The Seto and the Russian Orthodox Church

On and across the southern Russo-Estonian border lives a small group of people called the Seto (Setu): their homeland, Setomaa, covers the southeastern part of Estonia and the western-most fringes of Russia’s Pskov region. Numbering about 10,000 to 13,000 individuals at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the origins of the Seto remain controversial. What is certain is that by the second half of the nineteenth century, Russian and Estonian ethnographers, linguists, and historians began to take an interest in the unique aspects of Seto life, such as characteristic forms of female dress, singing, and elements of a pre-Christian mythology. Of particular fascination was their language, related to Estonian but highly distinct from it.

The label ‘Seto’ was initially an Estonian term of abuse for these people, popularly viewed as foolish drunks: they had no fixed term to describe themselves. The Russians mostly used the name ‘poluvertsy’, a word meaning semi-believer and also used to refer to people to the north of Lake Peipus (an entirely different group). The term ‘Pskov Estonians’ sometimes appears in the scholarly literature. Socially speaking, the Seto tended to be poorer and less literate than their Estonian neighbours: in 1922, 48.9% of the population over ten years of age could not read or write (in the rest of Estonia, the rate was only 3.4%).

Another major distinction between the Seto and the Estonians was religion: while most Estonians were Lutheran, most Seto belonged to the Russian Orthodox Church. This at least partly explains Russian government and scholarly interest in them in the later nineteenth century. However, the Pskov Orthodox consistory seems to have been largely ignorant of their existence, seeking to cater to their specific needs only in the early years of the twentieth century.

In the archival documents collected and translated below, we see how, in 1907, a critical  newspaper article written by Karp/Karl Ustav, an Orthodox priest with a predominantly Seto parish, triggered an effort by the Pskov consistory and bishop to investigate the number, living conditions, and religious beliefs of the Seto. The priests consulted were also asked to provide opinions on how best to improve Orthodox pastorship among this unique people: for instance, the creation of special parishes and the provision of Estonian priests were considered. As the letters shown here demonstrate, the Orthodox clergy provided a welter of conflicting information on the Seto. As such, a small conference was held in Pechory on 8 October 1907 to discuss Seto issues: present were not only a large number of clergy, but also twenty-eight lay representatives from parishes with a Seto population.

All the translated materials below come from GAPO (State Archive of Pskov Oblast), f. 39, op. 1, d. 7764. As almost all the Russian letters refer to the Seto as poluvertsy, I have maintained this usage.   

No. 1. Article in Birzhevye vedomosti [Stock Exchange News], 6 January 1907

A Forgotten Small People

A remark was placed in Birzhevye vedomosti under the title ‘Ether Instead of Vodka.’ This note talked about the predilection of the ‘Seto’ [1] for taking sulphuric ether [2] instead of vodka. In Russia, they have a very foggy image of the ‘Seto’, so I believe it won’t be superfluous to say a few words about my countrymen.

We Seto, or poluvertsy, are a small people numbering up to 20,000, forgotten and disdained by all due to the fact that we do not understand Russian. Despite belonging to the Orthodox Church for three centuries, we have nothing Orthodox except the cross. Over these centuries, our pastors have not taught us anything, and indeed cannot because they do not know our language. However, our clergy can pronounce the words ‘anna rakha’ and ‘anna rugi’ (give me money, give me my payment) rather clearly.

Although some zemstvo schools and one church school exist in our region, lessons are conducted in a language incomprehensible to our children. They have to sit for years in a small room while they, just barely, learn to ‘speak’. And only then are they in a position to tackle the Russian alphabet.

But the school year comes to a close, the course finishes, and again there is woe: no-one at home understands the literate person and he cannot apply his knowledge to anything, even if only to sign [something] at someone’s ‘personal request’. And barely 50% of us are such ‘scholars’ of Russian.

Other Estonians have developed under the capable (if unkindly) guidance of German pastors and are not lagging behind European progress. We were separated from them: they did not join the Russians, while we are the benighted stepchildren of Russia. More than three centuries of russification have not brought us any benefit. At the present time, we are the same semi-pagans and savages as our ancestors were before accepting Orthodoxy. At the present time, we worship idols and eidolons. At the present time, ‘learned people’ come to stare at us, like at antediluvian savages living not somewhere in the Asian tundra or the Chinese mountains, but in civilized European Russia, on the borders of cultured Livland.

No sir, do not blame us for using ether instead of vodka and other vices, of which we have many indeed. Blame our preceptors and ecclesiastical administration for failing to enlighten us in a comprehensible language. Give us pastors who understand and love us. Organise in our churches liturgies and preaching in our language; do not only teach our children Russian in schools, but also at least how to read the Gospels ‘in poluvertsy’. And believe me, [then] we ourselves will extirpate our vices, from idolatry to the use of ether instead of vodka.

Tailovo village

Pskov province

Seto priest

K. Usatov [3]

No. 2. Letter from the Central Committee of the Estonian Societies of Sobriety to Archbishop Arsenii (Stadnitskii) of Pskov, 11 March 1907

To His Grace Arsenii, archbishop of Pskov and Porkhov

From the Central Committee of the Estonian Societies of Sobriety [4] in Iur’ev [Tartu], Livland province

Your Grace!

As is well known, no small number of Estonians known as ‘poluvertsy’ live in nine parishes of the Pskov-Pechory region. The poluvertsy are at an extremely low level of mental development; due to this, the inclination to hard spirits rages on a terrible scale in their region. It is difficult to find even one poluvertsy village where the shameful secret trade in alcohol and sulfuric ether does not flourish, and they do not hold back – all without exception drink often, even the women and children. Due to this, there is bitter poverty and moral collapse among the poluvertsy, with all its fatal consequences.

Having as its aim the wide spread of morality amongst the Estonian people (not excluding the poluvertsy) on the basis of a sober life, the Central Committee of the Estonian Societies of Sobriety, through comprehensive study of the [poluvertsy] and with a deep feeling of sorrow, looks upon the reason for such sad phenomena among the poluvertsy, chiefly their extreme ignorance. This emanates from the irregular arrangement of church-school teaching for the poluvertsy, who do not understand Russian (and even less so Old Church Slavonic): the majority of pupils absolutely do not understand their teachers, or the flock their pastors. This is an irrefutable fact.

Your Grace! The Central Committee of the Estonian Societies of Sobriety turns to you in the interests of the popular good. It is within your power to help the poluvertsy get rid of ignorance, the dangerous ally of that all-encompassing enemy, alcohol. It is within your power alone to eliminate the clear obstacles to rooting out popular ignorance via the introduction of their mother speech into their churches and church schools, the only means of salvation. Make this disadvantaged people happy with the gift of pastors and teachers who in their mother tongue can illuminate their ancient impenetrable darkness with the great light of knowledge and education. There is no other path to their salvation and there cannot be: the bitter experience of the past is a harsh witness to this.

This great deed could begin with the appointment of even just one priest to make journeys for free preaching in the poluvertsy tongue around all their region, by introducing the teaching of the poluvertsy language alongside Russian in the church schools of parishes numerically dominated by the poluvertsy population (Pechory, Verkhoust’e [Värska], Zacheren’e, Tailovo, Zales’e, Panikovichi, and Ovinchishche) [5], and with the gradual introduction of their mother language into liturgies.

The Central Committee of the Estonian Societies of Sobriety nourishes the firm hope that the loving heart of the bishop cannot fail to respond to the egregious sorrow of the poluvertsy.

Iur’ev, 11 March 1907

No. 3. Letter from Father Ioann (Johannes/Jaan) Krimp to the Pskov Ecclesiastical Consistory, 5 April 1907

To the Pskov Ecclesiastical Consistory

From the priest of Verdilovo village Ioann Krimp [6]

[…] By the edict of the consistory from 23 November 1905, no. 11091, it was announced that I was to be entrusted with command of the Estonian mission only in the Porhkov region, and therefore I have not travelled to the Estonian poluvertsy settled on the outskirts of Pechory on missionary affairs and have not been among them. Equally, my duties in my parish certainly do not allow me to travel with this aim to places other than the Porkhov district.

In terms of the religious condition of the poluvertsy and the need to appoint special priests for them, I dare to place below my considerations, based exclusively on my personal acquaintance with the poluvertsy and long-term observations of their religious needs.

For 14 years, I was a psalmist in Livland province at the Räpina church [7], located close to the border of Pskov province and 5-6 versta [8] from a poluvertsy settlement. This church was zealously visited by the poluvertsy, especially those from Kolpina parish. 150-300 poluvertsy annually fulfilled here the Christian duties of confession and taking the sacraments during the forty days of Great Lent. During constant conversations with them, they always identified that the main motivation behind their visits to the Räpina church was the performance of the liturgy in Estonian, which is comprehensible to them. It was often heard how they relate with such heart-felt woe to the fact that the liturgy is performed in Old Church Slavonic in their churches, which they cannot understand, and that the priests, not knowing Estonian, call for translators during the confession or confess them in Russian, during which neither the priests nor the confessants can understand each other.

This position of the poluvertsy, which consists in the fact that the pastors and flocks do not understand each other’s speech, is used by Lutheranism in its propaganda, which could, in view of freedom of confession [9], be entirely dangerous for the interests of the Orthodox Church.

In particular, the Neigausen Lutheran church [10], located in Livland not far from the border of Panikovichi, strenuously conducts propaganda in this direction. Both in earlier times and now, the Orthodox poluvertsy most zealously and in great numbers visit this church. Here, the Lutheran preachers strive with all their strength to influence the poluvertsy, who are weak in the truths of their faith, and shake their perseverance and fealty to the Orthodox Church. The reason for such an undesirable phenomenon as visiting the Lutheran church is again the circumstance that the liturgy is performed there in Estonian.

Besides this, in many places in the poluvertsy region, like in Panikovichi district and in Pechory, there are well-organised Lutheran school chapels, which regularly perform liturgies on holy days and Sundays: these are warmly visited by the poluvertsy.

In the view of the above, I dare to suggest that for the satisfaction of the religious needs of the poluvertsy and to protect them from Lutheran propaganda, it is necessary to appoint priests who are completely fluently in Russian and Estonian to those parishes which include poluvertsy. In particular, there is an extreme need for such priests in parishes bordering with Livland (the villages of Kolpina, Ovinchishche, Panikovichi, Tailovo, and others), where, as is well known to me, the poluvertsy population dominates, and in the outskirts of Pechory.

To this I add that the poluvertsy number around 15,000 souls of both sexes. They live in a belt bordering Livland and the outskirts of Pechory. The men, although not all of them, speak Russian after a fashion, but the women and children do not know Russian. Their domestic language is Estonian.

5 April 1907

The village of Vedrilovo

Priest Ioann Krimp  

No. 4. Letter from Father Leonid Raevskii to Dean Mikhail Mutovozov, 4 April 1907

To the Very Reverend Dean Mikhail Mutovozov [11] of the fifth circuit of Pskov district  

From the clergy of the Ilinskaia church in the village of Kul’e, Pskov district

[…]  I have the honour to communicate to Your Reverence that the poluvertsy in our Kul’e parish [number] 328 people in total of both sexes. All the poluvertsy of the male sex understand Russian and speak it, not completely correctly but in any case understandably: almost none of the women understand Russian and do not know how to speak it. They zealously and very often visit the church of God when possible, especially the women: the men visit more seldom as a consequence of the fact that they spent most of the year in Livland engaged in trade. As they say themselves, they understand the liturgy performed in the church, as is indeed clear from the external symbols [they make] – the sign of the cross, kneeling, and earthly prostrations during the most important sacred rites and singing during the liturgy. The sermons pronounced by the priest after the liturgy are not comprehensible to them, because the themes for the sermons are taken from readings of the Gospels, the Apostles, or the lives of the saints, and with all of this they are not familiar: they are completely unacquainted with the Slavonic language, in which [the priests] read the Gospels, the Apostles, and the cited texts in confirmation of various truths. There were and are no remnants of idolatry among them: of course, there is superstition, but often Orthodox Russians are also superstitious.

In religious terms, in essence the poluvertsy are not in anything distinct from the Russian Orthodox: they take all sacraments and rites, both in church and at home, on a par with the Russians. They all come to confession and take the holy sacraments annually, but regrettably they are very little acquainted with the truths of the Christian religion and its history. This is due to the fact that they have no correct liturgical language, but only their own poluvertsy dialect. Consequently, they have neither books nor liturgies, and all of them are illiterate; they understand Russian badly and completely do not know how to read it: from where could they learn?!

In moral terms, the poluvertsy are undeveloped, crude, and ignorant. In daily life, they are distinct from the Russians in their speech and clothing. In general, the poluvertsy stand lower than the Russians.

The poluvertsy do not have their own schools: the children study in our church parish and zemstvo schools. In our Kul’e zemstvo school in the current academic year, 10 [Seto] children study (7 boys, 3 girls). In their families and amongst themselves, the poluvertsy always speak their own language; whoever can speaks Russian to Russians. In general, it is noted that Russian is entirely desirable and necessary for the poluvertsy and therefore it spreads among them more widely each year.

There are a sufficient number of Orthodox churches among the poluvertsy, and priests as well: they do not need Estonian priests because Estonian is for them not much more comprehensible than Russian. To raise their Orthodoxy and morality, they chiefly need schools. In every village with a majority poluvertsy population, it is necessary to open schools especially for the poluvertsy. The teachers in such schools must necessarily be poluvertsy who have completed the course with good grades in church parish and zemstvo schools and who have passed an exam before a commission: the priest in whose parish the school is located should teach religious lessons and supervise the school. Chief attention in teaching is to be paid to religious lessons and Russian and to supplying the schoolchildren as much as possible with books of a religious-moral character for reading at school and at home. Reading these books at home, the schoolchildren can teach the contents to their families in the poluvertsy dialect, and in Russian if they understand it. With such an arrangement, literacy and Russian will, through the children or at least the assistant teachers, spread successfully among the poluvertsy: once literacy and Russian spread, then morality and religiosity will rise of their own accord. Thus, the poluvertsy will be their own missionaries.

At the present time, the affair stands otherwise: the poluvertsy study in secular and church parish schools together with Russians. This is extremely unsuitable because, firstly, our teachers do not know how to speak in the poluvertsy language and do not understand the poluvertsy and so have to teach through a translator, which is not very useful or quick. Secondly, the Russians progress slowly because of the poluvertsy. Only in the third school year do the poluvertsy begin to catch up with the Russians; thus, the entire burden for the teachers and pupils falls on the third year, when “the work is great, but the day is short!!”

4 April 1907

Priest Leonid Raevskii [12]

No. 5. Letter from Father Vasilii Solovskii to Dean Mikhail Mutovozov, 21 March 1907

[…] I have the honour of communicating that in our Zacheren’e parish, there are 1,590 poluvertsy souls of both sexes. All the adult males fully understand Russian and are in no way inferior to Russian peasants when it comes to understanding the liturgy. In terms of the poluvertsy women and children, no more than 15% of them understand Russian. In terms of visiting the Orthodox church, the poluvertsy always show genuine zeal: having been enlightened through the light of the Christian faith by St Kornilii [13], the martyr of the Pskov-Pechory monastery, they have zealously kept the Orthodox faith for four centuries: their child-like loyalty and deep religious feeling exceeds those of the Russians. So as to be convinced of this, it is enough to observe how the poluvertsy pray with eyes full of tears and expectation, how they gather in great numbers at the Pechory monastery, and how they accompany the famous historical cross processions from this monastery to Pskov. It is true that the religiosity of the poluvertsy lies in the external, purely ritual side of faith and does not go further than taking the sacraments of the Orthodox Christian faith, zealously visiting the church of God, observing the fasts, and so on. Very little of this religious feeling comes from the consciousness or mental comprehension. But while this insufficiency in religious matters is inherent among the poluvertsy, native Russian peasants are also not alien to it: they are just as undeveloped and ignorant.  

Being entirely similar to native Russian simple folk in religious matters, the poluvertsy are not any different to them in routine and moral matters. To see in their religious lives any remnants of idol worship has no basis: although they are not alien to superstition, native Russian Orthodox people cannot be praised for lacking [superstition], as they in their masses are also ignorant and just as rich in various prejudices and superstitions. Recognising that schools have an entirely important significance in the matter of raising Orthodox among the poluvertsy and bringing them closer to the Russian nation, I consider it necessary to remark that the need for literacy among them is strong. In the three schools in our parish during this school year, half of the 140 pupils are poluvertsy. Thanks, on the one hand, to a school where children of both nations learn together and, on the other, to being scattered among native Russian residents, the poluvertsy are naturally coming closer to the Russian nation, which in terms of numbers is almost five times bigger (in four districts, Panikovichi, Izborsk, Pechory, and Sloboda, the Russian population, according to recent statistical data, numbers 54 thousand and the poluvertsy 13 thousand): the poluvertsy are continually adopting Russian and are quickly going down the path of russification. A clear sign of this is that in our parish, the residents of three villages – Duravika, Vishniakova, and Serpukhov – currently present themselves as completely Russian, although there are many old people in the parish who well remember that these villages were earlier purely poluvertsy.

Replying now to the question – what is necessary for the poluvertsy to internalise the Orthodox faith and [to obtain] the closest fusion with the Russian nation, I allow myself to linger here in more detail, since [this matter] is most significant in the present case. First of all, I note that the current impediment to russification and religious-moral development is the lack of schools. Here, the best type of school should be considered the mixed school, i.e. where the children of Russians and poluvertsy study together. Such a school will bring much because the influence of Russian pupils is strong, at least in terms of mastering the Russian language. However, it is insufficient if this school is only Russian: it is very important that [the school] also be Orthodox, because only it can provide the poluvertsy with the opportunity to consciously benefit from the Slavonic liturgy. No less important in the conscious internalisation of the Orthodox faith, a second factor is the loyal pastorship of the priest: his poluvertsy parishioners should be the subject of vigilant concern and his duty not limited to the performance of rites and church services, but instead embrace all aspects of believers’ lives. For the priest to be more successful among the poluvertsy, it is not absolutely necessary for the priest to know the language of the Estonians, because, as was noted above, the poluvertsy live scattered among Russians: the formation of parishes only from the poluvertsy with an Orthodox priest who knows Estonian is entirely uncalled for.

If the parishes of the poluvertsy are left as they presently stand and Orthodox Russian priests are replaced with priests from among the Estonians, this measure will be extremely undesirable because it will harmfully influence the religious feelings of the native Russians, the majority of the parish, and paralyse their zeal for visiting the church, where the liturgy and preaching of the word of God will often be conducted in Estonian, which is completely incomprehensible to them. There is eloquent evidence for this. With the appointment in Tailovo parish of a priest from the Estonians, the native Russian parishioners abandoned their church when the liturgy was performed in Estonian and went to the closest one nearby.

Finally, the Estonian language, despite the tribal congeniality of the Estonians and poluvertsy, is not so comprehensible to the latter as it seems at first glance. The poluvertsy dialect is so distorted that it is vastly different from pure Estonian. Indeed, Estonian itself is divided into two dialects: the Reval [Tallinn] and the Dorpat [Tartu] dialects, which are not equally comprehensible to all native Estonians. It is well known that the literary, biblical dialect among the Estonians is that from Reval: this is more distant from the poluvertsy dialect than the Dorpat one. The famous master Heinrich Stahl, the [Lutheran] superintendent of Narva (17th century), had the first literary experience with this dialect: [although] he knew Estonian well, he regrettably Germanised it a great deal [14]. Thanks to this, among the Estonians there appeared something like two Estonian languages – the literary and the popular. As a consequence, literary Estonian is as distant from the popular language as Russian is from Old Church Slavonic. From this it is clear how much the Reval Estonian dialect, in which all the literary works and the liturgy of the Estonians exist, would satisfy our poluvertsy in matters of religious-moral enlightenment and a better understanding of the Christian liturgy.

In conclusion, I note that the author of the remark in Birzhevskie vedomosti, lamenting the stagnation of the poluvertsy in terms of their mental assimilation of the Orthodox faith, earlier sang the praises of their religious development and fusion with the Russian nation. Now corrupted, his participation in the matter of the poluvertsy, so it seems to me, is based purely on the author’s separatist ambitions, so fashionable in our current age of various [national] autonomies.

Priest Vasilii Solovskii [15]

21 March 1907

No. 6. Letter from Father Karp (Karl) Ustav [16] to Dean Mikhail Mutovozov, 22 March 1907

[…] In the Tailovo parish entrusted to me there are 1,608 poluvertsy, or 64% of the entire parish population. Those who I know to be literate number no more than 10 people, not counting the children who now go to school. With few exceptions, the men understand Russian with difficulty, while the women and children do not understand it at all. Although the poluvertsy visit the church of God, they absolutely do not understand the Slavonic liturgy and therefore I perform the entire liturgy in two languages and [provide] rituals for the poluvertsy in their native language. I absolutely do not understand how the priests of the other poluvertsy parishes manage without knowledge of the poluvertsy language and how they act during confession with those who do not know Russian (the vast majority). Children in the first two-to-four years of school also do not understand their teachers.

There are two schools in the parish: a zemstvo school and a literacy school opened in 1906. The pupils in the first are predominantly Russian and in the other poluvertsy, since the teacher himself is from the poluvertsy and the children understand him.

Among themselves, the poluvertsy exclusively use Estonian, not Russian. The spread of the latter has had no success; on the contrary, under the influence (24ob) of the dominant majority of the poluvertsy in the region, almost all the Russian population, especially the women and trading people, have perfectly mastered the poluvertsy dialect. As a consequence of their poor understanding of Russian, the poluvertsy stand much lower than the Russians in religious-moral matters: their understanding of Orthodoxy is often mixed with paganism. In their daily lives, they have nothing in common with Russians, they even pronounce Russian names like their own: Stepan = Petu, Grigorii = Kriza, Agafiia = Oka, Elena = Olo, Paraskeva = Patsu, Fevroniia = Obrusk, Feodosiia = Khedu, and so on.

Much has already been written on the poluvertsy, their morality, pagan rituals, and so on by those who know them best, like Doctor Hurt [17], Bergman [18], Truusmann [19], and, in recent times, Doctor Kallas [20], the Iur’ev Learned Society, the editorial board of the Finnish journal Suomi, and others; unfortunately, in accordance with my two years of personal observations, I can only confirm all the sad rectitude of their research.

To the present day, the poluvertsy have firmly maintained many features of their national primitiveness in terms of language, clothing, morals, and customs, along with no few pagan rituals, idol worship included: this can be noted by any attentive observer. So, they worship pagan divinities (Peko, piukha Tuomas, aiia iumal, and others) [21] and large, lone standing trees and stones as dwelling places of the gods; to the patron [deities] of the fields, they often bring sacrifices by way of burying chicken eggs in the ground under these trees. They honour the patron [deities] of the home, the cattle, the barn, and so on with special pagan prayers (mixing pagan words with Christian ones) and sacrifices – eggs, cheese, and beer. There is still talk about images of the idol Peko in Ovinchishche and Panikovichi parishes and about the celebration of a Peko holy day (eating meat in the evening for several days before St Peter’s Day [22]), although one cannot be certain of this: it is said they hide the [images].

All these pagans rituals were performed openly by the poluvertsy until 1861, and from then on in strictest secrecy (as a consequence of a strict prohibition from the governor of Pskov): a person needs to enjoy particular trust in order to learn about this subject from them. In general, the poluversty are a very secretive people who live their own peculiar spiritual lives.

According to my experience, I recognise (as all authorities in similar cases have recognised) that the only good means for raising Orthodoxy and morality among the poluvertsy is [the use of their] mother tongue in church liturgies and when teaching religious lessons in the schools. If not, then one should not expect Orthodoxy to rise among the poluvertsy, but rather their deviation to Lutheranism: as confirmed at a synod in the town of Valk in 1906, Lutheran pastors have just implemented a plan to create five prayer schools in the poluvertsy region with a missionary aim. One can already observe how the poluvertsy zealously visit the Lutheran prayer houses in Pechory and Lazarevo and even the Neigauzen church: in the future, this will undoubtedly increase as centres of Lutheran propaganda increase in the region. In view of this, it is undoubtedly necessary to take measures to protect the poluvertsy against the Lutheran invasion that must be expected shortly: this can only be achieved by introducing their native language into the liturgy and the teaching of religious lessons in schools, even if only beginning in those parishes located on the very border with Livland (like Pechory, Verkhoust’e, Panikovichi, and Ovinchishche). There should no difficulty here: Estonian liturgical books are entirely applicable to this end, since the poluvertsy language is no more distinct from Estonian than any other unrefined language is from its literary [form].

Finally, I cannot fail to state that the increase in deviation of Orthodox non-Russians from Orthodoxy to Lutheranism, observed recently all across Pskov diocese, has emerged precisely because there are problems with understanding the language [used] in churches and schools. If such problems were removed, then there would be no deviation.

Tailovo priest Karp Ustav

22 March 1907

No. 7. Protocol of a clerical assembly held on 8 October 1907

Protocol of the clerical assembly of the fifth deanery circuit of Pskov district, held in the Pechory church of St Varvara on 8 October 1907 under the chairmanship of Dean Mikhail Mutovozov.

Present at the assembly: 13 priests, 2 deacons with positions, 11 psalmists, 11 church elders, 28 parish representatives, and 1 deacon without a position […].

In the presence of the light of the Holy Spirit and upon checking the votes, the assembly was declared open.

HEARD:

The edict of the Pskov Ecclesiastical Consistory from 28 June 1907 (no. 6367) about appointing priests who know the poluvertsy language to locations populated by the poluvertsy.

RULED:

Since in all 11 parishes with poluvertsy populations a minority of the poluvertsy, predominately women and children, do not know Russian, it would be desirable to have priests who know their language so that this minority can consciously participate in the liturgy and prayers. The same was declared by the parish representatives present. On this matter, the representatives added that the liturgy should be conducted in their mother tongue and not literary Estonian, which is not always understandable. Along with this, the representatives declared that teachers who know the poluvertsy language [should be placed] in schools in localities filled with poluvertsy in order to bring success: in mixed schools with Russians and poluvertsy, the teachers can be people who do not fully know the poluvertsy language. Together with this, it is desirable that the material support for the clergy, both poluvertsy and Russians, should be the same […] to maintain the necessary pastoral relations with [parishioners]. Upon this, in the presence of the light of the Lord God, the assembly was declared closed.   

[Signed by all clerical representatives]

Notes

[1] The author uses the term ‘setukuzy’ here.

[2] Sulphuric ether was once used as both an anaesthetic and an intoxicant.

[3] The nom de plume of Karp (Karl) Ustav (1867-1953) (see [16] below), an Orthodox priest who worked heavily on Seto issues.

[4] The Central Committee of the Estonian Societies of Sobriety (Eesti Karskusseltside Keskkoht) was founded in 1906 and initially headed by the Lutheran pastor Wilhelm Reiman.

[5] See map.

[6] Ioann (Johannes/Jaan) Krimp (1864-1927) was born in Pühajärve: he married the daughter of Nikolai Khindov, the priest in Räpina.

[7] The Räpina Orthodox parish of Sts Zakharii and Elizaveta was created in 1752.

[8] A versta was 1.0668 kilometres.

[9] Following the edict of toleration (17 April 1905) and the October manifesto (17 October 1905), freedom of conscience and the right to freely convert away from the Orthodox faith were granted to the various peoples of the Russian Empire.

[10] Vastseliina today.

[11] Mikhail Aleksandrovich Mutovozov (1880-1937) was born in Tishinka and served there for most of his priestly career. He was arrested and executed in 1937.

[12] Leonid Raevskii (?-1915).

[13] St Kornilii of Pskov (1501-1570) served as the abbot of the Pechory monastery from 1529 to 1570.

[14] Heinrich Stahl (1598/1600-1657) was a Lutheran pastor most well known for producing the first Estonian grammar.

[15] Father Vasilii Ioannovich Solovskii served in Zacheren’e

[16] The same priest who wrote the newspaper article in Birzhevye vedomosti: see [3].

[17] Jakob Hurt (1839-1907), a historian, philologist, and folklorist, was a leading figure in the Estonian national movement. The work probably being referred to here is the ethnographic essay Über die Pleskauer Esten oder die sogenannten Setukesen (Helsinki, 1904).

[18] As of right now, it is uncertain who Bergman is.

[19] Jüri (Georgii) Truusmann (1857-1930), a graduate of the St Petersburg Ecclesiastical Academy, worked as an ethnographer and historian. His principal work on the subject is ‘Poluvertsy Pskovo-Percherskogo kraia’, Zhivaia starina, no. 1 (1890), pp. 31-62.

 [20] Oskar Kallas (1868-1946), a folklorist, philologist, and active member in the Estonian national movement, received his doctoral degree in 1901 from the University of Helsinki. He worked later as a professor at the University of St Petersburg and Estonian ambassador to Finland, the UK, and the Netherlands. He died in exile in Sweden. One of his works on the Seto is ‘Üht ja teist setodest’, Eesti Üliõpilaste Seltsi album, II (1894), pp. 174-188.

[21] Peko was a pre-Christian fertility god among the Seto. Images of this god were indeed in use among the Seto as late as the 1930s.

[22] 29 June.

Sources

All documents from GAPO, f. 39, op. 1, d. 7764.

T. U. Raun, ‘The Petseri Region of the Republic of Estonia’, Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas, vol. 39, no. 4 (1991), pp. 514-532

A. Chalvin, ‘La construction de l’identité des Setos (1920-1940)’, Études finno-ougriennes, vol. 43 (2011).

Iu. V. Kolpakova, ‘Svedeniia o Seto v XVI-XX vv. po materialam Rossiiskogo gosudarstvennogo arkhiva drevnykh aktov (RGADA) i Gosudarstvennogo arkhiva Pskovskoi oblasti’, Vestnik Pskovskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta, no. 2 (2013), pp. 162-172

A. G. Novozhilov, ‘Naselenie Pskovo-Pecherskogo kraia mezhdu etnokul’turnoi traditsei i natsional’noi politikoi’, Vestnik SPbGU, vol. 62, no.1 (2017), pp. 186-200.

Translator

James M. White