It would be difficult to imagine any thing more melancholy than the harmony produced by the voices and the brass instruments that alternately answered each other, and seemed the echoes of the saddest and most profound emotions of the heart. A great number of persons were present, and all the solemnity of the occasion did not hinder those worthy Germans from gathering round us with the liveliest curiosity, and putting a thousand questions to us about the purport of our travels.
The association of the Moravian brethren dates from the celebrated John Huss, who was burnt at Constance, in 1419. Their history is but a long series of persecutions. The issue of the Thirty Years' War, so disastrous for Frederick, the elector palatine, and king of Bohemia, was particularly fatal to them. At that period most of the Protestants of Bohemia fled their country, and spread themselves through Saxony, Brandenburg, Poland, and Hungary. The vengeance of the Emperor Frederick II. pursued them without ceasing, and great numbers of them perished in want and wretchedness. In 1722, Christian David, a carpenter, and some others of the proscribed, obtained permission from the Count of Zinzendorf, in Lusace, to settle on his lands. They reached their place of refuge in secret, with their wives and children, and David struck his axe into a tree, exclaiming: "Here shall the bird find a dwelling, and the swallow a nest." His hopes were not disappointed. The new establishment assumed the name of Herrenhut (The Lord's Keeping), and its members were soon known in Germany only by that appellation. Such was the beginning of the new evangelical society of the Brethren of the Unity of the Confession of Augsburg. Herrenhut, the central establishment, throve rapidly, and became known all over Europe for its industry and its manufactures; and by and by, when the proselytising spirit had possessed the brethren, they extended their relations over all parts of the world.
Shortly after the Empress Catherine II. had made known to Europe that Russia was open to foreigners, and that she would bestow lands the immigrants, a deputation from Herrenhut to St. Petersburg decided on the formation of a Moravian colony in the government of Astrakhan. Five of the brethren visited the banks of the Volga in 1769, and on the 3rd of September of the same year, the colony was settled at the confluence of the Sarpa with the Volga, and consisted at that time of thirty persons of both sexes. Its name was borrowed from the Bible, and an olive and a wheatsheaf were chosen for its arms.
It was only by dint of courage and perseverance that these first colonists succeeded in their enterprise, surrounded as they were on all sides by the savage hordes of the Kalmucks, having no knowledge of the language of the country, and situated at more than 120 versts from any Russian town. But after the first difficulties were surmounted, their prosperity was rapid. As we have already said, the Moravian brethren form a vast society, spread throughout all parts of the world for the propagation of the Gospel; but, moreover, for the better fulfilment of their mission they are all required by the rules of their order to know some trade, so as to be able to support themselves by the work of their own hands. Hence Sarepta soon became a seat of manufactures of all sorts, and an industrial school for the surrounding country, and Catherine's intentions were realised.
As for the brethren themselves, the establishment of an industrial town in a land so remote and so destitute of resources and markets, was for them but a secondary object. Their chief aim was the conversion of the Kalmucks, to accomplish which they thought rightly that it was indispensable to have a permanent settlement among those people. All their proselytising efforts, however, remained fruitless; the Kalmucks were deaf to their instruction. It was not till 1820 that they succeeded in converting a few families, and inducing them to receive baptism. But now the Russian clergy interposed, and insisted on the converts being baptised according to the Greek rite, and finally, all the Moravian missions were suppressed. Ever since then Sarepta has been a purely manufacturing town.
The colony of Sarepta endured great calamities in the beginning. In 1771, the period of the famous emigration of the Kalmucks, the brethren had a narrow escape of being carried into captivity, and were saved only by the mildness of the winter, which prevented their enemies from crossing the Volga and joining the great horde. The Cossack Pougatchef ravaged the whole country in 1773, and the colonists, 200 in number, including women, were obliged to retreat to Astrakhan. The defeat of the rebel shortly afterwards enabled them to return home. Their town had been destroyed, but they were not disheartened, and it soon rose again from its ruins. A whole street was burned down in Sarepta in 1812, and in the same year they lost their warehouses in Moscow, containing an immense stock of goods, in the great conflagration. But the most terrible disaster was that of 1823, when two-thirds of the colony and the largest establishments were reduced to ashes; the loss was estimated at upwards of 40,000l. The Emperor Alexander and the Moravian Association afforded the poor colonists generous aid, but they could never restore the old prosperity of Sarepta.
All these heavy blows falling successively on the unfortunate community, did not, however, prevent the development of its industry. Great activity prevailed in its very various manufactories down to the beginning of the present century, and their productions continued to be in request in all parts of Russia. Some of the brethren established in the great towns of the empire were the active and honest correspondents of the Volga colonists. The silks and cottons of Sarepta were so successful that the weavers of that town formed establishments at their own cost among the German colonies of the government of Saratof.[17] But all these elements of wealth were annihilated by the new customs' regulations; most of the manufactories were closed; as for the rest, with one or two exceptions, being obliged to confine themselves to the production of a small number of articles, they can only subsist by dint of great economy and skill. The difficulty, too, of procuring workmen makes labour extremely dear in Sarepta; and besides this the colonists instead of importing the raw materials direct from the foreigner, are obliged to purchase them in the markets of St. Petersburg and Moscow. The decrease in the waters of the Sarpa has also been disastrous to the trade of Sarepta. The brethren had set up a great number of saw and other mills on the banks, and these brought them large profits; but the want of water caused them all to be abandoned in 1800. In noticing this continual struggle of man against nature and events, we cannot but pay the tribute of our admiration to those intrepid colonists, who, on the furthest verge of Europe, in the arid steppes of the Volga, have never suffered themselves to be overcome by their mischances, but have always found fresh resources in their own energy and perseverance.
The manufacture of mustard is at present the most important branch of business in Sarepta, producing nearly 16,000 kilogrammes yearly, besides 4800 kilogrammes of oil. This trade is not unimportant to the neighbouring villages, since it uses upon an average every year 160,000 kilogrammes of mustard seed, for which the manufacturer pays the peasant at the rate of 1.60 rubles the poud or thirty-three pounds.
The other trades that are still carried on with some degree of success are the manufactures of silk and cotton tissues, stockings and caps, tobacco and tanned leather, but these are all upon a greatly reduced scale and at a greatly diminished rate of profit. There is also a very clever optician in Sarepta, and there are several confectioners who travel to Moscow. The colony possesses also warehouses of manufactured goods, and offers almost all the resources and conveniences of a good European town.
Agriculture can only be a secondary matter in the colony; of the 17,000 deciatines of land possessed by it 2000 are quite unfit for cultivation, 10,000 are salt, and only 4000 are really good. There is, however, a little village named Schönbrunn, not far from the town, in which there are some families engaged in agriculture and cattle rearing. Merino sheep have not done well with them hitherto. They had a large stock some years ago, but it dwindled away either from mismanagement, or from the severity of the climate, and at present does not exceed 1000 head.