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Spring 2017 · Vol. 46 No. 1 · pp. 69–80 

Stolypin and the Mennonites

Andrey Ivanov

After decades of relative ill repute in Soviet historiography, the name of Prime Minister Petr A. Stolypin has returned to prominence in the public and ideological imagination of twenty-first century Russia. A 2008 poll identified him as the second most admired Russian leader, while Vladimir Putin praised Stolypin in his first presidential “State of Russia” address in 2000. 1 Throughout the 2000s, monuments to Stolypin sprung up all over the country, as far apart as Moscow, Omsk, Krasnodar, and Saratov.

Stolypin also feared that in some respects Mennonites integrated into regional society too well and in the wrong way.

Elevated to power during the chaos of the Revolution of 1905–1906, this popular former governor took the reins of domestic policy after 1906, quieting widespread revolts, encouraging policies for economic growth, engaging the multiparty politics of the Duma parliament, and mediating between the recalcitrant absolutism of Nicholas II and the demands of Russia’s emerging civil society. Eminent historians, such as Abraham Ascher and Leonid Strakhovsky, have credited Russia’s economic and political stabilization after the 1905 revolution to his policies and reforms. They have further argued that his assassination in 1911 brought an end to this stability, leading to a series of disruptions that eventually produced the revolutions of 1917. 2 {70}

While much is known about Stolypin’s politics, his relationship to Mennonites remains an understudied subject. Apart from Terry Martin’s groundbreaking study of Mennonites in the Duma, very little has been written about the Mennonites’ relationship with the tsarist government between 1906 and 1911, and especially about Stolypin’s “Mennonite policy” in general. 3 Yet, Stolypin personally interacted with Mennonites on many levels: in 1909, he sent “punitive expeditions” to protect the Terek Mennonite colony from the raids of neighboring villagers, and in 1910 he visited Mennonite colonies in the Omsk region. 4

He also corresponded on various issues affecting Mennonites in the empire, including the core area of settlement in southern Ukraine. The collections of the Russian State Historical Archives in St. Petersburg (RGIA) are rich in materials documenting the prime minister’s correspondence with governors of the southern Russian Empire on various issues that closely affected Mennonites living in that region. Through the monumental efforts of Professor Paul Toews, who searched the archives of post-Soviet Eurasia to find Mennonite-related materials, Stolypin’s correspondence on the “Mennonite question” in Russia is now widely available to researchers in the microfilm collections of the Mennonite Library & Archives at Fresno Pacific University.

The purpose of this article is to highlight examples from Stolypin’s RGIA papers and to suggest an agenda for further research, not to produce a comprehensive study of that collection. This article will highlight items in Stolypin’s correspondence that reveal the prime minister’s struggle to reconcile the principles of religious freedoms (granted by the tsar in the wake of 1905 revolution) with what he viewed to be Russia’s foundational “state idea” (which still reserved a privileged status for the Orthodox Church). In theory, this meant that Mennonites could profess their faith freely and that the Orthodox who chose to leave their church to embrace Protestantism or sectarianism also could do so freely (although open proselytism among the Orthodox population was still prohibited). In practice, however, the prime minister found it difficult to explain to local officials how to distinguish between the right to profess faith in public and the prohibition on public proselytism or “propaganda.”

Stolypin’s struggle to define just how much freedom Mennonites should enjoy was further complicated by the question of their integration into Russian society. On the one hand, Stolypin criticized Mennonite “cultural tribalism,” which impeded their full assimilation into an ideal archetype of a Russian nationality. Unlike the highly integrated Baltic Germans, for example, Russia’s Mennonites were still a separate tribe, mostly confined to the lands they colonized as special {71} agricultural settlers invited by Catherine the Great and Alexander I. On the other hand, their extensive economic impact and commercial success in southern Ukraine (where Muslims, sectarians, and Protestants coexisted with the Orthodox) not only helped them integrate well into the regional society, but also gave them a status that could culturally undermine the positions of the official church. As linguistic boundaries ceased to separate them from their Ukrainian- or Russian-speaking neighbors, these highly successful colonists became financiers of local sectarianism, with which they established strong cultural and economic links. Thus, for Stolypin, too little integration was a threat to the Russian national idea, but too much integration (of the wrong kind) potentially threatened the privileged status of the Orthodox Church in southern Ukraine. Just how much (and how) Mennonites should integrate into Russian society was a question that Stolypin never fully addressed.

The Revolution of 1905 radically changed the position of religious minorities in the Russian Empire, thanks to two very important liberalization measures. One was the Edict of Religious Toleration, issued on April 17, 1905, by Nicholas II. This law allowed the Old Believers and sectarians who had split from the Orthodox Church to build their own houses of worship, appoint ministers, and create educational institutions. Another, the Manifesto of October 17, 1905, guaranteed some broader civil rights, including freedom of religion, freedom of speech, and peaceful assembly. 5 Furthermore, this legislation guaranteed the right to practice and profess one’s faith and the right for anyone to change their religion. But despite the freedoms promised by these new laws, they did not disestablish Russian Orthodoxy as the state church nor allow any other religious group in Russia to proselytize.

Part of Stolypin’s task was to implement this legislation in the provinces. His two goals were to safeguard the privileged position of the state church and at the same time guarantee freedom of religion. “Our task is to adapt Orthodoxy to the attractive theory of freedom of faith within the limits of our Russian Orthodox state,” he declared. 6

Stolypin monitored the situation in the provinces very closely, employing a network of agents to supplement the information that he routinely received through the provincial governors by official mail. Between 1906 and 1911, he reorganized and improved the work of the Interior Ministry’s constituent Department of Religious Affairs, within which he created a special desk to deal with sectarians and Old Believers. It was staffed by operatives with the broad title of “Special Affairs Officers.” These officers reported directly to the Prime Minister and traveled widely for investigative purposes. Much of Stolypin’s Mennonite-related correspondence in the RGIA consists of reports from these {72} special agents. Stolypin’s correspondence with the governors constitutes another important group of documents in the collection, and reveals that the governors seemed unaware of the central government’s reach in the provinces and of just how much St. Petersburg knew about local events.

IN DEFENSE OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

One group of RGIA documents covers Stolypin’s efforts to defend Mennonite and sectarian religious freedoms, especially when the central government intervened against the local suppression of the civil rights guaranteed by the October Manifesto. Between 1910 and 1911 numerous petitions poured into St. Petersburg from Mennonite leaders in Crimea, Molotschna, and the Kuban colonies seeking protection against local abuses. These requests prompted Stolypin’s investigations (with the use of his special affairs agents), the results of which were often favorable to the petitioners.

In one case, during the fall of 1910, the governor of the Tavrida region, Vasilii V. Novitskii (in office 1905–1911), decided to rid the Yalta and Sevastopol area of the “schismatic propaganda” by exiling members of Alupka’s Evangelical Christian congregation, which was led by Mennonite Brethren pastor P. M. Friesen. The reports did not mention any instances of proselytizing activity, but Novitskii acted upon the opinion of the Orthodox Church officials that the very existence of Protestant sectarians was a threat to the established position of the church. “Brother Moskalenko,” one of the petitioners from the exiled congregation, appealed to the Ministry of the Interior. Stolypin promptly investigated this “Alupka incident” (as Stolypin referred to it in a letter to the governor). Novitskii’s action was condemned for violating the rights of the sectarians and for failing to follow the ministry’s guidelines by seeking the clergy’s guidance on the matter. 7 The government followed up on the investigation with a warning from the Department of Religious Affairs that “authorities should not resort to illegal actions by executing all the Orthodox Church’s demands.” 8

In another case, Mennonite landowner David Dyck organized a series of Bible study meetings at his Apanlee estate for local leaders of the Evangelical Christian and the so-called “Evangelical-Alliance Mennonite” groups in March 1911. Novitskii banned these activities on the grounds that there was no “tacit approval” from the Mennonite authorities of the districts comprising the former Molotschna colony, that the organizers had disclosed no information about the attendees and—especially—because the estate was located in an area populated by “the Molokans and other sectarians” where the Orthodox were “constantly threatened by propaganda.” 9 {73}

The Department of Religious Affairs, however, overturned the governor’s decision, arguing that Mennonites had a right to meet regardless of who attended (as long as they sent proper advance notification of such activity) and regardless of whether the Orthodox felt threatened by such gatherings. The letter stated that the governor’s responsibility was to see that no illegal proselytizing took place, while at the same time guaranteeing the protection of the right to assembly. 10 For Novitskii, this was a baffling task. While the ministry recognized the difference between unlawful proselytism and lawful assembly, the governor failed to see the distinction. To prevent proselytism, he believed, it was necessary to ban any religious meetings that an Orthodox believer might voluntarily attend.

The authorities monitoring sectarianism often did not distinguish between legal and illegal activities, choosing arbitrarily between repression and leniency. During the periods of suppression, sectarians experienced forced deportations, closures of prayer houses, and arrests. “Local authorities in the region,” agent Pavlov wrote, “understand their purpose in matters of religion exclusively as an obligation to . . . harass sectarians . . . through meager, diminutive constraints.” 11

Novitskii does not seem to have taken the Interior Ministry’s concerns very seriously. Shortly after the Crimea incident, the governor launched a police operation in Halbstadt (the capital of the Molotschna colony), interrogating Mennonite leaders late at night, randomly shutting down preacher training courses and checking passports to arrest foreigners and Jews. 12 The prime minister quickly condemned this action, which “suppressed the cultural expressions of local population.” 13 Stolypin further stated that preacher training was legal and “not threatening to state interests,” as long as it was conducted in a lawful manner. In fact, “the administration should not only avoid suppression in this matter, but also aid sectarians in educational programs. Such aid must not extend beyond what is allowed by law, or be conducted in an under-the-table manner.” Illegality, Stolypin argued, would only breed more illegality, encouraging corruption and continuing arbitrariness. 14

As had been the case in Tavrida, the administrators of the Kuban region also acted as “protectors of Orthodoxy” in seeking to repel sectarian influence. When in May of 1911, the Ministry of the Interior approved Cornelius Wiens’s application to hold a Mennonite Brethren conference in Velikokniazhesk, the administrator of the Kuban region declared that he would only allow the meetings if the conditions set forth by Bishop Ioann of Eisk were met. 15 The bishop had demanded that the proceedings be conducted in German rather than Russian (so that no Russian-speaking sectarians would be likely to attend), and, {74} furthermore, that any Orthodox bystanders or visitors be prohibited from entering the meetings. The Department of Religious Affairs responded on May 12 that there was “no legal basis for imposing such conditions.” The conference was out of the bishop’s jurisdiction and the regional authorities were instructed to send “a competent representative” to oversee the civil order during the meetings. 16

Stolypin’s interventions were not based on any special favors that the government wanted to grant to Mennonites, but rather on the prime minister’s years-long effort to develop a coordinated regulatory mechanism to monitor the non-Orthodox religious activities and prevent arbitrary actions that would undermine the rule of law. In his “confessional policy” memorandum of 1908, for example, Stolypin stated that “any compulsion in this realm would be adverse not only to the principles of . . . religious freedom, but also the very spirit of the Orthodox Church.” Furthermore, he shockingly claimed that the Orthodox Church’s “dominant position” was not “determined precisely in the law,” and that “the known privileges of the Orthodox Church are directed not so much toward the improvement of its prominence [in Russian society], as to the limitation of the rights of other confessions.” 17 This opinion was further reinforced by the government’s explanatory note to the circular of October 4, 1910, which prohibited local authorities from placing arbitrary limitations on the sectarians’ religious freedoms. The note furthermore emphasized that public safety was the only legal reason to close meetings. 18

Stolypin’s memoranda aroused hostility and suspicions in official ecclesiastical circles. Church officials accused the government of overstepping its jurisdiction, 19 and feared that “Stolypin’s bills would effectively disestablish the Orthodox Church.” 20 I. Aivazov proclaimed that “Stolypin continually worked against Orthodoxy,” that the interests of church and state were organically inseparable, and that the policy of religious freedom for sectarians would lead the country to secularization and eventual ruin. 21 Another article from Missionerskoe Obozrenie similarly compared the new religious freedoms to a “kingdom of religious anarchy,” which would lead to a “country-wide [political] anarchy.” 22

THE LIMITS OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM

Although Stolypin expressed support for some religious freedoms in Russia after 1905, his support was limited by his belief that the special status of the Orthodox Church must be safeguarded. 23 While he criticized the governors of the empire’s southern regions for limiting religious liberties, he also attacked them for lack of vigilance in cases where Mennonites trespassed the limits of such liberty and where the special {75} position enjoyed by the Orthodox Church appeared to come under threat. Government officials made it very clear that Protestants (unlike the state church) had no right to proselytize for their faith, but rather only to freely practice it. Activities such as public processions (except for funerals), public distribution of literature, or even the production of gramophone records containing sectarian sermons were prohibited. 24

Stolypin’s assessment of the limits of the religious freedoms can be seen in his correspondence with governor Novitskii, who, he argued, repeatedly failed to oversee the Mennonites’ proselytizing activities. The governor, for example, was required to monitor major non-Orthodox conference meetings in his region and send the reports on such meetings to St. Petersburg. In March 1910, Novitskii sent a report to the Department of Religious Affairs documenting a congress that had recently convened in the Molokan village of Astrakhanka (near the Sea of Azov). The report, however, turned out to be entirely false. It described, for example, how the Mennonite and sectarian delegates debated the issue of whether “they should baptize their children in the river or at home,” and “whether baptism saves.” Unlike Novitskii, the Department of Religious Affairs knew that Mennonites baptized adults (not infants) and they immediately recognized the report as an incompetent fabrication. 25 Through his special affairs agents on the ground in Tavrida, Stolypin obtained a separate report, showing what really took place at the congress (discussion of proselytism and financial matters). The ministry opened an inquiry against the governor, demanding an explanation. 26

The governor responded to Stolypin’s inquiry by shutting down the print shop that supplied the ministry with the printed agenda of the congress, and blamed the conference organizers, who had started the conference earlier than officially permitted. 27 The governor further attempted to blame Berdiansk district police chief Tsytovich, who did not attend the congress in person. Tsytovich delegated a lower ranking officer to attend, who also failed to show up. In lieu of attendance, the lower rank officer simply fabricated a report, ostensibly basing it on an interview from “an unreliable oral source.” 28 Novitskii promised to investigate and reprimand the guilty constable. The ministry, however, concluded that the gubernatorial administration rather than the constable was at fault, because it left “the entire task of evaluation and monitoring such a significant event . . . [to] the competence of a local police officer.” 29

Further confrontation ensued when Stolypin discovered the existence of theological training courses at Halbstadt’s Evangelical Alliance-House that were operating without a permit. The local Christian young men’s association openly advertised the courses, yet “despite such publicity, neither the gubernatorial nor local authorities ever paid attention {76} to these courses.” 30 S. D. Bondar, Stolypin’s special affairs officer stationed in the area, reported to St. Petersburg that “as the gubernatorial administration took no steps to monitor the society’s sectarian activities, the local police authorities saw it as support for these activities, and acted accordingly.” In a letter to the governor, Stolypin wrote that “the presence of these courses was completely ignored by the administrative and education authorities. And now, these authorities are obviously not inclined to consider these courses something abnormal in relation to the law.” 31 The governor did not assign the issue of illegal propaganda or activities the same level of importance as did the prime minister. In the dispatch, Stolypin concluded, “Your Excellency considers this situation as a mere impropriety . . . and I cannot express fully my discontent with the gubernatorial administration’s failure to notice association’s noncompliance with the law.” 32

The Astrakhanka congress and the Halbstadt courses incidents, however, revealed only the tip of the iceberg. As special agents Bondar and Pavlov traveled through the region and forwarded their dispatches, a more complete picture of religious activity there began to emerge. Protestant and sectarian propaganda in Berdiansk district, it appears, ran unchecked. In Halbstadt and Novo-Vasilyevka, Molokans, Evangelical Christians, and Mennonite Brethren organized rallies at factory yards and public schools, established youth circles, missionary courses, and conferences without prior notice or requesting a permit. The so-called “preachers on the road” traversed the area in automobiles, delivering sermons in the villages. Conferences, training courses, and youth Bible studies were convened without approval either sought or demanded by the police officials. A Molokan landowner by the name of Zakharov together with a Baptist minister named Balikhin had operated a seminary with no authorization from the Ministry of Public Education since 1907. In the fall of 1909, a new building on campus was dedicated with administration and police authorities in attendance. 33 Similarly, sectarians operated elementary schools with free admission for all non-Protestant children, while the Orthodox church in the area could not even build any of its own schools. Again, the administration turned a blind eye. “Local educational authorities,” wrote special commissioner Pavlov, “show a complete lack of understanding, dead formalism, laziness, and inadequate selection of competent staff.” He concluded that, “the educational situation is in an abnormal if not criminal state of affairs.” 34

MENNONITES AND THE QUESTION OF INTEGRATION

In addition to the questions of religious freedoms, the RGIA archives also contains Stolypin’s reflections on the challenges of Mennonite {77} assimilation into the larger Russian society. These reflections are clearly spelled out in a lengthy memorandum of May 20, 1910, which Stolypin personally penned for the Tavrida governor. On the one hand, he argued, Mennonites’ isolationism and lack of patriotism were impediments to their integration and a bad example to neighboring Slavic communities. Mennonites, he said, “must be monitored carefully so that their cultural tribalism does not also contaminate those Russians who associate with them.” 35 Such contamination, he feared, may already have begun, as the Anabaptist “anational religious rationalism [emphasis in the original]” had already infected the sectarians of southern Ukraine. “This movement,” he continued, “must be watched carefully as it is . . . if not hostile, then totally indifferent to the national idea.” 36

Stolypin noted that the “anational character” of Mennonites and sectarians and their disassociation from the Russian “national idea” were fostered by their continuing ties to like-minded international Protestant movements abroad. 37 This concern motivated a 1910 prohibition against certain foreigners assuming leadership in non-Orthodox congregations. Given the “unity that exists in Russia between the state and religious life,” Stolypin also argued that it was necessary to prohibit the “involvement of foreigners without spiritual ties to Russia in the religious life of Russian citizens.” 38

While he worried that Mennonite “tribalism” was an impediment to their assimilation, Stolypin also feared that in some respects Mennonites integrated into regional society too well and in the wrong way. This assessment was based on the economic and cultural influence that Mennonites wielded over the Slavic and non-Slavic populations of southern Ukraine. The “cultural and religious sophistication” achieved by Tavrida Protestants, Stolypin noted, made the region a “major center of sectarianism,” thus enabling these religious groups to exert influence on the rest of the population. 39 With their influence rising, Stolypin argued, “it is clear, that the Russian population, fully dependent on a foreign-sectarian milieu economically, is slowly adapting to the new ways of sectarianism.” Mennonite economic success made Protestant ideas attractive to the Slavic population, while the Orthodox Church often lacked the economic advantage to compete. Due to the negligence of local authorities, Mennonite assimilation into the region helped the Slavic population foster new religious identities that appeared increasingly hostile to the national idea.

The answer to the cultural encroachment of sectarians was to pursue an active cultural policy, not sporadic oppression. Stolypin suggested that {78}

Aside from the unconditional protection of religious freedom, the state has no interest in suppressing all public expressions of sectarianism—even if they are foreign to the historic tasks of the Russian state—except to confine these expressions to the milieu to which they belong and, specifically, to increase the countervailing influence of the state on them. 40

Among the ways in which such cultural influence could be applied, Stolypin argued, were the encouragement of Orthodox parish work among its faithful, consultations on the allowable limits of sectarian propaganda, and “the study and mentoring of sectarians, directing them toward the common good of the state and the law.” 41

CONCLUSION

Stolypin’s RGIA correspondence on the question of Mennonites’ religious freedom offers a small but unique window into the inner workings of the central and local government during Russia’s short-lived experiment with limited civil liberties and a semiparliamentary system during the years from 1906 to 1917. The documents expose the dysfunctional nature of the relationship between the peripheral bureaucracy and the central government, the fragility of the rule of law and civil liberties in the provinces, a somewhat unrealistic set of expectations that Stolypin had set for the provincial administrators, as well as the prime minister’s own ambiguous balancing act on just how much liberty Mennonites should enjoy and how they should integrate into Russian society. Whether Mennonites were a unique case or just part of a pattern in Stolypin’s relations with Russia’s non-Orthodox minorities is not clearly revealed in the documents. Perhaps further research will answer that question.

NOTES

  1. “Stalin voted third-best Russian,” BBC News Europe, 22:50 GMT 28 December 2008; also quoted in Abraham Ascher, P. A. Stolypin: the Search for Stability in Late Imperial Russia (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2001), 4–5.
  2. Ascher, 391–99; Leonid Strakhovsky further argued that were he not assassinated, Stolypin and his policies would have prevented the 1917 Revolutions. See Leonid Strakhovsky, “Stolypin and the Second Duma,” Canadian Slavonic Papers 6 (1964): 13–18. For more balanced and less laudatory assessments of Stolypin, see Peter Waldron, Between Two Revolutions: Stolypin and the Politics of Renewal in Russia (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1998) and Alexandra Korros, A Reluctant {79} Parliament: Stolypin, Nationalism, and the Politics of the Russian Imperial State Council, 1906–1911 (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002).
  3. Terry Martin, The Mennonites and the Russian State Duma, 1905–1914 (Seattle, WA: The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, 1996). Pages 34–43 in particular focus on the Third Duma period. For the Soviet historiography on the Mennonites and Russian sectarians, see Aleksandr Klibanov, Religioznoe sektantstvo v proshlom i nastoiashchem (Moscow: Nauka, 1973).
  4. Terry Martin, “The Terekers’ Dilemma: A Prelude to the Selbstschutz,” The Mennonite Historian 17 (December 1991): 1–2; M. Fast, “Unterstützung der sibirischen Ansiedler: Premier P. A. Stolypin in Alexandertal,” Friedenstimme, 25 September 1910, 9–10.
  5. On the development of the edicts, see John S. Curtiss, Church and State in Russia: The Last Years of the Empire 1900–1917 (New York: Octagon Books, 1965), 211–14; see also Andrew Q. Blane, “The Relations between the Russian Protestant Sects and the State, 1900–1921” (PhD diss., Duke University, 1964), 43.
  6. Quoted in Alfred Levin, “Toward the End of the Old Regime: The State, Church and Duma,” in Religion and Modernization in the Soviet Union, ed. Dennis J. Dunn (Boulder, CO, 1977), 26.
  7. Report to the Minister of Interior from the Special Affairs Officer Pavlov, 5 May 1910, RGIA, Font 821, Series 133, Item 169, l. 69 (reel 27).
  8. Ibid., 71.
  9. Letter of the Tavrida governor to the Department of Religious Affairs, 21 March 1911, RGIA, Font 821, Series 133, Item 1010, ll. 61–62 (reel 21).
  10. Response from the Department of Religious Affairs to Tavrida governor, 27 April 1911, RGIA, Font 821, Series 133, Item 1010, l. 69 (reel 21).
  11. Ibid. Mestnaia vlast’ naznachenie svoe v otnoshenii religioznago voprosa ponimaet povidimomu iskliuchitelno v smysle obiazannosti pri kazhdom udobnom sluchae okazyvat’ sektantam melkie, razdrazhaiushchee ikh religioznoe chuvstvo stesneniia.
  12. Ibid., 83.
  13. Ibid.
  14. Ibid.
  15. 2–16 May 1911 correspondence, RGIA, Font 821, Series 133, Item 320, l. 63, l. 67; Letter from the Bishop of Eisk, 3 May 1911, l. 68 (reel 21).
  16. Ibid., l. 70.
  17. Quoted by I. Aivazov in “Novaia verosipovednaia politika nashego gosudarstva,” Missionerskoe Obozrenie 13 (August 1908): 1045–50.
  18. RGIA, Font 821, Series 10, Item 587, ll. 5–6 (reel 29).
  19. Waldron, Between Two Revolutions, 141.
  20. Ibid., 142.
  21. I. Aivazov, “Novaia verosipovednaia politika nashego gosudarstva,” Missionerskoe Obozrenie 13 (August 1908): 1048–50.
  22. S. I. V., “Veroispovednyi proekt v Gosudarstvennom Sovete,” Missionerskoe Obozrenie 17 (January 1912): 84–85. For similar rhetoric see also, “Gosudarstvennaia Duma I Dukhovenstvo,” Pribavleniia k Tserkovnym {80} Vedomostiam 37 (1910): 1576–80.
  23. Circular Letter from Ministry of Interior, 14 April 1910, RGIA, Font 821, Series 133, Item 320, ll. 327–28 (reel 21).
  24. Russian State Duma, Stenograficheskie Otchety, IV Sozyv, Sessia 1, Zas. 39, 3.V., 1913, pp. 755–88.
  25. “Vovse ne sootvetstvoval deistvitel’nosti,” undated note by S. D. Bondar on governor’s report, submitted to the minister apparently before Stolypin’s response on 3 March. RGIA, Font 821, Series 133, Item 169, ll. 29–31 (reel 27).
  26. Ibid., 31–33.
  27. Ibid., 41.
  28. Ibid., 42–49.
  29. Ibid., 67. Vverennymi kompetentsii uriadnika.
  30. Ibid., 65.
  31. Ibid., 31.
  32. Ibid. Bondar expressed some of his expert opinions on the development of sectarianism and Protestantism in Imperial Russia in his book, Sovremennoie sostoianie russkago baptizma (St. Petersburg: Tipografiia MVD, Departament Dukhovnykh Del, 1911).
  33. Report by special commissioner Pavlov to the Minister of Internal Affairs, RGIA, Font 821, Series 133, Item 169, l. 69 (reel 27).
  34. Ibid., 70. Ne normal’nym, granichashchim s prestupnost’iu.
  35. Stolypin’s memorandum to the Ministry of the Interior, 20 May 1910, RGIA, Font 821, Series 133, Item 169, l. 82 (reel 27).
  36. Ibid., 80–85.
  37. Ibid., 82.
  38. Quoted in S. I. Golovashchenko, Istoria Evangelsko-Baptistskogo Dvizheniia na Ukraine (Odessa, 1998), 221.
  39. Ibid., 80.
  40. Ibid., 83. Gosudarstvennyi interes, nezavisimo ot bezuslovnago ograzhdeniia religioznoi svobody, zakliuchaetsia ne v podavlenii vsiakikh proiavlenii obshchestvennoi initsiativy, khotia by I na pochve chuzhdago istoricheskim zadacham russkoi gosudarstvennosti sektanstva, no v kontsentratsii etikh proiavlenii toiu sredoiu, dla kotoroi oni spetsialno prednaznacheny, i, v osobennosti, v usilenii intensivnosti kuturnago protivodeistviia gosudarstvennykh sil.
  41. Ibid., 82–83.
Andrey Ivanov is Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Platteville and the 2017–2018 UW System Fellow at the Institute for Research in the Humanities in Madison, WI. Originally from southern Ukraine, Andrey has a PhD in history from Yale University and is presently writing a book tentatively titled, A Spiritual Revolution: the Reformation and Enlightenment in Orthodox Russia 1700–1825.

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