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This article appeared in Discovery Magazine 1998. |
Weaving Doukhobor
History Doukhobor
farm near Grand Forks, 1947. 
This story begins with a man's suit, made of
homespun and handwoven flax in the Doukhobor style. A beautiful symbol of
women's labour, we purchased it for the Museum collection thanks to funds
from the Friends of the Royal BC Museum. The suit was said to have come
from Grand Forks, so I decided to stop in on my way to the Kootenays. And
so the unexpected appearance of a suit began my education about the Doukhobors
of British Columbia.
Driving out through the rain, I came over a hilltop into a burst of sunshine. To my right, an old abandoned Doukhobor communal farm welcomed me. In Grand Forks, Joan Miller, the Curator of the Boundary Museum, introduced me to Sid Peregoodoff who gave me a tour of Grand Forks. We drove up to meet Peter Gritchen at his Mountain View Museum, housed in a traditional farm house. I learned about places like the Fructova Heritage Centre, the Castlegar Doukhobor Village Museum and a complex and dramatic history involving people such as the Verigin family and the Sons of Freedom. That day I found no answers about the origin of the suit, but I began to sense the depth of Doukhobor spirit and community. Friends
funds purchased a Doukhobor suit. 
At the end of the day I asked Sid for advice
on a good restaurant. He said, "Follow me," and I found myself at Christina
Lake, eating his mother Anne's homemade bread and borscht at a table set
with salt and water. The tall round bread, a shaker of salt and a pitcher
of water signified her faith. I discovered that Anne’s bread finds its way
to many Doukhobor weddings, funerals and celebrations. She began Anne's
Russian Bakery after the tragic death of her husband at a dam site at Campbell
River. During an evening sharing food and listening to her talk about traditional
village customs, I learned about the daily life of the Doukhobor settlers.
Doukhobor historian Koozma Tarasoff has pointed out how difficult it is to define "Doukhobors." They are Russian immigrants, a religious sect, and also adherents to a philosophy of life. Some will not even use the term. "Doukhobor" first appears in a 1785 Russian Orthodox condemnation of the Dukho-borets – the "Spirit Wrestlers" who rejected icon worship and highly structured state-supported religion. These people practiced pacifism, humanitarian love and communal life, believing that all people are equal. Their beliefs led to conflict with organized religion and persecution by the Czar, culminating in their refusing military service and publicly burning military arms in 1895. With their leader Peter V. Verigin in Siberian exile and supported by sympathizers like the Quakers and Leo Tolstoy, they prepared to leave Russia to find freedom from human laws. Doukhobor
women and children 
In 1899, some 7,500 men, women and children
embarked on two steamships for Canada. Like the Hutterites and the Mennonites,
they settled first in Saskatchewan. The federal government agreed to allow
their communal land and village system, Russian language schools and pacifist
beliefs. Peter Verigin joined them in 1902. However, when Saskatchewan became
a province, their status changed. In 1906, oaths were required to own land.
By 1907, their communal land system ended – despite community resistance
that included the first use of mass nudity to oppose power and injustice.
For members of the smaller Sons of Freedom or Freedomite sect, it was clear
evidence that the state, any state, was not to be trusted. Others chose
to become "independents," taking the oaths and becoming successful prairie
farmers, with their own lands and homes.
Verigin decided to start again, further west. In 1908, 6,000 Doukhobors moved to British Columbia to set up 74 new communal villages at Brilliant [former town near Castlegar], Glade and around Grand Forks and Castlegar. The typical farm was a large communal building with a series of smaller out-buildings. They set up a jam factory at Brilliant and built sawmills, flour mills and brickyards. Their way of life, with its emphasis on simplicity, manual labor, communal ownership, and the Russian language was met with discrimination. The
Sons of Freedom were interned on Piers Island 
By now, there were deepening divisions within
the Doukhobor community. The following years saw tensions grow. Freedomite
confrontations with the government over land, tax and educational issues
culminated in 1932 with the mass arrests of protesters, and many children
briefly became wards of the state. By the end of the thirties the communal
lands were lost in a controversial mortgage dispute, ending the grand experiment.
More became "independents," leaving the communal village system behind but taking along their Doukhobor values. From 1953 to 1962, Freedomite protests continued and another generation of children became wards of the state because they were not attending school. Many traditional Doukhobors, embarrassed by conflicts and sensationalistic reporting, closed ranks around community and religious traditions, preferring a path of peaceful toil and quiet lives lived in praise. Independents, Freedomites, traditionalists – each group has a rich and complex history, forming part of British Columbia's past and present.
A
trunk full of clothes included 
Lorne Hammond is a Curator
of History at the RBCM. Curator
Lorne Hammond While the story began with a handwoven linen suit, Museum curators hope it will eventually result in a collection fit for an exhibit. To this end, the RBCM is asking various communities to help them develop a collection that preserves and documents BC’s rich Doukhobor heritage. Robin
Patterson, Historical Collections Manager, 
Recently, outside Castlegar, one family did
exactly that. Sid Peregoodoff, fellow-curator Bob Griffin and I were allowed
to go through the attics, basements, barns and outbuildings of an "independent"
family's farm which was being sold. The RBCM was given over 100 items representing
this family's history, including homespun cloth, suits, rugs, embroidery,
books, weaving tools and even a traditional homemade sauna or banya.
Some items go back to the 1920s and others represent the process of acculturation
in the 1940s and 1950s.
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