Pentecostalism in Kalmykia during the Years of Soviet Power

Abstract

The article deals with the history of the Pentecostal Movement in Kalmykia during the Soviet period on the basis of archival documents. Pentecostal organisations were first founded in the German settlements of the Bolshederbetovsky ulus in the 1920s. However, the authorities arrested the leader of the Pentecostals and the organization was soon closed down. The Pentecostal Movement continued to grow in the late 1950s, after the return of the German population to Kalmykia from places of deportation. In the 1950s and 1970s members of Pentecostal groups worked in 5 settlements, which were located in Gorodovikovsky and Yashaltinsky regions of the Kalmyk ASSR. Usually, the group consisted of 8-15 people, mostly persons of German nationality. By the end of the 1980s, the number of Pentecostals in Kalmykia had decreased and only one of their group had remained.  In the postwar period, the government had them merge with the Baptists and prevented them from registering. Therefore, they acted illegally.  The atheistic policy of the Soviet state caused the collapse of the Pentecostal Movement in Kalmykia which eventually resulted in the cessation of the influx of new members into a Pentecostal organization. Unlike the Baptists, the Pentecostals did not have the legal structures and were fewer in number, so most their groups disbanded. Although in the late 1980s the religious policy of the Soviet state underwent positive changes, the Pentecostal movement in Kalmykia did not revive, where it had once been suppressed and most of their groups by this time had ceased to exist.