Stones on the Prairie: Acculturation in Texas

Old Believers and the Soviet State in Riga, 1945-55

Rude & Barbarous Kingdom Revisited: Essays in Russian History and Culture in Honor of Robert O. Crummey. Chester S. L. Dunning, Russell E. Martin, and Daniel Rowland, eds. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2008, 287–99.       Old Believers and the Soviet State in Riga, 1945–55 Roy R. Robson In  the  past  few  years,  our  understanding  of  popular  religious  life  in  the  Soviet   Union  has  undergone  a  significant  change.  Once  only  the  interest  of  émigré   believers  or  militant  atheists,  Orthodoxy  after  1917  is  finally  receiving  sophis-­‐‑ ticated  analysis  by  professional  historians.  The  resultant  picture  is  quite  nu-­‐‑ anced.   Believers   were   persecuted,   even   martyred   by   the   Soviet   authorities.   The   communist   state   nationalized   religious   property,   razed   thousands   of   churches,  and  relegated  religious  servitors  to  the  level  of  social  parasites,  the   last  to  receive  rations  when  food  was  scarce.  However,  religious  life  did  con-­‐‑ tinue:  sometimes  in  exile,  sometimes  covertly,  and  sometimes  quite  openly.   Often,  belief  and  atheism  existed  on  a  continuum,  with  believers  and  Soviet   authorities   jockeying   for   control.   The   believers   themselves   developed   strat-­‐‑ egies  to  use  the  Soviet  system  to  their  own  advantage,  pursuing  legal  recogni-­‐‑ tion  in  the  USSR.1     The  next  step  in  understanding  the  phenomenon  of  religion  in  the  USSR   is  the  analysis  of  religious  communities  in  detail.2  How  did  they  respond  to   changing   conditions   in   the   USSR?   How   did   they   interact   with   the   Soviet   bureaucracy?  What  tactics  did  they  use?  Were  there  differences  between  Or-­‐‑ thodox  and  Old  Believer  experiences  under  Soviet  rule?  This  essay  attempts   to  expand  the  research  on  local  communities  to  that  of  the  Old  Belief.  It  will   focus  on  the  relationship  between  religion  and  communism  on  a  local  level  by                                                                                                                             1  See  William  B.  Husband,  “Soviet  Atheism  and  Russian  Orthodox  Strategies  of  Resis-­‐‑ tance,   1917–32,”   Journal   of   Modern   History   70   (1998):   74–107.   Even   wider   ranging   is   William  B.  Husband,  ‘Godless  Communists’:  Atheism  and  Society  in  Soviet  Russia,  1917– 1932  (DeKalb:  Northern  Illinois  University  Press,  2000).  Also  see  Edward  E.  Roslof,  Red   Priests:  Renovating  Russian  Orthodoxy  and  Revolution,  1905–1946  (Bloomington:  Indiana   University   Press,   2002);   and   T.   A.   Chumachenko   and   Edward   E.   Roslof,   Church   and   State   in   Soviet   Russia:   Russian   Orthodoxy   from   World   War   II   to   the   Khrushchev   Years   (Armonk,  NY:  M.  E.  Sharpe,  2002).   2  There  are  some  articles  focused  on  one  region  or  parish  in  the  Orthodox  church.  See   Chris  J.  Chulos,  “Peasants’  Attempts  to  Reopen  Their  Church,  1929–1936,”  Russian  His-­‐‑ tory/Histoire  Russe  24:  1  (1997):  203–13;  and  Daniel  Peris,  “‘God  is  Now  on  Our  Side:’   The  Religious  Revival  on  Unoccupied  Soviet  Territory  during  World  War  II’”  Kritika:   Explorations  in  Russian  and  Eurasian  History  1:  1  (2000):  97–118.   288 ROY R. ROBSON studying  the  Riga  Grebenshchikovskaia  Old  Believer  Community  (RGSO)  in   the  period  1945–55.     Riga Old Believers and Secular Authority Founded  in  1760,  the  Grebenshchikovskaia  Community  was  one  of  the  most   highly   developed   Old   Ritualist   groups   in   former   Imperial   lands.   As   the   largest  of  the  Baltic  Old  Believer  communities,  the  Grebenshchikovskaia  Ob-­‐‑ shchina   was   the   de   facto   leader   of   the   Old   Belief   in   the   Baltics.   The   mag-­‐‑ nificent  church  with  its  mammoth  iconostasis,  its  school,  charitable  activities,   printing  press,  and  library  all  served  tens  of  thousands  of  Old  Believers  in  the   region.3   Except   for   closure   during   the   mid-­‐‑19th-­‐‑century   repression   of   Nicholas  I,  the  community  had  experienced  notably  good  relations  with  the   Imperial  government.   Latvian  Old  Believers  offered  little  formal  response  to  the  atheist  regime   that   had   taken   over   Russia   in   1917.   For   example,   published   minutes   of   the   first   Spiritual   Council   of   Old   Believer   Preceptors,   held   in   1922,   never   men-­‐‑ tioned  the  Bolshevik  revolution.  Instead,  the  community  leaders  promised  to   lead  a  more  general  “struggle  with  unbelief  and  sectarianism.”4  Unofficially,   though,  some  Old  Believer  leaders  were  anxious  about  the  threat  of  commu-­‐‑ nism.   M.   A.   Vlasov,   both   preceptor   (nastavnik)   of   the   Grebenshchikovskaia   community  and  president  of  the  Latvian  Old  Believer  Spiritual  Commission,   kept  copious  notes  from  works  by  Marx,  Lunacharskii,  and  related  authors.   He  laboriously  copied  out  quotes  from  a  number  of  publications:  Nauka  i  tekh-­‐‑ nika,   Kommunizm   i   religiia,   Izvestiia   VTsIKa,   Kapital,   Antireligioznik,   Religiia   i   sotsializm,   and   others.   Though   he   may   not   have   spoken   publicly   about   the   threat  of  communism  (no  sermons  on  that  topic  have  been  found  at  the  RGSO   archive),  Vlasov  lamented  that  “in  our  time,  we  live  in  all  but  complete  break-­‐‑ down   of   our   religious-­‐‑moral   life.   And   therefore,   we   may   not   have   time   to   think  about  how  to  hold  back  ourselves  and  other  infirm  Christian  brothers                                                                                                                             3...