Change as Confirmation of Continuity
Margarita Mazo, PhD, Ethnomusicologist, Music Department, Ohio State University, Canton, Ohio
As Experienced by Russian Molokans[In 1992, Dr. Mazo, the only Russian born and trained ethnomusicologist at an American university, visits a new Molokan village south of Moscow composed of refugees mainly from Armenia and Georgia. She describes a service with guests from the Molokan Center in Stavropol' and attempts by a young leader to preserve his religious culture after perestroika. Mazo later arranges for Russian and American Jumpers singers to meet in America, but the Jumpers refuse passing the invitation to the Constants.]
Bitter cold (-30 Celsius), a dark stairway all covered with ice and without handrails, long strips of old wallpaper and plaster of all imaginable colors peeling from the walls, no light and almost no heat inside of the house — outside, as far as my eyes can see in this December's twilight hour, a beautiful and electrifying view of icy lace on trees and, in the distance, wooded hills, all deeply under snow. About thirty young Molokans live in this old country squire's house, which probably has not been repaired for a hundred years. They came here about three months ago, in the fall of 1992. Most of them are young men, a few came with their families; all others left children, wives, and parents beyond the Caucasus mountains till they can build places for them to live.
These Molokans migrated to the village of Slobodka (in Tula province [Chern' region], about 250 miles south of Moscow) from the Caucasus, where, in contrast to the Baltics, the local government did not officially encourage Russian out-migration. They migrated out of fear that their lives and those of their wives, children, and parents would be lost in the civil war that had surrounded their villages in Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. [Most are from Armenia, several from Georgia.]
When one powerful elder, Mr. Timofei Shchetinkin, the presviter (presbyter, minister) of an influential church in the Stavropol' area (in South Russia) [The Molokan "Center" in Shpakovsoe, about 30 miles south of the city of Stavropol', is a congregation entirely of refugees from northern Azerbaijan mountain villages], found out about the difficulties his fellow Molokans were having in the new settlement, he gathered a group of the most experienced singers and brought them to Slobodka to help the new settlers. It was an expensive, long, and exhausting journey. It would have been much easier for him and the singers, none of them young, just to send the money that was so sorely needed in Slobodka. However, the elder decided that a visit by the singers would be a more effective contribution. They brought with them a few Bibles and songbooks, a gift from American Brothers, Molokans from San Francisco. [The Bible gifts were organized by a presbyter from Kerman California, John Kochegen, who collected money from nearly all American Molokan congregations by printing new Bibles in Moscow for $5 each, selling one to an American Molokan for $15, and giving two to Russian Molokans.] When they came to Slobodka, a full sobranie (Molokan communal worship) was held, the first since the young Molokans had migrated there. The head of the district administration, the key person in local politics and new economic policies, no doubt a devout communist in the past, accepted an invitation to the sobranie and sat in the place of honor, next to the elder presviter and Mr. Tikunov, the young leader of the Slobodka group.1 During the service, the district administrator even made a speech and a personal donation to the needs of the community. Also present in the room were four other outsiders (two photographers and two scholars, myself included), all invited and welcomed guests. Molokans are very private people and just the presence of any outsider, not to mention the presence of a video camera and a head politician, could not have been taken lightly. Certainly, the situation revealed the impact of new times in Russia. [In Tsarist times, it was a felony for Molokans to show their religious activity to outsiders. The memory of this punishment lingers a century later causing some to distrust outsiders. Tikunov attended the first and second All-Molokan congresses. Both congresses were video taped by American Molokans. The second congress was attended and taped by Nikitino's crew and aired on national Russian radio and TV. Tikunov was used to the media. I visited and filmed 50 Molokan communities in Russia and can report that only some of the Maksimists shun the camera.]
Being there throughout this tense and emotional sobranie, I discerned an experience of tremendous magnitude and consequence. What was the significance of this visit by the elder singers? To have a proper sobranie, there must be experts (i.e., individuals specially trained within the community) officiating for various components of the sobranie: a presviter and his helper [pomoshnik]; besedniki (singular besednik), who read and interpret the Bible during besedy (singular beseda; literally, a conversation, talk), an oratory form or a special sermon modeled as a situated rhetorical discourse; skazateli (singular skazatel'), readers or announcers who call out scriptural passages before they are lined out to the melody of a posalom (plural posalmy, psalms);2 and the pevtsy (singular pevets, singer). Why was it that all the people selected by the presviter, although they could perform functions of other officiates during the sobranie, were first of all good singers and not simply other elders? Why didn't he select sophisticated besedniki, theorists of Molokanism or knowledgeable construction workers, whose help was so much needed? What would be the impact of this visit on the future of the young group? [Answers to these questions of inter-group dynamics require knowledge of each member's reputation in former congregations, their expectations in this one, and the management skills of the presbyter. In many congregations, particularly the Spiritual and Jumper/Maksimist, positions are traditionally appointed by the Holy Spirit. Most of the Tula refugees have no former sobranie training and are reinventing it in a democratic manner while trying to survive the economic crisis in their country.]
The Molokans are members of a religious sect that has existed in Russia in one form or another for more than 200 years. Because of their beliefs, they have always lived as social and religious outsiders, most of the time ostracized by the mainstream society. Molokan communities, spread all over the world [Only 1%, about 3000, migrated to America, most to Los Angeles between 1905 and 1912. In the 1960s about 200 families moved to Australia, and a few to Uruguay.], appear to have certain cognitive, social, and cultural similarities and even consistency. This seemingly coherent universe emerges from a discordant chorus of discrete personal experiences and individual reflections on various aspects of Molokanism — from history, religious, and cultural issues to matters of family and private life. Personal experiences and opinions, contrasting and complementing each other, usually are vigorously verbalized and debated within the community.
Individual interpretations and communal perspectives on Molokanism are completely interdependent, if not altogether inseparable; entwined, they constitute a multidimensional spiritual and earthly continuum. The inner tension within this dynamic complexity may have been largely responsible for the perpetuation and survival of this egalitarian community. Reflecting individual concerns of valued members of the community, a continual process of constructing negotiated meaning3 takes place. This continual dialogue between individual experiences and practical needs on the one hand and traditional interpretations handed down from generation to generation on the other, secures a certain flexibility of communal awareness and enables gradual adjustments of communal attitudes to the perpetually changing challenges of the environment. In this process, alternatives offered by the nonvalued members probably would be simply disregarded by the Molokan community, but the requests and concerns of its valued members must be recognized in order to perpetuate their status and needs. During the sobranie in Slobodka, which occurred at a turning point in the community's history, this process was amplified, allowing an observer to discern at least one way in which the construction of negotiated meaning takes place.
Some History and Ways of the Molokans
The Spiritual Christians Molokans, as they identify themselves, are one of the many peasant alliances that represented religious dissent in rural eighteenth-century Russia.4 Like the Dukhobors (Spirit Fighters [wrestlers]), a sect from which the Molokans branched out circa the 1760s, they were seeking religious freedom from the Russian Orthodox church and economic independence from state-imposed poverty by establishing a self-governing brotherhood of equal men. To this day, Molokans consider communal energy, both spiritual and human, much more powerful than individual. [This has been reversed in America, where individual egos have eroded the communities. One elder told me: "Today Molokans are our own worst enemy. Before we used to fight against the draft, now we fight among each other." Though descendants of the original immigrants number over 50,000, only about 2,000 regularly attend all 30 (approximate) congregations.] The Molokans as a group are little known even to specialists in Russian culture. Therefore, I will profile certain facets of their worldview and beliefs that I consider indispensable for the present essay, because they help to identify a conceptual universe within which their singing functions and of which it is an integral part.5Molokanism is a peculiar amalgamation of the Old and New Testaments and, at the same time, of peasant faith and folk beliefs characteristic of Russian villagers.6 Links with Russian mystics, Western sectarian Protestants, and Judaic practices are also evident. [See Holidays of Molokan Sub-groups, and Miliukov] Essentially, all religious and cultural junctions notwithstanding, Molokanism is a Christian movement that grew out of traditional values and cultural models of Russian peasantry, although it evolved into unique forms. As the Molokans' favorite expression goes: "We live and sing by the spirit and by the mind." This expression provides a good insight for understanding the Molokan spiritual and cultural universe as being simultaneously deeply mystical and thoroughly rationalistic.
Like other earlier sectarians, the Molokans abandoned the Russian Orthodox Church altogether. They rejected the church's rituals, most holidays, and all material sacraments of the Orthodoxy, including the cross and icons. They also rejected the church's hierarchy and paid clergy, as they seek direct contact with God. During the sobranie, every participant should contribute to building up the communal spiritual power according to his or her gift to enact a specific component of the service, beseda, skazyvanie, singing a psalm or reciting a prayer. All Molokans whom I met, without exception, insisted that they believe only in internal spiritual aspects of Christianity, accepting only the symbolic essence of religious sacraments. Salvation is in the faith alone, they said, not in the church's ritualistic celebration of sacraments made as "objects of human artistry." The ultimate enlightenment, according to Molokan elders, comes through experiences incomprehensible to the senses and logic. One is to seek it not in the material world but only in the spiritual world within, through communal worship "in spirit and truth." At the same time, personal wealth is desirable, in contrast to the Russian Orthodox doctrine. The material aspects of Molokans' earthly life, perhaps in an effort to build an independent and self-sufficient community and also in preparation for the millennium of Christ's kingdom on earth, has to be of good quality.7
For their resentment of the Orthodox church, the Molokans were outlawed by the mainstream society and severely repressed throughout their history in Russia. In the 1830s the government removed them from Central Russia, the main lands of Russian peasantry, to the Transcaucasus and the Caucasus mountains [also to Central Asia, Siberia and the Far East]. After their exemption from military service expired and petitions to renew it were denied, they migrated farther south, some to the land that later fell under Turkish jurisdiction. [In 1921, after the Russo-Turkish war, part of Armenia on the Turkish boarder concentrated with Molokans and Doukhobors, Kars oblast, was given to Turkey along with the inhabitants.] Thousands of Molokans, in search of quality land, "better life," and religious freedom, ended up in Persia, [same as] Iran, Turkey, North America, Australia [first via China in the 1940s, second via America in the 1960s], and other parts of the world. Many Molokans (those in the Jumpers and Maximists denominations only) insisted that their migration out of Russia was led by the prophesies. The largest Molokan community, however, still lives in Russia [approximately 150 congregations]. At present, there are three main denominations of the Molokan sect: the Steadfast [Constants], who supposedly preserved the original doctrine and order; the Jumpers [or Spiritual], who later began to accept the manifestation of the Holy Spirit in prophecy and physical form (i.e., jumping); and the Maximists, who formed during the late nineteenth century and accepted the teachings of new prophet-leaders, mainly those of Maxim Rudometkin.8 Mr. Shchetinkin and his pevtsy, as well as the majority of the young settlers in Slobodka, belong to the Steadfast denomination. Competing interpretations of Molokanism, both on the individual and the denominational levels, are a constant source of inner tension and challenge. Combined with separatism, historically strong among the Molokans, the controversy over individual opinion splits the community into small factions. [Maksimists split the most, Constants the least.] Each elder disapproves the liberty exercised by other congregations in maintaining denominational teachings. One may even say that this fragmentation weakens the movement at large. At the same time, the construction of negotiated meaning through a continual dialogue between varied interpretations of the doctrine secures the perpetuation of the sect, providing a channel for innovation and adjustment to new social and cultural conditions. In this respect, the situation in the Slobodka group is not unusual. What sets it apart from the established Molokan communities in Russia is the divergent backgrounds within the group, as the members all come from different churches and different places in the Caucasus area. Throughout their history, the Molokans have lived in strong confrontation to the mainstream society, in conscientious religious, social, cultural, and often ethnic opposition to the ne nashi (those who are not we [not us]) or, in Bakhtin's term, the Others [outsiders]. As one Molokan elder explained, they praise "the living in the world without being a part of it." Not unlike the situation in other closed confessional groups, Molokan culture is self-sufficient — that is to say, the preservation and maintenance of their spiritual life is secured from within. Except for one printed book, the Bible, Molokan sobranie needs no props or other material objects produced outside of the community. [In America the majority of congregations were dominated by Jumper/Maksimists and a collection of writings and interpretations was published in the decade after migration and placed on their tables as a supplement to the Bible. This Book of the Sun: Spirit and Life (Dukh i Zhizn') was not embraced by those of Spiritual or Constant heritage, and continues to be a object of debate, though tolerated. The Spirit and Life has very limited acceptance in Russia, only among some Maksimists.] Like any other closed group, in order to perpetuate their faith and culture, the Molokans have to draw boundaries that differentiate them from the Others. These boundaries are closed to the ne nashi and have to be learned as part of the experience of being a Molokan. Their singing is one such demarcation. Actually, their whole order of life separates them from the ne nashi. They call this order Molokan zakon (literally, the law), a distinct and self-sufficient maintenance system responsible for the perpetuation, stability, and well-being of the brotherhood. The zakon governs not only cultural and social institutions, the code of conduct, structure of the religious rite, and the sobranie, but also relationships between man and God, worldview, values, personal relations, etc. A complex and well-structured order regulates almost all spheres of Molokan spiritual and everyday life. As in many other closed communities, this self-imposed discipline functions through a system of restrictions and prohibitions. Molokan zakon is considered "too strict and exacting" by many. At the same time, it must be openended to be able to tolerate the diversity of interpretations and internal tensions. Disputes among its competing interpretations are themselves an essential means of perpetuating the Molokan zakon. The sobranie in Slobodka can serve as an illustration of the inner dynamics of this most vital process. For the Molokans, not unlike other evangelicals, the Bible has become not only the theological base of their beliefs, but also a lens through which they perceive, interpret, and evaluate everyday life. Driven by the aspiration to comprehend the inner sense of life, they find in the Bible a suitable analogy or metaphor for practically any need. Their approach to the Bible, it appears, is metaphorical rather than literary. Analogy and metaphor as major instruments of the Molokan world outlook are noticeable on every level, from an explanation of their origins and name to an interpretation of religious doctrine and the way they express themselves in everyday life. This is particularly noticeable in besedy, during which a besednik reads a passage from the Bible and pursues his interpretation of the passage in connection with daily life. Events that happened in the community, examples from the speaker's personal life, his own observations, thoughts and assumptions — all examined and validated by parallels and analogies from the Bible — become the instruments of the besednik's discourse. Molokan besedy show a great variety of local schools and individual styles of folk hermeneutics. Many besedniki build their discourses on the highest level of oratory. The majority of Molokans (particularly men and the besedniki specifically) are experienced speakers who develop skills and the art of expressing thoughts verbally through continuous practicing of discourse. Not only in rhetorical situations structured by ritual but also through countless private disputes, Molokans are perpetually negotiating and redefining the meaning of certain notions or actions. Speech, both ritualized and ordinary, and the expressive means of the besedy, as well as their formal configurations, are topics for sociolinguistic investigation and are beyond the scope of this essay. However, the Molokans' strong tradition and long history of practicing discourse must be emphasized here because the meaning and significance of the sobranie in Slobodka cannot be interpreted outside of this context.
The Power of Molokan Singing
Understanding the high status of verbal expression and the power of the word reinforced by the ritual and communal participation is also important for conceptualizing Molokan singing. Stripped of the effects of bright and solemn costumes, icons and frescos on the walls, lighting of candies and incense — all widely used by the Orthodox ritual — the Molokan sobranie takes place within bare white walls in rooms furnished with backless wooden benches; religious books on top of a modest table covered with white cloth the only props.9 As Molokanism rejected all visual attributes of the Orthodox religious service, forms of verbal and nonverbal communication through sound assimilated some of the functions and energy that flowed through other channels of the ritual.A variety of aural forms is used during the sobranie. They are all based on the scripture — that is, on "God's word" — but their symbolic powers differ. In the words of one Molokan elder, "God's word is sonic," and its power, it seems, does not rely on the meaning of the word alone. The power of "the sonic word," one can note, increases within the sonic continuum of spoken-read-sermonized-recited-sung-prayed verbal manifestations, which we will call modalities (Crystal 1976). Each modality has a distinct paralinguistic profile (tempo, loudness, intensity, voice quality, pitch contour, duration, etc.), and this sonic profile, one can speculate, is one of the decisive factors in determining the power of the sacred word. The sung modality occupies a remarkably high point in this continuum.
Beseda (consisting of spoken, read, and sermonized modalities) and a ceremonial psalm singing (consisting of recited/chanted and sung modalities) make up a cycle that is repeated several times during the first part of the sobranie. The beseda, like the entire sobranie, is intended to praise the Lord, but it addresses directly the people present: "Dear brothers and sisters," as articulated during every beseda. While the beseda is meant to communicate with people and to effect their understanding of the spiritual truth as well as to address the immediate concerns of the community's ordinary life, singing is considered a channel of direct communication with God. The second half of the sobranie, the communal prayer proper, includes only sung and prayed modalities of the word. "Singing is the same as a prayer, only more emotional," asserts the head pevets of the Shchetinkin's group.
Singing as the source of spiritual power is a characteristic rhetoric of all Molokans: "singing is to melt the heart, then the heart opens itself to God"; "through singing goes the same spiritual road that brings one to pray"; "singing reveals the word of God to man." (One cannot fail to notice how tightly the singing and the word are bound in the Molokans' own expressions.) The image of Heaven, according to the Molokan cognitive world, is impregnated with singing: "Those Molokans who have merited Heaven sing. They do not work there, they do not eat there, they only sing." The Molokans identify Molokanism "as a singing religion" (Samarin 1975: 66-67) and think of themselves as "Christians who sing the psalms" (O'Brien-Rothe 1989: 1).
Singing during the sobranie is in itself an act of "divine inspiration," and the Spirit dictates a particular posalom or song to be sung. Thus, the Molokans sing "by the spirit." At the same time, they also sing "by the mind." The Molokans have developed a huge repertory of psalms (virtually hundreds [1000+]), but only a few would be suitable for any one occasion. Psalms are divided into several categories, each corresponding to a specific communicative intention. There are psalms to console, to beseech, to thank; there are psalms for funerals, weddings, house warmings, etc. Moreover, each psalm has to correspond to the subject of the discussion during the sobranie. Choosing a psalm proper for the occasion is crucial, and it is left to the experts, the pevtsy.
Singing as a symbolic act that triggers an enormous collective experience has been long recognized in many religions. It is important that the symbol be realized as such. Not infrequently, however, the details and aesthetic quality of the ritual singing have little significance for the participants; they pave and adorn the road for more essential experiences and aspects of participation. In Molokan practice, however, "good" singing is crucial. They even have a special concept, khoroshii pevets, [literally: good singer] translated by American Molokans as "a quality singer." In the words of one Molokan leader, "singing during the sobranie can either stifle or raise everything," and a "poor" performance might prevent reaching a spiritual state in which communication with God becomes possible. Because singing has the power of evoking the Spirit, experienced leaders engage singing as a medium to facilitate "working of the Spirit" and experiencing the presence of the divine during the service. Moreover, the Spirit cannot reveal itself to humans without singing.
The act of communication with the divine has different forms among the Jumpers and the Steadfast. The Jumpers employ both psalms and spiritual songs, the only two categories of Molokan ecclesiastical repertoire. Psalms are sung to scriptural prose texts directly, the melodies being very intricate and long; the tempo is usually slow and syllables are prolonged by elaborate melismata. Texts of the spiritual songs are composed as rhymed poems that interpret the scripture. The tempo is faster than in psalms; songs are syllabic, with melodies most often based on repetitions of short phrases. The Steadfast Molokans, however, if they sing songs at all, allow them only after the sobranie proper is ended. This distinction is important rhetorically in interdenominational polemics. During the sobranie in Slobodka, as we discuss later, the meaning of this argument was forcefully renegotiated by the leader of the young group.
During the sobranie of the Jumpers, appropriate singing and working of the spirit bring changes in the physical behavior of the congregation, the jumping. The spiritual life of the Steadfast Molokans is less discernible visually, but for them as well singing gradually intensifies during the service. In both denominations, the communal prayer, the climax of the service, is a complex sonic whole. It consists of a prayer recited by the presviter (or another man of his choice) and, simultaneously, individual petitions to the Lord. These petitions, at least in Molokan communities residing in Russia, are often expressed in a form coinciding with village laments or keening, in which singing and recitation are mixed with tears and sobs, sometimes even wails. Such an application of Russian laments has not been previously reported in literature. As during other village rituals that use simultaneous laments (funerals, weddings), all participants employ the same melodic pattern, although each renders it differently.10 Similarly to village laments, Molokan individual prayers during the sobranie are on the border of musical, paramusical, and paralinguistic expression. The application of laments during the communal prayer becomes more comprehensible conceptually if one keeps in mind that lamenting, not unlike a true prayer, brings a cathartic feeling of relief (Mazo 1994b).
The Sobranie in Slobodka
We shall now examine how these main aspects of the Molokan service were worked through in the sobranie in Slobodka.Normally, no recording is allowed during the sobranie, although religious psalms and songs can be recorded at other times and places. This is to say that sanctity does not reside in the song itself but rather in the context of its performance. Russian Molokans will often ascribe failure and trouble in life to some fault in singing during the sobranie.11 Previously I was lucky and several times was allowed to make tape recordings during the sobranie, but I was never permitted to photograph. [Photography of sobranie was permitted for visiting Jumpers and Molokans, nashi from America, for inter-group and cultural exchange.] Permission to film the first sobranie of the new settlement in Slobodka appeared to signal meaningful changes. The elders who organized the trip actually welcomed an opportunity to film their visit and willingly ignored the presence of the cameras and bright lights.
The Molokan sobranie is supposed to be shaped by the "golden thread," a continual idea or a concept that unites its components into a coherent web and regulates the topic of the besedy, psalms, and prayers. In Slobodka, the "golden thread" was dictated by the overall goal set by the presviter: to persuade the young people to believe in God and make them accept Molokanism as "a guiding star" in their ordinary life. Raised within the Soviet social system, the young people were brought up in atheist schools; many carry the scars of the former Soviet society and are used to drinking, smoking, and swearing — all unacceptable to Molokan doctrine. Shchetinkin's message was "Dear children! Believe in God and accept Molokanism — it will bring a solution to your daily problems and reduce your suffering." This in itself is not a typical "golden thread" of a sobranie in a traditional Molokan community. Reinforcements of beliefs and persuasion toward a certain meaning of life and God's word are common, but there is not much need of missionary rhetoric during an assembly of brothers in faith, unless some non-regular members of the congregation are present. Missionary rhetoric and teaching the basics of how to be a Molokan are carried on largely in different social settings, but the sobranie in Slobodka, by necessity, condensed the functions of several social institutions. At the same time, as much as the sobranie in Slobodka was a unique form of religious discourse, Shchetinkin's rhetoric and the way he employed the persuasive power of the word are similar to those employed by the leaders of other new diaspora communities, even with entirely different religions, social, and ethnic background (compare, for example, Palinkas 1989 on Chinese immigrant churches in the United States).
The Slobodka situation not only predetermined the "golden thread" chosen by the presviter, but also justified deviation from the usual symmetry and the temporal balance between the besedy and singing. As an experienced leader, Shchetinkin knew well the power of the besedy to persuade the new settlers and to control their social behavior. He allowed almost 90 percent of the first part of the sobranie to be spent in these verbal sermons. This asymmetry, improper for other occasions, seemed to have been conscientiously implemented by Shchetinkin. In the second part, his prayer was also long and, in addition to its obvious purpose, seemed to embody a covert didactic underpinning: to teach the young people how to pray. When the sobranie was over — as though to compensate for the imbalance of the sobranie created by overwhelmingly long besedy and to satisfy the psychological need for catharsis and relief of much accumulated anxiety, pressure, and fear — young people asked the presviter to repeat the prayer once again. [Shchetinkin is a refugee from Azerbaijan were Molokans ritually recite very long prayers and kneel up to 9 times, much different than the shorter rituals evolved among Molokans in Armenia. I suspect that the youth had never experienced the Azerbaijan form and merely wanted a replay.]
An even more profound negotiation on behalf of the needs of the Slobodka group took place in the middle of the first part of the sobranie, when its young leader, Mr. Victor Tikunov, requested that the elders should sing songs and not psalms during the besedy, because, he reasoned, psalms are too complex to grasp. The following translation provides a good insight into the rhetoric of this powerful negotiation. Tikunov said:
We have lost the communal life, and we want it back. We do want to return to the spirituality that we lost, and we see our hope in your visit. But we don't want just the ritual. What we want is a dialogue. As you want our work not to be in vain before God, we want your work not be in vain and bring the results. [To achieve it], please sing more melodious and simple songs, because we want your singing to reach us.[For 1997, other inter-group dynamics should be mentioned. First, many central Russia Molokan congregations in 1997 had not fully recognized Shchetinkin's dominant leadership — "the head presviter of all Molokan congregations in the world". In 1992, the new Russian Law on Religions (See Agadjanian) required registration of all churches and Shchetinkin was trying to unite all Molokan congregations into his "Center" by charging fees and providing legal status. The majority of congregations, including those in Tula, did not join. Tikunov, though glad to have so many guests at once, felt he had to resist the salesmanship of Shchetinkin while accommodating the scientists. In 1997, the Central Russian Molokan congregations (Moscow, Tula, Tambov, Voronezh, Saratov) held the first Molokan youth conference in Russia, hosted by Tambov, which was attended by many Americans, including myself, and several key members of Shchetinkin's Center, but notably not Shchetinkin. Tambov, for example, a congregation composed almost equally of Molokans indigenous to Tambov and refugees from Azerbaijan, whose head presbyter is from Azerbaijan, could find no advantage for membership in the Stavropol' Center and registered their congregation independently. Second, the visiting Azerbaijan Molokans evolved a singing style very different from all other Molokans which is very difficult to follow or learn. The Slobodka Armenian and Georgian Molokans have their own styles for psalms and verses which they will eventually transfer to their young. In mixed Molokan refugee communities — like Tambov, Iutsa in south Stavropol'skii krai, and Moscow — the Azerbaijan refugees often sing their songs as a separate choir because Molokans from other traditions cannot easily participate in their style. However the Azerbaijan Molokans can follow most all other Molokan styles. By 2005, during the occasion of the 200th aniversary of religous freedom for Spiritual Christians, the membership of the Union of Communities of Spiritual Christian Molokans in Russia (The Center) had nearly doubled, showing more trust among Constant congregations that has been separated for nearly a centruy.]After a long silence, Shchetinkin responded: "God, help us to sing and you to hear." Then, after singing a psalm appropriate for the preceding beseda, he addressed his pevtsy, asking them to honor the request. He himself helped to sing two songs, "Molitva materi" ("Mother's prayer") and "Liubeznye deti" ("Dear children"), both based on popular Soviet melodies.12 Both songs are about children's appropriate behavior and parents' compassion for children, so both carried a message corresponding to the "golden thread" of the sobranie. The presviter thus responded to Tikunov's request and found a compromise by allowing singing songs during the sobranie, although not instead of but in addition to "conventional" psalms.
This was a negotiation of the symbolic meaning of one of the most fundamental procedures in the communal rite. The request to sing songs instead of psalms was not a result of ignorance of the Molokan zakon, because Tikunov comes from a very "strict" Molokan family. In addition, he himself has already achieved a high status as a knowledgeable and a sophisticated thinker and speaker. But the social dynamics of the situation (the young community's alienation from traditional life, inability to learn by experience, and lack of elders, experts, and teachers) called for this adjustment; otherwise, as Tikunov explained, the perpetuation of the entire rite is endangered. In other words, the young group wanted to accept Molokanism but had to do it in their own way. The response of the wise presviter seemed amazing to me at the time because what he was asked to do appeared as something inconceivable in any other situation. It could not possibly have taken place at any of the Steadfast Molokan sobranie I had previously attended. In addition, the request seemed to contradict one of the presviter's goals — that is, to teach the young the Molokan zakon.
The incident in Slobodka shows the complexity and dynamics of the Molokan sobranie as a living entity. It illustrates one way that changes are negotiated by the valued members of the community: readjustments are introduced by finding a compromise between the traditional and the new.
Building a New Diaspora Community in Post-Soviet Russia
The experience of the Slobodka group is also revealing when viewed in the larger context of cultural strategies espoused by small diaspora communities. Among many factors controlling the cultural survival of a new diaspora community, the number of people in the group and the sufficiency of their singing repertoire are important, if not crucial. Any small cultural enclave develops in a unique way, and often a single factor can change its practices (singing practices included) drastically. The visit of experienced singers to the Slobodka settlement can become such a single factor, at least for its spiritual life and singing practices. The enormous intensity throughout this sobranie, felt by everyone present, makes one think that this experience will not be easily forgotten.Young Molokans in the Slobodka settlement came from different places in which Molokan communal life was well established. All of them had previously experienced a sobranie, although to a greatly varied degree. Many were familiar with the complex and well-developed terminology for the experiences essential for Molokan spiritual life, including singing and its performance practices. They were able to follow the psalms and some even attempted to sing along with the elder singers. Several young people knew a spiritual song or two, but songs, as mentioned earlier, are not sufficient to fulfill the symbolic purpose of singing during Molokan sobranie. Thus, only after the arrival of the qualified singers did a "proper" communal prayer become possible. When Molokanism started, in the eighteenth century, the founders considered it their first duty to build into the zakon vital institutions that support singing and forms of its maintenance. Today the necessity of such institutions is sustained in the Slobodka settlement. Young people welcomed the singers, they listened with immense concentration, they were willing to fast and to work hard to learn the singing they needed.
From observations during this service, it appears that even though the Slobodka Molokans cannot sing a single psalm today, they may have a future as a Molokan community. What these young people understand is the essence and the power of singing as a channel for transcendent communication. It means that no matter what borrowings, influences, and changes might occur, the singing tradition as a symbolic and artistic whole has a chance to endure there. As the years go by, it will probably web its various musical encounters in a unique way, as is the case with singing traditions of every other diaspora community. Tikunov's aim as the leader of the Slobodka group is to be able to reenact the main spiritual rite, the sobranie, as a whole, even though some important components will have to be renegotiated or even sacrificed. This strategy is characteristic of Molokan communities the world over. As far as I know, they do not select a certain section of the ritual to perpetuate, but rather aim to preserve it in its entirety. Russian Old Believers and Dukhobors living in North America seem to have similar strategies. [After 100 years in America, the American Molokans and Jumpers have lost much of their rituals and understanding if history due to the social evolution of blending with America.]
Even though this essay focuses on the Molokans living in Russia, some parallels with American Molokans are hard to avoid. Regardless of the differences in living conditions and historical ways during the last century, Molokans in both countries undergo a similar period in their spiritual development. In both, they make a serious effort to preserve the essence of Molokanism and to retain the younger generations. In both, Molokanism is in danger; the threat comes from the dynamics of contemporary life itself. The causes of this danger are different in Russia and the United States. In the United States the threat comes first of all from the loss of the language and ethnic identity, and also from the social standing of the group as a marginal community. Children of American Molokans want, most of all, to be like all others. In the former Soviet Union, Molokanism, as any other religious movement, was under ideological repressions. Today, however, the situation in Russia has changed significantly.
With the new freedoms, the Molokans in Russia can practice their religion freely. As the necessity to search for one's own roots is growing fast in the former Soviet society, Molokans are gaining the respect and even admiration of their fellow Russians for having been able to maintain their faith and preserve their history continuously throughout the Soviet era. Nobody ridicules Molokan men for their long beards and rope-like belts or women for their shawls and dresses anymore. Nobody laughs at their singing processions during funerals and weddings. The attention of scholars to the Molokan culture also has played a positive role. What separates and differentiates the Molokans from their neighbors now acquires a positive value in the eyes of the others as well. In new Russia, the Molokans' carefully guarded self-identity once again asserts its powerful role in their survival as a community. [Under the new law of religion in Russia, Molokans are acceptable because they are Russian (domestic) sectarians, and not foreign sectarians. See Agadjanian. But in 2005 Molokans in Moscow were denied land for their church.]
Two major changes in Molokan communities in Russia are manifested clearly through the sobranie described here: first, it is possible to practice Molokanism openly; and second, in a related development, it is possible to reestablish contact with their historical brothers living in the United States. The renewed contact began with an inflow of religious books (virtually thousands of copies of the Bible and the songbook) and was soon followed by a steady, two-way traffic of people related by blood and then by the visits of leaders. With the opening of archives in Russia, Mr. Edward Samarin, a prominent leader of the American Steadfast Molokans, unearthed about a thousand documents (letters, photographs, etc.) collected by a renowned scholar, Vladimir Bonch-Bruevich, which had been inaccessible to scholars and the public during the Soviet years.13
Both similarities and differences among people separated for several generations are profound. The renewed contacts have had a deep impact on both communities. In particular, the Molokans living in Russia have been confronted by new concepts based on a sharply dissimilar American way of life. These meetings have not always been smooth; different attitudes toward their faith and way of living have not always been greeted favorably and have generated friction and disapproval. But as has become obvious over the last few years, particularly during two All-Molokan congresses, they have a way of working around the differences and have accepted certain changes. Inherited skills in negotiating the meaning of their legacy have been invaluable during these meetings. An ability to sing together, for example, regardless of all stylistic differences, highlights every meeting, and a cassette with psalms and songs recorded from the "quality singers" is the best gift.
In 1991 and 1992, two All-Molokan international congresses took place in Russia to pronounce the unity and firmness of the movement all over the world (the first All-Molokan Congress took place in 1905). There were presviters and other members of the communities that had not known about each other until that time. After long and controversial debates, an all-Molokan presviter was elected. The great difficulties with which this was accomplished are telling: Molokans have no experience in such elections, and the idea of a church hierarchy itself is foreign to their teachings. Traditionally, the regionalism and independence of small local communities/churches have been the Molokans' characteristic mark. Local variations in singing schools have played an important role in these regional distinctions. Mr. Shchetinkin, eventually elected as the all-Molokan presviter, was asked to establish connections between various communities, facilitate their mutual support, and, particularly, promote Molokanism and teach young people who have grown up as Soviet citizens how to become responsible Molokans. Legitimizing the authority of his new position became an important issue for him. His visit with the Slobodka group was one step toward this multifaceted goal. He did it with the help of the tradition he knew best, that of his own church. The young people in Slobodka made several tapes during this visit, with the intent to learn psalms and songs. [The organization headed by Shchetinkin in 1997 had only unified about one-third of all Constant congregations in the FSU. This grew to about half by 2005. None of the Spiritual and or Jumer/Maksimist congregations will not join.]
The Slobodka Molokans' relocation to Russia is just a small part of the general demographic process taking place in Russia today: between 500,000 (according to an official 1992 figure of the Migration Service of the Russian Federation) and 2 million (unofficial figure) ethnic Russians have fled into Russia from former Soviet republics.14 In a peculiar twist of fate, since the degeneration of the Soviet empire, these Russians have found themselves in a situation in which they must fight for survival. Needless to say, the situation is one of immense complexity for all Russian refugees.
Perhaps the Molokans' worldview and their historical past may actually help them to survive in this situation. The Slobodka group, for instance, may have a better chance than those ethnic Russians who do not belong to any confessional group outside the main Orthodox religion. For two centuries, their sociopolitical and economic circumstances and their ethical and moral code have forced the Molokans to take charge of their own lives, to develop excellent entrepreneurial skills, and to be independent and strong, both spiritually and physically, in order to withstand the pressure from the surrounding dominant mentality. So, today, despite the tragedy and unhappiness of the present conditions, despite a bleak existence, Slobodka Molokans understand that their arrival might be a blessing in disguise for the area into which they have moved. Hopefully, they will bring new vitality to places that for some time have been under strong economic pressure for survival. The local authorities understand this as well and actually welcome them (hence, the presence of the local administration during the sobranie in Slobodka). This is an unusual situation in the history of any confessional community in Russia. They are used to hiding and running away. Previously, the Molokans have chosen (and often have forced to select) the conditions of conscientious isolation, no matter where they lived — in Russia, Turkey, Australia, China, Brazil, or the United States.
Throughout the history of Russian confessional groups, the relativity of their living space has become a factor of cultural conservation. For any culture, a space change — that is, the process of migration — is like taking a plant out of its soil, but for several Russian confessional groups (Old Believers, Dukhobors, Molokans) it has also been a factor that stimulates the preservation of culture wherever the groups settle. Throughout their numerous migrations over the last two centuries, Molokans have been capable of balancing the preservation of the old and creation of the new. Their stability has been maintained through flexible readjustments and keeping a balance with the ever-changing natural and cultural environment. Their singing is an example of their capability for readjustment. Molokans welcome an opportunity to borrow a melody and make any tune they like into their own spiritual song. All-time song hits (e.g., "Korobochka," "Kogda b imel ziatye gory," "Oi tsvetet kalina," "Na zakate khodit paren"), ironically including songs from Soviet films, have left traces in the Molokan repertoire (some Molokan elders in Russia still forbid watching the television and going to the movies). Now, one can also hear the melodies of "Amazing Grace," "The Last Rose of Summer," "Clementine," "Red River Valley," and "Battle Hymn of the Republic," learned from their American brothers. A diaspora culture often operates as a continuum between the present and the communal memory of the past. Among the Molokans, it is usually singing that first fills in. the continuum: the traditional melody of a psalm assures continuity with the past, while composing and learning new songs link history to the present.
The construction of negotiated meaning in the Slobodka community also involves songs that have been called to connect the past and the present. The inner dynamics of Molokanism are constructive and destructive simultaneously. Molokan culture contains seemingly opposing tendencies. As Molokan common rhetoric asserts, the community as a whole is oriented toward history and tradition. Historical events that happened years ago are recounted continuously; what happened to their forefathers is relevant directly to the present: "We live and pray exactly as our forefathers did." Usually, new features are introduced slowly and imperceptibly. At the same time, the community is open to anything from the outside world that can be useful for future prosperity, both spiritual and economic. There are always some individuals, both in Russia and the United States, who are "twenty years ahead of all others in the community," as one Molokan leader put it. These Molokan explorers were among the first Russian villagers to buy personal cars and refrigerators, to use tape recorders to record singing, etc., while some other Molokans in Russia still reject any use of tape recorders and television to this day. It is perhaps not by chance that the majority of Molokans were quick to test and explore the new political and economic freedoms in the new Russia. It is perhaps also not a coincidence that many Molokans love the American way of living, with its dynamic necessity to make choices constantly and quickly, inclination for personal prosperity, and respect for professional skills. Yet, the Molokan community as a whole can be described as one with a centric orientation: quickly responding to modem advantages, the community is tightly closed to outsiders. Today, as always, the oppositions "we/not we" and "ours/not ours" reveal themselves clearly and strongly. Molokans have almost no friends from the outside. The Molokans do not invite people from the outside to their gatherings; their beautiful and powerful singing is not known even to their neighbors. A combination of the openness and hermitage of the Molokan community helps to ensure the preservation of the culture; at the same time, it threatens the very existence of the sect. [See Lane, who predicted the extinction of Molokans in Russia, before perestroika.]
How will the changes brought by new social, political, and economic conditions in Russia affect the survival of Molokanism, Molokan culture, and their singing in particular? Will the Slobodka group, for instance, learn how to sing from the tapes they made during the visit by the elder singers? Will they prefer to recreate and perpetuate the singing of their own churches back home in the Caucasus? Will they be able to maintain the balance between the old and the new forms of singing, one of the major factors that has assured their existence as Molokans? Only the future will tell, but now, for the first time in Molokan history, these processes can be documented.
The changes in the political situation in Russia are so tremendous that it has become a common practice to draw direct parallels between political and cultural paradigms. Because of my personal background (I lived in Russia before 1979, and I cannot pretend to be entirely objective), I find it difficult to agree with the notion that in Russian expressive cultures, "the stagnation" paradigm of the Brezhnev times has been replaced with "the reform" paradigm of the Gorbachev perestroika times. There was no stagnation in the inner spiritual and artistic creativity during the 1960s and 1970s. If anything, these aspects of societal life grew creatively intense under political pressure, presaging dramatic social changes. It is true that under the political and social reforms of perestroika, several confessional communities in Russia (Molokans, Dukhobors, and Old Believers, particularly) went through some drastic changes. At the same time, it is also true, one can argue, that the inner dynamics of their spiritual life have not changed much.
PostScript
Long after the completion of this essay, in the summer of 1994, I had the occasion to visit the Slobodka Molokan community once again, now without the group of elders led by Shchetinkin from the Stavropol' area. It appears that during the interim period, the younger generation had managed to learn two or three of the psalms from the tapes made of the Shchetinkin group's singing in Slobodka two years earlier. They also learned a couple of psalms from tapes recorded "at home." Young Molokans expressed some frustration at not having had the benefit of the continuous support of the elders. Learning from tapes, they said, is so much harder than learning from a living singer. Learning the psalms at all, however inadequately, still afforded them the possibility of conducting a sobranie, thus getting closer to the essence of their being Molokans.Shchetinkin himself exhibited a remarkable ability to modify long-held attitudes. In 1995 he eagerly accepted an invitation to his group to participate in the Russian-American program "Russian Roots, American Branches: Music in Two Worlds" at the American Folklife Festival, organized by the Smithsonian Institution. [The arrangement with the Smithsonian Institute required that comparable choirs from Russia and America participate together. Mazo was most impressed by the intensity and similarity of American and Russian Maksimisti and Jumper singing and recommended these groups. Maksimist Molokans in north Stavropol', formerly from Turkey, ignored inter-group conflicts to select their best singers. After they were issued visas for the trip, they learned that no American Jumper/Maksimists would compliment their choir. John Kochergen, who was given the American invitation, refused to "rock the boat" by forming a choir for the festival. In 1973, a previous choir of American Molokans from Los Angeles churches sang at this pre-4th-of-July festival and were severely criticized by zealots for decades for their "worldly" and government cooperation. Not knowing the American politics, the Russian Maksimists are bitter that the American Jumpers "gave" their their trip to Shchetinkin, and feel they are owed a trip. At the last minute, Mazo reluctantly transferred the invitation to the Constants.] On the way to Washington, D.C., the group first went to San Francisco, where they spent about a month in the homes and the church of San Francisco Molokans. The stay had a tremendous effect on both groups, but particularly on Shchetinkin's. Eventually both groups came to the festival in Washington [D.C.], where they lived for two weeks, singing in public twice every day, publicly discussing issues of their identity, talking about changes and continuities in their life, and sharing the joy of singing together with their American brothers.
Notes
Field data for this article were collected since 1989 in Russia and the United States as part of a research project on cognate cultures. The project focuses on cultural continuities and transformations under different social, cultural, and ecological conditions. It has been supported by the Office of Folklife and Cultural Studies of the Smithsonian Institution, the Russian Ministry of Culture, and the Research Center for Studies on Russian Folklore in Moscow. After two initiatory field trips (1989 in Russia and 1990 in the U.S.), I invited Dr. Serafima Nikitina, a linguist from the Institute of Language Studies at the Russian Academy of Sciences, to join the project, and at present we are working on a joint article on musical and verbal components of Molokan culture. Leonid Filimonov and Alexander Goriachev, both from the Laboratory for Visual Anthropology at Moscow State University, joined our team to film documentary footage during the 1992 fieldwork in the village of Slobodka. I am indebted to Ohio State University graduate students, members of my seminars on Russian music, for being a responsive and stimulating audience for several sections of the article. I am particularly indebted to Kathy Gruber, Vladimir Marchenkov, and Margaret Bdzil for transcribing and translating parts of field interviews, and to Todd Harvey, Olga Velichkina, Deborah Andrus, and Deborah Wilson for transcribing some songs and psalms. Special thanks to Edward Samarin for comments.[I was first introduced to Dr. Mazo in 1989 by Ethel Dunn. Mazo had learned about Molokan singing from Dr. Rothe's book The Molokan Heritage Collection, Volume IV: The Origins of Molokan Singing. Mazo said that her first reaction was non-belief that Russian immigrants could retain any Russianess after 80 years in America so she didn't even study the book or listen to the tape. Since she was the only Russian-born and trained ethnomusicologist at an American university and had never heard of Molokans when she was studying in Russia, she decided to ask a friend, Sima Nikitina, in Moscow about Molokans. Nikitina confirmed that Molokans existed and told Mazo that many could be found in northern Stavropol'skii krai. Encouraged by the new technology of a small portable digital recorder, and very curious about Russian Molokans, Mazo went to Levokumka, Stavropol' to find Molokan singers. Within minutes of getting off the bus, Mazo located a Molokan and was invited to a head singer's house. Within a few days, she met Maksimists and Molokans of all groups and recorded hours of old singing styles most scholars thought were extinct. Mazo returned to the US, studied Rothe's book and contacted the publisher, Ethel Dunn, to learn more about and meet American Molokans. Ethel Dunn contacted me and I toured Mazo around Los Angeles during several trips, one with Nikitina, introducing them to numerous Jumpers and organizations in America. It was amusing to Mazo that a few prominent American Jumper/Maksimists would invite me to bring Mazo to their homes but not invite me to stay for dinner. They wanted the guest to and not the person who brought her to them. They seemed to resent me for being an efficient networking catalyst who bridged the secretive American Jumpers and the scientists. Her social scientific explanation was that if I was married, lived in Montebello, had a position at an LA church, and worked in a print shop (or any blue-collar work), then they feel I was in their religious-social-class and accept me. But since I was none of those (at that time), they mostly shunned me. Eventually my networking efforts yielded: collaboration between Mazo and American Jumper singers; a film by Nikitina and Filimonov about Molokans presented at NAFTA; an invitation to Russian and American Molokans (Constatns/Steadfast from San Francisco) to sing at the summer Folklore Festival in Washington DC, all transportation and accommodations included; this article; and more to come.]
1. Mr. Shchetinkin, Mr. Tikunov, and Mr. Samarin permitted me to use their names. Other Molokans asked that their names not be used in print; throughout this essay, statements and expressions recorded from them during field interviews are cited in quotation marks but without attribution.
2. Molokan posalmy can be sung to any part of the scripture, not only to the texts from the book of Psalms.
3. The term "construction of negotiated meaning" is borrowed from social cognitive theory (e.g., Flower 1994).
4. "Molokan" is not the original name of the sect of Spiritual Christians. According to one of the leaders of Molokanism, the movement began from "a soft blowing of God's breath" — that is, from the Holy Spirit (Berokoff 1966:23) [This quote is NOT from Molokans in America]. Three major interpretations of the origins of their name (all in current circulation) are connected with the Russian word moloko (milk). According to the first version, their teachings are based on the literal reading of the Bible, that is, on spiritual milk [See 1 Peter 2:2]; the second dwells on their defiance of the Russian Orthodox Church's prohibition against consuming milk (among other non-vegetarian products) during weekly fasts on Wednesdays and Fridays, as well as during the longer fasts; a third version links their name with the river Molochnye Vody ("milky waters") along which they lived in the eighteenth century. For English sources on Molokan history, see Dunn (1983), Klibanov (1982), Moore (1973), or Young (1932).
5. No observer has failed to notice the power and importance of singing in the Molokan communities. However, only two publications, as far as I know, contain specific studies of Molokan singing. In 1911, Lineva was the first to record phonographically and publish transcriptions of Molokan psalms (Lineva 1911). The next study, by the American ethnomusicologist Linda O'Brien-Rothe, appeared only in 1989. This was the first serious effort to comprehend the phenomenon of Molokan singing, although it concentrated primarily on Molokan songs, not psalms (O'Brien-Rothe 1989) [See The Molokan Heritage Collection, Volume IV: The Origins of Molokan Singing].
6. Molokans look and speak like Russian peasants. They widely use charms similar to those in circulation all over rural Russia. Ties between village folksong and Molokan psalms and songs are unmistakable, although Molokan singing practices have evolved into unique and intricate forms. Perhaps even more importantly, the Molokan understanding of religion as a syncretic entity with no compartmentalization between life and faith is close to other peasant communities in Russia. Traditionally, the spiritual life of Russian villagers, unlike that of their contemporary city-dwellers, has been not a separate sphere of activities but very much a part of "secular" life itself (Mazo 1991). However, while many Russian peasants have had a rather limited knowledge of Christianity as a religious doctrine — knowing it mostly from icons and the so-called dukhovnye stikhi (spiritual verses), songs based on biblical and apocryphal stories — every Molokan has some clear knowledge of Molokan doctrine and the Bible.
7. The concept of the new millennium, analogous to that of other Russian sectarians and Western prophetic Protestants of the seventeenth to eighteenth centuries, is not equally strong among different Molokan denominations [sub-groups: Constant, Subbotnik, Don branch, Community, Spiritual, Jumper, Maksimist], but all believe that as a chosen people, they will be taken into God's Kingdom on Earth. [See Berokoff, Chapter 5, regarding the influence of Jung-Stilling's writings on the early Molokans.]
8. In American settlements, there has been a radically new development over the last few years: a small Reform group [since 1980 in Oregon only] has adopted English as their liturgical language. The very existence of this group has generated immense antagonism from other Molokans [Jumpers], who insist that those who abolish the Russian language cannot claim to be Molokans [American Jumpers] any longer. [Some of] The members of the Reform church have been disavowed even by their own parents (Mazo forthcoming). [However, the American Constants have not ostracized the Reformed American Molokans. Also, most Russian Molokans are puzzled by the fact that American Jumpers have adhered to the Russian language for so long, especially since the American Molokans are no longer literate in Russian, and perform the rituals by memorizing and reciting verses without comprehension.]
9. The ceremonial table is called prestol (a throne and also the altar in Russian Orthodoxy). As used by the Molokans, the word prestol refers primarily to the community's spiritual leadership, a group of men who, during the sobranie, sit pri stole — that is, occupy the first row at the ceremonial table.
10. In many areas of rural Russia, lamenting, or crying with words and melody is not only a symbolic component of a ritual but also a conventional form of individual expression of frustration, grief, unhappiness, and similar psychological and emotional states. Laments are always improvised; these improvisations are based on strict patterns determined by each local tradition. While each lament is unique, the local tradition regulates formal and idiomatic aspects of both melody and words, as well as the lamenter's body movement and the role, placement, and even the volume of sobbing and wailing (Mazo 1994a).
11. In 1989, my friendly host did not allow me to record during his son's wedding and insisted on "arresting" my tape recorder "just in case," saying that if his son's married life went wrong, he would never forgive himself and would blame himself for allowing the ceremony to be recorded. [This is most typical of Maksimist, not the Steadfast or Spiritual Molokans in Russia.]
12. The second song is an adaptation of "Oi tsvetet kalina"' a hit tune by Isaac Dunaevsky from the popular 1949 film Kubanskie Kazaki. More research is needed to identify the origins of the first melody. Both are adjusted, however, to melodic and harmonic idioms characteristic of the group.
13. Bonch-Bruevich (from 1908 to 1916) was compiler and editor of a multi-volume publication of materials and documents on the history of Russian sectarians and Old Believers. Volume 8, dedicated to the Molokans, was to have appeared in print just before the October Revolution, but it has never been published.
14. Figures provided by Lydia Grafova, co-chair of the Russian Civilian Assistance Committee in her report at the Kennan Institute for Advanced Studies, Washington, D.C., on 1 December 1992.