134 Orientalism and EmpireYet the Chernogortsy, in spite of Russia’s negligence and the ab-
sence of support from abroad, “remained true to their faith and Slavic
narodnost’, not once confusing themselves with change.”^48 The es-
sence of the “Eastern question” lay in the heroic capability of small
Balkan peoples to preserve and maintain their faith and customs over
time in the face of the illegitimate cultural threat brought by Ottoman
Islam. The role and purpose of imperial rule, simultaneously a civiliz-
ing and a Christianizing mission, was to preserve and maintain in-
digenous mountain tradition in the face of these Ottoman and
Muslim threats. Educated society in the Caucasus, as we have dis-
cussed, came to similar conclusions about the relationship between
tradition and Islam regarding the North Caucasus mountain peoples.
Imperial competition and the limited nature of borderlands inte-
gration sustained interest in frontier security. A conservative writer
and veteran of the Caucasus such as Rostislav A. Fadeev, described
by Edward Thaden as “probably the most important popularizer of
social and political realism during the 1860s and 1870s,” found his
audience by playing on these fears and concerns.^49 Fadeev’s experi-
ence was similar to that of many other members of imperial obsh-
chestvo in the Caucasus. His father occupied a post in the
administration of Viceroy Vorontsov and was later a friend of
Bariatinskii. Fadeev secured an appointment as an ensign in the
Caucasus Army, served in southern Dagestan in the 1850s, partici-
pated in the final campaigns against Shamil, and advanced quickly to
the rank of major general by 1864.^50
In his essays he thought primarily in terms of geopolitics, imperial
competition, and conquest. Georgia, he claimed, might have been
conquered some three centuries earlier if the will of the tsars had
been stronger.^51 The conquest of the North Caucasus meant that there
were no natural barriers to the expanse of Russia, which depended
“only on the will of Russia itself.”^52 Fadeev was keenly aware of
European colonialism throughout the globe and of foreign threats to
Russian interests in the borderlands. The mountaineer resistance was
“our Algeria,” he wrote, and Russian enemies in the Caucasus in-
cluded the Turks, English, and other foreigners, who intended to
dominate the region and interfere in Russia’s “domestic matters.”^53
In Fadeev’s view, the destruction of the Adygei was justified because
of their strategic location along the Black Sea.^54 He looked to
“Cossack settlers,” whom he depicted variously as “genuine
Russians,” “one of the formative forces of our history,” and a “means
of conquest,” to transform the Black Sea shore region into “Russian
land.”^55 The economic potential of the region might then serve
Russia, with the small offshoots of the Black Sea serving the hinter-