- Project Runeberg -  In the Land of Tolstoi /
210

(1897) [MARC] Author: Jonas Jonsson Stadling Translator: Will Reason With: Gerda Tirén, Johan Tirén - Tema: Russia
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thing—he would sooner let himself be killed than speak a
word.’

“Eight days later he was sentenced. To the end nothing of
consequence had been brought against him. The whole trouble
was this: An unknown man was found in the market-place of
a little village by the village constable. Since he could get no
answer to the questions he put to him, he brought him before
the commissary, where he was searched and found to be
without a passport. Refusing to give his name and occupation, he
was treated according to Russian law as a vagabond, and handed
over to justice. Despite all admonitions from the President of
the Court he remained dumb, and although nothing else was
brought against him but that he had no passport and would
not speak, the Court was compelled to banish him to Eastern
Siberia. In silence and deep calm he heard his sentence. Not
a muscle moved in his face. ‘Remove the prisoner,’ cried the
President. The sectary, maintaining continuously his
expression of tranquillity and indifference, bowed himself to the judge
and followed the warder.”

Sometimes these “dumb” are found in large groups, but
they mostly lead an isolated life in the remotest forests or on
the distant steppes.

Still further advanced on the road of fanaticism are the
Prugoni (Dancers) and Chlisti (Flagellators). The former
believe in the descent of the Holy Spirit upon man, which only
takes place as far as the majority are concerned during their
religious assemblies, when by the exercise of dancing and
prayer a sufficient degree of ecstasy has been induced. Still,
there are two or three persons in each group who are believed
to be continuously inspired. One great point in the doctrine of
the founder of this sect was that the end of the world was at
hand, so that all who would be saved must purify themselves by
repentance, confession, ascetism, and the religious exercises
above mentioned.

But it is among the Chlisti that this kind of fanaticism
attains its most interesting development. A peasant named
Danilo Filipovitch, an unusually pious man, of the province of
Kostroma, gave the initial impulse to this sect. For many

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