Crypto-Mormons or Pseudo-Mormons?

A more substantial Latter-day Saint similarity to some Khlysty groups-a belief in scripture in addition to the Bible-sheds light on still-circulating reports of people having heard of, or even seen, a large manuscript pre-1980 Russian edition of the Book of Mormon.26 The Khlysty revered their Book of Life Commandments as scripture and clandestinely circulated hand-transcribed copies (Avdeev 1978:91). The Book of Life Commandments collected sacred hymns and sayings of Khlysty leaders, but its believing readers never claimed it was an ancient scriptural record like the Book of Mormon. However, if the Khlysty were sometimes called "Mormons," then people referring to the Khlysty's book could have referred to "the Mormon book" or "Kniga Mormona," which is how "The Book of Mormon" has been translated into Russian. While rare copies of the Book of Life Commandments still exist, to our knowledge no one in our day has ever been able to produce any indigenous book entitled the "Book of Mormon." Nor do the rumors of such books contain any details that might suggest a relationship to the Latter-day Saints' Book of Mormon-even such central features as ancient Israelites sailing to America or Christ appearing to these people after his Resurrection.

The Khlysty have continued into contemporary times, but much like the Shakers in America (with whom parallels seem much more apparent than with Mormons),27 they have lost much of their earlier vigor and numbers (Kovalenko 2000). The use of the term Mormon to refer to Khlysty-related groups, and even groups apparently not related to the Khlysty, has proven to be more tenacious than the groups themselves.

THREE CONTEMPORARY case STUDIES OF LOCALIZED USAGE OF THE TERM "MORMON"

Our fieldwork provided ethnographic data to corroborate the two main points of Kovalenko and Riabinovich's explanation: that Russian "Mormons" are historically related to Khlysty and that Mormon has been used as an epithet for indigenous Russian religious groups due to Russian familiarity with certain Mormon stereotypes. In Bogdanovka, Orenburg, and Mekhzavod, the residents are familiar with the term Mormon but use it with distinct local nuances.

Bogdanovka

In a village just over a hundred kilometers from Samara lives Vasilii Stepanovich Safronov, a self-identified Molokan born in 1914 (fig. 2). Safronov attended several "Mormon" worship services as a youth. He recalled that a guard would be posted at the window to warn of unwanted guests. The worshipers present would sing, take turns reading from the Bible, and pray, repeating sequences over and over at great length. Their worship service, as he demonstrated, included the adherents circling around the room while holding hands and rhythmically shuffling their feet, as they continued to sing and entreat God, at times falling on their knees to pray. After a long time, they might remove a few articles of clothing in order to feel cooler. More singing, praying, and circling the room would follow. Finally the worshipers would fall to the floor exhausted and exclaim, "Ukh, du, du, du," several times. (Safronov's meaning was unclear but dukh in Russian means "spirit," a word often reported as occurring in Khlysty chants.) Their candle (or campfire) might then be extinguished, and the participants would rest for a while. Then the worshipers would arise and continue their praying, singing, and circling.