Moscow: Indrik Publ., 2015, 512 p. (in Russian)

DOI: http://doi.org/10.22394/2073 - 7203 - 2017 - 35 - 4-314 - 323

In the post-Soviet period, Russia published and continues to publish a large number of collections of documents from state archives, often from previously classified funds. This also applies to the history of Christianity, in particular, the history of Russian Protestantism. In itself, such work is priceless. Thanks to it, thousands of unique documents were opened and put into scientific circulation. In addition, the new features allow historians who are traditionally "tied" to the archives of their regions to go to

page 314
to a qualitatively new level of research.

But, unfortunately, such collections of documents do not always meet modern scientific requirements. Common drawbacks include random selection of documents that are not logically explained, insufficient attention to comments, and even their complete absence - at least of a reference nature. Publishers, as it were, transmit archival materials at the full discretion of readers, ignoring the need for source analysis, and sometimes even identifying authenticity. These hastily made collections (there is no point in giving examples) resemble the hasty and careless, although sensational in content, publications of documents from the "tsarist" archives in the early years of Soviet power (with the difference that at that time it was not customary to call it "scientific research", and the publisher "the author of a monograph"). Fortunately, the unprofessional approach to publishing sources that characterized the 1990s is gradually disappearing from practice.

Nadezhda Belyakova and Miriam Dobson's work "Women in Evangelical Communities in the Post-war USSR..." demonstrates a high level of modern research. Firstly, it is a very well-made collection of unique historical documents with source analysis and commentary, and secondly, it is a scientific monograph, the first major study devoted to women in Russian Protestantism. The authors use an interdisciplinary approach (history, religious studies, source studies, gender psychology, and sociology).

It is important to immediately define the meaning of the term "evangelical communities". The concepts of "evangelical movement", "evangelical churches", etc. are quite often used in modern publications about Protestantism, especially in the works of so-called confessional authors. The disadvantage of these terms is that they are unclear and blurry. Even in the circle of confessional authors, there is no generally accepted, clear explanation of which confessions are meant, by what signs they are distinguished into a special category, and how they differ from "non-evangelical"churches.

In this case, the authors immediately stipulate that evangelical communities mean two Protestant denominations-Evangelical Christians-Baptists

page 315
(EXB) and Christians of the Evangelical faith (CEE), or Pentecostals. As applied to the post-war era, this is logical and does not need further explanation, since both were, at least formally, part of the unified EXB Union. In the future, we will also use the term "evangelical communities" to refer to these two communities.

Now let's talk about the research topic, which is quite rare for Russian historical religious studies. Although interest in the history of Russian Protestantism remains on the rise, in most works the "feminine" theme is on the periphery of the author's attention. The few women that historians are interested in are mostly either wives and daughters of prominent ministers (for example, I. V. Kargel's daughters), or individual outstanding personalities, unmarried or widows who devoted their lives to Christian service: for example, Elizabeth Chertkova, who invited Lord Redstock to St. Petersburg, and former maid of honor Maria Myasoedova, who became an Army officer Rescue... However, the biographies of even the most famous women are insufficiently studied. Among the few publications on this topic is "Almanac on the History of Russian Baptism", issues 2 and 4 7, prepared by MS Karetnikova.

The book under review includes seven chapters consisting of the author's text and a selection of documents with comments. The content and types of sources presented are very diverse: materials of Soviet clerical work, first of all, of the commissioners for religious affairs; memoirs and interviews of believers; church documents; samizdat publications; letters and appeals of a human rights nature, etc. Many sources were first introduced into scientific use.

To understand the regional peculiarities of the life of evangelical communities, the authors identified several localities

7. Issue 2 is dedicated to the history of the St. Petersburg ECB Church. In addition to the historical essay written by M. S. Karetnikova, which tells about the participation of women in the so-called St. Petersburg Revival, the collection includes: memoirs of A. P. Kareva, an essay by S. V. Sevastyanov about M. P. Myasoedova, excerpts from letters of Elizabeth and Maria Kargel, stories by Vera Shelpyakova. Issue No. 2. St. Petersburg: "Bible for All", 2001. Issue 4 is dedicated to the life and work of I. V. Kargel (1849-1937). Other publications include materials about his daughters Elena, Elizabeth and Maria Kargel. See: Almanac on the History of Russian Baptism. Issue 4. St. Petersburg: "Bible for All", 2009.

page 316
three countries of the former USSR: Russia (Moscow, Moscow region, Tambov), Ukraine (Kiev, Chernivtsi), Latvia (Riga). Conventionally, the monograph can be divided into three main topics: women's destinies, status, and family relations (Chapters 2 and 5); women and church practices (Chapters 1 and 3); and women's human rights activities (Chapters 4,

6,7).

The authors rightly point out that in the post-war years, the numerical preponderance of women was typical not only for evangelical communities, but also for Soviet society as a whole, especially in certain regions. The main reason is the mass death of men during the years of repression and the Great Patriotic War; in peacetime, their life expectancy was also lower than that of women. In rural areas, men left en masse to work or were sent to" restore the national economy " in a forced manner. In the USSR, entire cities were created with a large numerical preponderance of women or men (depending on the" profile " of local enterprises). However, according to the authors, socio-historical circumstances only partially explain the reasons, since in the evangelical community the gender preponderance was much more significant than in the whole country: the number of women in communities ranged from 70% to 100 %. They were the most loyal and consistent Christian adherents in an atheistic environment; they saved communities from extinction, brought children and other relatives there, and replaced men in ministries. Moreover, leadership qualities-courage, loyalty, consistency combined with religious activity, energy and ingenuity-were quite a mass phenomenon, characteristic not only of individual gifted women. Without claiming to be a complete study, N. Belyakova and M. Dobson consider the life of religious women in various contexts - family, church, and social.

Loneliness, poverty, poor housing conditions, and the need to support a family and raise children without the help of her husband were the fate of many Soviet women. But Christian women were also in the position of social outcasts, enduring social pressure, discrimination, and sometimes outright persecution. On the other hand, a woman from the evangelical community had certain advantages. Her faith in God made her life meaningful-

page 317
It is also not as bleak as that of many atheists. In addition to hard work and everyday worries, she knew sublime joys: spiritual encouragement from prayer, divine services, holidays, a warm fraternal atmosphere in the church, communication with co-religionists, and the realization of her abilities in service... These advantages were especially pronounced during the "late socialism" period. As noted by N. Belyakova and M. Dobson, Baptist youth (including girls) "had great opportunities for social and geographical mobility: in almost every city there were co-religionists who were ready to accept and settle. Baptist youth, despite discrimination in education, [... there was an alternative circle of reading and listening, Baptist youth were always well "technically equipped" - they had cameras, tape recorders, dictaphones, electric guitars and other equipment that was scarce for the Soviet philistine; youth gatherings gathered in various parts of the USSR (pp. 50-51)."

Russian Protestants have not developed a true cult of the family as an important part of Christian life. A significant reason is the already mentioned gender bias in evangelical communities, as a result of which a significant part of girls and women were doomed to loneliness. Married men considered church service as a priority, while caring for the family and raising children were considered the responsibility of women. In this sense, the words of presbyter A. N. Karpov quoted in the monograph at the funeral of Pelageya Sozontovna, the wife of the chairman of the All-Russian Orthodox Church, Ya. I. Zhidkov, are characteristic: "If my dear sister had not taken on her own shoulders the upbringing of children, I doubt that Yakov Ivanovich could have carried out the service in the church that he currently does"(p. 46). Apparently, Karpov expressed a fairly common opinion that the duty of the ideal Christian wife is to free the husband-servant as much as possible from his family and fatherly duties. At the same time, the Protestant community has not developed the respect for celibacy as a form of devotion to God that is characteristic, for example, of Orthodoxy. Even in cases where Christian girls deliberately refused to marry for the sake of serving God, they could meet with misunderstanding and disdain from their co-religionists.-

page 318
as for the losers who didn't have a good life. For example, according to the memoirs of Lyubov Bogdanova, an employee of the underground publishing house "Christian", she had heard similar reviews about herself and her friends in the underground, although at least some of these girls were repeatedly proposed to 8.

The interviews with Christian women, both married and single, given in the monograph help to identify certain paradigms of fate. Regardless of their marital status, women participated in church life and even in important historical events. For example, the memoirs of Olga Murashkina (wife of Bishop V. G. Murashkin of the UOC KHVE, nee Zakharova) include not only the history of her spiritual conversion, but also the circumstances of the appearance of the KHVE community in the town of Maloyaroslavets, Kaluga Region, after the arrival of Ivan Fedotov (pp. 135-139). I. P. Fedotov (1929-2011), the future Senior Bishop of the United Church (UOC) of HVE, in 1961 he was sentenced to 10 years for religious activities, including on false charges of attempting to sacrifice a girl (rehabilitated in 1996)9. After his release from prison and marriage to Valentina Bashmakova, he settled in Maloyaroslavets, where there was a small group of elderly Pentecostals. Thanks to Fedotov's selfless and energetic work, the group eventually became one of the largest CEE communities in the RSFSR, and Maloyaroslavets became a kind of spiritual center for unregistered Pentecostals.10 However, it is important to note that for all the outstanding personality of I. P. Fedotov, a significant role in the creation of the CEE community was played by women who were the first to support him and recognize him as their pastor.

Some archival documents are not fully published by the authors, and individual words (mainly surnames, addresses) or paragraphs are omitted in these texts. This form helps to highlight the most important places in the document, according to publishers. However,

8. Bogdanova L. Radostnoe poprishche, B. M., 2014, p. 54.

9. Fedotov I. P. Get up! The trial is underway! Moscow, 2006, pp. 73, 140.

10. For more information about the life and service of I. P. Fedotov, see: Nikolskaya T. K. Ivan Petrovich Fedotov (an example of a leader's biography) / / General and special methods of studying leadership. St. Petersburg: SPBHU Publ., 2015, pp. 161-172.

page 319
The authors were guided primarily by moral principles: "We hope that we were able to achieve a balance between historical accuracy and sensitivity to the people involved" (p. 38).

Indeed, when publishing documents on recent history, the researcher needs special sensitivity, and often the only way out is to shorten the text. For example, in the collection "History of Jehovah's Witnesses (KGB Archives)", prepared by K. A. Berezhko, some of the unique documents of the post-war period (both investigative and operational) from the archives of the KGB of Ukraine are published with abbreviations: the names of secret agents are removed from the texts, as well as details and characteristics that would allow them to be "calculated" (in this case, all omissions in publications are indicated)11. Even in abbreviated form, the documents are of great value, as the KGB's activities against religious organizations remain a "blank spot".

The authors of the peer-reviewed book elaborate on such a little-studied topic as the participation of women from evangelical communities in the human rights movement. The book contains their letters and complaints, recordings of trials of believers, and apologetic materials in defense of Christianity. Women, wives and mothers of arrested ministers, formed the Council of Relatives of EXB Prisoners, organized in 1964 and active until the end of the 1980s.

Of particular interest are the literary works of Aida Skripnikova, as well as the recording of her trial. Aida Mikhailovna Skripnikova was born in 1941 in a religious family, and as a young girl, she came to Leningrad from the Urals and joined the construction trust 12. In 1961, she joined the newly formed Baptist initiative movement in Leningrad, and participated in writing and distributing religious and human rights materials. 13 Her poems and polemical articles were widely distributed in samizdat and transmitted abroad.

11. Berezhko K. A. History of Jehovah's Witnesses (KGB archives). Feodosia: Type. RA "Art-Life", 2012.

12. Serdobolskaya L., Bistunov E. Under the cover of the Gospel, Leningrad: Lenizdat Publ., 1976, p. 118.

13. For more information, see: Nikolskaya T. K. Russkiy Protestantism i gosudarstvennaya vlast v 1905 - 1991 godakh [Russian Protestantism and state power in 1905-1991]. Spb: Publishing House of the European University in St. Petersburg, 2009. pp. 207-208.

page 320
In 1968, Aida Skripnikova was arrested and sentenced to 3 years in the ITL for systematically distributing materials of the Council of Churches (SC) of the ECB containing "deliberately false fabrications discrediting the Soviet state and social system" (p. 186). Earlier, she and a group of girls were brought to a public court for distributing leaflets with evangelistic content (p. 172). While remaining an ordinary member of the church, Skripnikova gained almost more fame abroad than prominent male ministers. Books, articles, and radio broadcasts were written about her, and thousands of believers around the world prayed for her and spoke out in her defense. At the same time, the fact that N. Belyakova and M. Dobson published her works with the permission of Radio Liberty / Radio Free Europe, which keeps samizdat materials, and not the writer herself or her relatives, illustrates the personal disinterestedness of A. Skripnikova and her indifference to their copyrights.

Apparently, Aida Skripnikova possessed literary abilities, although she did not have the opportunities and, probably, the desire to purposefully develop them. In the USSR, there was a system of literary associations (lito) for beginning authors, through which almost all future writers passed. However, in Soviet times, the desire for a professional and creative career was not welcomed among Protestants. Besides, if a Baptist girl were to bring her poems about God to Leto, she would at best be advised to " change the subject, "and at worst receive ridicule, bullying, or even a message about her"where to go." We can say that Skripnikova realized her literary gift as much as it was feasible for a Soviet person who openly believes in God. In this sense, her creative destiny is unusual, although in the Evangelical-Baptist environment, writing and distributing poems on a religious theme was common.

Not all of the authors ' claims are equally convincing. For example, the extraordinary report of the Authorized Council for Religious Cults in the Dnipropetrovsk region (1954) can hardly be perceived only as a propaganda "image of monsters-sectarians" (p. 127). The document describes a really strange case: in the village of Kulebovka, on demand, not-

page 321
as "prophetesses," a group of Pentecostals began calling death on a woman accused of lying (pp. 151-153). At the same time, the commissioner received information not from newspapers, but in a private way. He reviewed the testimony of specific witnesses and refrained from drawing conclusions, saying that only after the investigation initiated by the MGB bodies was completed would he be able to provide "additional data". Of course, the details of the story clearly need to be verified, but, as far as can be judged from the above text, in general, it was not a figment of the imagination of Soviet propagandists. Meanwhile, the authors do not give any explanation of what really happened then and why the published document reflects exactly the propaganda "image", and not the real case.

Not so much as a comment, but as a wish, I would like to see more attention paid to the problem of women's identity. Thus, the questions raised by the authors in the introduction are only indirectly touched upon: "What were the attitudes about marriage and motherhood in communities and how religious women created their families in Soviet reality" (p.10). Topics for further study remain the behavior patterns of "sisters" from evangelical communities; questions about the extent to which girls and women who were not ready to accept strict church rules or refuse to marry an atheist were" eliminated"; and, finally, who determined and corrected these rules (ministers, older generation of women etc.), as far as it depended on regional traditions or "personal factors".

A girl, a woman who wanted to combine faith in God with the desire to please men, dress fashionably, wear jewelry and cosmetics, and go to dances, would not have lasted long in the Protestant community of the Soviet era, and most likely would not have been accepted there at all. However, strict rules and prohibitions did not mean that believers were indifferent to external beauty, elegant clothes and accessories. This is especially true in the 1960s and 1980s, when the country finally emerged from the post-war devastation, and the "welfare of workers" noticeably increased. Thus, according to the memoirs of the Adventist minister N. A. Zhukalyuk, when in 1964 he came from the countryside to serve in Lviv, many believers were disappointed with his modest appearance. The new pastor immediately received ku's advice-

page 322
wear a briefcase, a hat (instead of a simple shopping bag and cap), and a "normal" suit: "However, no one then asked if I had enough funds for this." Not even finding an apartment to move his family to Lviv, he was forced to hastily update his wardrobe 14.

If a male minister, the head of a congregation, could not win the respect of his co-religionists without a new suit and hat, one can imagine what the situation of a girl, a young woman, was like. She had to maneuver between a completely natural desire to please, attract the attention of potential suitors (with huge "competition") and the obligation to comply with strictly regulated rules of appearance and behavior. It is clear that, despite the sermons about the "inner beauty" of true Christian women, men and young men were guided primarily by external impressions when choosing a bride. Although the book touches on this topic (see, for example, the interview with E. Chislina about her" trip " to the barber shop-p. 96), it clearly needs to be continued.

Of course, one study is not enough to answer all the questions: how did women from Evangelical communities live in Soviet times, to what extent were they aware of their identity and place in the world around them, how did they build their way of life and communicate with people, how did they choose their profession and ministry, what was the real significance of family and marriage in the system of values of Russian Protestants, how were the stages of family creation carried out life partner before the wedding, what problems religious families had to solve, etc. All this needs further detailed study. Therefore, the monograph by N. Belyakova and M. Dobson " Women in evangelical communities..." it can be called not only a highly professional job, but also a very successful start to a large-scale study.

14. Zhukalyuk N. A. Through steep passes. Zaoksky: "The Source of Life", 2002. p. 191.

page 323

Permanent link to this publication: