Russia

Russia
From top, left to right: Bahá’í youth conference, Moscow, 2013; Isabella Grinevskaya, playwright and early Russian Bahá’í; the Bahá’í centre in Kazan; the first National Convention of the Soviet Union in Moscow, 1990; Knight of Bahá’u’lláh Abbas Katirai in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk; and the 33rd National Convention of Russia, 2023.
Location of Russia
National Assembly		Russia
Statistics:
Total Population
-	UN 2021	145,102,755
Bahá'í pop.
-	Bahá'í source	3,000
-	Non-Bahá'í source	20,246
History: Firsts
-	National Assembly	1991, as Soviet Union 1992, as Russia
Official Website		http://www.bahai.ru/
Related media
Categories: Russia • People

Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country located in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. Its official and national language is Russian and Christianity is the most prominent religion.

Russia has its origins in the the medieval nations of the Kievan Rus and Grand Duchy of Moscow which eventually became the Russian Empire. The monarchy ruled until 1917 when the Russian Revolution took place and the Soviet Union was established. The current Russian Federation came into being in 1991 when the Soviet Union was dissolved.

The Bahá’í community of Russia was first established in the early 1900s and began to become firmly established under the Soviet Union into the 1920s. The community began to experience escalating persecution by the authorities from 1928 until it was formally banned in 1938, and it was not until religious restrictions began to relax in the 1980s that the Bahá’í community of Russia began to develop again. A community has been firmly established since the establishment of the Russian Federation in 1991.

History

Early History

Prince Dimitri Ivanovich Dolgorukov.

The Bábí religion was known of in Russia shortly after it was established due to the Russian Empire having political interests in Persia which the Russian minister for Persia, Prince Dimitri Ivanovich Dolgorukov, felt may be affected by the religion.

In the early 1800's a small group was established in Urdubad, a town in the Russian Empire near the border with Persia, which anticipated the imminent advent of the Mahdi who was a prophesized figure in Islam. In 1847 the Báb was imprisoned in the fortress of Máh-Kú near the Russian border and as He claimed to be the Mahdi Dolgorukov requested that the Persian government transfer Him away from the border to prevent Him from gaining influence in Urdubad. The leader of the Urdubad group, Sayyid `Abdu'l-Karim Urdubadi, became a Bábí at some point and the Russian authorities exiled him to Smolensk.

Dolgorukov kept the Russian government informed of the developments of the Bábí religion, such as the Battle of Fort Shaykh Tabarsi in 1849, and when the Báb was taken to Tabriz in 1850 Dolgorukov sent a request for the Russian Consul in the city to investigate the Báb's teachings. In 1852 a small group of Bábí youth acting alone attempted to assassinate the Shah of Iran in retaliation for the Martyrdom of the Báb resulting in widespread persecution of the Bábí's. Bahá’u’lláh, then primarily known as a prominent Bábí, was arrested and Mírzá Majíd-i Áhi, husband of His sister Nisá’ Khánum, worked as a secretary for Dolgorukov. Dolgorukov offered to negotiate for Bahá’u’lláh to be exiled to Russia however Bahá’u’lláh declined and was instead exiled to Baghdad.

In the late 1860's, after He had been exiled to Adrianople, Bahá’u’lláh revealed a Tablet addressed to Tsar Alexander II the Head of State of Russia in which He proclaimed Himself as a Manifestation of God calling for Alexander to recognize His station and accept the Bahá’í Faith. In the late 1880's Bahá’í's fleeing persecution in Persia began to settle in the Russian Empire particularly in what is now the independent nation of Turkmenistan.

Establishment of a Bahá’í Community

Bahá’ís of Moscow in the 1920s.

As of the early 1910's there was a small community of Persian Bahá’ís in Moscow made up of students and merchants. Russian-Jewish novelist and playwright Isabella Grinevskaya met with ‘Abdu’l-Bahá in Egypt in 1910 and was among the earliest Russian Bahá’ís. She had earlier written a play based on the life of the Báb in 1903 and it is not known when she considered herself a Bahá’í. Restrictions on religion under the reign of the Tsar prevented the Faith from being openly taught and a community being firmly established.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 resulted in relaxed restrictions on the religion and the Bahá’ís began actively teaching with communities being formally established in Moscow and Leningrad, both of which established administrative institutions that received official recognition from Soviet officials by the early 1920's. In its early years the Soviet Union did not undertake any action against the Bahá’ís or impede teaching activities although in 1922 the official government gazette published an article criticizing the Bahá’í Faith for distracting Russian youth from being committed to Bolshevism.

Persecution

See also: Soviet Union

Baha'is of Ashkhabad, recently released from prison, about to enter the Mashriqu'l-Adhkar prior to their exile to Persia.

In 1926 a Bahá’í travel teacher visited Moscow and several Bahá’í gatherings and teaching events were held which resulted in him being questioned by a local Soviet official. The official directed the travel teacher leave Moscow and ruled that the Bahá’ís should not allow non-Bahá’ís to attend Bahá’í meetings. Shortly afterwards a printing press the Moscow Bahá’ís had purchased to produce Bahá’í literature was seized by government officials and around the same time some Moscow Bahá’ís were arrested after attending a Bahá’í gathering with two being sentenced to four years hard labor.

The Soviet government continued to escalate persecution of Russian Bahá’ís throughout the late 1920's with the Faith facing criticism in the press, Bahá’ís being dismissed from work if they were laborers and targeted with exorbitant taxes if they worked in business. Letters written by the Local Spiritual Assembly of Moscow to government officials regarding the situation were not answered, and persecution escalated to include accusations being levelled against Bahá’ís of them being foreign intelligence agents and Bahá’ís were denied entrance into university courses. As of 1929 Bahá’ís were being routinely deported from Russia, and by 1932 many Bahá’ís in the region had been either imprisoned or deported.

In 1938 the vast majority of Bahá’ís living in the Central Asian territories of the Soviet Union were imprisoned and either deported or exiled to Siberia and Bahá’í administration and community activities were outlawed resulting in the Bahá’í community effectively dissolving although Bahá’ís continued to practice the Faith privately. Despite no Bahá’í communal activity taking place after 1938 the Soviet officials instituted another wave of arrests of Bahá’ís in 1948.

While it is known that there were a handful of isolated Bahá’ís who were able to live in Moscow and the town of Penza near Leningrad in the period from the 1940's to the 1980's they had no contact with the wider Bahá’í community. Some international Bahá’ís were able to briefly visit the Soviet Union in the 1960's and 1970's but they made no attempts to contact local Bahá’ís or teach the Faith.

Resurrection of the Russian Bahá’í community

1980s

As the 1980's began several Bahá’ís were able to move to Russia. In August, 1979, Paul Semenoff and his cousin Kathryn Soloveoff moved to Ivanovo with Soloveoff remaining for four months and Semenoff remaining until 1981. Leif Hjierpe of Sweden was also able to move to Moscow in 1981 remaining for a year. Muhammad Nur at-Tayyib of Sudan pioneered to Leningrad at the close of 1981 remaining until 1988 and he was joined by German Bahá’ís Friedo and Shole Zölzer and Karen Reitz in 1986. Richard and Corinne Hainsworth moved to Moscow from the United Kingdom in 1982 and were able to remain in the country long-term. During this period some Russians were able to become Bahá’ís with Katya Zalenskaya declaring in Leningrad in 1982 and Anja Skreptsova declaring in Moscow in 1984.

In the late 1980's more pioneers came with 1987 seeing Andrew and Vivien Bromfield moving from Ireland and Zaffarullah Nassim opening Krasnodar to the Faith, and there was another declaration the same year with Irina Skladnova becoming a Bahá’í in Novgorod. A Ghanian Bahá’í named Mr. Fondem also moved to Krasnodar in 1989. In July, 1989, the Bahá’ís of Russia held a Peace Camp in Murmansk at which five people declared and by the end of the year there were twenty-three Bahá’ís in Moscow, six in Leningrad, twenty-one in Murmansk, two in Krasnodar, and one in Petrozavodsk. In December, 1989, a Bahá’í teaching team from Hawaii visited Kazan where they secured five declarations.

1990s

Representatives of 35 communities gather at the first national Baha'i conference of the Soviet Union, February 1990.

On January 1, 1990, a public Bahá’í meeting was held in St. Petersburg. From February to April, 1990, the South American Bahá’í music group El Viento Canta was able to tour Russia and that year Lynda Goodwin and Bill Mahoney established the Soviet American Cooperation Society to assist American Bahá’ís in visiting Russia with many teaching teams visiting from 1990 to 1992. Another notable event to take place in 1990 was ‘Abbás and Rezvánieh Katirai being able to pioneer to Sakhalin Island, a territory in Russia which was the last goal territory of the Ten Year Crusade to be opened to the Faith.

Bahá’í Administration began to become established in Russia in 1990 with the Local Spiritual Assembly of Moscow being re-established, and Hand of the Cause ‘Alí-Akbar Furútan attending the election, and Assemblies were also established in Ulan-Ude, Kazan, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, Leningrad, and Murmansk the same year. In December, 1990, the first conference for the Bahá’ís of the Soviet Union was held and by 1991 there were eight hundred Bahá’ís and twenty-three Local Spiritual Assemblies across Russia.

In 1991 the National Spiritual Assembly of the Soviet Union was established however it was disbanded the following year due to the political changes in the region being succeeded by an independent National Spiritual Assembly of Russia. By 1993 there were three thousand Bahá’ís in Russia and forty Local Spiritual Assemblies and in April that year the National Spiritual Assembly was officially registered with the Russian government. Rúḥíyyih Khánum visited Russia in 1993 and delivered an address in the parliament of Yakutsk.

In March 1994, a Bahá’í-inspired talk show named ZiPoPo, or the "Happy Hippo Show", was launched, becoming one of the most popular television programmes in the Russian republic of Tatarstan. According to its creator, Shamil Fattakhov, the programme's goal was "the healing and education of society through regular and collective deepening" on moral principles, with a special focus on helping youth to deal with difficult moral and ethical situations. The programme featured interactive theatre performances, in which actors would present a scenario bearing on social themes, followed by discussion and intervention from the audience to arrive at a meaningful resolution. The show's format later spread to other areas, including several countries in Southeastern Europe.

In the Siberian republic of Buryatia, a Baha'i youth project called "Young Lions" led to the creation of the Youth Center for Social Initiatives in 2000, in response to growing crises of alcoholism, drug use and HIV/AIDS in the region. The Center's activities have included the promotion of healthy lifestyles for youth, seminars and workshops on moral leadership, and popular social activities.

Recent Years

Youth gathered at the Moscow youth conference, 2013.

In March 2006, Moscow-based Bahá’í Gudrat Seyfi was recognized by the Scientific Council of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences for his contributions to the discourse of science and religion.

In 2009, Russian Bahá’ís participated in major regional conferences in Kiev, Ukraine and Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia to mark achievements in community-building work and to plan for future growth. In 2013 a major international Bahá’í Youth Conference was held in Moscow which aimed to empower young people to make contributions to the fortunes of humanity through selfless service to their communities.

On June 30, 2017, a descendant of Mirza Azizullah Jazzaba, who had met with Leo Tolstoy in 1902 to deliver a tablet from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, met with Ilya Tolstoy, Leo Tolstoy's great-great-grandson, to offer him copies of the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh along with an invitation to the celebration of the Bicentenary of the Birth of Bahá’u’lláh.