I can not find what it is. Who wrote it and why is it in Australia. It looks interesting. May be I can order it and give to one of the local choruses.
Canadian Journal for Traditional Music (1976)
Sons-Of-Freedom Songs in English
F.M. Mealing
The sometimes very uncomfortable interactions between the English-Canadian and Russian immigrant (Doukhobor) inhabitants of southern British Columbia have borne musical as well as other fruit: the development and unrestricted singing of English-language songs expressing Doukhobor ideals. Though the scanty literature makes no mention to date of such songs, they are not necessarily very recent.
The Doukhobors are a group distinguished by their national origin, which is Russian, and by their religious beliefs. Their present population in Canada is above 20,000, of whom most live in the West Kootenay region of south central British Columbia, and of whom some 2,500 are members of the sect known variously as Svobodniki, Freedomites, or Sons of Freedom. Centres of population are the Columbia River valley between Nelson and Trail, adjoining mountainous valleys, and scattered communities to the east and west. Grand Forks is a major centre for social activities and communication. One exceptional community is located some 400 miles further west, in the Fraser Valley 60 miles from Vancouver: the Mountain Prison village at Agassiz.
The Doukhobors first emerged in eighteenth-century Russia; their origin is obscure, but they probably comprise some of the sects that arose at the time of the raskol, the seventeenth-century conservative rebellion against Orthodox decadence.
The first ideals of Doukhobor faith are pacifism and brotherhood. Applied to animals, these values include vegetarianism; they are also the rationale of communal living, now almost entirely eroded by the automobile. Apart from references to modesty, no religious explanation is given for conservatism in clothing, most manifest in women's dress, which characteristically consists of multiple skirts and petticoats, and a white babushka embroidered with delicate, fragmented floral designs.
