Revolution, 1905

In 1905, revolution struck the Russian Empire, with strikes and peasant revolts shattering the polity’s fragile social fabric. The Baltic provinces were no exception, as Estonian and Latvian peasants rose in rebellion against their long-time oppressors, the German landowning aristocracy. In rapidly growing Riga and Tallinn, the new class of industrial workers struck against poverty, high prices, and horrendous working conditions. In the meantime, the imperial government made a host of concessions to try and quell the revolution. One of the most important compromises was the Edict of Toleration, promulgated on 17 April 1905: this legalised apostasy from Orthodoxy, allowing people to return to their previous or ancestral faiths. In the Baltic provinces, the edict led to a modest movement away from Orthodoxy back to Lutheranism. When such concessions failed, the state resorted to its armies and police force to break the back of the revolution.

In the following source, the chronicle of the Juuru parish (around 50km south of Tallinn), we get an Orthodox clerical perspective on both the outbreak of rural violence and the fallout from the Edict of Toleration.

1905

The troubled times of 1905 were also reflected in Juuru parish. In the autumn of 1905, printed brochures were spread among the people, summoning them to unite for the revolutionary struggle. The people who spread these brochures remain unknown. These brochures excited the peasants. In December, a gang of people arrived in Kapokoil by train from Reval [Tallinn]. This gang desolated every possible local landowner, smashing and ruining furniture and seizing valuable things for themselves. They forced the estate workers to take them by horse from one estate to the next […]

In the footsteps of this gang came another, a gang of arsonists which broke away from the first [group] at Togis manor. This gang went from one manor to the next in the same way as the first, i.e. forcing people to transport them. This gang burnt down wrecked manors, [although] they missed some of them […]

How the people feared these gangs can be seen by the fact that many fled into the woods and stayed there until the gangs had passed. One night, the families of the [Orthodox] priest and the [Lutheran] pastor [also] hid in the woods.

Soon, an army detachment was dispatched here. Then these gangs vanished and all was as before. Who made up these gangs is unknown. The punishment detachment was based in the village of Tappel for an entire year, during which time no small number of those implicated in the pogroms were subjected to corporal punishment and imprisonment. These troubles had an entirely harmful influence on the religious and moral standing of the people. Deviation to Lutheranism and the collapse of the parish began.

1906

In 1906, the movement of the Orthodox back to Lutheranism increased. In crowds, they went to the pastor to be registered as wishing to return to Lutheranism; in 1905-06, more than 200 people deviated [from Orthodoxy]. Besides this, parents registered no small number of children with the pastor. Out of interest, we attach here an anonymous letter in translation kept by the [Orthodox] priest:

“Highly venerated Juuru priest! The Kaiu and Kuimetsa volosts and manors [belong to the state] treasury. Now in the State Duma, they are discussing the question of distributing land to the peasants. We have already waited 27-28 years [for this]. When they joined us to Orthodoxy, with sworn oaths they promised to give us land. Now we ask you, highly venerated priest, that this promise is not left only as a promise. You can ask people if this promise was made, because many still live in Kuimetsa and Kaiu who can confirm it. Many parents who then baptized their children [as Orthodox] have already died, but their children thirst for the fulfillment of that which the Orthodox clergy promised us. There is a lot of land, but the promise remains unfulfilled: if promises are not fulfilled, they have to be called deceit. [If that is the case] it is impossible to say that the Orthodox clergy honour the Christian law and oaths: they have to be called cheats who use the Christian law and the name of the Lord to their own advantage and force many to renounce their faith. You think in the name of the Lord to cheat many. People who apostatized from their faith trusted this promise; and those who under holy oath promised land (the clergy) have to be called cheats who trample on the law of God. The faith is true, but the preachers of the faith are cheats. [Signed] One in the name of many.”

SOURCE

EAA.1886.1.57.19-20

Translator

James M. White