{Once again, my sources differ on a matter of spelling: some go with ‘Cedar Vale’ and others with ‘Cedarvale’. After due consideration, I prefer the former.}
What was there in Cedar Vale, Kansas in the year 1875 that would draw a disillusioned Russian revolutionary turned “God-man” such as Nikolai Tchaikovsky? Having escaped the fate of fellow Narodniks in Russia and having spent a year or so among other Russian emigres in England, Tchaikovsky received a revelation from God—or perhaps a suggestion from Alexander Malinkov, his spiritual mentor—that America was the new promised land; and off he went.
But why Cedar Vale, Kansas? Here, we turn to the Kansas historian Norman Saul:
One of the most unusual foreign settlements in the Great Plains in the nineteenth century was a utopian socialist commune established by Russian exiles on former Osage Indian lands near Cedar Vale in southern Kansas. One such exile was a former army officer and surveyor of Baltic German background, Vladimir Geins. Due to American sympathy toward Russia during the Crimean War and Russian support of the Union during the Civil War, literature about the United States was abundant. Geins and his wife set out for the "land of social opportunity" in 1868, first settling in Jersey City, then joining an established commune in Missouri as Wilhelm and Maria Frei, which was soon Americanized to William and Mary Frey. Owing to disputes among the group and the opening up of Osage land, the Freys, with a few other American and Russian followers, moved to Kansas in 1871 to establish the "Progressive Communist Community" at Cedar Vale.
Even before Tchaikovsky arrived, Cedar Vale acquired a reputation:
Though small (fifteen members at the most) and relatively remote, it became well known for its mixture of Russian atheistic populists and American Christian socialists, its adherence to "modern" ideas such as vegetarianism (and, for a few, nudism), and its promotional and educational efforts. In 1875 Frey began publishing The Progressive Communist, a monthly newsletter that circulated to other communities such as Oneida and Brook Farm. The Kansas commune was also distinguished by some of its members, such as Ukrainian writer Gregory Machtet, Nicholas Tchaikovsky (who would play a leading role in the Russian Revolution in 1917), and Vladimir Dobroliubov, the brother of Chernyshevsky's associate Nikolai Dobroliubov.
Quite a cast of characters, indeed! What the non-Russian Kansans thought of the odd newcomers can only be imagined, as little documentation has survived. We do, however, know something of how and why Tchaikovsky chose Cedar Vale as his place of exile. Alex Butterworth explains:
Tchaikovsky travelled to America ahead of Malinkov’s main party of fifteen; it fell to him, in New York, to determine their final destination. There was no shortage of existing communes that the sect might have joined: ready-made, if flawed, Utopias that included Josiah Warren’s Modern Times on Long Island, Noyes’ Oneida in New York State, the Fourierist Reunion in Missouri, or the Shakers at Sonyea, to name only the most prominent of several hundred then active. However, it was to a small colony called Cedar Vale, established near Wichita in Kansas, that Tchaikovsky was drawn by an open invitation from its founder, a Russian calling himself William Frey, for newcomers to join him in ‘the great laboratory of all ideas and aspirations that agitate against the contemporary world’.
Mid-19th century America was a veritable cornucopia of utopian experiments, all of them agitating against the contemporary world of technology, industry, and capitalism. According to Wikipedia, “The Oneida Community in Oneida, New York was a utopian religious commune that lasted from 1848 to 1881. Although this utopian experiment has become better known today for its manufacture of Oneida silverware, it was one of the longest-running communes in American history. 1 The Amanda Colonies were communal settlements in Iowa, started by radical German pietists, which lasted from 1855 to 1932. The Amana Corporation, manufacturer of refrigerators and household appliances, was originally started by the group. Other examples are Fountain Grove (founded in 1875), Riker's Holy City and other Californian utopian colonies between 1855 and 1955, as well as Sointula in British Columbia, Canada. 2 The Amish and Hutterites can also be considered an attempt towards religious utopia.” 3
What was William Frey’s sales pitch to prospective utopians? “‘We want persons who are kind, tolerant, and earnestly devoted to communism as the best means of benefiting the human race,’ he had written of his colony, in a letter published by Peter Lavrov’s London newspaper Forward! He even warned potential recruits that ‘they must be actuated by principles, and not merely selfish purposes.’ The proposition must have struck any self-regarding idealist as irresistible,” Alex Butterworth concludes.
Irresistible as Frey’s offer may have been, the reality proved otherwise. As Butterworth writes, “On the long journey from New York to Cedar Vale with his wife and co-religionists, Tchaikovsky would have ample opportunity to reflect on the wisdom of his decision and to revise his rose-tinted view of America.” Butterworth continues:
During the previous decade, sums that were almost inconceivable had been spent on the expansion of America’s railroads, netting vast fortunes for the entrepreneurs who had driven their development. In the process, tens of thousands of indigenous peoples had been displaced from their land, and huge numbers of railway workers had suffered injury or death, not to mention the attrition on those toiling without safety provision in the mines and foundries that fed the railroad with its raw materials. The risks to the brakemen were all too obvious as they clambered over moving carriages to set the brakes or whipped out their fingers as the buffers of rolling stock clanged heavily together for manual coupling. Had Tchaikovsky known in full the miserable terms of the railroad workers’ employment, half-starved and lacking legal protection of any kind, he might have thought the freed serfs of Russia almost fortunate by comparison.”
So much for Tchaikovsky's rose-tinted view of America—but worse was yet to come.
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1 On a personal note: my father, having relocated from his Iowa birthplace to upstate New York, spent a fruitful couple of decades (1950s and 1960s) selling and distributing Oneida silverware. To this day, I can hardly look at a soup spoon or a salad fork without falling into a nostalgic reverie.
2 Some groups of Russian “Old Believers” also found western Canada a congenial place to relocate. Ironically, today there are Canadians relocating to Russia to escape the tyranny of ‘Wokeism’ that has descended upon their land.
3 In any case, it is worth noting that the website for the current city of Cedar Vale, Kansas makes no mention of the town’s connections to disreputable Russians or to its flirtation with communistic ideas.
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