Alaska Natives as Portrayed by a Late Nineteenth Century Russian Orthodox Missionary Ethnographer

• In Event: Toward the History of Imperial Ethnography: Missionary Ethnography in the Russian Empire

Abstract

This paper explores an ethnographic study of the Tlingit Indians of southeastern Alaska by archimandrite Anatolii Kamenskii (1863-1925), a Russian Orthodox missionary who served as the parish priest in Sitka, Alaska between 1895 and 1898. A graduate of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy, this well-educated clergyman quickly developed an interest in studying the Tlingit who constituted about two thirds of his parish (the rest being “Creoles,” i.e., persons of mixed Russian and Alaska Native descent). Kamenskii’s description of various aspects of Tlingit culture, which first appeared in several issues of the Russian Orthodox American Messenger newspaper and later published in Russia in 1906, contained a significant amount of valuable ethnographic data derived from his personal observations as well as conversations with his parishioners. At the same time his view of Tlingit culture was influenced by a peculiar mix of late nineteenth century evolutionist anthropology of Lewis Henry Morgan and other Western scholars as well as Russian Orthodox theology. Moreover, Kamenskii’s views on the best way to help the Tlingit progress from “barbarism” to “civilization” and survive in the American-dominated Alaska reflected his adherence to conservative Russian nationalism. Although as a foreign missionary, Kamenskii was careful not to promote Russifying Alaska Natives, he did advocate protecting them from both American Protestant missionaries and rapid capitalist development.

Author

• Sergei A. Kan, Dartmouth College