Hardcover
1803 · Barcelona
by JESUITS. RUSSIA
Barcelona: En la imprenta de Francisco Ifern y Oriol, calle de Agullers, ca, 1803. Hardcover. Fine. The pamphlet has its original stitching. The first leaf (a blank) and the blank verso of the final leaf serve as a wrapper. The first leaf (the blank) is lightly stained and tattered along the fore-edge; the penultimate and final leaf have oil stains, and the verso of the final leaf is soiled. There is some creasing and minor dog-earing. Page 7-14 (the second gathering, nested in the first) are printed on blue paper. An incredibly rare Jesuit relation from the Society’s fledgling mission station at Saratov on the Volga in Russia, one of the few countries in which the Jesuits remained active -thanks to Catherine the Great- after the worldwide suppression of their order (1773).
This relation is undated. The most recent date mentioned in the book (on p. 6) is 1802, the year in which Catholic settlers in the region requested clergy from the Emperor, but the Jesuits arrived at Saratov in 1803, and the report describes a good deal of progress. The press of Francisco Ifern y Oriol ceased to operate in 1830 but another, dated edition of this translation was printed in Valencia by Benito Monfort in 1815, well before the dissolution of Ifern y Oriol’s press.
OCLC traces only 2 copies of the Barcelona edition (both at the University of Barcelona) and one copy of the Valencia edition (at University of Valencia.) I have not traced the Italian imprint from which the text was translated according to the first leaf (“traducidas de un impreso Italiano”).
“The Jesuit Order almost vanished from the pages of history when Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Jesuits worldwide on July 21, 1773. Catherine the Great of Russia (r. 1762-1796) saved the Society almost singlehandedly. She protected the 201 Jesuits she had acquired in 1772 with the First Partition of Poland and insisted that they continue their apostolic work as Jesuits. For decades, her successors continued to support the Jesuits. The ‘Russian’ Society was the only surviving Jesuit entity in the world after 1780, except for a few Jesuits in Quebec. The ‘Russian’ Society served as a beacon of hope for former Jesuits everywhere, made possible partial restorations outside the empire before 1814, and led directly to the general restoration of the Society in that year.”(Schlafly, “How the Jesuits Survived Their Suppression: The Society of Jesus in the Russian Empire (1773-1814)”)
The relation opens with a description of the climate, terrain, the native peoples (Russians, Cossacks, Kalmyks, and Kirghiz); and the immigrant settlers from elsewhere in Europe (mainly Germans, who adopt the dress and lifestyle of the Russians but retain their own religion and language.)
The culture is largely agrarian and the lives of those who farm the land are extremely harsh. In Summer, the field workers are often forced to stay in the fields all week, returning only on Saturdays. This exposes them to illnesses, especially due to the lack of fresh water, as they rely on stagnant ponds for hydration. The Winters are equally brutal. Some of the lands are fertile, abundant in fruit which the Russians preserve for winter, and with arable land good for growing the principal export crops of tobacco and grain. But on the other side of the Volga, vast stretches of land remain barren. However, wild tulips of various colors, roses, and other fragrant flowers grow abundantly, making the plains appear like gardens.
The Jesuit missionaries, who devoted themselves to learning the local languages, are well received, their presence leading to greater peace and harmony in the colonies. However, we hear of the incursions of the Kirghiz, who often kill or enslave the settlers and burn their settlements. There are, of course, the expected miracles, such as a child regaining sight and the healing of illnesses. These stories spread across the colonies, further solidifying the missionaries' reputation. The writer ends by noting the Emperor's decision to grant better lands to the colonists. The colonists attributed their improved circumstances to divine intervention, guided by the Jesuits' prayers.
“Through the intervention of the Russian empress, the Jesuits present in her dominions did not share the fate of their confreres in the rest of the world (about 23,000 in total): within the Russian state, in fact, the pontifical decree extinguishing the Jesuit order was never canonically promulgated. Indeed, in December 1772 Catherine II had forbidden the exequatur for all decrees, bulls, briefs, and pastoral letters of the Holy See.
“Under Catherine’s extraordinary protection, the czarina guaranteed the Jesuits in her jurisdiction the opportunity to develop and even expand beyond the Russian empire's confines. This part of the order is commonly known as ‘The Jesuits of White Russia’ and it carried out the historic task of assuring continuity between the pre-1773 and post-1814 Society. The Jesuits continued their habitual lives in extraordinary conditions, in an Orthodox state, from 1773 to 1820.”(Inglot, The Society of Jesus in the Russian Empire, in Jesuit Survival and Restoration, A Global History, 1773-1900”, p. 67 ff.)
“In 1801 Pope Pius VII (r. 1800–23), determined to restore the Society, officially sanctioned the corporate existence of the Jesuits in Russia, now stretching beyond the college at Połock. Because of the second and third partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, more former Jesuit institutions came under the control of the Russian monarchy, including the famous University of Vilnius, and the Jesuits of Połock expanded their activities to Odessa, the Caucasus, Siberia, and Saratov on the Volga. The successor to Catherine, Paul I (r. 1796–1801), saw in the Jesuits a force to stem ‘the flood of impiety, Illuminism and Jacobinism in [his] empire’ and supported the Jesuit superior general Gabriel Gruber in his petitions to the pope aimed at restoring the Society worldwide. Unfortunately for the Jesuits, the tsar was murdered two weeks after ‘Catholicae fidei’ was promulgated, but his successor, Alexander I (r. 1801–25) showed, at least at first, similar support for the Jesuit cause. In 1812, he raised the college of Połock to the rank of a university. Alexander subsequently changed his mind about the Jesuit presence in his realms, expelling the Society from Moscow and St. Petersburg in 1815 and from the entire empire in 1820.”(Maryks and White, Jesuit Survival and Restoration, A Global History, 1773-1900”, p. 3)
“The Society of Jesus in the Russian empire was authentically international: in 1820, of the Society's 358 members, documents show the provenance of 307. Of these, 142 were born in Russia (of Polish, Lithuanian, and Latvian nationality); forty-two in Germany; thirty-three in Lithuania; twenty-four in France; twenty-one in Poland; twenty in Latvia; eleven in Belgium; five in Switzerland; four in Italy; and one each in Bohemia, Dalmatia, England, the Netherlands, and Portugal.”(Inglot, p. 68.). (Inventory #: 5136)
This relation is undated. The most recent date mentioned in the book (on p. 6) is 1802, the year in which Catholic settlers in the region requested clergy from the Emperor, but the Jesuits arrived at Saratov in 1803, and the report describes a good deal of progress. The press of Francisco Ifern y Oriol ceased to operate in 1830 but another, dated edition of this translation was printed in Valencia by Benito Monfort in 1815, well before the dissolution of Ifern y Oriol’s press.
OCLC traces only 2 copies of the Barcelona edition (both at the University of Barcelona) and one copy of the Valencia edition (at University of Valencia.) I have not traced the Italian imprint from which the text was translated according to the first leaf (“traducidas de un impreso Italiano”).
“The Jesuit Order almost vanished from the pages of history when Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Jesuits worldwide on July 21, 1773. Catherine the Great of Russia (r. 1762-1796) saved the Society almost singlehandedly. She protected the 201 Jesuits she had acquired in 1772 with the First Partition of Poland and insisted that they continue their apostolic work as Jesuits. For decades, her successors continued to support the Jesuits. The ‘Russian’ Society was the only surviving Jesuit entity in the world after 1780, except for a few Jesuits in Quebec. The ‘Russian’ Society served as a beacon of hope for former Jesuits everywhere, made possible partial restorations outside the empire before 1814, and led directly to the general restoration of the Society in that year.”(Schlafly, “How the Jesuits Survived Their Suppression: The Society of Jesus in the Russian Empire (1773-1814)”)
The relation opens with a description of the climate, terrain, the native peoples (Russians, Cossacks, Kalmyks, and Kirghiz); and the immigrant settlers from elsewhere in Europe (mainly Germans, who adopt the dress and lifestyle of the Russians but retain their own religion and language.)
The culture is largely agrarian and the lives of those who farm the land are extremely harsh. In Summer, the field workers are often forced to stay in the fields all week, returning only on Saturdays. This exposes them to illnesses, especially due to the lack of fresh water, as they rely on stagnant ponds for hydration. The Winters are equally brutal. Some of the lands are fertile, abundant in fruit which the Russians preserve for winter, and with arable land good for growing the principal export crops of tobacco and grain. But on the other side of the Volga, vast stretches of land remain barren. However, wild tulips of various colors, roses, and other fragrant flowers grow abundantly, making the plains appear like gardens.
The Jesuit missionaries, who devoted themselves to learning the local languages, are well received, their presence leading to greater peace and harmony in the colonies. However, we hear of the incursions of the Kirghiz, who often kill or enslave the settlers and burn their settlements. There are, of course, the expected miracles, such as a child regaining sight and the healing of illnesses. These stories spread across the colonies, further solidifying the missionaries' reputation. The writer ends by noting the Emperor's decision to grant better lands to the colonists. The colonists attributed their improved circumstances to divine intervention, guided by the Jesuits' prayers.
“Through the intervention of the Russian empress, the Jesuits present in her dominions did not share the fate of their confreres in the rest of the world (about 23,000 in total): within the Russian state, in fact, the pontifical decree extinguishing the Jesuit order was never canonically promulgated. Indeed, in December 1772 Catherine II had forbidden the exequatur for all decrees, bulls, briefs, and pastoral letters of the Holy See.
“Under Catherine’s extraordinary protection, the czarina guaranteed the Jesuits in her jurisdiction the opportunity to develop and even expand beyond the Russian empire's confines. This part of the order is commonly known as ‘The Jesuits of White Russia’ and it carried out the historic task of assuring continuity between the pre-1773 and post-1814 Society. The Jesuits continued their habitual lives in extraordinary conditions, in an Orthodox state, from 1773 to 1820.”(Inglot, The Society of Jesus in the Russian Empire, in Jesuit Survival and Restoration, A Global History, 1773-1900”, p. 67 ff.)
“In 1801 Pope Pius VII (r. 1800–23), determined to restore the Society, officially sanctioned the corporate existence of the Jesuits in Russia, now stretching beyond the college at Połock. Because of the second and third partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, more former Jesuit institutions came under the control of the Russian monarchy, including the famous University of Vilnius, and the Jesuits of Połock expanded their activities to Odessa, the Caucasus, Siberia, and Saratov on the Volga. The successor to Catherine, Paul I (r. 1796–1801), saw in the Jesuits a force to stem ‘the flood of impiety, Illuminism and Jacobinism in [his] empire’ and supported the Jesuit superior general Gabriel Gruber in his petitions to the pope aimed at restoring the Society worldwide. Unfortunately for the Jesuits, the tsar was murdered two weeks after ‘Catholicae fidei’ was promulgated, but his successor, Alexander I (r. 1801–25) showed, at least at first, similar support for the Jesuit cause. In 1812, he raised the college of Połock to the rank of a university. Alexander subsequently changed his mind about the Jesuit presence in his realms, expelling the Society from Moscow and St. Petersburg in 1815 and from the entire empire in 1820.”(Maryks and White, Jesuit Survival and Restoration, A Global History, 1773-1900”, p. 3)
“The Society of Jesus in the Russian empire was authentically international: in 1820, of the Society's 358 members, documents show the provenance of 307. Of these, 142 were born in Russia (of Polish, Lithuanian, and Latvian nationality); forty-two in Germany; thirty-three in Lithuania; twenty-four in France; twenty-one in Poland; twenty in Latvia; eleven in Belgium; five in Switzerland; four in Italy; and one each in Bohemia, Dalmatia, England, the Netherlands, and Portugal.”(Inglot, p. 68.). (Inventory #: 5136)
(202) 907-7429
