REFUSING TO HYPHENATE: DOUKHOBOR AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL DISCOURSE By JULIE RAK, M.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School ofGraduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment ofthe Requirements for the Degree Doctorate McMaster University © Copyright by Julie Rak, June 1998 DOCTORATE (1998) (English) McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario TITLE: Refusing to Hyphenate: Doukhobor Autobiographical Discourse AUTHOR: Julie Rak, B.A. (McMaster University), M.A. (Carleton University) SUPERVISOR: Professor Lorraine M. York NUMBER OF PAGES: vi,256 (ii) Abstract My thesis, Refusing to Hyphenate: Doukhobor Autobiographical Discourse brings together recent theories ofautobiography with a consideration ofalternative autobiographical writing and speaking made by a Russian-speaking migrant group, the Doukhobors ofCanada. The situation ofthe Doukhobors is ideal for a consideration of alternate autobiographical forms, since Doukhobors have fallen outside liberal democratic discourses ofCanadian nationalism, land use and religion ever since their arrival in Canada in 1899. They have turned to alternate strategies to retell their own histories against the grain ofthe sensationalist image ofDoukhobors propagated by government commissions and by the Canadian media. My study is the first to recover archived autobiographical material by Doukhobors for analysis. It also breaks new ground by linking new developments in autobiography theory with other developments in diaspora theory, orality and literacy and theories ofperformativity, as well as criticism that takes issues about identity and its relationship to power into account. When they had to partially assimilate by the 1950s, some Doukhobors made autobiographical writings, translations and recordings that included interviews, older autobiographical accounts and oral histories about their identity as a migratory, persecuted people who resist State control. Others recorded their protests against the British Columbian government from the 1930s to the 1960s in collective prison diaries and legal documents. My selections from these writings, interviews and recordings indicate how some Doukhobors use aspects, but not immediately recognizable forms, of autobiographical discourse to engage dominant ideas about nation, property, literacy and bourgeois citizenship which have threatened to erase Doukhobor communities. These strategies combine aspects of "classic" autobiography and Doukhobor ways to remember and recollect which reclaim Doukhobor identities as plural and situated in a Canadian context, but not connected to Canadian identity by a hyphen that keeps Doukhobors forever separate. (iii) Acknowledgements I am glad to say that my list ofacknowledgements for this project is long. I am very conscious ofproducing this work standing, as it were, on the shoulders ofmany people whose encouragement, example, and sometimes collaborative effort have made it possible for me to do this work at all. Here, I am glad to acknowledge the people from many communities who have made my work possible, and who have contributed in so many ways to my growth as a person and as a scholar. This project has been made possible by a grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council, a translation grant from the McMaster University School ofGraduate Studies and a travel research grant awarded by McMaster University's Department of English. I would like to thank Lorraine York, who has been much more than a supervisor to me, for her excellent direction, her lively intellect, her mentorship, her sense ofhumour, her generosity and her encouragement at every stage ofthis project. I would also like to thank the other members ofmy thesis committee, Daniel Coleman and Nina Kolesnikoff, for their intelligent critique, encouragement and enthusiasm. I gratefully acknowledge the intellectual feedback ofSylvia Bowerbank, Susie O'Brien and Caroline Sin. Special thanks must go to Jack MacIntosh ofSpecial Collections at the University ofBritish Columbia Library for his invaluable assistance. I also thank want to thank Koozma Tarasoff, Jim PopoffofIskra, Mike Chemenkoff, Steve Lapshinoff, Vi Plotnikoffand Jim Kolesnikoffwho have provided me with much valuable information, assistance and encouragement at key stages in my research. I would also like to thank all ofmy translators: Elena Ilina who translated material from A.M. Bodianskii's collection and A. Efanow's diary, Jim Kolesnikoffwho translated all the oral narratives I included and read manuscripts with me, and Carol Theal who translated material from the Agassiz diary. With gratitude, I acknowledge the members ofHughson Street Baptist Church in Hamilton, Ontario, their prayers and their support ofme while I wrote the thesis. I particularly wish to thank my pastor Rev. Dwayne Cline, the worship band and the youth ofHughson Street who have helped to keep me grounded in the things that matter and remind me always ofthe joy to be found in daily life. I thank all ofmy friends in the McMaster University Department ofEnglish for their suggestions and laughter, especially when I needed both. And I thank my immediate family: my dad, my mom, my brother, my parents-in-law, my brother-in-law and sisters-in-law for their love and encouragement especially during these last four years. I especially thank my dear husband Miro who has provided wisdom, love, laughter and tangible support ofmany kinds so that I could do this work. Ja ti miluju Miro. And most ofall, I thank God, who gives me far more than I ask or imagine, for everything. Slava Bohu! (iv) Table of Contents Title Page . Descriptive Note.............................................................................................................. 11 Abstract.......................................................................................................................... 111 Acknowledgements.. IV Table of Contents............................................................................................................. v List ofIllustrations....................................... VI Preface............................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter One: Beyond auto-bio-graphe: Alternative Autobiographical Discourse 14 Notes to Chapter One.................................................................. 64 Chapter Two: Doukhobor Historical Background.................... 65 Notes to Chapter Two................................................................. 94 Chapter Three: Vechnaya Pamyat in the Diaspora: Community Meanings ofHistory and Migration 96 Notes to Chapter Three.............................................................. 142 Chapter Four: Negotiating Identity: Oral Narratives by Doukhobors 145 Notes to Chapter Four............................................................... 194 Chapter Five: Witness, Negotiation, Performance: Freedomite Autobiography 197 Notes to Chapter Five................................................................ 239 Conclusion: Future Directions....................................................................... 241 Notes to Conclusion................................................................... 245 Works Cited. 246 (v) List ofIllustrations Page fig. 1 Frontier College English-language class (date). Photograph. 2 Jean Bruce, The Last Best West (Toronto; Montreal; Winnipeg; Vancouver: Fitzhenry & Whiteside), 1976: 127. fig. 2 Untitled photograph. Simma Holt, Terror in the Name ofGod: 201 the Story ofthe Sons ofFreedom Doukhobors (Toronto; Montreal: McClelland and Stewart Ltd.), 1964: n.p. (vi) 1 Preface Q. Is it possible for one person to save another? A. Ifthe other person listens, it is possible. --Psalm 12, The Living Book In Jean Bruce's The Last Best West there is a photograph ofan English literacy class run by Frontier College for immigrant railway workers (Fig. 1), a photo in which Doukhobor workers would never appear. In the photograph, the workers sit at a table in a classroom. Their teacher stands at the head ofthe table. To his left, under a British flag a large sign reads: "Our motto/No hyphenated Canadians." The meaning ofthe motto is clear. Immigrants taking classes at Frontier College were expected to learn English in order to become Canadian. To be Canadian, as the position ofthe flag indicates, was to be a subject ofthe British empire. There were to be no Ukrainian-Canadians, no German- Canadians, no Hungarian-Canadians in this version ofCanada. As quoted in J.S. Woodsworth's Strangers Within Our Gates, "ignorance ofour language is a barrier that largely isolates those people from us and our institutions" (197). "Our" institutions were interpreted by Conservative opponents ofmass migration (not by Woodsworth and his supporters) as British institutions which support the British empire. The purpose of choosing "the right" people for Canada, for these people, clearly involved an anxious desire to direct the path from Woodsworth's "gates" to assimilation through institutional acceptance--in this case, by means oflanguage instruction. Hyphenation, the creation of 2 Fig. 1 Immigrants at a Frontier College literacy class Jean Bruce, The Last Best West 3 an "impure" national identity, would disrupt this process ofidentity acquisition. The Doukhobors also did not want to become hyphenated Canadians, but their reasons were quite different from those ofthe Frontier College slogan. As a Russian sectarian migrant group who arrived in Canada in 1899, the Doukhobors refused all such friendly offers ofassimilation,