ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the phrase "Protestant sectarians" as a general rubric for the various adherents of a religious movement common to modern Russian history. The adaptions of Russian Protestant sectarian life and thought to the social transformations of modern Russian history are but a part, although an important part, of the larger relation between Russian Protestant sectarians and "modernization." However, when examined in the context of Russia as a latecomer to modernization, the most interesting link is the foreign stimulus which was everywhere present at their inception. Since the late nineteenth century specialists in Russian religious history have treated the believers as a branch of the larger religious phenomenon known as "sectarianism." Thereafter religious dissent was a regular feature of Russian social history, appearing most markedly during periods of national or regional crisis. The Caucasian movement spread predominantly among the settlements of the Melokane, although a beachhead was established quite early within the various mountain tribes and non-Russian nationalities.
