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Freedomites, also called Svobodniki (Russian: "free people"), later called the Sons of Freedom, first appeared in 1902 in Saskatchewan, Canada, and later in the Kootenay and Boundary Districts of British Columbia (BC), as zealots who separated from Doukhobors.
Their meetings were similar to other spiritual Christian folk-Protestants from Russia. They met in simple buildings, sat on benches, prayed in Russian, sang religious hymns and songs in Russian, and spoke about matters of religious and community interest mostly in Russian. The ideals of the Freedomites emphasized basic traditional Russian communal living and action—growing food, building homes, living a peaceful rural life, ecstatic religious doctrine when agitated for protest, and anarchic attitudes towards external regulation.
They became famous for various public protests—sometimes publicly burning their own money and possessions and parading nude in public. There was a doctrinal justification for nudity: that human skin, as God's creation, was more perfect than clothes, the imperfect work of human hands. The public nudity has generally been interpreted as a form of protest against the materialist tendencies of society.
A small minority of the Freedomites were noted for their arson campaigns, as a protest against materialistic life. They targeted belongings and other material possessions. The attacks occurred throughout the 20th century, but the periods of greatest activity were during the 1920s and 1960s. Both arson and bombing were used. Most of these acts were committed in the nude.
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