The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-06-27
FANATlCISM IN RUSSIA.
TRAGEDY OF THE RUSSIAN
NON-CONFORMTSTS OF TIRAsPOL.

story of Observation-Disclosures
Facts as Brought Out by the Rms
sian Police.
From the New York Sun.
st. Petersburg.-The terrible drama re-
Gently enacted in the southern part of
Russia, when the corpses of fifteen per
sons were found, some of them mmured
and others entombed alive in two com
mon graves, bids fair to have its limits
extended beyond all expectations; still
there is small hope that the truth in this
case will ever be sifted to the bottom, or
will it ever be known how many of these
fanatics shifted the mortal coil on the oc-
casion of the taking of the last census
in Russia, simply because their religious
convictions, originally prompted by occur
rences over a century old, prohibit them
from allowing their names to be entered
on the lists of the population counted by
order of the government. Once more in
this instance, has been demonstrated the
peculiar disposition of the Russian com
mon people to refuse all compromise with
their consciences to go contrary to all that
nature itself endears to the human being.
Although peculiarly Russian, this drama
has great interest for ourselves, for we
have in America the same sort of human
material from which the actors of that
drama were recruited. Most assuredly,
the strong tendency toward religious in
trospection displayed by the sectarians of
Tiraspol is not the exclusive property of
the Slav nature, but shows itself just as
frequently among the English-speakiug
that, while among such enthusiasts in
England and America religious exaltation,
intensified and sometimes whipped into
frenzy by the close contact of people of
one feeling, when gathered at prayer
meetings. takes the shape of perform
ances that serve only as an outlet to pent
up yearnings irreconcilable with the pur-
suits of their humdrum everyday life,
the Russian sectarian sets no barrier be.
tween the hours of his religious trans
ports and his everyday existence, but car
ries out his religious ecstacies and convic-
lions to their bitter yet logical end 1t
would be idle to set up a claim of a dir
ferent grade of civilization between the
two classes of people or to say that those
in England and America who assert their
poor individuality by such methods are
of any superior mental caliber to that of
the Russian sectarians of the hierarchical
or of the 'priestless'' sects, or the mon
conformists" of the Russian established
church.
The settlement called Ternovka, ehere
the crime of burying people alive took
place lies within a mile and a half of the
country town of TiraSpol a three hours
railway journey from the large university
town of Odessa. 1t possesses a sectarian
retreat, or monastery, called Skeet, which
seems to have formed central point for
the local sectarians' religious gatherings.
On the steep embankment of the river
Dniester amid the most bewitching and
peaceful scenery, stand the house and out
buildings belonging to the fruit farm own
ed by the sectarians of the name of Kova-
lef. Now there remains only one person
of that family, namely, Teodore Kovalef,
the man who had drawn the lot that in
vested him with the duty of executioner,
and who had obeyed the summons with
out protest immuring in a cave and help
ing to bury in a common grave fifteen per-
sons in ALL his own wife and two babies,
another young woman and her husband
and child, and yet another couple, with two
children, among the rest. Now, Kovalef
is young man, and not at all the human
monstrosity one would be led to imagine;
he always was considered a man of high
principles, good husband and father, far
from stern, decidedly open handed and
kindly in his manner; besides, he had a
good head for business, conducting most
successfully large fruit farm and vine-
yard owned by the family in common and
valued at some $4,000 10000 rubles) a very
large estate for a Russian farmer
At a distance behind the house of the
Kovalefs begin the large garden and vine-
yards, stretching out into the background
as far as the eye can reach, Joining other
gardens and thus going to form dense
wood, reaching as far as the outline of
mountains beyond; midway between the
house of the Kovalets and that enormous
1H afa,~f COLL
ed Skeet, far away from all other human
habitatlon. The retreat consists of two
long, low, rambling buildings the larger
one Of which was occupied by the women
and the smaller by the men. Entrance
into each building is by such a low and
narrow door that one has TO go through
it sdewse, almost bent double; that be-
ing one of the many precautions against
a possible surprise from a large police
force. The entrance door leads to
small dark hail. almost a closet, from
which three doors lead into as many mar
row sells. Each of the latter has either
one or several narrow doors leading to a
perfect labyrinth of other narrow cells
All of them are dimly lighted by small
grated windows, and all possess secret
passages Now that the walls of the
cells have been dismantled by the flee
ing sectarians first and by the police after
them, many of those openings, no more
than a foot and a half square each,
stand fully exposed to view. These lead
by subterranean passages far into the
woods beyond. and in some instances,
clear to the banks of the river; It is in
those passages evidently that visitors and
worshippers used TO secrete themselves
whenever a police raid on the retreat
would occur, for those sectarians belong
ed TO the sect called the Runners, Be-
goonee, and are held to be outlaws. Ever
since the violent, ill-advsed reforms OF
Peter the Great drove people Of this stamp
into violent opposition TO the established
church, the chief tenet Of their convlc-
tionS-their religious and social tendencies
being hopelossly intermixed-bas been
tacit opposition to the laws OF the land
The most violent hatred, that had at the
time OF the secession animated those fol
lowers OF the ancient faith and customs'
Gas they style themseves) against the
ruthless implanter OF western reforms
Peter the Great, arose from the fact that
the great despot reformer wanted to in
sutute census of the population OF his
empire. The sectarians conceived the no