"The Shadow of the Gloomy East" is the memoir of Polish writer, university professor, and anticommunist political activist Ferdynand Antoni Ossendowski. He states that, "My sketches of the "Shadow of the Gloomy East" are an attempt to lay bare before the civilised world the true face of the Russian people, which must be enlightened, converted to Christianity, to European culture, strengthened in true morality, and then, only then, admitted as an equal to the great comity of nations which aims at perfection, spiritual beauty and strength."