Religion and Identity in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Festschrift for Paul Bushkovitch

Know Thine Enemy: The Travails of the Kazan School of Russian Missionary Orientology

Religion and Identity in Russia and the Soviet Union: A Festschrift for Paul Bushkovitch. Nikolaos A. Chrissidis, Cathy J. Potter, David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, and Jennifer B. Spock, eds. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers, 2011, 145–63.       Know Thine Enemy: The Travails of the Kazan School of Russian Missionary Orientology David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye In  Russia,  more  than  among  the  other  European  schools  of  Orientology,  the   academic  discipline  was  tightly  bound  to  the  needs  of  the  state.  Russian  Ori-­‐‑ entology   is   therefore   a   particularly   good   test   case   for   the   ideas   of   the   late   Edward  Said  about  scholarship  of  the  East  as  a  handmaiden  for  imperial  con-­‐‑ quest   and   control.1   But   what   makes   Orientology   in   Russia   unique   is   the   sensitivity  of  some  of  its  leading  practitioners  to  their  own  Asian  roots,  which   clouds  the  Saidian  distinction  between  Self  and  Other.  Further  muddying  the   waters,   a   number   of   prominent   19th-­‐‑century   orientologists   in   Russia   were   themselves   Asian   in   origin,   such   as   Kazan   University’s   Persian-­‐‑born   Mirza   Aleksandr  Kazem-­‐‑Bek  and  the  Buriat  Dorzhi  Banzarov,  or  the  Chuvash  Sinol-­‐‑ ogist  Fr.  Iakinf.2     The  one  area  where  scholars  had  absolutely  no  doubts  about  their  Occi-­‐‑ dental  identity   was  in  the  Russian  Orthodox  Church’s  academies  and  semi-­‐‑ naries.   This   was   particularly   true   for   the   Missionary   Division   of   the   Kazan   Theological   Academy.   Established   in   1854   to   better   train   priests   to   take   the   gospel  to  ethnic  minorities  (inorodtsy)  and  others  not  in  communion  with  the   church,  this  institution  dominated  the  Orthodox  establishment’s  study  of  the   East.  There  is  no  question  that  attitudes  among  much  of  the  academy’s  faculty   and  among  Orthodox  clergy  more  generally  toward  the  practitioners  of  Asian   faiths  were  generally  hostile.  Indeed,  they  were  often  caricatures  of  the  hostile   and  contemptuous  Western  European  stereotypes  described  in  Edward  Said’s   polemical   Orientalism.   But   how   influential   were   the   church’s   views   among   Russians  more  generally?  More  specifically,  what  was  the  impact  of  Kazan’s   Theological  Academy  on  Russian  Orientology?   Kazan’s  Missionary  Division  had  experienced  an  agonizingly  long  gesta-­‐‑ tion  period.  And  its  fate  over  the  academy’s  remaining  six  decades  would  al-­‐‑ ways  be  tested  by  the  indifference,  if  not  outright  hostility,  of  leading  clergy.                                                                                                                             A  version  of  this  paper  subsequently  appeared  as  part  of  chapter  6  in  my  Russian  Ori-­‐‑ entalism:   Asia   in   the   Russian   Mind   from   Peter   the   Great   to   the   Emigration   (New   Haven:   Yale  University  Press,  2010).  It  appears  here  with  permission  of  the  publisher.   1  Edward  A.  Said,  Orientalism  (New  York:  Vintage,  1979).   2  Nathaniel   Knight,   “Grigor’ev   in   Orenburg,   1851‒1862:   Russian   Orientalism   in   the   Service  of  Empire?”  Slavic  Review  59:  1  (2000):  96  n.  80.   146 DAVID SCHIMMELPENNINCK VAN DER OYE In  many  ways,  the  Missionary  Division’s  travails  reflected  the  Russian  Ortho-­‐‑ dox  Church’s  ambivalence  towards  spreading  the  Gospel  to  non-­‐‑believers.        Unlike  its  Western  cousins,  the  Russian  Church  had  long  ago  lost  much  of  its   missionary  vocation.  During  the  first  centuries  after  Kievan  Rus’  conversion   to  Orthodox  Christianity  in  988,  most  minorities  among  the  Eastern  Slavs  who   took   the   Cross   did   so   in   tandem   with   their   assimilation   into   the   dominant   culture  of  the  region.  However,  on  occasion  pious  monks  had  evangelized  the   various  Finnic  tribes  in  the  wilderness  beyond  Novgorod.     Ironically,  this  effort  witnessed  a  remarkable  revival  under  Mongol  rule,   in  the  14th  and  early  15th  centuries.  Inspired  by  the  charismatic  St.  Sergius  of   Radonezh,   founder   of   the   Holy   Trinity   Monastery   near   Moscow,   scores   of   monks   established   their   own   communities   and   hermitages   in   the   remotest   reaches  of  northeastern  Russia.  Some  consciously  sought  to  emulate  the  hard-­‐‑ ships   of   the   early   Church’s   Desert   Fathers   in   terrain   as   inhospitable   as   the   Sinai,  such  as  the  Solovki  Islands  in  the  White  Sea.  Others  renewed  the  cam-­‐‑ paign  to  take  the  Gospel  to  unbelievers  among  the  various  peoples  that  inhab-­‐‑ ited  the  endless  taiga.     Among  the  latter,  the  most  celebrated  was  one  of  St.  Sergius’s  friends,  St.   Stefan  of  Perm.  Born  around  1340  to  a  sexton  in  the  northern  town  of  Ustiug,   as  a  young  boy  Stefan  became  fascinated   with   the  language   of  the  Komi,  a   Finnic  minority  living  in  the  region.3  One  day  a  holy  fool  told  the  lad  that  he   would  grow  up  to  become  the  apostle  to  the  Komi.  Inspired  by  this  prophecy,   Stefan  moved  to  a  monastery,  where  he  studied  to  become  a  missionary.  At   the   time,   spreading   the   Word   of   God   to   the   heathen   involved   a   thorough   knowledge  of  Greek,  then  the  language  of  Orthodox  theology...