ-leader took one more turn. Kapustin claimed not only that the spirit of Christ was transferred from generation to generation, but that it was passed hereditarily through one family. Thus, from Kapustin through to the death of Lukeria Kalmykova in 1886, Doukhobor rule rested in the hands of one family.[ 51]

State commentators on Doukhobor governance, such as Lieutenant-General Kuropatkin, called rank-and-file Doukhobors "blind" and complained, ironically, of the danger of placing so much power in the hands of one individual. Furthermore, Doukhobor leaders were charged with sexual debauchery, drunkenness and arbitrary, violent rule--accusations that were directed at both male and female leaders. Rumors abounded among the neighboring populations that a central reason for the good relations between the Doukhobors and the administration was the sexual relations between Kalmykova and various high level governors-general and viceroys, Grand Duke Michael in particular.[ 52] Petrov claims that Kalmykova was never in short supply of handsome young Doukhobors to satisfy her sexual appetite. Among these was Peter Verigin, who executed this post in her waning years. The author goes on to assert how "understandably, a twenty-year-old beauty was not satisfied by relations with one 'Virgin Mary' and he drank and debaucher everywhere possible. . . . "[ 53]

Accusations did not come solely from outside the Doukhobor community. Among his charges against Peter and Vasili Verigin, Vasia Pozdniakov includes gross sexual impropriety. Discussing the terms of Peter Verigin's exile in the late 1880s and early 1890s, Pozdniakov relates: "His life in exile was not hard at all. He had plenty of money, rented good apartments, and was living in an agreeable company. When he was taking a drive, in the company of some girls of his acquaintance . . . " Later, when discussing Vasilii Verigin, Peter's younger brother, Pozdniakov states: "He was driving about the Doukhoborian villages in the company of a singing chorus,--of girls mostly,--and everywhere he came he found an entertainment ready."[ 54] In addition, the Canadian Doukhobor historian Peter Malov makes astonishing claims about Vasilii Kalmykov.[ 55]

Of the two Kalmykov brothers Vasilii was the older, but because his personality was so strange and mysterious the younger brother Peter was considered the future leader of the Doukhobors. Vasilii's strangeness included the fact that he often wore women's dresses, spent more time with women and avoided young men. It was said about him that from birth he was not normal physically, that is, he was half man, half woman, although the truth of this no-one knew.[ 56]

Moreover, many sources argue that the leaders often took a "do as I say not as I do attitude" in their dealings with the rank and file. Peter Kalmykov (Lukeria's husband and predecessor as leader)--who reportedly drank to excess and regularly brought the beautiful young women of the village with him to the baths to wash[ 57]-asserted that in his function as Christ, he took it upon himself to carry out the most egregious sins, either (depending on the source) to purge the rest of the community of such actions, or to provide a negative example that the others could then avoid imitating.[ 58] Despite the accusations, however, Doukhobor leaders were loved and supported among the community. Indeed the outpouring of love for Lukeria Kalmykova at her death is testimonial not only to the heartfelt love for the ruler but also to the spiritual faith in the Christ origins of the leader.[ 59]

As the earthly well-spring of spiritual faith and temporal power, the Christ-leader was both a symbolic and an actual focal point for a Doukhobor community spread across a broad geographic area.[ 60] In contrast, the Orphan Home located in Goreloe, while also a unifying symbol, was more directly involved in day-to-day affairs of running the Doukhobor state. Ostensibly, the Sirotskii dom existed to provide shelter for the aged, crippled and orphans among the Doukhobors. In reality it was the Doukhobors' administrative and religious center. Used for general prayer meetings and the worship of Christ, the Orphan Home was also the "palace" or residence of the Doukhobor leader, and therefore the seat of government. It was in addition the source of general welfare support for the entire community.[ 61]

Bonch-Bruevich relates how there were few orphans in Doukhobor villages who might need the services of the centralized Orphan Home since the Doukhobors maintained a very strong system of family support. Thus, any orphan or cripple could rely on even the most distant relative for support and shelter. Certainly, by bringing into the household such a relative, the family could turn to the Orphan Home for material assistance if it proved too great a burden. However, for Doukhobors it was socially and spiritually unacceptable to refuse to take in a relative.[ 62]

The Christ-leader assessed taxes, or contributions, on members of the Doukhobor community. These were held in the Sirotskii dom, which also managed communal fields, gardens, flocks and implements.[ 63] Officially, the constantly increasing wealth and resources were entirely at the unbridled control and disposal of the leaden But, both in and out of the Doukhobor community, the riches were understood to be communal property. The affluence was utilized to provide assistance to needy Doukhobors such as those who had suffered from poor harvests or those stricken with sickness. Both Doukhobors and non-Doukhobors were eligible for support and the amount was neither firmly set, nor always accurately accounted for. Indeed, the neighboring populations took advantage of the Doukhobors' initial zero-interest loans. While Doukhobor behavior in this regard changed somewhat over time, they nevertheless charged only five to ten percent interest when the going rate in the region was ten to fifteen. Klibanov makes the claim that regional government administrators, including on occasion the Viceroy, used the "banking" services provided by the Orphan Home.[ 64]

The Orphan Home was initially built in the reign of Saveli Kapustin (approximately 1790-1818) at Milky Waters, but the Doukhobors were forced to leave behind its accumulated wealth when they migrated to the Transcaucasus; confiscated as state punishment for the crimes with which they had been charged.[ 65] While they began at once to replace the lost capital--efforts that the government made no move to prevent--the Transcaucasian Doukhobors did not complete the physical buildings anew until the end of the 1860s, In an article on the history of the Doukhobor schism, V. D. Bonch-Bruevich describes the physical structure Goreloe Sirotskii dom. It consisted of two buildings, a one-floor, stone building with tiled roof, and a smaller two-floor structure made of wood. The first, divided into two rooms and an entrance hall, housed meetings and prayer services. The second was set aside for discussions between the people and the Horne's manager.[ 66]

By the end of Kalmykova's reign, the Orphan Home was exceedingly prosperous. Bonch-Bruevich lists the holdings of the Sirotskii dom in 1886: two desiatina of land, 100 head of horned livestock, 100 horses and 500,000 rubles--45,000 of which was deposited in a bank in Tiflis, the remainder held in the Sirotskii dom itself in the form of gold and silver.[ 67] Bonch-Bruevich also points out how part of the land and resources of each village was earmarked for the needs of the central Orphan Home. For instance, in the village Troitskoe, nine versts from Goreloe, a farm [khutor] comprising 400 desiatina of hayfields and pasture land, along with the 2,500 sheep, five cows and 30 horses, were set aside for Sirotskii use. In the town of Efremovka, five and a half versts from Goreloe, 100 desiatina of land were devoted to Orphan Home uses. In these villages, as in all others, the land set aside for the Sirotskii dom was worked jointly by the village [obshchestvo] and harvested grains and hay were transported to Goreloe for physical storage in the Orphan Home.

Whereas the Christ-leader was officially in charge of Sirotskii dom affairs, day-to-day management was deemed to be "unbecoming" and an "ataman" was chosen to manage its functions. The ataman, such as Ivan Baturin who held the position for the final ten years of Lukeria Kalmykova's rule, was responsible for taking in contributions and fulfilling the orders [prikazy] of the leader regarding the passing out of help and welfare to members of Doukhoboriia. He also collected all information concerning harvests, hail damage, fires, theft, robbery, cattle plague, epidemics and anything else that could affect in some way or another the Doukhobor economy.[ 68]

The elder [starshina], right-hand man to the Christ-leader, was as important to the smooth functioning of the Doukhobor state as the Orphan Home and its ataman. Best known of the elders was Alesha Zubkov, who worked under Lukeria Kalmykova. His principal responsibility was to conduct relations with Russian state power and to ensure that the latter had no cause for discontent with, or reason for involvement in, Doukhobor internal affairs. His "foreign policy" success achieved him the nickname "the Doukhobor Bismarck."[ 69] The constellation of Doukhobor managing structures was completed by the central council of elders, of which the starshina and ataman were both members. This board's primary functions were advisory, although in years when the leader was too weak or too young, the council acted as "regents."

In addition to the central authorities of Christ-leader, starshina, ataman and council of elders, each village had its own administrative structures. The priest Ilarion Dzhashi describes the governing framework of Slavianka village, Elizavetpol' uezd.[ 70] There, an elder was elected to maintain order and peace within the community. This starshina was aided by a deputy [pomoshchnik] elected for a three-year term. Also elected for three-year periods were the three village judges who met regularly--usually Sundays, but also on other days in case of emergency sessions--to decide on legal issues.[ 71] The Doukhobors utilized a combination of fines (one to three rubles) and arrest (one to seven days) as punishment for infractions. There is no agreement among the sources as to the use of physical punishment. Many, like Dzhashi, assert categorically that corporal punishment was banned by Doukhobor communal agreement. Others claim, equally categorically, that the Doukhobor social peace was maintained at the end of a whip and cat-o'-nine-tails.[ 72] The decisions of the village judges were recorded in a general book, and any who were unhappy with the results of their trial could then take the case to the communal courts, a rare occurrence. Even more rare were Doukhobor cases taken to Imperial administrative or legal structures.[ 73]

Working within the parameters constructed by their spiritual beliefs and practices, social structures and governing systems, two other forces played vital roles in the formation of Doukhobor history and identity in Transcaucasia: unprecedented economic success and interaction with the peoples and environment of the region. In their relations with the indigenous peoples, the Doukhobors were forced to come to terms with their identities alternatively as Doukhobors, Russians and colonists. Indeed, placed among non-Russian and in part non-Christian populations, their identities were set in stark relief. At the same time, the tremendous economic prosperity experienced by the Doukhobors began slowly to challenge notions of what was a "Doukhobor," especially in terms of human equality, aid to poorer members of the community and, broadly speaking, morality. Seeds of social and spiritual conflict were planted here that blossomed in the 1890s.[ 74]

Doukhobor colonists confronted a series of serious problems upon their arrival in the Transcaucasus, ranging from an unusual climate to a lack of resources and new diseases, most pre-eminent of which was malaria. Malov relates how the migrants were "literally devastated."[ 75] Initially in the 1840s, a great many of the Doukhobor settlers--like other sectarian colonists--established villages in the low-lands which the local nomads used for their winter pasturage. These lower lands were considered by state representatives to be more favorable for cultivation given the terrain's warm climate, water supplies and large, flatter land-plots of fertile soil. However, the Doukhobors found the specified lands to be unfavorable for permanent settlement because of their extreme heat in summer, often polluted waters and incidence of malaria. Moreover, traditional Doukhobor (Russian) practices of agriculture and livestock herding proved untenable in the new environment. Through a campaign of petitions, large groups of Doukhobors soon moved to middle level mountain areas, 700 to 1600 meters above sea level, where the "plateau-like rolling land" provided a mixture of farm-land, good pasturage, and better access to sparse forests. Thus, in the 1850s, Doukhobors from Akhalkalakskii uezd, Tiflis guberniia, constructed new villages in Borchalinskii uezd, Tiflis guberniia and in Elizavetpol' uezd, Elizavetpol' guberniia. Yet even in these theoretically more welcoming climes, the Doukhobors still confronted soil problems (steep, rocky and hard to plow) and were forced significantly to change their cultivation and livestock practices.[ 76]

In response to the new environmental conditions, the Doukhobors changed their economic practices. They began to transport goods by cart and shifted their main activity to raising livestock.[ 77] Notably, in their stock-breeding, the Doukhobors did not assume the transhumant techniques of their neighbors which involved seasonal migrations of the entire family. Rather, the Doukhobors utilized a rotation of remote pastures, to which only a very small portion of the village population went to work. As such, members of an extended family remained together in permanent settlements. In terms of impact "on the family and social structure of peasant communities," Doukhobor livestock practices resembled seasonal out migration [otkhod] occupations of many central Russian peasants.[ 78]

Doukhobors quickly became, along with Molokane, leading economic forces in the region. They merged their technological knowledge, agricultural experience and new varieties of livestock with local insights, practices and tools and took the best of both worlds. In all statistical senses, the Doukhobors took their place among the most well-off Transcaucasian people. In Akhalkalakskii uezd, in 1856 the Doukhobors were 14,5% of the population but owned 59% of all horses, 19% of large horned livestock and 31% of sheep. In the 1880s, they were 16.5% of the population and owned 35% of the land (25% of useful land, 46.6% of unuseful land) as well as 67% of horses, 20% of large-horned animals, and 43% of small-horned animals. At the same time average land holding per individual for Doukhobors was 5.07 desiatina, whereas it was only 2.32 for the uezd's population as a whole. In Kars territory, for every 100 households, the Doukhobors possessed 40 horses, the Molokane 32, the Turks, 11.9, the Kurds 7.7 and the Armenians, six.[ 79] Perhaps more importantly the Doukhobors produced for both local and Empire-wide markets. Villagers from Elizavetpol'uezd sold each anywhere from 100 to 400 rubles a year of food to workers at the nearby Kedabekskii copper smelting factory.[ 80] Doukhobors also marketed between 35,000 and 40,000 rubles of wool each year, and 12,000 to 15,000 rubles in sheep, mostly of the superior merino variety. Doukhobor wool was sold via Armenian traders in Moscow and Nizhegorod.[ 81] While the economic boom was certainly embraced by the Doukhobors, it did result in a certain unease, both spiritual and social, that Doukhobors were moving away from their true moral selves.[ 82]

To compound their early difficulties in adapting to life in the Transcaucasus, the Doukhobors also faced serious dilemmas in their relations to the indigenous population. Conflict, often violent, over land usage proved to be a defining issue in the initially bad relations between Doukhobors and Georgians, Armenians and Tatars.[ 83] Upon their arrival, Doukhobors were allocated lands that had belonged to local inhabitants. In one incident, Doukhobor settlers in Akhalkalakskii uezd were given supplementary lands amounting to 1,240 desiatina (60 desiatina per family) that belonged to adjacent Armenian villages.[ 84] In addition to formerly owned land, the sectarians received, as part of state efforts to bolster the colonists' position, land allotments relatively much larger than the native population as well as unrestricted rental access to state [kazna] lands. The neighboring indigenous peoples petitioned vehemently to have the levels equalized.[ 85] Moreover, Russian efforts to settle in permanent farming communities greatly disrupted the long-standing migration patterns of the region's nomadic herders. Violence erupted regularly over the trampling of crops and stealing of livestock.

Moreover, Doukhobors complained regularly of criminal actions towards them on the part of their neighbors. Contemporary observers differentiated between the Tatars and Armenians in terms of the form of criminal action. Generally speaking, Doukbobors suffered armed attack and robbery at the hands of Tatars--in the Armashenskii commune alone in 1847-48, the inhabitants lost 1,767 rubles worth of goods and money to robbery--while the Armenians rarely missed the opportunity to swindle the new arrivals. The state was well aware of these problems and did what little it could to solve the problem. However, Vereshchagin quotes a Doukhobor lamenting the Russian court system's lack of authority in rural Transcaucasia and the latter's inability to rectify wrongs done to the colonists. The Doukhobors quickly lost faith in the police and judiciary to solve their problems.[ 86]

The response of the Doukhobors to the threat posed by the surrounding population represented one of the most significant Transcaucasian shifts in Doukhobor doctrine. Turning from their creed of non-violence, the new settlers armed themselves in preparation for defence against attack. Certain sources, notably Klibanov, even argue that Doukhobors led their own pre-emptive raids on the Tatars.[ 87] Thus, detachments of "Cossacks" were organized who served as a Doukhobor militia--a group of whom would travel with the Doukhobor leader at all times. Doukhobor fortress mentality and efforts at self-protection were also visible in the construction of barns, sheds and granaries. Some were built with metal grates on the windows, others with solid, unbroken walls whose only windows were on the roof.[ 88]

However, relations between the Doukhobors and the Transcaucasian inhabitants improved markedly, in part due to the sect's remarkable economic success, and also due to their compassionate and friendly nature. The Doukhobors hired Tatars to look after their flocks and treated them well, often giving them access to the wealth of the Orphan Home in time of emergency. Armenians, Tatars and Doukhobors exchanged agricultural practices and technology to the mutual benefit of all. While most contact between these peoples came in the economic sphere, cultural and social interactions followed slowly behind. Out of necessity, the Doukhobors learned to speak the languages of the Armenians and Tatars, and many of their words passed into the Doukhobor lexicon.[ 89]

If relations to the indigenous populations improved over the course of the Doukhobors' years in Transcaucasia, those with Russian Orthodox and other sectarians (especially the Molokane) remained bitter. These interactions were not helped by a state policy which legislated the separation of sectarians from Orthodox so that, for example, sectarians were not permitted to hire Orthodox Russians.[ 90] Thus, Doukhobors in the Transcaucasus developed more friendly relations with their Muslim, Armenian Orthodox and Catholic neighbors than they did with their fellow Russian colonists, either Orthodox or sectarian. The question remains to be answered why Doukhobors should have been more tolerant of the indigenous populations and their faiths. Was the root of the conflict, then, an antagonism between different Russian colonists rather than a clash of religion, or were the Russian Orthodox and sects simply that much closer spiritually that they were considered threatening?[ 91]

The final active force in the production of Doukhobor history and identity in Transcaucasia was their relations to state power, and Tsarist colonial policy in particular. On one hand, state fears of the "dissenting sectarian" brought the Doukhobors to the borderlands. On the other hand, once there, state imperatives redefined the Doukhobors as "Russian colonists." All the while, the administration's "hands-off" approach to Doukhobor internal affairs provided a space in which the sect could craft its own identity, either "accommodationist" or "dissenter."

In the development of mid-nineteenth-century colonization policies in the Transcaucasus, both regional and central Russian state actors were driven by four imperatives: military security of the frontiers, economic development and integration of the newly Russian regions, isolation and control of religious sectarians, and the easing of land shortage problems in the central provinces.[ 92] These considerations were at times if not mutually exclusive, then certainly odd bedfellows. They reflect the difficulties that the Russian government encountered in its efforts to govern a multiethnic, multi-confessional empire, especially the conflicts between domestic and foreign policy and between the multivariate bureaucracies in the center and at the periphery.[ 93]

According to D. I. Ismail-Zade, in the decade or so following the annexation of Transcaucasia (1828-1829), state policy centered almost exclusively on security issues and military solutions to colonization, with economic considerations a distant second. A variety of plans were implemented that strove to create a permanently rooted military population in the region. Under one plan, soldiers and their families were sent to man a series of military-agricultural posts in the region with the hope that the "semi-settled, semi-Cossack way of life" would attract them to remain past the end of their military terms. In another plan, retired soldiers were brought as settlers to the area. Neither effort achieved much success.[ 94]

Although not wholly related to the failures in these initial projects, officials looked elsewhere for a solution. The result was a policy of settling sectarians and schismatics that had been utilized in other areas of the Empire. Government sponsored internal relocation of heretics had three sources. First, the administration saw forcible internal migration as a means to combat both the existence of, and possible contagion from, religious groups that they considered spiritually heretical and anti-feudal in their social practices. S. A. Inikova relates how Governor-General Ermolov of New Russia believed that other peasants, upon seeing what happened to the Doukhobors, would refrain from joining that, or any other, sect.[ 95] Second, isolation of the offending sects followed in the footsteps of Alexander I's efforts to foster religious toleration in the empire while simultaneously preventing sectarian proselytism or the conversion of Orthodox to other faiths.[ 96] Third, the concept of sending sectarians and schismatics to the borderlands evolved partly from the increasing dilemma of land shortage in the central provinces. If the state was being forced to move peasants from the heartland, there was no reason why they should not move undesirable ones to free up land for those Orthodox peasants considered to be the state's bedrock support.[ 97]

Reflecting Russia's larger problems with relations between centre and periphery, local government officials in the Transcaucasus fought against the central decisions to settle unwanted sectarians. They argued that sectarians were of no benefit in accomplishing colonization goals, and the local administration was almost successful in stopping the process entirely. Ismail-Zade hints that opposition to the settlers was not solely on religious grounds, however, as the sectarians' agricultural skills and experience were questioned during the discussions. Nonetheless, local efforts lost out in the end to the imperatives of the centre and a sufficiently large voice grew in the periphery who saw the immediate economic gains that sectarian settlers had brought. Caucasian Viceroy M. S. Vorontsov noted how the appearance of commercial transportation and other new economic forms positively altered the economy of the region.[ 98] In fact, the Doukhobors were unexpectedly successful in doing what the state wanted economically: to bring in modern and progressive (read Russian) techniques of agriculture, to transfer these to the native populations, thereby enhancing the local economy to the benefit of Russia as a whole, and to integrate the borderlands into a larger Russian market.

Thus, Russian policy combined the domestic goal of ending sectarianism with the foreign policy goal of populating the newly acquired region--the best means, it was believed, to fulfill both military and economic imperatives. Yet these goals did not match naturally, and the simultaneous resolution of such problems was not always easy. There is a certain irony to a policy that merged the goal of isolating and eventually eliminating unwanted religious groups with that of bolstering and supporting these very same groups in order to populate a region and establish a Russian presence there.

For the Doukhobors, the incongruity inherent in their status as both "sectarians" and "colonists" worked both to their advantage and disadvantage. Despite the fact that the Doukhobors were officially exiles, apostates and threats to the foundations of Russian politics and society--the very existence of whom the state wished to arrest--Russian administration and legislation acted in a variety of means in support of the Doukhobors. Like all resettled peasants, the Doukhobors received tax breaks, new land allotments both larger than what they had possessed before and greater than those of the surrounding population, and state assistance both economically and in other arenas.[ 99] For instance, in 1854, because local officials lacked the ability to provide protection to the Elizavetpol' Doukhobors from attack by the native populations, the administration sold the Doukhobors 913 weapons at wholesale [kazna] prices.[ 100] In fact, the church observer V. I. Terletskii was outraged that the local administration permitted the existence of an independent Doukhobor militia (Kalmykova's "Cossacks")--and one that, to his disgust, wore uniforms similar to those of the mounted guards of the Viceroy. He was particularly incensed that Lukeria Kalmykova would even bring these soldiers into Tiflis on her visits.[ 101] Moreover, whereas most colonists in the borderlands were exempted from military service for a restricted period of time following migration, the Doukhobors were semi-permanently exempt from military service since they were officially considered to be a penal colony of internal exiles. Of course, Doukhobors relished this situation given their non-violent creed and a certain amount of their economic success can be attributed to the absence of this drain on their human resources.[ 102]

It appears a peculiar policy to resettle the pacifist Doukhobors into a region where the military security of the frontier was a central concern. Nevertheless, tsarist officials believed that by placing the Doukhobors in the midst of the violent hill people, they would be forced to take up arms to defend their property and families--a forecast that turned out to be entirely true.[ 103] Furthermore, although they did not actively fight, the reluctant Doukhobors did provide invaluable assistance transporting men and materials on their enormous fleet of carts for the Russian cause during the Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878). The presence of these Russian sectarians, then, did sufficiently serve the military function that the state desired.

Indeed, the exemption from military service turned out to be a double-edged sword for the Doukhobors. In desperation for the use of Doukhobor resources for the attack on Kars during the Russo-Turkish War, Grand Duke Michael threatened the Doukhobors with the revocation of their penal colony status, and therefore of their reprieve from conscription. The irony of the Doukhobors' decision to perform military transportation duties in the short term in order to avoid enforced military service in the long term was not lost on the Doukhobor community, and played a significant role in the upcoming schism within the sect.[ 104] Malov relates Kalmykova's frustration with the powerlessness of her position in her speech to those off to the war zone:

We all know that you are entering a bad affair in taking part in military action. But what is there to do? If we refuse, then the government could become angry and begin oppressing us, and none of us want that. I am a weak woman who cannot bear to rattle around in prisons, and so I gave my agreement to the great Prince. But it will be the last time. In the future, this should not have to be the case anymore.[ 105]

In a different vein, the interplay of Doukhobor identities as of "sectarians" and "colonizers" provided peasants with a means in which to circumnavigate existing resettlement legislation. For example, in the law requiring the resettlement of Doukhobors to the Transcaucasus, it was clearly stated that all those who converted to Orthodoxy would be allowed to remain in New Russia. There are few reliable statistics concerning the number of Doukhobors who chose this option rather than endure another period of frontier construction, but it is clear that some did.[ 106] Moreover, when the going became difficult, this stipulation gave an escape route to those who did initially make the move. In fact, those sectarian colonists who converted to Orthodoxy could return to the central provinces and received special dispensations--notably a three-and-one-half-year tax break as well as the choice, in certain cases, of the new location in which to live: whether urban or rural, and with or without the agreement of the community into which they would enter.[ 107]

The conversions worked in both directions, however. Despite the best efforts of the government to avoid conversions to the sects, their very policy of promoting the unification of members of the same sect into cohesive communities in Russia's borderlands (and with privileges such as no military service and access to land) appears to have promoted it. Thus, land-short peasants in the central provinces desperate to escape could bypass the ordinary migration bureaucracy by declaring themselves Doukhobors (or some other sect).[ 108] This is not to deny the centrality of religious faith and practice to the Doukhobor faithful, only to point out how the juridical identities of the Doukhobors could be manipulated to peasant advantage.

Despite efforts at central control in other areas of internal peasant resettlement, Russian state treatment of the Transcaucasian Doukhobors was "laissez-faire" in both form and substance.[ 109] The Doukhobors and the local administration developed a modus vivendi in which the sectarians were able, within certain parameters, to construct their own "state within a state." As long as the Doukhobors efficiently and conscientiously fulfilled both tax and other obligations as state peasants, the government allowed them a degree of self-management and self-regulation that did indeed cast the Doukhobors in the role of an independent state.[ 110] As Kuropatkin points out, even if there were those in the administration who were not entirely satisfied with the arrangement, they could console themselves, at least until the 1890s, that everything was running smoothly and successfully within the Doukhobor communities.[ 111] Indeed, in the absence of state oppression and interference, Doukhobor prosperity grew remarkably.

As a result of their unparalleled economic success and positive relations with indigenous Transcaucasians, the Doukhobors went from unwanted heretics to being viewed by local officials and other observers as model colonists and champions of Russian civilization in the face of uncultured native populations. Writing after the 1890s' split in the sect, arms burning and emigration, Father Ilarion Dzhashi typifies this perspective when he lamented their departure:

It is very sad to part with these peaceful, honest, hard-working and economical people who, living in the Transcaucasus for half a century, made all neighboring peoples respect them and raised high the banner of Russian [russkii] culture.[ 112]

Representatives of state power Lieutenant-General Kuropatkin, Chief of Staff of the Transcaspian region, and Governor Shervashidze of Tiflis Guberniia continue in this vein:

The Caucasus administration considered [the Doukhobors] Russian [russkii] people, Russian by blood and by soul, victims of their faith and neglected on the Turkish border in the midst of foreign tribes . . . Resettled among so unpropitious conditions, enduring deprivation and dire straits, they, thanks to persistent work and prudent lifestyle, not only attained material well-being, but forced the surrounding population to respect them, and in the far borderlands, it seems, they raised high the Russian banner. Stretched out over three guberniias among the poor native peoples, their flourishing villages were pleasing oases. From a political perspective, they represented staging points for Russian affairs and influence in the region.[ 114]

While state representatives looked to the Doukhobors as Russians, the Doukhobors do not appear to have considered themselves models of "Russianness." The Soviet scholar of the Doukhobors, A. I. Klibanov, asserts that the Doukhobors should be considered in some senses their own ethnic group. In this regard, Klibanov quotes the Doukhobor author S. F. Rybin: "They [the Doukhobors] have turned their sect into a nation. When they meet an unknown person, they ask: and who might you be? I am a Doukhobor, one answers. Ah, a Doukhobor. And I thought you were Russian. It turns out that the Doukhobors are not Russians, but Doukhobors."[ 115] Ethnicity aside, the Doukhobors made atypical colonial trailblazers since they personally had no pretension or mission to Empire. Rather than attempting to settle and subjugate a region and its peoples for Russia, they desired only to construct their own state-community, free from outside interference.[ 116]

Given the close relations between state administrations and the Doukhobors throughout the majority of their Transcaucasian history, the question remains why ties broke down from the mid-1880s on. Only tentative conclusions can be reached at this time which will be modified, I am sure, after archival research. A constellation of six primary forces combined to change the situation in Transcaucasia. At which time, the question of religious identity--that had until then played only a secondary role--began to take on renewed meaning in Russian definitions of race, culture and nationality.

First, the termination of "temporary obligatory status" and the cancellation of the poll tax in the early 1880s freed a great number of land-starved peasants in the central agricultural regions for internal colonization. The state accelerated migration policies and brought more Orthodox Russian peasants into potential contact with the Doukhobors. Second, as part of a larger evolution from ancien regime to modem state, the implementation of universal military conscription in 1874 heralded a fundamental shift in the manner in which the central government viewed its relations to the people under its control.[ 117] The Doukhobors felt an increased presence of central state power through the extension to the Transcaucasus of the new conscription laws in 1887 and the requirement of an oath to the new Tsar in 1894. Third, the Synod, led by Over-Procurator K. P. Pobedonostsev, inaugurated a renewed and vibrant offensive against all sectarians in Russia.[ 118]

Fourth, the rupture within the fabric of the sect and the resulting power struggle pushed Doukhobor faithful in new, more radical socio-spiritual directions. Uncharacteristic of the previous fifty years, Doukhobors called upon the powers of the administration to referee their internal dispute--an action which ended their splendid isolation. Fifth, the Doukhobor conflict involved the surrounding populations as Verigin's followers--many of whom were forcibly relocated into indigenous villages--proselytized among them, not only concerning matters of faith, but also in regard to topics that the state considered socio-anarchist. Government representatives could not overlook a threat to social peace and security on their frontier.[ 119] Sixth, to the heightened interactions between state and sect was added the influence of the revolutionary or oppositionist intelligentsia: Tolstoy, Khilkov, Bonch-Bruerich, Chertkov, Biriukov. This interaction of "high" and "low" appears to have been especially threatening to both central government and local administrators who believed that these intelligenty were corrupting the soul of the Russian peasantry with their ideas.[ 120]

The distinction between "Russian" and "Doukhobor," and between "colonist" and "sectarian," in both state and sectarian minds goes a long way to explaining the eventual disruption of relations between the two. As state power encroached over the 1880s and 1890s, the Doukhobors went from "colonizers" to "colonized." The sanctity of the "state within a state" was challenged: from the outside as Russian state power pushed its way into the internal workings of Doukhoboriia in an effort to assert control over the "dissenting sectarians," and from the inside, as the growing Doukhobor identity crisis erupted into a full-fledged schism between "accommodationist" and "dissenting" Doukhobors. As in Milky Waters, plans once again emerged to resettle the Doukhobors, this time to the Transcaspian region.[121[ Not only were fears of heretical contagion revived, but the special privileges held by the Doukhobors as "colonists"--such as exemption from military service--could no longer be tolerated with other peasants nearby who might also demand them. Such disparities, unfair and unacceptable from the perspective of legislative tidiness, would also draw peasants into the Doukhobor camp. Tolerated in isolation, even held up as examples for all Russian peasants to follow because of their economic achievements and just social structures, in the end the dissenting religious identity proved definitive both for the Russian state and for the Doukhobors themselves.

For their careful reading and critical comments, I would like to thank Alfred J. Rieber, Sheila Fitzpatrick, E. Ann Matter, Josh Sanborn and Jillian Gustin. I would also like to thank Jack Mcintosh at the University of British Columbia Library for his bibliographic help and generosity with his time. Research for this article was made possible by funding from the history department at the University of Pennsylvania.

1. Doukhobors, like other "sects," did not accept the label "sectarian" placed upon them by the Synod and state, believing that they practised and upheld true Christianity in the face of the debauched Orthodox Church and the misguided faith and rituals of other sectarians. Without making judgments on legitimacy or truth, I will continue to use the term sectarian in this article because of its widespread historical usage. However, I will consciously narrow the meaning of "sectarians" here to refer exclusively to the variety of what may be called "indigenous" Christian sects--including, but not limited to, Doukhobortsy, Molokane, Subbotniki, Khlysty and Skoptsy--who broke away entirely from the Orthodox church to embrace new forms of theology and practice. I differentiate them from "imported" Western Protestant sects such as Mennonites, Baptists, Pentecostals, and (to a degree) Shtundisty because of their Russian origin; and from Old Believers, who considered themselves the true practitioners of Orthodoxy and did not challenge the authenticity and authority of the Eastern Church in its fundamentals.

2. Vast amounts of material have been collected on the Doukhobors of the 1890s by the administration, Synod and intelligentsia. Indeed, so great is the disparity in quantity of documentation that it is possible to be convinced that little Doukhobor history of note existed prior to 1886-1895. Tolstoyans, Populists and Social Democrats all strove to publicize the fate of the Doukhobors in the hope of discrediting Tsarism. (For examples, see footnote #3). The image has been perpetuated and enhanced by more recent events such as arson, bombing and nudism on the part of factions within the Doukhobor community in Canada.

3. It is neither the intention, nor within the bounds, of this article to give a detailed discussion of these years. On the post-1886 events see A. I. Klibanov, History of Religious Sectarianism in Russia (1860s-1917), trans. Ethel Dunn, ed. Stephen P. Dunn (New York: Pergamon Press, 1985), pp. 125-140; George Woodcock and Ivan Avakumovic, The Doukhobors (London: Faber and Faber, 1968), pp. 84-152; Josh Sanborn, "State Power and Nonviolent Resistance: The Doukhobors under the Tsarist and Soviet States," unpublished article, 1995; Aylmer Maude, A Peculiar People: The Doukhobors (1904; rpt. New York: AMS Press, Inc., 1970), pp. 150-176; N. Zibarov, O sozhzhenii oruzhiia Doukhoborami (Purleigh, England: A. Tchertkoff, izdanie "Svobodnago slova," 1899); P. Biriukov and V. Chertkov, Polozhenie Doukhoborov na Kavkaze v 1896 godu, i neobkhodimiia sredstva oblegcheniia ikh uchasti ("Broomfield," Croydon, England: Izdanie Vladimira Chertkova, 1897); V. Ol'khovskii [V. D. Bonch-Bruevich], "K istorii russkago Doukhoborchestva," Obrazovanie, 14, No. 9 (1905), pp. 27-56, No. 10, pp. 145203, and No. 11-12, pp. 52-80 [hereafter Bonch-Bruevich, "K istorii,"]; Lieu-tenant-General Kuropatkin, Soobrazheniia nachal'nika Zakaspiiskoi oblasti po voprosu o pereselenii v Zakaspiiskuiu oblast' Doukhoborov-postnikov (n.p., n.d.); I. E. Petrov, "Doukhobory Elizavetpol'skogo uezda," Izvestiia Kavkazskago Otdela Imperatorskago Russkago Geograficheskago Obshchestvo, XVIII, No. 3 (1905-06), pp. 177-186; and Vladimir Tchertkoff [Chertkov], ed., Christian Martyrdom in Russia: Persecution of the Spirit-Wrestlers (or Doukhobortsi) in the Caucasus (London: The Brotherhood Publishing Co., 1897).

5. Approximately 7,000 Doukhobors emigrated from 1898-1903. The exact number of Doukhobors living in Transcaucasia is hard to determine as extant sources vary widely. Depending on the population estimate, anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000 Doukhobors remained in Transcaucasia. This estimate does not include those Doukhobors living outside the Transcaucasian borderlands. For a discussion of this issue which lists some of these estimates, see Klibanov, pp. 111-112.

7. Woodcock and Avakumovic, pp. 108-129. On representations of Doukhobors and sectarians in general see Klibanov, pp. 15-35.

8. I do not mean to suggest that these are the only Doukhobor identities or roles. They are rather those that I have chosen to focus on for the purposes of this discussion. I would like to thank Sheila Fitzpatrick for her invaluable help in formulating this typology.

9. The roles were both created from within the community and also imposed from without by state definitions and demands--in either case, they were embraced or rejected by one or the other group depending on circumstances.

10. My use of the term "accommodationist" is not meant to imply any value judgment. Doukhobor sources point to a great deal of unease among the community over their direction in the mid-nineteenth century--a sense that they were compromising principles and losing their spirituality. I do not wish to intimate that this trend was definitively the case. Rather, I am only trying to highlight how Doukhobor practices during these years were much more likely to work with earthly forces than to deny or challenge them.

11. Lukeria Kalmykova ranks as one of the most important Doukhobor leaders. She governed the sect for twenty-two years, 1864-86, through the time of its greatest wealth.

12. Bryan Wilson, Religious Sects: a Sociological Study (London: World University Library, 1970), pp. 36-47.

13. While other areas of Imperial Russia have received scholarly attention in regard to the processes of internal migration and colonization, little has been done on Transcaucasia. See D. I. Ismail-Zade, Russkoe Krest' ianstvo v zakavkaz'e: 30-e gody XIX-nachalo XX v. (Moskva: Izdatel'stvo Nauka, 1982); and idem., "Russian Settlements in the Transcaucasus From the 1830s to the 1880s," in The Molokan Heritage Collection, ed. Ethel Dunn and Stephen P. Dunn (Berkeley: Highgate Road Social Science Research Station, 1983) section 3. On the process of Russian internal migration in general see A. A. Kaufman, Pereselenie i kolonizatsiia (St. Petersburg: B. Podiach, 1905); Willard Sunderland, "Peasants on the Move: State Peasant Resettlement in Imperial Russia, 1805-1830s," The Russian Review, vol. 52 (October, 1993), pp. 472-485; Francois-Xavier Coquin, La Siberie, peuplement et immigration paysanne au 19e siecle (Paris: Institut des Etudes Slaves, 1969); and David Moon, Russian Peasants and Tsarist Legislation on the Eve of Reform: Interaction between Peasants and Officialdom, 1825-1855 (London: MacMillan Press, 1992), pp. 23-61.

14. Ismail-Zade, "Russian," pp. 51, 53. In 1855, for example, the ethnically Russian migrant population included 3,524 families of sectarians and schismatics as compared to only 156 Orthodox families. Akty Sobrannye Kavkazskogo Arkheogra-ficheskoiu Kommissiiu (Tiflis: 1885) vol. 10, doc. 82, p. 109. [hereafter AKAK and volume number].

15. The veracity of these charged is vehemently and bitterly debated by both sides. "Milky Waters" was the informal name of the area in which the Doukhobors, and other sectarians, were settled in Tauride Guberniia. The name derives from the white color of the river.

16. A member of an 1856 state expedition remarked that "land . . . put into the hands of the conscientious Doukhobors becomes plowed and pasture land, with communal uses and important results for the region that would never come about in the hands of the indigenous population." Quoted in S. A. Inikova, "Vzaimnoot-nosheniia i khoziaistvenno-kul'turnye kontakty kavkazskikh Doukhobortsev s mestnym naseleniem," in Doukhobortsy i molokane v zakavkaz'e, ed, V. I. Kozlov and A. P. Pavlenko (Moscow: Institut Etnologii i Antropologii RAN, 1992), p. 48. Both the priest Ilarion Dzhashi and Governor Shervashidze of Tiflis Guberniia use the imagery of the banner. See Ilarion Dzhashi, "Obshchestvo Slavianskoe, Elizavetpol'skoi gubernii i uezda," Sbornik materialov dlia opisaniia mestnostei i ple-men Kavkaze, No. 27, otd. 2 (Tiflis, 1900), p. 31; and Shervashidze is quoted in A. K. Borozdin, Russkoe religioznoe raznomyslie (St. Petersburg, Prometa, 1907), p. 175.

17. This did not, however, prevent the arbitrary use of power on the part of local officials to harass the Doukhobors on occasion. AKAK, vol. 10, doc. 100, p. 124.

18. For the "state within a state" see Kuropatkin, pp. 4, 19. On tribute see V. I. Terlet-skii, "Sekta Doukhoborov," in Russkie sektanty, ikh uchenie, kul't i sposoby propogandy, ed. M. A. Kal'nev (Odessa: Feoenko, 1911), p. 9. The origins of this form of local/regional governing policy in Transcaueasia remain obscure, especially given the charges of murder and torture in Tauride guberniia. While distance and a marked lack of resources may account to a considerable degree for this fact, the influence of Viceroy M. S. Vorontsov's regionalist and hands-off vision of governance may have played an important role. Anthony L. H. Rhinelander, Prince Michael Vorontsov: Viceroy to the Tsar (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1990), pp. 86-87.

19. S.M. Kravchinskii [Stepniak], The Russian Peasantry.' Their Agrarian Condition, Social Life and Religion (1888; rpt. Westport, Conn.: Hyperion, 1977), p. 234. From another vantage point on the pre-revolutionary political spectrum, the Bolshevik V. D. Bonch-Bruevich argued similarly for the social importance of sectarianism. For him also, the socio-political awakening of the peasantry took place in the form of sectarianism, although in his case towards socialism. V. D. Bonch-Bruevich, Izbrannye sochineniia, (Moscow: Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1961), II, p. 30.

20. Indeed, a case study of the Doukhobortsy begins the task of exploring how spiritual beliefs and practices interwove with social and political systems to produce the lived experience of Russian peasants. Research on the Russian peasantry "from the bottom up" has expanded dramatically over the past fifteen years. See Ben Eklof, "Ways of Seeing: Recent Anglo-American Studies of the Russian Peasant (1861-1914)," in Jahrbucher fur Geschichte Osteuropas, 36, No. 1 (1988), pp. 5779; and Gregory Freeze, "New Scholarship on the Russian Peasantry," in European History Quarterly, 22 (1992), pp. 605-617.

21. The Doukhobors had been sent to Tauride guberniia in New Russia at the beginning of the nineteenth century by the decree of Alexander I. There, they were able for the first time to live in exclusively Doukhobor communities rather than intermixed with Orthodox peasants in geographically diverse villages. In Transcauca-sia the Doukhobors moved initially to Akhalkalakskii uezd, Tiflis guberniia and groups of Doukhobors later moved to Borchalinskii uezd, Tiflis guberniia, Elizavetpol'uezd, Elizavetpol' guberniia and in 1879-81 into Kars territory. For comparison, Malov states that 8,000 Doukhobors moved to Transcaucasia. On Doukhobor history in New Russia see Gary Dean Fry, "The Doukhobors, 18011855: The Origins of a Successful Dissident Sect," Diss. American University, 1976; Maude, pp. 121-149; I. Nil'skii, K istorii Doukhoborchestva i Molokanstva (St. Petersburg: 1886); Orest Novitskii, O Doukhobortsakh (Kiev: 1832); and Peter Malov, Doukhobortsy, ikh istoriia, zhizn' i bor'ba (Thrums, British Columbia: 1948), pp. 20-24.

23. A full exposition of Doukhobor religiosity deserves an article unto itself. See V. D. Bonch-Bruevich, ed., Zhivotnaia Kniga Doukhobortsev, Materialy k istorii i izucheniiu russkago sektantstva i raskola, No. 2 (St. Petersburg: 1909); Ibid, ed. Rag'iasnenie zhizni khristian i Byl u nas, khristian, sirotskii dom, Materialy k istorii k izucheniiu russkago sektantstva II (Christchurch, Hants, England: Svobodnago Slova, 1901); V. Chertkov, ed., Ispovied sektanta, Materialy k istorii russkago sektantstva VIII (Christchurch, Hants, England: Svobodnago Slova, 1904); Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare, Russian Dissenters, Harvard Theological Studies X (1921; rpt. New York: Russell and Russell, 1962); and Terletskii, pp. 1821.

24. This belief came to have exceptional political meaning, as will be discussed below. The sense of the proximity of God and of the spiritual world to the human was also seen among Orthodox peasants, although it was manifested in an entirely different forms. See Pierre Pascal, The Religion of the Russian People (London: Mowbrays, 1976) pp. 11, 25-26.

25. Among Orthodox peasants, the absence of priests and churches to carry out religious services was not uncommon given the requirements on local priests to look after the spiritual needs of a great many villages at the same time. In the absence of a priest, the head of the family typically took on those responsibilities. Pascal, pp. 10, 20-21.

27. The Living Book was not written down until 1900 in Canada by Bonch-Bruevich. See Bonch-Bruevich, Zhivotnaia Kniga.

28. Few psalms were written after the death of Saveli Kapustin in 1820. A defining psalm is "What Manner of Person Art Thou" in which the Doukhobors are "seen as perpetual wanderers, on pilgrimage from a 'land of oppression' and 'a state of confusion' towards the promised land of enlightenment and truth . . . " This vision of oppression and permanent exile pervades Doukhobor thought over the course of the nineteenth century despite their economic and social successes in Transcauca-sia. Woodcock and Avakumovic, p. 28.

29. The content of some psalms even contradicted the essence of Doukhobor doctrine. V. V. Vereshchagin, Doukhobortsy i Molokane v Zakavkaz'e, Shiity v Karabakh, Batchi i opiumoedy v Srednei Azii, i Ober-Amergau v gorakh Bavarii (Moscow: I. N. Kushnerev, 1900), pp. 6-8. Similar criticisms were engendered against Orthodox peasants. Pascal relates how Russians were considered ignorant of dogma by church officials who claimed that two-thirds had no idea of faith and not even ten percent could recite the creed. Pascal, p. 13.

31. Services took place on weekdays after work as well, with the Saturday service most significant of these. Older members of the service sat on benches.

32. Other sources describe this process with three bows rather than two. See Fry's discussion of the "ringed ceremony," Fry, pp. 364-65.

33. The following account of Doukhobor marriage comes from Dzhashi, pp. 32-37. See also Fry, pp. 373-380; and Woodcock and Avakumovic, pp. 72-73. Compare these practices with those described by Christine Worobec, Peasant Russia: Family and Community in the Post-Emancipation Period (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), pp. 151-174; Mary Matossian, "The Peasant Way of Life," in The Peasant in Nineteenth Century Russia, ed. Wayne Vucinich (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968), pp. 25-29; and William Edgerton, ed. and trans., Memoirs of Peasant Tolstoyans in Soviet Russia (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993), pp. 182-184.

34. Fry points out how the 1842 law which outlined the degrees of perniciousness for the sects also dealt at length with questions of marriage. Fry, p. 373.

35. On arranged marriages among Orthodox peasants see Worobec, pp. 188-150; Edgerton, pp. 183-84; and John Bushnell, "Did Serf Owners Control Serf Marriage? Orlov Serfs and Their Neighbors, 1773-1861," in Slavic Review, 52, No. 3 (Fall, 1993), pp. 419-445.

37. Both Matossian and Worobec underscore the struggle among Orthodox peasants to ensure material satisfaction in any marriage arrangement.

39. This was also very much the case in Orthodox peasant weddings. See Worobec, pp. 152-62.

40. S.A. Inikova, "Istoriia i simvolika Doukhoborcheskogo kostiuma;' in Zhivaia Starina, No. 1 (1994), pp. 33-34.

41. On the importance of virginity, the bloody sheet and marriage consummation see Worobec, pp. 169-172; Matossian, pp. 28-29.

42. See Dzhashi, p. 4. Klibanov has a different interpretation. He asserts that poor working habits or physical infirmity on the part of a wife were more than just cause for separation. More often than women, men used the simplicity of divorce proceedings in order to rid themselves of uneconomical spouses. Klibanov, p. 119.

43. Peter Brock, ed. "Vasya Poznyakov's Doukhobor Narrative," in Slavonic and East European Review, 43 (December, 1964 and June, 1965) p. 165.

45. Prior to the reign of Lukeria Kalmykova, Doukhobor governing structures underwent fluctuations from rule by a leader, Ilarion Kalmykov, to rule by council while Ilarion's sons Vasilii and Peter came of age, and then back to rule by leader again under Peter Kalmykov.

46. Compare the internal and external roles of Doukhobor governance to the informal and formal roles of the village mir. See Boris Mironov, "The Russian Peasant Commune After the Reforms of the 1860s," in Slavic Review, 44, No. 3 (Fall 1985), pp. 438-467.

47. For a study of Doukhobor political forms, see Charles Frantz, "The Deukhobor Political System: Social Structure and Social Organization in a Sectarian Society," diss. University of Chicago, 1958.

48. Compromise with secular power was not always the norm among Doukhobor communities. Compare, for instance, the careful policies of Kolesnikov to avoid antagonizing the government to those of his successor Pobirokhin who was eventually arrested for his open defiance of Russian state power. Maude, pp. 111-122; I. Kharmalov, "Doukhobortsy," in Russkaia Mysl', V, No. 11 and 12 (1884), pp. 138161 and 83-114.

50. Kuropatkin, p. 4. That Pobirokhin was able to make this claim and be recognized by his followers as such, witnesses claim, speaks to the charisma of the leaden His Christ assertions, however, led to the first serious schism among the Doukhobors, a split which gave birth to the Molokane. Kharmalov, pp. 83-84; Maude, p. 119.

51. Although, as noted above, during Peter's youth, the council of elders took over the functions of the Christ-leader.

52. Woodcock and Avakumovic find no evidence to support these rumors, however, Woodcock and Avakumovic, pp. 72-73.

59. Petrov relates how both Peter Kalmykov's wife and the Doukhobor community forgave him of his sins and excesses, p. 177. For a description of Lukeria Kalmykova's funeral which relates the degree of emotion for her, see "Pogrebenie Doukhoborcheskoi prorochitsy - Luker'i Kalmykovoi," in Missionerskoe Obozrenie, Book 1 (January 1896), pp. 92-94. For a discussion of memorial celebrations, see Dzhashi, pp. 37-39; and "Prazdestvo pominok na Doukhoborskom kladbishche," in Missionerskoe Obozrenie, X, No. 9 (June, 1905), pp. 1333-1356.

60. This distinction between temporal and spiritual power was not made by the Doukhobors themselves. It is a construct of the author.

62. Bonch-Bruevich, "K istorii" p. 31. Similarly, Vasia Pozdniakov relates how "the Doukhobors possessed from long ago a charitable institution called the Orphan House, which was, however, more a center of spiritual and common activity of the Doukhobors than an asylum, as the orphans and the old, helpless people found usually refuge in their native village." Brock, p. 162.

63. Following the Russo-Turkish war, during which the Doukhobors provided invaluable assistance to the Russian army, the latter received a large amount of money from the Russian government--perhaps as much as 1.5 million rubles--as well as land in Kars territory. Kuropatkin, p. 10.

64. Dzhashi quotes the Doukhobors as saying "take what you need, you don't need to keep accounts." p. 8. On loans and interest rates see Inikova, Vzaimno, p. 51. Klibanov's statement may reflect too hard an effort to fit the Doukhobors into their role as capitalists. Klibanov, pp. 120, 122.

65. On the Orphan Home in New Russia, see Fry, p. 325; Maude, p. 133; Malov, p. 23.

67. Compared to the estimates of other sources Bonch-Bruevich's financial numbers appear quite high. Petrov, for instance, states that when title to the wealth of the Sirotskii dom was given by court order to the family of Lukeria Kalmykova (rather than being held by the entire community) the value found there was 150,000 rubles. However, Vasia Pozdniakov agrees with Bonch-Bruevich's claim of half a million rubles. Petrov, p. 178; Brock, p. 162.

69. Apparently, he even resembled the German Chancellor. Terletskii, pp. 9-10. Zubkov was also nicknamed Chaldean for his stellar work.

71. In addition to the elder, deputy and judges, societal functions in the village were also carried out by officials elected in a general assembly [skhod] of the village: four tax collectors, six errand boys, two traveling agents and four clerks. Dzhashi notes how traditionally positions of power in the village went to elders but that the stariki were slowly losing power to youth that had a much greater tendency towards independent action.

72. Contrast Dzhashi, p. 8, with Terletskii, pp. 10-11. Woodcock and Avakumovic claim that Kalmykova, in her efforts both to stop wife-beating in Doukhoboriia and to control public drunkenness, turned to public whipping with twigs when other methods did not succeed. Woodcock and Avakumovic, p. 71.

74. Klibanov makes an overly strong case for the class origins of the Doukhobor schism in the late nineteenth century. However, his description of a society undergoing social and wealth differentiation adds much to our understanding of the Doukhobor past. Klibanov, pp. 105-148, passim. For a good discussion of Klibanov's work and its uses for western historians see Ethel Dunn, "Russian Sectarianism in New Soviet Marxist Scholarship," in Slavic Review, 26, No. 1 (March 1967), pp. 128-140.

75. "Vliianie maliarii na kolonizatsiiu Kavkaza," in Kavkazskii Kalendar' na 1899 god (Tiflis: Sharadze, 1898), pp. 35-93; and Malov, p. 24.

76. A.N. Iamskov, "Environmental Conditions and Ethnocultural Traditions of Stock-breeding (the Russians in Azerbaijan in the 19th and early 20th Centuries)," paper given at the 12th International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, Zagreb, Yugoslavia, July 24-31, 1988 (Moscow: Nauka, Central Department of Oriental Literature, 1988), passim; and Inikova, Vzaimno, p. 55. On Doukhobor petitions for relocation within Transcaucasia and government response thereto see AKAK vol. 10, doc. 96, p. 119 and doc. 100, p. 124.

77. Doukhobor carts were sturdier in design and more efficient in function. Based on the German model and likely absorbed during their years at Milky Waters from neighboring Mennonites, these carts had four wheels and a fence-like structure that surrounded the flatbed on all four sides. These compared favorably to the smaller two-wheel structures traditional to the region. The Doukhobors also used horses rather than oxen to pull the carts.

82. Malov, pp. 25-26. A discussion of Doukhobor economic success in light of Max Weber's theories would prove enlightening for the comparative study of sociology and religion. See Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, trans. Talcott Parsons (New York: Routledge, 1992).

83. In the nineteenth century, the inhabitants of contemporary Azerbaidzhan were called "Tatar." For the sake of consistency, I will continue to use this same nomenclature. On bad relations see Inikova, Vzaimno, p. 48.

85. The Doukhobors held between 11 and 12 desiatina per male, two to three times the amount of the Armenians or Tatars. Inikova, Vzaimno, p. 47.

86. For the attacks of the surrounding population, see Inikova, Vzaimno, p. 46; Vereshchagin, p. 21. On state efforts to stop attacks see AKAK, vol. 10, doc. 98, p. 123. On the failure of such efforts see Vereshchagin, p. 21.

87. Klibanov, p. 122. Indeed, Klibanov sees the Doukhobors as very much the aggressors in their relations with Tatars and Armenians, using violence to enhance their wealth.

90. On the confrontational relations between sectarians and Orthodox see Kuropatkin, p. 16 and Ismail-Zade, Russkoe, p. 61. On government efforts at segregation see AKAK, vol. 10, doc. 99, p. 124.

91. I would like to thank E. Ann Matter for her insightful comments on this theme.

93. For a overview of issues surrounding Tsarist policy in the borderlands see Alfred J. Rieber, "Straggle Over the Borderlands," in The Legacy of History in Russia and the New States of Eurasia, ed. S. Frederick Starr (Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1994), pp. 61-89.

94. Unless otherwise noted, the following discussion is drawn from D. I. Ismail-Zade, Russkoe, and idem., "Russian". Military colonies were also attempted in New Russia, see Rhinelander, pp. 72-73.

95. Inikova, pp. 44-45. On the policy in general, see for example, AKAK, vol. 10, doc. 97, pp. 119-120; and AKAK, vol. 7 (1878), doc. 415, p. 466.

97. On the internal resettlement of state peasants at this time, particularly to New Russia, see Sunderland, passim.

100 Inikova, p. 46. On the general state policy of arming colonists on the frontier, see AKAK, vol. 10, doc. 100, p. 124.

105. Malov, p. 26. Note should be made here of Kalmykova's use of gender constructions to support her actions.

106. Maude gives the figure of 27, whereas Klibanov states that there were 1,000 who remained behind. Maude, p. 147; Klibanov, p. 109. The former appears closer to the mark, however. For instance, in 1845, of the 689 men and 797 women who were initially counted as the fifth and final party of Doukhobors to make the trip to the Transcaucasus, four men and ten women converted to Orthodoxy and remained behind. AKAK, vol. 10, doc. 96, p. 119.

107. Polnoe Sobranie Zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii, sobranie vtoroe (St. Petersburg), vol. 14 (1839) doc. 12338; vol. 22 (1847) doc. 20889; and vol. 34 (1859), doc. 34324. See also AKAK, vol. 7 (1878), doc. 415, p. 466; Maude, p. 147; and Vereshcha-gin, p. 4. These converts did, however, undergo substantial scrutiny in their new locations in order to ensure the truth of their conversion.

110. Tiflis Governor Shervashidze assures that the Doukhobors did fulfill these requirements, and in an exemplary manner. Shervashidze is quoted in Borozdin, p. 174.

114. Shervashidze is quoted in Borozdin, p. 175. That they should be called "Russian" is significant for delineating the moving boundaries of Russian identity since the Doukhobors lacked almost entirely in all three traditional categories of official "Russianness": Orthodoxy, Nationality and Autocracy. See Nicholas Riasanovsky, Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825-1855 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959).

115. Quoted in Klibanov, p. 110. The question of ethnic origins of the Doukhobors remains unexplored. As both Inikova and Ismail-Zade point out, while Russian was the lingua franca, not all Doukhobors were Russian of ethnos. Also included were Ukrainians, Mordvinians and Don Cossacks. See Inikova, Vzaimno, pp. 5152; and Ismail-Zade, Russkoe, pp. 60-61. In a recent pamphlet, two Doukhobor authors describe the Doukhobors as a "social movement" as well as a religion. Larry A. Ewashen and Koozma J. Tarasoff, In Search of Utopia: The Doukhobors (n.p.: Spirit Wrestlers Associates, 1994), p. 34.

116. This anomaly provides another example of the significant distinctions between Imperialism in the Russian and Western European contexts. On questions of Russia's lack of "mission" see Alfred J. Rieber, "Russian Imperialism: Popular, Emblematic, Ambiguous," in The Russian Review, 53 (July 1994), p. 331.

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Building Doukhoboriia: Religious culture, social identity and Russian colonization in Transcaucasia 1845-1895

Building Doukhoboriia: Religious culture, social identity and
Russian colonization in Transcaucasia 1845-1895