Shorter Scholarly Works

Ageeva describes the lively correspondence (1983-1985) between Old Believers of Oregon and Ananii Kleonovich Kilin of the Kuban region in Russia. As the Oregon Old Believer groups had disparate histories and customs, and Kilin was a well-known expert in religious matters, several Oregonians turned to him for clarification and adjudication of disputed points. Ageeva quotes liberally from the Oregonians' surviving letters, remarking on stylistic points and the influence of old literary forms. The bulk of her discussion, however, concerns the themes of the letters: eschatology, permitted degrees of consanguinity in marriage, the timing of ritual purification for mothers and infants, the timing of baptism, applied iconography, errant youth, the legitimacy of the Bela Krinitsa hierarchy and more. She contrasts these themes with less heated letters from Old Believer groups in Russia, noting that the Oregon letters reveal the cultural pressures exerted on the group as it carried out a complex process of reconciliation and definition of its own place in the world of Old Belief.

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Balawyder details Canada's reluctant admission of 2 groups of Russian refugees in the 1920's; first a group of 294 from refugee camps in Constantinople, and a second group of around 600 from Manchuria. Although Balawyder does not identify the refugees' religion, other sources indicate that the Manchurian group partly consisted of Old Believers who were later to establish a settlement in the Hines Creek/Fairview area of Alberta. This group was originally sponsored by Canadian railroad company "colonization departments" looking for settlers to establish in the area of Westaskiwin, Lacombe and Rimbey.Alberta. Drawing on government archival material, Balawyder depicts a good deal of bureaucratic maneuvering, dissembling and foot-dragging, along with some shady operations by private individuals and some timely aid from relief organizations.

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Only a few of the items listed here relate to the Old Believers of North American, and there is no convenient way to pick them out of the list. Of limited use.

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Beliajeff describes the central role that icons play in the daily lives of the Erie Old Believers. Entering, leaving, rising, retiring, eating, marrying and burying all involve prayers before the icons. Icons and their proper use are frequently discussed at parish conferences. Metal icons are more common among Old Believers than among reformed Orthodox.

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Beliajeff presents a general overview of Old Believer settlements in North America. The bulk of his treatment is divided equally between the Theodosians and Pomorians (of Pennsylvania, Michigan and New Jersey); and the chasovenniki of Oregon and Alaska. The Nekrasovtsy in New Jersey also receive mention. Beliajeff outlines geographic origins, settlement patterns in North America, economic activities, religious and social organization for each group separately. He devotes some space to the reaction of these Old Believer groups to the lifting of the anathemas imposed upon them by the Russian Orthodox church in 1666-67. Beliajeff's notes may provide useful starting points for more comprehensive research.

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The authors summarize 17 papers presented at the April 1986 University of Heidelberg Slavic Institute Symposium dedicated to the history, literature and speech of Russian Old Believers. The single paper dealing with North American Old Believers is described here under Morris, "Contemporary Old Believer Settlements."

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Black finds Margaret Hixon's 1981 film Old Believers pleasant and well-made, but of very limited use as a source on culture of the Old Believers. Specifically, she faults the film for failing to delineate the root causes of the schism, for failing to indicate the theological range covered by various Old Believer groups, and for failing to stress what she considers to be Old Belief's essential teachings: eschatalogical orientation, the fall of the Third Rome (Moscow), and the world as dominated by Antichrist. She recommends Donald Treadgold's work as a more reliable and detailed source for information on Old Belief.

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This is Black's response to Dunn and Dunn's comment on her original review of Margaret Hixon's film Old Believers. Black defends her earlier views, discusses "priestest" and "priestless" groups in terms of their eschatalogical orientation, and reiterates her support for Donald Treadgold's treatment of the Old Believer movement over the Dunns' "rather fantastic" evaluation of the same.

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Chitty, a school counselor in the Old Believer village of Nikolaevsk, Alaska, describes two crises which called forth counseling efforts from school staff. When Nikolaevsk split over the question of the priesthood, and the schism produced noticeable effects on students, school staff reacted by emphasizing mutual tolerance and insisting that children from both factions work, play and speak with one another. Later, the school district provoked a second crisis by bussing in "city" children to the Nikolaevsk school. City parents voiced fears about "Russians" and "religious fanatics." Old Believer children felt attacked and the special school programs and calendar at Nikolaevsk faced dismantlement. School staff responded with counseling, peer support activities, increased parental involvement, and expanded college-prep offerings.

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An interview with teacher Jill Showman is the basis for this description of teaching conditions at Voznesenska (pop. 300), an Alaskan village where the K-12 program serves 136 Old Believer students. Showman reports the presence of 2 gifted students, but doubts that they are well served given the school's small size, remoteness, and general lack of college ambitions. Widespread religious objections to video, film, TV and computers in the classroom further limit available resources.

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Using interviews, family memorabilia, archival and census data, the author draws a detailed portrait of the lives of Sava and Anna Legenzoff, early Old Believer immigrants to Pennsylvania. Sava was both a religious and a secular leader, so the Legenzoff family story sheds much light on conditions of life for the broader Old Believer community, especially for the years in Zhitomir and the early years (1901-1945) in the coal mines, factories, cities and farms of Pennsylvania.

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Dunn and Dunn take Black to task for her review of the movie Old Believers. They discuss the priestest/priestless distinction and report that the Oregon Old Believers sometimes use Bible divination as a method of selecting a nastavnik (lay spiritual leader). Where Black recommends Donald Treadgold's work as a source on Old Belief, the Dunns reject his work as defamatory and factually inadequate. They find the achievements of Hixon's film to be considerable, especially given the limitations of available English-language scholarship and of the film medium itself.

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Researchers from the University of Parana in Curitiba province(?), Brazil, present the results of their preliminary survey of the genetically-linked traits named in the title. Their subject group is drawn from the Brazilian Old Believer community, described as "unrelated...Russian immigrants, who had arrived in 1958 at the State of Parana, Brazil." The authors found an unexpectedly high incidence of right-over-left arm crossing, and an unexpectedly high frequency of non-tasters to PTC. Photos. (note: this South American work is included here because the subjects of the study are genetically closely related to Old Believer groups in North America.)

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Hall presents and discusses the results of a 1968-1969 study investigating eye color, hair color, height and weight, blood type, handedness, arm-crossing and ear lobe type in a sample of the Oregon Old Believer community. Her sample included members of the Turkish, Harbin and Sinkiang sub-groups. Her discussion of the findings considers not only genetics but cultural and environmental factors such as diet, employment, and the religious symbolism of right and left.

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Drawing on data collected in 1969, Hall examines inter-relationships among infant feeding practices, birth spacing, and overweight status of women in the Oregon Old Believer community. The subject group of 150 families (approximately half the community) did not practice contraception. Intervals between births among bottle-feeding mothers averaged 10 months less than among breast-feeding mothers. Overweight among women was associated with number of children.

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Drawing on data collected in 1968-69, Hall discusses linguistic differences among three groups of Russian speakers in Oregon as illuminated by lexicostatistical methodology. Hall presented a list of 100 English words to five Russian/English bilingual subjects, asked them to state the equivalent Russian term, and then compared their responses. The subjects included one "Turkish" Old Believer, one "Sinkiang" Old Believer, one Molokan, one Russian Orthodox priest, and one advanced American student of Russian. Hall concludes that her data show that residence on the periphery of a language area is conducive to vocabulary changes.

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Basing her work on field research among the Oregon Old Believers in the 1960s, Hall addresses the "Hutterite standard" of the upper fertility limits of human populations. Noting the difficulty of finding an appropriate population for comparison, Hall proposes adopting the model of total fertility rate, rather than completed fertility. Total fertility rate is computed as the sum of age-specific birth rates. Working from a sample of 180 Old Believer women, Hall calculates a total fertility rate of 9.215, as compared to a total fertility rate of 8.06 for Hutterite women. Thus, Hutterite populations may not provide a standard for age-specific fertility.

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Physical Anthropologist Hall presents one of the earlier scholarly descriptions of the Oregon Old Believers, starting with an outline of the history of the Schism and the various migrations which brought Old Believers to Oregon. A brief description of Old Believer social, family and economic life in Oregon follows, with special reference made to the roles of women and adolescents.

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After sketching the settlement patterns and economic activities of Alaskan Old Believers, Hardwick looks at factors affecting the retention or loss of traditional culture. While religion has long been and and still is a major force for cultural stability, the acceptance of the priesthood by some Alaskan Old Believers in the 1980s led to a schism which weakened the faith's potency as a unifying, stabilizing force. Meanwhile, forces for change include education, increased mobility, and the development and settlement of neighboring areas by non-Old Believers.

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Hardwick describes six Russian religious groups which have settled on the North American Pacific Rim. She presents a chronologically arranged, brief overview of the origins of each group, the reasons for leaving Russia, and points of settlement in North America. While only one paragraph is directly devoted to Old Believers, this paper does help to place them in the larger context of Russian emigration to North America. A more complete presentation is contained in Hardwick's 1993 book, Russian Refuge: Religion, Migration and Settlement on the North American Pacific Rim.

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Hood sketches the history of the Old Believer settlement in Erie Pennsylvania from the late 19th century to 1922. His sources include 4 interviews and a handful of printed primary sources, but secondary sources dominate his bibliography. Placing Old Believer immigration within the larger context of Russian immigration, he concludes that the Old Believers were basically similiar to other Russian immigrants. He description of life in Pennsylvania emphasizes economic activity, with a bit of population geography thrown in. Numerous old photographs depict individuals, institutions, sports teams, and economic activity.

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The authors present a short obituary and tribute to Old Believer iconographer Pimen Sofronov. Born in 1899 in an Old Believer village in Estonia, Sofronov studied under [Gavriil Yefimovich] Frolov, taught and practiced iconography in Europe, survived revolution and two world wars, and eventually moved to the United States in 1947. His work enhances many American mainstream Orthodox churches. Two black and white photos.

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Kasatkin devotes one full chapter of his book to the dialect of the "Turkish" Old Believers of Oregon. While concurring with Biggins that their dialectical origins are in SW Russia, Kasatkin presents a differing view of the exact nature of a major feature of that dialect -- the transposition or absence of certain sibiliants and shibilants. He presents considerable documentation (much of it published elsewhere in various articles), including dynamic spectrograms, lengthy transcriptions of speakers, and examples of sibilant/shibilant confusion in "Turkish" Old Believer writing. Kasatkin describes similiar traits in dialects of the lower Don, and advances several theses to explalin the origins of sibilant/shibilant confusion.

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Considering the origins of the sibilant/shibilant confusion in the dialect of the "Turkish" Old Believers of Oregon, Kasatkin rules out the influence of Greek, Tatar, Turkish, Moldavan and Romanian. He finds it likely that this trait is inherited from the dialect of the Nekrasovtsy cossacks of the lower Don, with possible reinforcement from other south west Russian dialects. Kasatkin explores other manifestations of sibilant/shibilant confusion in Russian regional speech and reviews a range of scholarly opinions concerning the genesis and development of this trait.

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The dialect of the "Turkish" Old Believers of Oregon is characterized by the pronunciation of sibilant consonants in place of "shibilant" consonants, and, in some cases, substitutions going the other way. Working from 48 hours of field recordings and a songbook compiled by one of his oral informants, Kasatkin reports that in oral speech, substituting sibilant for shibilant is common, but shibilant for sibilant is rare. In written speech the two transpositions occur with almost equal frequency. This is explained by the subject's own awareness of her non-standard speech, her weak literacy skills, her largely phonetic system of spelling, and her practice of "hypercorrectness" when forced to decide between sibilant and shibilant in writing.

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The Kasatkins briefly outline some characteristics of the speech of the three sub-groups of Old Believers settled in Oregon. The Sinkiantsy and Harbintsy exhibit primarily North-Russian dialect traits, while the Turchane dialect is basically a South Russian one, related to the south-west dialect zone. The Kasatkins present many examples, mainly phonetic and lexical.

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Examinng historical secular and religious texts for the use of the conjunctions "a" and "no", the authors conclude that "a" is Russian, and "no" is Church Slavonic. Turning to contemporary Russian dialects, they present many examples of the uses of "a", "no" and "nu", finding that only "a" is widespread. "No" occurs mainly in the speech of the Oregon Old Believers, a state of affairs which the Kasatkins attribute to the Old Believers' diglossia (Russian for everday affairs, Church Slavonic for religious activities). They note that while the Old Believers themselves consider both Russian and Church Slavonic to be "Russian", Church Slavonic enjoys higher prestige. They present other instances of Church Slavonic influence on everyday Oregon Old Believer Russian speech.

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Drawing on recordings of a small sample of "Turkish" Old Believers in Oregon, the authors give a detailed account of the articulation and acoustic qualities of the sounds their informants produce in place of literary Russian sibilants.. They further report frequent confusion of sibilant/"shibilant" consonants, especially among women speakers. The authors explain the gender-linked character of this trait by noting that Church Slavonic (the community's liturgical language) includes a more standard range of sibilant and "shibilant" consonants. Instruction in Church Slavonic is directed primarily at boys, and men customarily take the lead in religious activities. Thus men are more likely than women to have instruction and practice in distinguishing and producing sibilants/"shibilants," and this characteristic carries over to everyday speech. Oscillograms and dynamic spectograms included.

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Kasatkina brings linguistic analysis to bear on the problem of locating the ancestral homeland of the "Dunaitsy" -- the majority group of the "Turkish" Old Believers in Oregon. She notes that elements of phonetics, syntax, morphology and lexicon in Dunaitsy speech all point to south Russian origin generally (but with a group of archaic north Russian syntactical traits). She delineates further evidence which points to the west Kaluga region (the partical "zhe" in the sense of "also"; the system of dissimitative akanje). She finds this phonetic evidence especially compelling as it is subtle enough to pass unnoticed by the untrained observer and is thus less likely to be modified or droopped as a result of contact with other dialect groups. Kasatkina notes that none of her findings rull out the possibility of an ultimate origin in the Pskov region, as other scholars (Kasatkin, Biggins) have postulated.

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Kasatkina presents a broad collection of anecdotes and observations of the Oregon Old Believer community, touching lightly on topics in linguistics, history, religion and folklore. The Sintsyantsy are especially well covered, as Kasatkina describes their connections to the Bukhtarminskie Old Believers, their lives in Sinkiang, the 1960 escape through famine-wracked China, and their opinions on the whereabouts of the fabled Belovod'e.

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The authors present a range of archaisms found in the two "Turkish" Old Believer dialects recorded in Oregon in 1996 and 1998. Although these speech traits are now extinct in the ancestral homeland, the Old Believers have retained them over the course of 2 1/2 centuries of isolation from Russia. They include syntactical features such as use of the nominative for a direct object; use of one instead of two negative particles; "o" or "ob" + accusative for spatial constructions; constructions with "est'" in the predicate; repetition of prepositions; and the particle "zhe" in the sense of "also".

Phonological archaisms include closed [e] and open [a umlaut] in place of jat'; "ky", "gy", and "khy" in place of "ki", "gi", and "khi"; and lack of distinction between sibilant and "shibilant" consonants. All examples are discussed in relation to documented historical and regional speech patterns.

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The lexicon of the so-called "Turkish" Old Believers forms the subject of this research. The "Turkish" Old Believers are those who emigrated from their former home in Turkey to the state of Oregon in the United States. Words of primordial Russian ancestry - from both dialectical and general Russian usage - form the bedrock of their lexicon. This includes a layer from the archaic general-Russian lexicon (which in our time can be found only in historical dictionaries) as well as items from the dialects of the Pskov, Smolensk, Briansk, Kursk and Don regions. Borrowings from Ukrainian, Rumanian, Turkish and English also stand out - neologisms, including calques, designating realia coming into recent use. (author abstract, translated by MM).

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The authors devote the first half of their article to a useful historical sketch of the "Turkish" Old Believers of Oregon, describing their origins in Russia, travels through the Kuban and Dobrudja, years in Turkey, the circumstances leading to abandoning Turkey for the USSR and the USA, problems of life in both Russian and Oregon, and further relocation from Oregon to other states and countries. The remainder of the article constitutes a description of the two dialects found among the Turkish Old Believers, listing 21 traits of phonetics, morphology, and syntax, with special attention to the absence of a range of shibilants. This last feature especially points to the Pskov region as the ancestral homeland from which the "Turkish" Old Believers started their wanderings, probably sometime in the 16th century. The effects of centuries of contact with other dialects and languages are seen in the lexicon, which shows influence from the dialects of the Pskov, Briansk, Smolensk, Kursk and Don regions, as well as Rumania, Turkey and the United States.

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The article presents a short history of the Old Believers of Oregon and their confessional sub-groups. The authors sketch language portraits of "Sintsyantsy" women and two "Turchane" women, delineating the dialectical traits in their language, pointing out correspondences with Russian dialects and borrowings from English. Texts. (author abstract, translation by MM)

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Kasinec presents a brief review of the history of Old Believer publishing, followed by a report on his week-long survey (conducted in May of 1978) of about a dozen personal and chapel book collections in the Oregon Old Believer community. While he viewed no more than a sampling of the community's holdings, Kasinec reports that they may constitute the largest single accumulation of Old Believer MS and printed books outside the Soviet Union. Findings included facsimile reprints of books from the 17th to the 20th centuries; 20th century Old Believer publications printed in Russia; 18th-19th century printed books; some manuscripts; and about 40 17th century (pre-Nikonian) printed books. Seven pages of black and white plates.

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After a historical sketch which aims to demonstrate the common ancestry of the Harbintsi sub-group in Alaska with Old Believers in modern Vetka and the Trans-Baikal, Kuzmina undertakes a limited comparison of the relative success of the Trans-Baikal Old Believers and the Alaska group in preserving their common heritage. She finds them physically very similiar, and reports community memories of fishing on Lake Baikal being applied to fishing on Kachemak Bay. While the Nikolaevsk popovtsy are strongly reminiscent of the Trans-Baikal group, she finds the Alaskans "tinted with the influence of the [mainstream] Orthodox Church". She observes signs of decay in the Alaskan Old Believer ideology (brought about partly by the influence of the Turkish and Sinkiang sub-groups) and predicts that modern conditions and the influence of mainstream Orthodox missionaries will bring about the gradual disappearance of Alaskan Old Believers.

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Kuz'mina takes the North American Old Believer communities as a case study in cultural change and stability. She sees Old Belief's stable system of values acting as a "censor" which allows or rejects distinct cultural elements. To the extent that new information presents a new basis for social behavior, it can come into conflict with deeply-rooted values and social norms. In this case a community may not adapt its culture to new information. Members of the older generation of Old Believers attempt to live more or less unnoticed by the host society, limiting their lives as much as possible to family and the ethnic group. However, close contacts with the host society, as well as urbanization, have accelerated the process of acculturation among the younger generation. While no longer living a strictly traditional life, the younger generation attempts to interact with the host society while retaining basic Old Believer values. Kuz'mina notes that Old Believers in the USA retain a strong "ethnocultic" consciousness, and preserve their key values. Their ethnic stability will depend on the viability of their ethnocultic experience.

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This 13-page paper is largely drawn from the author's doctoral dissertation (Morris: 1981). It describes the Oregon and Alaskan groups of Old Believers and their strategies for accomodating to the host society while preserving elements of Old Believer culture. Strategies include "natural" measures such as maintaining traditional language, association patterns and family structure. Other, "deliberate" or consciously adopted measures include settling in remote locations, attempts to establish purely Old Believer neighborhoods or villages, the selective adoption of technology, and limits on public schooling. Changes of the last several decades are rapid and unsettling, but as long as the Old Believers maintain strong community ties and discriminate as to the kinds of contact they accept with the outside world, "they will continue to maintain control over the direction of their lives."

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Morris examines the relationships between Old Believers and icons, presenting instances when icons have resolved a crisis, the personal connection felt towards one's marriage icon, the ritual state necessary to make or clean an icon, and the attitude of the Oregon/Alaska Old Believers towards the icons originating outside of their own community. He reports the Oregon Old Believers' comments on the icons included in the Smithsonian exhibit, for which this volume serves as the catalog.

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This 19-page article is a modified extract from the author's Old Russian Ways (AMS Press, New York: 1991) which was based on field work among the Oregon Old Believers conducted from 1978 to 1981. The present article summarizes the history of the schism and Old Belief in Russia, then traces more closely the movements of those Old Believer groups which ended up in western North America. Morris offers an expanded and updated discussion of the North American controversy over the Belaia Krinitsa priesthood, with attention to attendant social as well as theological ramifications. He also includes a number of 1990 photos of the Oregon settlement, plus a helpful bibliography and list of conferences devoted to the topic of Old Believers.

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The Oregon Old Believer community (established in the 1960s, primarily by chasoveniki from Turkey and China) is going throug a stage of cultural change. The world of the young is shaped by two sets of behavioral standards; those of their parents and those of the host society. Expectations of discipline, obedience and self-expression vary widely between home and (American) school. Morris presents the views of different generations on how to combine these two sets of standards. While those within the priested group are more willing to distinguish between core values (which must be maintained) and nonessential traditions (which can be abandoned), those without priests are less willing to abandon any of their traditional ways. The Old Believer community in Erie, Pennsylvania, which after four generations in the United States now conducts services and conversations in English, may be a model for the Oregon group's future.

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Post-Soviet Russia faces two major tasks: recovering tradiltional Russian ethical norms and social values from the pre-Soviet era; and establishing new, stable economic structures in the context of a global economy. Morris notes the problems attendant on transplanting foreign economic and political structures wholesale, and proposes the North American Old Believer communities as a model of how to live a distinctively Russian life within western technological, political and economic systems. North American Old Believers have successfully adapted to such western-style conditions as private enterprise, a pluralistic environment, separated church and state, and democratic institutions, yet continue to bring up their children within the ethical traditions of 17th century Russian culture.

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Morris addresses the basic question: why, in the face of persecution and internal division, does Old Believerism still exist in Russia? He lists several factors: 1)Old Belief could be practiced very discretely or in remote areas 2) research efforts of Soviet and Russian scholars which stimulated recollection and and re-commitment to the old ways 3)regular scholarly conferences in the USSR and abroad 5) Old Believer communities outside Russia and 6) the lifting of restrictions on religious practice in Russia in the 1980s and 1990s.

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Morris compares burial and memorial practices of two Russian religious groups resident in Oregon: Molokans and priestless Old Believers. He provides many concrete details; preparation of the body, ritual foods, the schedule of memorial dinners, a reproduction of the printed prayer set into the hands of the Old Believer deceased and a sketch of the layout of graves in the Old Believer cemetery. He carefully describes variations in funeral practices for Old Believers who die while not in good standing with their community. For both groups, Morris pays special attention to the involvement of kinfolk and the wider community. He also notes characteristic attitudes towards death, the extent and degree of visible grieving, and the degree to which mourners are assured that the deceased has been accepted by God. He relates each group's characteristic practices to its particular history and beliefs.

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Morris makes general observations on aspects of comparative ethnography which contrasts traditional Russian groups in Russia with Old Believers in the USA and Canada.

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Drawing on field work carried out between 1978-1990 in Oregon, Alaska, Perm, Novosibirsk and Moscow, Morris contrasts the varying challenges facing Old Belief in the USSR and the USA. State-sponsored atheism in the USSR brought anti-religion campaigns, legal restrictions, social sanctions, economic reprisals and atheist indoctrination to bear on religious citizens. Old Believers responded by concealing or refraining from religious activity, by flight to remote regions, or by deferring active religious life until reaching retirement age.

Old Believers in the USA face affluence, consumerism, communications technology and American public schooling, none of which tend to reinforce traditional ways of life. Some US Old Believers have responded by flight to remote regions, others compartmentalize religion into a sphere separate from culture, and others have aligned with the Belo Krinitsa hierarchy, giving their religious lives a more institutionalized form.

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After presenting a brief history of the origins, migrations and theological divisions of Old Believers worldwide, Morris examines the ways in which Old Believers have adapted and accommodated to their changing circumstances. These adaptations and accommodations vary widely according to both the doctrinal views of the various Old Believer communities and the host cultures in which they find themselves - whether Central Europe, the Baltic countries, the Americas or Russia itself. The end of the Soviet era has led to greater contacts between Old Believers previously separated by geo-political tensions. These contacts have had a revitalizing effect on the religious life and traditional culture of all concerned.

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Morris presents a sketch of the settlement history of the mid-Willamette valley, starting with the French-Canadians in 1810 and proceeding through multiple ethnocultic groups (including Old Believers) to the present day. In examining factors tending towards preservation of ethnocultic identity, he stresses the importance of endogamy, co-location, language maintenance, contacts with the wider ethnocultic community, continued in-migration, and group numbers relative to neighboring communities. Economic factors are more complex: prosperity in a cash economy can lead to the abandonment of traditional crafts, along with their accompanying social rituals and dependency networks. Or prosperity can lead to a revitalization of ethnocultic identity, as exemplified by the re-emergence of Native American institutions and culture in recent years.

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This outline of Oregon bezpopovtsy wedding customs and terminology is distilled from 8 weddings observed by the authors in 2006-2007. The Morrises describe the mixing (through marriage) of the community's three founding sub-groups, and note that Harbintsy wedding practices have become the norm for all. Contemporary practices are contrasted with descriptions of former customs and terminology reported by Sintsyantsy informants (Turchane are mentioned only in passing).

The authors include the lengthy first person narrative of an elderly Sintsyanets describing his own wedding in years past, and a number of photos from Oregon weddings in 2006-2007. The photos reveal another trend not discussed in the article: mainstream American influence is clearly visible in the brides' white clothing, the decorative use of paper wedding ""bells"", and a large wall hanging sporting the names of the bride and groom."

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By the time Japan established control over part of Manchuria in 1932, the area had already been colonized by two waves of Russian immigrants -- the first wave connected with the building of the railroad, and the second a wave of refugees from Russia's Communist revolution. Drawing on Japanese government documents, scholarly publications and journalism of the period, Nakamura presents a brief history and description of the Old Believer village Romanovka. In 1936 a group of 25 Old Believer families petitioned the Japanese authorities for permission to establish the village in an unhabitated valley. Over the next nine years, the prosperous settlement grew to 200 people, and attracted Japanese attention as a case study in taming the wilderness. The Japanese recorded details of the village's appearance, political organization, and economic activities (farming, livestock, hunting, beekeeping), plus noting the names of some of the settlers and the communal aspects of Romanovka life. When the Soviet army took control of Manchuria in the fall of 1945, the Japanese presence melted away, Romanovka men were forcibly taken into the Soviet army, and the rest of Romanovka's residents dispersed to other localities in China. Many later ended up in the Old Believer settlements of Oregon and Alaska.

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Nakamura outlines the history of contacts between Old Believers and Japan, starting with Old Believer expeditions in search of the mythical land of "White Waters" in 1898 and continuing through the breakup of Manchurian Old Believer villages in 1956, when their residents resettled to the USSR, Australia and South America. (A good portion of the latter later moved to North America, hence their inclusion here). The author reviews the Japanese-language primary sources dealing with Old Believers -- journalists' accounts, administrative reports and scholarly books and articles.
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Molokans and Old Believers in North America feel strong pressures to abandon the Russian and (in the case of Old Believers) Church Slavonic languages in favor of English-language religious services. While Russian is also disappearing from secular life, both groups find it is the intersection of language and faith that presents the knottiest problems. Nikitina here examines the arguments, counter-arguments and perceptions that Molokans and Old Believers themselves apply to the situation.

Even though some Oregon Molokans and some Pennsylvania Old Believers have adopted English for religious services, other members of both groups object to this change for several reasons: (1) the absolute necessity of remaining true to the received faith (2) doubts of the possibility of accurate, moving, esthetically satisfying and spiritually efficacious translations (4) the position that "our faith is a Russian faith" that cannot be completely understood in English (5) the feeling that faith, language and culture are interdependent. Counter-arguments revolve around historical precedents for translation, the understanding of Pentecost as a demonstration that faith is independent of language, and the fear of losing younger, English-speaking members to other churches.

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While the Russian language remained central to Old Believer communities in Romania, Turkey, China and South America, the Old Believers in Oregon experience strong pressure in favor of English. Indeed, the other large North American Old Believer community (settled in Pennsylvania in the 1880s) now has very few Russian speakers and conducts church services in English. Oregon Old Believers reject English as a liturgical language for reasons of tradition and aesthetics. Many feel that language, culture and faith are inseparable and that adequate translations from Church Slavonic are impossible. Thus, Church Slavonic is widely taught to Oregon Old Believer children, and it is this instruction which is the major factor in preserving everyday Russian.

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Nikitina examines the complex linguistic picture presented by the Oregon Old Believer community. She particulary focuses on a choir of middle-aged women (including members from all three sub-groups) which records a wide repertoire of Russian songs for local distribution. For individual choir members, both lexicon and phonetics differ considerably between the spheres of everyday speech and song texts. One singer's handwritten collection of some 300 song texts presents an opportunity for the analysis of orthography, speech and the tendency towards "hypercorrectness" .

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Nikitina presents observations concerning language use among Oregon Old Believers, basing her remarks on selected responses to a language questionnaire she administered to "several tens" of informants in 1996. Sorting her subjects by age, she summarizes their self-reported command of Russian and the occasions for using Russian. In general, people over 25 report a good command of spoken Russian, while those under 25 use Russian poorly or with some effort. Weddings, religious gatherings and home life are the primary Russian-speaking venues. A majority of respondents draw a strong connection between maintaining Old Belief, maintaining Church Slavonic as a liturgical language, and maintaining Russian as an everyday language, seeing the three as interdependent. Parents enhance their children's command of Russian and Church Slavonic through special schooling in Oregon and Siberia. The author reproduces her questionnaire, but provides no systematic statistical description of the informants or their responses.

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Concentrating primarily on North American Molokans (with frequent references to the Oregon Old Believers) Nikitina addresses the question of whether a cultural/religious group can continue to exist without its traditional "ethnic" language. She bases her discussion on materials gathered during field work in California and Oregon in 1990, 1993 and 1996, materials which include a survey designed to elicit language competence and attitudes. While language (Russian in the Molokan context, Church Slavonic and Russian in the Old Believer context) is often seen as inseparable from faith, Nikitina notes a process of "de-ethnicization" in both groups, exemplified by the gradual replacement of Russian by English. She lists the major arguments heard in the communities both for and against the translation of worship texts into English. Finally, she notes the growing importance of ties with co-religionists in Russia as a force for the preservation of Russian in the USA.

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Working from observations of the US Old Believer and Molokan communities, Nikitina examines factors promoting the preservation of ethnic/linguistic/confessional enclaves within host societies.Factors include a strong folklore tradition, shared values, group self-awareness, acceptable economic status and close geographic proximity. The character of the host society also plays a role: the "stratocentric" United States, which regards individuals in terms of social stratum, presents challenges not met in "ethnocentric" host societies which regard individuals in terms of ethnic group membership. Nikitina describes the efforts of an Old Believer women's singing ensemble to promote the use of Russian through collecting, recording and distributing Russian folk songs on cassette. Text and notation of three songs are included.

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The author describes the migrations, settlement patterns and community life of a range of Russian religious groups in the USA. The section on Old Believers is drawn almost entirely from works by Morris, Peskov and Reardon (described elsewhere in this bibliography).

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In a study of Canadian immigration, Piotrovsky starts with the history of the Russian presence in China 1895-1978. Several groups of these "Russians from China" ended up immigrating to Canada, and Piotrovsky traces the routes and circumstances that led them there. Among these immigrants were Old Believers admitted into Canada in the 1920s to work on agricultural land owned by the Canadian Pacific Railroad. Piotrovsky draws on the work of Balawyder and von Rosenbach (which see) for much of this section. Many from this group of Old Believers went on to settle in the area of Hines Creek, Alberta. While Piotrovsky does not focus on the Old Believers, this is a useful picture of the tumultuous times which were the background of their story.

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Pomortsy Old Believers from the areas of Suwalki, Poland and Minsk, Belorussia, migrated to Erie, Pennsylvania in the 1880s. Although initially retaining close ties with the homeland's zakonobrachnye concord, these ties were eventually severed by time, distance, wars and revolution. Robson describes the gradual decline of the Erie community up until a revival movement in the 1960s and 1970s. This movement focused on the liturgical, theological and ethical aspects of Old Belief, and included a contentious switch to the use of English in services. In the 1980s, a majority of this bespopovtsy congregation opted to join the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad as an Old Rite parish, and to accept a ROCA priest. Robson describes the ensuing split with compassion and precision, putting the debate in the context of Old Belief's long tradition of local decision-making.

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This paper presents a short history of the settlement of Pomorskie bezpopvtsy in Erie, Pennsylvania, covering the years 1888 to the 1950s, and then examines the Erie community's interactions with the mainly chasoveniki groups who settled in Oregon, Alaska and Alberta in the 1960s and 1970s. The Erie community split in the 1980s when a majority accepted a priest from the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad and switched to practicing the Old Rite in English. The author draws parallels with the split in the Oregon and Alaska communities resulting when some from this effectively priestless group accepted priests via the Belaia Krinitsa metropolitanate. The author describes Erie's changing practices regarding mixed and civil marriages as the community changes from a specifically Russian cultural group to a religious group.

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Rovnova analyses audiotapes of Oregon Old Believers recorded in 1996 and 1998 in respect to the use of verbal aspect. Overall, she finds a high degree of stability in the aspectual system. Idiosyncratic traits include the preservation of some archaic features discarded by modern literary Russian, comparatively broad meanings attached to verbal prefixes, and the use of non-standard prefixes to form perfective verbs. On the imperfective side, prefixed imperfective verbs formed from indeterminate verbs of motion may be marked with the imperfective suffix "-iva" to express their imperfective meaning. Further, aspectual markers can signal multiple degrees of "imperfectization." Rovnova also notes a tendency to add imperfective partners to "perfective-only" verbs, and records some instances of influences from the English language.

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Scheffel presents what little is known about the 1908 consecration of Mihail as the first Old Believer Bishop of Canada. This act apparently constitutes the first official contact between North America and the Belaia Krynitsa Old Believer hierarchy in Moscow. Yet the meaning of the event is uncertain, as there is no other evidence pointing to the presence of popovtsy Old Believers in Canada at that time.

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Scheffel provides a carefully researched historical sketch of two attempts by groups of Russian Old Believers to gain admission to Canada. The first attempt, in the 1920s, resulted in the establishment of a small settlement of popovtsy in the area of Hines Creek, Alberta. The second wave, in the 1960s and 1970s, resulted in settlements in the Lac La Biche and Peace River areas of Alberta, populated by chasovennye who mostly arrived via Oregon, USA. The cool welcome extended by the Canadian government on both occasions speaks volumes about Canadian immigration policy, both official and unofficial. While Scheffel evidently intended his study to contribute to the discussion of immigration policy, he also succeeds in presenting much hard-to-find information about the popovtsy of Hines Creek/Fairview, whose membership largely dispersed and assimilated before becoming the subject of any substantial literature.

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Scheffel describes the attempt of several hundred White Russian refugees belonging to the Bela Krinitsa jurisdiction to emigrate from Manchuria to Canada in the 1920s and 1930s. A small number were let in and established themselves in Hines Creek, Alberta (where they built the first consecrated Old Believer church in North America), but the bulk were barred by regulations hostile to immigrants from China.

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Scheffel presents a compressed version of observations made in his book: In the Shadow of Antichrist (Scheffel, 1991). Drawing on fieldwork conducted among the chasoveniki of Alberta, Canada, Scheffel lays out a theoretical model for the analysis of Old Belief. Where oral transmission of knowledge dominates, attachment to ritual acts and artifacts should not be dismissed as empty formalism. Rather, acts and artifacts should be recognized as primary vehicles for cultural transmission and for religious dialog with Christians of the past. The concept of "limited literacy" illuminates the great difficulties facing those for whom textual and liturgical reforms resulted in the schism of the 1600s.

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Old Believers in Russia historically adopted a stance of "semiavoidance" towards the Russian state. Scheffel sees this strategy continuing in contemporary Canada. Seeking to maximize their personal freedom of action ( "vol'nost' ") Old Believers cooperate with the state just as far as is necessary for political and economic survival. Simultaneously, they manipulate language differences and their own belief in the imminent arrival of the Antichrist to distance themselves from Canadian instutitions.

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An American convert to Old Belief, Wing outlines the personal spiritual journey which led him to the ROCA Old Rite parish in Erie. Drawing upon his experiences in English-speaking New Rite parishes, he observes that many such parishes base their music and liturgical practice upon several national traditions at once, resulting in musical inconsistency and liturgical mistakes. He proposes the consistency of Old Rite liturgical practice and music as a remedy.