Baptism, authority, and the problem of Zakonnost' in Orenburg diocese: The induction of over 800 "pagans" into the christian faith

Slavic Review

Volumn 56, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 456-480

  Werth, Paul W ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 34248111667     PISSN: 00376779     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2500925     Document Type: Article

References (135)

1. "O kreshchenii cheremis Birskago uezda," Orenburgskiia gubernskiia vedomosti 43 (1846): 518.
2. While recognizing the loaded character of the term pagan, I use it in this article out of convenience, in order to refer to people who were officially considered "pagans" (iazychniki) by the Russian government.
3. The phrase "happy beginning" appears in V. M. Cheremshanskii, Opisanie Orenburgskoi gubernii v khoziaistvenno-statisticheskom, etnograficheskom i promyshlennom otnosheniiakh (Ufa, 1859), 182-83.
4. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv (RGIA), f. 383, op. 8, d. 6977, ll. 1, 23-24 (Complaint of Cheremis of Orenburg province about their forcible baptism).
5. A partial list of the most recent works includes Yuri Slezkine, "Savage Christians or Unorthodox Russians? The Missionary Dilemma in Siberia," in Yuri Slezkine and Galya Diment, eds., Between Heaven and Hell: The Myth of Siberia in Russian Culture (New York, 1993), 15-31;
6. Robert Paul Geraci, "Window on the East: Ethnography, Orthodoxy, and Russian Nationality in Kazan', 1870-1914" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1995);
7. Wayne Dowler, "The Politics of Language in Non-Russian Elementary Schools in the Eastern Empire, 1865-1914," Russian Review 54, no. 4 (1995): 516-38;
8. Michael Khodarkovsky, "'Not by Word Alone': Missionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russia," Comparative Studies in Society and History 38, no. 2 (1996): 267-93.
9. I refer in this article to "baptism" rather than to "conversion," since my concern here is with the formal induction of these Maris into Christianity, rather than their religious consciousness, about which available sources give us only limited insight.
10. Svod zakonov Rossitskoi Imperii (1842), vol. 14, arts. 28, 46-49, 51-53.
11. Svod zakonov (1842), vol. 14, art. 92.
12. Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii, 1st ser., vol. 13, no. 9825.
13. RGIA, f. 796, op. 126, d. 213, l. 54-54ob. (On baptism and apostasy of Cheremis). For a full description of the sacrament of baptism, see Amvrosii, "Tainstvo kreshcheniia po chinu pravoslavnoi tserkvi," Strannik, 1864, no. 1:1-50.
14. RGIA, f. 796, op. 129, d. 1542, l. 172ob. (Measures for the conversion of idolators in Viatka, Kazan', Perm', and Orenburg provinces).
15. For more information on these material benefits, see Paul W. Werth, "Subjects for Empire: Orthodox Mission and Imperial Governance in the Volga-Kama Region, 1825-1881" (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1996).
16. M. A. Reisner notes the relative freedom that pagan status entailed, since there was no codified religious discipline upheld by the state. See his Gosudarstvo i veruiushchaia lichnost': Sbornik statei (St. Petersburg, 1905), 217-20.
17. For background on Maris, see K. I. Kozlova, Ocherki etnicheskoi istorii mariiskogo naroda (Moscow, 1978).
18. On the eighteenth-century baptisms, see Khodarkovsky, "'Not by Word Alone,'" 283-87;
19. E. A. Malov, O novokreshchenskoi kontore (Kazan', 1878).
20. On the eastward migrations, see G. A. Sepeev, Vostochnye Mariitsy: Istoriko-etnograficheskoe issledovanie material'noi kul'tury (seredina XIX-nachala XX vv.) (Ioshkar-Ola, 1975), 35-41;
21. U. Kh. Rakhmatullin, Naselenie Bashkirii v XVII-XVIII vv: Voprosy formiravaniia nebashkirskogo naseleniia (Moscow, 1988), 80-90.
22. The other pagans in the Birsk district were predominantly Udmurt. See Cheremshanskii, Opisanie Orenburgskoi gubernii, 194.
23. The numbers and proportions of the rural population of Birsk district in 1863 were as follows: Orthodox Christians: 66,296 (23.8 percent); Muslims: 157,700 (56.6 percent); "other non-Christians" (almost exclusively pagans): 54,647 (19.6 percent). Source: "O chisle zhitelei Orenburgskoi gubernii po veroispovedaniiam za 1863 g.," Pamiatnaia knizhka Orenburgskoi gubernii za 1865 g. (Ufa, 1865).
24. The church had published just a few basic Mari texts (none of them in the eastern dialect), which were intended to be read aloud by local clergy to their Mari parishioners. See I. G. Ivanov, Istoriia mariiskogo literaturnogo iazyka (Ioshkar-Ola, 1975).
25. Cheremshanskii, Opisanie Orenburgskoi gubernii, 183;
26. S. Nurminskii, "Ocherk religioznykh verovanii cheremis," Pravoslavnyi sobesednik, vol. 3 (1862): 284-85;
27. F. Alonzov, "O religioznykh verovaniiakh cheremis Birskago uezda," in Pamiatnaia knizhka Orenburgskoi gubernii za 1865 god (Ufa, 1865), 1-3.
28. See "Imena bogov Cheremiskikh," Zavolzhskii muravei, 1833, no. 16:924-25;
29. and Thomas A. Sebeok and Frances J. Ingemann, Studies in Cheremis: The Supernatural (New York, 1956).
30. The keremet cult was widespread among the peoples of the Volga-Kama region. See Il'ia Sofiiskii, "O keremetiakh kreshchennykh tatar Kazanskago kraia," Izvestiia po Kazanskoi eparkhii, 1877, no. 24:674-89;
31. V. K. Magnitskii, Materialy k ob'' iasneniiu staroi chuvashskoi very (Kazan', 1881), 1-11;
32. R. G. Akhmet'ianov, Obshchaia leksika dukhovnoi kul'tury narodov srednego Povolzh'ia (Moscow, 1981), 31-33.
33. V. M. Vasil'ev, Materialy dlia izucheniia verovanii i obriadov naroda Marii (Krasnokokshaisk, 1927), 21-28.
34. Alonzov, "O religioznykh verovaniiakh cheremis Birskago uezda," 3;
35. Cheremshanskii, Opisanie Orenburgskoi gubernii, 184.
36. For example, F. Zemliatnitskii, "Neskol'ko slov po povodu iazycheskikh sueverii cheremis Tsarevokokshaiskago uezda," Izvestiia po Kazanskoi eparkhii, 1871, no. 8:244-45.
37. See the discussion of this issue with respect to the Inner Asian religious environment more broadly in Devin DeWeese, Islamization and Native Religion in the Golden Horde: Baba Tükles and Conversion to Islam in Historical and Epic Tradition (University Park, Pa., 1994), 29-39.
38. For an example of a large Mari gathering in Viatka province, see Werth, "Subjects for Empire," chap. 4.
39. RGIA, f. 796, op. 126, d. 213, ll. 92, 95ob.; "O kreshchenii," 518. The term kalmash itself signified a sacred place for such sacrifices deep in the forest. Unfortunately, I have no further information on the significance of this site.
40. Alonzov, "O religioznykh verovaniiakh cheremis Birskago uezda," 8;
41. V. P. Vishnevskii, "O religii nekreshchennykh cheremis Kazanskoi gubernii," Etnograficheskii sbornik, 1858, no. 4:209-14; RGIA, f. 797, op. 3, d. 12654, l. 22ob. (Gatherings of baptized and unbaptized Cheremis for sacrifices). The term kart (elder) is a borrowing from the Tatar language.
42. RGIA, f. 797, op. 3, d. 12654, l. 4; RGIA, f. 808, op. 1, d. 134, l. 43 (Letters of Russian Bible Society).
43. Even in 1896 Petr Eruslanov contended that Maris in Birsk district were less subject to Muslim influence than their counterparts in Belebei and Menzelinsk districts. See Eruslanov, "Kratkii ocherk o poezdke k cheremisam Ufimskoi gubernii letom 1896 g.," Etnograficheskoe obozrenie (1896): 324-29.
44. RGIA, f. 383, op. 8, d. 6977, l. 15. We unfortunately have no details on these earlier conversions.
45. A. F. Komov, "Cheremisy i votiaki serediny severnoi poloviny (vtoroi stan) Birskago uezda," Ufimskiia gubernskiia vedomosti, 1889, nos. 38 and 42.
46. For more information on interethnic contacts, see N. I. Isanbaev, "Mezhetnicheskie sviazi vostochnykh mariitsev," in Etnogenez i etnicheskaia istoriia mariitsev (Ioshkar-Ola, 1988), 87-98;
47. and Petr Eruslanov, "Magometanskaia propaganda sredi cheremis Ufimskoi gubernii," Pravoslavnyi blagovestnik, 1895, nos. 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 21, and 22.
48. In 1837, close to three-quarters of Birsk district was forest. See Iosif Debu, Topograficheskoe i statisticheskoe opisanie Orenburgskoi gubernii v nyneshnem eia sostoianii (Moscow, 1837), 148.
49. Sepeev, Vostochnye Mariitsy, 108-22;
50. G. A. Sepeev, "Osobennosti tipologii i planirovki mariiskikh poselenii," in G. A. Arkhipov and G. A. Sepeev, eds., Poseleniia i zhilishcha Mariiskogo kraia (Ioshkar-Ola, 1982), 159-89;
51. Ivan Zlatoverkhovnikov, Ufimskaia eparkhiia: Geograficheskii, administrativno-istoricheskii i statisticheskii ocherk (Ufa, 1899), 27;
52. and N. Kharuzin, "Ocherk istorii razvitiia zhilishcha u finnov," Etnograficheskoe obozrenie 24, no. 1 (1895): 35-78,
53. and Etnograficheskoe obozrenie 24, no. 2 (1895): 50-104.
54. "O kreshchenii," 517.
55. Teptiars were a multiethnic soslovie with a status somewhere between state peasants and Bashkirs. For details on their origins and ethnic composition, see Rakhmatullin, Naselenie Bashkirii, 127-82,
56. and D. M. Iskhakov, "Teptiari: Opyt etnostatisticheskogo izucheniia," Sovetskaia etnografia, 1979, no. 4:29-42.
57. Rakhmatullin, Naselenie Bashkirii, 130-39;
58. and M. I. Rodnov, "Chislennost' tiurkskogo krest'ianstva Ufimskoi gubernii v nachale XX v.," Etnograficheskoe obozrenie 6 (1996): 121-31.
59. Cheremshanskii, Opisanie Orenburgskoi gubernii, 130-43;
60. Ocherki istorii Bashkirskoi ASSR, 2 vols. (Ufa, 1959), vol. 1, pt. 2, pp. 37-48.
61. Before 1838, state peasants came under the fiscal jurisdiction of the Ministry of Finance, but local police officials principally oversaw their administration. See George Bolotenko, "Administration of State Peasants in Russia before the Reforms of 1838" (Ph.D. diss., University of Toronto, 1979).
62. N. M. Druzhinin, Gosudarstvennye krest'iane i reforma P. D. Kiseleva, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1946 and 1958), vol. 1;
63. A. P. Zablotskii-Desiatovskii, Graf P. D. Kiselev i ego vremia 5 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1882), vol. 2;
64. S. A. Kniaz'kov, "Graf P. D. Kiselev i reforma gosudarstvennykh krestian," Velikaia reforma (St. Petersburg, 1911), 2:209-34.
65. See Svod zakonov (1842), vol. 2, esp. arts. 1117, 1118, 1119, 1122, 1142, 1148, 2932, and 2954.
66. On official nationality, see Nicholas Riasanovsky, Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825-1855 (Berkeley, 1969),
67. and Cynthia H. Whittaker, The Origins of Modern Russian Education: An Intellectual Biography of Count Sergei Uvarov, 1786-1855 (DeKalb, 1984).
68. RGIA, f. 383, op. 8, d. 6977, l. 4-4ob.
69. Ibid., l. 3. Emphasis in the original.
70. RGIA, f. 796, op. 126, d. 213, l. 26.
71. Ibid., l. 64.
72. Ibid., ll. 25ob., 29.
73. RGIA, f. 796, op. 145, d. 213, ll. 34-36.
74. RGIA, f. 383, op. 8, d. 6977, ll. 42-43ob.
75. RGIA, f. 796, op. 126, d. 213, l. 91ob. Emphasis added.
76. Teptiars' duties included assisting local officials in maintaining order. Though the source does not specify, these Teptiars were probably themselves ethnically Mari.
77. RGIA, f. 796, op. 126, d. 213, ll. 95-95ob., 96-97.
78. Ibid., ll. 25ob.-28. Emphasis added.
79. RGIA, f. 796, op. 126, d. 213, l. 94.
80. RGIA, f. 383, op. 8, d. 6977, l. 77ob.
81. RGIA, f. 796, op. 126, d. 213, l. 35ob.
82. RGIA, f. 383, op. 8, d. 6977, l. 178ob.
83. This denial of agency, along with the idea that resistance is the result of instigation, was typical of the reaction of nineteenth-century colonial administrators to movements inspired by non-Christian doctrines. See Ranajit Guha, "The Prose of Counter-Insurgency," in Ranajit Guha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, eds., Selected Subaltern Studies (New York, 1988), 45-86.
84. RGIA, f. 796, op. 126, d. 213, ll. 93, 125ob.; RGIA, f. 383, op. 8, d. 6977, ll. 16, 148-49.
85. RGIA, f. 796, op. 126, d. 213, ll. 134-35.
86. Sources show that in 1853, twenty Mari children were attending a school established in the parish and that the new priest, F. Alonzov (the author of the article cited above), had succeeded in baptizing fourteen more Maris. RGIA, f. 796, op. 129, d. 1542, ll. 168-69, 197-232.
87. RGIA, f. 796, op. 126, d. 213, ll. 45-62; N. V. Nikol'skii, K istorii khristianskago prosveshcheniia cheremis v XIX veke (Kazan', 1915), 32-39. Priests were expected merely to inform the bishop of all baptisms performed.
88. RGIA, f. 383, op. 8, d. 6977, l. 14ob.
89. RGIA, f. 796, op. 126, d. 213, ll. 40, 124-25. This was from the testimony of the new converts themselves.
90. Figures provided by the Orenburg military governor in RGIA, f. 383, op. 8, d. 6977, l. 178ob.
91. RGIA, f. 383, op. 8, d. 6977, l. 15ob.
92. Ibid., l. 179.
93. RGIA, f. 383, op. 8, d. 6977, ll. 132-132ob., 16ob.-17, 124ob.-126.
94. Ibid., l. 17.
95. Ibid., l. 24.
96. Ibid., ll. 132-132ob. Baptism was supposed to include the full immersion, which presupposed the removal of all clothing.
97. Ibid., l. 133.
98. RGIA, f. 796, op. 126, d. 213, l. 34ob.
99. RGIA, f. 383, op. 8, d. 6977, ll. 25, 96. This notion was repeated in a case involving "idolators" in neighboring Belebei district at about the same time. RGIA, f. 796, op. 129, d. 1542, l. 169.
100. RGIA, f. 383, op. 8, d. 6977, ll. 19, 42ob. Emphasis added.
101. Ibid., l. 25ob. Emphasis in the original. The bulk of this petition was originally written in Tatar, but the italicized portion was written in Russian using "Tatar letters" (the Arabic script). The petition was apparently addressed to the minister of justice, who sent a translated version on to the MGI.
102. RGIA, f. 383, op. 8, d. 6977, ll. 132, 23-24.
103. Ibid., ll. 24-24ob.
104. RGIA, f. 796, op. 126, d. 213, ll. 39-42.
105. Ibid., l. 115. The synod likewise expressed distinct dissatisfaction when, in the midst of this crisis, reports arrived concerning eighty-seven more baptisms elsewhere in the diocese.
106. RGIA, f. 383, op. 8, d. 6977, ll. 43-43ob., 180.
107. RGIA, f. 796, op. 126, d. 213, l. 92ob.
108. All the citations here are from Strokovskii's report, ibid., ll. 91-97.
109. Ibid., l. 94.
110. Ibid., ll. 96ob.-97.
111. RGIA, f. 383, op. 8, d. 6977, l. 81. This decision was based in part on the military governor's opinion that "decisive action in this regard among the population of the Orenburg region, consisting as it does of over one-half non-Christians, could easily produce significant disorder." Ibid., l. 62.
112. RGIA, f. 383, op. 8, d. 6977, ll. 61ob.-62.
113. Cited in Druzhinin, Gosudarstvennye krest'iane i reforma P. D. Kiseleva, 2:522.
114. For more on the "apostasy" of baptized Tatars in Kazan' province, see Werth, "Subjects for Empire," chaps. 4, 7, and 8.
115. On the "enlightened bureaucrats," see W. Bruce Lincoln, In the Vanguard of Reform: Russia's Enlightened Bureaucrats, 1825-1861 (DeKalb, 1982).
116. In most provinces, fully operational Chambers of State Domains were established only in 1842, after the new administrative structure had been tested in a number of central provinces. See Istoricheskoe obozrenie piatidesiatiletnei deiatel'nosti Ministerstva gosudarstvennykh imushchestv, 1837-1887, pt. 1 (St. Petersburg, 1888), 46.
117. See Druzhinin, Gosudarstvennye krest'iane i reforma P. D. Kiseleva, 2:470-88;
118. "Volneniia chuvashskogo krest'ianstva 1842 g.," Krasnyi arkhiv 87, no. 2 (1938): 89-128;
119. A. Andrievskii, "Kartofel'nyi bunt v Viatskoi gubernii v 1842 godu," Istoricheskii vestnik, 1881, no. 5:556-65. Crown peasants (udel'nye krest'iane) were serfs of the imperial family and came under the jurisdiction of a special administration known as the Udel. In contrast, state peasants, often referred to as "free rural inhabitants" (svobodnyia sel'skiia obyvateli), were not enserfed.
120. Druzhinin, Gosudarstvennye krest'iane i reforma P. D. Kiseleva, 1:224-44;
121. Ocherki istorii Bashkirskoi ASSR, 93-110.
122. Close to 300,000 state peasants were indeed transferred to the Udel in the 1830s, principally in Simbirsk province. See V. A. Bogoliubov, "Udel'nye krest'iane," Velikaia reforma, 2:236.
123. By 1845 there were over half a million state peasants in Orenburg province.
124. RGIA, f. 383, op. 8, d. 6977, ll. 117-18; "O kreshchenii," 519.
125. RGIA, f. 383, op. 8, d. 6977, l. 133-133ob.
126. Following baptism, converts were supposed to wear clean white clothes for a certain period. Thus without the linen, the ritual could not take place.
127. RGIA, f. 796, op. 122, d. 1014, ll. 1-4 (Conversion of pagans and schismatics in Orenburg province). Emphasis added.
128. Ibid., l. 4ob. The Orenburg Consistory and Bishop Ioannikii both fully approved of these methods.
129. In Ufa diocese in 1899, of 88,800 Maris only 6,425 (6.7 percent) were officially Christian, and many of these "factually remain pagans." See Zlatoverkhovnikov, Ufimskaia eparkhiia, 17, 28, and 206.
130. I am aware of only two other cases of baptism on such a scale. In 1830 estate bailiffs instigated the baptism of around 2,000 Chuvash on Prince Orlov's estate in Simbirsk province. RGIA, f. 796, op. 110, d. 767, esp. ll. 1-2 and 67-68 (Report of Kazan' Archbishop on baptism of Chuvash). The Department of Crown Lands initiated its own baptism drive of close to 1,000 Chuvash in 1857-58, after a survey of its holdings revealed large numbers of pagans. RGIA, f. 821, op. 133, d. 428, ll. 1-4, 13-50 (Baptism of Chuvash).
131. For these assessments generally, see Druzhinin, Gosudarstvennye krest'iane i reforma P. D. Kiseleva, 2:517-23. Kiselev increasingly saw the district administrations (and district chiefs) as ineffective, and they were finally eliminated in 1860.
132. See Istoricheskoe obozrenie, 48-50.
133. The tensions in these respective visions of baptism and governance can be understood as manifestations of the broader tensions in Russia between judicial routes and administrative measures. See Richard S. Wortman, The Development of a Russian Legal Consciousness (Chicago, 1976);
134. Laura Engelstein, The Keys to Happiness: Sex and the Search for Modernity in Fin-de-Siècle Russia (Ithaca, 1992), esp. 17-127;
135. and Reginald E. Zelnik, Law and Disorder on the Narova River: The Kreenholm Strike of 1872 (Berkeley, 1995), esp. 148-76.