Today, only about 100 Doukhobors remain in the close-knit, Russian-speaking farming community of two remote mountain villages in southern Georgia.
A 10-year-old boy listens proudly with his father monotonous hymns of old women She wore embroidered scarves and long colorful skirts. Ilya, who attended the night prayer meeting for the first time in the small town of Gorelovka in Georgia in the South Caucasus, is determined to follow the centuries-old hymns passed down from generation to generation.
There are no priests or iconography. There are just men and women praying togetherAs have the Doukhobors since this pacifist Christian sect emerged in Russia in the 18th century.
Almost two centuries ago, Thousands of their ancestors were deported They were taken to the borders of the Russian Empire for rejecting the Orthodox Church and refusing to serve in the army of Tsar Nicholas I, much like the thousands of men who fled Russia two years earlier to avoid conscription to take part in the Russian invasion of Moscow.
Right now, There are only about 100 doukhobors left in the close-knit Russian-speaking farming community of two remote mountain villages.
“Our people are dying,” Ilya’s mother, Svetlana Svetlishcheva, 47, told The Associated Press as she walked with her family to an old cemetery.
The roots of the doukhobors in Imperial Russia
Some 5,000 Doukhobor exiled in the mid-19th century They founded 10 villages near the border with the hostile Ottoman Empire, where they continued to preach nonviolence and worship without priests or religious rituals.
Society became richer and It had approximately 20,000 members.. Some of them were the new Tsar II. When they refused to swear allegiance to Nicholas and protested by burning guns, authorities launched a violent crackdown and sent nearly 4,000 people to live elsewhere in the vast Russian Empire.
Nonviolence is the basis of Doukhobor culturesays Yulia Mokshina, a professor at Mordovia State University (Russia), who studied the group.
His situation attracted the attention of the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoywho is also a pacifist He donated proceeds from his latest novel, Resurrection, to approximately 7,500 Doukhobors to immigrate to Canada escaping persecution.
And by the way, prayers never stopped, even when the Soviet authorities brutally suppressed religious activities.
A shaky belief?
“There was not a single Sunday without prayer,” says 46-year-old Yuri Strukov, speaking proudly from the village of Orlovka, where he has lived for 30 years.
Like other members of the rural community, Strukov owns livestock and produces cottage cheese, sour cream, and pickled cheese called Yumurtaguni, which he sells in a nearby village. His lifestyle is hard: It can withstand freezing temperatures in winter and drought in summer, and the remote village is a three-hour drive from the nearest major city, which no longer attracts many Doukhobors.
“It has changed because the community has become smaller“says Strukov. “Our small number leaves a heavy mark on the soul.”
Golden age of the Doukhobors
Doukhobors in Soviet times One of the best collective farms in the region. However, with the collapse of Georgia, nationalist sentiments flare up. Soviet Union caused many people to return to Russia in the late 1980s.
“We did not relocate, we returned,” says Dmitry Zubkov, 39, who was part of the first convoy of 1,000 Doukhobors that set off from Gorelovka in 1989 towards what is now Western Russia. Zubkov and his family settled in the village of Arkhangelskoye. , in the Tula region of Russia. Strukov is also considering moving.
ADVERTAfter the departure of several waves of Doukhobors, Georgians and Armenians settled here (Orlovka, near the Armenian border), and he says relations between them and the shrinking Doukhobor community were tense. Four members of his family are the last Doukhobors living in Orlovka.
However, his place of worship and the graves of his ancestors prevent him from leaving.
“The whole world is wet with the prayers, sweat and blood of our ancestors.“We are always trying to find solutions to different situations so that we can stay here and preserve our culture, traditions, rituals.”
Doukhobor rites have traditionally been passed down from one generation to the next by word of mouth, and Strukov’s 21-year-old daughter, Daria Strukova, feels the sentiment, too. The urgency of learning everything you can from senior members of the community.
ADVERT“I always worry that such a deep and interesting culture will be lost if we do not return in time,” says Strukova.
He says he considered converting to the Georgian Orthodox Church while studying in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, where faith has a great impact. However, when he heard it, his doubts disappeared. a doukhobor choir during a prayer meeting.
“I realized this was what I was missing, this was what I couldn’t find anywhere,” he says. “I now know that the Doukhobor faith will always be with me until the end of my life.”
Zubkov says Strukova’s wavering faith is not unusual among Doukhobors in Russia. Once they assimilate into Russian society, get to know the big cities, speak the same language and share traditions with the local population, they will of course be attracted to the dominant religion.
ADVERT“People didn’t want to come forward,” he says. “Unfortunately, we assimilated too quickly.”
About 750 Doukhobors settled in Arkhangelskoye more than 30 years ago. Only a few old women now attend Sunday prayers, and only a few doukhobors sing traditional hymns at funerals. Zubkov He predicts that this culture will disappear completely within ten years. at Arkhangelskoye.
Doukhobors, whose families began living in Canada more than a century ago, do not feel a strong connection to the towns these are sacred to the Strukov family. What matters, they say, is their faith and the pacifist principles that support it.
“We don’t have specific places or historical sites that have any spiritual meaning,” says John J. Verigin Jr., who heads Canada’s largest Doukhobor organization. “Which We strive to maintain our commitment to these core principles throughout our organization. our understanding of life
ADVERTBut Ilya in Gorelovka is relieved to know this Your community, culture and faith are based on a place founded by your ancestors.. “I see myself as a tall adult who will pray every day wearing a doukhobor,” says Ilya. “I will love coming here, I love it here now too.”
