The History of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia can be traced to 1891 or even as far back as 1887, when some literature of what was then known as the Bible Students found its way into Russia. In 1891, a former Russian seminarian had become a Bible Student, by the name of Semyon Kozlitsky. Mr. Kozlitsky preached boldly and without a trial Kozlitsky was arrested and exiled to Siberia. He continued preaching in Siberia until his death in 1935. Even from 1892 Jehovah’s Witnesses commented on the oppressive attitude towards religion in Russia. This is a pattern continued until glasnost, and the religious freedom that emerged in Russia of the late 1980s and 1990s. Again, in 2009, Jehovah’s Witnesses are struggling for freedom of worship in Russia. A look at the history of religion in Russia is therefore of interest to many, not only to Jehovah’s Witnesses, but to politicians, members of other minority religious, and to social commentators.

In 1911, a couple from Germany, the Herkendells, who had become Bible Students, spent their honeymoon preaching throughout Russia to German speaking people, and they received a positive reception. A Polish Bible Student by the name of Dojczman was sent out to Russia shortly before World War I and he spent months preaching there.

In 1917, the reign of the Russian czars ended after 370 years, and the new nation known as the USSR emerged. Interestingly, Vladimir Lenin, the first leader of the new republic stated concerning freedom of worship in Russia, “Everybody must be perfectly free, not only to profess whatever religion he pleases, but also to spread or change his religion. No official should have the right even to ask anyone about his religion: that is a matter for each person’s conscience and no one has any right to interfere.”

The new republic of the USSR was, however, an atheistic country, referring to religion as “the opium of the people.” After Lenin died in 1924 the government intensified its attacks against religion. In 1926, the League of the Militant Godless was formed in the USSR, the goal of which was clearly indicated in the name, producing and distributing atheistic literature in that time period. Jehovah’s Witnesses continued to grow from the 1920’s until the 1940’s. The Russian Orthodox Church formed an alliance with then leader Stalin, and it opened the way for more freedom for the Orthodox Church. Jehovah’s Witnesses in the years of 1940-1945, from Ukraine, Moldova, and the Baltic republics were exiled to labor camps during WWII in the USSR, because they would not bear arms, while German Bible Students on the other side of the battle lines were in concentration camps, alongside the Jews. Thousands of Jehovah’s Witnesses would spend years exiled in Siberia or in labor camps, where many died from overwork or starvation, until the 1980s when religious freedom began to take shape.

One Jehovah’s Witnesses woman commented that their husbands “were spending most of their lives in prisons and camps. We women had to endure much: Every one of us was experiencing sleepless nights, surveillance and psychological pressure from the Soviet State Security Committee (KGB), loss of employment, and other trials. The authorities tried various means to make us deviate from the way of the truth. We had no doubt that Satan was using the situation to try to stop the Kingdom-preaching work. But Jehovah did not abandon his people.”

Jehovah’s Witnesses became a legal entity in Russia in 1992. 150,000 Jehovah’s Witnesses are today active in Russia. What the future will hold for the present and future Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia is yet to be seen with recent efforts to ban Jehovah’s Witnesses again in Russia. However, Jehovah’s Witnesses have shown remarkable resilience, and whether or not their work is legal in Russia, they will no doubt continue in, what they believe to be is, their God-assigned work, or preaching the message that Jesus started some 2,000 years ago.

More information on the beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses. Check out the insights on the current state of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Russia – The related story of the history of Jehovah’s Witnesses struggle for freedom in Nazi Germany can be read at this US Holocaust Museum Jehovah’s Witnesses.

categories: Jehovahs Witnesses,russia,nazi,germany,watchtower

Wanting to learn how to speak another language may stem from so many reasons.

There are those people who want to learn to speak the native language of either of their parents. There are those people who want to go to the best vacation of their lives overseas and are merely preparing for it. Regardless, it is quite difficult for us to learn another language.

However, there are a slew of ways for you to learn how to speak another language. The most ideal of which is to enroll in a class or have a tutor come in. But really, we do not have the time to do most of that. And then there are those cassette tapes that we listen to but we all know that that becomes a drab in a short time.

And then there is Rocket German. Rocket German is an online course that will have you speaking in German in a shorter time possible. Rocket German has captured so many people online because of the way that it merges audio lessons, books and interactive games.

In the Rocket German, you start off your lesson by listening to a few audio files. You can easily listen to these audio lessons everywhere and anywhere that you are even while you are jogging. These are basically like cassette tapes only that they are more engaging and several notches more interesting.

When you are finally through with an audio lesson, you may then go on to the next step which is to refer to the conversational books that you get together with the audio and the games. You will find a corresponding chapter for every audio lesson that you finish.

When you are finally done with all that, you can reinforce your learning by playing with some software games. MegaGerman is only one of the games that you will be receiving which will help you in aspects like vocabulary without feeling like such a chore.

Rocket German claims to transform people to German speaking individuals in just three short months. Not all of us are linguistically inclined so if it takes a little more than that, thats perfectly fine.

Learning a different language is something that most of us have in our to-do-in-this-lifetime list. But no matter how great that might be, we know that its exceptionally difficult for us to learn a language that we absolutely havent been exposed to.

For this, a few of us might hire tutors to help us but then this becomes very time consuming.

Most of us have learned to speak in a different language with the use of cassette tapes. Cassette tapes are wonderful because you can listen to them anywhere and anytime.

The only setback to using this method is that you really have to be determined to learn anything because mere listening can get really boring fast.

Our dependency on the internet has allowed for it to come up with different language courses to help us learn foreign languages like German in half the time that we spend learning using the methods I have outlined on top.

With Rocket German for example, it combines these traditional modes of teaching with different interactive approaches.

Rocket German allows you to learn the language by way of different media platforms. You first start out with an audio lesson. There are 31 audio lessons available in the course. When youre done listening to a lesson, you can then read the corresponding chapter for that lesson on the conversational books.

These conversational books will help you with different aspects such as grammar. Finally, when you are done with the two media platforms, you can then enjoy the different games that come with the course. There are three software games included in the package including MegaVocab with vocabulary.

Although Rocket German claims to have you speaking fluently in German in just a matter of three months, this all ultimately depends on your level of interest in learning the language. Rocket German isnt a course that will help you reap rewards without working for it. What it does offer is an interactive approach to learning to entice you even more.