Bahá’í World/Volume 27/Russia and the Bahá’í Faith

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[Page 155]

ESSAYS,

STATEMENTS,

PRSIEDILES

[Page 156][Page 157]Nancy Ackerman and Graham Hassall recount the historical connections binding the Bahá’í' Faith to C entral Asia and, specifically, to Russia.

RU 35th AND THE BAHA’I FAITH

A Historic Connection

0 ver the past decade, the world has watched with a mixture of fascination and dismay as the countries of the former Soviet Union have emerged from the yoke of totalitarian regimes, in most of which religion was either banned altogether 0r barely tolerated. Within those countries, the reaction which greeted the restoration of many religious communities was characterized at first by immense curiosity and excitement that was later replaced by a more wary skepticism. This article traces the historic relationship Of the Bahá’í community to the largest of these countries, Russia,1 which has enjoyed a special relationship to the Bahá’í Faith from the religion’s earliest beginnings in the mid-nineteenth century.

1. Both Russia before the October 1917 revolution and the Soviet Union from 1917—1991 included many territories which are new independent countries. Several of them are mentioned in this brief sketch, although the detailed history of the development of the Bahá’í communities in each of them has yet to be written.

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The record of Russia’s involvement has earned for her a rank in Bahá’í history enjoyed by only three other countries of the world.2 Her role in the early history of the new religion may be seen as an index of her spiritual and cultural potentialities. In 1852, alone among the nations of that day, Russia offered refuge to the Faith’s Founder, Baha’u’llah, when He was unjustly imprisoned; in the 1880s, a Russian court was the first to recognize the independent character of the Bahá’í Faith and to defend the rights of its persecuted believers; a number of Russia’s nineteenth and early twentieth century scholars and artists played a role in acquainting the West with the existence of the new religion; and it was under a Russian administration in Turkestan, in the first decade of the twentieth century, that the first Bahá’í House of Worship in the world was erected, and one of the most outstanding early Bahá’í communities enjoyed the freedom to develop.

Witnesses to the Persecution of Bahá’ís in Persia

It should not be surprising, given their proximity to Persia, the birthplace of the Bahá’í Faith, that Russia and its territories should have been among the first areas of the world to be informed about the new religion. The presence of representatives of the Russian government in Persia during the ministries of both the Bab and Baha’u’llah meant that Russian observers were witness to crucial early episodes of the community’s evolution.

In 1844, when the Bab declared His mission, the Russian legation was one of a very few European diplomatic missions in Teheran.3 One diplomat, Prince Dmitri Ivanovich Dolgorukov, Russian Minister to the Persian court from 1846 to 1854, was well aware of the commotion which the Bab’s teachings were creating in Persia as well as of the atrocities committed against followers of the new movement. Dolgorukov frequently included information about these historic events in his reports to his superiors in St. Petersburg.

2. The other three are Iran, the birthplace of the Faith, the Holy Land, where its Founders are buried and the spiritual and administrative headquarters of the Faith are located, and North America, because of its special role in the establishment of the Bahá’í pattern of administration.

3. For a list of Russian Ministers from 1839 to 1916, see Moojan Momen, The Bdbz’ and Bahá’í' Religions, 1844—1944, Some C ontemporarjy Western Accounts (Oxford: George Ronald, 1981), p. 483.

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Dolgorukov was apparently aware of the religious nature of the movement, but as he lacked firsthand knowledge of the teachings of either the Bab or, later, Baha’u’llah, his accounts are frequently distorted, as were almost all early accounts of the Faith written by outside observers in Iran. As one historian explained:

Until the time when, in the early years of the twentieth century, Bahá’í communities arose in the West and were able to publish accurate accounts of the new religion, it was rare to find an undistorted statement of its history and teachings, for the most part, because in the Persia of the latter half of the nineteenth century it was very difficult to obtain firsthand information about the religion. Severe persecutions had Virtually driven the movement underground; even the words “Bab” and “Bahá’í” could not be mentioned in public. Thus Westerners travelling or residing in Persia found it almost impossible to contact the Bahá’ís. . .the majority of writers were forced to borrow accounts from other writers. This resulted in fabrications and inaccuracies being perpetrat4ed and through much repetition becoming regarded as the truth.

Moved by a desire to avoid disturbances, real or imagined, within or near Russian territory, Dolgorukov made representations to the Shah asking that the Bab’s place of imprisonment be moved away from the borders of Russia. However, the interest of foreign observers in the new religious movement was growing and the Russian Consul in Tabríz was ordered by the Tsar Q1 icholas I) to obtain as much information as possible about the Bab and His followers. However, this instruction could not be carried out, as the Bab was executed in 1850. The Russian Consul in Tabríz, perhaps sensing the historic significance of this dramatic event, himself went to View the Bab’s remains as they lay in a moat outside the city, bringing along with him an artist, whom he commissioned to make a drawing of them. This sketch was apparently later sent to the court in St. Petersburg and may still be kept in historical archives.

It is clear from Dolgorukov’s later actions that he deplored the torture and gruesome public executions of the Babis. In 1852, when Baha’u’llah was sentenced to exile by the Shah of Persia,

4. Momen, The Bdbz’ and Bahá’í' Religions, p. 3.

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Prince Dolgorukov, who “left no stone unturned to establish the innocence of Baha’u’llah,”5 offered Him refuge on Russian territory and every assistance for His safe removal from Persia. Baha’u’llah chose instead exile to Iráq. On His three-month journey to Baghdad, He was accompanied, by order of Dolgorukov, by an official representing the Russian Legation.

While Bahá’u’lláh and His followers proceeded on their journey from Baghdad to Constantinople and Adrianople, and finally to the penal colony of Acre in Palestine, diplomats and orientalists continued to correspond on what they regarded as an intriguing contemporary religious movement. On rare occasions they even provided the Bahá’ís within Iran protection from the continuing persecution of the government and clergy.6

Russian diplomats, among others, continued to extend protection to Bahá’ís in later years, prior to the revolution of 1906. In Iṣfahán in 1903, Bahá’ís took refuge from mobs in the Russian Consulate, and the acting Consul, M. Voronovskii, petitioned the Persian authorities on their behalf.7 It was out of such humanitarian assistance to both Baha’u’llah and to the later Bahá’ís, that the accusation was made by religious authorities in Persia of “Russian support for the Bahá’ís.” In an irony of history, this same false chargebut more generally of “foreign support” was adopted by the later Soviet regime against its own Bahá’í community. When the Shah expressed his displeasure to Russian diplomats, blaming them for showing favoritism to the Bahá’ís, the official reply came that “the [Russian] government shows no favoritism to the Bahá’ís, but also does not persecute them.”

Growth of the Early Bahá’í Communities The teachings of the Bahá’í Faith spread into Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia, brought largely by travellers,8 pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land through Turkey, and by Persian Bahá’ís

5. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By (Wihnette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1970), p. 104.

6. For details and other instances, see Momen, The Bdbz’ and Bahá’í’ Religions, pp. 378—85.

7. Momen, The Bdbl' and Bahd ’I'Religions, pp. 376, 378—85.

8. See HM. Balyuzi, Eminent Bahá’ís in the Time ofBahd’u ’lláh (Oxford: George Ronald, 1985), p. 180.

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seeking refuge from the continuous persecution by the clergy and authorities in their homeland. By 1938, records show that Bahá’í Assemblies had been established in at least fourteen cities, including Moscow, Bukhara, Ashgabat, Tashkent, Baku and Tiflis, although some ceased to exist during the Soviet era. Smaller groups of Bahá’ís had formed in at least twenty-two other localities, including Orel, Leningrad, Samarkand, Erevan and Baturn. The most developed of these centers was, without doubt, Ashgabat, in what is today Turkmenistan.

In the 18805, the newly established city of Ashgabat became the administrative center of the Russian—administered Transcaspian District. The first Bahá’ís to settle there, in 1882, were refugees from Sabzivar who were escaping religious persecution in Persia. Baha’u’llah Himself encouraged Bahá’í settlement in Ashgabat,9 and within a short time some four to five hundred Bahá’ís had emigrated from Iran. By 1890 that number had reached one thousand. The Bahá’í community established a cemetery and constructed buildings for community functions; one eminent Bahá’í from Yazd, Haji Mirza Muhammad-Taqi, who had for some time been a commercial agent in Yazd, bought a large tract of land, a part of which Baha’u’llah requested be reserved for a Bahá’í House of Worship. Many of the Bahá’ís in the city were skilled masons and construction workers and so contributed not only to the construction of the Temple, but to the building of the rapidly growing city. In a relatively short period of time, they became known as hardworking, honest, and reliable.

In September 1889 an event occurred which was to be of great significance for members of the Bahá’í community and for the Russian government under which they lived. Imitating the killings of Bahá’ís in Persia, a group of Shi’ite Muslims residing in Ashgabat

9. The existence of this settlement in neighboring Russia may be connected to one of the favorite early charges against the Bahá’í Faith by its antagonists: that of supposed “favoritism” by foreign powers, first laid by the Faith’s enemies in Persia, and later imitated by other individuals and regimes. Bahá’ís were not favored by Russian authorities in the Romanov period, neither were they discriminated against. This neutrality of interest was quite possibly a major reason for Baha’u’llah’s encouragement for this settlement; cited in Momen, The Bde' and Bahá’í' Religions, pp. 299—300.

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murdered a prominent Bahá’í of the city, “stabbing him in 32 places, exposing his liver, lacerating his stomach and tearing open his breast,”10 in full View of a crowd of five hundred who cheered the murderers on. The Bahá’ís, with Mirza Abu’l-Fadl-i-Gulpaygani as spokesman, sought the protection of the authorities in the person of the governor, General Komarov, who gave orders to put down the disturbances caused by the attack and brought the ruffians to trial for the murder.

The reaction of the Bahá’ís must have been remarkably restrained, for Baha’u’llah Himself praised the actions of His followers, who refused to seek revenge, adding that “none of the faithful transgressed My commandment, nor raised his hand in resistance.”11

The trial took place in November 1890. Recognizing the distinctness of the Bahá’í religion, the judges at the trial required the Bahá’í and Muslim communities to sit in separate sections, with the Bahá’ís receiving full recognition as an independent religious community. The court’s verdict was death for two of the accused and Siberian exile and banishment for the rest. The Muslim community then begged the Bahá’ís to enter a plea for clemency. The Bahá’ís agreed to intercede, and their appeal for clemency came as a great surprise to the authorities.12 Over the protests of the defendants, who were apparently unwilling to be spared death on a plea by Bahá’ís, the sentences were commuted to Siberian exile. Russia thus became the first country whose legal system extended a measure of justice, recognition and protection to the followers of the Bahá’í religion.

This dramatic episode attracted the attention of Russian orientalist-academicians Baron Viktor Rosen and Captain Alexander Tumanskii, and its details appeared also in the correspondence of British diplomats of the period.13

In 1902, the Son of Baha’u’llah, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, gave instructions for the erection of a House of Worship in Ashgabat—the first in the

10. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, pp. 202—03.

11. Baha’u’llah, Epistle to the Son of the W01f(Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1986), p. 338.

12. See Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, pp. 202—03.

13. Momen, The Bdbz’ and Bahá’í' Religions, pp. 40—43.

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world—on land which had been reserved by Baha’u’llah. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Himself approved the design, and its final execution was carried out by a Russian architect named Volkov. The foundation stone was laid in November 1902, in the presence of General Subotich, the Military Governor of Transcaspia, who represented the Tsar at the ceremony.

Over the thirteen-year period between 1907 and 1920, before the completion of the dome, the exterior, and the interior, the temple was open for weekly prayers and Bahá’í holy day Observances. The stories of devotion and sacrifice entailed in its construction became legend: ordinary believers sold their most precious possessions; a

General Subotich, Military Governor of , Transcaspia, served ' as a representative of 7 the Bar at the laying offhefourzdation stone OfIhe Bahá’í 1 House of Worship in Ashgabat, November , 1902. "

T Lg’l’ 4‘ ‘E . '_- ‘

businessman committed his entire fortune; a widow in Persia lovingly offered half of the tiny daily sum she earned for herself and her children.14 Erection of this temple ranked as “one of the most brilliant and enduring achievements in the history of the first Bahá’í century.”15

Ashgabat was one of the first Bahá’í communities anywhere in the world to achieve a high level of social development. By 1918 the Bahá’ís had not only erected a House of Worship, but had also planted extensive gardens, had built a meeting hall, a pilgrim house, medical facilities and a cemetery, and were operating two elementary schools, one for girls and another for boys, as well as two kindergartens. These schools, open to Children of all religious backgrounds and giving special emphasis to the

14. Star OfIhe West, Vol. 13, No. 10 (January 1923), pp. 263—64. 15. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, p. 300.

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W" equal education of girls, elimi: 1. ‘ nated illiteracy within the Bahá’í j " community and contributed sig' nificantly to raising the general level of education among the surrounding population, of which only fifteen percent of males and Virtually no women could read and write. There were also libraries and a public reading room. The community published the first Bahá’í magazine on the Asian f continent, entitled @urshz’d—ifldvar (Sun offlze East). There were active Bahá’í youth societies, open to all irrespective of belief and engaging in social and [ humanitarian activities. Reflecting the fundamental Bahá’í teaching

1 _ ,7 1 1 WW 1 [ Entrance to the Bahd ’z'House

of Worship in Ashgabat.

of tolerance towards others, the Bahá’ís of Ashgabat showed respect for the traditions and customs of the local largely Muslim community, with which they enjoyed warm relations. In other centers where they were free to speak about their beliefs,16 Ashgabat’s Bahá’ís held open meetings where large numbers of people of various ethnic backgrounds could engage in Vigorous dialogue on spiritual matters. Many of the community’s younger members traveled to other cities and towns throughout the Caucasus and Central Asia to hold similar meetings with interested people of the region. And in the early years of the Revolution, Bahá’ís were active with others in the public defence of freedom of conscience which was coming under increasing attack by the authorities.

Thus, for its outstanding philanthropists, for the early growth and maturation of its Bahá’í institutions, the building of the first Bahá’í House of Worship in the Bahá’í world, the remarkable social and educational advancement of its members, the stimulation and promotion of youth and women’s activities, the initiation of Bahá’í publications, and for the contributions of leading Bahá’í

16. Reported in Star of the West, Vol. 14, No. 1 (February 1924), p. 346.

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scholars to the advancement of the society around them, Ashgabat, even in the early 19205, could indeed be considered a leading center of learning and intellectual life in the Bahá’í world.17

Elsewhere in the region, for example in Tashkent, the Bahá’ís undertook projects somewhat more modest in scale, such as opening libraries and language schools and publishing literature. The members of these communities supported themselves through honest work and trade, practicing their spiritual and social principles in complete freedom.

Although personal memoirs abound and much archival material remains, little has been published about the detailed Bahá’í history in Azerbaijian, Armenia, Georgia, and the countries of Central Asia. But there is ample documentation that by the time of the passing of Baha’u’llah in 1892, there were adherents not only throughout Persia, the Ottoman territories and as far east as India and Burma, but that the number of Bahá’ís was increasing throughout Asiatic Russia as well.18 In the 1880s Bahá’ís were living in Baku, Tbilisi, Yerevan, and other communities, where they also had greater freedom than in Persia itself. The Bahá’ís in these regions, while not possessing a House of Worship and its dependent institutions, established Bahá’í administrative bodies and maintained small facilities for publishing Bahá’í materials.

Russian and Soviet Literary Figures and Orientalists Along With the development of Bahá’í communities within Russia’s borders, knowledge of the Babi and Bahá’í religions spread in Russian-speaking intellectual, literary, and artistic Circles. This, in turn, resulted in research papers, voluminous correspondence discussing the new religious movement, translations of Bahá’í

17. For a detailed description of the Bahá’í community of Ashgabat, its history and achievements, see Moojan Momen, “The Bahá’í Community of Ashkhabad; its Social Basis and Importance in Bahá’í History,” in S. Akiner, ed., Cultural Change and Continuity in Central Asia (London: Kegan Paul International, 1991), pp. 278—305.

18. This documentation is found in early newsletters, correspondence from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, travelers’ accounts, historical literature such as Walter Kolarz’s Religion in the Soviet Union (London: Macmillan and Co., 1961) and in The Bahá’í World volumes for the relevant years.

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literature into Russian and other languages, and artistic interpretations of heroic episodes in Bahá’í history. All these efforts played an important part in spreading information about the religion throughout Europe as well as within Russia itself. The excellence of some of this work is remarkable when one remembers that most source material on the Bahá’í Faith during this early period originated with biased governments, antagonistic clergy and missionaries, inveterate enemies, and Western travelers who Viewed events in Iran through the prism of their own prejudices and misconceptions.

The distinction of being the first to have an entire book published on the Babi religion belongs to Mirza Aleksandr Kazem-Big, Professor of Persian Literature at the University of St. Petersburg from 1849 to 1860.19 His work Bab iBabz'dy appeared in 1865 and was printed one year later in French.20 Kazem-Big recounted the experience of a learned man (a siyyid, descendant of the Prophet Muhammad) who had become a Babi in Iráq and subsequently traveled in the Caucasus, attracting several individuals to the Faith. For this the Babi was arrested by the Russian government and exiled to Smolensk, as it was at that time against the law for Russian citizens to convert from Christianity.21 Kazem-Big appears also to have inspired a later F rench writer, de Bellecombe, to write an article about the great Babi heroine Táhirih.22

In 1869, after the young emissary named Badi’ was tortured and executed at the order of Nasiri’d-Din flah for having attempted to present him with a Tablet from Baha’u’llah, the document was acquired by Russian consular officials in Persia and sent to St. Petersburg, where the original is now preserved in the archives of the University’s Department of Oriental Studies. Through the

19. Mirza Aleksandr Kazem-Big, 1802—1870; Lecturer in Oriental Languages at Kazan University 1827—1844; Professor of Persian Literature, University of St. Petersburg 1849—1860; Dean, Faculty of Oriental Languages, University of St. Petersburg, which he helped found.

20. Published in Journal Asiatique, 1866, cited in Momen, The Bdbz' and Bahá’í Religions, p. 26.

21. See Momen, “The Bahá’í Community of Ashkhabad. ..,” p. 284.

22. A. de Bellecombe, “Une Reformatrice Contemporaine: La Belle Kourret oul Ain, ou La Lumiere des Yeux,” which appeared in L’Investigateur in 1870; cited in Momen, The Bdbz’ and Bahá’í' Religions, p. 27.

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diligence of Russian diplomats and the interest of contemporary scholars, notably M. Gamazov23 and Baron Viktor R. Rosen,24 the exact text of the letter conveyed by Badi’ to the Shah was preserved and widely circulated. It was Rosen who forwarded a catalogue containing Baha’u’llah’s Tablet to the Shah to the Cambridge orientalist Edward Granville Browne, one of the greatest early scholars of the Babi and Bahá’í Faiths, further contributing to the English scholar’s interest in the Babi movement. Browne was later to become one of very few Westerners ever to meet with Baha’u’llah.

Rosen also translated Bahá’u’lláh’s “Bigiarat” (“Glad-Tidings’’),25 among many other works,26 and supervised the preparation of Pervyi sbornik poslanii Babida Bekhaullakha, a collection of sixty-three Tablets by Baha’u’llah, which was published in 1908, after Rosen’s death, by the Oriental Department of the Russian Imperial University in St. Petersburg.

In the early 18908, Captain Alexander Tumanskii27 first learned of the Bahá’ís from a geography text he was studying during his officer’s course at the military Oriental Languages Training Section. When he learned of the murder of Haji Muhammad—Rida in Ashgabat and of the intervention of the Bahá’ís on behalf of the murderers, he was inspired to investigate their Faith more closely. Having received special permission to proceed to Transcaspia, he met the Bahá’ís of Ashgabat and, after studying the Faith more intensively, began to publish Bahá’í works, including the Arabic

23. Head of the Oriental Languages Section of the Asiatic Department of the Ministry for F oreign Affairs.

24. Baron Viktor Romanovich Rosen, 18494908; lecturer at the University of St. Petersburg, 1872; F ounder of the Oriental Section of the Imperial Russian Archaeological Society and Editor of the Notes of the Oriental Division of the Russian Imperial Archaeological Archives, 1886—1908.

25. “Blagiya Vesti,” Zapiski vostochnogo otdelenie russkogo imperatorskogo arkheologicheskogo obshchestvo, Vol.7, 1892, pp. 183—92.

26. See list in Momen, The Bdbz' and Bahá’í Religions, p. 42.

27. Captain Alexander G. Tumanskii, died 1920, soldier and orientalist; spent several years in Ashgabat, where he came into contact with some of the great early scholars of the Faith, including Mirza Abu’l-Fadl-i-Gulpéygani; after a number of missions into Persia, he taught Arabic in Tbilisi.

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text and a Russian translation of Baha’u’llah’s Kitab-i—Aqdas (Most Holy Book),28 with a forty—eight—pa e introduction, and the Kitab-i-Ahd (Book of the Covenant).2 These represented the first translations of these works into any foreign language. The former was first presented to the faculty of the History and Philology Department of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg in 1894. When Tumanskii Visited the Bahá’ís in Ashgabat again, one month after the passing of Baha’u’llah in 1892, he touchingly described their sadness on this occasion, the moving memorial ceremony and readings and even their warm hospitality and delicious refreshments.3O

Among the other noted orientalists in Russia who contributed descriptions of Babi and Bahá’í historical events was a German, Professor J ohann Albrecht Bernhard Dorn,31 Conservator of the Imperial Russian Library and Director of the Asiatic Museum in St. Petersburg in 1842. During his travels in Persia in 1860, he obtained firsthand accounts of the upheaval at Fort flayfl Tabarsi. In his assessment of these documents, he describes the intricacies of weighing the testimonies of those trying to exterminate the Babis and of the Victims themselves.

Professor V.A. Zhukovski not only wrote about the executions of a number of prominent Bahá’ís in Yazd,3’2 but also produced an important article33 about Consul F.A. Bakulin, the diplomat who served at the Russian missions in Astarabad and Tabríz at the time of the Bab’s execution.

In 1904, the Russian writer S.I. Umanets made an important contribution by refuting the allegation of contemporary Russian

28. “Kitabe Akdes,” Zapiski Akademii Nauk St. Petersburg, 8th ser., Vol. 3, No. 6, 1899.

29. “Poslednee slovo Bekha-ully,” Zapiski, Vol. 7, 1892, pp. 193—203.

30. “Poslednee slovo Bekha-ully,” pp. 1—3.

31. Johann Albrecht Bernhard Dom, German orientalist, 1805—1881, Professor of the History and Geography of Asia at the Oriental Institute at St. Petersburg in 1835.

32. “Nedavnya kazni babidov v gorode Ezde,” cited in Momen, The Bdbz’ and Bahá’í' Religions, p. 43.

33. “Rossiskii Imperatorskii Konsul FA. Bakulin v istorii izucheniya babizma, ” in Zapiski, Vol. 24 , 1916, pp. 33—90.

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Ivanov, whose 1939 thesis on m Bahaism [sic] at the University of “1:2.” . . -. :5! ! Leningrad relies on Wholly inao- {I V ’9 M W curate and antagoniStiC sources Title page of T umanskii s translation of and is couched in Marxist-Lenin— the Kitáb-i-Aqdas, the first foreign transist ideological terms. He dis- lation of Bahá’u’lláhsBook ofLaws. misses the Babi movement as an “uprising”——a characterization which, unfortunately, still persists in the work of some contemporary orientalists. Ivanov’s work does, however, contain the text of some important dispatches of Prince Dolgorukov.35

Perhaps the only exception to this record is Evgenii E. Bertels (1890—1957), Whose 1925 review of a work by a Bahá’í named Mirza ‘Abdu’l-Husayn Avarih36 contains an unusually concise and unprejudiced description of the Bahá’í Faith. A specialist in Persian language at the Oriental Institute in Moscow until his death in 1957 and a prolific author of works on Persian and Tadjik literature as well as an analysis of Sufism, Bertels writes With a combination of scholarly restraint and keen psychological insight about the motives of the enemies of the Bahá’í Faith, who were jealous of the

34. Cited in Momen, The Bdbz’ and Bahá’íReligions, p. 59.

35. Mikhail Sergeevich Ivanov, Babidskie vosstaniva v [rane 1848—1852, (Moscow: Akademia Nauk SSSR, 1939).

36. Evgenii E. Bertels, “A Bahá’í on the History of Babism,” in Vostok, Zhumal literatury, nauki i iskusstva, Vol. 5, 1925, pp. 202—07.

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rising authority and influence of Baha’u’llah and later of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and urges his colleagues to undertake a dispassionate and fair analysis of all sources.

A prominent member of the early Russian Bahá’í community was the St. Petersburg poet and playwright Isabella Grinevskaya, of the then fashionable Philosophical, Oriental and Biblical Society. In the early years of the twentieth century, already a poet of considerable reputation, she wrote two dramas based on episodes in the lives of the Bab and Baha’u’llah. With her keen interest in things Eastern, she had first learned of their teachings and about the dramatic early history of the Faith through the writings of Kazem-Big, Gamazov, and Tumanskii.

The first play in verse, entitled Bab: Dramaticheskaya poema iz istorii Persii (The Bab: A Dramatic Poem from the History of Persia), was published in 1903.37 The second was called Bekhaulla: Poema tragediia v stikhakh z'z istorii Persii (Baha’u’llah: A Tragic Poem in Verse from the History of Persia),38 published in 1912. Although the play about Baha’u’llah was never performed, the somewhat shorter drama about the Bab was staged in the Imperial Theater in St. Petersburg in 1904 and 1917, and later, in translation, in both London and Paris.

Not only did the performance itself cause a stir—the author being called out onto the stage after each act and showered with flowersbut the work also caused something of a sensation in literary and dramatic circles both in St. Petersburg and other Russian Cities, including Ashgabat. Dozens of newspapers and journals devoted lengthy articles to a detailed analysis of the style, subject matter, and dramatic presentation. Writers, playwrights, and critics wrote ecstatically about the “rare subject matter,” the author’s “originality,” “beauty and refinement of humanitarian thought,” and her “depth, seriousness and warmth of feeling,” calling it a “work of rare artistic beauty,” “the best play of the current season,” “deserving of the attention of Western as well as our own theatregoers and critics.”

37. Isabella Grinevskaya, Bab: Dramaticheskava poema iz istorii Persiz’ (St. Petersburg: Khudozhestvennoi Pechati, 1903), izd.2-e.

38. Isabella Grinevskaya, Bekha-ulla: Poema tragediia v stikhakh iz istorii Persii (St. Petersburg: I. G. Braude, 1912).

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One Professor Khakhanov, writing in the Russian News, after praising the author’s sensitive portrayal of a subject “foreign to her own culture and spirit,” predicted that “when the wider public becomes familiar with the teachings of the Bab, they will discover the means by which Christians and enlightened Muslims can reach out to each other.” Under the pseudonym “Homunculus,” another writer responded warmly to the universality of the subject matter: “In the message of this as yet unknown hero—coming as he does from an unfamiliar people—in this passionate idealist, there is yet something close and common to us all, perhaps because he sought to lead us to that which is true for all people.” In an Odessa newspaper, L.E. Obolenskii devoted a lengthy feature article to the play, in which he wrote: “I shall not speak about the idea of the play; but it is well able to raise the spirit of the reader or listener to such heights such as one rarely feels in recent times from literary or theatrical works.” Gabriel de Wesselitsky, president of the Foreign Press Association, writing in English, French, German, and Russian, described how he was “accosted by a lady who begged to present me with a book of poetry” and that when he finally read it, he was “at once struck by the rare combination of philosophical thought with a great power of expression, beauty of imagery and harmony of verse. I keenly felt the delight of reading a new great poem and of discovering a new first-rate poet. . .Amidst the sorrows of disastrous war. . .that book was my only happy impression, and it has remained since a permanent source of joy and comfort as a manifest proof of the Vitality of Russia and its creative genius.”39

In 1914, Grinevskaya attended a research conference dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the opening of the play and spoke of a somewhat different reaction to her work: “One very well-known professor told me that the name of my poem, “Bab,” is not suited to the Russian ear. I answered him that the names of people who teach the ideals of love and for which they have given their lives, should be suited to all who hear them. Noble ideals are so rare

39. All quotations are from Otzyvy pechatz' 0 dramaticheskoi poeme ‘Bab ’ Isabelly Grinevskoi (Reviews in the press of the dramatic poem ‘Bab’ by Isabella Grinevskaya), compiled by I. Sh. (St. Petersburg, 1910). (Translation NA.)

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these days, that it has been necessary to stage the play again, so as to reawaken the memory of these ideals. We, the people of the West, awaken to such things too slowly and yet we know that it is in the East that the sun rises.”40

Leo Tolstoy was reported to have given the play “The Bab” to one of his Visitors at Yasnaya Polyana for night-time reading,41 and himself wrote to Grinevskaya that he was delighted with the play, adding “I have known about the Babis for a long time and have a long—standing interest in their teachings: Because (Babism) has set aside the old superstitions and not substituted new ones which divide people. . .and because it strives to create one religion for all mankind. . .and has as its main goal the transformation of people’s world view, it has a great future: I wholeheartedly sympathize with Babism to the extent that it teaches people brotherhood and equality and the sacrifice of worldly life for the service of god (sie).”42

Her success brought Grinevskaya into contact with members of the Bahá’í community, the first of whom was ‘Ali-Akbar Nagjavani of Baku. Through these contacts, she received permission from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to Visit Him in Alexandria in 1911. Later she wrote a memoir of her two-week stay, describing it as “the realization of my secret wish, my most cherished dream, to see with my own eyes those people about whom I had written and who love all humankind. .. When I left Russia in December of 1910, I already had a draft of my manuscript for the poem ‘Baha’u’llah’ and my goal was to see the object of my dreams—to see Abdu’l-Bahá!” After her departure, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá wrote to Grinevskaya, praising her “services to the world of humanity” and expressing the hope that the seeds she was sowing would bear fruit. “Although the conditions may not be appropriate now,” He continued, “no doubt they will be in the future.”

Grinevskaya completed a five hundred-and-fifty page book about her meeting with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, entitled T ravels t0 the

40. The Bahá’í World, Vol. VI, p. 707.

41. The Bahá’í World, Vol. VI, p. 6.

42. L. N. Tolstoy, letter to Isabella A. Grinevskaya, in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii (PSS), Vol. 74 (Moscow, 1954), pp. 207—08.

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Land of the Sun. But the war intervened, and then the Revolution, and the book was never published. She also had the good fortune to meet Shoghi Effendi, with whom she corresponded devotedly for many years. Grinevskaya was the initiator of Bahá’í activities in Leningrad well into the 1930s.

Both Russia’s literary giants Ivan Turgenev43 and Leo Tolstoy knew of the Bahá’í Faith, but much more is known about the latter author’s longstanding interest. Tolstoy first heard about the Babis in 1894 from o.s. Leb- Isabella Grinevskaya edova. His correspondence and diaries over a span of sixteen years until his death in 1910 contain a number of references to his investigation of the Babi and Bahá’í teachings, prompted by his fascination with spiritual matters and his search for a religion based on reason. Tolstoy’s relationship to the Faith is only now becoming more clearly understood by contemporary researchers.44

With so few direct sources at his disposal, it is understandable that Tolstoy had difficulty differentiating the terms “Babi” and “Bahá’í.” Moreover, his own inner contradictions and philosophical attachments led him to make comments about the Faith ranging from high praise verging on personal commitment to outright dismissal, when he found it did not conform to certain of his own Cherished beliefs. In one letter he calls the Bahá’í Faith “the highest and purest form of religious teaching”45 and in another says that he

43. Turgenev, who was in Oxford in 1879 to receive an honorary degree, apparently mentioned the Faith “often” to the Countess of Wemyss, one of the European intellectuals who took an interest in the Bahá’í Faith following the publication of Count de Gobineau’s book Les Religions et les Philosophies dans L ’Asie Centrale in 1865. During his 1879 visit to Oxford, he conversed about the new religion to the head of Balliol College, Dr. Benjamin Jowett; Cited in Momen, The Bdbz’ and Bahd ’z’Religions, p. 52.

44. William P. Collins and Jan T. Jasion, “Lev Tolstoi and the Babi and Bahá’í Faiths, A Bibliography,” published in The Journal of Bahá’ístudies, Vol. 3, No. 3 (1991), Association for Bahá’í Studies, Ottawa, Canada.

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is “disenchanted with the teachings of Baha’u’llah.”46 Within one two-month period he extols the “ ure and lofty teachings of the disciple of the Bab—Baha’u’llah” 7 and then tells another correspondent that the more he becomes acquainted with the Bahá’í teachings, the less he “appreciates it.”48

In his corres ondence with a number of Bahá’ís as well as fellow investigators, 9 Tolstoy pursued an active discussion on many specific issues, such as the nature of God, patriotism, the station of the Messengers of God, the unity of religion and the relationship between reason and spirituality. He was spurred in his quest by the urgent conviction that a world religion was necessary for humanity, but one shorn of ritual and based on the individual search for truth. As he stated in his reply to the Persian Ambassador in Russia, who had sent him one of his own poems, entitled “Peace,” Tolstoy believed that “the cause of evil is selfishness and ignorance...ignorance of the true religion...I believe that everywhere, like the Babis in your homeland, Persia, there are people who profess the true religion and that, despite the persecutions to which they are always and everywhere subjected, their ideas will increasingly spread and triumph in the end over the barbarity and ferocity of governments. . .”50

One of the Bahá’ís who had the privilege of an interview with Tolstoy, describing it in minute and humorous detail, asked the famous author, at the end of their lengthy discussion, what his opinion was of Baha’u’llah, to which Tolstoy replied: “How couldI deny him?. . .Obviously this cause will conquer the whole world.

45. L. N. Tolstoy, Pisma (Fridun Khan Badalbekov), 1908, 12.28. PSS, Vol. 78, pp. 306—07; cited in Collins and Jasion, “Lev Tolstoi and the Babi and Bahá’í Faiths,” p. 7.

46. To Hippolyte Dreyfus, an early French Bahá’í, cited in Luigi Stendardo, Leo Tolstoy and the Bahá’í Faith (Oxford: George Ronald, 1985), p. 34. 47. L. N. Tolstoy, Pisma (Fedor Alekseevich Zheltov), 1909, 10.12, PSS, Vol. 80, pp. 138—39; cited in Collins and Jasion, “Lev Tolstoi and the Babi and

Bahá’í Faiths,” p. 2.

48. Letter to Naflijavam’; cited in Collins and Jasion, “Lev Tolstoi and the Babi and Bahá’í Faiths,” p. 2.

49. This correspondence is reviewed in detail by Stendardo, Leo Tolstoy and the Bahá’í Faith, chapters 3 and 4.

50. Stendardo, Leo Tolstoy and the Bahá’í Faith, pp. 20—21.

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I myself have already accepted Muhammad” and ended with the request, “Send me more writings.”5 1

Despite his own ambivalence, and because of his own stature among literary figures, Tolstoy can be credited, through this correspondence, with introducing a number of contemporary writers, philosophers, and fellow-seekers to the Bahá’í teachings. He is recorded as having received a number of books on the Bahá’í Faith, which he immediately read or sent to some of his correspondents who were also interested in religious subjects.

‘Abdu’l-Bahá was aware of Tolstoy’s interest and knowledge of the Faith and encouraging a number of Bahá’ís to contact him. ‘Ali-Akbar Nam avani from Baku, mentioned earlier, was one of those who entered into correspondence with him and sent him literature. In his reply to Nam avani,52 Tolstoy mentions that he was contemplating the publication of a book on the Babi-Bahá’í religion. Through another Bahá’í, Mirza Azizu’llah J athab of Khurásán, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá Himself sent a message to Tolstoy in which He said, “Act that your name may leave a good memory in the world of religion. Many philosophers have come, each one raising a flag, let us say five meters high. You have raised a flag ten meters high; immerse yourself in the ocean of unity, so that you may remain confirmed eternally.”53

Although never himself accepting the Faith, Tolstoy, toward the end of his life, came to the conclusion that the teachings of the Bab had found their fullest development in the works of Baha’u’llah, that they “present us with the highest and purest form of religious teaching,”54 and that “they are deep. I know of no other religion that is so deep.”55

Instead of seeing the range of Tolstoy’s commentaries about

51. Report of Mirza Azizu’llah Jadhdhab Qurasani in Stendardo, op. cit, p. 30.

52. L. N. Tolstoy, PSS, Vol. 80, p. 102; cited in Stendardo, Leo Tolstoy and the Bahá’í Faith, p. 50.

53. Cited in Stendardo, Leo Tolstoy and the Bahá’í.’ Faith, p. 30.

54. L. N. Tolstoy, Pisma, Fridum Khan Badalbekov, 1908.12.28, PSS, Vol. 78, pp. 306—07; cited in Stendardo, Leo Tolstoy and the Bahá’í Faith, p. 7.

55. D. P. Makovitskii, “U Tolstovo (With Tolstoy): 1904—1910..” Yasnopolyanskie zapiski (Notes from Yasnaya Polyana), Vol. 4 mauka, 1979), p. 255.

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the Bahá’í Faith in the context of his own individual spiritual search, antagonists of the Bahá’í Faith have tended to fasten on one or another of Tolstoy’s negative remarks to lend weight to their charges, just as its proponents and friends have emphasized his more admiring statements. But whatever case may be made for his own commitment, which we will never know, it is clear that his View of the Faith as “prophetic” and “profound,” and the span of his continuing involvement, indicate the depth of his fascination with the new religion.

Mention of Russia in the Bahá’í Writings Beginning during His exile in Adrianople, and continuing through His incarceration in the barracks in Acre, Baha’u’llah addressed majestic letters to the individual kings and rulers of mid-nineteenth century Europe and America, among them Tsar Alexander 11 of Russia. Baha’u’llah warns him, as He did the other sovereigns, not to ignore the Messenger of God and to arise with justice “in the name of this all—compelling Cause.” But in contrast to His powerfully-worded exhortations to the other rulers, Baha’u’llah begins His Tablet to the Tsar in a more intimate tone: “We, verily, have heard the thing for which thou didst supplicate thy Lord, whilst secretly communing with Him,” referring evidently to the Tsar’s earnest prayer for military Victory over the Ottomans. In another significant passage, Baha’u’llah warns him not to “barter away” the “sublime station” which God has ordained for him as a result of the magnanimous offer of refuge made by his “minister” (Dolgorukov) when Baha’u’llah was unjustly imprisoned.

The Bahá’í view of the explosive political and ideological ferment of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in which the early Bahá’í communities were growing, bears close examination because of the insight it offers into contemporary events. Although the overwhelming majority of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s writings and talks deal with explanations, interpretation, and the specific application of Bahá’í teachings and principles, He was deeply concerned about the cataclysmic changes that were taking place in Russian society and in her political thinking.

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ranging analysis of the historical events of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries sets them in the context both of Bahá’í teachings in general and Of Baha’u’llah’s stern warnings to the kings and rulers of His day and their responses to His communications. Shoghi Effendi observed with deep anxiety the impact of communism on religion and on the whole fabric of Russian (later Soviet) society.

In keeping with the universal nature and humanitarian goals of the Bahá’í teachings, Shoghi Effendi’s interpretation of events in both Tsarist Russia and the communist regime are unequivocal and consistent. He describes the later policies of Alexander 11 as “retrogressive,” proving “fatal to both himself and his dynasty” and causing widespread disillusionment, giving rise to nihilism, terrorism Of unexampled Violence, leading ultimately to the several attempts on his life, and culminating in his assassination.56

His successor, Alexander 111, is characterized as having “assumed an attitude of defiant hostility to innovators and liberals.”57 The continuation of his repressive policies “paved the way for a revolution which. . .swept away on a bloody tide the empire of the Tsars, brought in its wake war, disease and famine, and established a militant proletariat which massacred the nobility, persecuted the Clergy, drove away the intellectuals, disendowed the state religion. . .and extinguished the dynasty Of the Romanovs.”58

Outlining the progression of events that ultimately exploded in revolution, Shoghi Effendi wrote in 1944:

The tradition of unqualified absolutism, of extreme religious orthodoxy was maintained by the still more severe Nicolas H, the last of the Czars, who, guided by the counsels of a man Who was “the very incarnation of a narrow-minded, stiff—necked despotism,” and aided by a corrupt bureaucracy, and humiliated by the disastrous effects of a foreign war, increased the general discontent of the masses, both intellectuals and peasants. Driven for a time into subterranean Channels, and intensified by military

56. Shoghi Effendi, The Promised Day is Come (Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1941), p. 56.

57. Shoghi Effendi, Promised Day is Come, p. 57.

58. Shoghi Effendi, God Passes By, pp. 226—27.

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reverses, it exploded at last in the midst of the Great War, in the form of a Revolution which, in the principles it challenged, the institutions it subverted, and the havoc it wrought, has scarcely a parallel in modern history.

A great trembling seized and rocked the foundations of that country. The light of religion was dimmed. Ecclesiastical institutions of every denomination were swept away. The state religion was disendowed, persecuted, and abolished. A far-flung empire was dismembered. A militant, triumphant proletariat exiled the intellectuals, and plundered and massacred the nobility. Civil war and disease decimated a population, already in the throes of agony and despair. And, finally, the Chief Magistrate of a mighty dominion, together with his consort, and his family, and his dynasty, were swept into the vortex of this great convulsion, and perished.59

The decline of religion in society in general (and at the hands of the Revolution in particular) became one of Shoghi Effendi’s enduring themes, reflecting and emphasizing the importance of Baha’u’llah’s command to His followers to “uphold the cause of religion.”60 During the Second World War the Guardian wrote about the condition of religious institutions, deploring the “steady deterioration of their influence, the decline of their power, the damage to their prestige, the flouting of their authority. . .the relaxation of their discipline, the restriction of their press, the timidity of their leaders, the confusion in their ranks, the progressive confiscation of their properties...”61

He noted the “dechristianization Of the masses in many Christian countries” and held accountable the “forces which the Communist movement has unloosed, reinforced by the political consequences of the last war, accelerated by the excessive, the blind, the intolerant, and militant nationalism which is now convulsing the nations, and stimulated by the rising tide of materialism, irreligion, and paganism...”62

In a passage vividly describing the effects of these forces

59. Shoghi Effendi, Promised Day is Come, p. 57.

60. Baha’u’llah, Tablets of Bahd’u ’lláh Revealed after the Kitdb-i-Aqa’as (Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre, 1978), p. 63.

61. Shoghi Effendi, Promised Day is Come, p. 107.

62. Shoghi Effendi, Promised Day is Come, p. 108.

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throughout the world, Shoghi Effendi identifies the humiliation inflicted upon the religious institutions in Russia, the swift, conscious and organized assault launched against the Orthodox Church, the creed of “religious irreligion” which

precipitated the disestablishment of the state religion, that Inassacred a vast number of its members, ...thatpu11ed down, Closed or converted into museums, theatres and warehouses, thousands upon thousands of Churches, monasteries, synagogues and mosques, that stripped the church of its six and a half million acres of property, and sought, through its League of Militant Atheists and the promu1gation of a “five-year plan of godlessness,” to loosen from its foundations the religious life of the masses.63

F inally, in one of his most celebrated passages, the Guardian describes the communist creed, “Which, by its negation of God, His Laws and Principles, threatens to disrupt the foundations of human society,”64 and names it one of “those false idols, untruths and half—truths, which are obscuring its religions, corrupting its spiritual life, convulsing its political institutions, corroding its social fabric, and shattering its economic structure.”65

Speaking of religion as the source of true civilization, he says:

This Vital force is dying out, this mighty agency has been scorned, this radiant light obscured, this impregnable stronghold abandoned, this beauteous robe discarded. God Himself has indeed been dethroned from the hearts of men, and an idolatrous world passionately and Glamorously hails and worships the false gods Which its own idle fancies have fatuously created, and its misguided hands so impiously exalted. The chief idols in the desecrated temple of mankind are none other than the triple gods of Nationalism, Raeialism and Communism, at Whose altars governments and peoples, Whether democratic or tota1itarian, at peace or at war, of the East or of the West, Christian or Islamic, are, in various forms and in different degrees, now worshiping. Their high priests are the politicians and the worldly

63. Shoghi Effendi, Promised Day is Come, p. 108.

64. Shoghi Effendi, The World Order ofBahd’u ’lláh, 1st pocket ed. (Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1993), p. 31.

65. Shoghi Effendi, Promised Day is Come, p. 112.

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wise, the so-called sages of the age; their sacrifice, the flesh and blood of the slaughtered multitudes; their incantations outworn shibboleths and insidious and irreverent formulas; their incense, the smoke of anguish that ascends from the lacerated hearts of the bereaved, the maimed, and the homeless.

The theories and policies, so unsound, so pernicious, which deify the state and exalt the nation above mankind, which seek to subordinate the sister races of the world to one single race, which discriminate between the black and the white, and which tolerate the dominance of one privileged class over all othersthese are the dark, the false, and crooked doctrines for which any man or people who believes in them, or acts upon them,

musté6sooner or later, incur the wrath and chastisement of God.

From the October Revolution of 1917 to 1928

The overthrow of the Tsarist government by the communists and the consolidation of Bolshevik power at first had the effect of assisting the growth of the Bahá’í communities that were flourishing inside Russia’s borders, but eventually led to their subjugation. With the victory of the Bolshevik forces and the end of the civil war, the Bahá’ís throughout the country found themselves in a period of unprecedented freedom. The Faith had already expanded outside of the Persian ethnic community and had now been embraced by ethnic Russians, Tatars, and others. Active communities had been founded in both Petrograd—Leningrad and Moscow,67 the latter having a Local Spiritual Assembly.

In its early years, the new Soviet government did not interfere with the Bahá’í community or oppose its organization and meetings, despite the early “anti-religious” decrees which nationalized, without compensation, all land, including that of churches, prohibited religious instruction in state schools, and denied recognition of religious marriage and divorce. In 1922, the Soviet Union’s official gazette published an article stating that Bahá’ís were

66. Shoghi Effendi, Promised Day is Come, pp. 117—18.

67. Documentation, in both reports and photographs, of the early communities may be found in the volumes of The Bahá’í World and Star Ofthe West covering the years in question.

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turning the thoughts of Soviet youth away from Bolshevism and toward Bahá’í beliefs and suggesting that Bahá’í efforts be stopped. It was almost ten years, however, before the full impact of the communist regime’s opposition was felt by the Bahá’ís.68 The first indication came in 1926 when a Bahá’í Visited Moscow on a tour to speak to Bahá’í and public audiences about the religion. The speaker was summoned by an official of the political bureau (the State Political Directorate or G.P.U.—the political police that conducted state terrorism against those the Bolsheviks regarded as enemies) and directed to cease all Bahá’í meetings. The G.P.U. spokesman especially questioned why members of the public were attending. The Visitor explained that Bahá’í meetings are not secret and are open for all to inspect; therefore, the Soviet authorities should have nothing to fear about Bahá’ís holding any secret meetings. Moreover, he explained, the Bahá’ís are expressly forbidden by the principles of their Faith to interfere in political matters, nor do they allow anyone to speak against government affairs. The official, nevertheless, insisted that the public be prohibited from attending any Bahá’í meetings in Moscow. A few days later the police entered a Bahá’í home and confiscated a printing press that had been placed in this house, with government permission, in order to print Bahá’í books. Two people attending a Bahá’í meeting were also arrested and sentenced to prison terms of four years. Beginning in 1926, Bahá’ís of Iranian background were expelled from the country on the charge of belief in the Bahá’í religion. The systematic harassment and deprivation of the most basic rights of Bahá’ís throughout the territories under Soviet rule had begun in earnest. Meetings were broken up, and those attending were arrested and held for questioning. Prohibitions were placed on the raising of funds. Documents and books were confiscated by the G.P.U. Though the police found, after careful examination, that the Bahá’ís were not guilty of any subversive, anti—Soviet, or political

68. Walter Kolarz, in Religion in the Soviet Union (London: Macmillan,l96l), posits that what attracted the authorities’ attention was not the threat of the Bahá’í communities’ numerical strength, but the fact that the characteristic tolerance, broad-mindedness and internationalism of the members of the community contradicted the prevailing communist view that religion is an outmoded remnant of the past.

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activity, they nevertheless ordered that Bahá’í meetings not be held without police permission. Ironically, the meetings at which the Bahá’ís were arrested had been held only after such government permission had been obtained.

The printing press belonging to the local Bahá’í council in Ashgabat was confiscated. The magazine flurflz’d-i-fldvan printed in Ashgabat, was heavily censored and then finally suspended. Bahá’í mail, both incoming and outgoing, was confiscated, read, copied, and then sent on to the addressees. Agents sent by the G.P.U. to pose as inquirers at Bahá’í meetings would arrest the Bahá’ís for speaking about their religion with others.

In April 1928, after the election of Local Spiritual Assemblies in the Central Asian and Caucasian republics, the government unilaterally abrogated the Bahá’í Assemblies’ constitutions and substituted a text not in harmony with the responsibilities and functions of these councils as defined in the Bahá’í teachings. After lengthy negotiations and the rejection by both sides of clauses deemed unacceptable, a constitution was imposed that dissolved all Bahá’í committees, called for copies of all minutes and proceedings of meetings to be submitted to the authorities, and required that Bahá’í Children not be instructed in their religion until the age of eighteen.69 Bahá’í schools were proscribed and all Bahá’í teachers were gradually expelled and replaced, despite the fact that in the classes of the Bahá’í schools, in accordance with the requirements of the law, there was no religious content or instruction.

During the same year, the government issued an order that all synagogues, churches and other places of worship must be considered state property. Subsequently, after lengthy negotiations, the Bahá’ís were permitted only to “rent” their House of Worship from the state, for five-year periods, with the Bahá’í community forced to bear all the costs of upkeep and repair.70

69. The closure of Bahá’í schools in Ashgabat, Merv, and Qahqahih is described in detail, along with the effects on the general education in the area, in The Bahá’í World, Vol. V (1932—34), pp. 41—43.

70. In 1930 Shoghi Effendi called on the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada to appeal to the Soviet authorities, stressing the international character of the House of Worship in Ashgabat, but their efforts had no effect on Soviet policy.

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In February 1928, a devoted Bahá’í, Husayn Big Qudsi, who had corresponded with Shoghi Effendi and who in earlier years had taken the Bahá’í teachings to many parts of Russia, was arrested. In October, two members of the Ashgabat Local Assembly were also arrested and held for three months; another twenty—four Bahá’ís were detained the following July. One of these, Ashraf Big, was not heard of again and was presumed murdered; a further sixteen were released after six months. During the same period, Bahá’ís from Tashkent, Baku and Burda were either interrogated or imprisoned. Two believers from Baku were banished for three years to the Arctic Circle, while Aqa Ḥabíbu’lláh Bagirov of Tashkent was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment.71 Numerous other believers were deported to Iran.72

One might assume that under such oppressive conditions the Bahá’ís would simply dissemble their Faith or “go underground.” However, even in this Chaotic, unpredictable and unjust situation, the Bahá’ís were bound by the laws of their Faith, among which are non-involvement in politics (non-partisanship) and Civil obedience. In accordance with these principles, the Bahá’ís were required to be law-abiding citizens, to be trustworthy and obedient to the Civil authority of the country in which they lived, and to refrain from taking sides in or making statements on political matters. This principle applies even in situations where civil law restricts the observance of some aspect of the Faith, such as Bahá’í burial laws or the holding of the Nineteen Day F east, the regular monthly community meeting. Bahá’ís must abide by the requirements of civil law so long as it does not require them to Violate a fundamental spiritual principle. “Dissimulation,” or recantation under conditions of danger or pressure, is forbidden by the Bahá’í teachings as a Violation of the principle of honesty. A fundamental distinction is made between the legitimate rights of governments to set necessary regulations, to ensure order and administer justice

71. Letters from survivors of this persecution were reproduced in T he Bahá’í World, Vol. IV (1928—30).

72. The authors wish to express their grateful acknowledgement of the work of Feizullah Namdar in supplying valuable information covering the Soviet period.

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within their jurisdictions, and the realm of individual conscience.

In strict conformity with these principles, the Bahá’ís of the Soviet Union continued throughout this dark period to negotiate with the duly constituted local and national authorities for the right and permission to carry out their spiritual and humanitarian activities. When the authorities required that the Bahá’ís disband their administration and change the nature of meetings (or cease meeting altogether), the Bahá’ís obeyed the requirements of the law while seeking freedom, under the terms of the federal constitution, to function as a religious community. They abstained entirely from political activity and agitation, seeking redress instead through appeal to the legally constituted authorities. The Bahá’í representatives in Ashgabat, Moscow, and Baku, for example, explained the naturenof their organization and activities to these authorities, to no avail.

From 1928 to the Early 19608

Throughout what he called the “momentous convulsions” of the early 19205, Shoghi Effendi provided a steady stream of loving reassurance to the Bahá’ís that their patience and forbearance would ultimately “brighten the eyes of the faithful throughout the world.”74 He told the Bahá’ís of the world that in these disturbing current events there lay “mighty and consummate mysteries” which would be “revealed to men’s eyes in the days to come,” that Russia would in the future become a “delectable paradise,” and that the Bahá’í Faith would eventually continue to develop in that land “on an unprecedented scale.”75

With far—seeing confidence, he wrote in 1929 to the Bahá’ís of the West, that the persecuted Bahá’ís in Russia were possessed of a “hope that no earthly power can dim, and a resignation that is truly sublime” and that they had

73. Shoghi Effendi, letter to the Bahá’ís of the West, 1 January 1928; cited in Bahá’íAdministration: Selected Messages 1922-1932 (Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1974) , p. 160.

74. Shoghi Effendi, unpublished letter to the Bahá’ís of Ashgabat, 11 January 1923, quoted in a letter dated 21 November 1990 from the Universal House of Justice to a December 1990 Bahá’í conference in Moscow.

75. Shoghi Effendi, letter to the Bahá’ís of Ashgabat, 2 January 1930, Australian Bahá’í Bulletin (March, 1991), p. 4.

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committed the interests of their Cause t0 the keeping of that vigilant, that all—powerful Divine Deliverer, Who, they feel confident, will in time lift the veil that now obscures the Vision of their rulers, and reveal the nobility of aim, the innocence of purpose, the rectitude of conduct, and the humanitarian ideals that characterize the as yet small yet potentially powerful Bahá’í communities in every land and under every government.

But there were even darker days ahead. The Bahá’í communities continued to operate, insofar as possible under these oppressive conditions, maintaining the very limited organization of Assemblies in Ashgabat and in Baku. It was apparent, however, during the 19303, that plans were being laid to remove the Bahá’ís from these locations.

Official publications misrepresenting the Bahá’í Faith as a bourgeois, anti-socialist movement began to appear. The first, in 1930, was Bekhaizm~novaya religia vostoka (Bahaisrn—-New Religion of the East) by I. Darov, printed in Leningrad by the Oriental Institute, and “Bekhaizm,” by A. Arsharuni, printed in Bezbozhnik (the “Atheist” newsletter) in Moscow. Later, in 1938, the same Arsharuni wrote “Babizm—Istorichesky Ocherk” (an historical essay) for the journal Moskovskz‘i rabochiz' (The Moscow Worker). These pamphlets claimed, according to the authorized Marxist—Leninist interpretation, that Bahá’í beliefs represented a “bourgeois” ideology, adding the fantastic allegation that Bahá’ís claimed their own teachings as the “source of socialism” and were camouflaging themselves as socialists!77

The Small Soviet Encyclopaedia, published in 1933, repeated these same fabrications, adding an imaginative twist, to the effect that the “new religion” was a fashionable front in the fight against the ideas of socialism and communism.78

The years 1934—1936 saw a brief respite from government intimidation. Religious buildings could be leased by their owners, and the Bahá’ís came into full possession once more of the Ashgabat

76. Shoghi Effendi, letter to the Bahá’ís Of the West, 1 January 1929, in Bahá’í’ Administration, p. 162.

77. Kolarz, Religion in the Soviet Union, p. 471.

78.Smal[ Soviet Encyclopaedia, 1St ed., Vol. 1 (Moscow, 1933), p. 895; cited in Kolarz, Religion in the Soviet Union, p. 472.

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House of Worship, having first fulfilled the requirement that extensive repairs be made within six months. Assembly elections and public activities also resumed.

However, this unexpected moment of leniency by the Soviet regime came to an abrupt end in 1936 with fierce new attacks against the Bahá’ís. By February 1938, all members of the central council in Ashgabat and about five hundred other Bahá’ís had been arrested, and their books and Bahá’í records confiscated. All were detained on “political” charges of having “worked to the advantage of foreigners.” Those arrested were ordered to sign confessions, which they refused to do. Some five hundred believers, including some women, were imprisoned and sent to camps. From the fact that large numbers of the men were never heard from again and no trace of them could be found, it appears that many died. The overwhelming maj ority of their wives and Children were exiled to Iran.

Survivors of the period recount their experiences searching for those who disappeared. One such account tells of a promising young cellist at the Moscow Conservatory named Haji ‘Abdu’lRasfil Sarrafi, who was abducted from his residence. Years later, when his passport was finally discovered, it was learned from a fellow prison-eamp inmate who survived that, in an effort to force him to confess his “crimes,” his torrnentors, before killing him, had broken each one of his fingers.79

In order to petition authorities for official recognition, Soviet law required any religious community to have fifty members of over the age of eighteen, and so the imprisonment and deportation of such great numbers of Bahá’ís left the community depleted. The Bahá’í communities throughout the Soviet Union were, to all intents and purposes, reduced to remnants after 1938, and little is yet known of their fate. An October 1939 report in Bahá’í' News stated:

The National Assembly (of the Bahá’ís of the United States and Canada) has learned with deep grief of the sufferings of the Bahá’í communities in Turkestan (sic) and the Caucasus.

79. Private communication from Dr. Firuz Kazemzadeh.

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Some years ago their Assemblies and Committees were dissolved, as reported at that time, and their literature and records confiscated. At present many of the friends have been imprisoned, including women, and some have died in incarceration, while the majority have been deported to Iran, and a few to Siberia. Bahá’í activities and teaching are forbidden.80

In the post—World War 11 years, Bahá’í principles continued to be attacked in Soviet literature. The Large Soviet Encyclopaedia now charged the Bahá’ís with denying the principle of national independence and state sovereignty, of advocating the abolition of national boundaries and the creation of a “united world state.”81 In this article there appeared another novel invention, the charge that the Bahá’ís were supported by “British and American imperialists,” that they received support in the form of “foreign subsidies,” and, reflecting the political alliances Of the period, that “Bahaism” was an “instrument serving the spiritual disintegration of the peoples of the Middle East.”82

The House Of Worship in Ashgabat was seized in 1938 on the pretext of the Bahá’ís’ failure to maintain the building, whereupon it was used, for the next ten years, as a museum of cotton culture. The Violent earthquake of 1948 severely damaged the building, and yearly rains further weakened it. In the early 1960s, the Soviet authorities demolished the edifice and Cleared the site. Shortly after its establishment in April 1963, the Universal House of Justice appealed to the then Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, Nikita Khrushchev, to set aside as a public park the land on which the House of Worship had stood and to erect a suitable marker pointing out the significance of the site to the worldwide Bahá’í community. No reply was ever received, but the site is now a public park.

80. Bahá’í News, October 1939, p. 2. For a more detailed account of the situation of the Bahá’ís in the Caucasus and Russia, see the 1938—39 Annual Report of the National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Iran, reprinted in The Bahá’í World, V01. VIII (1938—40), p. 181.

81.Large Soviet Encyclopaedia, 2nd ed. (Moscow, 1950), Vol. V, p. 129.

82.N. A Kuznetsova, “K istorii izucheniya babizma i bekhaizma v Rossii,” Ocherkipo istorii russkogo vostokovedem'ya, V01. VI (1963), pp. 89—133.

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The Restoration of the Bahá’í Community in Russia While the Bahá’í communities inside Soviet Russia were being forcibly dispersed and repressed, the rest of the Bahá’í world, from the late 19405 until 1963, was engaged in a coordinated universal effort to bring the Bahá’í teachings to an increasing number of countries and to specific regions, cities and towns.

In his letters to the North American Bahá’ís written during the First World War, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá had mentioned Russia, Byelorussia, and Asiatic Russia among those regions to which he hoped Bahá’ís would travel to share the message of Baha’u’llah with those interested in learning more about it. During the ministry of Shoghi Effendi, and under his guidance, Bahá’í communities around the world continued systematically to implement ‘Abdu’l-Bahá’s “Divine Plan,” establishing new Local and National Spiritual Assemblies.

This worldwide undertaking required sustained and detailed planning and much sacrifice on the part of the members of existing Bahá’í communities and their administrative institutions, which were given specific international goals, and on the part of the individual “pioneers” who responded to this call and voluntarily settled in far—flung and remote parts of the world, thus opening new areas to the Bahá’í Faith and strengthening earlier beginnings.

With a Vision of world unity that transcended the limited political and socio-religious ideologies of the 19408 and 50s, as well as full confidence in the ultimate opening of the communist countries about which he had written with such clarity almost twenty years earlier, the Guardian included objectives within Soviet territory with the aim of establishing a nucleus, however small, in those republics and islands (all in Europe) where there were still no Bahá’ís. Because of the exceedingly precarious situation of the Bahá’ís living in countries under communist rule, their participation in this endeavor, deprived of all means of community sustenanceliterature, fellowship, institutions, communication—and in the face of every conceivable external threat, called for extraordinary courage.

By 1963, isolated centers had been reactivated in Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia, in addition to the five remaining centers in

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Turkmenia, as it was then known. Through the sacrificial efforts of the Persian Bahá’í community, centers were also strengthened in Kirgizia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

Despite the severe limitations placed on any religious activities during the period of the communist regime, opportunities to promote the Bahá’í teachings were nonetheless explored during the 1970s in various republics of the Soviet Union. With the assistance of the Bahá’í communities of Austria, Canada, F inland, Germany, Iran, Sweden, and the United States, Bahá’ís gradually returned to or settled in the Baltic States, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and the Ukraine.

The gradual relaxation of travel restrictions, beginning in the 19805, and the dismantling of communist rule made possible the strengthening of many Bahá’í communities throughout the Soviet Union. Citizens who identified themselves as Bahá’ís, some of them after decades of enforced silence, began to rebuild and form new communities, which then elected their Local Spiritual Assemblies.

The historic passage of the law on freedom of religion in August 1990 made possible the election of the first National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís Of the USSR in May 1991. The establishment of the new state boundaries of the Commonwealth of Independent States following the coup attempt of August 1991 resulted in the formation in spring 1992 of four new regional bodies to administer the religious affairs of the Bahá’ís: one in Russia, Georgia, and Armenia; a second in the three Baltic States; a third for Ukraine, Belarus, and Moldova; and a fourth in Central Asia. The fifth, a new National Assembly, was elected in Azerbaijan. In 1993, the Regional Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Russia, Georgia, and Armenia was duly registered under federal law as a recognized religious organization. It was in this year that all the members of this Spiritual Assembly participated for the first time in the International Bahá’í Convention, during which the Universal House of Justice is elected every five years. The next year, 1994, saw the inauguration of separate National Spiritual Assemblies in each of the Central Asian republics. Over the succeeding three years, as the number of local Bahá’í communities expanded sufficiently to permit the establishment of National Spiritual Assemblies, an additional four were elected in the remaining states of the former USSR, for a total of fifteen, which now take

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' The first National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the Soviet Union, elected in Apri11991.

their place alongside their sister National Assemblies in 164 other nations. What better witness to the promise, written by Shoghi Effendi, in 1923, that

There is no doubt that the day will come when the very people who are now engaged in destroying the foundations of faith in God and promoting this baseless doctrine of materialism will arise and, by their own hand, snuff out the flame of this commotion. They will sweep away the entire structure of their unrestrained godlessness and will arise with heart and soul, and with hitherto unmatched Vigor, to atone for their past failures. They will join the ranks of the followers of Baha’u’llah and arise to promote His Cause... If the friends remain steadfast. .. the veils of God’s inscrutable wisdom will be lifted and extraordinary events will be witnessed.83

In 1997, the Bahá’í community of Russia faced the challenging task of reregistering its National Spiritual Assembly after the passage of a new law on “Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations,” which replaced the law of 1990. In J anuary 1999, the Bahá’í community was accorded the status of a centralized religious organization, providing a continuation of the legal framework for the registration of its now fifty Local Spiritual Assemblies. At the time of this printing, there are approximately 3,500 Bahá’ís living in more than 330 localities across Russia, from

83. Shoghi Effendi, letter to the Bahá’ís Of Ashgabat, 11 January 1923; cited in the Australian Baha'r’z’ Bulletin, March 1991, p.3.

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the far east in Kamchatka, throughout the vast reaches of Siberia, to the southern regions of the Caucasus, t0 the North Sea in the Murmansk region.84 Almost ,, sixty-three percent of the ”7"” Bahá’ís of Russia are WOmen and a wide variety of Russia’s ethnic groups are ‘ currently represented in the Several members of'the Bahá’í community of

community’s membership. :ijf 31193"? 7196126193; W211”! gOZfrifngentl ' - 0 [Cl 5, 0r ‘ V m ) An 1nterest1ng feature of a S ya er 8 559 J S ega

re-registration in January 1999. its present growth (approximately siX-and-a-half percent per year) is the fact that more than fifty-five percent of the Bahá’í population is situated in the Asian part of the country, Which represents more than seventy—five percent of its overall land mass but less than twenty percent of its entire population.

Gradually, the inherent cultural diversity of these national communities is becoming more and more apparent, as they each address in their own unique ways the major challenges of community development: the moral development of all its individual members, the strengthening of family life, the recognition and promotion of human rights and responsibilities, the implementation of the principle of equality of women and men, new processes of community decision-making and problem-solving, and the application of such spiritual principles as justice, trustworthiness and moderation to economics, agriculture and environmental protection.

The opening up of the Whole of Eastern Europe and Asia to communication with the wider world provides an unprecedented challenge to reinvigorate the spiritual life of Russia, with her rich diversity of peoples and cultures. Human sensitivity, responsiveness, concern for the common weal—such are the values cherished by many of her great thinkers, such as Berdyaev, Solovyev, BulgakOV,

84. It is estimated that fifteen thousand Bahá’ís live in all countries of the former USSR.

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Florensky, Leontiev, and others, whose works, long hidden, are taking their rightful place alongside the more familiar classics. The return of such spiritual values at the core of education and development will, no doubt, enable the peoples of Russia to make unique and long-awaited contributions not only to the rebuilding of this great nation, but also to the establishment of a global civilization.

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