50 Orientalism and EmpireGolitsyn reported to Konstantin Pobedonostsev, ober-procurator of
the Holy Synod, in 1901 with alarm about a “massive movement of
the Abkhaz to Islam” in Abkhazia, a matter “especially dangerous on
a frontier that borders Muslim states.”^77 The neighbouring big states
of the Ottomans and Persians frightened imperial officials even more
than the Kazan Tatars among the “small peoples” of the Middle
Volga. Missionaries closer to the village wondered about numerous
“Muslim sons of Orthodox parents” in Ossetia or the absence of a
Christian burial after the death of a baptized girl because the mother
had “returned to Islam.”^78 Even conservative state officials were con-
vinced of the efficacy of the Il’minskii method. Il’minskii, of course,
had his important patrons, such as Dmitrii Tolstoi and Konstantin
Pobedonostsev, and important officials in the Caucasus such as
Viceroy I.I. Vorontsov-Dashkov went along as well.^79 Conservative
officials in the borderlands, such as Governor-General Golitsyn, man-
aged to reconcile support for school instruction, reading materials,
and religious services in Abkhaz with the traditional goals of respect
for labour, order, and imperial loyalty, or the effort, as Golitsyn ex-
plained to Pobedonostsev, “to fuse [the Abkhaz] with the Russians
and make of them loyal and faithful subjects.”^80 Officials high and
low, for a variety of reasons, concurred about the use of the native
language and the transformation of “inorodtsy” and small peoples
throughout the empire, and the “method” became standard policy in
the education of the “aliens” of the eastern borderlands by the early
twentieth century.^81
Christian services, religious materials, and Christian education in
the local language would also remedy the problem of historic moun-
taineer “indifference” to the true faith. The eclectic mix of religious
customs and traditions so troublesome to numerous commentators
would be resolved in favour of a firm adherence to true ritual, faith,
and tradition. Missionaries in frontier villages echoed the work of
scholars in Tbilisi who argued that the religious eclecticism of the
mountaineers illustrated their inablity to preserve correct ritual over
time. The Svan, for example, claimed a Svan missionary in 18 86,
mixed numerous “superstitions” and pagan rites into their obser-
vances of Lent, Easter, and Christmas. The clergy, he emphasized,
must encourage among the Svan a more accurate conception of
Christian notions such as the Holy Trinity and encourage them to ab-
stain from burying their deceased infants in the house or mourning
so long after the death of a spouse.^82
Mountaineer religious eclecticism alarmed the missionaries be-
cause it suggested an inability to discriminate and distinguish the
“correct faith” from the many frontier alternatives. The Lezgin