Doukhobors

In the 17th-and-18th-century Russian Empire, the first recorded Doukhobors concluded clergy and formal rituals are unnecessary, believing in God's presence in every human being. They rejected the secular government, the Russian Orthodox priests, icons, all church rituals, and the belief the Bible is a supreme source of divine revelation. The Doukhobors believed in the divinity of Jesus; their practices, emphasis on individual interpretation, and opposition to the government and church provoked antagonism from the government and the established Russian Eastern Orthodox Church. In 1734, the Russian government issued an edict against ikonobortsy (those who reject icons), condemning them as iconoclasts.{{cite book|last=Campos |first=Élisabeth |title=Les Doukhobors, "Lutteurs de l'esprit" |trans-title=The Doukhobors, "Spirit Fighters" |url=http://www.erta-tcrg.org/groupes/doukhoborshisto.htm |year=2005 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180911002513/http://www.erta-tcrg.org/groupes/doukhoborshisto.htm |publisher=ERTA TCRG |language=fr |access-date=January 12, 2008 |url-status=usurped |archive-date=September 11, 2018}}

The first-known Doukhobor leader was Siluan (Silvan) Kolesnikov ({{langx |ru| Силуан Колесников}}), who was active from 1755 to 1775. Kolesnikov lived in the village Nikolskoye, Yekaterinoslav Governorate, in modern-day south-central Ukraine. Kolesnikov was familiar with the works of Western mystics such as Karl von Eckartshausen and Louis Claude de Saint-Martin.{{citation |contribution-url=http://www.vehi.net/brokgauz/all/038/38131.shtml |contribution=Духоборцы | trans-title = Doukhobortsy |title=Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary |language=ru |access-date=January 12, 2008 |archive-date=April 2, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080402232322/http://www.vehi.net/brokgauz/all/038/38131.shtml |url-status=live}}

The early Doukhobors called themselves "God's People" or "Christians." Their modern name, first in the form Doukhobortsy ({{langx|ru|link=no|духоборцы}}, dukhobortsy ("Spirit wrestlers"){{sp}}) is thought to have been first used in 1785 or 1786 by Ambrosius the Archbishop of Yekaterinoslav{{cite journal|last=Gentes |first=Andrew Armand |date=1999 |title=Larry Ewashen and Koozma J. Tarasoff, "In Search of Utopia: The Doukhobors" |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/c7eb191e4875305c64a83aa5b617bcd4/1 |journal=Canadian Slavonic Papers |volume=41 |issue=3 |page=458|id={{ProQuest| }} |access-date=January 15, 2022|archive-date=January 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220116001639/https://www.proquest.com/openview/c7eb191e4875305c64a83aa5b617bcd4/1 |url-status=live}} or his predecessor Nikifor (Nikephoros Theotokis).{{citation |url=http://www.doukhobor.org/Spiritual-Origins.html |title=Spiritual Origins and the Beginnings of Doukhobor History |first=Svetlana A. |last=Inikova |publisher=Doukhobor Centenary Conference, University of Ottawa |date=October 22–24, 1999 |access-date=July 28, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160318013901/http://www.doukhobor.org/Spiritual-Origins.html |archive-date=March 18, 2016 |url-status=live}}; Doukhobor Genealogy Website (www.doukhobor.org).{{Refn | group = "lower-alpha" | Nikifor was styled "Archbishop of Slavyansk and Kherson" (Славенский и Херсонский), while his successor, who was also called Ambrosius, was "Archbishop of Yekaterinoslav and Kherson" because the diocese was renamed in 1786.{{citation |url=http://www.hierarchy.religare.ru/h-orthod-russian-ekater.html |language=ru |place=RU |title=Hierarchy |publisher=Religare |contribution=H Orthodox Russian Ekater |access-date=January 12, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090201090536/http://hierarchy.religare.ru/h-orthod-russian-ekater.html |archive-date=February 1, 2009 |url-status=live}} The seat of the archbishops was in Poltava.}} The archbishop's intent was to mock the Doukhobors as heretics fighting against the Holy Spirit ({{langx|ru|link=no|Святой Дух}}, Svyatoy Dukh) but around the beginning of the 19th century, according to SA Inikova, the dissenters adopted the name "Doukhobors" usually in a shorter form Doukhobory ({{langx|ru|link=no|духоборы}}, dukhobory), implying they are fighting alongside rather than against the Holy Spirit.{{cite journal |last=Peretitskaya |first=Victoria I. |date=April 2014 |title=Russian Doukhobors at The Peace Conference in Vancouver, Canada, 1958 |url=https://art-texts.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2014_4_web-1.pdf |journal=Art and Literature Scientific and Analytical Journal Texts |pages=111–119 |access-date=January 15, 2022 |archive-date=January 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220116001630/https://art-texts.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/2014_4_web-1.pdf |url-status=live}} The first known use of the spelling Doukhobor is in a 1799 government edict exiling 90 of the group to Finland; presumably the Vyborg area, which was part of the Russian Empire at the time, for producing anti-war propaganda.{{cite book|last1=Woodcock |first1=George |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SqwMBAAAQBAJ |title=The Doukhobors |last2=Avakumovic |first2=Ivan |year=1977 |publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press |isbn=978-0-7735-9554-5 |pages=36–356 |language=en |access-date=January 15, 2022 |archive-date=January 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220116001815/https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=SqwMBAAAQBAJ |url-status=live}}

The early Doukhobors were pacifists who rejected military institutions and war and were thus oppressed in Imperial Russia. Both the tsarist state and church authorities were involved in the persecution and deprivation of the dissidents' normal freedoms.{{cite journal|last=Kalmakoff |first=Jonathan |title=The Hyas Doukhobour Settlement |url=https://doukhobor.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Hyas.pdf |journal=Saskatchewan History |volume=59 |issue=2 |page=1 |access-date=January 15, 2022 |archive-date=January 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220116001629/https://doukhobor.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/Hyas.pdf |url-status=live}}

In 1802, Tsar Alexander I encouraged the resettlement of religious minorities to the "Milky Waters" (Molochnye Vody) region around the Molochnaya River around Melitopol in modern-day southern Ukraine. This was motivated by the desire to quickly populate the rich steppe lands on the north shore of the Black and Azov Seas, and to prevent the "heretics" from contaminating the population of the heartland with their ideas. Many Doukhobors, as well as Mennonites from Prussia, accepted the Emperor's offer and travelled to the Molochnaya from other provinces of the Empire over the next 20 years.

File:Gorelowka 1893.gif

File:Sirotski dom.jpg

When Nicholas I succeeded Alexander as Tsar, on February 6, 1826, he issued a decree intending to force the assimilation of the Doukhobors through military conscription, prohibiting their meetings, and encouraging conversions to the established church. On October 20, 1830, another decree followed, specifying all able-bodied members of dissenting religious groups engaged in propaganda against the established church should be conscripted and sent to the Russian army in the Caucasus while those not capable of military service, and their women and children, should be resettled in Russia's recently acquired Transcaucasian provinces. With other dissenters, around 5,000 Doukhobors were resettled in Georgia between 1841 and 1845. Akhalkalaki uyezd (district) in the Tiflis Governorate was chosen as the main place of their settlement. Doukhobor villages with Russian names appeared there; Gorelovka, Rodionovka, Yefremovka, Orlovka, Spasskoye (Dubovka), Troitskoye, and Bogdanovka. Later, other groups of Doukhobors were resettled by the government or migrated to Transcaucasia of their own accord. They also settled in neighbouring areas, including the Borchaly uyezd of Tiflis Governorate and the Kedabek uyezd of Elisabethpol Governorate.{{cite journal|last=Kalmakoff |first=Jonathan |date=2019 |title=Ulichnye Familii among Doukhobors of the Caucasus and Canada |url=https://onomastica.ijp.pan.pl/index.php/ONOM/article/view/72 |journal=Onomastica |language=pl |volume=63 |pages=67–114 |doi=10.17651/ONOMAST.63.5 |s2cid=213418831 |issn=2658-2783 |access-date=January 15, 2022 |archive-date=November 30, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201130192855/https://onomastica.ijp.pan.pl/index.php/ONOM/article/view/72 |url-status=live|doi-access=free}}

In 1844, Doukhobors who were being exiled from their home near Melitopol to the village of Bogdanovka carved the Doukhobor Memorial Stone, which is held in the collection of the Melitopol Museum of Local History.{{cite web |date=2020-01-25 |title=Doukhobor Memorial Stone from the Village of Bogdanovka |url=https://doukhobor.org/doukhobor-memorial-stone-from-the-village-of-bogdanovka/ |access-date=2022-03-10 |website=Doukhobor Heritage |language=en-CA}}

After Russia's conquest of Kars and the Treaty of San Stefano of 1878, some Doukhobors from Tiflis and Elisabethpol Governorates moved to the Zarushat and Shuragel uyezds of the newly created Kars Oblast to the north-east of Kars in the modern-day Republic of Turkey.{{cite journal|last=Breyfogle |first=Nicholas B. |date=1995 |title=Building Doukhoboriia: religious culture, social identity and Russian colonization in Transcaucasia, 1845–1895 |url=https://www.proquest.com/docview/1293167920 |journal=Canadian Ethnic Studies |volume=27 |issue=3 |page=46 |id={{ProQuest|1293167920}} }} The leader of the main group of Doukhobors, who arrived in Transcaucasia from Ukraine in 1841, was Illarion Kalmykov ({{langx |ru|Илларион Калмыков}}). He died in the same year and was succeeded as the community leader by his son Peter Kalmykov (?–1864). After Peter Kalmykov's death in 1864, his widow Lukerya Vasilyevna Gubanova (? – December 15, 1886; ({{langx|ru|link=no|Лукерья Васильевна Губанова}}); also known as Kalmykova) took his leadership position.{{cite book|first=Daniel H. |last=Shubin |title=A History of Russian Christianity |volume=III |pages=141–48 |publisher=Algora |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-87586-427-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=W7h-RhKG2Q4C |access-date=September 21, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140707035347/http://books.google.com/books?id=W7h-RhKG2Q4C |archive-date=July 7, 2014 |url-status=live |via=Google Books}}

The Kalmykov dynasty lived in the village of Gorelovka, a Doukhobor community in Georgia.{{cite web |last=Kalmakoff |first=Jonathan J. |title=Doukhobor Historical Maps: Doukhobors Settlements in the Georgian Republic |url=http://www.doukhobor.org/Maps.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160319040140/http://www.doukhobor.org/Maps.html |website=Doukhobor Genealogy |access-date=July 28, 2016 |archive-date=March 19, 2016 |url-status=live}}. Lukerya was respected by the provincial authorities, who had to cooperate with the Doukhobors. At the time of her death in 1886, there were around 20,000 Doukhobors in Transcaucasia. By that time, the region's Doukhobors had become vegetarian and were aware of Leo Tolstoy's philosophy, which they found quite similar to their own traditional teachings.

The death of Lukerya, who had no children, was followed by a leadership crisis that divided the Dukhobortsy in the Caucasus into two major groups, which disputed their next leader. Lukerya wanted leadership to pass to her assistant Peter Vasilevich Verigin. Although most of the community—"the Large Party" {{langx |ru|Большая сторона|Bolshaya Storona}}—accepted him as the leader, a minority faction known as "the Small Party" (Малая сторона Malaya Storona) rejected Verigin, and sided with Lukerya's brother Michael Gubanov and the village elder Aleksei Zubkov.{{cite web|first=Hedwig |last=Lohm |title=Dukhobors in Georgia: A Study of the Issue of Land Ownership and Inter-Ethnic Relations in Ninotsminda rayon (Samtskhe-Javakheti) |date=November 2006 |url=http://www.ecmi.de/download/working_paper_35_en.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100602192825/http://www.ecmi.de/download/working_paper_35_en.pdf |archive-date=June 2, 2010}}

File:Douchobor's village Slavyanka.jpg

While the Large Party was a majority, the Small Party had the support of the older members of the community and the local authorities. On January 26, 1887, at a community service at which the new leader was to be acclaimed, police arrived and arrested Verigin. He, along with some of his associates, was sent into internal exile in Siberia. Large Party Doukhobors continued to consider Verigin their spiritual leader and to communicate with him, by mail and via delegates who travelled to see him in Obdorsk.{{cite journal|last=McCormick |first=P.L. |date=1978 |title=The Doukhobors in 1904 |url=http://parkscanadahistory.com/publications/sk/veregin/sh-v31n1-1978.pdf |journal=Saskatchewan History |volume=31 |issue=1 |pages=12–19 |access-date=January 15, 2022 |archive-date=October 29, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201029052545/http://parkscanadahistory.com/publications/sk/veregin/sh-v31n1-1978.pdf |url-status=live}} An isolated population of exiled Doukhobors, a third "party", was about {{Convert|5000|miles|km|abbr=out}} east in Amur Oblast.

At the same time, the Russian government applied greater pressure to enforce the Doukhobors' compliance with its laws and regulations. The Doukhobors had resisted registering marriages and births, contributing grain to state emergency funds, and swearing oaths of allegiance. In 1887, Russia extended universal military conscription, which applied to the rest of the empire, to the Transcaucasian provinces. While the Small Party cooperated with the state, the Large Party, reacting to the arrest of their leaders and inspired by their letters from exile,{{cite book|first=Vasily Nikolaevich (В. Поздняков) |last=Pozdnyakov |trans-title=The Truth about the Doukhobors in Transcaucasia and Siberia |script-title=ru:Правда о духоборах в Закавказье и в Сибири |year=1900s |publisher=VG and AK Chertkov |publication-date=1914 |language=ru}}, quoted in {{cite book|first=O.A. (ОА Голиненко) |last=Golinenko |url=http://next.feb-web.ru/feb/tolstoy/critics/nta/nta-194-.htm |trans-title=Leo Tolstoy's questions to a Doukhobor |script-title=ru:Вопросы Л.Н. Толстого Духобору |language=ru |access-date=January 15, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080409205008/http://next.feb-web.ru/feb/tolstoy/critics/nta/nta-194-.htm |archive-date=April 9, 2008 |url-status=live}} felt strengthened in their desire to abide by the righteousness of their faith. Under instructions from Verigin, the Large Party stopped using tobacco and alcohol, divided their property equally among the members of the community, and resolved to adhere to the practice of pacifism and non-violence. They refused to swear the oath of allegiance required in 1894 by the newly ascended Tsar Nicholas II.

Under further instructions from Verigin, about 7,000 of the most zealous Doukhobors—about one-third of all Doukhobors—of the three Governorates of Transcaucasia destroyed their weapons and refused to serve in the military. As the Doukhobors gathered to burn their guns on the night of June 28/29 (July 10/11, Gregorian calendar) 1895, while singing psalms and spiritual songs, government Cossacks arrested and beat them. Shortly after, the government billeted Cossacks in many of the Large Party's villages; around 4,000 Doukhobors were forced to disperse to villages in other parts of Georgia. Many died of starvation and exposure.{{cite book|last=Tarasoff |first=Koozma J.|url=http://www.nonkilling.org/pdf/nkbalkans.pdf |title=Doukhobor Nonkilling Legacy |publisher=Center for Global Nonkilling |year=2015 |page=187 |language=en |access-date=January 15, 2022 |archive-date=March 24, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160324134947/http://www.nonkilling.org/pdf/nkbalkans.pdf |url-status=live}}

File:Batum.jpg as it was in 1881. Here the Doukhobors embarked on their transatlantic journey in 1898 and 1899{{cite web|url=http://www.doukhobor.org/shiplists/ |first=Jonathan J. |last=Kalmakoff |title=Index to Doukhobor Ship Passenger Lists |website=Doukhobor Genealogy Website (www.doukhobor.org) |access-date=July 28, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160225014904/http://www.doukhobor.org/shiplists.html |archive-date=February 25, 2016 |url-status=live}}]]

The resistance of the Doukhobors gained international attention and the Russian Empire was criticized for its treatment of this religious minority. In 1897, the Russian government agreed to let the Doukhobors leave the country, subject to conditions:

• emigrants should never return;
• emigrants must emigrate at their own expense;
• community leaders in prison or exile in Siberia must serve the balance of their sentences before they could leave Russia.

Emigrants initially attempted to settle in Cyprus. Cyprus was, at the time, recognized as a possession of the Ottoman Empire, but in the wake of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), the Ottoman Empire had granted the United Kingdom the right to administer the island in exchange for support in its continuing conflict with the Russian Empire. This fact made the potential settlement of the Russian Doukhobors a politically-sensitive question among some in the British government, but after Quaker supporters both made assurances of the Doukhobors' political inoffensiveness and provided financial guarantees against their potential indigency, officials permitted over 1,000 Doukhobors to establish farming settlements in several locations on the island beginning in the second half of 1898. However, the Cyprus experiment soon proved to be disastrous: beset by disease (made worse by insufficient food that met the Doukhobors' religious requirements) as well as internal disagreements over community organization, nearly ten percent of the colony died by early 1899.{{Citation needed|date=October 2022}}

Canada offered more land, transportation, and aid to resettle in the Saskatchewan area. Around 6,000 Doukhobors emigrated there in the first half of 1899, settling on land granted to them by the government in modern-day Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. The Cyprus colony and others joined them, and around 7,500 Russian Doukhobor emigrants—about a third of their number in Russia—arrived in Canada by the end of the year.{{cite web|last=Ashworth |first=John |title=Doukhobortsy and Religious Persecution in Russia |url=https://doukhobor.org/the-dukhobortsy-and-religious-persecution-in-russia/ |year=1900 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160318013901/http://www.doukhobor.org/Spiritual-Origins.html |website=Doukhobor Genealogy Website (www.doukhobor.org) |access-date=July 28, 2016 |archive-date=March 18, 2016 |url-status=live}}. Several smaller groups joined the main body of emigrants in later years, coming directly from Transcaucasia and other places of exile. Among these latecomers were 110 leaders of the community who had to complete their sentences before being allowed to emigrate. By 1930, about 8,780 Doukhobors had migrated from Russia to Canada.{{cite web|last1=Kalmakoff |first1=Jonathan |title=Researching Your Russian Doukhobor Roots |url=https://doukhobor.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Researching-Russian-Doukhobor-Roots.pdf |website=Doukhobor Genealogy Website |access-date=April 6, 2017 |page=30 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160318005651/http://www.doukhobor.org/Researching-Russian-Doukhobor-Roots.pdf |archive-date=March 18, 2016 |url-status=live}}

The Quakers and Tolstoyan movement covered most of the costs of passage for the emigrants; writer Leo Tolstoy arranged for the royalties from his novel Resurrection, his story Father Sergei, and some others to go to the emigration fund. Tolstoy also raised money from wealthy friends; his efforts provided about 30,000 rubles, half of the emigration fund. The anarchist Peter Kropotkin and professor of political economy at the University of Toronto James Mavor also helped the emigrants.{{cite journal|author-link=Jeremy Adelman |first=Jeremy |last=Adelman |url=http://www.doukhobor.org/Adelman.html |title=Early Doukhobor Experience on the Canadian Prairies |journal=Canadian Ethnic Studies |year=1990–1991 |volume=25 |number=4 |via=Doukhobor Genealogy Website (www.doukhobor.org) |access-date=July 28, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160318005924/http://www.doukhobor.org/Adelman.html |archive-date=March 18, 2016 |url-status=live}}.{{sfn|Thorsteinson|1917}}

The emigrants adapted to life in agricultural communes; they were mostly of peasant origin and had low regard for advanced education. {{efn|Not until 1918 did Peter Makaroff become the "first Doukhobor in the world to get an education, to receive a university degree, and to enter a profession".{{cite book|title=Biographical Dictionary of Modern Peace Leaders |last=Josephson |first=Harold |publisher=Greenwood Publishing |year=1985 |isbn=0-313-22565-6 |location=Connecticut |pages=594–596}}}} Many worked as loggers, lumbermen, and carpenters. Eventually, many left the communal dormitories and became private farmers on the Canadian plains. Religious a cappella singing, pacifism, and passive resistance were markers of the sect. One subgroup occasionally demonstrated naked, typically as a protest against compulsory military service.{{cite journal|first=Veronika |last=Makarova |title=Doukhobor 'freedom seeker' nudism: Exploring the sociocultural roots. |journal=Culture and Religion |volume=14 |number=2 |date=2013 |pages=131–145|doi=10.1080/14755610.2012.706228 |s2cid=145269278}} Their policies made them controversial. The modern descendants of the first wave of Doukhobor emigrants continue to live in southeastern British Columbia communities such as Krestova, and in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan. {{As of|1999}}, the estimated population of Doukhobor descent in North America was 40,000 in Canada and about 5,000 in the United States.{{cite book|editor-last=Magocsi |editor-first=Paul Robert |date=1999 |title=Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples |pages=422–434}}

File:Doukhobor Village of Vosnesenya - Thunder Hill Colony.jpg (North Colony). A typical one-street village, modelled on those in the Old World.]]

In accordance with the Dominion Lands Act of 1872, for a nominal fee of {{CAD|10}}, the Canadian government would grant {{convert|160|acre|km2}} of land to any male homesteader who was able to establish a working farm on that land within three years. Single-family homesteads would not fit the Doukhobors' communitarian tradition but a "Hamlet Clause" within the Act had been adopted 15 years earlier to accommodate other communitarian groups such as Mennonites. The clause allowed beneficiaries of the Act to live in a hamlet within {{convert|3|mi|km}} from their land rather than on the land itself.{{cite book|first=Susan Wiley |last=Hardwick |title=Russian Refuge: Religion, Migration, and Settlement on the North American Pacific Rim |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=1993 |isbn=0-226-31610-6 |chapter=The Doukhobors |pages=80– |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qbcd8P0ZOcEC |access-date=September 21, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121114010716/http://books.google.com/books?id=Qbcd8P0ZOcEC |archive-date=November 14, 2012 |url-status=live |via=Google Books}} This allowed the Doukhobors to establish a communal lifestyle similar to that of the Hutterites. Also, by passing Section 21 of the Dominion Military Act in late 1898, the Canadian Government exempted the Doukhobors from military service.

The land for the Doukhobor immigrants, in total {{convert|773400|acre|km2}} within what was to soon become the Province of Saskatchewan, came in three block settlement areas or "reserves", and an annex:{{cite web |first=Jonathan J. |last=Kalmakoff |url=http://www.doukhobor.org/Maps.html |title=Doukhobor Historical Maps: Saskatchewan |website=Doukhobor Genealogy |access-date=July 28, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160319040140/http://www.doukhobor.org/Maps.html |archive-date=March 19, 2016 |url-status=live}}

• The North Colony, also known as the "Thunder Hill Colony" or "Swan River Colony" in the Pelly and Arran districts of Saskatchewan became home to 2,400 Doukhobors from Tiflis Governorate, who established 20 villages on {{convert|69000|acre|km2}} of the land grant.
• The South Colony, also known as the "Whitesand Colony" or "Yorkton Colony" in the Canora, Veregin and Kamsack districts of Saskatchewan. 3,500 Doukhobors from Tiflis Governorate, Elisabethpol Governorate, and Kars Oblast settled there in 30 villages on {{convert|215010|acre|km2}} of land grant.
• The Good Spirit Lake Annex in the Buchanan district of Saskatchewan received 1,000 Doukhobors from Elisabethpol Governorate and Kars Oblast, Russia, and settled there in eight villages on {{convert |168930|acre|km2}} of land grant. The annex was along the Good Spirit River, which flows into Good Spirit Lake (previously known as Devil's Lake).
• The Saskatchewan Colony, also known as the "Rosthern Colony", "Prince Albert Colony" and "Duck Lake Colony" was located along North Saskatchewan River in the Langham and Blaine Lake districts of Saskatchewan, north-west of Saskatoon. 1,500 Doukhobors from Kars Oblast settled there in 13 villages on {{convert|324800|acre|km2}} of land grant.

North and South Colonies, and Good Spirit Lake Annex, were located around Yorkton near the modern-day border with Manitoba; the Saskatchewan (Rosthern) Colony was located north-west of Saskatoon, a significant distance from the other three reserves.{{cn|date=May 2022}}

In 1899, all four reserves formed part of the Northwest Territories: Saskatchewan (Rosthern) Colony in the territories' provisional District of Saskatchewan. North Reserve straddled the boundary of Saskatchewan and Assiniboia districts, and the other reserves were entirely in Assiniboia. After the establishment of the Province of Saskatchewan in 1905, all reserves were located within that province.{{cn|date=May 2022}}

File:Doukhobor women pulling a plough - Thunder Hill Colony-Manitoba.jpg

Verigin persuaded his followers to free their animals, and pull their wagons and plows themselves. On the lands granted to them in the prairies, the settlers established Russian-style villages, some of which received Russian names after settlers' home villages in Transcaucasia; for example Spasovka, Large and Small Gorelovka, and Slavianka; while others gained more abstract "spiritual" names not common in Russia, such as Uspeniye (Dormition), Terpeniye (Patience), Bogomdannoye (Given by God), and Osvobozhdeniye (Liberation). The settlers found Saskatchewan winters much harsher than those in Transcaucasia, and expressed disappointment the climate was not as suitable for growing fruits and vegetables. Women greatly outnumbered the men; many women worked on the farms tilling the land while many men took non-farm jobs, especially in railway construction. The earliest arrivals came from three backgrounds, had varying commitments to communal life, and lacked leadership. Verigin arrived in December 1902, was recognized as the leader, and reimposed communalism and self-sufficiency. The railway arrived in 1904 and hopes of isolation from Canadian society ended.{{cite journal|first=P. L. |last=McCormick |title=The Doukhobors in 1904 |journal=Saskatchewan History |date=1978 |volume=31 |number=1 |pages=12–19}}{{sfn|Thorsteinson|1917|pp=24–30}}

Canadians, politicians, and the media were deeply suspicious of the Doukhobors. Their communal lifestyle seemed suspicious, their refusal to send children to school was considered deeply troubling, while pacifism caused anger during the First World War. The oppression of the Russian Tsarist regime had entrenched its resulting pacifist beliefs into the Doukhobor tenets and they did not waver with the onset of either World War. Some Canadians who were willing to go to war did not respect a sect of people that were excused from military service. This difference in perspective produced much political prejudice towards the Doukhobors. Tumultuous political posturing and years of polarized social disagreements eventually brought some Doukhobors to the point of protests aimed at maintaining their simple, non-materialistic, and autonomous communal living. The break-away faction of svobodniki, later called Sons of Freedom, conducted nude marches and carried out night-time arson attacks, which was considered unacceptable and offensive.{{cite journal|first1=John E. |last1=Lyons |title=Toil and a Peaceful Life: Peter V. Verigen and Doukhobor Education |journal=Communal Societies |date=1991 |volume=11 |pages=78–92}} Canadian magazines showed strong curiosity, giving special attention to women's bodies and clothing. Magazines and newspapers carried stories and photographs of Doukhobor women engaging in hard farm labour, doing "women's work", wearing the traditional ethnic dress, and in partial or total states of undress.{{cite journal|first1=Ashleigh |last1=Androsoff |title=A Larger Frame: 'Redressing' The Image Of Doukhobor-Canadian Women in the Twentieth Century |journal=Journal of the Canadian Historical Association |date=2007 |volume=18 |number=1 |pages=81–105|doi=10.7202/018255ar |doi-access=free}} Doukhobors received financial help from Quakers. Clifford Sifton, the Minister of the Interior, wanted the Doukhobors in Canada; he arranged financial subsidies to allow them to migrate.{{sfn|Thorsteinson|1917|pp=19–23}}

Due to the community's aversion to private ownership of land, Verigin had the land registered in the name of the community. By 1906, the Canadian Government's new Minister of the Interior Frank Oliver started requiring the registration of land in the name of individual owners. Many Doukhobors refused to comply, resulting in 1907 in the reverting of more than a third ({{convert|258880|acre|km2}}) of Doukhobor lands back to the Crown. The loss of legal title to their land became a major grievance.{{cite web |last1=Tarasoff |first1=Koozma J. |title=Q71: Lost Doukhobor Land? |url=http://spirit-wrestlers.blogspot.com/2016/04/q71-lost-doukhobor-land.html |website=Spirit Wrestlers Blog |publisher=Spirit Wrestlers Publishing |date=April 24, 2016}}

Ten years after the Russian conscription crisis, another political issue arose because the Doukhobors would have to become naturalized British citizens and swear an Oath of Allegiance to the British Crown—something that had always been against their principles.{{citation|publisher=SFU |place=CA |url=http://www.lib.sfu.ca/cgi-bin/edocs/Doukhobor-Collection?Display=148 |title=Report of Royal Commission on matters relating to the sect of Doukhobors in the province of British Columbia |year=1912}} {{dead link|date=May 2022}} They did not know that they could have submitted an "affirmation" instead of an "oath".{{cite web |last1=Tarasoff |first1=Koozma J. |title=Q71: Lost Doukhobor Land? Question 71: What happened to the land lost by the Doukhobors in Saskatchewan in 1907? |url=https://www.spirit-wrestlers.com/Doukhobor-Land-Lost.html |website=Spirit Wrestlers |publisher=Spirit Wrestlers Publishing |access-date=17 March 2025}}

The "oath" issue resulted in a three-way split of the Doukhobor immigrants in Canada:

• Community Doukhobors — Historically called "communal" Doukhobors, and "orthodox" (correct) Doukhobors. This largest group in Canada was originally led by Peter V. Verigin (1859-1924) who formed the Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood (CCUB). His successor son Peter P. Verigin (1881-1939) in 1938 reformed members them as the Union of Spiritual Communities of Christ (USCC),{{cite web |last1=In collaboration with John P. S. McLaren |title=VERIGIN, PETER PETROVICH |url=https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/verigin_peter_petrovich_16E.html |website=Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 16 |publisher=University of Toronto/Université Laval |access-date=6 October 2024 |date=2022}} headquartered in Grand Forks, British Columbia, publishing a monthly journal [http://www.iskra.ca Iskra] since 1943.{{cite web |url=https://uscc-iskra.com/ |title=Iskra: The Voice of the Doukhobors |access-date=May 19, 2024}} In 1939, John J. Verigin (1921–2008), grandson of P.V. Verigin, was appointed to lead, but changed his title to "Honorary Chairman." In 2008, his son John J. Verigin, Jr. continued the post.
• Independent Doukhobors — (Russian: единоличники / edinolichniki, individual farmers). In 1907 they comprised about 10% of the Canadian Doukhobors, maintained their traditions and values, but abandoned communal ownership of land. Most acquired land by affirmation, some by oath. They also rejected hereditary leadership{{cite web |title=Hereditary Spiritual Leadership |url=https://uscc-doukhobors.org/hereditary-spiritual-leadership/ |website=USCC Doukhobors |publisher=Union of Spiritual Communities of Christ (USCC) |access-date=6 October 2024 |location=Grand Forks, British Columbia, Canada |date=September 3, 2020}} and communal living as non-essential, therefore have many independent local societies and meeting halls, most in Saskatchewan, and a few in Alberta and British Columbia.
• Sons of Freedom — Originally self-named svobodniki (free, sovereign people), in 1902 this dissenting group tried to return to Russia, refused to obey laws, and attacked law-abiding Doukhobors; and became the famous dissident "Sons of Freedom" in the 1920s, also called "Freedomites" by the media. They misinterpreted P. V. Verigin's writings in such a zealous manner that he banned them from community membership, and Independent Doukhobors repeatedly declared them "not Doukhobors". Since 1902, the media, scholars and government persistently mistakenly confused Sons of Freedom with all Canadian Doukhobors when reporting their sensational protests.{{cite news

| author = W. Stewart Wallace

| date = November 1904

| title = Illustrated Interview: Mr. Peter Verigin, the Doukhobor Leader

| url = https://doukhobor.org/illustrated-interview-mr-peter-verigin-the-doukhobor-leader-1904

| volume = V

| number = 5

| work = The Westminister: A Paper for the Home, New Series

| publisher = The Westminister Co, Limited

| location = Toronto, Ontario, Canada

| access-date = March 16, 2025

|quote= Mr. [Peter V.] Verigin ... spoke very feelingly about the falsehoods that had been printed by the newspaper men of Canada regarding the Doukhobors [by confusing them with svobodniki].

}}{{cite news

| author =

| date = April 4, 1930

| title = Doukhobors May Move To Mexico ; Peter [P.] Verigin Will Soon Leave to Look Over Settlement Prospect

| url = https://www.newspapers.com/article/times-colonist-doukhobors-may-move-to-me/150457427/

| work = Victoria Daily Times (Times Colonist)

| page = 1

| location = Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

| archive-url = https://www.newspapers.com/article/times-colonist-doukhobors-may-move-to-me/150457427

| archive-date = June 1, 2024

| access-date = June 1, 2024

|quote= ... Peter [P.] Verigin ... urging the community members to have nothing to do with the Sons of Freedom.

}}{{cite news

| author =

| title = Doukhobor Leader Gets Indorsement

| url = https://cdnc.ucr.edu/?a=d&d=OT19340319.1.3&srpos=3&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-Doukhobor+Indorsement-------

| work = Oakland Tribune

| location = Oakland, California, USA

| date = March 24, 1934

| page = 3

| quote = The community will have nothing to do with the Sons of Freedom who are not true Doukhobors at all. ... " ... the government of Canada is weak because it can not handle the Son of Freedom fanatics. It makes me feel ashamed."

| access-date = March 16, 2024

}}{{cite news

| last = Locke

| first = Jeannine

| title = The Doukhobors are Different

| url = https://www.spirit-wrestlers.com/excerpts/1962-Star-Weekly-Makaroff.pdf

| work = Star Weekly Magazine and Canadian Weekly

| location = Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

| date = October 6, 1962

| page = 5

| quote = .. fate of ... delinquent B.C. Sons ... 'If you continue in your senseless conflict with the government, don't call yourselves Doukhobors. ... Your great hope is education.'

| access-date = March 16, 2024

}}{{cite book

|title=Plakun Trava, The Doukhobors

|last=Tarasoff

|first=Koozma

|publisher=Mir Publication Society

|year=1982

|isbn=0-920046-05-3

|page=133 |

quote=Anyone who participates in a violent act, ceases to be a Doukhobor.

}}{{cite journal

| last1 = McConnell

| first1 = William H.

| date = 1992

| title = Peter G. Makaroff, QC, Canada's First Doukhobor Lawyer

| url = https://doukhobor.org/peter-g-makaroff-qc-canadas-first-doukhobor-lawyer/

| journal = Saskatchewan History

| volume = 44

| issue = 3

| pages = 99

| quote = ... Sons of Freedom ... have nothing to do with the Doukhobor faith ...

| access-date = May 16, 2024

}}{{cite book

| last = Tarasoff

| first = Koozma J.

| date = 2002

| title = Spirit Wrestlers: Doukhobor Pioneers' Strategies for Living

| chapter = Popular Myths or Fallacies about the Doukhobors

| chapter-url = https://spirit-wrestlers.com/excerpts/Popular_Myths_Fallacies_Doukhobors.htm#4

| url = https://www.spirit-wrestlers.com/html/newBook.htm

| location = Ottawa

| publisher = Legas and Spirit Wrestlers Publishing

| page = 380

| access-date = May 16, 2024

| quote = They are not Doukhobors ...

| isbn = 1-896031-12-9

}}{{cite web

| url = http://www.larrysdesk.com/sons-of-freedom--hope-history-conference-bridging-the-past.html

| title = Who Are The Sons Of Freedom?

| last = Ewashen

| first = Larry

| date = March 3, 2012

| website = Larry's Desk

| publisher = Larry Ewashen

| access-date = May 16, 2024

| quote = ... Doukhobors having nothing in common with Freedomites ... The word Doukhobor should not be used to identify the zealots. When it is used, it falsely identifies the majority of law abiding, constructive, peaceful group with the unlawful behaviour.

}}

Of these groupings, the Independents integrated the most readily into Canadian capitalist society. They had no problem registering their land groups and largely remained in Saskatchewan. In 1939, they definitely rejected the authority of Peter Verigin's great-grandson John J. Verigin, Sr.{{cn|date=May 2022}}

In 1908, to remove his followers from the corrupting influence of non-Doukhobors and edinolichniki (individual owners) Doukhobors, and to find better conditions for agriculture, Verigin bought large tracts of land in south-eastern British Columbia. His first purchase was around Grand Forks near the US border. He later acquired large tracts of land further east in the Slocan Valley around Castlegar. Between 1908 and 1912, about 8,000 people moved from Saskatchewan to these British Columbia lands to continue their communal way of living. In the milder climate of British Columbia, the settlers were able to plant fruit trees and within a few years became renowned orchardists and producers of fruit preserves. As the Community Doukhobors left Saskatchewan, the reserves there were closed by 1918.

Image:Verigin Memorial.jpg

On October 29, 1924, Peter V. Verigin was killed in a bomb explosion on a scheduled passenger train en route to British Columbia. The government had initially stated the bombing was perpetrated by people within the Doukhobor community, although no arrests were made because of the Doukhobors' customary refusal to cooperate with Canadian authorities due to fear of intersect violence. It is still unknown who was responsible for the bombing. While the Doukhobors were initially welcomed by the Canadian government, this assassination, as well as Doukhobors' beliefs regarding communal living, their intolerance for schooling, and other beliefs considered offensive or unacceptable, created a decades-long mistrust between government authorities and Doukhobors.{{cite magazine|first=Larry |last=Hannant |title=The Mysterious Death of Peter Verigin |magazine=Beaver |date=October–November 2004 |volume=84 |number=5 |pages=26–28}}

Peter V. Verigin's son Peter P. Verigin, who arrived from the Soviet Union in 1928, succeeded his father as leader of the Community Doukhobors. He became known as "Peter the Purger" (Chistiakov) and worked to smooth relations between the Community Doukhobors and wider Canadian society. The governments in Ottawa and the western provinces concluded he was the closet leader of the Sons of Freedom and was perhaps a dangerous Bolshevik. The governments decided to deport him, use the justice system to impose conformity to Canadian values on the Doukhobors, and force them to abide by Canadian law and repudiate unacceptable practices. With a legal defence managed by Peter Makaroff, the deportation effort failed in 1933.{{cite encyclopedia |author1=John P. S. McLaren |title=Verigin, Peter Petrovich |encyclopedia=Dictionary of Canadian Biography |date=2022 |publisher=University of Toronto/Université Laval |volume=16 |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/verigin_peter_petrovich_16F.html |access-date=17 February 2024}}{{cite journal|first=John |last=McLaren |title=Wrestling spirits: The strange case of Peter Verigin II |journal=Canadian Ethnic Studies |date=1995 |volume=27 |number=3 |pages=95–130}} The Sons of Freedom repudiated Verigin's policies as ungodly and assimilationist, and escalated their protests. The Sons of Freedom burnt Community Doukhobors' property and organized more nude parades. In 1932, the Parliament of Canada responded by criminalizing public nudity. Over 300 radical Doukhobor men and women were arrested for this offence, which typically carried a three-year prison sentence.

Doukhobors could not vote in British Columbia until 1952. They were the last ethnic or religious community to be granted suffrage in the province.{{cite web |url=https://www.leg.bc.ca/dyl/Pages/1917-Women-Win-the-Right-to-Vote.aspx |title=1917 – Women Win the Right to Vote |website=Legislative Assembly of British Columbia}}

The Sons of Freedom, a break away protest sect identifying as svodoniki (sovereign, free people) in 1902, used nudism and arson as visible methods of protest.Simma Holt, Terror in the Name of God (McClelland and Stewart, 1964) is a study of the Sons of Freedom They protested against materialism, the land seizure by the government, compulsory education in government schools, and Verigin's assassination in 1924. This led to many confrontations with the Canadian government and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which continued into the 1970s. Nudism was first used after the Doukhobors' arrival in Canada. They used violence to fight modernity, and destroyed threshing machines and other signs of modernity. The group conducted night-time arson attacks on schools built by the Doukhobor commune and Verigin's house. The highly publicized acts by the Sons of Freedom were repeatedly mislabeled with the word "Doukhobor", confusing the different groups and anguishing many law biding assimilated descendants of Canadian Doukhobors.{{cite news

| last = Locke

| first = Jeannine

| title = The Doukhobors are Different

| url = https://www.spirit-wrestlers.com/excerpts/1962-Star-Weekly-Makaroff.pdf

| work = Star Weekly Magazine and Canadian Weekly

| location = Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

| date = October 6, 1962

| page = 5

| quote = .. fate of ... delinquent B.C. Sons ... 'If you continue in your senseless conflict with the government, don't call yourselves Doukhobors. ... Your great hope is education.'

| access-date = March 16, 2024

}}{{cite book

| last = Hindus

| first = Maurice

| date = 1971

| title = A Traveler in Two Worlds

| chapter = Chapter 21: Doukhobors and Dissenters

| chapter-url = https://archive.org/details/travelerintwowor00hind/page/290/mode/2up

| url = https://archive.org/details/travelerintwowor00hind

| location = Garden City, N.Y.

| publisher = Doubleday

| pages = 291, 293

| access-date = June 30, 2024

| quote = .... no Freedomite ever had a kind word to say about the Doukhobors. They regarded Doukhobors as traitors to the faith of their fathers, as men and women who had yielded to the sins of the flesh and had abandoned Christ. ... about the Freedomites ... "... if you write about them, please do not fail to tell your readers that they are not Doukhobors, and that the Doukhobors are heartily ashamed of them.

}}{{cite book

|title=Plakun Trava, The Doukhobors

|last=Tarasoff

|first=Koozma

|publisher=Mir Publication Society

|year=1982

|isbn=0-920046-05-3

|page=133 |

quote=Anyone who participates in a violent act, ceases to be a Doukhobor.

}}{{cite journal

| last1 = McConnell

| first1 = William H.

| date = 1992

| title = Peter G. Makaroff, QC, Canada's First Doukhobor Lawyer

| url = https://doukhobor.org/peter-g-makaroff-qc-canadas-first-doukhobor-lawyer/

| journal = Saskatchewan History

| volume = 44

| issue = 3

| pages = 99

| quote = ... Sons of Freedom ... have nothing to do with the Doukhobor faith ...

| access-date = May 16, 2024

}}{{cite book

| last = Tarasoff

| first = Koozma J.

| date = 2002

| title = Spirit Wrestlers: Doukhobor Pioneers' Strategies for Living

| chapter = Popular Myths or Fallacies about the Doukhobors

| chapter-url = https://spirit-wrestlers.com/excerpts/Popular_Myths_Fallacies_Doukhobors.htm#4

| url = https://www.spirit-wrestlers.com/html/newBook.htm

| location = Ottawa

| publisher = Legas and Spirit Wrestlers Publishing

| page = 380

| access-date = May 16, 2024

| quote = They are not Doukhobors ...

| isbn = 1-896031-12-9

}}{{cite web

| url = http://www.larrysdesk.com/sons-of-freedom--hope-history-conference-bridging-the-past.html

| title = Who Are The Sons Of Freedom?

| last = Ewashen

| first = Larry

| date = March 3, 2012

| website = Larry's Desk

| publisher = Larry Ewashen

| access-date = May 16, 2024

| quote = ... Doukhobors having nothing in common with Freedomites ... The word Doukhobor should not be used to identify the zealots. When it is used, it falsely identifies the majority of law abiding, constructive, peaceful group with the unlawful behaviour.

}}

During 1947 and 1948, Sullivan's Royal Commission investigated acts of arson and bombing attacks in British Columbia and recommended several measures intended to integrate the Doukhobors into Canadian society, notably through the education of their children in public schools. Around that time, the provincial government entered into direct negotiations with the Freedomite leadership. W. A. C. Bennett's Social Credit government, which came to power in 1952, took a harder stance against the "Doukhobor problem." In 1953, 174 children of the Sons of Freedom were forcibly interned by government agents in a residential school in New Denver, British Columbia. Abuse of the interned children was later alleged.{{cite web |title=The lost children of British Columbia |url=https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1957/5/11/the-lost-children-of-british-columbia |access-date=December 9, 2020 |archive-date=November 25, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201125231613/https://archive.macleans.ca/article/1957/5/11/the-lost-children-of-british-columbia |url-status=live}}{{cite news |title=B.C. government reconsiders apology for Doukhobor children taken from their families in 1950s |newspaper=The Globe and Mail |date=September 9, 2018 |url=https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-bc-government-reconsiders-apology-for-doukhobor-children-taken-from/ |access-date=December 9, 2020 |last1=Kryak |first1=Violetta |archive-date=November 9, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201109014718/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/british-columbia/article-bc-government-reconsiders-apology-for-doukhobor-children-taken-from/ |url-status=live}}

In less than fifty years, the Sons of Freedom committed 1,112 separate acts of violence and arson, costing over $20 million in damages; these acts include bombing and arson attacks on public schools, bombings of Canadian railway bridges and tracks,{{cite news|title=Bomb Blasts Rail Bridge in Kootenay| url= https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=p1spAAAAIBAJ&pg=5368,3816839 |access-date=October 4, 2010 |newspaper=The Spokesman-Review |date=December 11, 1961 |archive-date=February 27, 2021 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20210227072517/https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=p1spAAAAIBAJ&pg=5368,3816839 |url-status=live}} the bombing of a courthouse at Nelson,{{cite book|last=Torrance |first=Judy |title=Public Violence in Canada, 1867–1982 |publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press |year=1988 |isbn=0-7735-0666-7 |page=[https://archive.org/details/publicviolencein0000torr/page/34 34] |url=https://archive.org/details/publicviolencein0000torr |url-access=registration}} and the destruction of a power transmission tower servicing East Kootenay district, resulting in the loss of 1,200 jobs. Many of the independent and community Doukhobors believed the Sons of Freedom's arson and bombings violated the Doukhobor central principle of nonviolence, and that they did not deserve to be called Doukhobors.

After the departure of the more zealous and uncompromising Doukhobors, and many community leaders, to Canada at the close of the Elisabethpol Governorate in the Caucasus Viceroyalty (now Azerbaijan), the former Doukhobor villages became mostly repopulated by Baptists. Elsewhere, some Doukhobors joined nearby Spiritual Christian groups.

Those who remained Doukhobors were required to submit to the state. Few protested against military service; of 837 Russian court-martial cases against conscientious objectors recorded between the beginning of World War I and April 1, 1917, 16 had Doukhobor defendants, none of whom hailed from the Transcaucasian provinces. Between 1921 and 1923, Verigin's son Peter P. Verigin arranged the resettlement of 4,000 Doukhobors from the Ninotsminda (Bogdanovka) district in south Georgia to Rostov Oblast in southern Russia, and another 500 into Zaporizhzhia Oblast in Ukraine.{{cite web |first=Jonathan J. |last=Kalmakoff |url=http://www.doukhobor.org/Maps.html |title=Doukhobor Historical Maps |website=Doukhobor Genealogy |access-date=July 28, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160319040140/http://www.doukhobor.org/Maps.html |archive-date=March 19, 2016 |url-status=live}}

The Soviet reforms greatly affected the lives of the Doukhobors, both in their old villages in Georgia and in the new settlement areas in southern Russian and Ukraine. State anti-religious campaigns resulted in the suppression of Doukhobor religious tradition, and the loss of books and archival records. Many religious leaders were arrested or exiled; for example, 18 people were exiled from Gorelovka in 1930. Communists' imposition of collective farming did not contradict the Doukhobor way of life. Industrious Doukhobors made their collective farms prosperous, often specializing in cheesemaking.

Of the Doukhobor communities in the Soviet Union, those in South Georgia were the most sheltered from outside influence because of their geographic isolation in mountainous terrain, their location near the international border, and concomitant travel restrictions for outsiders.

Doukhobor oral holy hymns, which they call the "Book of Life" (Russian: Zhivotnaya kniga), de facto replaced the written Bible. Their teaching is founded on this tradition.{{sfn|Chertkov|1911}}{{sfn|Peacock|1970}} The Book of Life of the Doukhobors (1909) is the first printed hymnal containing songs in the Southern Russian dialect, which were composed to be sung aloud. Their prayer meetings and gatherings are dominated by the singing of a cappella psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.{{sfn|Peacock|1970}}

{{Unreferenced|section|date=May 2022}}

In 2001, an estimated 20,000–40,000 people of Doukhobor heritage lived in Canada, 3,800 of whom claimed "Doukhobor" as their religious affiliation. An estimated 30,000 people of Doukhobor heritage live in Russia and neighbouring countries. In 2011, there were 2,290 Canadians who identified their religious affiliation as "Doukhobor"; in Russia there were 50 such persons by the mid-2000s.

CCUB, the Orthodox Doukhobors organization or Community Doukhobors, was succeeded by the Union of Spiritual Communities of Christ (USCC) formed by Peter P. Verigin, Peter V. Verigin's son, in 1938.{{cite web|url=https://uscc-doukhobors.org/uscc/ |title=Union of Spiritual Communities of Christ |website=Union of Spiritual Communities of Christ}} The largest and most active formal Doukhobor organization, it is headquartered in Grand Forks, British Columbia.{{cite web|url=http://www.usccdoukhobors.org/ |title=USCC Doukhobors |access-date=January 17, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080208224230/http://www.usccdoukhobors.org/ |archive-date=February 8, 2008 |url-status=live}}

During the Canada 2011 Census,{{citation |url=https://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/dp-pd/dt-td/Rp-eng.cfm?TABID=2&LANG=E&A=R&APATH=3&DETAIL=0&DIM=3&FL=A&FREE=0&GC=01&GL=-1&GID=1118296&GK=1&GRP=1&O=D&PID=105399&PRID=0&PTYPE=105277&S=0&SHOWALL=0&SUB=0&Temporal=2013&THEME=95&VID=21289&VNAMEE=&VNAMEF=&D1=0&D2=0&D3=0&D4=0&D5=0&D6=0 |title=2011 National Household Survey: Data tables: Religion |website=Statistics Canada |date=May 8, 2013 |access-date=November 2, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131102215737/http://www12.statcan.gc.ca/nhs-enm/2011/dp-pd/dt-td/Rp-eng.cfm?TABID=1&LANG=E&A=R&APATH=3&DETAIL=0&DIM=0&FL=A&FREE=0&GC=0&GID=0&GK=0&GRP=1&O=D&PID=105399&PRID=0&PTYPE=105277&S=0&SHOWALL=0&SUB=0&Temporal=2013&THEME=95&VID=0&VNAMEE=&VNAMEF=&D1=0&D2=0&D3=0&D4=0&D5=0&D6=0 |archive-date=November 2, 2013 |url-status=live}}. The census numbers are actually based on extrapolating a 20% sample. 2,290 persons in Canada—of whom 1,860 in British Columbia, 200 in Alberta, 185 in Saskatchewan, and 25 in Ontario—identified their religious affiliation as "Doukhobor". The proportion of older people among these self-identified Doukhobors is higher than among the general population.

Twenty-eight percent of the self-identified Doukhobors in 2001 were over 65 (born before 1936), as compared to 12% of the entire population of Canadian respondents. The aging of the denomination is accompanied by its shrinkage, starting in the 1960s:{{cite magazine|first=John I. |last=Postnikoff |url=https://doukhobor.org/doukhobors-an-endangered-species |title=Doukhobors: An Endangered Species |magazine=MIR magazine |publisher=MIR Publication Society |via=Doukhobor Genealogy Website (www.doukhobor.org) |number=16 |place=Grand Forks, BC |date=May 1978 |orig-date=1977 |access-date=June 26, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080416075358/http://www.doukhobor.org/postnikoff.html |archive-date=April 16, 2008 |url-status=live}}

The number of Canadians with Doukhobor heritage is much higher than the number of those who consider themselves members of this religion. In 2012, Doukhobor researchers estimated there were "over 20,000" people "from [Doukhobor] stock" in Canada and over 40,000 Doukhobors by "a wider definition of religion, ethnicity, way of life, and social movement".{{Sfn | Tarasoff | 2002|ref=Tarasoff2}}{{Rp | needed = yes|date=October 2012}}

Canadian Doukhobors no longer live communally. Doukhobors do not practice baptism, neither wet nor dry, nor require one to be "born again". They reject several items considered orthodox among Christian churches, including church organization and liturgy, the inspiration of the scriptures, the literal interpretation of resurrection, the literal interpretation of the Trinity, and heaven and hell. Some avoid the use of alcohol, tobacco, and animal products for food, and eschew involvement in partisan politics. Doukhobors believe in the goodness of man and reject the idea of original sin.{{cite web |last1=Inikova |first1=Svetlana |title=Spiritual Origins and the Beginning of Doukhobor History |url=https://doukhobor.org/spiritual-origins-and-the-beginnings-of-doukhobor-history/ |website=Doukhobor Heritage |date=January 27, 2020 |publisher=Jonathan Kalmakoff |access-date=22 July 2022}}

Since the late 1980s, many of the Doukhobors of Georgia started emigrating to Russia. Various groups moved to Tula Oblast, Rostov Oblast, Stavropol Krai, and elsewhere. After the 1991 independence of Georgia, many villages with Russian names received Georgian names; Bogdanovka became Ninotsminda, Troitskoe became Sameba. According to various estimates, in Ninotsminda District, the Doukhobor population fell from around 4,000 in 1979 to between 3,000 and 3,500 in 1989, and around 700 in 2006. In Dmanisi district, it fell from around 700 Doukhobors in 1979 to no more than 50 by the mid-2000s. Most of those who remain in Georgia are older people; the younger generation found it easier to relocate to Russia. The Doukhobor community of Gorelovka in Ninotsminda District, the former "capital" of the Kalmykov family, is thought to be the best-preserved in all former Soviet Union countries.

The Doukhobors have maintained a close association with Mennonites and Quakers due to similar religious practices; all of these groups are collectively considered to be peace churches due to their belief in pacifism.{{cite book|last1=Fleming |first1=John A. |last2=Rowan |first2=Michael J. |last3=Chambers |first3=James Albert |title=Folk Furniture of Canada's Doukhobors, Hutterites, Mennonites and Ukrainians |year=2004 |publisher=University of Alberta |language=en |isbn=978-0-88864-418-3 |page=[https://archive.org/details/folkfurnitureofc00flem/page/4 4] |quote=The English Quakers, who had made contact with the Doukhobors earlier, as well as the Philadelphia Society of Friends, also determined to help with their emigration from Russia to some other country—the only action which seemed possible. |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/folkfurnitureofc00flem/page/4}}{{cite book|last1=Dyck |first1=Cornelius J. |last2=Martin |first2=Dennis D. |title=The Mennonite Encyclopedia |publisher=Mennonite Brethren Publishing House |language=en |page=107}}{{cite book|last=Fahlbusch |first=Erwin |title=The Encyclodedia of Christianity |year= 2008 |publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing |language=en |isbn=978-0-8028-2417-2 |page=208 |quote=The only contact with Mennonites was the period 1802–41 when they lived in the Molotschna, where Johann Cornies (q.v.) rendered them considerable assistance.}}

File:Leotolstoy castlegar.jpg Statue at Doukhobor Discovery Centre]]

In 1995, the Doukhobor Suspension Bridge spanning the Kootenay River was designated a National Historic Site of Canada.{{CRHP|7818|Doukhobor Suspension Bridgey|November 13, 2011}} The site of Community Doukhobors' headquarters in Veregin, Saskatchewan, was designated a National Historic Site in 2006, under the name "Doukhobors at Veregin".

A Doukhobor museum known as "Doukhobor Discovery Centre" (formerly, "Doukhobor Village Museum") operates in Castlegar, British Columbia. It contains over 1,000 artifacts representing the arts, crafts, and daily lives of the Doukhobors of the Kootenays in 1908–38.{{citation |url=http://doukhobor-museum.org/ |title=Doukhobor Discovery Center |access-date=January 14, 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080106101832/http://www.doukhobor-museum.org/ |archive-date=January 6, 2008 |url-status=live}}{{cite news|last=Jackson |first=Kristin |title=Doukhobor heritage lives on in southeast BC |url=http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/travel/2012302095_trbritishcolumbia11.html |access-date=October 6, 2010 |newspaper=The Seattle Times |date=July 10, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100914155008/http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/travel/2012302095_trbritishcolumbia11.html |archive-date=September 14, 2010 |url-status=live}}

Although most of the early Doukhobor village structures in British Columbia have vanished or been significantly remodelled by later users, a part of Makortoff Village outside Grand Forks, British Columbia has been preserved as a museum by Peter Gritchen, who purchased the property in 1971 and opened it as Mountain View Doukhobor Museum on June 16, 1972. The site's future became uncertain after his death in 2000 but in March 2004, in cooperation with local organizations and concerned citizens, The Land Conservancy of British Columbia purchased the historical site known as Hardy Mountain Doukhobor Village while Boundary Museum Society acquired the museum collection and loaned it to TLC for display.{{citation |url=http://www.conservancy.bc.ca/content.asp?sectionid=181®ionack=OK |title=Conservancy |contribution=Hardy Mountain Doukhobor Village Historic Site |place=BC, CA |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071018214627/http://www.conservancy.bc.ca/content.asp?sectionid=181 |archive-date=October 18, 2007}}

The Canadian Museum of Civilization in Ottawa has a collection of Doukhobor-related items. A special exhibition there was run in 1998–99 to mark the centennial anniversary of the Doukhobor arrival in Canada.{{citation |url=http://www.civilization.ca/cultur/doukhobors/dou01eng.html |title=The Doukhobors: "Spirit Wrestlers" |place=Canada |publisher=Museum of Civilization |date=September 7, 1998 |access-date=April 13, 2004 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040404014030/http://www.civilization.ca/cultur/doukhobors/dou01eng.html |archive-date=April 4, 2004 |url-status=live}}

{{main|Doukhobor Russian}}

The Doukhobors took with them to Canada a Southern Russian dialect, which in the following decades changed under the influence of Canadian English and the speech of the Ukrainian settlers in Saskatchewan. Over several generations, this dialect has been mostly lost because the modern descendants of the original Doukhobor migrants to Canada are typically native English speakers; when they speak Russian, it is typically a fairly standard variety.{{cite book|last=Makarova |first=Veronika |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2b-YAQAAQBAJ |title=Russian Language Studies in North America: New Perspectives from Theoretical and Applied Linguistics |date=October 1, 2013 |publisher=Anthem Press |isbn=978-1-78308-046-5 |page=247 |language=en |access-date=January 15, 2022 |archive-date=January 16, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220116001634/https://books.google.ca/books?hl=en&lr=&id=2b-YAQAAQBAJ |url-status=live}}

In 1802, the Doukhobors and other spiritual Christian tribes were encouraged to migrate to the Molochna River region around Melitopol near Ukraine's Sea of Azov coast, within the Pale of Settlement neighbouring settlements of anabaptists from Germany.{{cite journal|last=Tarasoff |first=Koozma J. |date=January 1, 1972 |title=Doukhobors – Their Migration Experience |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/b1a7e8c8e62523374caa967e1bbbd817 |journal=Canadian Ethnic Studies |volume=4 |issue=1 |pages=1–2 |id={{ProQuest| }}}} Over the next 10 or 20 years, the Doukhobors and others, mostly speaking a variety of Southern Russian dialects, arrived at the Molochna from several provinces, most of which are located in modern-day eastern Ukraine and south-central Russia.{{cite journal|last=Palmieri |first=Aurelio |date=January 1915 |title=The Russian Doukhobors and their Religious Teachings |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/harvard-theological-review/article/abs/russian-doukhobors-and-their-religious-teachings/7EAAB40C3CCA93B8876F6F12448FD0AE |journal=Harvard Theological Review |language=en |volume=8 |issue=1 |pages=65–66 |doi=10.1017/S0017816000008324 |s2cid=154439550 |issn=1475-4517|url-access=subscription }} In the settlers' villages, an opportunity for the formation of a dialect koiné based on Southern Russian and Eastern Ukrainian dialects arose.{{cite journal|last=Schaarschmidt |first=Gunter |date=March 1, 2008 |title=The Ritual Language of the British Columbia Doukhobors as an Endangered Functional Style: Issues of Interference and Translatability |journal=Canadian Slavonic Papers |volume=50 |issue=1–2 |pages=101–105 |doi=10.1080/00085006.2008.11092575 |s2cid=194016348 |issn=0008-5006}}

Starting in 1841, the Doukhobors and others were resettled from southern Ukraine to Transcaucasia, where they founded several villages surrounded by mostly non-Russian speaking neighbours—primarily Azerbaijanis in Elisabethpol Governorate, ArmeniansTiflis Governorate was in Georgia, it is ethnic Armenians who populated its Samtskhe-Javakheti area, where the Doukhobor villages were in Tiflis Governorate, and likely a mix of both in the later post-1878 settlements in Kars Oblast. These conditions allowed the dialect to develop in comparative isolation from mainstream Russian.

With the migration of 7,500 Doukhbors from Transcaucasia to Saskatchewan in 1899, and some smaller latecomer groups from both Transcaucasia and from places of exile in Siberia and elsewhere, the dialect spoken in the Doukhobor villages of Transcaucasia was taken to the plains of Canada. From that point, it experienced influence from Canadian English and, during the years of Doukhobor stay in Saskatchewan, the speech of their Ukrainian neighbours.{{cite journal|last=Breyfogle |first=Nicholas B. |date=January 1, 1995 |title=Building Doukhoboriia: religious culture, social identity and Russian colonization in Transcaucasia, 1845–1895 |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/a9c48702b8236b87d1628b3eb16dd829/ |journal=Canadian Ethnic Studies |volume=27 |issue=3 |page=24 |id={{ProQuest| }} |access-date=February 19, 2022 |archive-date=February 19, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220219015115/https://www.proquest.com/openview/a9c48702b8236b87d1628b3eb16dd829/ |url-status=live}}{{cite journal|last=Voisey |first=Paul |date=1998 |title=Toil and Peaceful Life': Doukhobor Village Settlement in Saskatchewan, 1899–1918 by Carl J. Tracie (review) |url=https://muse.jhu.edu/article/590285 |journal=Canadian Historical Review |volume=79 |issue=2 |pages=368–369 |issn=1710-1093}}

A split in the Doukhobor community resulted in a large number of Doukhobors moving from Saskatchewan to south-eastern British Columbia around 1910. Those who moved, the so-called Community Doukhobors—followers of Peter Verigin's Christian Community of Universal Brotherhood—continued living communally for several decades, and had a better chance to preserve their Russian language than the Independent Doukhobors, who stayed in Saskatchewan as individual farmers.

By the 1970s, as most Russian-born members of the community died, English became the first language of the great majority of Canadian Doukhobors.Dr. John I. Postnikoff [http://www.doukhobor.org/postnikoff.html Doukhobors: An Endangered Species] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080416075358/http://www.doukhobor.org/postnikoff.html |date=April 16, 2008}} MIR magazine, No. 16 (Grand Forks, BC: MIR Publication Society, May 1978) (Doukhobor Genealogy Website). Their English speech is not noticeably different from that of other English-speaking Canadians of their provinces. Russian still remains in use, at least for religious purposes, among those who practice the Doukhobor religion.

Research into the Russian spoken by Canada's Doukhobors has not been extensive but several articles, mostly published in the 1960s and 1970s, noted a variety of features in Doukhobors' Russian speech that were characteristic of Southern, and in some cases Central Russian dialects; for example, use of the Southern [h] where Standard Russian has [g].{{cite journal|last=Schaarschmidt |first=Gunter |date=January 1, 1995 |title=Aspects of the history of Doukhobor Russian|url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/f8985eb3d7066041ffa58b0337b58f0a/ |journal=Canadian Ethnic Studies |volume=27 |issue=3 |page=197|id={{ProQuest| }} |access-date=February 19, 2022 |archive-date=February 19, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220219015112/https://www.proquest.com/openview/f8985eb3d7066041ffa58b0337b58f0a/ |url-status=live}}

Features characteristic of many locales in the East Slavic language space were noted, reflecting the heterogeneous origin of the Doukhobors' settlements in Molochna River after 1800; for example, like Belarusians, Doukhobor speakers do not palatalize [r] in "редко" (redko, 'seldom'). Remarkable was the dropping of the final -t in the third-person singular form of verbs, which can be considered a Ukrainian feature and is also attested in some Russian dialects spoken in Southern Ukraine (e.g., Nikolaev near the Doukhobors' former homeland on the Molochna). As with other immigrant groups, the Russian speech of the Doukhobors uses English loanwords for some concepts they had not encountered until moving to Canada.{{rp|74}}

• {{citation |title= The Great Explosion |last=Russel |first=Eric Frank |date=1962 |url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Explosion |author-link=Eric Frank Russell | location=United States |publisher= Dodd, Mead and Company |pages=187}} A 1962 Eric Frank Russell science-fiction novel, The Great Explosion, adapted and expanded from his 1951 novella "...And Then There Were None", mentions the Doukhobors as a group of interstellar settlers on the planet Hygeia who had been marginalized by later naturist settlers.
• {{citation |title=Garden in the wind |first=Gabrielle |last=Roy |author-link=Gabrielle Roy |publisher=McClelland & Stewart |type=novel |chapter=Hoodoo Valley |year=1975 |pages=107+ |isbn=978-0-7710-7834-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iQ0nAAAAMAAJ&q=doukhobor}}.
• {{citation |last=Heinlein |first= Robert A. |title=The Year of the Jackpot |work=Galaxy Magazine : Science Fiction |date= March 1952 |volume=3 |issue=6 |editor=H. L. Gold |page=10 |url= https://archive.org/details/galaxymagazine-1952-03/page/n11/mode/1up?view=theater&q=doukhobors+dooka}} — A short story that falsely mentions nudists as: "those people up in Canada. Dooka-somethings. Doukhobors."
• {{citation |title=Doukhobor Daze |first=Hazel |last=O'Neail |publisher=Gray's, Evergreen |year=1962 |url=https://archive.org/search?query=Doukhobor+Daze}} — Humorous memoir of young school teacher of Doukhobor kids in rural Brilliant, B.C., with antics and transliteration of their English dialect.
• {{cite book|title=Head Cook at Weddings and Funerals, And Other Stories of Doukhobor Life |type=novel |first=Vi |last=Plotnikoff |publisher=Raincoast Books |year=2001}}.
• {{cite book|title=Svoboda |type=novel |first=Bill |last=Stenson |publisher=Thistledown Press |year=2007 |isbn=978-1-897235-30-0}}.{{cite news|last=Wiersema |first=Robert J. |title=Doukhobor novel does more than tell a good story |date=January 5, 2008 |url=http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=8c024dbe-57af-438e-ab5a-1fde3a853296 |newspaper=Vancouver Sun |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080108123907/http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/story.html?id=8c024dbe-57af-438e-ab5a-1fde3a853296 |archive-date=January 8, 2008}}. — Review with lesson plan for teachers.

• Doukhobors (1971). Collective creation at [https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/theatre-passe-muraille Theatre Passe Muraille].

• {{citation |title=The Spirit Wrestlers: A Russian Odyssey |author-link=Philip Marsden |first=Philip |last=Marsden |publisher=HarperCollins |year=1998}}.
• {{citation |title=Spirit Wrestlers: Doukhobor Pioneers' Strategies for Living |first=Koozma J. |last=Tarasoff |publisher=Legas |year=2002 |ref=none}}.
• {{citation |title=The Doukhobors |author1-link=George Woodcock |first1=George |last1=Woodcock |first2=Ivan |last2=Avakumovic |publisher=Carleton University Institute of Canadian Studies, McClelland & Stewart |year=1977 |url=https://archive.org/search?query=%22The+Doukhobors%22+Woodcock}}.
• {{citation |title=Slava Bohu |author1-link=J. F. C. Wright |first1=James |last1=Wright |first2=Frederic Church |last2=Wright |publisher=Farrar & Rinehart Inc |year=1940 |url=https://archive.org/search?query=%22Slava+Bohu%22}}.

• {{Citation | year = 1962 | author-link = Malvina Reynolds | first = Malvina | last = Reynolds | title = The Best of Broadside 1962–88 | contribution = Do As the Doukhobors Do}} (originally The Doukhobor Do) is about the Doukhobor nude protests. The song was recorded by Pete Seeger.
• In the bonus track "Ferdinand the Imposter" on the 2000 re-issue of Music from Big Pink by the Canadian roots-rock group The Band, the title character "claimed he was a Doukhobor" after being arrested.{{cite web|title=Ferdinand the Imposter lyrics |url=http://theband.hiof.no/lyrics/ferdinand_the_imposter.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140816040435/http://theband.hiof.no/lyrics/ferdinand_the_imposter.html |archive-date=August 16, 2014 |access-date=August 27, 2014}} The implication in the lyrics is that Ferdinand may have been apprehended for some public display of nudity in Baltimore, Maryland. He attempted to escape punishment by stating he came from the Doukhobors of Canada. Unfortunately for Ferdinand, the American officers were unfamiliar with the group and were unmoved by Ferdinand's plea.{{cite web|title=Sadavid: Ferdinand the Imposter |url=http://theband.hiof.no/articles/ferdinand_the_imposter_sadavid.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161029033527/http://theband.hiof.no/articles/ferdinand_the_imposter_sadavid.html |archive-date=October 29, 2016 |access-date=December 18, 2016 |website=theband.hiof.no}}

• {{citation |title=The Doukhobors |year=1976 |publisher=CBC/NFB |type=film |first=George |last=Woodcock}}. Two parts: The Living Book and Toil and Peaceful Life.{{cite web|title=Lost Childhood: Doukhobors|url=http://www.globalnews.ca/video/lost+childhood+doukhobors+preview++part+1/video.html?v=2311533530#video |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130410113258/http://www.globalnews.ca/video/lost+childhood+doukhobors+preview++part+1/video.html?v=2311533530%23video |url-status=dead |archive-date=April 10, 2013 |access-date=March 10, 2013 |work=16:9 |publisher=Global Television}}

{{Reflist | group = "lower-alpha" | colwidth = 64em}}

{{Reflist | colwidth = 32em}}{{Nuttall|title=Doukhobours}}

• Bartolf, Christian / Dominique Miething: "Flame of Truth": the global significance of Doukhobor Pacifism. Russian Journal of Church History, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Special Issue: History of Christian Peacemaking and Pacifism, Editor: Dr. Nadezhda Beliakova) (2023): 6-27. [https://churchhistory.elpub.ru/jour/article/view/142/180 PDF]
• {{cite EB1911|wstitle=Doukhobors|last=Chertkov|first=Vladimir|author-link=Vladimir Chertkov|pages=448–49}}
• {{Citation | title = The Doukhobors: their history in Russia; their migration to Canada | first = Joseph | last = Elkinton}}.
• {{Citation | first1 = John W. | last1 = Friesen | first2 = Michael M. | last2 = Verigin | title = The Community Doukhobors: A People in Transition | edition = 2nd | place = Ontario | publisher = Borealis Press | year = 1996 | orig-year = 1986 | isbn = 0-88887-151-1}}.
• {{Citation | title = Spirit Wrestlers | first = James 'Jim' | last = Hamm | year = 2002 | type = documentary video}} about the Freedomite Doukhobors.
• {{Citation | title = The Doukhobors of British Columbia | first = Harry B | last = Hawthorn}}.
• Holt, Simma. Terror in the Name of God The Story of the Sons of Freedom Doukhobors (McClelland and Stewart, 1964)
• {{Citation | title = Songs of the Doukhobors: An Introductory Outline | editor-last = Peacock | editor-first = Kenneth | translator = E. A. Popoff (song texts) | place = Ottawa | publisher = The National Museums of Canada; Queen's Printer of Canada | year = 1970 | series = National Museums of Canada Bulletin No. 231, Folklore Series No. 7 | url = https://collections.museedelhistoire.ca/public/objects/common/webmedia.php%3Firn%3D5192506&ved=2ahUKEwjd3v6YrNDzAhWHXSsKHW8tCg8QFnoECAkQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2uboqpPg0K3gg_tBlPBkDz | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20230405010942/https://collections.museedelhistoire.ca/public/objects/common/webmedia.php?irn=5192506&ved=2ahUKEwjd3v6YrNDzAhWHXSsKHW8tCg8QFnoECAkQAQ&usg=AOvVaw2uboqpPg0K3gg_tBlPBkDz | archive-date = April 5, 2023 | format = PDF}}
• {{cite encyclopedia |year=1999 |author=Tarasoff, Koozma J. |editor=Paul Robert Magocsi |entry=Doukbhobors |pages=422–34 |title=Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=dbUuX0mnvQMC |publisher=University of Toronto Press |isbn=978-0-8020-2938-6}}
• {{Citation |title=Plakun Trava: The Doukhobors | first = Koozma J | last = Tarasoff}}
• {{Citation |publication-date=2006 |year=2002 |first=Koozma J. |last=Tarasoff |title=Spirit Wrestlers: Doukhobor Pioneers' Strategies for Living |chapter-url=http://www.spirit-wrestlers.com/excerpts/2006_Doukhobors_Overview.html |chapter=Overview |place=Ottawa |publisher=Legas |isbn=1-896031-12-9}}.
• {{Citation |title=Spirit Wrestlers: centennial papers in honour of Canada's Doukhobor Heritage |first1=Koozma J. |last1=Tarasoff |first2=Robert B. |last2=Klymasz |year=1995 |publisher=Canadian Museum of Civilization |isbn=0-660-14034-9|ref=Tarasoff2}}.
• {{cite journal|last=Thorsteinson |first=Elina |title=The Doukhobors in Canada |journal=Mississippi Valley Historical Review |date=1917 |volume=4 |number=1 |pages=3–48 |doi=10.2307/1886809 |jstor=1886809}}
• {{Citation | title = The Doukhobors | author1-link = George Woodcock | first1 = George | last1 = Woodcock | first2 = Ivan | last2 = Avakumovic}}.
• Makarova V. (2012). The use of Russian in contemporary Doukhobor prayer service. In: International scientific research Internet conference "Current issues in philology and methods of teaching foreign languages", February 1–29, 2012, Novosibirsk, Russia. Международнaя научно-практическая Интернет-конференция «Актуальные проблемы филологии и методики преподавания иностранных языков», 1 февраля - 29 февраля 2012 года; http://ffl.nspu.net/?p=144 {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121204154355/http://ffl.nspu.net/?p=144 |date=December 4, 2012}}
• Makarova V. A., Usenkova, E.V., Evdokimova, V.V. Evgrafova, K. V. (2011). The Language of Saskatchewan Doukhobors: Introduction to analysis. Izvestija Vysshix uchebnyx zavedenij [The News of Higher Schools]. Serija Gumanitarnyje nauki [Humanities]. Razdel Lingvistika [Linguistics section]. Vol 2 (2), pp. 146–151. http://www.isuct.ru/e-publ/gum/ru/2011/t02n02/philology-and-linguistics {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160316054943/https://www.isuct.ru/e-publ/gum/ru/2011/t02n02/philology-and-linguistics |date=March 16, 2016}}
• Schaarschmidt Gunter (University of Victoria, Canada) [http://www.inst.at/trans/15Nr/06_1/schaarschmidt.htm Four norms – one culture: Doukhobor Russian in Canada]
• Schaarschmidt, G. (2012). Russian language history in Canada. Doukhobor internal and external migrations: effects on language development and structure. In: V. Makarova (Ed), Russian Language Studies in North America: the New Perspectives from Theoretical and Applied Linguistics . London/New York: Anthem Press. pp. 235–260. www.anthempress.com

{{refbegin}}

• {{Citation | last = Burnham | first = Dorothy K | title = Unlike the Lilies: Doukhobor Textile Traditions in Canada | place = Toronto, Ontario, Canada | publisher = Royal Ontario Museum | year = 1986 | isbn = 0-88854-322-0}}.
• Cran, Gregory J. Negotiating Buck Naked: Doukhobors, Public Policy, and Conflict Resolution (UBC Press, 2006) 180 pp. deals only with the Sons of Freedom.
• {{Citation | last1 = Donskov | first1 = Andrew | first2 = John | last2 = Woodsworth | first3 = Chad | last3 = Gaffield | title = The Doukhobor Centenary in Canada: A Multi-Disciplinary Perspective on Their Unity and Diversity | type = proceedings of a conference held at the University of Ottawa, 22–24 October 1999 | place = Ottawa | publisher = Slavic Research Group at the University of Ottawa | year = 2000 | isbn = 0-88927-276-X}}.
• {{Citation | last = Holt | first = Simma | title = Terror in the Name of God: The story of the Sons of Freedom Doukhobors | publisher = McClelland & Stewart | place = Toronto/Montreal | year = 1964}}.
• {{Citation | last = Janzen | first = William | title = Limits on Liberty: The Experience of Mennonite, Hutterite, and Doukhobor Communities in Canada | place = Toronto; Buffalo | publisher = U of Toronto Press | year = 1990 | isbn = 0-8020-2731-8 | url = https://archive.org/details/limitsonlibertye0000janz}}.
• Kalmakoff, Jonathan. "The Hyas Doukhobour Settlement", Saskatchewan History (2007) 59#2 pp 27–34. covers 1902 to 1907.
• Livanov, Feodor Vasilyevich, [https://www.amazon.com/Early-Dukhabors-History-Practices-Persecutions/dp/1300342552 Early Dukhabors] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220219015127/https://www.amazon.com/Early-Dukhabors-History-Practices-Persecutions/dp/1300342552 |date=February 19, 2022}}, English translation by Daniel H. Shubin, 2021. {{ISBN|978-1-300-34255-7}}
• {{Citation |last=Makarova |first=V |year=2013 |title=Doukhobor nudism: exploring the socio-cultural roots. Culture and Religion}}.
• {{cite conference |mode=cs2 |last=Makarova |first=V |title=The use of Russian in contemporary Doukhobor prayer service |conference=International scientific research Internet conference |trans-title=Current issues in philology and methods of teaching foreign languages |date=February 1–29, 2012 |place=Novosibirsk, Russia |script-title=ru:Актуальные проблемы филологии и методики преподавания иностранных языков |url=http://ffl.nspu.net/?p=144 |author-mask=3 |access-date=June 18, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121204154355/http://ffl.nspu.net/?p=144 |archive-date=December 4, 2012 |url-status=live}}
• {{Citation | last1 = Makarova | first1 = VA | last2 = Usenkova | first2 = EV | last3 = Evdokimova | first3 = VV | last4 = Evgrafova | first4 = KV | year = 2011 | title = The Language of Saskatchewan Doukhobors: Introduction to analysis. Izvestija Vysshix uchebnyx zavedenij [The News of Higher Schools]. Serija Gumanitarnyje nauki [Humanities]. Razdel Lingvistika [Linguistics section] | volume = 2 | issue = 2 | pages = 146–51 | journal = Philology & Linguistics | publisher = ISUCT | place = RU | url = http://www.isuct.ru/e-publ/gum/ru/2011/t02n02/philology-and-linguistics | access-date = June 18, 2012 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160316054943/https://www.isuct.ru/e-publ/gum/ru/2011/t02n02/philology-and-linguistics | archive-date = March 16, 2016 | url-status = live}}.
• {{Citation | last = Maude | first = Aylmer | title = A Peculiar People: the Doukhobors | publisher = Constable, London | year = 1905}}.
• {{Citation | last = Mealing | first = Francis Mark | title = Doukhobor Life: A Survey of Doukhobor Religion, History, & Folklife | publisher = Kootenay Doukhobor Historical Society | year = 1975}}.
• Morrell, Kathy. "The Life of Peter P. Verigin." Saskatchewan History (2009) 61#1 pp 26–32. covers 1928 to 1939.
• {{Citation | last = O'Neail | first = Hazel | title = Doukhobor Daze | place = Surrey, BC | publisher = Heritage House | year = 1994 | isbn = 1-895811-22-8}}.
• {{Citation | last = Rak | first = Julie | title = Negotiated Memory: Doukhobor Autobiographical Discourse | place = Vancouver | publisher = UBC Press | year = 2004 | isbn = 0-7748-1030-0}}.
• Rozinkin, W. M. The Doukhobor Saga. [Nelson, B.C.: News Publishing Co.], 1974.
• Schaarschmidt, G. 2012. Russian language history in Canada. Doukhobor internal and external migrations: effects on language development and structure. In: V. Makarova (Ed), Russian Language Studies in North America: the New Perspectives from Theoretical and Applied Linguistics. London/New York: Anthem Press.pp 235–260. www.anthempress.com
• Sorokin, Stephan Sebastian, and Steve Lapshinoff. Doukhobor Problem. Crescent Valley, B.C.: Steve Lapshinoff, 1990.
• {{Citation | last = Tarasoff | first = Koozma J | title = Traditional Doukhobor Folkways: An Ethnographic and Biographic Record of Prescribed Behaviour | series = Mercury | place = Ottawa | publisher = National Museums of Canada | year = 1977}}.
• Tracie, Carl. Toil and Peaceful Life: Doukhobor Village Settlement in Saskatchewan, 1899–1918. Regina: Canadian Plains Research Center, University of Regina, 1996. {{ISBN|0-88977-100-6}}
• Union of Spiritual Communities of Christ. Hospitality: Vegetarian Cooking the Doukhobor Way. Grand Forks, B.C.: USCC Centennial Cookbook Committee, 2003. {{ISBN|0-9732514-0-9}}
• Woodsworth, John. Russian Roots and Canadian Wings: Russian Archival Documents on the Doukhobor Emigration to Canada. Canada/Russia series, v. 1. [Manotick, Ont.]: Penumbra Press, 1999. {{ISBN|0-921254-89-X}}
• {{cite web |url=https://thewalrus.ca/2008-06-society/ |title=How the Doukhobors brought democracy to the USSR |first=Christopher |last=Shulgan |date=June 12, 2008 |work=The Walrus |access-date=September 19, 2021 |archive-date=September 19, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210919013227/https://thewalrus.ca/2008-06-society/ |url-status=live}}

{{refend}}

{{Commons category|Doukhobors}}

{{EB1911 Poster|Doukhobors}}

• [http://www.usccdoukhobors.org/index.htm Union of Spiritual Communities of Christ (USCC) — Doukhobors]
• [http://www.doukhobor.org Doukhobor Heritage] - the oldest, largest and most comprehensive website about Doukhobors, by Jonathan Kalmakoff.
• [https://www.spirit-wrestlers.com/ Spirit-Wrestlers] extensive website and blog by Koozma J. Tarasoff, since 2004
• {{Citation |url=http://www.Doukhobor-Museum.org/ |title=Doukhobor Discovery Centre}}, Castlegar, British Columbia.
• "Explosion on the Kettle Valley Line: The Death of Peter Verigin", [https://www.canadianmysteries.ca/sites/verigin/home/indexen.html Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History]
• {{Citation |url=http://www.ivansysoev.com/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050403221806/http://www.ivansysoev.com/ |archive-date=April 3, 2005 |title=Ivan Sysoev}}, prolific and well-known Doukhobor poet and hymnist..
• {{Citation |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/the-doukhobors-arrive-in-canada-feature |title=The Doukhobors Arrive in Canada |date=2013 |publisher=The Canadian Encyclopedia |author=Stephen Azzi}}

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