russia’s lost reformation, part dva
russia’s lost reformation is a super interesting book, therefore it gets two posts!
- the stundists placed a huge emphasis on bible study and literacy. they set up their own educational system and encouraged orthodox parents to send their kids to stundist schools.
- yulia karpinskaya deserves a special mention. karpinskaya was a kievan stundist who organized kindergartens. she pissed off the authorities because she hired stundist and jewish teachers and ukrainian, russian, and jewish students all learned together. it should also be noted that almost all of her staff were women so that might have been a factor.
- sectarians were forcibly institutionalized even though there was usually nothing wrong with them.
- a few self-styled shalaputsy prophets taught that the best way to express love for the lord jesus christ was through sex. it goes without saying that they were almost all men.
- tolstoyanism never quite caught on outside of the middle/upper classes. it was kind of the gentrified version of peasant sectarian beliefs.
- yakov gordin was really interesting. he was a jewish socialist who developed his own idiosyncratic belief system based on judaism and tolstoyanism. later on he immigrated to the united states and became a famous yiddish playwright.