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ABSTRACT
Over the summer of 1866, the majority of the Swedish-speaking population on the Baltic island of Ruhnu (then part of the Russian Empire’s Livland province) sought conversion from Lutheranism to Russian Orthodoxy. Despite interest from the Russian secular and ecclesiastical authorities, however, the conversions did not take place. The islanders used the threat of conversion to leverage concessions from the Lutheran consistory: once achieved, the community lost any interest in pursuing Orthodoxy further. The following article analyses largely unknown sources from both Estonian and Swedish archives to show how the island’s social structure and peculiar geographical position conditioned its inhabitants’ religious choices, thereby providing insight into a previously unstudied instance of peasant agency in the Russian Empire and contributing to studies of that polity’s environmental, ethnic, and confessional diversity.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Estonian Research Council grant PRG1274. The authors would like to thank Andrei Keller and Nina Grmusa for their assistance.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. Eesti Ajalooarhiiv (EAA) 1192.2.107.5–6.
2. Kalva, “Oikaisu.”
3. Two priests who travelled to Ruhnu from Kuressaare in September 1866 and July 1867 reported the trip taking thirty hours and seven days, respectively: travel was highly dependent on the weather. For comparison, a modern journey from Munalaid to Ruhnu by car ferry takes about three hours.
4. For an armed clash between Ruhnu sailors and Finnish locals over seals in 1832, see EAA.296.3.998.
5. According to one Estonian Orthodox teacher writing in 1889, Ruhnu boatmen plied a taxi trade between Tauksi, Noarootsi, and Vormsi: they spoke with the teacher about Siberia, America, and the ‘wilderness’ before laughingly retelling ‘the lives of sailors in free verse’. EAA. 2288.1.20.8.
6. Harding and Harkonen, “Development in the Baltic,” 621; 625.
7. Menning, Illustrirovannyi putevoditel’, 64.
8. See Rimestad, “Luthertum und Baltikum”; and Freeze, “Religioznaia politika.” For general accounts of Baltic Orthodoxy, see Gavrilin, Ocherki istorii; Paert, ed., Pravoslavie v Pribaltike; and Musaev, Pravoslavie v Pribaltike.
9. Recent literature on conversions in the Russian Empire is moving focus away from prescriptive understandings of religious identity and conversion, attempting instead to uncover the fluidity of behaviours and labels. A relevant summation of this new trend can be found in Gibson and Paert, “Apostasy in the Baltic.”
10. For an excellent study on the Aibofolk’s modern history, see Kranking, “Island People.” The best studied group of Aibofolk is probably the 965 people who resettled from Hiiumaa to Ukraine in 1782: see Pisarevskii, “Pereseleneie shvedov”; Man’kov, “Dialekt sela”; and Wawrzeniuk and Malitska, eds., The Lost Swedish Tribe. Other works in English worth consulting are Põder, “How to Catch a Seal?”; Reimo, “Swedes Publishing”; and Kuldkepp, “Political Choices.”
11. See the five-volume series Aman, En bok, which also deals with Ruhnu. The most up-to-date monograph on the island’s history is Hedman and Ålander, Runö; this should be read in conjunction with the older works Russwurm, Eibofolke and Klein, Runö. The first major work on the island was written by Fredric Joachim Ekman: it remains very readable and was an important source of information for all later literature: Ekman, Beskrifning.
12. An exception to this is the Solovetskii archipelago and its famous monastery: see Breyfogle, “Nature and Faith.”
13. No such ship has been found, but it is unclear whether a systematic survey has ever been attempted.
14. Hedman and Åhlander, Runö.
15. Klein, Runö, 50. A similar process occurred to the free Swedes on Hiiumaa: see Wawrzeniuk and Malitska, “Approaching the ‘Lost Swedish Tribe’,” 27–29.
16. Klein, Runö, 57–8.
17. Hedman and Åhlander, Runö, 96.
18. Klein, Runö, 49.
19. The island’s status as crown land had come to an end by 1892, when all farms were under private ownership. Aman, En Bok, 278–79.
20. Hedman and Åhlander, Runö, 121.
21. Ibid., 55–6.
22. Ekman, Beskrifning, 22.
23. Ibid.; Klein, Runö.
24. For the local fishing industry, see Gaumiga, Karlsons, Uzars, and Ojaveer, “Gulf of Riga.”
25. Klein, Runö, 294.
26. Riksarkivet (SE/RA) 730547/F 1/13, p. 6–7.
27. It is to be noted that these historians do not provide a reference to this quote, opening the opportunity that it might be apocryphal. Hedman and Åhlander, Runö, 140.
28. Ekman, Beskrifning, 19.
29. Lust, “Wrecking Peasants.”
30. Ekman, Beskrifning, 18–19.
31. Ibid., 294.
32. SE/RA/730547/F 1/13, p. 9.
33. Danell, Guldstrand, 67. The major study of this dialect remains Vendell, Runömålet. The Swedish once spoken on Ruhnu is generally classified as an Eastern Swedish dialect: it joins Finnish and Åland Swedish, as well as the Swedish spoken among the other Aibofolk. See Rendahl, “Swedish Dialects.”
34. EAA.1192.1.107.3ob.
35. EAA.1192.2.772.18ob.
36. When these pastors left for Ruhnu, they left the jurisdiction of the Lutheran Church of Finland and became part of Russian Empire’s Lutheran Church. They were directly responsible to the Saaremaa consistory, which was subordinated to the Estland consistory: this was supervised by the General Evangelical Consistory in St Petersburg.
37. Ibid., 17ob – 18. For reasons known only to the compiler of the report (Karl Masing), he decided to translate the islanders’ Swedish dialect into plattdeutsch. The quoted section reads in the original: ‘Die andern hoben he Brandwein und Mammon geliebt, wie wir ook. He Pastor N.N. fiel vor Altar herunter und musst weggeführt werden. He Finnlander supen all’ und wat doort nix doogt und keen brod nit hat, he werd se uns nach Runo geschickt. Wir haben gnädig Consistorio oft gebeten, vor uns Pastor zu geben ja nit oos Finnland, sondern aus Dorpat oder Stockholm, aber alles nix, alles umsonst!’
38. Ibid., 18. That these islanders were willing to exchange Finnish pastors for ones educated in Dorpat, who would not have spoken Swedish, perhaps demonstrates the depth of their disdain for the former.
39. Ibid.
40. SE/RA/730547/F 1/13, p. 8–9.
41. EAA.1192.2.772.15.
42. SE/RA/730547-E 1–11/1838-1879.
43. Lust, “Wrecking Peasants,” 73.
44. Hedman and Åhlander, Runö, 39.
45. Ibid., 70. For a history of Swedish salvaging, see Granqvist, “Wreckage Recycled.”
46. For cases between 1855 and 1861 alone, see EAA.625.1.504; 508; 509; 510; 517; 533.
47. Lust, “Wrecking Peasants,” 74. A versta was 1.1 kilometres.
48. Ibid., 78.
49. Ekman, Beskrifning, 19.
50. Lust, “Wrecking Peasants,” 74–5.
51. For the reconstruction costs, see EAA.1200.1.637.
52. Klein, Runö, 175.
53. EAA.1192.2.772.14ob.
54. For a considered examination of the Baltic peasantry in this era, see Lust, “Kiselev’s Reforms.”
55. The best account remains Ryan, “The Tsar’s Faith.”
56. For the role of rumour in the conversions, see Ryan, “Rumor, Belief, and Contestation.”
57. Lust, “How Permanent,” 229–30.
58. Ryan, “Religious Conversion.”
59. Polivanov was later governor of Estland from 1875 to 1885.
60. 556 individuals converted on Kihnu from a population of 572. EAA.291.8.1096.1.
61. EAA.291.1.16646.21ob.
62. EAA.1192.2.772.9ob.
63. EAA.291.1.16646.1; 3; 4; 8.
64. Ibid., 19.
65. Ibid., 2–2ob.
66. Ibid., 20ob.
67. Ibid., 20.
68. Ibid., 21.
69. Ibid., 22.
70. Ibid., 25ob – 26.
71. Ibid., 40ob – 41.
72. It remains uncertain whether this individual was an islander, although his predecessor in 1840 was not: see EAA.291.1.7139.1. The duties, ranks, responsibilities, and salaries of Baltic lighthouse keepers are set out in Polozhenie i shtat.
73. Rukovodstvo, 109. The wooden lighthouse was torn down soon after this description was written.
74. This subject is dominated by discussions of economic theory: see Põder, “The Lighthouse in Estonia”; Lindberg, “The Swedish Lighthouse System.” Wider works can be found in the Anglo-American literature, especially the recent popular history Nancollas, Seashaken Houses.
75. EAA.1192.2.772.10.
76. EAA.291.1.16646.1.15.
77. EAA.1655.2.3549. Unpaginated.
78. EAA.1192.2.772.10.
79. Ibid., 6.
80. Ibid., 17ob.
81. A promise that was not kept long, given that Kalvo, pastor from 1882–83, was Finnish.
82. EAA.1192.2.772.15ob.
83. Ibid., 9.
84. Ibid., 18.
85. Ibid., 15ob.
86. Ibid.
87. EAA.1655.2.3549. Unpaginated.
88. For a detailed consideration of this system, see Werth, The Tsar’s Foreign Faiths.
89. See note 77 above.
90. For Orlov’s church service before 1867, see EAA.1655.2.3799; for his complete service record, see EAA.1914.1.50.16–17.
91. Orlow, Liturgika.
92. EAA.1655.2.3549. Unpaginated.
93. Ibid.
94. Ibid.
95. Ibid.
96. Orlov seems to have spoken Estonian throughout his visit, as he especially mentions the one occasion where he spoke Swedish: ‘I started to say something to them in Swedish and showed them my Swedish books. “Do you know how to read Swedish”, asked one of them. “I know”, I replied: “Well, read then”. Opening the Testament that he had given to me, I began to read and he followed every word. After reading a few lines, I stopped and asked him how do I read? “Very well,” he replied, “your pronunciation is even better than our former pastor Ylander’s.”’ Ibid.
97. Ibid.
98. Ibid.
99. For this problematic dichotomy, see Werth, “From Resistance to Subversion.”
100. For a similarly pragmatic deployment of religion to achieve social cohesion, see Burds, “Culture of Denunciation.”
101. See EAA.29.3.511 for letters between various government and army officials and the Russian embassy in Stockholm. For the impact of the Vormsi petition in Sweden, see Kranking, “Island People,” 33–40. Reliant on the Soviet-era document collection Antifeodal’naia bor’ba, Kranking does not mention the deployment of soldiers.
102. EAA.1655.2.3549. Unpaginated.
103. For this stereotype and its abandonment in France, see Bailey, Public Image.
104. EAA.1192.2.772.5ob.
105. EAA.1655.2.3549. Unpaginated.
106. Ibid.
107. Ibid.
108. Old Believer ‘schismatics’ proved particularly adept when it came to utilizing conversions for their own purposes. See White, Unity in Faith?
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Trond O. Tøllefsen
Trond O. Tøllefsen teaches history, research skills, and methods at the Theology Faculty of Uppsala University and the Open University of Catalunya. He has a PhD in history from the European University Institute (Florence, 2016). He wrote his thesis on the British occupation of Germany after the Second World War and German reactions to British reparations policies. Currently, he is working on the religious history of the Estonian Swedes, including conversions to Orthodoxy and the impact of Swedish evangelicalism.
James M. White
James M. White is senior research fellow at Ural Federal University and a research fellow at the School of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Tartu. He received his PhD in 2014 from the European University Institute (Florence, Italy). He has published numerous articles on Orthodoxy in the Russian Empire, including in The Russian Review, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Journal of Religious History, and European History Quarterly. His first monograph Unity in Faith? Edinoverie, Russian Orthodoxy, and Old Belief, 1800–1918 was published in 2020 by Indiana University Press. He is the chief editor of the volume Kontseptsii konflikta i soglasiia v Rossiiskoi obshchestvennoi mysli i praktiki (XVIII-XX vv.) (Ural University Press: Ekaterinburg, 2020), co-editor of a special issue of Canadian Slavonic Papers, (‘Reimagining the Diocese: Administrative, Sacred, and Imperial Space in the Russian Empire’. Vol. 62, no. 3–4, 2020, pp. 234–398), and English-language editor for the Slavic Studies journal Quaestio Rossica. He is the co-founder of balticorthodoxy.com, an online resource for Baltic religious history.