Identity Construction of the Russian Orthodox Church in Alaska (1867-1917)

This thesis explores the identity constructed by the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC) in Alaska in the period between the transfer of the territory from the Russian Empire to the United States in 1867 and the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. Drawing on Gramsci’s concept of cultural hegemony, the study examines the strategies employed by the ROC to recover from a survival challenge posed by its “abandonment” by Russia. Once an agent of Russian imperial rule, the Diocese reinvented itself as a local institution firmly anchored in Indigenous engagement, backgrounding its imperial identity, to maintain its influence in the new political landscape. The focus is on the recipients of the Orthodox teaching, the Church’s target parish, which includes Indigenous people and Creoles, as well as on the external entities that shaped the ROC’s operations, such as competing missions and both local and central American officials. This research aims to contribute to a broader discussion on the construction of religious identities, emphasizing how institutions seek to maintain influence by reshaping the representation of the past and belonging, adjusting their doctrinal boundaries, and repositioning themselves within new socio-political hierarchies. By examining the ROC’s transformation in Alaska, it could offer lenses through which the transformations of indigenous society and the longer history of colonization under different forms of domination could be explored.