1. Early examples of this work include Alton S. Donnelly, The Russian Conquest of Bashkiriia, 1552–1740: A Case Study in Imperialism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968); Alan W. Fisher, The Crimean Tatars (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1978); Andreas Kappeler, Ruβlands erste Nationalitäten: Das Zarenreich und die Völker der Mittleren Wolga vom 16. bis 19. Jahrhundert (Cologne and Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 1982); and Azade-Ayse Rorlich, The Volga Tatars: A Profile on National Resilience (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1986). The 1990s have witnessed a substantial increase in the number of such works, most notably Michael Khodarkovsky, Where Two Worlds Met: The Russian State and the Kalmyk Nomads, 1600–1771 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992); James Forsyth, A History of the Peoples of Siberia: Russia's North Asian Colony, 1581–1990 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Yuri Slezkine, Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994); Daniel Evan Schafer, “Building Nations and Building States: The Tatar-Bashkir Question in Revolutionary Russia, 1917–1920” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1995); Robert Paul Geraci, “Window on the East: Ethnography, Orthodoxy, and Russian Nationality in Kazan, 1870–1914,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1995; Bruce Grant, In the House of Soviet Culture: A Century of Perestroikas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995); Stéphane A. Dudoignon, Dämir Is'haqov and Räfyq Möhämmätshin, eds, L'Islam de Russia: Conscience communautaire et autonomic politique chez les Tatars de la Volga et de L'Oural depuis le XVIIIe siècle (Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1997); Daniel R. Brower and Edward J. Lazzerini, eds, Russia's Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700–1917 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997); and Allen J. Frank, Islamic Historiography and “Bulghar” Identity among the Tatars and Bashkirs of Russia (Leiden: Brill, 1998).Google Scholar

2. Dokumenty i materialy po istorii Mordovskoi ASSR (Saransk: Mordovskoe Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo, 1948), Vol. 4, Part 1. Pages 89–131 contain the entire file on the Alekseev affair from the archive of the Nizhnii Novgorod Military Governor. Other accounts of the Alekseev affair include V. Snezhevskii, “Kuz'ma, Prorok Mordvy-Teriukhan,” Istoricheskii vestnik, No. 50, 1892, pp. 124–145; and N. V. Nikol'skii, Sbornik istoricheskikh materialov o narodnostiakh Povolzh'ia (Kazan: Tipografiia Kazanskogo universiteta, 1920), pp. 268–271. For a somewhat fictionalized account, see K., “Kuz'ka, Mordovskii bog: Razskaz iz istorii mordovskago naroda,” Otechestvennyia zapiski, No. 167, 1866, pp. 652–679; No. 168, 1866, pp. 1–34, 304–333, 485–510. For an account in Mordvin, see V. Ruchen'kin, “Kuz'ma Alekseev: Apak tonavtne materialon' dy XIX pingen' ombotse pel'ksen' literaturnoi proizvedeniian' koiars,” Siatko, No. 5, 1972, pp. 82–86.Google Scholar

3. M. I. Zevakin, Kuz'ma Alekseev: Krest'ianskoe dvizhenie mordvy Teriushevskoi volosti (1808–1810), s prilozheniem podlinnogo dela “O lozhnom proroke Kuz'me Alekseeve” (Saransk: Mordovskoe Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo, 1936), p. 1. Zevakin also published the entire archival file that is in Dokumenty.Google Scholar

4. On Kuga Sorta , see Paul W. Werth “Big Candles and ‘Internal Conversion’: The Mari Pagan Reformation and Its Russian Appropriations,” in Michael Khodarkovsky and Robert P. Geraci, eds, Of Religion and Identity: Missions, Conversion, and Tolerance in the Russian Empire (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, forthcoming).Google Scholar

5. See, for example, Eric Hobsbawm, Primitive Rebels (New York: Norton, 1959); Sylvia Thrupp, ed., Millenial Dreams in Action: Studies in Revolutionary Religious Movements (New York: Schocken Books, 1970); Vittorio Lanternari, “Nativistic and Socio-Religious Movements: A Reconsideration,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 16, No. 4, 1974, pp. 483–503; Michael Adas, Prophets of Rebellion: Millenarian Protest Movements against the European Colonial Order (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979); Hue-Tarn No Tai, Millenarianism and Peasant Politics in Vietnam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983).Google Scholar

6. On the eighteenth century, see N. Firsov, Inorodcheskoe naselenie prezhniago kazanskago tsarstva v novoi Rossii do 1762 goda i kolonizatsiia zakamskikh zemel' v eto vremia (Kazan, 1869), pp. 130–210; E. A. Malov, O Novokreshchenskoi kontore (Kazan: Tipografiia Imperatorskago universiteta, 1878); Apollon Mozharovskii, Izlozhenie khoda missionerskago dela po prosveshcheniiu kazanskikh inorodtsev s 1552 po 1867 goda, Chteniia v Imperatorskom obshchestve istorii i drevnostei rossiskhikh pri Moskovskom universitete (Moscow: Universitetskaia Tipografiia, 1880), Vols 112–113; Chantal Lemercier-Quelquejay, “Les missions orthodoxes en pays musulmans de Moyenne- et Basse-Volga, 1552–1865,” Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, Vol. 8, No. 3, 1967, pp. 369–403; Michael Khodarkovsky “Missionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russia,” Comparative Studies in Society and History, Vol. 38, No. 2, 1996, pp. 267–297. A list of some principal works on Il'minskii includes M. A. Mashanov, Obzor deiatel'nosti Bratstva sv. Guriia za 25 let ego sushchestvo-vaniia, 1867–1892 (Kazan, 1892); Petr Znamenskii, Na pamiat' o Nikolae Ivanoviche Il'minskom: K 25-letiiu Bratstva sv. Guriia (Kazan: Tipografiia N. A. Il'iashchenko, 1892); Jean Saussay, “Il'minskij et la politique de russification des Tatars, 1865–1891,” Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, Vol. 8, No. 3, 1967, pp. 404–426; Isabelle Teitz Kreindler, “Educational Policies Toward the Eastern Nationalities in Tsarist Russia: A Study of Il'minskii's System,” (Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University, New York, 1969); Wayne Dowler, “The Politics of Language in Non-Russian Elementary Schools in the Eastern Empire, 1865–1914,” Russian Review, Vol. 54, No. 4, 1995, pp. 516–538; and Robert Paul Geraci, “The Il'minskii System and the Controversy over Non-Russian Teachers and Priests in the Middle Volga,” in Catherine Evtuhov, Boris Gasparov, Alexander Ospovat and Mark von Hagen, eds, Kazan, Moscow, St. Petersburg: Multiple Faces of the Russian Empire (Moscow: O. G. I., 1997), pp. 325–348.Google Scholar

7. Due to the re-establishment of formal missionary institutions in the region in the late 1820s, we in fact have reasonably good source material on the 1830s and 1840s. See Paul W. Werth, “Subjects for Empire: Orthodox Mission and Imperial Governance in the Volga-Kama Region, 1825–1881,” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan), 1996; as well as Mozharovskii, op. cit.; E. A. Malov, Pravoslavnaia protivomusul' manskaia missiia v Kazanskom krae v sviazi s istorieiu musul'manstva v pervoi polovine XIX veka (Kazan, 1868); P. N. Luppov, Khristianstvo u votiakov v pervoi polovine XIX veka (Viatka, 1911); Petr Denisov, Religioznye verovaniia chuvash: Istoriko-etnograficheskie ocherki (Cheboksary: Chuvashskoe Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo, 1959); L. A. Taimasov, Khristianizatsiia chuvashskogo naroda v pervoi polovine XIX veke (Cheboksary: Izdatel'stvo Chuvashskogo Universiteta, 1992). Very few sources exist concerning the late eighteenth century and especially the first quarter of the nineteenth century.Google Scholar

8. See, for example, the recent discussion in Geoffrey Hosking, Russia: People and Empire, 1552–1917 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 9–13.Google Scholar

9. A partial list of relevant literature would include Daniel Field, Rebels in the Name of the Tsar (Boston: Unwin Hyman, 1989); Esther Kingston-Mann and Timothy Mixter, eds, Peasant Economy, Culture, and Politics of European Russia, 1800–1921 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991); Barbara Alpern Engel, “Women, Men, and the Languages of Peasant Resistance, 1870–1907,” in Stephen P. Frank and Mark D. Steinberg, eds, Cultures in Flux: Lower-Class Values, Practices, and Resistance in Late Imperial Russia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 34–53; and Lynne Viola, Peasant Rebels under Stalin: Collectivization and the Culture of Peasant Resistance (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996).Google Scholar

10. Zevakin, op. cit., p. 19. Zevakin added happily that the Teriushevskie Mordvins had undergone another conversion as well: collectivization. On the Russification of Mordvins in the nineteenth century, see P. I. Mel'nikov, “Ocherki mordvy,” in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii P. I. Mel'nikova (Andreia Pecherskago) (St Petersburg: Izdanie Tovarishchestva M. O. Vol'fa, 1898), Vol. 12, pp. 1–3; and M. T. Markelov, “Mordva,” in Religioznye verovaniia narodov SSSR: Sbornik etnograficheskikh materialov (Moscow: Moskovskii rabochii, 1931), pp. 204–205. For more recent assessments, see Seppo Lallukka, The East Finnic Minorities in the Soviet Union: An Appraisal of the Erosive Trends (Helsinki: Suomlainen Tiedeakatemia, 1990), recently republished in an expanded Russian version, Vostochno-finskie narody Rossii: Analiz etnodemograficheskikh protessov (St Petersburg: Evropeiskii Dom, 1997); and (for a more optimistic view) Isabelle T. Kreindler: “The Mordvinian Languages: A Survival Saga,” in Sociolinguistic Perspectives on Soviet National Languages: Their Past, Present and Future (Berlin: Mouton, 1985); “The Mordvinians: A Doomed Soviet Nationality?” Cahiers du monde russe et soviétique, Vol. 26, No. 1, 1985.Google Scholar

11. According to Zevakin, there were about 25,000 Mordvins in Teriushevskaia volost at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The Finnish scholar H. Paasonen considers Teriukhane to be Russified members of the Erza tribe of Mordvins. See Paasonen, “Mordvins,” in James Hastings, ed., Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics (Edinburgh: T. ∧ T. Clark, 1915), p. 844.Google Scholar

12. Snezhevskii, op. cit ., p. 126; Zevakin, op. cit., p. 19. On the whole, Mordvins were the most demographically scattered of all the Volga peoples, settled over virtually the entire middle and lower Volga, but constituting a distinct majority only in a few isolated locales. As one scholar has noted, migration is “the most essential fact” of Mordvin history, and even today about 70% of Mordvins live outside the Mordvin Republic. See Kreindler, “The Mordvinian Languages.”Google Scholar

13. Snezhevskii, pp. 126–127; A. Titov, “Teriushevskii bunt,” Russkoe obozrenie , No. 8, 1893, p. 750. These Mordvins were presumably iasachnye liudi before 1700 and would have become state peasants in 1719, as did other iasachnye liudi, had they not been enserfed. Even in the nineteenth century, Teriushevskie Mordvins underscored their particularity vis-à-vis other Mordvins by calling them “iasak Mordvins.”Google Scholar

14. Some Mordvins in Nizhnii Novgorod province were apparently baptized as a result of an ukaz of Tsar Fedor in 1681, which offered potential converts a six-year exemption from taxes and threatened to enserf them if they refused. See Apollon Mozharovskii, “Po istorii prosveshcheniia Nizhegorodskoi Mordvy,” Nizhegorodskiia eparkhial'nyia vedomosti , No. 16, (1890), p. 664. For a more general overview, see N. F. Mokshin, Religioznye verovaniia mordvy (Saransk, 1968). Certainly some Teriukhane were baptized even before 1700, since Bishop Filaret (1672–1686) issued a directive calling for the Christian instruction of new converts of Teriushevskaia volost. See Arkhimandrit Makarii, Istoriia Nizhegorodskoi ierarkhii (St Petersburg: Izdatel'stvo N.G. Ovsiannikova, 1857), p. 18. But a majority were baptized only in the 1740s.Google Scholar

15. From this point forward, unless otherwise noted, I am using the term “Mordvins” to denote specifically the Teriukhane Mordvins in and around Teriushevskaia volost.Google Scholar

16. I draw my account here from Titov, op. cit ., pp. 754–758, who in turn drew on an unpublished manuscript of P. I. Mel'nikov.Google Scholar

17. A Mordvin petition to their landlord, cited in K. Kotkov, “Vosstanie mordvy Teriushevskoi volosti,” in K. Kotkov and S. Verner, Ocherki po istorii mordvoskogo naroda XVIII v. (Saransk: Mordgiz, 1943), p. 39.Google Scholar

18. For more on these conversions generally, see the works cited in note 6 above.Google Scholar

19. Sechenov's other claim to fame was that he was the single representative of the Orthodox clergy during Catherine's Legislative Commission in 1767. For basic biographical information on Sechenov during his tenure in Nizhnii, see Makarii, op. cit ., pp. 110–121.Google Scholar

20. Kotkov, op. cit., p. 40; Mozharovskii, Izlozhenie, pp. 66–75; N. V. Nikol'skii, “Rasprostranenie khristianstva sredi nizhegorodskikh chuvash do 1764 g.,” Zhivaia starina, Vol. 24, No. 1, 1915, pp. 115–160.Google Scholar

21. Firsov, op. cit ., p. 170; Titov, op. cit., pp.749, 757. See also A. Mozharovskii, “Teriushevskoe deistvo 1743 g.,” Nizhegorodskiia gubernskiia vedomosti, No. 1, 1892.Google Scholar

22. For more on this policy towards mosques, see E. A. Malov, “O tatarskikh mechetiakh,” Pravoslavnyi sobesednik, Vol. 3, 1867, pp. 285–320; Vol. 1, 1868, pp. 3–45. The missionary policies of the Kontora were accompanied by a tremendous assault on Islamic institutions in the Volga region, resulting in the destruction of several hundred mosques.Google Scholar

23. Titov, op. cit., p. 759; “Luka Kanashevich: Episkop Kazanskii,” Pravoslavnyi sobesednik, Vol. 3, 1858, pp. 470–471.Google Scholar

24. Mel'nikov, as recounted by Titov, op. cit ., pp. 757–759. See also Makarii, op. cit., pp. 116–117. Veneration of ancestors was a central aspect of Mordvin belief and practice. See Paasonen, op. cit., p. 843.Google Scholar

25. Records show 8,257 baptisms in Teriushevskaia volost in the years 1744–1747 (Kotkov, op. cit ., p. 40).Google Scholar

26. Titov, op. cit ., p. 753. Titov cites extensively from original source material (petitions and reports). Therefore, unless otherwise noted, citations from Titov constitute reference to this original source material.Google Scholar

27. Cited in Kotkov, op. cit ., p. 39.Google Scholar

28. Titov, op. cit ., p. 314.Google Scholar

29. Ibid., pp.801, 307.Google Scholar

30. Ibid., pp. 801–2, 811.Google Scholar

31. This conclusion accords with that offered recently, in the context of Russian peasants in the emancipation period, of David Christian, in “The Black and the Gold Seals: Popular Protests Against the Liquor Trade on the Eve of Emancipation,” in Mixter and Kingston-Mann, op. cit ., pp. 261–293.Google Scholar

32. Titov, op. cit ., pp. 308–9, 311.Google Scholar

33. Ibid., pp. 805, 809.Google Scholar

34. Snezhevskii, op. cit ., p. 129. This was one of the more effective mechanisms created by Russian authorities to encourage mass baptism. Because the unconverted of each community were required to compensate the state for the tax breaks granted to converts, the pressure to convert could mount very quickly. For details, see Malov, Kontora, p. 33.Google Scholar

35. Titov, op. cit ., pp. 811–812.Google Scholar

36. Ibid., pp. 315–316.Google Scholar

37. Ibid., p. 802. When the missionary campaign finally degenerated into outright assault, it would seem that Barataev was unable actually to fulfill his end of the bargain, if indeed any Mordvins took him up on his offer.Google Scholar

38. Ibid., p. 310.Google Scholar

39. Ibid., pp. 311–313.Google Scholar

40. Curiously, these Mordvins used baptism as a bargaining chip in order to avoid punishment, back taxes, and penalties for their earlier evasion. They offered to agree to baptism if all their transgressions would be forgiven, and their offer was accepted by Russian authorities, eager to baptize them and to get them entered into the revision for future taxation. See Opisanie dokumentov i del, khraniashchikhsia v arkive Sv. Pravitel'stvuiushchago Sinoda , op. 27, 1746, cols. 62–64.Google Scholar

41. Titov, op. cit ., p. 760.Google Scholar

42. Ibid., pp. 304, 306. We have already seen that Mordvins denied these accusations.Google Scholar

43. Ibid., p. 313.Google Scholar

44. Officially at least, both church and state maintained the position that baptism could never be accompanied by coercion and force. Local officials were typically far less circumspect.Google Scholar

45. Titov, op. cit., pp. 803–805; Kotov, op. cit., p. 48. For statements to the same effect a century later among Maris in Orenburg diocese, see Paul W. Werth, “Baptism, Authority, and the Problem of Zakonnost' in Orenburg Diocese: The Induction of over 800 ’Pagans' into the Christian Faith,” Slavic Review, Vol. 56, No. 3, 1997, pp. 456–480. Such statements occur with some frequency in the history of Russia's mission.Google Scholar

46. Titov, op. cit ., p. 804.Google Scholar

47. Ibid., pp. 803–805.Google Scholar

48. Ibid., p. 811. This was according to the landlord, in an attempt to sway his serfs to accept Christianity.Google Scholar

49. Ibid., pp.318, 813.Google Scholar

50. Ibid., pp. 318, 804. A short time later, the Synod confirmed the prohibition on force in an ukaz, instructing Sechenov “that he, in calling and baptizing Mordvins and other non-Christians into the Greek confession, act as the rules of the holy fathers and ukazes command, and that he not baptize [anyone] into the Christian faith against that person's will or by force” (Titov, op. cit., pp. 809–10). Ukazes with similar content were issued with great frequency in this period, which implies that coercion was employed quite liberally.Google Scholar

51. Malov, Kontora, pp. 58–59, drawing on S. Solov'ev, Istoriia Rossii s drevneishikh vremen (Moscow, 1871), Vol. 21, pp. 253–254.Google Scholar

52. Malov, Kontora, p. 60.Google Scholar

53. Dokumenty, Vol. 3, Part 2, pp. 206, 222.Google Scholar

54. Malov, Kontora, p. 59.Google Scholar

55. Dokumenty, pp. 209–210. Sechenov's instruction that subordinates “deal with them [new converts] decently and impartially” is overwhelmed by his insistence on exposing and punishing the ostensibly guilty.Google Scholar

56. I take the term “Catherinian compromise” from Daniel R. Brower and Edward J. Lazzerini's concluding remarks to Russia's Orient , in reference to the combination of tolerance, progressive attempts to construct a type of citizen-subject, and short-term accommodation of ethnic and religious differences (pp. 312–313).Google Scholar

57. For more on these proselytizers, see M. Dobrovol'skii, “Nekotorye cherty religioznoi zhizni novokreshchen-inorodtsev Nizhegorodskoi eparkhii vo vtoroi polovine XVIII stoletiia,” Nizhegorodskiia eparkhial'nyia vedomosti , No. 1, 1892, pp. 11–18; and N. V. Nikol'skii, Khristianstvo sredi chuvash srednego Povolzh'ia v XVII–XVIII vekakh: Istoricheskii ocherk (Kazan, 1912), pp. 148–192.Google Scholar

58. Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Istoriicheskii Arkhiv f. 796, op. 70, d. 47; Mozharovskii, Izlozhenie, pp. 107–108.Google Scholar

59. See K. V. Kharlampovich, “Kazanskie novokreshchenskie shkoly v XVIII veke,” Pravoslavnyi blagovestnik, Nos 5–9, 1905, pp. 203–07, 243–48, 300–305, 355–58, 19–22; N. V. Nikol'skii, “Shkol'noe prosveshchenie chuvash v 1764–1800,” Pravoslavnyi sobesednik, Vols. 2–3, 1905, pp. 470–90, 403–426.Google Scholar

60. Dokumenty, Vol. 4, Part 1, p. 89.Google Scholar

61. Ibid., p . 92.Google Scholar

62. Ibid., p. 120; Snezhevskii, op. cit., p. 136.Google Scholar

63. Dokumenty, p. 100.Google Scholar

64. For the text of the song, see Zevakin, op. cit ., pp. 9–10. Zevakin unfortunately does not indicate when and under what circumstances this song was recorded.Google Scholar

65. Adas, op. cit ., p. 111; Hobsbawm, op. cit., pp. 57–58.Google Scholar

66. K., “Kuz'ka,” p. 660. According to one account, Alekseev spent a number of years working under an Old Believer merchant on the other side of the Volga (Markelov, op. cit ., p. 211), which may further explain his knowledge of scripture (especially its apocalyptic dimension).Google Scholar

67. Dokumenty, p. 92. Mordvin prayers were usually directed towards the east.Google Scholar

68. Ibid., p. 123.Google Scholar

69. Ibid.Google Scholar

70. Ibid., p. 125.Google Scholar

71. Dokumenty, p. 92. Alekseev himself also mentioned this spirit, in addition to the Virgin Mary, St Nicholas, and the Archangel Michael.Google Scholar

72. Here I draw on Hebrews 7:15–25 and the accompanying notes in the Oxford Study Edition of the New English Bible (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972), pp. 280–281.Google Scholar

73. Zevakin, op. cit ., p. 5; Markelov, op. cit., pp. 205–206. Details of this encounter are sparse, and other sources at my disposal make no mention of it.Google Scholar

74. Ibid., p. 97.Google Scholar

75. Ibid., pp. 101, 120.Google Scholar

76. Snezhevskii describes Gruzinskii as a local despot of sorts and relates an episode from local court documents in which Gruzinskii successfully (and violently) resisted efforts of local authorities to confiscate and auction off parts of his estates to pay off his debts. See Snezhevskii, op. cit ., pp. 134–135.Google Scholar

77. Zevakin, op. cit ., p. 6.Google Scholar

78. This point is made by Thrupp, op. cit ., p. 12; and Kevin Gosner, Soldiers of the Virgin: The Moral Economy of a Colonial Maya Rebellion (Tuscon: University of Arizona Press), pp. 9–11. And as Ranajit Guha notes, a hallmark of “shallow radicalism” is the inability “to grasp religiosity as the central modality of peasant consciousness” and a failure “to conceptualize insurgent mentality except in terms of an unadulterated secularism.” See Ranajit Guha, “The Prose of Counter-Insurgency,” in Guha and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, eds, Selected Subaltern Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), p. 81.Google Scholar

79. Dokumenty, p. 122.Google Scholar

80. Alexander, Emperor, in confirming the court's sentences, chose to exempt Alekseev and his disciples from corporal punishment, but unfortunately this exemption was communicated to local authorities only after the sentences had been carried out. Dokumenty, pp. 128–131; Snezhevskii, op. cit., p. 145.Google Scholar

81. Snezhevskii, op. cit ., pp. 135–6, 140.Google Scholar

82. Adas, op. cit ., pp. 108–09; Tai, op. cit., p. 86.Google Scholar

83. I have considered the problem of apostasy in greater detail in “Subjects for Empire.” On the Islamization of “pagans,” see Paul W. Werth, “Tsarist Categories, Orthodox Intervention, and Islamic Conversion in a Pagan Udmurt Village, 1870s–1890s,” in Anke von Kügelgen, Michael Kemper and Allen J. Frank, eds, Muslim Culture in Russia and Central Asia from the 18th to the Early 20th Centuries, Vol. 2: Inter–Regional and Inter-Ethnic Relations (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1998), pp. 385–415.Google Scholar

84. N. I. Il'minskii, ed., Opyty perelozheniia khristianskikh verouchitel'skikh knig na tatarskii i drugie inorodcheskie iazyki v nachale tekushchago stoletiia (Kazan: Tipografiia Kazanskago universiteta, 1885), pp. 15–35.Google Scholar

85. This is not to say that millenarian ideology cannot serve as an inspiration for active resistance, as Michael Adas's focus on prophet-inspired rebellion shows. But among Mordvins this was not the case.Google Scholar

86. Dokumenty, p. 97.Google Scholar

87. Ibid., p. 106. Ostensibly, Alekseev had gathered money for the purchase of livestock and goods for sacrifice at the Mordvin prayer. This was a standard practice among non-Russians of the Volga region, and Russian authorities were apt to ascribe selfish motivations to those who actually collected the money.Google Scholar

88. Ibid., p. 124. The court held that as the source of Mordvin gatherings Alekseev was guilty nonetheless.Google Scholar

89. K., “Kuz'ka: Mordovskii bog,” op. cit .Google Scholar

90. Persisting among the older generation were more positive, if somewhat idealized, versions of Alekseev, in which he appears as a righteous defender of the poor. See Markelov, op. cit ., pp. 207–208.Google Scholar

91. Dokumenty, p. 113.Google Scholar

92. Ibid., p. 123.Google Scholar

93. Snezhevskii, op. cit ., p. 142.Google Scholar

94. Here I draw on the insights of Jean and John Comaroff, Ethnography and the Historical Imagination (Boulder: Westview Press, 1992), pp. 27–28.Google Scholar

95. Cooper, Frederick, “Conflict and Connection: Rethinking Colonial African History,” American Historical Review, Vol. 99, No. 5, 1994, p. 1527.Google Scholar