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(1897) [MARC] Author: Jonas Jonsson Stadling Translator: Will Reason With: Gerda Tirén, Johan Tirén - Tema: Russia
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A Policy of Death.

123-

up by a third from the Minister of the Interior absolutely
forbidding any answer being sent. At the same time
Pobiedanostseff appropriated a sum of money devoted to
popular education and placed it in the hands of a "committee"
with purely arbitrary powers.

A sharp struggle is going on at the present time in Siberia,
where the Liberal party is somewhat stronger, between the
friends of education and the priests, but, of course, the
Government is siding with the latter.

One great and wide-reaching consequence of this
priest-ridden " education" is the ignorance and superstition in all
sanitary matters. Talk to a peasant about the connection
between dirt and disease, the destruction of forests and bad
seasons, and he will not understand what you are driving at.
For instance, I once told some peasants who were using dirty
water for drinking purposes, that they were drinking disease
and perhaps death. They simply gaped at me. Then I tried
them on another tack and said, " No doubt the famine and
the plague have fallen on you because you have neglected to
pray to God and the saints." " Yes, Lord have mercy upon
us," they cried in chorus, crossing themselves, "we have not
worshipped God and the saints devoutly enough; that is the
cause of all our troubles ! "

To the Orthodox famine and pestilence are not effects of
causes, but are sent by God or the devil either to punish or
torment them. To get rid of them one must first try redoubled
piety, prayers, cross processions in the field, pilgrimages, &c.
If that is no good they try the other shop, and consult their
sorcerers about means to pacify or outwit the powers of evil.
Many of these sorcerers are maintained by communities, and are
far more powerful than the priests. If neither piety nor black
magic is of use, there is nothing farther to be done. Any
precautions of man’s own devising are not only useless but
positively dangerous, since they may irritate still further God
or the devil who sent the plague upon the land.

Whether the authorities themselves really believe the same
things, or simply use the superstition as a means of holding
the peasants in deeper subjection, it is difficult to say. At any

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