Forego the Label of Russification: the Orthodox Missionary Society through the Eyes of an American Scholar

The article is a commented review of Aaron Neil Michelson’s English-language doctoral dissertation, The Russian Orthodox Missionary Society, 1870–1917: A Study of Religious and Educational Enterprise. The work was defended in 1999 at the University of Minnesota, but so far it has hardly been cited by Russian researchers. The article analyzes the content of the dissertation in the light of the current state of scholarship on the Orthodox Missionary Society, and indicates how the American dissertation can be used by researchers. The participation of the Orthodox Missionary Society in the provision of ecclesiastical missions in the Far East, both in the Russian Empire and abroad, is also briefly indicated.