In 1785 the Russian Orthodox Church felt that a group of dissident Russian peasants were a threat to the church and branded them as Doukhobortsi or spirit wrestlers
On Easter Sunday, 1895 Doukhobor Matvey Lebedev (Matt, Josh, and Jonas's great gramps) and ten of his officers in the reserve battalion at Elizavetpol threw down their weapons to protest war. They were arrested, beaten to submission and exiled to Siberia.
At 12:01 am, on June 29, 1895, Seven thousand Doukhobor followed suit and burned their weapons. They were severely punished for the Burning of the Arms
Russian novelist and committed pacifist Leo Tolstoy helped fund the emigration to Canada of many of these Doukhs from the proceeds of his book Resurrection.
Our relatives ended up in Grand Forks, BC. An offshoot extremist sect of the doukhs known as The Sons of Freedom were against assimilation and wanted to raise their kids in their own schools because they felt that the public schools system promoted militarism. The government wouldn't allow it.
Our Gramps and Gramma raised Josh and Jonas's mom and her brother (Matt's dad) in a Sons of Freedom household. Mom was taken from the home by the RCMP at age 7 and sent to a boarding house in New Denver for four years. She was allowed to see her family through a chain link fence twice a month for an hour.
Gramps burned down a barn in protest in part due to the doukhs assimilating with the establishment. He was sentenced to two years less a day at Oakalla prison…
Oakalla is formerly known as The Solution
Check out Oakalla's Website at oakallaband.com
