The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Dukhobors

(“fighters for the spirit”), members of an extreme Protestant sect. The movement originated in the second half of the 18th century among peasants of Voronezh, Tambov, and Ekaterinoslav provinces, as well as in Slobodskaia Ukraina (Kharkov Province and parts of Kursk and Voronezh provinces, where Ukrainian peasants founded many slobody [settlements]). These were regions in which the khlystovstvo (flagellant sect) was widespread and to which Quaker teachings may have penetrated.

The Dukhobors believe that there is an eternal struggle in the world between the spiritual (the followers of Abel) and the carnal (the followers of Cain, including authorities, unfair judges, and the wealthy). They consider themselves the followers of Abel, the true people, and the chosen nation that has been called upon to build peace on earth and to realize brotherhood in the spirit of god’s truth. In their opinion, their leader is Christ incarnate, who elects his successor. The leader is assisted by a council of elders. The Dukhobors do not recognize any rites, except marriage. They have many special psalms that are sung at prayer meetings.

In order to populate the southern frontiers of Russia, Alexander I gave permission in 1804 to the Dukhobors to settle along the Molochnaia River in Melitopol’ district, Tauride Province. In 1841 they were resettled in Transcaucasia (Akhalkalaki District, the so-called Mokrye Mountains). At this time, a schism developed among the Dukhobors, which led in the 1880’s to the creation of a large and a small (prosperous) party. The latter did not advocate social protest but demanded the punishment of those who opposed the tsar’s will. Between 1898 and 1900 some of the Dukhobors were sent to Canada, where their communities still exist.

REFERENCES

Novitskii, O. Dukhobortsy: ikh istoriia i verouchenie, 2nd ed. Kiev, 1882.
Bonch-Bruevich, V. D. Sektantstvo i staroobriadchestvo v l-i pol. XIX v . (collection of articles), vol. 1. Moscow, 1959.
Klibanov, A. I. Istoriia religioznogo sektantstva v Rossii (60-e gody XIX V.-1917 g .) Moscow, 1965.

A. I. ROGOV

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References in periodicals archive

By the end of the eighteenth century, Spiritual Christianity had split into two major branches, the Dukhobors and the Molokans, who were divided over the authority of the canonical scriptures.

Over the course of the nineteenth century, the most radical Dukhobors and Molokans also embraced an uncompromising pacifism, which was expressed most dramatically in 1895 when Dukhobors organized a mass burning of arms as a protest against war.

The woman clothed in the sun: pacifism and apocalyptic discourse among Russian spiritual Christian Molokan-jumpers

(9) Sectarians comprise dozens of larger and smaller religious groups, the best-known being the Dukhobors, Molokans, Skoptsy, and Khlysty.

M. A. Babkin, ed., The Russian Clergy and the Downfall of the Monarchy in 1917: Materials and Archival Documents on the History of the Russian Orthodox Church/Rossiiskoe dukhovenstvo i sverzhenie monarkhii v 1917 godu: Materialy i arkhivnye dokumenty po istorii Russkoi pravoslavnoi tserkvi

When Rancour-Laferriere writes that Tolstoy violated the principle by "aggressively fighting" evil, the examples he presents are no more "aggressive" than the nonviolent activities of raising funds to finance the Dukhobors' emigration, helping peasants rebuild huts that had been destroyed by fire, and denouncing the pogroms among the Jews (107).

It seems clear even from the examples of Tolstoy's nonviolent resistance that Rancour-Laferriere cites--raising funds to aid the Dukhobors, helping peasants rebuild their huts destroyed by fire, urging civil disobedience, and so on--that nonresistance as Tolstoy practiced it has no significant masochistic content; Rancour-Laferriere himself draws a sharp line between those activities and "masochistic compliance" to authority (106).

Daniel Rancour-Laferriere's Tolstoy's Quest for God

By tsarist decree of Nicholas I in October 1830, thousands (the author is never very clear about the precise numbers) of Dukhobors, Molokans, and Subbotniks were relocated from their Russian and Ukrainian villages to lands south of the Caucasus Mountains.

In the final third of the volume, the author is particularly effective in lending agency to one particular subgroup of the migration--namely, the oppositionist Russian Dukhobors of Transcaucasia who, motivated in part by religious revival, launched in 1895 an insurgency movement directed against the imposition of universal military conscription.

Heretics and Colonizers: Forging Russia's Empire in the South Caucasus

It is interesting to read about the origins of two representative groups of "spiritual Christians" (the Dukhobors and the Molokans), as well as the historical survey of the raskol (schism) within the Russian Orthodox Church, which burst onto the stage of history following the reforms instituted by Patriarch Nikon.

The subdivisions of the introduction--"Leo Tolstoy and Timofej Bondarev," "Brief Outline of the Molokans," "Leo Tolstoy and Fedor Zheltov," "Brief Outline of the Dukhobors," "Leo Tolstoy and Petr V.

Leo Tolstoy and Russian Peasant Sectarian Writers: Selected Correspondence

The sectarian Dukhobors, Molokans, and Subbomiks had broken with the Church in the late 18th century ina demonstration yet again of the vitality of popular spirituality among the Russian population, becoming outcasts in the eyes of the state.

Peopling the empires: practices, perceptions, policies

The arguments and practices of differentiated rights are visible in the odyssey of the Dukhobors, the subject of a recent monograph by Nicholas Breyfogle.

An Imperial rights regime: law and citizenship in the Russian empire

After making the acquaintance of the Birukovs, the author described their living room as "a replica of Mahatma Gandhi's ashram in every detail." There were four photographs on the walls, two of Canadian Dukhobor camps, the third of Gandhi and the fourth of Tolstoy.

Leo Tolstoy from 1901-2010 in two leading English-language newspapers in India