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The Doukhobors
Contents:
People of God
Milky waters
Caucasian exile
Burning of weapons
Failure on Cyprus
Canadian exodus
Pioneers and pilgrims
Peter the Lordly
Strife with the state
Second community
Links with the fatherland
Peter the purger
sons of freedom
Doukhobors today
People of God
Milky waters
Caucasian exile
Burning of weapons
Failure on Cyprus
Canadian exodus
Pioneers and pilgrims
Peter the Lordly
Strife with the state
Second community
Links with the fatherland
Peter the purger
sons of freedom
Doukhobors today
382 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1968
About the author
George Woodcock
189 books46 followersWoodcock was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but moved with his parents to England at an early age, attending Sir William Borlase's Grammar School in Marlow and Morley College. Though his family was quite poor, Woodcock had the opportunity to go to Oxford University on a partial scholarship; however, he turned down the chance because he would have had to become a member of the clergy.Instead, he took a job as a clerk at the Great Western Railway and it was there that he first became interested in anarchism (specifically libertarian socialism). He was to remain an anarchist for the rest of his life, writing several books on the subject.
It was during these years that he met several prominent literary figures, including T. S. Eliot and Aldous Huxley and became good friends with George Orwell despite ideological disagreements. Woodcock later wrote The Crystal Spirit (1966), a critical study of Orwell and his work which won a Governor General's Award.
Woodcock spent World War II working on a farm, as a conscientious objector. At Camp Angel in Oregon, a camp for conscientious objectors, he was a founder of the Untide Press, which sought to bring poetry to the public in an inexpensive but attractive format. Following the war, he returned to Canada, eventually settling in Vancouver, British Columbia. In 1955, he took a post in the English department of the University of British Columbia, where he stayed until the 1970s. Around this time he started to write more prolifically, producing several travel books and collections of poetry, as well as the works on anarchism for which he is best known.
Towards the end of his life, Woodcock became increasingly interested in what he saw as the plight of Tibetans. He travelled to India, studied Buddhism, became friends with the Dalai Lama and established the Tibetan Refugee Aid Society. He and his wife Inge also established Canada India Village Aid, which sponsors self-help projects in rural India. Both organizations exemplify Woodcock's ideal of voluntary cooperation between peoples across national boundaries.
George and Inge also established a program to support professional Canadian writers. The Woodcock Fund, which began in 1989, provides financial assistance to writers in mid-book-project who face an unforeseen financial need that threatens the completion of their book. The Fund is available to writers of fiction, creative non-fiction, plays, and poetry. The Woodcocks helped create an endowment for the program in excess of two million dollars. The Woodcock Fund program is administered by the Writers’ Trust of Canada and has distributed $887,273 to 180 Canadian writers, as of March 2012.
It was during these years that he met several prominent literary figures, including T. S. Eliot and Aldous Huxley and became good friends with George Orwell despite ideological disagreements. Woodcock later wrote The Crystal Spirit (1966), a critical study of Orwell and his work which won a Governor General's Award.
Woodcock spent World War II working on a farm, as a conscientious objector. At Camp Angel in Oregon, a camp for conscientious objectors, he was a founder of the Untide Press, which sought to bring poetry to the public in an inexpensive but attractive format. Following the war, he returned to Canada, eventually settling in Vancouver, British Columbia. In 1955, he took a post in the English department of the University of British Columbia, where he stayed until the 1970s. Around this time he started to write more prolifically, producing several travel books and collections of poetry, as well as the works on anarchism for which he is best known.
Towards the end of his life, Woodcock became increasingly interested in what he saw as the plight of Tibetans. He travelled to India, studied Buddhism, became friends with the Dalai Lama and established the Tibetan Refugee Aid Society. He and his wife Inge also established Canada India Village Aid, which sponsors self-help projects in rural India. Both organizations exemplify Woodcock's ideal of voluntary cooperation between peoples across national boundaries.
George and Inge also established a program to support professional Canadian writers. The Woodcock Fund, which began in 1989, provides financial assistance to writers in mid-book-project who face an unforeseen financial need that threatens the completion of their book. The Fund is available to writers of fiction, creative non-fiction, plays, and poetry. The Woodcocks helped create an endowment for the program in excess of two million dollars. The Woodcock Fund program is administered by the Writers’ Trust of Canada and has distributed $887,273 to 180 Canadian writers, as of March 2012.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 9, 2023
The Doukhobors (Spirit Wrestlers) were one of the more colourful groups immigrants ever to have come to Canada. Today they are primarily remembered for marching in the nude, setting fire to the schools that their children were enrolled in and occasionally bombing other public buildings. George Woodcock in his book presents the history of this community in a sympathetic manner.
The Doukhobor emerged in the Russian speaking communities of the southern Ukraine in the 18th century. For the most part the Doukhobors were illiterate. Thus Woodcock's sources were police reports, government studies and accounts by sympathetic intellectuals (primarily Quakers and Tolstoyans) who visited their communities.
The naked prottest marches, arson and bombings were practices that emerged in the Canadian Doukhobor community. In Russia, the Doukhobors were pacifists and vegetarians. They rejected private property and live in agricultural communes. They no liturgy, icons or priests. The rejected the authority of the Orthodox Church and the holy scriptures. They attracted the sympathy and support of the Quakers because of the similarity in their doctrines. Tolstoy who mistook them for Christian Anarchists subscribing to his views also gave them large amounts of funds and his followers in England worked hard to facilitate their emigration to Canada as their disputes with the Tsarist government intensified dramatically in the last two decades of the nineteenth century.
In 1899, the Quakers and the Tolstoyan movement paid to send roughly 7500 Doukhobors to Canada. A few individuals came over the next thirty years but no second group of any size. Although the Canadian government's preference was to grant individual holdings to agricultural immigrants, it had developed structures for communes to accommodate Mennonite immigrants that they could use with the Doukhobors.
Their charismatic leader Peter V. Verigin created a corporate identity known as the Lordly Christian Community of Christian Brotherhood (CCUB) that founded four colonies in Saskatchewan. When Vergin was assassinated in 1924, his widow departed with a splinter group to found a colony in British Columbia while Verigin's son Peter P. became head of the CCUB in Saskatchewan.
In 1938 the CCUB went bankrupt and the following year, Peter V. Verigin died. His son John became the nominal head of the movement but he was in captivity in Russia where he would ultimately die. The Saskatchewan government allowed the members of the CCUB to acquire individual lots on the land that the CCUB had owned. The Doukhobors thus ceased to constitute an organized commune in Saskatchewan and the assimilation of the members into Canadian society rapidly accelerated.
While the CCUB was being dissolved in Saskatchewan. a radical, terrorist group known as the sons of Freedom became active in the B.C. community. Their goal was to prevent the Doukhobors from assimilating into Canadian society. Over the next twenty-five years the Sons of Freedom would conduct a vigorous campaign of arson, bombing and nude marches. The government of B.C. would respond with arrests and prosecutions. By the early 1960,s the Sons of Freedom had run out of energy. The numbers of the Doukhobor community had dwindled dramatically as most had moved away to other regions in Canada where they discretely conformed to the norms of Canadian society.
Woodcock was perhaps correct to write about the Doukhobors as being simply a community of immigrants to Canada. There is a superficial argument of course that they could have been described as a cult with a persecution complex. Unlike the Mennonite or Quaker communities that were governed by prudent councils of elders, the Doukhobors followed charismatic leaders with erratic personalities. Their habits of arson and bombing (which were clearly in contrast with their pacificist beliefs) also reflect an unhealthy collective mentality. Their desire to remain separate from Canadian society could be considered paranoiac. Woodcock, however, chose to be moderate in his tone and respectful. It is hard to criticize him for this choice.
The Doukhobor emerged in the Russian speaking communities of the southern Ukraine in the 18th century. For the most part the Doukhobors were illiterate. Thus Woodcock's sources were police reports, government studies and accounts by sympathetic intellectuals (primarily Quakers and Tolstoyans) who visited their communities.
The naked prottest marches, arson and bombings were practices that emerged in the Canadian Doukhobor community. In Russia, the Doukhobors were pacifists and vegetarians. They rejected private property and live in agricultural communes. They no liturgy, icons or priests. The rejected the authority of the Orthodox Church and the holy scriptures. They attracted the sympathy and support of the Quakers because of the similarity in their doctrines. Tolstoy who mistook them for Christian Anarchists subscribing to his views also gave them large amounts of funds and his followers in England worked hard to facilitate their emigration to Canada as their disputes with the Tsarist government intensified dramatically in the last two decades of the nineteenth century.
In 1899, the Quakers and the Tolstoyan movement paid to send roughly 7500 Doukhobors to Canada. A few individuals came over the next thirty years but no second group of any size. Although the Canadian government's preference was to grant individual holdings to agricultural immigrants, it had developed structures for communes to accommodate Mennonite immigrants that they could use with the Doukhobors.
Their charismatic leader Peter V. Verigin created a corporate identity known as the Lordly Christian Community of Christian Brotherhood (CCUB) that founded four colonies in Saskatchewan. When Vergin was assassinated in 1924, his widow departed with a splinter group to found a colony in British Columbia while Verigin's son Peter P. became head of the CCUB in Saskatchewan.
In 1938 the CCUB went bankrupt and the following year, Peter V. Verigin died. His son John became the nominal head of the movement but he was in captivity in Russia where he would ultimately die. The Saskatchewan government allowed the members of the CCUB to acquire individual lots on the land that the CCUB had owned. The Doukhobors thus ceased to constitute an organized commune in Saskatchewan and the assimilation of the members into Canadian society rapidly accelerated.
While the CCUB was being dissolved in Saskatchewan. a radical, terrorist group known as the sons of Freedom became active in the B.C. community. Their goal was to prevent the Doukhobors from assimilating into Canadian society. Over the next twenty-five years the Sons of Freedom would conduct a vigorous campaign of arson, bombing and nude marches. The government of B.C. would respond with arrests and prosecutions. By the early 1960,s the Sons of Freedom had run out of energy. The numbers of the Doukhobor community had dwindled dramatically as most had moved away to other regions in Canada where they discretely conformed to the norms of Canadian society.
Woodcock was perhaps correct to write about the Doukhobors as being simply a community of immigrants to Canada. There is a superficial argument of course that they could have been described as a cult with a persecution complex. Unlike the Mennonite or Quaker communities that were governed by prudent councils of elders, the Doukhobors followed charismatic leaders with erratic personalities. Their habits of arson and bombing (which were clearly in contrast with their pacificist beliefs) also reflect an unhealthy collective mentality. Their desire to remain separate from Canadian society could be considered paranoiac. Woodcock, however, chose to be moderate in his tone and respectful. It is hard to criticize him for this choice.
August 26, 2019
A fascinating and perceptive analysis that remains relevant despite first being published in 1968. The early sections on the Russian history of the Doukhobors are particularly recommended.
August 1, 2023
I have read several books on the Doukhobors and this one is the best.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews