Commissioned as a centenary celebration of a great Doukhobor event, Spirit Wrestler is the story of Nikolai Kalmakoff, who champions the Doukhobor cause. It begins in Russia around 1895 when he is 14 years-old and in conflict with his drunken, anti-intellectual, irreligious father. A dreamer and zealot, fawned over by his mother who sees in him the making of a great leader, Nikolai refuses to take the Oath of Allegiance to the Tsar, and this, coupled with the Burning of Arms (when a sect sacrificed their weapons rather than serve as soldiers), results in brutal persecution of him and fellow Doukhobors, and their eventual exile to the Canadian prairies. However, the Doukhobors refuse to register and till their lands according to government regulations. By holding fast to their religious conviction that their only loyalty is to God and Peter Verigin, their putative Messiah, they earn the animosity of other Canadians, and the official displeasure of the Canadian government. Not even the intervention of Nikolai and Verigin can mend affairs, and at the end, the Doukhobors undertake yet another long trek – this time to B.C., which is regarded as their new utopia. However, Nikolai decides that his personal freedom outweighs his Doukhobor zealotry, and with his beloved Tanya at his side, he stays on the prairie, realizing that to have his own land is more important than cultivating moral extremism.

Spirit Wrestler offers a largely sympathetic and uncritical treatment of the Doukhobors, even allowing for the lightly questioning skepticism of Tanya and the treacherous politics of two Doukhobor leaders. Not much is allowed to displace the idea of homage, despite a nagging suspicion that uncompromising religious and moral zeal might simply be an euphemism for spiritual masochism or for reverse bigotry or for being out of step with our century.