Letters from behind the iron curtain

Letters are heaped in mounds on the desk and spill over onto the floor. The return addresses say Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Siberia. The fragile parchment preserves millions of words, thoughts, prayers, and questions – all giving voice to a spiritual awakening in the former Soviet Union. Thousands of pieces of handwritten correspondence tell of a tumultuous time in world history, yet testify to the glimmer of faith that was secretly burning behind the Iron Curtain all those years.

Aileen sits with the collection day after day, hour after hour – hearing the echoes of voices of mothers, children, grandparents, lovers, whispered in her ears – as she painstakingly reads, sorts, and translates the letters into English. This work is her gift to us – a beacon of hope and window into the history of a resurrected church.

Here is the story of how the letters came to be.

—LK

Baptismal candidates, Moldova, 1989.

More than twenty years ago, Mikhail Gorbachev initiated a process that resulted in the collapse of the Soviet Union. On the heels of this political upheaval, bags of letters arrived in a small office in Canada.

Viktor Hamm, Central Ukraine, 1989.

The letters came as a response to Viktor Hamm’s radio program, broadcast by a Winnipeg-based organization called Mennonite Brethren Communications (renamed Family Life Network in 1997). MB Communications vowed to provide spiritual support and solidarity through Christian radio programs broadcast into the Soviet Union. Though not a new initiative, social and personal turmoil led many people to tune into Hamm’s programs.

“We are eager to hear Christian broadcasts,” wrote one listener. “There is no freedom to preach the gospel. Russia is engulfed by darkness and unbelief.” The eradication of religion from public and private life created a moral stagnation that jeopardized the future of the Soviet Union.

Over the airwaves, Viktor Hamm, the voice of MB Communications’ Russian program, built relationships with Soviet citizens across political boundaries. Facing uncertainty in various facets of daily life, listeners sought spiritual comfort in the evangelist’s radio program.

“I write you from the far off Soviet Union,” read another letter. “I only know you through your radio broadcasts. Thanks to God and to you for your work. I often listen to your radio program, which brings joy and peace to my heart and encourages me in my life journey.”

More than 18,000 letters were mailed to Winnipeg between 1987 and 1993. Sent with postage stamps featuring Lenin’s stern, immortalized visage, these letters revealed the hopes and disappointments of ordinary people. They also uncovered the scope of Christianity’s rehabilitation during the late Soviet period and the church’s role in helping people cope with extraordinary change.

Church building, Moldova, 1989.

Uneasy history

During its 74-year existence, the Soviet Union, a self-proclaimed atheist state, oscillated between a full-out assault against religious groups and an uneasy tolerance of spiritual faith. In 1957, MB Communications initiated a project to offer guidance and support to Christians and non-Christians in the Soviet Union.

Russian–Mennonite émigré D.B. Wiens recorded short weekly sermons with the dual purpose of educating people about the Bible and Christian values, and of sustaining Christian believers with religious music and encouragement. MB Communications broadcast Wiens’ sermons into the Soviet Union by short and medium wave radio stations in neighbouring territories.

In the late 1970s, D.B.Wiens retired and Viktor Hamm, a recent émigré from the Soviet Union, took over his radio host duties. Hamm moved to Winnipeg, bringing intimate knowledge of the persecution faced by Soviet believers to his show.

Singing hymns, Volga, 1989.

A deluge of mail

Between the 1950s and early 1980s, it was difficult to gauge the influence of MB Communication’s program on the Soviet population, since only a handful of correspondence filtered through the Iron Curtain.

But the political thaw that accompanied Gorbachev’s ascendancy to power changed this situation. In the late 1980s, letters began to flood the Canadian office.

Canada Post always managed to deliver the letters, despite improvised spellings of Winnipeg or addresses written in Cyrillic. The vast amount of mail arriving for Viktor Hamm from the Soviet Union aided the post office in its job: when the address was particularly illegible, Canada Post simply wrote on the envelope “Try Station F.”

Letters arrived from all corners of the Soviet Union requesting religious literature, thanking Hamm for his radio program, asking religious questions, and sharing stories of spiritual journeys. They told Hamm about family concerns, detailed their personal struggles, and contemplated the legacy of Soviet rule on their country.

Baptism, Western Ukraine, 1991.

Spiritual awakening

The discrediting of communist ideals contributed to a feeling of urgency in the region. After decades of being fed state-sponsored answers, people stepped outside traditional structures to find new principles by which to live. They began to explore religion.

In their correspondence, many mothers expressed worry over how to provide their children with a set of values that would protect them from growing social problems. The state, unable to control the forces of change unleashed upon the country, couldn’t be relied upon to provide guidance for their children. Religion appeared to be a desirable alternative for these mothers – even if they didn’t personally have a strong faith.

“We are distant from religion, but we know the role that religion plays in our grandmother’s and grandfather’s life,” wrote a woman from Novosibirsk. “They hope that we, including their grandson, will become believers in the future. We also really want to raise our son in the spirit of Christianity. But it is difficult to get children’s literature and we turn to you for help.”

In other letters, people shared their faint memories of religion. “In my childhood, my grandmother spoke a lot about God and paradise. I was very interested in listening to her and, you know, I very much wanted this paradise of my childhood imagination with all sorts of fruits and sweets, and where life would be joyful.”

After thanking Hamm for his program, one listener from Krasnoyarsk wrote, “When we were young we took scientific atheism, which taught us that God did not exist . . . Now I know that to believe in God is not disgraceful, but is on the contrary good. People who believe in God are happier and have a better upbringing and way of life than those who don’t. Indeed, how can atheists in these difficult and challenging times in their lives not turn to God and ask for help?”

Pictures accompanying the letters provided a glimpse into the tangible outcome of this spiritual awakening. People sent photographs of new church buildings packed with worshippers, mass outdoor religious rallies, and baptismal ceremonies along riverbanks.

These pictures capture the spiritual excitement of the period and the forging of grassroots religious communities by the Soviet population. They also show the importance Hamm’s listeners put on sharing with him the resurrection of Christianity in the Soviet Union, a process with which he was intimately involved.

It was an international fellowship built over decades. Thousands of letters, now archived at the Centre for Mennonite Brethren Studies in Winnipeg, document the powerful relationship.

“In this complicated time,” said one letter, “faith, hope, and love sustain us. Each one of us wants to find spiritual support to help us overcome the struggles and failures of life.”

Aileen Friesen is a doctoral student in Russian imperial history at the University of Alberta, Edmonton. She spent a portion of last year reading and organizing thousands of letters at the Centre for MB Studies in Winnipeg.