page_title: Doukhobors
section_title: Religious revival and crises
hierarchical_section_title: Doukhobors / History / Religious revival and crises
caption_attribution_description: English: Douchobor's village Slavyanka in Azerbaijan
context_page_description: The Doukhobours or Dukhobors are a Spiritual Christian religious group of Russian origin. They are one of many non-Orthodox ethno-confessional faiths in Russia, often categorized as "folk-Protestants", Spiritual Christians, sectarians, or heretics. They are distinguished as pacifists who lived in their own villages, rejected personal materialism, worked together, and developed a tradition of oral history and memorizing and singing hymns and verses. Before 1886, they had a series of single leaders.
  The ancient origin of the Doukhobors is uncertain. The first written records of them are from 1701, although some scholars suspect earlier origins.
  They rejected the Russian Orthodox priesthood, the use of icons, and all associated church ritual. They came to believe that the Bible alone was not enough to reach divine revelation, and that doctrinal conflicts can interfere with their faith. Their goal was to internalize the living spirit of God so that God's spirit would be revealed within each individual. Bible teachings are evident in some published Doukhobor psalms, hymns, and beliefs.
context_section_description: The death of "Lukerya", who had no children, was followed by a leadership crisis which divided Dukhobortsy in the Caucasus into two "parties" (major groups) by who would be their next leader. Lukerya planned that leadership should pass to her assistant, Peter Vasilevich Verigin. But only part of the community ("the Large Party"; Russian: Большая сторона, romanized: Bolshaya Storona) accepted him as the leader; others, known as "the Small Party" (Малая сторона Malaya Storona), sided with Lukerya's brother Michael Gubanov and the village elder Aleksei Zubkov.
  While the Large Party was a majority, the Small Party had the support of the older members of the community and the local authorities. On January 26, 1887, at the community service where the new leader was to be acclaimed, the police arrived and arrested Verigin. He was sent into internal exile for the next 16 years in Russia's Far North of Siberia; some of his associates were sent into exile as well. The Large Party Doukhobors continued to consider him their spiritual leader and to communicate with him, by mail and via delegates who traveled to see him in Obdorsk, Siberia. An isolated population of exiled Doukhobors, a third "party", was about 5,000 miles east in Amur Oblast.
  At the same time, the government applied greater pressure to enforce the Doukhobors' compliance with its laws and regulations. The Doukhobors had resisted registering marriages and births, contributing grain to state emergency funds, and swearing oaths of allegiance. In 1887 Russia enforced the universal military conscription required in the rest of the empire into these Transcaucasian provinces as well. While the Small Party people cooperated with the state, the Large Party, reacting to arrest of their leaders and inspired by their letters from exile, only felt strengthened in their desire to abide in the righteousness of their faith. Under instructions from Verigin, they stopped using tobacco and alcohol, divided their property equally among the members of the community, and resolved to adhere to the practice of pacifism and non-violence. They would refuse to swear the oath of allegiance required in 1894 by the new emperor, Nicholas II in 1894.
  Under further instructions from Verigin, about 7,000 of the most zealous Doukhobors (about one-third of all Doukhobors) of the three Governorates of Transcaucasia destroyed their weapons and refused to serve in the military. As the Doukhobors gathered to burn their guns on the night of June 28/29 (July 10/11, Gregorian calendar) 1895, while singing of psalms and spiritual songs, government Cossacks arrested and beat them. Soon, the government billeted Cossacks in many of the Large Party's villages; some 4,000 Doukhobors were forced to disperse in villages in other parts of Georgia. Many died of starvation and exposure.
caption: The doukhobor village in Slavyanka Azerbaijan, 2018
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 550D", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2018:09:11 14:55:43", "Image Artist": "ASiF MASiMOV", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "masimovasif.net", "Image ExifOffset": "348", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "8736", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "11190", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/125", "EXIF FNumber": "9", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Landscape Mode", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2018:09:11 14:55:43", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2018:09:11 14:55:43", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "7", "EXIF ApertureValue": "51/8", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "34", "EXIF SubSecTime": "66", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "66", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "66", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3456", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2304", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "8596", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "691200/181", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "460800/119", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}