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FEATURE

ASTLEGAR — Amidst the
torrential’ rain of a summer
thunderstorm, more than 200
people gathered outside the

Doukhobor museum here July

25 to raise a monument to a man whose

appeals nearly a century ago on behalf of a

persecuted sect of religious dissenters have

taken on new meaning in the nuclear age.

As scores of people watched, gathered
under umbrellas or crowded on to the
porches of what were once Doukhobor
communal houses, Soviet sculptor Yuri

Chernov and Doukhobor leader John

Verigin unveiled a three-metre high statue

of Leo Tolstoy, the renowned Russian

novelist and philosopher who in 1899

donated the proceeds of his novel Resur-

rection to help finance the mass emigra-
tion of Doukhobors to Canada.

But it was more than just past history
that was being commemorated.

The unveiling, the highlight of a five-
day Russian Heritage Festival, was a
bridge across two continents and four
generations.

Several representatives from the Soviet
Union took part in the festival, including
Yuri Melentiev, Minister of Culture for the
Russian Federation of the USSR; Edward
Solovyov, the representative of Society
Rodina, the Soviet friendship organiza-
tion which maintains relations with peo-
ples of Russian descent — and _ Ilya
Tolstoy, the great-grandson of the famed
author. With them were Soviet perform-
ing artists Yuri Antonov, Alexandra Strel-
chenko and Evgeny Kovalyov; Lidya
Lubimova, director of the Tolstoy
Museum; and Soviet Doukhobors Vasily
and Tamara Chutskoff.

The statue, the first ever monument to
the Russian novelist to be erected in North
America, is itself an international symbol
of peace — the striking bronze work is a
gift of the Soviet Union and was paid for
out of funds raised by the Soviet Peace
Committee and Society Rodina.

Actually one of two monuments erected
to Tolstoy’s memory last month, the
statue has a twin in Verigin, Saskatchewan
which was erected July 18, the opening
day of the five-day festival. The festival
events were held in both Verigin and Cas-
tlegar, the two main centres of Doukho-
bor settlement following the group’s
exodus from Czarist Russia.

Their beginnings rooted in the dissent
from the ancient Russian Orthodox
Church, the Doukhobors were subjected
to increasing persecution from the Czarist
state, particularly in the 1890s.when spirit-

ual leader Peter Verigin, from his state-

imposed exile in Siberia, counselled his
followers to actively oppose military ser-
vice.

On June 29, 1895 — St. Peter’s Day
— Doukhobors in several villages and
communities, gathered all the available
guns and burned them in huge bonfires to
symbolize their renunciation of war and
violence.

Within days, they were uprooted by
Czarist officials and driven into forced
exile in Georgia. Denied land, their men
who refused military service tortured and
beaten, they faced virtual extinction.

It was Tolstoy’s letters and an eloquent
“Appeal for Help” which he and other
associates drafted which brought the
plight of the Doukhobors to world atten-
tion. Together with Quakers in Europe
and the U.S., he established a fund to pay
for the emigration of some 7,500 Douk-
hobors to Canada.

In addition to contributing the proceeds
of his newly completed novel, Resur-
rection — some $17,000 — to the fund,
Tolstoy also sent his son Sergei to assist
the emigrants when they left Russia in
1899.

Four generations later, Tolstoy’s ideas
on peace and Christian morality have
taken on renewed importance in the world

Society Rodina.

Tolstoy monument |
an affirmation
of quest for peace

By SEAN GRIFFIN

Photos, top to bottom: The USCC Heritage Choir, one of several choirs
from the Doukhobor community and the Federation of Russian Cana-
dians which performed at the festival; Russian Federation Minister of
Culture Yuri Melentiev and Kootenay West MP Robert Brisco at the
unveiling; Ilya Tolstoy holds up a framed copy of a poem given him by
Pauline Makortoff, while festival co-ordinator Peter Samoyloff looks
on; sculptor Yuri Chernov (I) with Edward Solovyov, representative of

‘thinking’ — which says that no matter

| the whole present-day world. It also says

quest for disarmament, several speakers
who addressed festival audiences emphas-
ized.

Greeted by a standing ovation from the
crowd of more than 400 in the Brilliant
Cultural Centre, outside Castlegar, follow-
ing the unveiling, sculptor Yuri Chernov
told the audience: “We have delved into
the atom and reached into space — but
today we may be on the brink of self-
destruction.

“That is why we are looking at the work
of all the worlds’s great humanitarians.

And Tolstoy’s legacy is very modern today
and the people need it more than ever
before.”

“In a real sense, Tolstoy was one of the
first fighters for peace,” Melentiev told the
audience. “His voice sounded from Yas-
naya Polyana (Tolstoy’s home) for peace
and against war. He regarded war as alien
to the very essence of man’s nature.”

The question that Tolstoy pondered on
the eve of World War I — what can peo-
ple of culture do to counterpose those who
are pushing humankind towards war

— “is very current today,” Melentiev | _
emphasized. ae

“Nuclear weapons threaten a catas- |~
trophe for all of us,” he said, warning that i,
the deployment of weapons in space |~
would “undermine the security of all those |
striving for peace.

“We talk today of a ‘new political

how strong you are, you cannot control

that the security of anyone depends on the
security of all.

“That is why Tolstoy is very close to all. |
of us today — and we hope we can say
that Tolstoy is a citizen not only of Russia
but of the whole world,” he said.

In a written message to the festival, Ilya
Tolstoy likened his great-grandfather’s
ideas on man’s striving for moral perfec-
tion in man to the awakening of social
consciousness around the world which
finds its best expression in the peace
movement. 3

“Romaine Roland, Maxim Gorky,
Mikhail Sholokov, Joliot-Curie, J. Nehru,
Martin Luther King and many of our con-
temporaries in the forefront of the peace
movement are the spiritual children of Leo
Tolstoy,” he said, emphasizing that “mil-
lions and millions of people on this earth
are now joining the peace movement.”

Tolstoy, a professor of Russian stylistics
In Moscow University’s Faculty of Jour-
nalism, wrote in his message: “I believe
that Tolstoy’s thoughts will in the future
become the thoughts of our offspring,
those who will be alive after us, who will be
alive thanks to the triumph of Tolstoyan
ideas — the moral perfection of man, love
of people for people, the establishment of
a world without arms, the preservation of
our earth, water and sky in a clean state.”

He called the unveiling of the monu-
ment ‘‘a landmark on our path ... a wit-
ness for future generations of the |
awakening of our social consciousness.”

In separate addresses to the crowd, both ©
John Verigin and Edward: Solovyov
voiced their hope that the erection of the
monument would bring closer relations
between the Soviet Union and Canada
and “build bridges of understanding
between people and nations.”

“The social movement for peace and a
nuclear-weapons free world is what
should unite us all, irrespective of where
we live or what ideology we share,” Solo-
vyov emphasized. :

The Castlegar portion of the festival
was sponsored by the Association of Can-
adians of Russian Descent, an organiza-
tion jointly founded in the mid-1960s by
the Federation of Russian Canadians, the
Union of Spiritual Communities of
Christ — representing Orthodox Douk-
hobors in the Kootenays — and the
Society of Doukhobors in Canada.

The events in this province filled three
full days, including lectures on the cultural
legacy of Leo Tolstoy, an evening pageant
dramatizing the history of the Doukho-
bors, a cultural program featuring Douk-
hobor choirs and choirs from Federation
of Russian Canadian branches in both
Vancouver and Toronto as well as formal
greetings from the federal, provincial and
municipal governments and representa-
tives of a broad spectrum of peace, labour
and religious organizations.

It was perhaps Klaus Offerman, first
vice-president of the Kootenay local of the
International Woodworkers, who summed
up the festival’s importance in a brief
speech Saturday.

“By honouring the Doukhobors who
were persecuted in Russia for burning
their guns, we are sending a special mes-—
sage to the world that peace and disarma-
ment is important to us and sacrifice on
their behalf is worth honouring,” he told
the audience.

““We are saying here that we will do our —
part to do to the nuclear bomb what the
Doukhobors did to the gun.”

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10 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, AUGUST 12, 1987