More than once when perusing Dr. Wardin’s immense bibliography on sectarianism in the Russian Empire and the U.S.S.R. (Evangelical Sectarianism in the Russian Empire and the USSR: A Bibliographic Guide [Lanham, MD, and London: 1995]), I wondered whether he could possibly ever read the sources he had compiled, and what story they would tell. With this volume, my wish has come true. Albert Wardin has not only skillfully brought together bibliographic data (552 sources) on 62 years of evangelicalism in Russia, he also tells a complex and nuanced story of evangelical movements in late Imperial Russia. Beginning with German Baptists and Mennonite Brethren on the edges of the empire, Wardin navigates through Ukraine, the Caucasus, St. Petersburg, and Siberia exploring the history of those he deems theologically “evangelical,” including Baptists, Mennonite Brethren, Stundists, Pashkovites, and Evangelical Christians. From humble beginnings, evangelicals were nearly ubiquitous by the turn of the century, surging in number and visibility following the 1905 Edict of Toleration. Wardin’s work is particularly remarkable given the diversity and ever-changing legal status of Russian evangelicals. As European missionary Frederick Baedeker explained in 1898, “There are ups and downs in this big Russian Empire, and one has to seize opportunities as they present themselves. The open door in one part is no security for one elsewhere, nor does the permission at one time give a right for another time” (p. 259).
While Wardin is himself a Baptist historian, his work differs from many confessional histories. Russian evangelicals today tend to emphasize their indigenous roots over the roles of foreign ideas and institutions in the shaping of their faith. Wardin, in contrast, places the movements in their international contexts, including their German Baptist and Pietist origins and the roles of European missionaries, literature, and theological education. A second theme that emerges is that of conflict among evangelicals themselves. While one might expect the hostile environment would facilitate unity, instead disunity was rampant throughout the decades. Wardin details conflicts between Mennonites and Mennonite Brethren, Mennonite Brethren and German Baptists, German Baptists and Stundists, and Stundists and Evangelical Christians. While unity was a stated goal of many evangelical leaders, as evident in a number of inter-confessional congresses, it was seldom achieved.
While the book’s strength is in its sources, it is also limited by those same sources. Wardin’s account is disproportionately one of male leaders, large congresses, missionary statistics, and persecution. While this information is valuable—and Wardin does a particularly good job describing leaders’ personalities and backgrounds—it leaves the reader wondering what ordinary believers were like. The most compelling sections of the book, I would argue, are those that departed from this pattern, focusing on the lives and values of Stundists (Chapter 12) and Pashkovites (Chapter 15). Following decades of research, Wardin knows well the scholarship of the Cold War era, but fails to consult many recent works based on newly available sources. The book’s abrupt ending in 1917 also leaves the reader dissatisfied. As recent scholarship has demonstrated, Russian cultural and religious history does not fit neatly into a periodization defined by the 1917 Revolution. While bringing together a tremendous amount of data, this book does not represent the state of the field today.
The book’s biggest flaw, in my opinion, is poor editing. Filled with typographical errors, misspellings, and inconsistent transliteration of Cyrillic, On the Edge repeats itself a lot, as if each chapter were meant to be read alone. The two maps are difficult to use. The length and detail make reading tedious at times, with name after name, statistic after statistic, event after event. The book would have been more attractive to non-specialists if it were 200 pages shorter. Yet the fact that poor editing is its primary flaw speaks to the significance of the volume as a whole. It will serve as a valuable reference work for decades to come.
Sharyl Corrado, Assistant Professor of History, Pepperdine University, Malibu, California