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Stunning black-and-white photographs of the Oregon and Alaska Old Believer communities are accompanied by the author's highly personal text -- anecdotes, songs, memories of her decades-long relationship with her Old Believer neighbors. The pictures are exquisite to look at and valuable as documentation of customs and details of personal appearance. The text expresses beautifully the fascination Old Believers have excited in so many of their mainstream neighbors (itself a phenomenon worth study). Available from: Praise Old Believers, c/o Priscilla Carrasco, 410 Rural St. SE, Salem OR 97302 or see http://russianoldbelievers.com/.

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Polly Elder, a descendant of the Sideroff family of Hines Creek, Alberta, here presents oral histories from her own and about ten other Old Believer families who settled in the Peace River region of Alberta in the 1920s and 1930s. The accounts are arranged by era, in some cases starting several generations back in Russia (Orenburg, Staraya Russa), and chronicling migrations to Siberia and eventually Harbin, China. Elder records Old Believers sailing from Harbin to Vancouver in 1924, 1925 and 1927. Most of the immigrants were under contract with the Canadian Pacific Railroad, and most initially settled in Westaskiwin or Homeglen, ALberta. By 1929 families were scattering to various Alberta towns. Elder's account covers the vicissitudes of pioneer life, relations with non Old-Believer neighbors, public schooling, and some rather tumultous episodes in the life of the church which these popovtsy established in Hines Creek. Names, dates and places are rendered with some confidence; theology and denominational history more tentatively. Family photos dating back to 1905 depict Old Believer churches in Hines Creek and Homeglen, as well as the basics of personal appearance.

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This locally produced regional history includes a picture of the "St. Pokrovshye Old Greek Orthodox Church" with a brief history of its construction. There are a few passing mentions of the Hines Creek Old Believer community in the text. The index contains chiefly personal names, including Russian names. Available from End of Steel Museum.

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Because many Oregon Old Believer children worked on farms, and crossed county lines in order to do so, they were classified as "migrant workers" for the purposes of Title 1-M. This federal program (aimed at improving education for migrant farmworkers) was overwhelmingly associated with the Hispanic population in Oregon in the 1970s and 1980s, but the subtantial number of qualifying Russian Old Believer children warranted their inclusion in this work.

The Program Manual devotes pages 46-58 to an outline of Old Believer culture. (This outline is taken directly from the Marion County Russian Resource Committee's Manual for Educators of Old Believer Children in Oregon- see separate entry below). In these 12 pages it does a creditable job of acquainting rural primary and secondary school educators with the salient facts about the Old Believer children in their classrooms, discussing Old Believer history, language, holy days, weddings, clothing, icons, fasting, medical attitudes, the structure of Russian names, and more.

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Before dispersing through the Peace River region, the Old Believers who entered Canada in the 1920s (under contract with the Canadian Pacific Railroad) were established in a colony in Homeglen (15 miles NE of Rimbey, AB). This collection of pioneer reminiscences collected from local residents includes frequent references to the "Russian Colony".

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This exhibition catalog includes 4 pages of black and white photos and text depicting belts, children's headgear, wall hangings and adult clothing produced by the Oregon Old Believer community.

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A monumental compilation of local history, Heart of the Peace includes several family histories contributed by descendants of popovtsy Old Believers who homesteaded near Fairview in the 1920s (after a brief sojourn in Homeglen, Alberta). While the Old Believers built their church in nearby Hines Creek, many attended school in the Ranger District, which was affiliated with the high school in Fairview. Thus, their family stories are included in this work.

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The first part of this work is described in Flores, Cultural and Program Awareness Manual (above). Additional chapters in the present booklet include suggested classroom projects based on Russian crafts, descriptions of Old Believer childrens' games, and expanded articles on the history and language of the Oregon groups of Old Believers. A memo outlines the official reaction to Old Believer truancy, and list of social services and translators rounds out the offering. Some editions of this booklet (including the one held by Woodburn Public Library) include a description of Old Believer birth, wedding and funeral customs as practiced by the Harbintsy, written by an annonymous Old Believer woman.

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Mazo compares the history of the Old Believers with that of the Molokans, finding many similarities in the stories of persecution, emigration, settlement outside of Russia and further subdivision along religious lines. She then discusses the contemporary role of singing in the community and religious life of four distinct groups; Molokans and Nekrasovtsy Old Believers from Stavropol; Molokans from California, and Old Believers from Pennsylvania. (Representatives from these four groups performed at the 1995 Festival of American Folklife.) For all the important differences between these groups, Mazo sees them all as perpetuators of a characteristically rural tradition, a holistic way of living which does not compartmentalize life and faith into separate spheres. Includes two photos of the Erie community.

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This local history collection includes brief family histories contributed by two descendants of popovsty Old Believer homesteading families from the Hines Creek/Fairview group; Fie McIntyre's "Andreef and Sideroff Families" and Mike Mihailoff's "Mike Mihailoff".

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This is a lightly reworked version of the author's doctoral dissertation in Anthropology.

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Presents general information on the lives and conditions faced by early settlers, and a page on the (Old Believer)Pohaboff house on display on the Museum grounds.

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Peskov recounts his 1993 travels through Alaska , a journey which included a stay in the Old Believer village of Nikolaevsk. He provides anecdotes and observations on life in Nikolaevsk from a Russian journalistic perspective. Peskov analyses the "priested/priestless" split in terms of "liberals" and "conservatives".

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The commercial pattern-making company Folkwear produces detailed, faithful sewing patterns based on vintage and ethnic clothing. Their line includes a "Russian Settlers' Dress" which is clearly modeled on a 1970s Harbintsi style sarafan, rubakha and fartuk (jumper, blouse and apron) from the Oregon or Alaskan Old Believer communities. The pattern includes historical information and instructions for embellishment with punch-needle embriodery. Folkwear patterns are widely available in commercial fabric stores, or they can be reached at www.folkwear.com, 1-888-200-9099, or 2000 Riverside Drive #3 Asheville, NC 28804.

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This 22 page catalog accompanied the exhibit Old Believers in Erie, Pennsylvania mounted at the Erie Maritime Museum in association with the international conference Old Ritualism in Traditional Russian Society held in Erie in October 1998. It reproduces numerous photos displayed at the exhibit -- most of them portraits, mainly selected for their historical value and to illustrate changes in personal appearance. Other artifacts (documents, booklets, posters, clippings, tools, etc.) are listed but not shown. The catalog text presents a very accessible history of the Erie Old Believers' work, church, community life, and military service, enlivened with many quotes and anecdotes. Available on the author's website at http://www.usip.edu/humanities/robsonr/CV.shtml as a PDF file.

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Materials on the Hines Creek Old Believer community are sparse, leading the thorough researcher to pursue even the scattered references such as those found in this family memoir by the daughter of Orest Dournovo. Dournovo was the one man most responsible for arranging the immigration of 30 (?) Old Believer families from Manchuria to Canada between 1924 and 1928. The earliest Old Believer contingent was part of a group of 116 refugees (including Dournovo's own family) which was accepted into Canada under the sponsorship of the Canadian Pacific Railway, to settle on CPR lands in Alberta. Von Rosenbach describes in detail the diplomatic and economic effort necessary to bring about the move,and mentions the Old Believers 6 or 7 times, praising their good deportment, piety, woodworking skills and industriousness. One photo depicts an (apparently) Old Believer family in traditional dress in front of their newly build log home in Alberta.

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In this lightly re-worked dissertation, Samoilova presents a social-linguistic and lexico-semantic description of the speech of the Nikolaevsk (Alaska) Old Believers, emphasizing unique aspects of this Russian dialect (which exhibits very little influence from literary Russian). Her sources include field observations, written work of local schoolchildren, written samples from Old Believer college students, and written materials published by the Nikolaevsk school in support of its bilingual program. She includes a description of the dialect, several transcribed samples of local speech, a short glossary of dialect terms, and ethnographic material dealing primarily with costume. Samoilova examines two "lexico-thematic" groups in some detail: words dealing with food and words dealing with clothing. Maps, sketches, bibliography.

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Partly based on the author's doctoral dissertation, In the Shadow of Antichrist examines the Old Believer community founded in Alberta in 1973-1974 by chasovennye who had previously resided in the state of Oregon, USA. Scheffel provides a useful history and ethnography of the Alberta Old Believers, but the heart of the book lies in his description and analysis of Old Believer religious life. Scheffel carefully examines the Old Believers' religious understanding of tradition, purity, ritual, worship, nature, food, appearance, and sexuality. He then draws on the field of art history to illustrate the ramifications of iconic transmission of culture (long predominant in Eastern Christendom) as distinguished from symbolic transmission of culture (discernable in the West at least as early as Charlemagne.) In an "iconic" system, ritual acts and artifacts are primary vehicles for cultural transmission and for religious dialog with Christians of the past. Scheffel's description of iconic cultural transmission, especially when coupled with an awareness of the effects of limited literacy, sheds a welcome light on the Old Believers' famed attachment to the material side of spiritual life.

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This 181 page novel, written by a Russian-speaking schoolteacher familiar with the Oregon Old Believer community, recounts the adventures of a fictional Old Believer couple. The couple leaves rural China in the 1950s, emigrates to Brazil in 1964 and emigrates again to Oregon where the husband dies in the eruption of Mt. St. Helens. The author goes to great lengths to portray Old Believer life, including much historical background and many details of custom and belief. Most of the incidents are drawn directly from the real-life experiences of the Oregon community. Other material (expositions of dogma, folk tales, religious stories) are drawn from secondary sources and fit less comfortably into the narrative.

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