Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Sprach- und literaturwissenschaftliche Fakultät - Institut für Slawistik und Hungarologie

11.6.2026, 17:00-18:30 [zoom]
Veronika Makarova (University of Saskatchewan): Doukhobors: the Rebel Minority and their Language Endangerment

This presentation focuses on the language and culture of the minority group of Canadian Doukhobors. It begins with a brief overview of the history and culture of Canadian Doukhobors, followed by a discussion of the distinctive features of their language, the causes of its endangerment, and ongoing revitalization efforts.

Doukhobors are a Christian religious dissenting group that originated in the Russian Empire in the eighteenth century. Because of their rejection of the Orthodox Church and refusal to perform military service, they faced persecution in Russia, prompting approximately 7,500 Doukhobors to immigrate to Canada in 1899. Their pacifism, communal farming practices, and efforts to defend their rights also led to discrimination and stigmatization in Canada. As a result of sustained marginalization and demographic decline, both their culture and language are now severely endangered.

Doukhobor Russian, currently still spoken by approximately 200 Doukhobors in their seventies to nineties, originated from Central and Southwestern Russian dialects of the nineteenth century. In twentieth-century Canada, prolonged isolation from other Russian-speaking populations and extensive contact with English led to the development of a unique language variety with distinctive phonological, lexical, and morphosyntactic features. Examples of these include /gh/–/x/–/g/ alternations, layers of dialectal, archaic, and borrowed English vocabulary, and the erosion of the neuter gender system.

The presentation concludes with a discussion of language maintenance and revitalization in the context of near-extinct languages. An online free community Russian language course offered by the author to Doukhobor learners is described.