Tag: dialect

Day-trip to Piers Island: Reminiscing About the Penitentiary, 1932-1935

by Gunter Schaarschmidt

From 1932 to 1935, over 600 Sons of Freedom were interred in a special penitentiary built on Piers Island in the Strait of Georgia between Vancouver Island and the mainland Pacific coast of British Columbia, Canada. Seventy-three years later, on June 17, 2008, Dr. Gunter Schaarschmidt of the University of Victoria returned to Piers Island and visited some of the physical features left from the penitentiary camp site. The following is an account of his observations and photos from his excursion. Reproduced by permission from ISKRA No. 2011 (Grand Forks, USCC, October 3, 2008).

On June 17, 2008, the University of Victoria Retirees Association organized a day-trip to Piers Island just 0.8 km (about half a mile) northwest of the Swartz Bay Ferry Terminal on the Saanich Peninsula on Vancouver Island. The island is inhabited by some 300 people many of whom live there for only part of the year. The island is accessible only by private boat – there are no roads except a dirt circle dirt road and walking trails criss-crossing the island. There are no stores but there is a Fire Station and an emergency helicopter landing site. For the retirees group one of its members and an island resident had chartered the harbour ferry that is normally used for Eco-trips from the pier at the end of Beacon Avenue in Sidney. The group assembled in the Piers Island parking lot next to the Swartz Bay Ferry Terminal and was ferried to the island in two trips. One of the trips arrived at a southern pier across from the ferry terminal, the other at the pier of the property that had been built on the same site as the Penitentiary for the Sons of Freedom (svobodniki), a radical group of Doukhobors, on the north side of the Island.

Plan of Piers Island, British Columbia. Note the Doukhobor penitentiary was located on ten acres in the northwest corner of the island, off of Satellite Channel.

Why was there a need for the creation of the Penitentiary on Piers Island for the Sons of Freedom, far away from their area of settlement in 1908? First of all, one must clearly differentiate between the group of Freedomite Doukhobors (svobodniki) and the Doukhobors as a whole, a pacifist philosophical movement. Lest it be thought that the group of Freedomites are all extreme anarchists, “there are many sincere and creative personalities in the group” (see Tarasoff 2002:93 who devotes an entire section to some of them on pp. 93-98). In fact, the Freedomite group has been very productive in writing diaries and autobiographies (see Rak 2004:115-142).

Figure 1. The old pier post of the camp (the new pier is farther to the right out of range of the photograph). Photo by Gunter Schaarschmidt.

An excerpt from a government document describes the establishment of the camp in part as follows (HWC/WJ 1934:1):

In May and June, 1932, at Nelson and Grand Forks, B.C., 303 males and 285 females of the faction above-named (”the Sons of Freedom faction of the Doukhobor sect”) were convicted of having publicly displayed themselves in a nude condition, and were sentenced to three years imprisonment in the British Columbia Penitentiary.
There being no accommodation for these convicts at the New Westminster Institution, arrangements were made to construct a temporary penitentiary at Piers Island, British Columbia.

Figure 2. Another view of the old pier post. Photo by Gunter Schaarschmidt.

The incarceration of the Freedomites proceeded in 18 escorted parties consisting of between 9 and 40 individuals, from August 11, 1932, to December 22, 1932. None of them served their full sentence of three years. No doubt the most important reason for their early release was a cost-saving effort in the difficult economic situation of the Depression years in Canada (see Skolrood 1995:27). Rationalizing, the warden H.W. Cooper wrote on June 20, 1934 (HWC/WJ 1934:13):

The object of the Administration has been to induce in the Sons of Freedom , confidence in Canada and Canadian ways so that upon their release they will be better citizens of the Dominion. There are signs that this has, to some extent, been attained.

Figure 3. View from the former campsite to the new pier post looking out to the NE. Photo by Gunter Schaarschmidt.

However, others do not quite see it that way stating that “their (the Sons of Freedom) attitudes were unchanged, in fact, their resolve to disobey the state was enhanced by a consciousness of martyrdom achieved at comparatively little person discomfort” (Woodcock & Avakumovic 1968:318).

The release of the Sons of Freedom proceeded in various stages – the last group of about 30 men was transferred to the New Westminster penitentiary before June, 1935. The camp was then demolished for the most part except the wharf and two buildings that had housed the penitentiary officers and matrons.

Figure 4. The owner’s flag post of property No. 119 is on the same spot as the old camp flag post. Photo by Gunter Schaarschmidt.

Of the University of Victoria retirees group visiting the island in June this year, not many knew about the “Doukhobor period”. It is, however, well remembered by the residents of Piers Island. In fact, on a small table with other information about the island, our host had placed a photograph of the campsite with the sign “Piers Island Penitentiary” attached to the pier post. This had apparently been given to him by the real estate agent at the time of the purchase of the property. Skolrood’s book (click here to read Doukhobor chapter) has a full page of photographs accompanying his chapter entitled “The Doukhobor Period, 1932-1935” (Skolrood 1995:14-32). This is a chapter well worth reading for anyone interested in the history of the Doukhobor movement as seen from the perspective of a former resident of Piers Island.

Figure 5. Rear view of the camp site (now property No. 119). Photo by Gunter Schaarschmidt.

Included are four photographs that I took of some of the physical features left from the penitentiary camp site. There is first and foremost the old pier post in Figures 1 and 2 (but without the sign “Piers Island Penitentiary”). Figure 3 shows today’s pier looking out to the NE. Then, there is the site of the camp flag post now marked by the owner’s maple-leaf flag (Figure 4). And, finally, there is the rear view of the new owner’s property which for some reason evoked in me the sight of the former women’s compound (Figure 5). Mentally, I had the eerie feeling of Doukhobor voices united in song in the beautiful surroundings of the camp whose barbed-wire fencing no doubt prevented the camp inhabitants from enjoying the scenery as much as we visitors were able to do more than three quarters of a century later.

References

  • HWC/WJ (1934). Piers Island Penitentiary (Memorandum from H.W.Cooper, Warden, British Columbia Penitentiary, to Superintendent of Penitentiaries, Ottawa).
  • Rak, Julie (2004). Negotiated Memory: Doukhobor Autobiographical Discourse. Vancouver/Toronto: UBC Press.
  • Skolrood, A. Harold (1995). Piers Island: A Brief History of the Island and Its People 1886-1993. Lethbridge, Alberta: Paramount Printers.
  • Tarasoff, Koozma J. (2002). Spirit Wrestlers: Doukhobor Pioneers’ Strategies for Living. Ottawa: LEGAS/Spirit Wrestler Publishing.
  • Woodcock, George & Ivan Avakumovic (1968). The Doukhobors. Toronto: Oxford University Press.

Notes

To read about Gunter Schaarschmidt’s research about the Doukhobor dialect spoken in Canada, see Four Norms – One Culture: Doukhobor Russian in Canada and also English for Doukhobors: 110 Years of Russian-English Contact in Canada.  For his translations of 19th century German articles about the Doukhobors, see The Dukhobortsy in Transcaucasia, 1854-1856 by Heinrich Johann von Paucker and Doukhobors in the Caucasus, 1863-1864 by Alexander Petzholdt.

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News and Current Events Stories and Articles

New Russian Book Chronicles the Doukhobors

For Immediate Release – December 31, 2007

A new book has been published in Russian about the Doukhobors. Strana Dukhoboriya by Alla Bezhentseva was published in Tbilisi, Georgia by Russkii Klub in late 2007. The English translation of the title is “Land of the Doukhobors”.

Cover of Strana Dukhoboriya

Cover of Strana Dukhoboriya.

Strana Dukhoboriya documents the historical origins and development of the Doukhobors over the past two hundred and sixty years. It begins with the birth of the Christian Protestant doctrine in mid-eighteenth century South Russia. It then follows the lives of early teachers Siluan Kolesnikov, Ilarion Pobirokhin and Savely Kapustin who spread the Doukhobor faith among the Russian peasantry and formed the core of the sect’s worship and devotions. The history of the Doukhobor community is traced from its establishment at Molochnye Vody in 1801 through to its expulsion to the Caucasus in 1841-1845. The book explores the pivotal events of the late nineteenth century which helped define the modern face of Doukhoborism. It follows the immigration to Canada – the second homeland of the Doukhobors – and the problems they encountered with integration into the society and culture of North America. It also examines the little-known history of the Doukhobors during the Soviet period, through Perestroika and the fall of the Soviet Union, to the present period, including recent mass immigrations of Doukhobors from Georgia to the Central Russian provinces of Tula, Bryansk and elsewhere.

The appendix to Strana Dukhoboriya contains a rich and detailed exposition of Doukhobor culture in Georgia today. It studies traditions, past and present, including local dialect, food and dishes, ceremonies, as well as songs and psalms. It includes a selection of psalms from the Doukhobor Zhivotnaya Kniga or “Living Book”. As well, it contains a parting word from the Doukhobor elders of Dmanisi, Georgia, the hometown of the author. It concludes with a detailed bibliography and interview of the author by Georgian journalist Nino Tsitlanadze.

The author, Alla Nikolayevna Bezhentseva, was born in Tbilisi, Georgia and currently lives in the town of Dmanisi, a district administrative centre with a significant Doukhobor population. She has a PhD in civil engineering and taught engineering design at “Gruzgiprogorstoi” Institute in Sukhumi for fifteen years. She has designed numerous buildings throughout Georgia including theatres, houses of culture and recreation, government administrative buildings and hotels. She is actively involved in a number of women’s and humanitarian organizations, notably the Union of Russian Women in Georgia. She is also an accomplished writer, having written a number of Russian and Georgian language texts and materials.

Author Alla Nikolayevna Bezhentseva

Author Alla Bezhentseva speaks at the book release in Tbilisi, Georgia in December, 2007.

Bezhentseva’s Doukhobor research was sponsored and published by the Russkii Klub (“Russian Club”), a Georgian-based cultural and educational organization dedicated to the promotion of cooperation, friendship and mutual understanding between the states of Russia and Georgia. Fittingly, her book was released in December 2007, symbolically declared the “Year of Russian Language” in Georgia. The book release, which took place at the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Tbilisi, was attended by Russian and Georgian dignitaries as well as members of the Doukhobor community in Georgia.

Georgian Doukhobor Choir performs at Book Release

A Doukhobor choir from Dmanisi, Georgia performs at the book release in December, 2007.

At a time when Russian culture generally, and Doukhobor culture in particular, in Georgia is in serious decline, Bezhentseva’s book graphically illustrates the life, doctrines, history and traditions of the Doukhobor community in Georgia. It is a valuable and interesting source of information for present and future generations.

Book Release of Strana Dukhoboriya

Book release at the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Tbilisi, Georgia in December, 2007.

Strana Dukhoboriya (IBSN 978-9941-0-0088-1) is a 152-page Russian language book. To read, search, download, save and print a full PDF copy of the book, free of charge, visit the Russkii Klub website. By special arrangement with the author and publisher, an English translation of select chapters is underway and will appear on the Doukhobor Genealogy Website in early 2008.

Categories
News and Current Events Stories and Articles

The Manteca Russian Colony

by Rose M. Albano

In 1924, fourteen Doukhobor families from British Columbia and Saskatchewan resettled to Manteca, California seeking warmer climate and economic opportunity. There they purchased 140 acres of land and established a grape growing cooperative. The “Russian Colony”, as it came to be known, was considered one of the most successful in the United States. However, by 1941, the colony was abandoned as colonists relocated elsewhere to find employment. In the following article, descendants reminisce about growing up in the Russian Colony. The following article by Rose M. Albano is reproduced from the Manteca Bulletin (Manteca, California: May 11, 1997).

Yes…there was a Russian Colony here in Manteca. That there was such a place here comes as a complete surprise to many area residents. “About the only ones aware of the colony’s existence are those who have lived here since before the 1950s,” said Ken Hafer of the Manteca Historical Society. “Those who were here then knew that everyone who lived in the 140-acre area at the south end of Castle Road were Russians. That’s why they called it a Russian Colony,” Hafer explained. After a big influx of people to Manteca in the 1960s, everyone ceased referring to the area as the Russian Colony. “The church was gone by then, and the people didn’t refer to themselves as Russians,” Hafer said.

Residents at the Manteca Russian Colony gather to celebrate the end of apricot-picking season, circa 1930’s.

Plenty of Memories

But memories of the old Russian Colony are still fresh in the minds of a few descendants of the first settlers who continue to live in the area. Nellie Richetta (nee Reibin), whose parents came to live in the colony in the 1920s when she was two months old, remembers a very cohesive community where everyone was treated like family.

“Every adult in that community was your aunt, your uncle, your grandfather. We called aunt so and so – tyotka – or uncle so and so – dyadya,” Richetta said, phonetically spelling the Russian words she used as a child. “The elders were grandfather and grandmother. We were safe. We could be at anybody’s house. It was a very safe environment to grow up in,” she said.

The children at the colony all became fast friends. Those friendships were further cemented by the fact that they all walked to the same grammar school together. Then they all went to Manteca High School, which was the only high school in town then. “We had a lot of friends here; it was still one of the best areas in the world,” remembered septuagenarian Peter Gretchen who came to live at the colony when he was two years old. He and his wife still live on Castle Road, just across the street from his parent’s old house. “I grew up with all ethnic groups – Greeks, Mexicans, Portuguese, Italians. The Indelicatos were there. We all went to (Castle) school together. It was just a mile away.”

The school was built at the south end of Castle Road on land donated by the pioneer Castle family. It was the Castle family which sold the land to the group of 14 Russian families who came to Manteca via Saskatchewan. 

Phillip Bloudoff, who still lives next to the house where he grew up, likewise had plenty of happy memories to share about growing up in the countryside. “We had no problems growing up with the Italians, the Portuguese, the Greeks. No, no, no! We had no problems whatsoever.” Both he and Richetta are from Manteca High’s class of 1944. 

Manteca, California in the 1930’s and 1940’s was home to various immigrant labourer groups.

Russian Speaking Children

Like all children growing up in the colony, Richetta spoke only Russian until she started first grade at Castle School. “My parents usually spoke Russian to us, and we spoke to them in English,” she said with a laugh. “I wish I had kept up with my speaking and reading Russian,” she says now with regret. “But it wasn’t important then. We wanted to learn English.”

“There were also Italians and Portuguese who didn’t speak English when I went to school. But when we graduated from grammar school, we all spoke English. That’s why I don’t believe in bilingual education. And I still speak Russian,” said Bloudoff.

Immaculate Housekeepers

Like many of the few dozen families who eventually settled at the colony, Richetta’s family used horses to farm their small lands, and a cow kept them supplied with milk. “They also raised chickens, so we had our own eggs,” Richetta said. “And we worked our own fields with our horses.”

She described the women at the colony as “immaculate housekeepers.” She laughed as she described to what lengths the women went to preserve that image. “When they hung their clothes outside they had to be white, because somebody might see them. That was their claim to fame: who was the best homemaker, the best cook,” she said.

 

Richetta also remembered how everyone supported one another in every way. She said nobody had a need to get hired help when it came to building a house or raising a barn. “Everybody helped each other. If somebody was building the barn, everybody came to help,” she said. And that meant men women and children. “While some got busy working on the building, others fixed lunch,” she said.

The same thing happed when women met for quilting sessions. “They all helped each other make their quilts. They bought raw wool, washed it and carded it. They did everything by hand,” Richetta recalled. “Back then, too, people did not have much money to buy a lot of things,” she said.

Hard-Working People

Besides tending their small farms where they grew grapes, apricots and other fruit trees and crops year around, the men in the colony took whatever odd jobs they could get anywhere. Many of them, like Gretchen’s father, took seasonal jobs. “My dad, many times, worked for a dollar a day,” Gretchen recalled.

Peter Gretchen working behind his home at the old Russian Colony where he and his wife still live today. Photo courtesy: Rose M. Albano.

He remembered having to live and attend school for some time in Modesto, Locke, and Thorton because that’s where his father found work in the fields or in the ranches. When the jobs were done, they came back home to Manteca. “They were difficult times, but we always had food. We had a cow and chickens,” said Gretchen who was the youngest of three children. “Because the men were away working somewhere, the women often had to do all the heavy work at home in the colony,” said Richetta.

“The men went to work in factories or they worked as carpenters – whatever jobs they could get. So they hitched up the women and built the roads in some of the Russian communities. It was all manual labor. They didn’t have the money to buy the animals because they were penniless,” she said. “Everybody worked hard. Later we had tractors,” she said. 

Many of the men at the Manteca Russian Colony found employment at Spreckels Sugar. Richett’s father, who was born in Saskatchewan, found work as a mechanic at the old Manteca Canning which was then located near the rail road tracks on Yosemite Avenue. The women worked in the fields picking fruits, Richetta said. “My grandmother picked apricots, grapes, peaches. Later the women worked in the canneries.” 

Homes With Big Basements

The houses they built at the Russian Colony were simple one story homes with big basements where such staple foods as milk, sour cream, canned goods, maybe a hundred pounds or more of potatoes, sugar and flour were kept. In the summer when the valley simmered and baked in three-digit temperatures, residents retreated into their basements where “it was nice and cool,” Richetta said. The homes also were equipped with huge furnaces fed with coal. Some had water towers built behind the house complete with an extra room which was often used as a bedroom. Those who could afford it had steam rooms called banyas which also invariably included a shower room. 

A few of the old homes are still there, but the water towers are all but gone, replaced by huge satellite dishes and other comforts of modern technology.

The Russian Colony prayer home building today sits as an unoccupied residence. Built in the 1930s to facilitate religious gatherings and funerals, the building was sold in the 1960s and converted into a private home.

The community also had its own prayer home, which was a multi-purpose building where funerals, weddings and other social gatherings were held. The building is still there, but it has since been sold, remodeled and converted into a home. 

Return of the Native

The children and grandchildren of the first Russian settlers have gone on to bigger and better things in the world. 

Many of those in Richetta’s generation went into business in Manteca, Stockton, Sonora and Oakdale. Their children are now distinguished professionals in their fields. The Gretchen’s oldest son, for example, is managing director of a microelectronics company in Malta. Before that, he worked in the Philippines. His sister, Sylvia, owns a publishing company in Orinda and is president of the Tibetan Institute in Berkeley. Bloudoff’s daughter, who is married and living in Lindon, is a lawyer. 

Bloudoff said that growing up, he too never wanted to live in the country. “I wanted to be a city boy,” he laughed. But then he got married, and soon he and his wife Helene were swamped with the patter of tiny feet around their home in Stockton. Recalling his carefree days in the open country at the Russian Colony, Bloudoff began to realize that his kids did not really have enough room to play where they lived.

Fog shrouds of an old vineyard planted by Doukhobors. They marketed their grapes under the name Ruscol, for “Russian Colony”.

So he and his wife made a decision to move to Manteca. “I wanted to raise my kids in the country because I remember my own childhood,” he said. “We had lots of room to play, plenty of space and lots of things to do.  So I decided to build a house next to my folks’ where the kids could play out in the country.”  The Bloudoffs and the Gretchens say that to this day their children are grateful for being raised in the country. 

The Colony Today

The old Russian Colony still boasts a quiet, rustic and rural atmosphere.  Surrounding almond orchards and vineyards still keep it isolated from Manteca’s urban sprawl. The area, just south of French Camp Road, remains an unincorporated section of San Joaquin County. 

Some of the old homes are still there. Anna F. Reibin, whose husband was one of the three Reibin brothers who were among the first to come form Saskatchewan, continues to live in the same house her husband built more than half a century ago. Richetta’s childhood home and farm have since been sold. She and her husband now live on East Lathrop Road. But the house where she also grew up is still standing there on Castle Road with the steam bath and two-story tank house in the back.

The old Russian Colony today on Verigin Road.

The Bloudoffs and Gretchens now live in modern homes built next door to houses where they grew up. Phillip Bloudoff continues to work at Ted’s Meat Company in Stockton a company he has co-owned since 1935. The business now has two locations in Stockton. Peter Gretchen is now retired, but he and his wife continue to tend the family vineyard they bought form their parents. 

But while the area still exudes a pastoral calm, Bloudoff said “it’s a lot different now; it’s changed a lot.” Gretchen agreed. “It was a lot more country then,” he said. We never locked our doors. Now you don’t know who’s here. But before, you knew everybody. Before, you used to talk to people. Now you watch television. Life has changed completely.”

For More Information

For a listing of 73 Doukhobors living in the Russian Colony in 1930, including their names, ages, family relationships, years of immigration from Canada, and their occupations, see the 1930 United States Federal Census enumerations under Castoria Township, San Joaquin County, California.

Categories
General Stories and Articles

Place Names of Early Doukhobor Settlements in Saskatchewan, 1899-1907

by Jonathan J. Kalmakoff

The following is an abstract of the paper “Place Names of Early Doukhobor Settlement in Saskatchewan, 1899-1907” presented by Jonathan J. Kalmakoff at the Toponyny Session of the 76th Annual Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, held at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan on May 26 to June 2, 2007.  It examines the Saskatchewan Doukhobor village names from this period and classifies them according to their meanings and mechanisms of origin.

The map of Canada is a rich tapestry of place names. These names reflect the diverse history and heritage of the nation. They embody stories about the people and places to which they are attached and give us valuable insights into history and provide clues about the country’s cultural and social development. In this regard, a study of the origin and meaning of the early Doukhobor village names in Saskatchewan reveals the astonishing diversity and depth of the Doukhobor contribution to Canada’s historic cultural geography.

The Saskatchewan Doukhobor village names from this period can be classified into eight basic categories based on their mechanism of origin: commemorative, commendatory, connotative, transfer, descriptive, incident, possessive and language transfer names.

Many of the village names arose from the desire to preserve a memory or do honour to someone or something and are said to be “commemorative”. Some paid homage to revered Doukhobor leaders: Kapustino (Savely Kapustin), Kalmakovka (Kalmykov dynasty) and Verigino (Peter “Lordly” Verigin). Others memorialized the names of village founders, elders and historic figures: Nikolayevka (Nikolai), Alexeyevka (Alexei), Kirilovka (Kirill), Semenovka (Semyon), Rodionovka (Rodion), Efremovka (Efrem). Many celebrated saint’s days and other religious festivals observed by the Doukhobors: Mikhailovka (Michaelmas), Pavlovo (St. Paul’s day), Pokrovka (Intercession), Uspeniye (Assumption), Vosneseniye (Ascension), Petrovka (St. Peter’s day), Troitskoye (Trinity) and Voskriseniye (Resurrection day). Still others extolled religious virtues, values and ideals cherished by the Doukhobors: Vera, Verovka (faith), Blagodarnoye (thanksgiving), Smireniye (humility), Nadezhda (hope), Sovetnoye (counsel), Terpeniye (patience), Truzhdeniye (industry), Pozirayevka (vigilance), Ubezhdeniye (conviction) and Trudolyubovo (love of work).

Doukhobor village near Veregin, Saskatchewan, c. 1911.   Library and Archives Canada PA-038515.

A number of the village names can be classified as “commendatory” in that they ascribed some pleasant, appealing or providential quality to a particular place or location: Bogomdannoye (God-given), Lyubomirnoye (lovely and peaceful), Khlebodarnoye (gifted with grain), Tikhomirnoye (quite and peaceful), Slavnoye (nice, splendid), Blagosklonnoye (benevolent, favourable), Osvobozhdeniye (deliverance) and Utesheniye (consolation). Names of this type were intended to praise or recommend a place or location; they did not actually describe the place physically.

A related category of village names are those which ascribed some quality or characteristic to the people of a place – rather than to the place itself. Such names are said to be “connotative”. Some carried a positive or complimentary connotation about the people of a village: Vernoye (faithful), Lyubovnoye (loving) or Khristianovka (Christian). Others carried a negative or pejorative connotation about the people of a village: Nedokhvatnoye (insufficient), Prokuratovo (deceitful) or Razbegalovka (running off in all directions). Still others described the spiritual and emotional state of the villagers: Stradayevka (suffering), Vossianiye (spiritually shining forth), Poterpevshiye (having suffered/endured) or Otradnoye (joyful).

Many of the village names were “transfer names”, names which were borrowed and reused from one location to another. The Doukhobors used this method of naming extensively in Saskatchewan, borrowing names from their former villages in the Caucasus which, in turn, had been borrowed from the Molochnaya. Most were reused repeatedly in different locations: Spasskoye/Spasovka (5 times), Goreloye/Gorelovka (4 times), Troitskoye (4 times), Pokrovka (4 times), Kirilovka (4 times), Terpeniye (3 times), Bogdanovka (3 times), Tambovka (2 times), Slavyanka (2 times) and Rodionovka (2 times). Through transference, the Doukhobors in Saskatchewan preserved and perpetuated cherished, symbolic place names which had been firmly etched in the Doukhobor consciousness for generations.

Several village names were “descriptive” in that they identified and distinguished a place by noting some characteristic that separated it from other places. Some directly described the place: Khutor (farmstead). Others described the surrounding topography: Vozvysheniye (elevation, rise).

A special class of names described places in relative terms. Many described relative age: Novoye (new), Novo-Petrovo (New Petrovo), Staro-Goreloye (Old Goreloye), Staro-Bogdanovka (Old Bogdanovka), etc. Some described relative size: Bolshaya Gorelovka (Large Gorelovka), Malaya Gorelovka (Small Gorelovka). Others described relative location: Verkhnaya Kirilovka (Upper Kirilovka), Serednaya Kirilovka (Middle Kirilovka) and Nizhnaya Kirilovka (Lower Kirilovka). Still others described relative origin: Petrovo Orlovsky (Petrovo of the Orlovka Doukhobors) and Terpeniye Karskoi (Terpeniye of the Kars Doukhobors).

Village of Mikhailovka, North Colony, c. 1908.  Library and Archives Canada PA-021116.

A few village names were “incident” names which referred to unusual incidents and historical events that occurred at that place. For example, Besednoye (conversational) was so named because the villagers frequently engaged in lively, spirited discussions. Perekhodnoye (transitional) was so named because the villagers had made a spiritual and spatial transition to a more communal-based lifestyle.

Several village names indicated the presence of a large, prominent family at that place and are said to be “possessive” names: Usachevka (place of the Usachev family) and Holubovo (place of the Holubov family). Names of this type were not used by the Doukhobors to indicate ownership, but rather occupation.

Finally, several village names were Russian translations of existing English place names. Through the process of “linguistic transfer” these names were transferred from the original language, English into the receiving language, Russian: Gromovoye (thunder – from nearby Thunder Hill), Kamenka (stony – from nearby Stony Creek) and Lebedevo (swan – from nearby Swan River). Occasionally, non-Russian words were Russianized in form and spelling to produce village names: Burtsevo (Wurtz’s Farm).

Based on the above, it can be concluded that the early Doukhobor village names in Saskatchewan were intended to do considerably more than merely “distinguish one place from another”. They were deliberately and systematically named in order to reinforce group values, religious belief and philosophy and a common world-view. They were also intended to establish a Dukhoboria in Canada, a veritable “Land of the Doukhobors” within which everything – including place names – had its own distinctly Doukhobor place, meaning and purpose.

This article was reproduced by permission in the following journals and periodicals:

  • ISKRA No.1996 (Grand Forks: USCC, 2007).
  • The DOVE No. 76 (Saskatoon, DCSS, 2007)
  • The Bulletin Vol. 38, No. 3 (Regina, SGS, 2007).
Categories
General Stories and Articles

The Maintenance and Revitalization of Doukhobor Russian in British Columbia, Canada: Prospects and Problems

by Gunter Schaarschmidt

Over the past 75 years, the Doukhobor Russian dialect has sustained a slow but steady decline after reaching its peak of usage and functionality in Canada in 1940. This is in large part due to the increasing use of English, on the one hand, and of Standard Russian, on the other hand.  The following article by Gunter Schaarschmidt of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies, University of Victoria, examines the root causes of this trend and identifies a strategy for its maintenance and revitalization among the Doukhobors of British Columbia.  The author contends that to save Doukhobor Russian from imminent extinction, a second language program in Doukhobor Russian must be established at the elementary school level, with Doukhobor elders and culture incorporated into the school programs. Reproduced with the author’s permission from “Topical Problems of Communication and Culture, Collection of Research Articles of International Scholars (Moscow-Pyatigorsk, 2013).

1. Introduction

The Doukhobors are a pacifist and anarchist splinter group from the Russian Orthodox Church. Their views led Tsar Nicholas to ban them from their first concentrated settlement in the fertile Crimea to barren Transcaucasia. In 1895, the group created a huge bonfire of weaponry as a gesture to the government that they they opposed conscription. Fearing extermination for the group, the writer Leo Tolstoy with the aid of the Quakers in Great Britain enabled approximately 7,500 Doukhobors to leave Russia in 1899 and settle in Canada. Following a dispute with the Government and after living in the Province of Saskatchewan for 9 years, the colony split into two groups, with the larger group (approximately 4,000) moving to the Province of British Columbia (BC) in the years 1908-1913.

It is estimated that there are currently 25,000 Doukhobors living in Canada, 8,000 in Saskatchewan and 12,300 of them in British Columbia, with smaller groups in Alberta (3,000) and other provinces (between 1,500 and 1,700)[1]. Until the demise of the USSR there were 7,000 Doukhobors living in the Republic of Georgia, with many other members of the group dispersed all over Russia including Siberia.[2]  At the time of the group’s move to Canada, Doukhobor Russian was a language composed of two functional styles: the colloquial language based largely on a South Russian dialect and the ritual language based on Russian Church Slavonic and handed down orally from generation to generation until the early part of the 20th century.[3]  There are no written sources in Doukhobor Russian until the Book of Life (Životnaja kniga; also often translated as “Living Book”) was published in Russia by Bonč-Bruevič (1909 [1954]).[4]  The colloquial language was oral until the Doukhobors’ move to Canada and here well into the 1930s (see Section 3.1. below).

Although Doukhobor Russian (“DR”), with its estimated 15, 000 speakers[5], is as distinct from Standard Russian as Plautdietsch is from Standard German, the former has not been included as a language or as a minority language in any of the current handbooks while the latter has been (see, for example, Lewis 2009 and Moseley 2007). Plautdietsch is included as an endangered language of some 80,000 to 100,000 speakers in Canada (Moseley 2007:265; Lewis 2009: online). To some extent perhaps Russian scholars and possibly Doukhobor writers themselves are to blame for this omission since DR is often referred to as a “variety of Russian” (Makarova 2012: x) or as a “dialect” (Harshenin 1961).[6]  And yet, the Doukhobors clearly form a minority group distinct from other Russian émigré groups in three geographic areas outside of Russia: 1) the Province of British Columbia (Canada); 2) the Province of Saskatchewan (Canada); and 3) the Republic of Georgia. The possibility of revitalization and maintenance is possible in BC if something is done before the current older generation(s) disappear (Schaarschmidt 2012: 255-57); it is becoming very unlikely in Saskatchewan (Makarova 2011); and probably still has a small chance in Georgia (Lom [Lohm] 2006).

In this pilot study we shall first provide a summary of the history of DR from the first homogeneous settlement in the Crimea in 1801 until the move to Canada (Section 2); then describe the development of DR from the group’s arrival in Saskatchewan and the partial move to British Columbia, the onset of both diglossia and bilingualism in the community in BC and the present linguistic situation (Section 3); and, as DR is currently on the brink of extinction in this province, a preliminary outline of an “eleventh-hour” proposal how to go beyond the process of preservation to a systematic maintenance and revitalization process of the language (Section 4).

2.    From Koine to Leveling (1801-1899)

2.1. Some linguistic prerequisites.

According to Trudgill, new-dialect formation proceeds generally in three stages (quoted here from Kerswill 2002, 679; see also Schaarschmidt 2012, 238-9):

Stage Speakers involved Linguistic characteristics
I  Adult migrants Rudimentary leveling
II  First native-born speakers  Extreme variability and further leveling
III Subsequent generations

 Focusing, leveling and reallocation

There is a great deal of variability in the time-depth of koineization, with focusing possible already by Stage II, and the absence of focusing sometimes persisting over several generations of Stage III. In this section, we deal with Stage I, what Siegel calls the “pre-koine.” This is the unstabilized stage at the beginning of koineization. A continuum exists in which various forms of the varieties in contact are used concurrently and inconsistently. Leveling and some mixing has begun to occur, and there may be various degrees of reduction, but few forms have emerged as the accepted compromise (Siegel 1985: 373).

2.2. Rudimentary leveling: Milky Waters.

When Tsar Alexander decided to create a concentrated settlement of the Doukhobors in the area near the Moločna River (whence the English term “Milky Waters”), he also created the foundation for the rise of Doukhobor Russian, originally as a mixture of dialects, a sort of koine [i.e. a standard dialect that has arisen as a result of contact between two or more mutually intelligible varieties of the same language], later as a language with distinct functional styles (see especially Schaarschmidt 2008). The only uniting feature at this point was the ritual functional style (hereafter short: “ritual language”). We have no direct evidence of the Doukhobor colloquial functional style of this period or, for that matter, for a good 100 years before the Canadian period. The details of the koine situation of this period can thus be gleaned only from 1) the evidence provided by interviews with second- and third generation speakers in Canada in the 1950s and 1960s; 2) interference phenomena in the ritual language; and 3) the experience gained in the internal reconstruction of other languages. This evidence allows us to assert that for the Milky Waters period rudimentary leveling of the dialect features was in process and that because of the interruptions in this process caused by the migrations to Transcaucasia and Canada the leveling process took longer than it normally takes for a non-migrant community of speakers. There is no tangible evidence of a diglossic situation [i.e. where two dialects are used by a single language community] Doukhobor Russian – Standard Russian as the large majority of Doukhobors were illiterate, as was the case for four fifths of all Russians in the Empire, (acording to the first census of 1897; see, in this respect Rašin 1951: 49).

This figure is reproduced by permission from the Doukhobor Genealogy Website (www.doukhobor.org). Copyright Jonathan J. Kalmakoff. All rights reserved.

2.3. Further leveling: Transcaucasia.

We may assume that the Transcaucasian period marked the continuation of the rudimentary leveling process mentioned above in Section 2.1. For the first native-born speakers, however, there probably existed a combination of extreme dialect variability and further leveling. By the time adult speakers migrated to Canada in 1899, both the variability and the leveling were part of their dialect and were, to some extent, reflected in the ritual style.

This figure is reproduced by permission from the Doukhobor Genealogy Website (www.doukhobor.org). Copyright Jonathan J. Kalmakoff. All rights reserved.

There is no tangible evidence of a diglossic situation Doukhobor Russian – Standard Russian during the Transcaucasian period. There may, however, have been elements of bilingualism, as trading with the non-Slavic peoples (mainly Turko-Tatars) would have required a vehicle of communication, if only a pigeon [i.e. a simplified language that develops as a means of communication between two groups that do not have a language in common] of the Russenorsk type or that used today in trading on the Russian-Chinese border area in the Far East. Many of the linguistic features collected are based on interviews with speakers in their 60s and 70s, i.e., those who migrated from Transcaucasia to Canada (see, in this respect, Schaarschmidt 2012: 241-3). We shall select here only the category of loans to illustrate the partial leveling process at this stage in language development (see also Tarasoff 1963 and Beženceva 2007:123-6). Due to the later influence of Standard Russian it is not always clear whether such loans are actually genuine loans directly from Turko-Tataric or indirect loans in a later period. This can be exemplified by the apparent Doukhobor loan from Turkic džiranka ‘deer’, for which there exist the Standard Russian variants džejran, dzeren and zeren/zerenka, referring, however, to a kind of antelope (see Fasmer 1964–73, I: 510–11; II: 95). The Doukhobor language in present-day Georgia also contains many loans from the adjacent or co-territorial non-Slavic languages but here again many assumed Doukhobor loans may in fact also be loans in Standard Russian or internationalisms, as exemplified by the loan mazun ‘matzoon/madzoon’ (a type of yoghurt), cf. Standard Russian maconi, borrowed from Armenian.

The Transcaucasian period was marked by a considerable variability in the area of phonology, morphology, lexical structure, and syntax. An apparent Doukhobor Russian innovation in morphology is the replacement of the neuter gender by the feminine gender in the first and second generations (Inikova 1995, 156). The loss of the neuter gender may have been caused by the coalescence of unstressed o, a, e in post-tonic desinences and that coalescence was then extended to stressed endings and modifiers, i.e., эта жабa [èta žaba] ‘this toad’: это сало [èta sála] ‘this lard,’ therefore моя жабa [majá žába] ‘my toad’: моё сало *[majá sála] ‘my lard.’ This coalescence can be seen widely in the Anglicization of place-names, such as Ootischenia, a locality in Castlegar, BC, referred to in a modern spelling Ooteshenie in Tarasoff (2002, 470), cf. Russian утешение ‘consolation.’

The Doukhobor settlements today are found primarily in the Republic of Georgia.

This figure is reproduced by permission from the Doukhobor Genealogy Website (www.doukhobor.org). Copyright Jonathan J. Kalmakoff. All rights reserved.

The question of the revitalization and maintenance of DR in the Republic of Georgia is not within the scope of the present investigation. It seems, however, that in spite of the significant exodus of speakers to Russia, present levels of maintenance appear to be vigorous. To be sure, the chances of a successful revitalization and maintenance process of Doukhobor Russian in Georgia are decreasing rapidly because as the leader of the Georgian Doukhobor community, Tat’jana Tixonova put it: “out of the more than 6-7,000 Doukhobors who lived in Georgia at the end of the 1980s no more than 800 are left, and these are basically between 50 to 70 years old“ (Beženceva 2007, 100; translation mine – GS). A somewhat more optimistic view is expressed in Lom [Lohm]: 2006, 48 (translation mine – GS): “One must note, however, that there are often apocalyptic[7] prophecies concerning the future of the Doukhobors. Already in the 1960s the scholars predicted that the Doukhobor identity would disappear in the near future. When saying goodbye to us, a Doukhobor woman told us: ‘you know, every year we say that we are going to leave for Russia. But in the end we always stay.’”

3.    Focusing and Reallocation: 1899-1938

3.1. Saskatchewan

Focusing, i.e., the selection of one of the competing forms, was considerably impeded by the influence of the language of the “Galicians”, i.e., of Ukrainian.[8]  This influence was still felt for a short while after the move to British Columbia (see 3.2. below). Reallocation took place, for example, in the borrowing of words from English into DR primarily in the workplace (Harshenin 1964, 1967), thus narrowing the linguistic functions of either Ukrainian borrowings or traditional DR lexical items. This period also saw the beginning of diglossia since in a letter of February 1, 1899, to Leo Tolstoy the Doukhobors’ spiritual leader in exile had stated that “teaching literacy to the children, including the girls, must be considered a priority right at the start” (Donskov 1995, 43).

This figure is reproduced by permission from the Doukhobor Genealogy Website (www.doukhobor.org). Copyright Jonathan J. Kalmakoff. All rights reserved.

The time for a revitalization of DR in Saskatchewan may have passed: Makarova (2011) predicts that the language will be extinct within a decade.

3.2. Move to British Columbia

The Doukhobors’ move to British Columbia in a relatively secluded area, free from interference with Ukrainian, allowed the Doukhobor community to conclude the focusing, leveling, and reallocation of linguistic features resulting in the demarcation of three functional styles: the colloquial language, the ritual language, and the written language. English – Russian bilingualism developed fully within one generation (roughly between the 1930s to the 1960s), primarily due to forced schooling in English (Schaarschmidt 2009: 35-36).

Due to the increasing use of English, on the one hand, and of Standard Russian (“SR”), on the other hand, both the colloquial DR style and the ritual language began their inevitable retreat after reaching their peaks of usage and functionality between 1801 and 1940. This is manifested in 1) a growing SR component in the diglossic DR/SR situation in the form of home-schooling in Standard Russian using old-country bukvari (primers) as well as in the launching of Russian schools maintained by the Union of Spiritual Communities of Christ in the main Doukhobor centres of Grand Forks and the West Kootenays in BC since 1935; 2) an increase in code-switching in the colloquial style; 3) the marginalization of the DR colloquial style or its replacement by the Standard Russian colloquial style; 4) the translation of ritual texts into English or the standardization of DR ritual texts, e.g., by removing Church Slavonicisms or obscure passages; and 5) the launching of Russian-language courses from kindergarten to Grade 12 in schools in the Doukhobor areas in the early 1980s, thus further marginalizing the DR colloquial style.

This figure is reproduced by permission from the Doukhobor Genealogy Website (www.doukhobor.org). Copyright Jonathan J. Kalmakoff. All rights reserved.

4. A Strategy for the Maintenance and Revitalization of DR

4.1. The present situation

There can be no question that DR in British Columbia has sustained some heavy losses in the past 75 years, resulting in a crisis situation in our days. It is good to know, however, that there is currently a kind of revitalization of DR carried out in this province. To be sure, this “revitalization” is more aimed at recording lexical items and texts for the sake of saving as much information as possible for future generations. From efforts such as a series of thus far sixteen two-page articles of DR data in the monthly magazine Iskra (Popoff 2012) it is still a long way to the revival of DR as a vehicle of communication and a school subject. But it is a good testing ground as to how far educators in conjunction with the community are willing to go in this revitalization process.

4.2. What can be done?[9]

As in traditional native cultures, the Doukhobor elders “were the source of all knowledge and the keepers of the value and belief systems. The elders used oral language as a means of passing on their knowledge and cultures and thus education … meant that elders, language and culture were inextricably interwoven.” (Native Language Education 1986: 1; Government of Alberta 2010:2).Thus, in order to develop a Second Language Program in DR from Grades 1-3, the Doukhobor elders and cultures must be brought into the school programs. The subject DR faces stiff competition from a numerically stronger relative, i.e., Standard Russian (SR), historically a compromise language based essentially on the Moscow dialect.

The current need for the maintenance and revitalization of DR is similar to the needs of many other minority languages including autochthonous ones. We will select here one that is within our research experience and competence, viz., Lower Sorbian (a Slavic language) in Germany. About a dozen years ago, Lower Sorbian was spoken only by people older than 60 years, and it was predicted that in about 15 to 20, maximally 30 years, the language would be dead (Jodlbauer, Spieß and Stenwijk 2001: 204). The remedy for this was seen in revitalizing Lower Sorbian as a second language beginning in pre-school years. For this purpose, a special day-care centre, called Mato Rizo, was established in a district in the city of Cottbus. In that day-care centre, part of an anticipated chain of such centres called WITAJ (“welcome”), Lower Sorbian was taught as an immersion course in the hope that a new generation of second-language speakers would compensate for the losses suffered in the last two decades. In addition, as a possible interim supporting measure it was hoped that Lower Sorbian could be increasingly taught as a foreign language with English and possibly French and Russian as powerful competitors (Jodlbauer, Spieß and Stenwijk 2001: 207-208).

Like in the case of Canada’s First Nations languages, such efforts for the revitalization of Lower Sorbian require the active involvement of elders with native or next-to-native (semi-speaker) proficiency in the WITAJ project. But similar to the Doukhobor Russian situation, Lower Sorbian language activists have come out against making two languages, viz., Lower Sorbian and English compulsory subjects even though they do not agree with public opinion that learning two languages in addition to German would present a burden. Admittedly, the possible range of applicability of Lower Sorbian as a second language is very limited in present-day German society; however, the language does have a rich written tradition to look back on. On balance, then, Doukhobor Russian is more in the situation of Canada’s First Nations Languages: for the latter, especially the smaller groups like some Salish languages in British Columbia, it is often suggested that they would be better off learning a major First Nations language, such as Cree (see also Schaarschmidt 1998:463). This is similar, then, to the view expressed in the Doukhobor community that Doukhobor children should learn Standard Russian but that all efforts should be made to document as much as possible of Doukhobor Russian so as to preserve it as a museum language.

At the time of writing, only the oldest generation of Doukhobors in BC is still using the language in one or the other function. Children pick up bits and pieces from grandparents but they don’t speak it for the simple reason that their parents don’t know how to speak it any more. This situation in general implies the impending death of a language/dialect. True, there are many who would like to save the dialect and they can learn a lot from the situation of the First Nations languages in British Columbia where considerable progress has been made even in those cases where there were only 50 adult speakers. There are also opponents who either do not see any value in maintaining and revitalizing the language of the elders or view this process as an extra burden on the children in the light of Standard Russian as a school subject. It is difficult to counter value judgments except perhaps with the argument that there are benefits in maintaining something that could be of good use some day (Harrison 2010:274). The extra-burden argument does not hold water because the human brain between three and six years of age can pick up an indefinite number of languages or dialects (even closely related ones) without any difficulty (for a detailed discussion of the pros and cons of multiple-language acquisition, see Harrison 2010: 221-242). Another hindrance to the revitalization project is the auto- and heterostereotype perception of DR: 1) the Doukhobors themselves consider DR to be outdated and not good Russian (being based on a South Russian, DR is often felt to be like Ukrainian). The notion of DR being outdated is perhaps best expressed in this quote from a Doukhobor: “Personally, the so-called ‘Doukhobor dialect’ is interesting as a minor artifact of life, but the real future is in learning Standard Russian, one of the important international languages of the world” (Koozma Tarasoff, Spirit Wrestlers Blog, May 21, 2011. www.spirit-wrestlers.com). This negative autostereotype perception is enforced by the heterostereotype perception as exemplified by references to DR as being “artificial” and “defective” (Golubeva-Monatkina 1997: 35; translation mine – GS).

As stated in the Introduction, the present study should be viewed as a pilot study to be followed by a detailed proposal how to 1) get DR into the school system at least in Grades 1-3; 2) develop a teacher training programme and curriculum as well as teaching aids in consultation with elders; and 3) secure funding for such a programme perhaps in the form of a foundation grant as well as grants from the Provincial Government.

4.3. Getting DR into the BC school system

4.3.1. Teacher training programs

Selkirk College in Castlegar, BC, would be the most appropriate place to develop a teacher training programme and workshops as well as curriculum and teaching aids perhaps with the assistance of the University of Victoria, a traditional supporter of DR studies and teacher training initiatives since the early 1980s. A Doukhobor foundation grant would help with the financing of these efforts as well as with the preparation of the kinds of materials mentioned in 4.3.3. below.

4.3.2. Writing DR

One of the first things that were done for Sencoten, a language like DR with an oral tradition, was to develop an alphabet for the language. This was carried out by John Elliott, a non-linguist who has managed to incorporate four of his new graphic symbols into UNICODE (see www.languagegeek.com/salishan/sencoten.html and Claxton & Elliott 1994). For DR it will make good sense to use the cyrillic alphabet but perhaps with the addition of the Greek letter γ (gamma) to denote the pronunciation of Cyrillic г as either [γ] or [h] in DR as well as the letter ў to denote bilabial [w].

4.3.3. Texts, dictionaries and a grammar

A second task will be to create an archive of texts in both oral form and cyrillic letters. A grammatical outline of DR as well as dictionaries will also be essential as teaching aids.

5. Conclusion

In concluding this pilot study we wish to emphasize that we take it for granted that saving a language from extinction is just as important as ensuring the survival of an animal or plant species. As the Australian language expert Wurm (1991: 17) put it: “With the death of a language […] an irreplaceable unit in our knowledge and understanding of human thought and world-view has been lost forever.” And to paraphrase Harrison (2010: 274), what the elder generations of the Doukhobors know – “which we’ve forgotten or never knew – may someday save us.” It is imperative that, once a community decision has been reached to embark upon a revitalization program, a school program in DR should be started very soon, certainly while the elders are still around because creating a generation of DR as second-language speakers may make good economic sense the benefits of which might only be felt a couple of generations later.

As Harrison quoted one of his “last speakers”: “trouble is, they say they want to learn it [=the language, G.S.], but when it comes time to do the work, nobody comes around” (Harrison 2010: 249). It is noteworthy that in those cases where somebody did come around (Sencoten, Lower Sorbian), the experience has invariably been a rewarding one.

Footnotes

[1] This statistics are based on the possibly quite outdated information given in Popoff 1983, 117. Later figures put the totals somewhat higher, e.g., in Tarasoff 2002, 12.

[2] Current estimates for the Republic of Georgia vary widely due to a lack of reliable statistics from 800 speakers to a mere 150 (see also Section 2.3. of the present study).

[3] DR has been variously referred to as a “language’, a “dialect”, or a “variant” (of Russian). We are using “language” where many writers have been using “dialect”, and we prefer to use “style” as opposed to “dialect”. This question of nomenclature is not trivial, see also the discussion of the hetero- and autostereotype perception of DR in Section 4. of the present study.

[4] In the transliteration of cyrillic, we follow the “ISO Transliteration System”. In one instance, viz., in the discussion of the loss of the neuter gender in DR in Section 2.3., we decided to use the original cyrillic because it seemed to us to make the opposition stressed : unstressed clearer.

[5] This is on the assumption of a 60% language maintenance estimated in Schaarschmidt 1998, 466. The level of maintenance has probably shrunk to something like 50% during the last 15 years, amounting to a total of 12,500 speakers including a large number of semi-speakers.

[6] We prefer to label the relation DR – SR in BC as a diglossic situation. Due to the fact that Canadian English is rapidly becoming the first language for BC Doukhobors, there is bilingualism in addition to diglossia (Schaarschmidt 2012: 249-50). For a discussion of the various forms of diglossia, as opposed to bilingualism, see Myers-Scotton 2006: 80-89.

[7] The term “apocalyptic” seems to refer to the “Day of Judgment” said to arrive possibly in the year 2000, as quoted in Inikova 1995, 194. For some recent literature on the protection of the Doukhobors in Georgia, see also also Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, Georgia: Treatment of Doukhobors (Dukhobors) and state protection available to them, 1 January 1999, GGA31028.E, available at: http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/3ae6ab9448.html [last accessed 6 February 2013]. For the reduction in the number of schools with Russian instruction in Georgia and an action plan to remedy this situation, see Council of National Minorities (2012).

[8] Young (1931:185) reports many cases of intermarriage between Doukhobors and Ukrainians.

[9] Most of these steps are outlined in Hinton and Hale 2001. A convenient shortcut guide for indigenous languages can be found in FPCC 2013 http://www.fpcc.ca/language/toolkit/begining_an_Indigenous_Language_Initiative.aspx (last accessed February 20, 2013).

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  • Schaarschmidt, Gunter (1998). “Language in British Columbia” in John Edwards (ed.), pp. 461-8. Language in Canada. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
  • Schaarschmidt, Gunter (2008). “The Ritual Language of the British Columbia Doukhobors as an Endangered Functional Style: Issues of Interference and Translatability.” Canadian Slavonic Papers 50 (1–2): 102–22.
  • Schaarschmidt, Gunter (2009). “English for Doukhobors: 110 Years of Russian-English Contact in Canada” in Nadezhda Grejdina (ed.), pp. 30-43. Aktual’nye problemy kommunikacii i kul’tury. Vyp. 10. Mezhdunarodnyj sbornik nauchnyx trudov. Moskva – Pjatigorsk: Pjatigorskij gosudarstvennyj lingvisticheskij universitet. (also published as https://www.doukhobor.org/Schaarschmidt-Russian-English.htm).
  • Schaarschmidt, Gunter (2012). “Russian Language History in Canada. Doukhobor Internal and External Migrations: Effects on Language Development and Structure” in Veronika Makarova (ed.), pp. 235-260. Russian Language Studies in North America. New Perspectives from Theoretical and Applied Linguistics. London: Anthem Press.
  • Siegel, J. (1985). “Koines and koineization” in Language in Society 14: 357–78.
  • Tarasoff, Koozma J. (1963). “Cultural interchange between the non-Slavic peoples of the Soviet Union and the people of Russian background in the greater Vancouver area.” Term paper, Slavonic Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver.
  • Tarasoff, Koozma (2002). Spirit Wrestlers: Doukhobor Pioneers’ Strategies for Living. Brooklyn, NY: Legas/Ottawa: Spirit Wrestlers Publishing.
  • Trudgill, P. J. (1998). “The Chaos before Order: New Zealand English and the Second Stage of New-dialect Formation” in E. H. Jahr (ed.), pp. 1-11. Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
  • Trudgill, P. J., E. Gordon, G. Lewis and M. Maclagan. (2000). “Determination in New-dialect Formation and the Genesis of New Zealand English”. Journal of Linguistics 36: 299–318.
  • Wurm, Stephen A. (1991). “Language Death and Disappearance: Causes and Circumstances” in Robert H. Robins and Eugenius M. Uhlenbeck (eds.), pp. 1-17. Endangered Languages. Oxford and New York: Berg.
  • Young, Charles H. (1931). Ukrainian Canadians. Toronto: Nelson.

For More Information

For additional research about the Doukhobor dialect spoken in Canada, see Gunter Schaarschmidt’s articles Four Norms – One Culture: Doukhobor Russian in Canada as well as English for Doukhobors: 110 Years of Russian-English Contact in Canada.  Read also about his Day-trip to Piers Island: Reminiscing About the Penitentiary, 1932-1935.  Finally, for Gunter Schaarschmidt’s exclusive translations of 19th century German articles about the Doukhobors, see The Dukhobortsy, 1822-1828 by Daniel Schlatter; Passage Across the Caucasus, 1843 by Kuzma F. Spassky-Avtonomov; The Dukhobortsy in Transcaucasia, 1854-1856 by Heinrich Johann von Paucker; Notes from the Molochnaya, 1855 by Alexander Petzholdt; Doukhobors in the Caucasus, 1863-1864 by Alexander Petzholdt; Report from the Caucasus, 1875 by Hans Leder; and Travels in the Caucasus and the Armenian Highlands, 1875 by Gustav I. Sievers and Gustav I. Radde. 

Categories
General Stories and Articles

English for Doukhobors: 110 Years of Russian-English Contact in Canada

by Gunter Schaarschmidt

Over the last 110 years, the use of the Doukhobor Russian dialect has been gradually displaced by English among Doukhobors living in Canada. The following article by Gunter Schaarschmidt of the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies, University of Victoria, examines this trend in the context of “special” or “ritual” language used by the Doukhobors in their religious ceremony. This article is reproduced with the editor’s permission from Nadezhda L. Grejdina (ed.), “Aktual’nye problemy kommunikacii i kul’tury”, Vol. 10. “Sbornik nauchnyx trudov rossijskix i zarubezhnyx uchenyx” (Moskva/Pyatigorsk: Pyatigorsk State Linguistic University, 2009), pp. 30-43. The author observes that, to the extent Doukhobor cultural and spiritual traditions will be maintained in Canada, the question is whether these will be carried out using the vehicle of Russian or English. If it is the latter, can these cultural and spiritual traditions still be considered “genuine”?

1. Introduction

The present paper will deal with a small subtopic in the discipline of sociolinguistics, i.e., the disappearance of “special” language, such as the “ritual” language as used by the Doukhobors in Canada, and its replacement by English special language. Much of what will be said about the former, also applies to the disappearance of the dialect, which is a living testimony of the various contacts the Doukhobors had in their migrations (see, for example, the many lexical items that stem from contact with non-Slavic peoples in Transcaucasia as described in Tarasoff 1963). The Doukhobors emigrated to Canada from Russia beginning in 1899 and settled first in an area near the border between Saskatchewan and Manitoba. In the years 1908 to 1913, a little more than half of them moved to the Kootenay district of British Columbia (Tarasoff 2002:8-14). Figure (1) shows the original Doukhobor settlements in the Province of Saskatchewan and the migration path from there to the Province of British Columbia. (Note: Permission to reproduce the map in Figure 1 from Tarasoff (1982: 100) is herewith gratefully acknowledged.). At the present time, the number of Doukhobors is estimated to be 30,000 with 13,000 residing in British Columbia. Their rate of language maintenance is about 60% (Schaarschmidt 1998:466).

Figure (1)  Map of Community Doukhobors’ Move from Saskatchewan to British Columbia, 1908-1913.

2. Ritual Language

In essence, the Doukhobor psalms and prayers contain the main elements of a tradition that is not otherwise fixed in a written form. These oral works are composed in a very ancient, Russian Church Slavonic form of language that is often no longer comprehensible even to educated members of the community. In the last 40 years, since the inception of compulsory schooling, many of the psalms and prayers have been recorded in written form. Until that time, most of them were learnt by heart and enriched with regional elements, e.g., Ukrainianisms (see Schaarschmidt 1995). The psalms embody a large part of the Doukhobor belief system, somewhat like a basic communal “constitution” (Mealing 1975:51), as, e.g., in the set of ten psalms entitled “From the Common Views of the Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood”, one of which (No. 5) is given below with an interlinear and a free translation (some of the words have been corrected; it is not clear whether these words were typing errors in Mealing’s work, or whether they were handed down orally in this way and lost some of their grammar). (Note: The transliteration used in this paper is a hybrid of the Library of Congress (LC) system and of IPA. Thus, sh zh ch are retained from LC but c x j from IPA. This will allow a diacritic-free transliteration of Cyrillic.).

Mir     sostoit   iz    dvizhenija; vsë stremitsja k
World consists from movement;   all  strives        to
sovershenstvu i     cherez ètot  process staraetsja
perfection         and through  this  process it strives
soedinit’sja so   svoim nachalom, kak by
to unite        with its       beginning    as   if
vozvratit’ sozrevshij     plod semeni.
to return   having ripened fruit  to seed

“The world is based upon going forward; all things strive for perfection, and through this process seek to rejoin their source, as ripe fruit yields seeds [probably incorrectly in Mealing 1975:53: “as seeds yield ripe fruit”]”.

3. English For Doukhobors

The following constitutes a kind of mini-history of Russian-English contact since the arrival of the Doukhobors in Canada. The historical outline is not exhaustive and ignores many sociolinguistic variables, such as federal and provincial politics with regard to forced schooling, attitudes to Russian language use, and generational differences.

3.1. Anna Tchertkoff’s “English Grammar”

3.1.1. Anna Tchertkoff

More than 100 years ago, Anna Tchertkoff (1859-1927) received a request from the Doukhobors who had emigrated to Canada to write a textbook that would help them and other Russian immigrants learn the English language. She went to work and published such a textbook in her own publishing house in 1900. Anna Tchertkoff was the wife of Vladimir Tchertkoff (1854-1936), an outspoken defender of Doukhobor rights in the Caucasus who after publicizing their plight was exiled from Russia and settled in England in 1897. Together with his wife Anna, he translated, edited, and published Leo Tolstoy’s works. Anna and Vladimir collaborated in founding and running the Free Age Press in English and the Svobodnoe Slovo (“Free Word”) in Russian.

In her preface, Anna Tchertkoff states that the selection of lexical items and phraseological units is based on the needs that the Doukhobors in Canada will have in communicating with their Anglophone hosts. She cautions, however, that the scope and
length of the work (101 pages plus 17 pages of phonetic, orthographic, and grammatical preliminaries) cannot provide an exhaustive listing of words and sentences that a Russian immigrant might require either in Canada or the US. She is also asking readers to send her comments and suggestions that she would like to include in a planned second edition. To our knowledge, such a second edition was never published.

3.1.2. The Pedagogical Variable

Ignoring for the moment the first 17 pages (see 3.1.3. below), the main body of the text has the form of a dictionary or vocabulary lists as well as lists of phrases with the directionality Russian – English. Interspersed in this set of lists are continuous Russian language text segments with interlinear translation and phonetic transcription. The texts illustrate aspects of Canadian geography and culture. As Tarasoff puts it: “they contained propaganda, designed to assist them [the Doukhobors] against the Canadian authorities” (2002:400).

3.1.3. The Linguistic Variable

In what is possibly one of the first contrastive Russian-English analyses, Tchertkoff presents the main differences in the phonology of the two languages. She warns the reader that with her phonetic transcription using the Cyrillic alphabet, it is not always possible to automatically induce the correct pronunciation. Thus the grapheme th has two pronunciations in English, neither of which can be adequately rendered using Russian graphemes. For voiced [δ] she uses the digraph tz, admonishing the reader, however, that “it must not be pronounced as the two separate Russian letters but as one continuant sound, through the teeth, lisping…” (Tchertkoff 1900:v). For the voiceless counterpart [θ], she recommends the Cyrillic letter θ that was in use before the October Revolution. This letter is of Greek origin and originally had the sound value [θ]. However, when Russian adopted the letter, its pronunciation in Modern Greek had already changed into [f], but Russian continued to use it until 1913 primarily in names of Greek origin, such as Theodore (θedorь), even though it was pronounced as an [f].

In the remarks on the English vowel system, Tchertkoff stresses the fact that there can be both long (diphthongized) and short vowels in stressed syllables, which contrasts with the Russian phonological system where vowels under stress are always lengthened (and diphthongized). One problem in her analysis is that she takes the British English pronunciation as a basis, e.g., in words like consume and duty where in most Canadian dialects the u is pronounced [uw], not [yuw].

Standard (Moscow) Russian does not have phonemically relevant [h], so Tchertkoff renders this high-frequency English phoneme with Russian [x]. She points out, however, that “our Little Russians [i.e., Ukrainians] pronounce the letter g as [h]”
(Tchertkoff 1900:ix), forgetting, apparently, that the Doukhobor dialect does exactly the same, i.e., it has phonemic /h/. The problem here is, of course, that the Cyrillic alphabet never had a grapheme for the sound [h], and that written g is used in Ukrainian and Doukhobor Russian to denote both [h] and [g], the latter occurring mainly in borrowings (Canadian Ukrainian developed a special grapheme for phonetic [g]). In any case, a contrastive analysis of the phonological systems of Doukhobor Russian and English would predict that Doukhobor speakers should have no problem with English /h/.

In the last section of her preliminaries, Anna Tchertkoff tackles the definite/indefinite article in English. Russian does not have an article, using mainly word order to fulfill the function of the and a(n). She explains the use of the definite/indefinite article in English in terms of the known/unknown variables, postponing a more detailed analysis of this grammatical problem, and of many others, to the preparation of a second part of the grammar.

3.1.4. The Sociolinguistic Variable

The selection of the lexical items, phrases, and texts in the book is determined by two factors: 1) unlike many other grammars, Tchertkoff’s grammar is not aimed at the educated Russian reader, the leisure traveller, or the business traveller, but at the needs of the 7,500 Doukhobor immigrants in Canada; thus, the language presented is Canadian English; and 2) apart from terminology used in the Doukhobors’ daily work, the grammar concentrates on certain abstract concepts required for them to communicate their belief system and rituals to their hosts. This second factor seems to be at variance with the Doukhobors’ attitude to English. After all, they had come to Canada “to preserve the cultural identity of which their language is an intimate part” (Harshenin 1964:39). Thus, they borrowed from English what was absolutely essential to their work environment, i.e., terms relating to the railroad, the sawmills, gadgets, units of measure, money (see the list compiled by Harshenin 1967:216-30). Furthermore, until the 1930’s the Doukhobors resisted any pressure by the Canadian authorities to send their children to schools and thus expose them to daily English instruction. Perhaps this is the reason why there was never any need for a second edition, or why the planned second part never appeared: the grammar was simply not used by the Doukhobors. However, another reason may be that the Tchertkoffs returned to Russia and settled there in 1909, a move that would have cut their ties with the Doukhobor immigrants in Canada.

3.2. Interference Phenomena

In the late 1930s, a Canadian writer was able to make fun in her diary of the heavily accented English spoken by the Doukhobors, as illustrated in the following passage from her book (O’Neail 1962:104):

Eh-h-h-h, how moch monya! … And now every mawnt’
Eh,          how  much  money       and  now  every  month
we’re gonna   gyet like dot  moch  monya!
we’re   going to get   like  that  much  money
And today mawder-my weell go Nyelson
and  today  mother-my    we’ll    go to Nelson
and buy la-awtsa t’eengs! E-h-h, how lawtsa
and  buy lots of      things    Eh,     how   lots of
weell buy!
we’ll    buy

“Eh, how much money [we received], and now every month we are going to receive just as much money! And today my mother and I, we will go to Nelson and buy a lot of things! Eh, what a lot of [things] we will buy.”

The above passage shows typical Russian phonetic interference phenomena, such as palatalization before front vowels (monya, gyet, Nyelson); rendering short vowels in a stressed syllable as long vowels (mawnt’, t’eengs, mawder); t’ (aspirated) for voiceless th (teengs), and d for voiced th (dot, mawder). Syntactically, we note 1) the postpositioning of the possessive, an archaism in Russian but typical of Doukhobor speech (mawder-my); 2) the frequent use of and at the beginning of utterances; and 3) the absence of a preposition in go Nyelson, possibly as a transference from mute Russian bilabial [w] for v before consonants.

When Hazel O’Neail returned to the area in 1962, i.e., 24 years later, she was able to note that “the old accent lingers in some cases, though not nearly as pronounced, and in many I caught not a trace at all. Furthermore, the offensive ‘and’ which used to preface every remark…seems to have disappeared altogether” (O’Neail 1962:141). Today, more than one generation later, only Doukhobors in their eighties and nineties show traces of an accent in English. All others speak a Canadian English of the Western variety, and for most of them English is their first language.

4. Lost Categories

4.1. Language and Culture

The loss of languages is often compared to the decimation and eventual extinction of animal and plant species. For language, changes in environment would mean that, to quote Wurm (1991:3):

the cultural and social settings in which a given language had been functioning,
usually for a very long time, have been replaced by new and quite different ones as
a result of irresistible culture contact and clash, with the traditional language
unsuited for readily functioning as a vehicle of expression of the new culture.

And to continue with Wurm (1991:17): “With the death of a language…, an irreplaceable unit in our knowledge and understanding of human thought and world-view has been lost forever.”

One word of caution that must be heeded by the investigator is whether the loss of linguistic categories follows the loss of the underlying cultural categories, or to put it the other way around, whether linguistic categories are retained in a language long after the underlying cultural categories have been lost. In a language revival process this interrelationship would imply that the revival of linguistic categories entails the revival of the underlying cultural categories.

Thus, in the case of Doukhobor culture, having been removed from Russian society for more than 100 years, many of the set patterns of this society were also removed and supplanted by Anglo-Canadian patterns. The Doukhobors have of course always been a society within a society but through the interaction with the dominant society, have assimilated and/or retained patterns of the latter.

The loss of the dialect reflects the general levelling of dialectal differences in the world’s languages and is therefore as general a process as the loss of lesser used languages. Revival of dialects does occur but in the case of Doukhobor Russian would be made more difficult due to the competition of the dialect with Standard Russian. This entire question must be left to a different investigation (see also below, Section 5).

The loss of a special language, such as Doukhobor ritual language, can only be compared to the loss of other special languages in the world, viz., the loss of Latin in Christian churches, the loss of the scientific functional style in many of the world’s smaller languages (and even some of the major languages), and perhaps the loss of writing systems, such as cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and Mayan. An anthropologist like Mark Mealing rhetorically deplores the rendering of Doukhobor psalms in English: “can the psalms convey their true meanings if they are not heard or read in Russian?” (Mealing 1995:41); he concedes, however, that one can expect to “find something deeply present in such potent texts, even through the mask of translation” (Mealing 1995:41). This view is apparently shared by the younger generation of Doukhobors, i.e., 29 years or younger, who do not support the concept of language being a carrier of culture and belief (Friesen and Verigin 1996: 147).

There is also regional variation in this respect; thus, the 2004 festivities connected with Peter’s Day were conducted primarily in English in Saskatchewan (Note: Private communication by Larry Ewashen, Director of the Doukhobor Museum in Castlegar, BC.), while the same festivities in British Columbia were conducted in Russian. (The author of this paper was present during part of the Sunday festivities (June 27, 2004) on the grounds of the Doukhobor Museum in Castlegar, BC, and can thus vouch for this fact. It must be pointed out, however, that the choice of language in both Saskatchewan and British Columbia is apparently also audience-conditioned, i.e., with a predominantly English-speaking audience, English translations will be used at least in part of the ceremonies in the West Kootenay area as well. It may be worth noting here that the Doukhobor community in the Republic of Georgia has apparently been successful in maintaining both the dialect and the ritual style although the number of persons able to recite the psalms is decreasing there as well (for a recent analysis, see Bezhenceva 2007: 123–139).)

On the basis of translations of Doukhobor ritual texts, we can arrive at a tentative list of lost categories or untranslatable (“cultural substance”) features.

4.2. Psalm No. 166

It will be worthwhile here contrasting an excerpt from psalm No. 166 with its English translation to ascertain just what may have been lost in the translation (the annotation DP stands for discourse particle).

Mladye moi junoshi, vy  projdëte  lesy    tëmnye,
Young   my   youth     you will pass  forests dark
vzyjdite na gory         krutye, pristupite k  morju
climb     on  mountains steep    step up     to sea
chërnomu, stan’te zhe vy   na   Noev   korabl’. bujny
black          board   DP   you onto Noah’s ark        boisterous
vetry  sbushevalis’,
winds  raged
chërno more vskolyxalos’. slëzno  vosplakalis’
black    sea    heaved           tearfully cried out
mladye junoshi pered Gospodom: Gospodi, Gospodi! pochto
young    youth    before   Lord            Lord         Lord        why
dopustil  bujnye     vetry  bushevat’, morskie volny  volnovat’
(you) let   boisterous winds rage           ocean    waves  surge
chërno more kolyxat’, chto nel’zja      projti    v    Tvoj
black    sea    heave      that   impossible to-pass into Your
Erusalim-grad, posmotret’ tam  velik  stolb ognennyj, on zhe
Jerusalem-city   to-view        there great  pillar  fiery           it   DP
vozsijaet ot     zemli i    do neba.
shines      from earth  and to  sky

Notes: Vzyjdite: An archaic form, cf. Standard Russian vzojdëte. The suffix –ite is an imperative suffix not expected in this context. Stan’te: This is an imperative form instead of the expected stanete. Vozsijaet: Standard Russian orthography has vossijaet.

And here is the translation as taken from Mealing (1995:43-44):

“My young men, you will go on through shadowy forests, you will go up into lofty mountains, you will come to the gloomy sea, you will embark in Noah’s ship. The wild winds were uproarious, the dark sea was stirred up. The young men wept bitter tears
before the Lord: Lord, Lord! Why allow the wild winds to rage, the waves of the sea to billow up, the dark sea to heave? It is impossible for us to come to your Jerusalem-town, there to look at the great fiery pillar, it shines from earth to heaven.”

4.3. What Is Lost

The linguistic features examined in this subsection are 1) those which represent Church Slavonic elements that serve as mnemonic devices in the oral transmission of the psalms; and 2) those which due to their phonetic structure have an alliterative-parallel function and thus do not possess any semantic value.

4.3.1. The Postnominal Position of Adjectives

The postnominal position of adjectives is a normal syntactic rule for French, and yet no one would want to claim that all French translations into English are inadequate. The reason is that a normal syntactic phenomenon in French is translated into a normal syntactic phenomenon in English, i.e., the prenominal position of modifiers. In Russian, however, the postnominal position of adjectives is highly marked, whereas in the Doukhobor ritual style this position is a stylistic possibility for incorporating invariant mnemonic aids. In [the above psalm] text the postnominal position of long-form adjectives is almost the norm, while the short forms are always prenominal, cf. the opposition prenominal vs. postnominal in chërno more : k morju chërnomu and, in one and the same noun phrase, velik stolb ognennyj. (Note: The short-form adjectives are no longer used in an attributive position in Standard Russian, except in fixed idioms, such as sred’ bela dnja “in broad daylight.”). This parallelism is not always symmetric due to grammatical restrictions (mladye junoshi) or onomatopoeic preference (Tvoj Erusalim-grad).

4.3.2. Church Slavonicisms

In the [psalm] text passage above, we find this mixture of styles, on the one hand, in the adjective mladye “young” nom pl vs. Russian molodye; and, on the other hand, in the preposition pered “before, in front of” vs. Church Slavonic pred. This functional interplay of Church Slavonic and Russian forms characterizes not only the Doukhobor ritual style but also Russian poetic style. It may be argued that mladye is a phonetic spelling of molodye with the loss of the vowel in the first syllable, a phenomenon that is common in colloquial speech. The only argument against this is the fact that we are dealing here with the recital of a psalm, i.e., a formal style, in which vowel elision would seem to be prohibited. However, this question merits further study with a wider corpus.

4.3.3. Alliteration and Parallelism

The alliterative parallelism of the verb phrases with the perfective reflexives sbushevalis’, vskolyxalos’, slëzno vosplakalis’ and the verb phrases with the imperfective infinitives bushevat’, volnovat’, kolyxat’ is less concerned with the cognitive meaning of the passage in question than its contextual meaning, a feature typical of folklore genres in Russian. That the threefold matchup is not quite symmetric semantically (vosplakalis’ vs. volnovat’) is no doubt due to the conventions of oral transmission of these psalms where for the sake of memorization semantics was sacrificed to phonetics.

4.3.4. Short Form Adjectives Used Attributively

The examples in question in [the above psalm text] are bujny vetry, chërno more, and velik stolb ognennyj “large, fiery pillar.” This usage of short form adjectives in an attributive function, as opposed to their restriction to a predicative function in Standard Russian, was a regular feature in Old Church Slavonic and was retained as a marked stylistic feature in poetry and Russian Church Slavonic as well as in the Doukhobor ritual style. The noun phrase velik stolb ognennyj above is semantically equivalent to Standard Russian bol’shoj ognennyj stolb but the rhythm and archaic connotation of the given construction are lost in the Standard Russian phrase and of course in the English translation as well.

5. Conclusion

To the extent that Doukhobor cultural and spiritual traditions will be maintained, the question is whether these will be carried out using the vehicle of Russian or of English. If low language maintenance levels in Russian make it necessary to carry out most, if not all culture-related activities in English, there is the question whether what is being practiced is still “genuine” Doukhobor culture, i.e., can one really speak of maintaining one’s cultural heritage while giving up the language in which it was cultivated for centuries? And, concerning the oral literature, if Russian Church Slavonic is replaced by Canadian English, and if all of hymnody is made available in a written form, certainly the style of singing will change, viz., the creative aspect; the correcting in mid-song; and the duration of ritual speech acts. This will certainly amount not only to a loss of cultural substance but also to an assimilation to the dominant Anglo-Canadian culture. There are many additional questions that need to be addressed in future research. Two of them will be mentioned here but cannot be discussed in detail at this point in time. Doukhobor Russian in Canada generally shares many features with other forms of émigré Russian in North America that are due to “incomplete acquisition” (Polinsky 2006). In addition, structural developments in Doukhobor Russian can serve to “redefine” the notion “Standard Russian” (Andrews 2006). However, Doukhobor Russian in Canada also shows important differences that are due to 1) its largely oral tradition; 2) its relative geographic isolation; 3) its deliberate resistance to the influence of Canadian English; and, last but not least, 4) the influence of Ukrainian during the first generation of settlement in Saskatchewan.

At the present time, English among the Doukhobors must still compete with Modern Standard Russian both in the replacement of the dialect and in the maintenance of ritual language. The dialect is clearly losing the battle against Modern Standard Russian but then the levelling of dialect differences in the world’s languages is widespread. Modernizing the psalms, however, may delay the complete switch to English versions. Recent efforts in this respect have resulted in a modern psalm book (USSC 1978) as well as the ongoing efforts in the Doukhobor monthly Iskra to present many psalms in a Standard Russian form. We hope to address the above questions in more detail in a future study.

A final word needs to be said about the threat of language loss. If, as Ter-Minasova put it, languages are the guardians of a people’s identity (Ter-Minasova 2007:121), then language loss should lead to the loss of identity. It is impossible to conduct a crucial experiment in that respect, that is, to subject half of a linguistic community to language loss, leaving the other half as a control group and then compare the degree of the loss of identity. What we do know, however, is that there is a family of languages, i.e., the First Nations communities in Canada, such as Cree in the Province of Alberta or Salish in British Columbia, that are engaged in an active endeavour of reversing language shift partly as a necessary healing process and a desire to regain their lost identity. It seems that their efforts serve at least as partial support for maintaining the Doukhobor ritual style, perhaps in a “reconfigured” form allowing codeswitching between cognitive structures in English and contextual-mnemonic devices in Russian/Church Slavonic (see also Rak 2004; and Schaarschmidt 2008). There is no agreement to what extent globalization is contributing to the loss of languages. On the one hand, the process of globalization is considered to be the “main despoiler of languages and cultures” (Ter-Minasova 2007:254). On the other hand, the globalization of English has directly led to the disappearance of languages only in those countries where “English has itself come to be the dominant language, such as in North America, Australia and the Celtic parts of the British Isles” (Crystal 1998:18). Crystal’s statement certainly seems to apply to the Doukhobor language which is threatened far more by the local and regional economic situation in British Columbia, Canada, than by the status of English as a global language.

References

  • Andrews, David R. (2006). The Role of Émigré Russian in Redefining the “Standard.” Journal of Slavic Linguistics 14: 169–189.
  • Bezhenceva, Alla (2007). Strana Duxoborija. Tbilisi: Russkij klub.
  • Crystal, David (1998). English as a Global Language. Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press/Canto.
  • Friesen, John W. and Michael M. Verigin (1996). The Community Doukhobors: A People in Transition. Ottawa: The Borealis Press.
  • Harshenin, Alex P. (1964). English Loanwords in the Doukhobor Dialect, 1. In: Canadian Slavonic Papers 6, 38-43.
  • Harshenin, Alex P. (1967). English Loanwords in the Doukhobor Dialect, 2. In: Canadian Slavonic Papers 9/2, 16-30.
  • Mealing, Mark F. (1975). Doukhobor Life. A Survey of Doukhobor Religion, History, and Folklife. Castlegar, BC.: Cotinneh Books.
  • Mealing, Mark F. (1995). Doukhobor psalms: adornment to the soul. In: K.J. Tarasoff and R.B. Klymasz (eds.), Spirit Wrestlers. Centennial Papers in Honour of Canada’s Doukhobor Heritage (Hull/Québec: Canadian Museum of Civilization),
    pp. 39-50.
  • O’Neail, Hazel (1962). Doukhobor Daze. Sidney, BC: Gray’s Publishing.
  • Polinsky, Maria (2006). Incomplete Acquisition: American Russian. Journal of Slavic Linguistics 14: 191–262.
  • Rak, Julie (2004). Negotiated Memory: Doukhobor Autobiographical Discourse. Vancouver/Toronto: UBC Press.
  • Schaarschmidt, Gunter (1995). Aspects of the History of Doukhobor Russian. In: Canadian Ethnic Studies 27.3: 197-205.
  • Schaarschmidt, Gunter (1998). Language in British Columbia. In: John Edwards (ed.), Language in Canada (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press), pp. 461-468.
  • Schaarschmidt, Gunter (2008). Code-switching im Sorbischen und im Duchobor-Russischen als eine mögliche Zwischenstufe in der Erhaltung und Revitalisierung von Minderheitensprachen in der EU und in Kanada. Lûtopis 55.2: 109-125.
  • Tarasoff, Koozma J. (1963). Cultural Interchange Between the Non-Slavic Peoples of the Soviet Union and the People of Russian Background in the Greater Vancouver Area. Unpublished term paper (Vancouver: UBC Slavonic Studies).
  • Tarasoff, Koozma J. (1982). Plakun Trava: The Doukhobors. Grand Forks, BC: Mir.
  • Tarasoff, Koozma J. (2002). Spirit Wrestlers: Doukhobor Pioneers’ Strategies for Living. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Legas/Ottawa: Spirit Wrestlers Publishing.
  • Tchertkoff, Anna (1900). Prakticheskij uchebnik anglijskogo jazyka/Russian-English Handbook. London: A. Tchertkoff, “The Free Age Press”.
  • Ter-Minasova, Svetlana Grigor’evna (2007). Vojna i mir jazykov i kul’tur. Moskva: AST/Astrel’/Xranitel’. USCC (1978).
  • Sbornik duxoborcheskix psalmov, stixov i pesen. Grand Forks, BC: Izdanie Sojuza Duxovnyx Obshchin Xrista /Union of Spiritual Communities of Christ (USCC).
  • Wurm, Stephen A. (1991). Language Death and Disappearance: Causes and Circumstances. In Robert H. Robins and Eugenius M. Uhlenbeck (eds.), Endangered Languages (pp. 1–17). Oxford, UK/ New York: Berg.

For More Information

For additional research about the Doukhobor dialect spoken in Canada, see Gunter Schaarschmidt’s articles Four Norms – One Culture: Doukhobor Russian in Canada as well as The Maintenance and Revitalization of Doukhobor Russian in British Columbia: Prospects and Problems.  Read also about his Day-trip to Piers Island: Reminiscing About the Penitentiary, 1932-1935.  Finally, for Gunter Schaarschmidt’s exclusive translations of 19th century German articles about the Doukhobors, see The Dukhobortsy, 1822-1828 by Daniel Schlatter; Passage Across the Caucasus, 1843 by Kuzma F. Spassky-Avtonomov; The Dukhobortsy in Transcaucasia, 1854-1856 by Heinrich Johann von Paucker; Notes from the Molochnaya, 1855 by Alexander Petzholdt; Doukhobors in the Caucasus, 1863-1864 by Alexander Petzholdt; Report from the Caucasus, 1875 by Hans Leder; and Travels in the Caucasus and the Armenian Highlands, 1875 by Gustav I. Sievers and Gustav I. Radde.

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General Stories and Articles

Ethnic Diversity Among the Early Doukhobors

by Jonathan J. Kalmakoff

Pushkin, the 19th century Russian poet once wrote, ‘Turkic blood flows in all Russian veins’. It has also been said, ‘Scratch a Russian and you’ll find a Tatar’. While many present-day Doukhobors may find it difficult to believe, it would appear that not all early Doukhobors were ethnic Russians. As the following commentary by Jonathan J. Kalmakoff suggests, a number of different ethnic groups may have contributed to, and enriched, our Doukhobor heritage.

At its peak, the Russian Empire covered vast expanses of geographic territory and encompassed many different ethnic groups, including Ukrainians, Poles, Cossacks, Finns, Lapps, Lithuanians, Estonians, Mordvinians, Magyars, Turks, Tatars, Meshcheryaks, Bashkirs, Turkmen, Uzbeks, Bulgars, Mongols, Kalmyks, Buriats, Germans, Swedes, Jews and Gypies to name just a few. Throughout history, Russians interbred with all of these ethnic groups. As these ethnic groups assimilated and became citizens of the Russian Empire, they adopted Russian names, dress, religion and language.

Many Doukhobor surnames, formed in the 17th and 18th centuries, reflect the wide ethnic diversity of the Russian Empire: 

  • The Kalmykov surname is derived from kalmyk, the name of a nomadic Mongol tribe. The surname Kasahov is derived from the term kasag, the Old Russian name for the Circassians, a north Caucasian people. The Mordovin surname is derived from mordva, the name of an indigenous tribe of people in Russia.  The Polyakov surname is derived from the term polyak, meaning Pole. The surname Novokshonov is derived from the term novokreschony meaning “newly-baptised” or “newly-converted”. This term was given to those who accepted the Russian Orthodox faith, specifically non-Christians and non-Russians such as Turks, Tatars, Mordvins, etc.

  • Several Doukhobor surnames are formed from terms borrowed from the Turkish language. These include: Argatov, Babaev, Balabanov, Baturin, Bulanov, Chekmarev, Chuchmaev, Chuval’deev, Il’yasov, Kurbatov, Makhortov, Saburlev, Sadkov, Zibarev and others. While these surnames do not necessarily indicate Turkish family origins, they reveal Turkic cultural and linguistic influences at the time of their formation. 

  • Several Doukhobor surnames are formed from Mordvinian personal names.  These include: Kinyakin, Kitaev, Kochatov, Kunavin, Kuchaev and Varakin.

  • A number of Doukhobor surnames are clearly Ukrainian in form or derivation. These include: Arishchenkov (Arishchenko), Atamanenko, Barovsky (Oborovsky), Baturin (Baturinsky), Bokovoy, Bondarev, Borisenkov (Borisenko), Butsky, Cherkashev, Chernov (Chernoy), Chernenkov (Chernenko), Chubenko, Chutsenko, Chutsky, Dimovsky, Dyachenko, Eroshchenko, Gontarenkov (Gontarenko), Khokhlin, Kobzenko, Kolbasov (Kolbasa), Kolesnik, Kovalev, Krikunov (Krikun), Lavrenchenkov (Lavrenchko), Leshchenko, Levadniy, Matveyenko, Miroshnikov, Nagornov (Nagorniy), Petrenko, Pogozhev (Pogozhiy), Planidin (Planida), Plokhov (Plokhiy), Prokopenko, Remez (Remezov), Reznikov, Rudenko, Rybin (Ryban), Rybalkin, Savenkov (Savenko), Savitskov (Savitsky), Sereda, Shtuchnov (Shtuchniy), Skripnichenko, Skripnikov (Skripnik), Sorokin (Soroka), Svetlishnov (Svetlichniy), Tertishnikov, Vanzhov (Vanzha), Vasilenkov (Vasilenko), Yaroshenko, Yashchenkov (Yashchenko), Yarovenko, Zapasnoy, Zheltenkov (Zheltenko), Zubenkov (Zubenko).

  • Several Doukhobor surnames identify Cossack roots: The Kazakov surname is derived from the term kazak, meaning “Cossack”. The Esaulov surname is derived from the term esaul, meaning a Cossack “calvary commander”. The Sotnikov surname is derived from the term sotnik, meaning a Cossack commander of a hundred men.

In the early 1800’s, Doukhobors from across the Russian Empire settled together in Tavria (Tauride) province. Russian archival records confirm that a significant minority of these settlers were of Ukrainian, Cossack and Mordvinian origin: Ukrainians from Ekaterinoslav, Sloboda-Ukraine (Kharkov), Poltava, Kherson and Tavria provinces; Cossacks from Sloboda-Ukraine (Kharkov), the Kuban and the Don; and Mordvins from Tambov and Penza provinces. 

Doukhobor oral tradition supports the view that individuals of non-Russian ethnic origin settled amongst the Doukhobors at Milky Waters, Tavria province. In his book, Toil and Peaceful Life: History of Doukhobors Unmasked, author Semeon F. Reibin recounts how the Verigin family descended from Tatar princes. In his book, Stories from Doukhobor History, folk historian Eli Popoff discusses Doukhobor families of Finnish or Mordvinian ancestry who retained their native language and customs for generations after joining the Doukhobor movement. Popoff also discusses individuals of Mongol ancestry who settled among the Doukhobors. 

After the Doukhobors were exiled to the Caucasus mountain region in the 1840’s, many learned to speak the native Turkic, Georgian, Armenian and Azeri tongues of their mountain neighbours. There is no evidence to suggest the Doukhobors intermarried with the native Caucasian peoples during this period, however they definitely interacted with them on a daily basis.

In the late 1890’s following the “Burning of Arms”, close to 100 Doukhobor military personnel were exiled from the Caucasus to the Yakutsk district of Siberia for refusing to bear arms. A handful of these young men married local women of Siberian (Tagut) ancestry before they rejoined their families in Canada in 1905.

Without a doubt, the vast majority of Doukhobors are of Slavic Russian ethnic origin. However there is no such thing as a “pure-bred” nationality. A number of different ethnic groups may have contributed to, and enriched, our Doukhobor gene-pool. There are many old photographs of dark-complexioned Doukhobors, taken at the turn of the last century, that suggest some of us aren’t as “Russian” as we’d like to believe.

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