6

ARTICLES

As the Year 1900 Drew Near_

Linda Ivanits, Penn State University

Almost ten years ago when I was working in the Tenishev Archive in what was then the

Museum of Ethnography of the Peoples of the USSR in Leningrad, I stumbled on several files that

reported rumors of the end of the world. 1 Though I was working on a different subject, I found these

reports highly cmious and jotted down a few notes for each of them. All were from 1899; evidently

many peasants feared that the advent of a new centmy would bring the worst. In view of rumors now

circulating about the approaching millenium, I thought might be fun to take another look at these

reports from the Russian counttyside of exactly a centmy ago.

Correspondent V. Beliaev of Penza Province (Gorodishchensk District) reported

rumors that rocks would soon fall from the sky and signal the end of the earth. Some peasants were

strongly under the influence of these nimors; some were not.2 More elaborate information comes

from Iaroslavl, Saratov, and Novgorod Provinces.

A. Balov, a correspondent the Danilovsk District of in Iaroslavl Province, wrote that

many peasants expected the world to end either November 4th or 13th, 1899. Some believed that a

star with a tail would appear and bum up the earth (zemlia); and some said that the earth (zemlia)

would be destroyed but that the world (mir) would continue to exist. Other peasants thought that a

fiery rain would fall upon the earth and destroy it "as was predicted in Holy Scripture." Rumors of

one sort or another were pervasive throughout the district where Balov was working. He noted that

some peasants of this region were familiar with the Apocalypse and that a large number were under

the influence of a brochure translated from Polish entitled "The End of the World" ("Konets mird'),

whose cover pictured a globe with a comet flying toward it. In addition, he attributed some of the

rumors to pilgrims who, he believed. were always ready to tell terrifying stories for food and drink.

Even so, some peasants reacted skeptically: they either cited the Gospels ("But regarding the day and

the hour ...only the Heavenly Father knows"), argued that the Antichrist had not yet appeared. as he

must before the end of the world, or simply pointed out that all past rumors of this sort had proved

false. Those who expected the end of the world spent the nights of November 4th and 13th in prayer

before the icons while the more skeptical peasants mocked them. Balov added that more women than

men tended to believe these stories.3

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Particularly colorful accounts came from the provinces of Samtov and Novgorod.

Correspondent N. Denisov, a teacher in the village ofBobylevka in the Balashovsk District of

Saratov Province, attributed a good deal ofhis village's fear of the end of the world to an old spinster

called "Mother Anis'ia" Mother Anis'ia lived in a in a cell dug into the earth; her walls were covered

with icons and holy pictures. Though she had a good deal of money, she chose to remain there rather

than build a better hut because she interpreted the Gospel passage saying"W oe to those living on

earth" to mean that the Antichrist would have dominion over everything and everyone on the face of

the earth, but those living in the earth could be saved. Denisov noted that she profited considerably

from the superstitious villagers. Hearing rumors that rocks would fall from the skies and that the

village of Bobylevka would collapse into the earth, peasants went to Mother Anis'ia for instruction.

She told them to bring her offerings and added that she could not answer for what they had brought

her previously. These earlier gifts, she claimed, had been sent to Mount Athos, but the monks had

returned them with the message that they could not accept them because the end of the world was

near. So, she said, she sent them to Jerusalem, but was not sure they would be accepted since she had

received word from there that they did not have long to live: bronze gates which had never been

opened had opened of their own accord and no one could shut them. People continued to bring

offerings of gifts and money to Mother Anis'ia

On November 14th there were processions of peasants praying and singing hymns. Some of

them entered a chmch where, by chance, a forty-day memorial service was in progress. The priest,

amazed at the large number of people who wanted to go to confession and communion, was unable to

persuade them that the end of the world was not imminent. After the liturgy the religious procession

continued on its way. One peasant, who happened to be retmning to the village at 11:00 p.m. on a

night when the end of the world was expected, noticed that there were lights in many huts and that

people were sitting around in clean shirts doing nothing. When he tried to convince his own family to

go to bed, his wife became angry at his lack of fear, and he was forced to spend the night with a

neighbor. Another person, who believed the end was at hand, attempted to dig a well in his basement

so that when the Antichrist placed all the water under his power, he would have something with which

to quench his thirst.4

Working in the Cherepovetsk District ofNovgorod Province correspondent E.

Antipov also encountered rumors of the end of the world, which the Novgorod peasants, like those

from Saratov and Iaroslavl Provinces expected to come November 13/14 1899. Peasants prepared for

the end by praying, fasting, and going to confession and communion; many spent the night of

7

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8

November 13th in church. When nuns from a local monastery panicked, a St. Petersburg abbess

attempted to send them the reassurance of Fr. John of Krondstadt who insisted that the rumors were

unfounded and that "anyone who believed in empty talk must be an empty person." The nuns

continued to fear the worst, especially when the peasants started lighting bonfires in the woods.

Many of the peasants expected that the world would end when a comet or planet

collided with the earth (in this file the peasants use the terms kometa and planeta interchangeably). A

good deal of talk centered on the Antichrist who, they believed, would come and reign for three and a

half years before the end; peasants reasoned that "every person who did not want to die from hunger

of thirst would have to go over to the Antichrist. Only he would be able to give bread and water. It

would not be possible any more to find food and drink anywhere else; Christian blood would flow in

rivers and lakes instead of water. "

All sorts of strange explanations were given for why the comet or planet did not

collide with earth. Some suggested that the planet had fallen into the sea and had caused many ships

and people to drown; in the place where the planet had fallen an island had formed, and from this

island war would break out But all rulers of the earth wanted to possess this island because from time

to time the Lord would send his angel to inform people about the will of God. Some claimed that the

planet had fallen into a swamp and a mountain had formed on which devils from all ends of the earth

had gathered. Here the Antichrist would make his appearance. Peasants from the village of

Stepanova heard a terrible sound on November 13/14. They interpreted this to mean that a comet

(planet a) had collided with earth, but that the earth was stronger and only a little piece had broken off

while the comet had shattered. One piece, supposedly, was in "Piter" (St Petersburg) and was being

displayed to the people.

One particular curiosity of Antipov's report was that various peasants of the province

attributed a major role in saving the earth to the Americans, who supposedly had been preparing for a

collision for a long time. They thought that Americans had cast gigantic cannons with huge balls, and

as soon as the alien planet came close, they began to fire. On the first shot the planet stopped; on the

second it split; on the third it splintered; and on the forth the little pieces were scattered all over. The

peasants announced that "if it weren't for the Americans, there would have been no way of coping with

the planet." In a different village, peasants claimed that Americans had forged a thick, long chain with

gigantic hooks at both ends. A few men had gone up to the threatening planet in a balloon and

attached one end of the chain to the planet which was on course to fall on the earth and the other to

still another planet which stood motionless. The Americans had stayed on this other planet to make

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sure that these planets did not go off course.

One soldier from Archangel reported that in the north peasants went out with sticks to

watch for the alien planet and push it away when it got near earth. They managed to push it away, but

the peasants themselves disappeared; they got stuck to the planet and were canied out to sea. Now

three ships were preparing to search for the peasants. Antipov, like Balov, mentions the presence in

his area of a brochure entitled "The End of the World" (here, "Konchina mira"), which some

Novgorod peasants thought had been written by a German. Everything in it was true, the peasants

argued, but the printers had mixed up the numbers; only the German knew the combination that

signaled the real date of the end of the world, but he was now in a madhouse. Other peasants claimed

that the brochure had been written by an English student who started writing books and deceiving

people because he needed money. Still others claimed that it had been written by a Frenchman or a

Turk; they concluded that if a Russian had written it, he would have been sent to Siberia

NOTES:

I.My research in the Tenishev Archive was supported in part by a grant from the International

Researches and Exchanges Board (IREX), with fimds provided by the National Endowment for the

Humanities and the United States Information Agency.

2.Gosudarstvennyi muzei etnograJii ,fond 7 (Etnograficheskoe biuro 1m. V. Tenisheva - hereafter,

GME- Tenishev]), cd. lehr., 1284.

3.GME- Tenishev, ed km., 1750.

4.GME-Tenishev, ed. lehT., 1481.

5.GME- Tenishev, cd. lehT., 806.

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