I'm a senior at BYU—this research is purely a personal topic. Although I did serve as a missionary in Russia, I'm going over on a research grant from BYU this time as an ethnographer. My interest is not only in finding a connection between Russian Mormon-Molokans and the American Mormon movement, but to document the religion generally.

I'd also be interested in receiving information from other Molokans that have heard anything about this Mormon-Molokane connection. While I'm in Russia I'd like to visit any Molokan meetings or meet with active Molokans that are still in existence in the Samara and Saratov Oblasti.

References to the Molokan-Mormony are found in several scholarly works, most notably those of Aleksandr Il'ich Klibanov (some of his work was translated by Ethel Dunn). Below is a list of the sources I have so far—most of them I have as either original books or photocopies of documents sent by Dr. Eugene Clay.

• Bulgakov, S. V. Nastolnaia Kniga dlia Sviashchenno-Tserkovno-Sluzhitelei. Moscow: Sovremmenik, 1994.
• Butkevich, Timofei Ivanovich. Obzor Russkikh Sekt i Ikh Tolkov [Review of Russian Sects and Their Teachings]. Kharkov, Ukraine: Provincial press, 1910.
• Klibanov, Aleksandr Ilich. History of Religious Sectarianism in Russia (1860s-1917). Trans. Ethel Dunn. Ed. Stephen P. Dunn. New York: Pergamon Press, 1982. Trans. История религиозного сектантства в России (60-е годы XIX век-1917) 1965.
• Klibanov, Aleksandr Ilich. Narodnaia Sotsialnaia Utopia v Rossii: XIX Vek. Moscow: Nauka, 1978. [This one contains a long section on the life and teachings of Ivan Grigor'ev]
• Skvortsov, V. M. Deianiia 3-ogo Vserossiiskago Missionerskago Sezda v Kazani. Kiev: Press of I. I. Chokolov, 1897.
• Arsenii. Lzhekhristi Montano-Molokanskie: Ivan Grigorev I Grigorii Vereshchagin. K Istorii Montano-Molokanskoi Sekti. Moscow, 1891.

We've mostly ruled out the possibility that any Mormon missionary was involved in this. No Mormon missionaries visited Russia until the late 1800s, and then only very briefly. In fact, there were not any registered members of the Mormon church in Russia until the 1980s.

I'm currently scrambling to complete a short paper on the subject—if you'd like I could send it to you (it won't be more than 15 pages) before I leave. I'd love to take any gifts you have for Molokans there, as well as meet any of them that I can. They may have information concerning my research.

I've posted a map of Samara, including Mekhzavod. At the northeast end of Samara there is a large area of dachas, and on the north end of this dachniy rayon [garden region] is Mekhzavod. To the south of the zavod [factory] itself is a very unusual village, located off the 19th kilometer bus stop. The village has about 600 inhabitants and representatives from a very large diversity of religions, including the "Mormons". I'll be spending some of my time there, and also in other villages in Samarskaya Oblast' and in Saratovskaya Oblast'.

I've posted a maps from my notes showing all the villages I've found in literature so far.

Sorry for the low quality, but I haven't had time to produce a publishable map quite yet. The area circled in red is the hearth area where Ivan Grigor'ev preached and where most of his early communes seem to have been located. The area circled in pink seem to be later communes, including several (Mekhzavod and Bogdanovka) that we know for sure had Mormon populations (because we've been there). One author (Bulgakov) mentions that the communes in the south were called "Metodisti," while the ones in the Samara and Buzuluk Oblasts were called "Mormony-Molokane". If you know anyone in the area of Pugachev or Novouzensk, please let me know—these were the hotbeds for the foundation of Russian Mormonism.

Thanks for your interest. If any of the people on this email list have any more information or insights, please let me know.

James Scott
69 Wymount Terrace
Provo, UT 84604

(801) 371-2358    batyushki@yahoo.com

2001 April 8, Dr. Eugene Clay, Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Arizona State University, clarified:

"The Molokan Mormony have no relation to the American Mormons other than the name, which was given to them by Orthodox observers who accused them of practicing polygamy. Aleksandr Klibanov wrote about them in the second volume of his Narodnaia sotsial'naia utopia v Rossii." [Ethel Dunn hoped to translate this very informative volume after she finished the Molokans in Turkey, in-progress but not finished before she died.]