“To Avoid Ethnic Hatred to Local Finns”: Organization of Spiritual Charity of Lutherans of Yenisei Province in the Second Half of the 19th Century

In the article, the author researches the creation in 1863 and reorganization in the early 1880s of the Lutheran parish in Yenisei Province. Until the end of the 19th century, the Lutheran population of the region was mainly replenished due to criminal exile. The exiled were placed in three colonies purposely established in the 1850s in the south of the province: Verkhniy Suetuk, Nizhnyaya Bulanka, Verkhnyaya Bulanka. Finns and Estonians lived in the first, Estonians in the second, and Latvians and Germans in the third. The author draws attention to the fact that this demarcation of the Lutheran population on a national basis was an initiative of the exiled themselves. The author identified the actors who participated in the creation and reorganization of the parishes: the administration of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Russia, the authorities of the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland, the central imperial authorities, Siberian authorities, the population of the Lutheran colonies of Yenisei Province, the public in the Baltic states and Finland. Finnish authorities advocated the creation of a national parish, only for the Finnish population. Other actors proposed to organize a territorial parish for all Lutherans of the province. The second approach prevailed in 1863: the Lutheran pastor appointed to Verkhniy Suetuk was to guide all Lutherans of Yenisei Province. At the turn of the 1880s, the incapacity of this system became clear: residents of Verkhnyaya Bulanka and Nizhnyaya Bulanka were virtually without the care of a pastor because the latter did not know the languages of their inhabitants (Latvian and Estonian), and they did not know Finnish. This situation led to the revision of the decree of 1863, which resulted in decisions to transfer the center of the parish to Nizhnyaya Bulanka, to impose an obligation of knowing Estonian and Latvian on the future pastor, and to create a new parish with the center in Omsk exclusively for the Finnish population. The author suggests calling this Lutheran parish extraterritorially national because, on the one hand, it was intended only for the Finnish population; on the other, its territory did not coincide with any administrative-territorial formation in Siberia. Besides state structures, the population of the colonies and inhabitants of the Baltic states, who raised money to organize a new parish, participated in the reorganization of the spiritual life of Lutherans in the late 1870s. The Finnish public's participation was not direct; however, the author of the article cites facts of organizing assistance to Siberian Finns from their compatriots. The author evaluates the system created as a result of the reorganization as effective: despite a number of conflict situations between the parishioners of the two parishes, the question of its reform was not raised. The author evaluates the imperial policy regarding the Lutheran population of Yenisei Province (of both Siberian and central authorities, as well as the administration of the Evangelical Lutheran Church) as flexible, able to take into account spiritual needs.

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