Duchoborzen

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The "orphanage" (Sirotski dom), "headquarters" of the Duchoborzen movement from the middle of the 19th century, in Gorelowka, Samtskhe -Javakheti , Georgia (built in 1847)

The Duchoborzen (also Duchoboren, Russian Духоборы or Духоборцы , "mental fighters ") are a Christian religious community originating from Russia , which deviates from the Russian Orthodox Church .

The Duchoborzen reject a secular government, the divine inspiration of the Bible and the divinity of Jesus ( non-trinitarians ). In addition, they are strict pacifists and refuse to serve in the war as well as the oath .

history

Gorelowka, a Duchoborzen village in the Caucasus (1893)

The Duchoborzen first appeared under Tsar Peter the Great and Tsarina Anna in Moscow and other cities. The Guard Corporal Kapustin, who was regarded by the faithful as an embodiment of the Savior, gave them a fixed church order. They were fought hard under Catherine II and Paul I , while Alexander I tolerated them. In 1804 he assigned them the Taurian Governorate as a settlement area.

Because they honored the tsar and paid taxes on time, the government initially did not interfere in their lives. However, they were accused by the common people of secret atrocities and acts of violence that were supposed to take place during their secret gatherings. An investigation initiated as a result led to the punishment of their community leaders, called apostles and angels. Under the rule of Tsar Nicholas I , a large number of the Ujesden Achalkalaki , Kars (since 1921 part of Turkey) and Ardahan (also part of Turkey since 1921) were resettled to Transcaucasia in 1841 . In the southwest of Georgia, in today's Samtskhe-Javakheti region , they founded a closed community with 18 villages and a total of 11,000 inhabitants (including Bogdanowka, today's Ninozminda ), which was called Duchoborje . In many ways it resembled the Hutterite communities .

In 1887 there were internal disputes in the community that led to a split. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, discrimination and expulsion measures began against the Duchoborzen. Many emigrated to Canada and the USA or were deported to Eastern Siberia by the Russian government . Only a few stayed in their homeland. The writer Lev Tolstoy raised money for the Duchoborzen. He had a school and an orphanage built and financed the passage of 2000 emigrants to America. They received further support from Anglo-Saxon Quakers , a religious community of the historical peace churches . In Canada, too, there were internal disputes, the most radical group called themselves “Sons of Freedom” and set fire to schools that were attended by Duchoborz children. Two leaders of the “Sons of Freedom” were killed in bomb attacks directed against them, in which numerous other people were also torn to their deaths.

The religiously based antinomism of the Duchoborzen also led to considerable conflicts with the authorities in Canada, especially in British Columbia. The Duchoborzen refused z. B. to be entered in the civil status registers and to send their children to public schools. If one of them was arrested or even convicted for violating the law, there were immediate mass protests in which the Duchoborzen tore their clothes off their bodies and staged a march stark naked. At times there were violent protests, with schools set on fire and public institutions blown up. The reaction of the authorities was correspondingly harsh: in 1932 around one thousand Duchoborzen were sentenced to three years in prison. In order to be able to do this, the Canadian authorities first had to build additional prisons. The Duchoborzen came into conflict with the law again and again because of the promiscuity they practiced : They justified their rejection of monogamy by stating that any private property, be it things or people, was the main cause of social disorder. Due to their promiscuity, it was often not possible in the past to determine who the father of a Duchoborzen was, also because the initiative for the selection of men usually lay with the Duchoborzen women.

Current situation

At the beginning of the 1990s there were still 7500 Duchoborzen living in Georgia. After the election of the nationalist President Swiad Gamsachurdia , there was another wave of refugees because attempts were made to oust them from their country. In fact, the only remaining Duchoborz village with a predominantly Russian population is Gorelowka 10 kilometers southeast of Ninozminda. Many Duchoborzen went to Russia, settled there in the North Caucasus and in the Tula , Rostov and Brjansk regions . In 1991 the Union of the Duchoborzen of Russia was founded in Rostov-on-Don . In a special resolution of December 9, 1998, the Russian government guaranteed the Duchoborzen special rights.

According to different estimates, 20,000 to 40,000 descendants of the emigrants live in Canada from the end of the 19th century. In 2011, however, only 2290 people called themselves believing Duchoborzen, more than 80% of them in British Columbia . The maximum number was just under 17,000 in 1941 and has fallen continuously since then. Today's largest and most active Duchoborzen organization in Canada, the Union of Spiritual Communities of Christ (USSC), founded in 1938 as the successor organization to the Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood (CCUB), is based in Grand Forks and operates a cultural center in Castlegar , both British Columbia. There is also the Doukhobor Discovery Center, a museum about the culture of the Duchoborzen. Several sites related to the Duchoborzen are classified as National Historic Site of Canada , such as the Doukhobor Suspension Bridge (also called Old Brilliant Bridge), a suspension bridge built by Duchoborzen in 1913 over the Kootenay River near Castlegar (since 1995) and the place Veregin bei Kamsack in Saskatchewan (since 2006), where the administrative and spiritual center of the Duchoborzen was in the first phase after the emigration from around 1905 to 1931 (named after Pjotr ​​Werigin , English also Peter Verigin, spiritual leader of a large part of the Duchoborzen from 1886 until his death in an assassination attempt in 1924).

Duchoborzen in Slavyanka Azerbaijan

See also

literature

Web links

Commons : Duchoborzen  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ "Quakers", No. 6 Nov./Dec. 2010 - year 84. ISSN  1619-0394 , page 250
  2. ↑ Sons of Freedom Facts and History (French)
  3. ↑ Article: “They tear their clothes off their bodies”, in: Neue Ruhr-Zeitung No. 21 (1950)
  4. ↑ Statistics Canada: Religion in 2011 National Household Survey: Data tables
  5. ↑ Website of the USSC (English)
  6. ↑ Website of the Doukhobor Discovery Center (English)