During the reign of Alexander II (1856–1881) the dominant policy shifted from preservation of buildings to recreation of their perceived, frequently fictional, "original" looks. The change was influenced by Western European experience, particularly works by Jonathan Smith and Viollet-le-Duc, as well as domestic political unrest. After the 1863 uprising in Poland Alexander launched a campaign of reintroducing Orthodoxy into Western provinces, including restoration of ruined Orthodox churches. To help formulate the new canon, Grigory Gagarin (vice-president of the Archaeological Society) instituted a special commission for "the studies of Russian and Orthodox in general, monuments of the Western Territory". In less than ten years the commission catalogued the Orthodox heritage of western Ukraine, Lithuania and Congress Poland, paying special attention to churches initially built as Orthodox and later converted to Catholicism; these were repossessed and eventually rebuilt to Orthodox canon.