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“Not by Word Alone”: Missionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Michael Khodarkovsky
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Extract

In 1821 the newly appointed director and rector of the Imperial Kazan University received the following instructions from the government in St. Petersburg: “It is of utmost importance for the government that the education of its people be based on a firm foundation of the Christian religion, that the evil spirit of our time, the all-destructive spirit of free thinking, does not penetrate the sacred temples, where the happiness of the future generations must be secured by teaching the contemporary youths.” The fact that Orthodox Christianity was at the heart of Russian imperial identity is not surprising, but the fact that such an identity was to be uncompromisingly forged in the Kazan region, where most of the residents were non-Russians of different faiths, is noteworthy.

Type
The Missions of Religion
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , April 1996 , pp. 267 - 293
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1996

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References

1 Istoriia Tatarii materialakh v dokumentakh (Moscow: Gos. sots-ekon. izd., 1937), 352Google Scholar.

2 Articles published in nineteenth-century Russian church journals, such as “Pravoslavnyi sobesednik,” “Pravoslavnyi vestnik,” and “Pravoslavnoe obozrenie” had a specific agenda and were intended for the church officials (see a bibliographical essay by Alexandre Bennigsen and Lemercier-Quelquejay, Chantal, “Musulmans et missions orthodoxes en Russie orientale avant 1917. Essai de bibliographic critique,” Cahiers du Monde Russe et Soviétique [hereafter cited as CMRS], 13:1 (1972), 57–113)Google Scholar. The most comprehensive study of the subject in pre-1917 Russia was done by Mozharovskii, Apollon, “Izlozhenie khoda missionerskago dela po prosveshcheniiu inorodtsev s 1552 po 1867 goda,” in Chteniia v Imperatorskom obshchestve istorii i drevnostei rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom universitete. Sbornik [hereafter cited as ChOIDR], 1 (January-March 1880), 1–237Google Scholar. A more recent article based on the works of pre-revolutionary Russian writers is by Lemercier-Quelquejay, Chantal, “Les missions orthodoxes en pays musulmans de Moyenne et Basse-Volga, 1552–1865,” CMRS, 8:3 (1967), 369–403CrossRefGoogle Scholar. One of the few typical works of the Soviet era is by Grigor'ev, A. N., “Khristianizatsiia nerusskikh narodnostei, kak odin iz metodov natsional'no-kolonial'noi politiki tsarizma v Tatarii (s poloviny 16 v. do fevralia 1917 g.),” in Materialy po istorii Tatarii, vyp. 1 (Kazan': Tatgosizdat, 1948), 226–85Google Scholar. The best work on the subject has been done by the German historians in the 1950s and 1960s: Glazik, Joseph, Die russisch-orthodoxe Heidenmission seit Peter dem Groβen (Münster/Westfalen: Aschendorffscher Verlag, 1954)Google Scholar and Die Islammission der russisch-orthodoxen Kirche. Eine missionsgeschichtliche Untersuchung nach russischen Quellen und Darstellungen (Münster/Westfalen: Aschendorffscher Verlag, 1959)Google Scholar; Klimenko, Michael, Ausbreitung des Christentums in Russland seit Vladimir dem Heiligen bis zum 17 Jahrhundert (Berlin: Lutherisches Verlagshaus, 1969)Google Scholar. More recently, the issue of conversion has been discussed in the newly edited work of the late Igor Smolitsch, Geschichte der russischen Kirche, Bd. 2 in Forschungen zur Osteuropäischen Geschichte, Bd. 45, herausgegeben von Freeze, Gregory L. (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz, 1991), 246–346Google Scholar and by Kappeler, Andreas, Russlands erste Nationalitäten. Das Zarenreich und die Volker der Mittleren Wolga vom 16. bis 19. Jahrhundert (Küln: Bohlau Verlag, 1982), 350–77Google Scholar.

3 For a brief discussion of the Pauline model, see Comaroff, Jean and Comaroff, John, Of Revelation and Revolution: Christianity, Colonialism and Consciousness in South Africa, vol. 1 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991), 249CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Conversion to Christianity. Historical and Anthropological Perspectives on a Great Transformation, Hefner, Robert W., ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), 14–18CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 For example, in the late nineteenth century, the Caucasus highlanders of the Khevsur region of Georgia were described as observing the Muslim Friday, the Jewish Sabbath, and the Christian Sunday (see the plates).

5 Shcherbatov, M. M., “Statistika v razsuzhdenii Rossii,” in ChOIDR, book 3, pt. 11 (1859), 46Google Scholar.

6 Chicherina, V., O privolzhskikh inorodtsakh i sovremennom znachenii sistemy N. I. ll'minskogo (St. Petersburg: Elektro-Tipografiia N. la. Stoikovoi, 1906), 4Google Scholar. For a discussion of the Russians' and Siberian natives' perceptions of each other, see Slezkine, Yuri, “Savage Christians or Unorthodox Russians? The Missionary Dilemma in Siberia,” in Between Heaven and Hell. The Myth of Siberia in Russian Culture, Diment, Galya and Slezkine, Yuri, eds. (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1993), 15–31Google Scholar.

7 Epifanii, , Zhitie Sviatogo Stefana, episkopa Permskogo (St. Petersburg: Tip. Imp. Akademiia Nauk, 1897), 24Google Scholar.

8 Ibid., 30.

9 Ibid., 34–35, 38, 55, 56.

10 Ibid., 61, 63, 69, 72, 74.

11 One finds converts to Christianity among the Karelians and Lapps in the fifteenth and the early sixteenth centuries (Ocherki islorii Karelii, vol. 1 [Petrozavodsk: Izd-vo Karel'skoi ASSR, 1957], 76Google Scholar; Prodolzhenie drevnei rossijiskoi vivliofiki [hereafter cited as PDRV]), 11 vols. [St. Petersburg: Imper. Akademiia Nauk, 1786–1801]Google Scholar; repr., Slavic printings and reprintings, 251, C. H. van Schooneveld, ed. [The Hague-Paris: Mouton, 1970], 5:172, 192–5.

12 PDRV 5, 242.

13 Kurbskii, Andrei, “Istoriia o velikom kniazc Moskovskom,” in Russkaia istoricheskaia biblioteka [hereafter cited as RIB], 39 vols. [St. Petersburg-Leningrad, 1872–1927], 31:205–6Google Scholar.

14 Malov, Efim, “O tatarskikh mechetiakh v Rossii,” in Pravoslavnyi sobesednik (December 1867), 288Google Scholar; Mozharovskii, “Izlozhenie,” 25.

15 Puteshestviia russkikh poslov 16–17 vv. Slateinye spiski (Moscow-Leningrad: AN SSSR, 1954), 76Google Scholar; Kabardino-russkie otnosheniia v 16–18 vv. Dokumenty i materialy, 2 vols. (Moscow; Izd-vo AN SSSR, 1957), 1:10, 20; 1:13, 26; 1:16, 27–29Google Scholar.

16 Akty, sobrannye v bibliotekakh i arkhivakh Rossiiskoi Imperil Arkheograficheskoi ekspeditsieiulmp. Akademii Nauk, 4 vols. (St. Petersburg: Tip. II otd. Imp. Kantseliarii, 1836), 1:241, 259–61Google Scholar [hereafter cited as AAE].

17 In the late 1560s, population registers of the city of Kazan listed twenty-four converts (Materialy po istorii Tatarskoi ASSR. Pistsovye knigi goroda Kazani, 1565–68 gg. i 1646g [Leningrad: Izd-vo AN, 1932], 179Google Scholar). Even fewer converts could be found in the Kazan province (Nevostruev, K. I., Spisok s pistsovykh knig po g. Kazani s uezdom [Kazan: Tipografiia Imperators kogo Universiteta, 1877], 67, 75Google Scholar). I have found no evidence to support Mozharovskii's claim that initially conversions were numerous and, in contrast to the eighteenth century, the converts were inspired by true belief (Mozharovskii, “Izlozhenie,” 22–23). In response to the Russian colonization of the Kazan region, powerful anti-Russian uprisings led by local nobles took place in 1556, 1572, and 1582 (Dmitriev, V. D., “Krest'ianskaia voina nachala 17 veka na territorii Chuvashii,” in Trudy nauchno-issledovatel'skogo institututa iazyka, literatury, istorii i ekonomiki Chuvashskoi ASSR, 93 [1979], 46–48Google Scholar).

18 AAE, 1:358, 436–.

19 Such were the instructions of Tsar Boris concerning the Vogul converts in Siberia in 1603 (Akty istoricheskie, sobrannye i izdannye Arkheograficheskoi komissiei, 5 vols. [St. Petersburg, 1841–43], 2:43, 56–57Google Scholar). Archbishop Makarii of Siberia and Tobolsk was similarly instructed in 1625 (Opisanie gosudarstvennogo arkhiva starykh del, Ivanov, P. I., comp. [Moscow: Tip. S. Selivanskogo, 1850], 253–66Google Scholar).

20 The last khan of Kazan, Ediger, converted in 1553 and took the Christian name of Simeon. Utemish Giray, taken from Kazan to Moscow as a child, was given the name of Aleksandr upon his conversion. Rodoslovnaia kniga kniazei i dvorian Rossiiskikh i vyezzhikh, 2 vols. (Moscow: Universitetskaia tip. Novikova, 1787), 24–27Google Scholar; “Pravlenie tsaria Ivana Vasil'evicha,” in Drevniaia rossiiskaia vivliofika, 2nd ed., 22 vols. (Moscow: Tip. kompanii tipograsficheskoi, 1788–91Google Scholar. Reprint. Slavic Printings and Reprimings, 250–1, C. H. van Schooneveld, ed. (The Hague and Paris: Mouton, 1970], 17:173 [hereafter cited as DRV]). In 1591, Abul-Khayir, the son of the Siberian Kuchum Khan, was converted and baptized as Andrei (Vel'iaminov-Zernov, V. V., Izsledovanie o kasimovskikh tsariakh i tsarevichakh, 4 vols. (St. Petersburg: Tip. Imper. AN, 1863–87), 3:54–55Google Scholar.

21 Khudiakov, M. G., Ocherki po istorii Kazanskogo khanstva (Kazan': Gos. izd-vo, 1923; reprinted by Kazan': TIAK, 1990), 174–5Google Scholar. By the middle of the seventeenth century, the descendents of the Kasimov khans were all converted to Christianity and found themselves under Moscow's complete control (Vel'iaminov-Zemov, Izsledovanie, 2:24; 3:200–2, 333).

22 A list of prominent converts and their land grants can be found in RIB, 8:39, 278–84 and in ChOlDR, 191 (1899), 5–8:4, pt. 5. A long list of valuable items granted to the Kabardinian princes upon their conversion included golden crosses, sables, and fur hats, caftans, silks, and numerous other items (Kabardino-russkie, 1:46, 75; 1:120, 173–75.

23 A daughter of the tsar, Aleksei, was promised in marriage to Kasimov prince Seyid- Burkhan upon his conversion (Vel'iaminov-Zernov, Izsledovanie, 3:200). Compare the names of the commanders in Tsar Boris's campaign against the Crimea in 1598 (M. M. Shcherbatov, Istoriia Rossiiskaia, 11 vols. [St. Petersburg: Imp. AN, 17.], 7, pt. 1:23). From the early seventeenth century, the Kabardinian dynasty of Cherkasskii princes was extremely important in implementing Russian policies in the North Caucasus (Kabardino-russkie, 1:46, 73–75).

24 The Tatar Prince of Siberia, Abul-Khayir, was the first of his dynasty to convert in 1591. Although his son was known as Vasilii Abulgairovich, his grandson's name, Roman Vasil'evich, could no longer be distinguished from a native Russian name (Vel'iaminov-Zernov, Izsledovanie, 3:54–55).

25 In 1686 the tsar decreed that the dynasties of the ruler of Imeretia in the Caucasus and the princes of Siberia and Kasimov were to be entered into the Genealogical Book of the Russian nobility (Vel'iaminov-Zemov, Izsledovanie, 4:144).

26 “Vypiski iz razriadnykh arkhivov” (DRV, 16:339–45; Drevnie gosudarstvennye gramoty, nakaznye pamiati i chelobitnye sobrannye v Permskoi gubernii [St. Petersburg: Tip. N. Grecha, 1821], 79Google Scholar). In her thorough study of the several generations of the new converts in the Novgorod area in the sixteenth century, Janet Martin convincingly showed that the economic profile of their estates remained different from their Russian counterparts and instead resembled the estates of other Muslims (“The Novokshcheny of Novgorod: Assimilation in the 16th Century,” Central Asian Survey, 9:2 [1990], 13–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

27 Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperil. Sobranie pervoe [hereafter cited as PSZ], 45 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1830), 2:867:312–13Google Scholar, Polnoe sobranie postanovlenii i rasporiazhenii po vedomstvu pravoslavnogo ispovedaniia Rossiiskoi imperii [hereafter cited as PSPR], 10 vols. (St. Petersburg: Sinodal'naia tip., 1869–1916), vol. 2, 1722 god:888, 578Google Scholar).

28 Opisanie dokumentov i del, khraniashchikhsia v arkhive sviateishego sinoda [hereafter cited as ODD] (St. Petersburg: Sinodal'naia tipografiia, 1868), 1:157, 144Google Scholar; PSPR, vol. 2, 1744–45 g. (St. Petersburg: Sinodal'naia tip., 1907), 608, 83–89. I will discuss this issue in detail below.

29 “Akty, otnosiashchiesia k istorii Sibiri, 1625–30 g.,” in RIB, 8:33, 469–70. In 1647 the governor of the town of Romanov ordered the Muslim Tatars to convert. When they refused, he put them in chains and threw them in jail (Dopolneniia k aktam istoricheskim, sobrannye i izdannye Arkheograficheskoi komissiei [hereafter cited as DAI], 12 vols. [St. Petersburg, 1846–75], 3:35, 118–9Google Scholar.

30 Dokumenty i materialy po istorii Mordovskoi ASSR, vol. 1, pt. 2 (Saransk: Mordovskoe gos. izd., 1950), 10:264Google Scholar. In 1669, 150 musketeers were sent on the tsar's orders to expel the non- Christian Mordva from the village of Bol'shoi Vad and resettle them in the district of Teriushevsk (“Dela Tainogo Prikaza. Zapisnye knigiw” in RIB, 21:1482–83.

31 The Muscovite Law Code (Ulozhenie) of 1649, Hellie, Richard, trans., pt. 1 (Irvine, CA: Charles Schlacks Jr. Publisher, 1988), 182Google Scholar, ch. 20, art. 70–71. This law was based on the previous decree of the Tsar Aleksei in 1628 (Nikol'skii, N. V. “Khristianizatsiia sredi chuvashei srednego Povolzh'ia v 16–18 vv),” in Izvestiia Obshchestva Arkheologii i Etnografii pri Kazanskom universitete, 28 (1912), nos. 1–3:43–44Google Scholar. PSZ, 2:644, no. 1099.

32 The Muscovite Law Code, 112, ch. 16, art. 44; PSZ, 1:1029, no. 616. In 1681 the Tatars of the Kurmysh district of the Kazan region were confronted with an ultimatum to convert or lose their lands to those who did (DAI, 8:311–2, no. 89); “Novoukaznye stat'i o pomest'iakh” in PSZ, 2:24, 25, no. 633, art. 25; Ibid., 2:916–17, no. 1287. A brief discussion of the issue is in Cracraft, James, The Church Reform of Peter the Great (Bristol: Macmillan, 1971), 64–70Google Scholar.

33 PSZ, 2:521–2, no. 1009; Dokumenty i materialy po istorii Mordovskoi, vol. 1:2, 293–9, no. 30. Capital punishment for Muslims who proselytized among the Christians is first found in the legal code of 1649 and was later upheld in 1669 criminal law (PSZ, 1:156, ch. 22, art. 24; 774, no. 431).

34 PSZ, 10:556–60, no. 7612.

35 In one of the more successful examples of missionary work, 530 men, women, and children were reported to have been baptized between 1675 and 1680 in the entire Kazan region (Pisarev, N., “K istorii pravoslavnoi missii v Rossii v 17 veke,” in Pravoslavnyi Sobesednik [September 1902]:420–lGoogle Scholar). The number does not seem to be impressive, given the fact that the total non-Christian population of the region was over 200,000, according to the 1678 census (Ia. Vodarskii, I., Naselenie Rossii v kontse 17-nachale 18 veka [Moscow: Nauka, 1977], 6:109–10Google Scholar). In 1678, among 674 the Mordva households in Temnikov district, 34 households belonged to converts (Soldatkin, M. P., Polilika russkogo tsarizma po khristianizatsii mordvy. Aftoreferat kandidatskoi dissertatsii [Moscow, 1974], 15Google Scholar).

36 Pososhkov, I. T., Zaveshchanie otecheskoe, Prilezhaev, E. M., ed. (St. Petersburg: Sinodal'naia tip., 1893), 323Google Scholar. Pososhkov further urged the government to send missionaries to the Kamchatka peninsula in the Far East, “for if the Catholics find out, they will send their mission” (Ibid., 327).

37 Smirnov, V. D., Krymskoe khanstvo pod verkhovenstvom Ottomanskoi porty do nachala 18 veka (St. Petersburg, 1887), 565Google Scholar.

38 By the early eighteenth century, the Russian Orthodox church no longer demanded the baptism of those Catholics and Protestants who turned to Orthodoxy and in 1721 permitted Orthodox marriages to non-Orthodox Christians as long as their children became Orthodox (ODD 1 [1542–1721] [St. Petersburg: Sinodal'nai tip., 1868], Appendix, no. 18: CXXXII-CXXXIV; Solov'ev, S. M., Istoriia Rossii s drevneishikh vremen, 29 vols. [Moscow: Izd-vo sots.-ekon. literatury, 1959–66], bk. 8, vol. 16:587Google Scholar).

39 Khodarkovsky, Michael, Where Two Worlds Met: The Russian State and the Kalmyk Nomads, 1600–1771 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 98, 113, 145–6Google Scholar.

40 Pis'ma i bumagi imperatora Petra Velikogo, 12 vols. (St. Petersburg and Moscow, 1887–1977), 1:694–5Google Scholar, note to no. 227.

41 The ultimatum was not made in vain, and two years later one of the Muslim landowners from the Azov region arrived in St. Petersburg to petition that his lands, which had been confiscated for his refusal to become a Christian, he returned to him (Rossiiskii gosudarstyennyi arkhiv drevnikh aktov, [hereafter cited as RGADA], F. 248, op. 3, kn. 96, Kantseliariia Senata, Dela po Azovskoi gubernii, 1713–18gg, 11. 808–9.

42 The ordinary Tatars were to be paid on a similar scale, but only half as much (PSZ, 2:312–3, no. 867); PSZ, 5:66–67, no. 2734; 163, no. 2990; Dokumenty i materialy po istorii Mordovskoi, vol. 1:2, 398–99, no. 79.

43 RGADA, F. 248, op. 126, no. 90 Dela i prigovory Pravitel'stvuishchego Senata po Astrakhanskoi gubernii, 1716–1722 gg., 1. 10; Khodarkovsky, Where, 106, 107, 112, 132, 180–2, 203, 205–6. On Christianity among the Kalmyks, see Kostenkov, K., “O rasprostranenii khristianstva u kalmykov,” in Zhurnal Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia, 144 (August 1869), 103–59Google Scholar. In the 1750s the government issued orders to baptize uncompromisingly the fugitives from among the nomadic Kazakhs (RGADA, F. 248, op. 113, no. 1412, 1. 6).

44 PSPR vol. 2 (1722) (St. Petersburg, 1872), 400Google Scholar, no. 713; 578, no. 888. Peter I's decree of 1718 ordered non-Christians assigned to work in shipbuilding industries, but it exempted the Russian peasants from this hard labor. Numerous complaints from non-Christians went unanswered, and conversion remained the only way to avoid this onerous job (Ibid., vol. 3 [1746–52] [St. Petersburg, 1912], 387–92, no. 1233). Tax exemptions upon conversion were offered as early as 1681 (PSZ, 2:313, no. 867; DAI, 8:310–1, no. 89).

45 Khodarkovsky, Where, 172, 183, 184.

46 One of the most striking accounts came from the Kazan metropolitan Sil'vestr in 1729. He reported that 170 years after their conversion to Christianity, the old converts (starokreshchennye) continued to reside in their old villages far from the churches and remained wholly ignorant of the Russian language and Christian laws (“Luka Konashevich, Episkop Kazanskii,” in Pravoslavnyi Sobesednik [October 1958], 234–37Google Scholar).

47 ODD, 1:141–43, no. 157; Appendix, no. 27, pp. CCCV-CCCXIV.

48 PSPR, vol. 5 (1725–27) (St. Petersburg, 1881), 481Google Scholar, no. 1897; 511–2, no. 1928. In his revisionist article, Gregory Freeze showed that, although formally incorporated into the state, the Synod stood operationally parallel to the government that the church and the clergy constituted a separate institution and a separate social group (“Handmaiden of the State? The Church in Imperial Russia Reconsidered,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 36:1 (1985), 82–102CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

49 Ibid., vol. 4 (1724–January 1725) (St. Petersburg, 1876), 51–52, no. 1192. For complaints about local authorities, see Ibid., vol. 2 (1722) (St. Petersburg, 1872), 133–4, no. 484.

50 Ibid., vol. 4 (1724–January 1725), 104, no. 1245; 150, no. 1321; vol. 5 (1725–27), 125, no. 1590.

51 RGADA, F. 248, op. 126, no. 135 Dela i prigovory Pravitel'stvuishchego Senata po Orenburgskoi gubernii, 1735–37gg., 1. 78; Vitevskii, Nepliuev, 439; Khodarkovsky, Where, 208–9.

52 PSPR, vol. 5 (1725–27), 416–18, no. 1846; 487–88, no. 1908.

53 Ibid., vol. 2 (1744–45) (St. Petersburg, 1907), 448, no. 933; vol. 6 (1727–30) (St. Petersburg, 1889), 313–16, no. 2214.

54 One priest was paid off in furs and cash by the Ostiak people, who continued to worship their idols (PSPR, vol. 5 [1725–27] [ St. Petersburg, 1881], 10Google Scholar, no. 1475). A 1736 decree of the Russian government forbade the construction of new mosques and religious schools. However, the decrees were easier issued than followed, and six years later a new decree ordered the demolition of mosques built since 1736 (PSPR, vol. 2 (1744–45), 15–16, no. 540).

55 PSZ, 11:248–56, no. 8236; Mozharovskii, “Izlozhenie,” 61–62; Efim Malov, “O novokreshchennykh shkolakh v 18 veke,” in Pravoslavnoe obozrenie, 26 (July 1868), 354–7Google Scholar.

56 “Luka Konashevich,” 233.

57 Polnoe sobranie postanovlenii i rasporiazhenii po vedomstvu pravoslavnogo ispovedaniia Rossiiskoi imperil. Tsarstvovanie Elizavety Petrovny, [hereafter cited as PSPREP], 4 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1899–1912), 2 (1744–45), 143–5Google Scholar, no. 662. Separating converts from non-Christians was seen as another important way of securing the success of the mission. In 1740 the Senate decreed appointing a trustworthy person who would not take bribes and would supervise the resettlement of converts (“Luka Konashevich,” 464–65).

58 PSPREP, vol. 1 (1741–43) (St. Petersburg, 1899), 21–22Google Scholar, no. 17; 85, no. 70; vol. 3 (1746–52) (St. Petersburg, 1912), 83–85, no. 1007; 200–2, no. 1115; PSZ, 11:369–70, no. 8349. The 1760 law superseded the previous law and stated that conversion should no longer serve as a pardon from capital punishment (PSPREP, vol. 4 [1753–62] [St. Petersburg, 1912], 497–8Google Scholar, no. 1735).

59 Dokumenty i materialy po istorii Mordovskoi ASSR, vol. 2 (Saransk, 1940), 289–99Google Scholar, nos. 64–72. A Russian regional commander admitted that the recruit system was ruining the Mordva.

60 Ibid., 301–6, nos. 75–78; 313, no. 82; 326, no. 96.

61 PSPREP, vol. 2 (1744–45): 123–8, no. 651; 310–3, no. 805.

62 It was at this time that the issue of the status of the Christians within the Ottoman empire became a growing concern among the European states. In response, the Ottomans raised the issue of the status of the Muslims within the Russian empire.

63 PSPREP, vol. 3 (1746–52), 283–5, no. 1174; 310–3. no. 1193.

64 Only a few years before, converts in the region numbered 13,322 out of a total non- Christian population of 285,464 (“Luka Konashevich,” 233).

65 Istoriia Tatarii v materialakh, 190–1.

66 During the Razin uprising, the non-Christian gentry chose to join the rebels (Khodarkovsky, Michael, “The Stepan Razin Uprising: Was It a ‘Peasant War’?” Jahrbiicherfiir Geschichte Osteuropas, 42:1 [1994], 13–17Google Scholar). In the Pugachev uprising, non-Christians turned their rage against the church officials, murdering 132 of them in the Kazan region alone (Mozharovskii, “Izlozhenie.” 98).

67 PSZ, 14:608, no. 10,597.

68 RGADA, F. 248, op. 113, no. 257, 1. 5.

69 “Luka Konashevich,” 239–40. 469–70; PSPREP, vol. 4 (1753–62) (St. Petersburg, 1912), 291Google Scholar, no. 1550.

70 Polnoe sobranie postanovlenii i rasporiazhenii po vedomstvu pravoslavnogo ispovedaniia Rossiiskoi imperil. Tsarstvovanie Ekateriny Alekseevny, 3 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1910–15), 1 (1762–72), 217–18Google Scholar, no. 176.

71 Sbornik lmperatorskogo russkogo istoricheskogo obshchestva, 148 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1867–1916), 32:541–4Google Scholar, no. 76

72 Ibid., 147:221–2; 115:379–80.

73 Ibid., 115:311–2; 319–28.

74 Ibid., 115:353–6; 421–4; 448.

75 Solov'ev, Istoriia, bk. 14, vol. 27:49, 52. The empress found it appalling that, two decades before, the bishop of Kazan, Luka Konashevich, acted against the decrees issued by Peter I, tore apart the remains of the ancient city of Bulgar and used the stones to construct a church and a monastery (Ibid., 53).

76 The recognition of religious differences among its own subjects did not prevent Russia from seeing itself as a protector of all Orthodox Christians. Thus, four years after the conquest of the Crimea in 1774 and in spite of the promises to grant the Crimea an autonomous status, the Russian government insisted on expatriating all the Christians who lived there. More than 31,000 of these Christians were reluctantly delivered to the Russians by the Crimean khan (Solov'ev, Istoriia, bk. 15, vol. 29:235); Fisher, Alan W., The Crimean Tatars (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1978), 66Google Scholar. One particular provision, which eventually led to recognizing Russia's right to be a protector of Orthodox Christians within the Ottoman empire, was negotiated in the 1774 treaty of Küchük-Kaynarja. This provision of the treaty later served as Russia's justification for laying imperial claims to much of European territory under the Ottoman dominion (Alexander, John T., Catherine the Great: Life and Legend [New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989], 141Google Scholar).

77 77 Shcherbatov, “Statistika,” 64.

78 Mozharovskii, “Izlozhenie,” 107.

79 It is instructive to compare the fate of converts in Russia with that of conversos, the Jewish converts in the late-fifteenth-century Spain. Spanish authorities considered conversos a distinct and separate group. Conversos were discriminated against and their purity of blood (limpieza de sangre) remained a criterion for their advancement until the early twentieth century (McKay, Angus, Spain in the Middle Ages: From Frontier to Empire, 1000–1500 [New York: St. Martin's Press, 1977], 185–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar).

80 Like missions in Russia, the New World missions had also relied on the crown's financial and military support. However, unlike Russia, where the tsar or the emperor was in charge of both the secular and spiritual worlds, the Catholic church preserved independence from the secular authorities and cherished its ecclesiastical immunities. (Bolton, Herbert E., “The Mission as a Frontier Institution in the Spanish-American Colonies,” in American Historical Review, 23:1 [1917], 46–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Farris, N. M., Crown and Clergy in Colonial Mexico, 1759–1821 [University of London: The Athlone Press. 1968], 5–6Google Scholar, 19–20; Colonial Brazil, LeslieBethel, , ed. [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987], 22–23Google Scholar; Eccles, W. J., The Canadian Frontier, 1534–1760 [New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1969], 35–59Google Scholar; Crosby, Harry W., Antigua California. Mission and Colony on the Peninsular Frontier, 1697–1768 [Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994], 178–220)Google Scholar. For comparison with conversion process in the Islamic world and in southeast Asia, see Conversion to Islam, Levtzion, Nehemia, ed. (New York: Holmes and Meier Publishers, Inc., 1979Google Scholar) and Rafael, Vicente L., Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society under Early Spanish Rule (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988Google Scholar).