SUMMARY:

This article suggests that the penultimate viceroy of the Caucasus, Ilarion Vorontsov-Dashkov (1905–1915), belongs in the small club of tsarist administrators of the Caucasus who reoriented the region’s sociopolitical climate and preserved the state’s control. His most important accomplishments included the rapprochement between the Russian authorities and the Armenian Church, and the in-troduction of agrarian reforms that had long been demanded. These significant achievements remain blurred in the familiar narratives of administrative deterioration, national agitation, and coerced ac-culturation in the late imperial Caucasus. However, as long as unconventional statesmen contributed to policymaking, workable governance was a reality.